Negative Evolution A scathing indictment of the state of modern football Tommy Football, in days increasingly few can remember, was the simplest form of entertainment. Every Saturday, at 3 o’clock, thousands flocked to grounds up and down the land to watch a game of football. Nobody was priced out of attending; the players fought to win every game, despite the lack of astronomical financial incentive; the idea of throwing yourself to the floor in a bid to win a decision was both unthinkable and laughable – the ridicule a player would receive for such behaviour would see to any consideration of cheating in such a way – and the season went on for a whole season, without any sort of need for a month off because the players thought it was cold. All of this took place on terrible pitches, with just one substitute and with teams full of players who often had terrible eating, drinking and smoking habits. Put simply, football was a game for the people, and as we watch the game today, with its massive financial strength, backed by the world’s finest technology and some of its richest corporations, it is impossible not to wonder if we have lost sight of what football should be about. The Winter Break Idea Less than 60 years ago, Blackburn Rovers beat Blackpool 1-0 in the final ever First Division game to be played on Christmas Day, in 1959, in what was a desperate, but ultimately failed, bid to restore an English sporting tradition: the Christmas Day fixture. Football used to be even more dominant over the festive season than it is now, with local rivals often taking each other on both Christmas Day and Boxing Day in front of crowds full of the spirit of the season. As recently as 1983, Brentford attempted to bring football back to the 25th, but protests at their campaign, centred around the idea of wives staying at home to cook while the men went to the football, led to their planned game with Wimbledon being brought forward a day. Fast forward to 2018 and you will see just how fast we have moved away from one of our oldest traditions, as the question of a winter break is introduced to the English game. The concept is one that originated on the continent, with the top divisions in Germany, Italy, Spain and France all stopping for the coldest month. In England, it is thought that the break would start after FA Cup 3rd Round weekend, at the beginning of January, as the popularity of the festive programme is far too great, and therefore too profitable for the people who now dictate how the English game is run – Sky and BT – to ever agree to sacrifice. Looking at this as someone who loves watching football, why would anyone want to have a whole month, which is already the worst month of the year, without any football? Apparently, it will help the national team to succeed. Undeniably, there is evidence to support this idea, as the last three world Cup winners, Italy (2006); Spain (2010) and Germany (2014) all feature in the list of nations above who have a winter break. Despite this, the England manager Gareth Southgate, who should have a better idea than anyone on what would and would not bolster his sides’ prospects at tournaments, is unconvinced as to whether or not it would be helpful, stating that he couldn’t remember the debate “happening when I was playing in 96 or 98”, when England reached a European semi-final. The pressure for the Premier League to follow the continental example stems from the league’s top managers, Guardiola at City and Mourinho at United. Despite the fact that the latter has a deserved reputation for being a prolific moaner, it was Guardiola who described how the winter schedule was “killing” his team – a suggestion not backed up by their firmly cemented position at the top of the table. Their main argument is that injuries are more common in the winter months, and because of this, to protect the players, the league has a duty to give them a month off. When this idea was first brought to the table, those of us of the school of thought that causes us to moan about how they should just get on with it never believed that it could ever come to fruition. However, a recent BBC poll reveals that 58% of fans believe this is a good idea, showing the true extent of the words of the biggest names in the game. These people are paid millions of pounds a year to play football, so they need to stop moaning and get on with doing just that – earning their millions by entertaining millions. The Demise of the Cup One solution to the winter break issue that has been mentioned is the idea that the FA Cup could become a midweek competition, to allow weekends to be solely devoted to the Premier League. In basic terms, this would be catastrophic. The FA Cup is the world’s oldest domestic club competition , and is undoubtedly one of the best. ‘The magic of the cup’, despite being a huge cliché, is undeniably true. The FA Cup creates stories which will be told for decades to come, as the legendary giant killings, from Yeovil Town (beating Sunderland in 1949) to Hereford’s legendary defeat of Newcastle United in 1972; from Wrexham putting out Arsenal in 1992 and Sutton United slaying Coventry City (1989) all the way up to the modern day tales of Leeds United (at Old Trafford in 2010), Bradford City (scoring four at Chelsea and then defeating Sunderland in 2015) and Lincoln City winning at Burnley last season, are written into footballing folklore. The fact that anyone would consider murdering such an institution of the sport shows that we have reached a dangerous point. Thankfully, the FA are not keen on the idea and the FA Cup TV deal also presents a major barrier to those plotting the Cup’s sacrifice. However, even without the interference of the rich and powerful in the game trying to remove all inconvenient obstacles they face to turning over the greatest profits (City and United don’t want to play in Burnley or Stoke, they would almost certainly prefer a European Super League), the domestic cups in this country, and their importance, are on the wane. In January, in the biggest upset of what was once, and to many still is, one of the best weekends in the football calendar – the third round of the cup, was League 2 Coventry City beating top flight Stoke 2-1. Coventry have suffered a pattern of demise that is becoming all too familiar in English football. Ask any Portsmouth fan, any Blackpool fan, and before long, any Sunderland fan, and they will tell you stories of a graceless tumble into the abyss of the Football League, with memories of Premier League football (and for Portsmouth, Cup glory and European nights at home to Milan) still fresh in the memory. They will tell you of hopeless owners, owners who simply didn’t care, and even criminal owners. Coventry’s downfall saw them forced out of Coventry, exiled to Northampton for financial reasons in what was a truly horrible time for the club. So, the visit of what was at the time, the Premier League’s most hopeless side, would surely provide an opportunity to write a new piece of the club’s recent history that they could actually be proud of. The players certainly saw it that way, but the sad thing about the day was in the stands. A crowd of just over 14,000 saw the game, including at least 3,000 from Stoke, which may sound a lot, but more potent is the alternative interpretation of this figure: on one of the best days in a big club’s recent history, there was over 17,500 empty seats in the ground, despite the fact that over 40,000 Sky Blues travelled to Wembley to see them win the Checkatrade Trophy last year. Yet, they cannot be blamed. In days gone by, this Cup tie would have been played in front of a sell out crowd, it would have been an opportunity to forget all of the suffering of the last few years and it would have been a truly classic Cup tie. These days, the Cup is a distraction. The financial importance of League football is suffocating the appeal of traditions such as the FA Cup, and soon, it will run out of air. The Television Companies and the marginalisation of the fans Anyone who thinks that English football is run by the FA is very much mistaken. It has transpired, in recent times, that control over the game can be bought with huge quantities of money – around £9.5 billion across the last two times it has been up for sale. The buyers? Sky Sports and BT Sport. The power they hold? The power to alter the schedule for their financial gain, considering almost nobody else. Without proper consideration, this may not seem like a huge problem. Every week, two games get moved to Sunday, one to Monday or Friday or Saturday lunchtime, and one to Saturday evening. No problems. Which, to these companies, is true. Nobody they care about is harmed by doing this, and huge amounts of revenue is brought in from the millions who tune in every year. As it is these millions – the armchair supporters – who the game is for in 2018.