Football in general…and losing interest

Back in the 80s, I was a football mad young lad. I have very vague memories of Spain ‘82 though lived and breathed Mexico ‘86, the 88 Euros and, of course, Itlalia ‘90. I just loved football.
My first Barnsley match, at about 10, was 1986, when all my school friends were Liverpool fans, having just watched them win the double under Dalglish. But, not me, I was a Barnsley fan, ‘Division 2’ but a staunch supporter of my local team.
Then, along came the Premiership’ and Sky’s grip on football. And, despite our one year flirtation with this elite gang, in the main, I knew’our place’ was outside of this elite. But, I remained a football fanatic.
Then the money went crazy (think Alexix Sanchez, at Man Utd, £425,000 per week but barely worthy of a game, Paul Pogba on major money but, basically, downing tools) and it became apparent that the ‘elite’ football was not what I wished to follow.
Then, the England games, where they field players I have, genuinely, never heard of (played 37 minutes for ‘Palace so cap him before he chooses Nigeria etc…) and my interest in top level football fades even further.
So, from being a football mad football fan, I find myself with my only interest in football being my team, Barnsley, and generally spurred on by my, now 18 year old, son’s enthusiasm for the game.
So, my only interest, now, in football, is Barnsley FC, but the opposite of interested is bored. And for well over a year, I have been bored watching us. I pay my money, I turn up and clap but really don’t enjoy this anymore.
I don’t want the manager out. I don’t know how much better any other manager could actually do.
But I do think I need to find a local Rugby League team and turn my back on football because I find it all so pointless now.

 

We are probably roughly the same age and I feel broadly the same.

My apathy isn’t with the wages or the Big Clubs but just how dull football is getting. Very little of consequence happens in most games now - few corners, few shots, few saves. 90 minutes of sideways offensive passing around the 18 yard box versus the low block of a 10 man defence. It’s all the same but just being executed with different levels of competence. At this moment in time, I’d pay the entrance fee just to see a winger cross the ball.

 

Feel very aligned with both the above posts but particularly this one. It's how I see it. Bored for most of the game. Most games. There are games where I don't find the need to get out of my seat the whole game. If I was starting out now, I'm just not sure what I'd see in it.

 

I'm a few years older but feel very similar. Apart from the rugby league bit.

 

I just used the Rugby League bit as a Jerry Springer style sign off because I couldn’t think of an appropriate last sentence to end my mild rant.

 

Very similar mindset. I’m 54 and getting very bored. Renewed my ST purely out of habit but might be the last as we ( me and wife) might be sodding off for a euro “adventure” in a bit. Probs still might get an ifollow season pass though - how mad am I…?!

 

I love football more than ever but don’t like watching Barnsley play.

I think the premier league is as exciting as it has been in decades.

I struggle to see how anyone could watch the years where Mourinho / Benitez & the more cautious version of Fergie were dominating English football with 4-5-1 football & think this current version is dull.

 

Exactly the same. It’s not just a BFC thing, it’s the lot. The whole game, the business, social media, the obscene greed.

Its not the beautiful game anymore, its a shitshow.

 

I'd have gone for rich divorcee with a beach house in the Caribbean.

 

I've just been saying much the same thing in another thread, but I find myself more and more drawn to the local non-league scene - Worsbro Bridge (where King Ronnie gets his fix, probably because his son plays there!), Wombwell Town, Athersley Rec, Penistone Church - you get the picture.
Also don't knock Rugby League, if you get into that you can enjoy your sport all year round. Plenty of teams within a half-hour drive.

 

In 1992 a monster was created by the FA who let the big clubs grab power over the rest of football and run football in England for their benefit.

 

To be honest it's never been 'the beautiful game'...not English football at least.

 

I feel the same. football has eaten itself.

A big problem I think is that football is inherently tribal, however the game has become so transient insofar as players / managers don’t stay much beyond a season, it becomes very difficult to get attached to anything at all.

Add some fuel to the fire that Barnsley fc is going backwards (in large part due to ludicrous and unsustainable sums being invested by other clubs that bypass us in the pyramid) it becomes a very challenging watch.

Perhaps it’s something to do with getting a bit older too; my teenage boys seem to love it as much as I ever did. However it definitely feels a soulless arena to me and it feels like we are very much heading to league one (perhaps even league two) mediocrity with even less to get excited about.

 

Absolutely spot on! I can recall various fanzines up and down the country sounding off about the eventual outcome. And they were spot on.

 

54 and I feel exactly the same. The PL was lost to me many years ago. Inflated wages. Inflated egos. I just can’t be bothered with it.

For years we sort of managed to stay Barnsley to retain our identity but now all seems lost. We as a club feel hollowed out a shell of a club.

When I first started supporting Barnsley we were a 4th Division club in an upward trajectory. There was a buzz about supporting our small town club. Now it feels like we are declining first it was year on year now it feel month on month. I feel we are much more likely to leave the division through relegation than promotion.

The transient nature of modern football I think is the key to alienation. In the past we had players who stayed around who became part of the fabric. They didn’t need to be the best player ever but you could identify with them. We had managers who stayed around a minimum of 3 seasons you started to feel connected. This connection now feels completely shattered.

I don’t feel we are a community club. I don’t feel we are a successful ‘business’. The ground crumbles. The match day ‘experience’ is incredibly poor in a world of infinite entertainment possibilities.

Part of me thinks maybe the nostalgia is yearning for something that didn’t exist. But a bigger part of me knows that we were once a community based club and I was proud to be a Barnsley fan.

I did read a book once about the myth of the ‘loyal’ football fan. Apparently the stats show a constant churn and renewal with 30 to 40 percent of fans being replaced in 5 year cycles. So maybe that’s where we are. I’m not sure how far I am from joining Fire Stick FC.

 

I love the Premier League, Spurs etc. Its the reason I put up with the current s h I t show. There has to be something to aspire to otherwise what's the point.

We can all moan it wasn't like that in our day but you have to move with the times.

Unfortunately only time these owners would do that if they're sat on a robotic vacuum cleaner.

 

I mean I wasn't quite old enough to see it myself, but I have it on good evidence that people said that football was boring around the time that Ronnie Glavin was always scoring

 

Couldn’t have put it better myself.
For anything to improve at Barnsley FC people need to vote with their feet, it’s happening slowly the more **** we get! The crowd on Tuesday night was very poor.

 

The Premier League has become a complete caricature. Fair enough there are some great games and it's undeniably been a great commercial success. But it's supposed to be the English league, in which the best English players compete with each other. The starting lineups in the recent North London derby contained a sum total of 5 British players. That really doesn't sit well with me. And as for Wolves - pretty much their whole squad is made up of Portuguese and Brazilian players, and not particularly good ones at that. What connection could they possibly have with a working class Black Country town?

 

Spot on.
FIFA should introduce a worldwide salary cap and a rule on home grown talent.
It’ll never happen, of course.