The Premier League and Tile New Consumption. Of
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THE PREMIER LEAGUE AND TILE NEW CONSUMPTION. OF FOOTBALL ANTHONY KING PhD THESIS UNIVERSITY OF SALFORD INSTITUTE FOR SOCIAL RESEARCH 1995 Abstract: This thesis is a historical and critical examination of the development of the Premier League and the new consumption of football, which attempts to link these developments with wider post-Fordist transformations. The thesis argues that the transformation of labour relations in football set the Football League on a course of organic political economic development which privileged the big city clubs. During the 1980s, these clubs became conscious of this divide and, in a complex series of negotiations, effected a breakaway from the League to form the Premier League. It is argued that the latter organisation was the institutional framework in which the new consumption of football was possible. The particular form of that new consumption of football was determined by certain discursive interventions from 1985, which prescribed a particular course of reform for football. The thesis argues that these discourses were intimately related to wider post-Fordist developments and were privileged both because of those (post- Fordist) developments and the organic transformation of football itself. The thesis goes on to suggest that the conjunctural discourses of reform were implemented by a fraction of the capitalist class, the new business class and Part N, involves an extensive examination of this class fraction's participation in the game and the fans' resistance and compliance to this project. By examining both the long-term, organic developments and the more immediate conjunctural moments of the 1980s, the thesis attempts to provide a holistic account of recent developments in football, which it is hoped will throw light on Britain's post-Fordist transformation. CONTENTS Part I: Theoretical and Historical Frameworks Preface 1 Chapter 1. Football, Ritual and Historical Change 4 1. Football as a ritual 4 2. Marx, Gramsci and Hegemony 9 3. Historical Change 14 Conclusion 18 Chapter 2. Post-Fordism and the Contemporary Transformation of Britain 21 1. The Post-War Settlement A. Keynesianism 22 B. The New Affluence and American Fordism 23 2. Post-Fordism: The Global Phenomenon 24 3. Post-Fordist British Society A. The Economy 27 B. The New Class Structure 29 C. The Ideology and Politics of Post-Fordist Britain 33 Part II: The Prehistory of the Premier League Chapter 3. The Maximum Wage and the Retain and Transfer Systems 46 1. The Maximum Wage A. Under-the-table payments 49 B. Jimmy Hill and the Discourse of Affluence 51 C. Parliament, the Press and Public Opinion 54 2. George Eastham and the Retention System 58 3. The Transfer System 61 Conclusion 64 Chapter 4. Sponsorship 67 1. The Declining Attendance of League Football 68 2. The Sponsorship Debate A. Discourses of Reform 71 B. B. Arguments against Sponsorship 74 2. The Political Economic Effects of Sponsorship 76 3. The Symbolism of Sponsorship 79 Chapter 5. The Big Five 86 Part ifi: Discourses of Reform Chapter 6. Thatcherism, Authoritarianism and the Crisis of 1985 111 1. The Disasters 114 2. The Discourses of Discipline 118 3. Popplewell Report 124 4. The Football Spectators' Bill 131 Conclusion 133 Chapter 7. Free Market Discourses 136 1. The Social Location of the Free Market Discourse 138 2. The Temporal Location of the Free Market Discourse 143 3. The Free Market Discourse A. Attrition 144 B. Management Practice 147 C. Creating the Customer 149 D. Resistance to the Free Market Discourse 156 Conclusion 158 Chapter 8. The Taylor Report and Italia '90 161 1. The Taylor Report A. Methods of Control 163 B. The New Consumption of Football 165 167 C. The Cost of Taylor and the Premier League 2. Italia '90 172 Conclusion 177 Part IV: The New Consumption of Football Chapter 9. Sky Television and Football's New Deal 178 1. The Thatcher-Murdoch axis and the Development of Sky 180 186 2. Ideology and Interests 3. The Vote for BSkyB 192 Conclusion 196 Chapter 10. The New Business Class 198 1. The Traditional Chairmen 206 2. The New Business Class: The First Wave 209 A. Attitude to 'Traditional' Directors B. The First Wave's Project 211 212 i. Television Revenue ii. Crowd Control and the Football Spectators' Bill 213 C. The Visionaries 215 i. Scholar 215 ii. Maxwell and Buistrode 218 3. The New Business Class: The Second Wave 221 A. Club Administration 222 B. Profit and Attrition 224 C. Creating the Customer 232 D. The Success of the Second Wave 239 Conclusion 241 Chapter 11. The Lads 245 1. The Crack A. The love of the team and the lads' pride 247 B. The Lads' Distinction 251 2. All-Seater Stadia : Ticket Prices and Reduced Capacities 258 3. The Lads' Response to the project of the new business class A. Resisting the new consumption of football 263 B. Compliance to the new consumption of football 267 C. Rivahy 269 4. The Fanzines 273 Conclusion 278 Chapter 12. New Football Writing 282 1. Textual and Social Composition 282 2. Italia '90 288 3. The Principal Features of New Football Writing 292 A. 'The Golden Age' 293 B. Authenticity 296 4. The Commercialism of New Football Writing 304 Conclusion 307 Chapter 13. The New Consumer Fans 311 1. The Composition of New Consumer Fandom 312 New Consumer Fans and the Transformation of Football 315 2. Conclusion 322 Chapter 14. Conclusion. 326 Methodological Appendix 333 Bibiography 347 TABLES: Table 1. The F.A. Premier League: 1993-4 Season Shirt Sponsors 80 Table 2. The Fans. 339 Table 3. The Chairmen 341 Table 4. Miscellaneous Football Elites 342 Table 5. Media and Television Elites 343 PREFACE After the disasters of Bradford and Heysel in May 1985, there was a commonly articulated view that football had had its day as the 'national game' and was a moribund sport ; the game was played poorly in front of dwindling crowds of increasingly violent and often racist males in unsafe and unsanitary grounds. By May 1995, despite a season which had been tarnished by the general wave of media- discovered 'sleaze' 2 football had undergone a quite startling transformation; crowds have increased and their social constitution has altered to include more women . while many grounds have been entirely re-built so that the best grounds in England now compare with any in Europe. In short there has been a seachange in the popular perception and the cultural position of the game. Although football required reformation in the mid-1980s, the jeremiads of 1985 were somewhat exaggerated; the game still commanded an attendance of 16.5 million (The Football Trust 199 1:9), which was vastly more than the attendances at any other sporting event, and attracted the largest television figures of any sport. The transformation of football in the decade between 1985 and 1995 was certainly radical then but it was not the miraculous return which the prophets of doom would imply; the game still had wide public appeal. Nevertheless, despite the enduring appeal of football to many (men), despite its problems, the speed and extent of this transformation of football was extraordinary; not even those individuals who continued to support football throughout the 1980s could have foreseen the metamorphosis of the game. The unusual rapidity and extent of the changes to football in this decade suggest that a sociological examination of their causes and consequences would be worthwhile. This thesis attempts exactly this; to analyse the cultural causes and consequences of football's revolution between 1985 and 1995, although the analysis extends back to 1960 in order to contextualise the crisis of the mid-1980s. The transformation of football in the decade between 1985 and 1995, has comprised two, interrelated developments. On the one hand, the Premier League, as a political economic institution which redistributed revenue to the biggest clubs, emerged ; this League was finally established after extensive negotiations during the summer of 1991 and was formally inaugurated on 10th October 1991. It consisted of all twenty-two clubs of the old First Division, who wanted to leave the Football League and its obligations to the lower leagues. On the other hand, the consumption of football was transformed during the 1990s, with the development of all-seater stadia, the increase in ticket prices, the introduction of new marketing techniques and the new coverage of the game on television. This thesis tries to account for football's revolutionary decade by analysing the development of the Premier League, as a political economic institution, and the new consumption of football in the 1990s. The Premier League and the new consumption of football are intimately related because the development of the breakaway League has facilitated the transformation of the consumption of football by altering the political economic structure of the game. In short, the Premier League has increased the revenue of the biggest clubs, thereby enabling them to make the necessary investments in their grounds, by which the new consumption of the game has been chiefly effected. The thesis lays out the theoretical and historical frameworks in the first two chapters which will inform the analysis throughout. Part II, 'The Prehistory of the Premier League', lays out the organic conditions which gave rise to the revolutionary decade and to the discourses which informed the solutions to football's crisis. The rest of the thesis, Part ifi, 'Discourses of Reform', and Part IV, 'The New Consumption of Football' is an examination of the conjunctural moment between 1985 and 1995, when the reform of football was self-consciously debated and implemented. The thesis argues that the arguments and projects in the conjunctural moment from 1985 were crucially informed by the trajectory of organic developments which privileged certain solutions to football's crisis as appropriate.