Dear WSC
It’s becoming rather tiresome to see anyone who criticizes the state of modern football labelled as some sort of apologist for the squalor of the ’80s. Neil Penny (Letters, WSC No 127), in his criticism of Rogan Taylor’s The Death Of Football is the latest to trumpet the glorious revolution of the ’90s. It is particularly galling as people like Rogan Taylor, the FSA and the fanzines were just about the only ones to kick against the poor facilities, endemic racism and brutality of the ’80s. The silence from those now happily riding the football bandwagon was deafening back then. What we didn’t expect was the baby being thrown out with the bathwater in the cavalier fashion that it has been. Ordinary supporters are as far away from having real influence on the way football is run in 1997 as they were in 1987. Of course, football has improved for the better in all sorts of very important ways (safer grounds, more women attending, less racism etc), but some of the game’s fundamentals – fairness, meritocracy, community – are being rapidly eroded by the Premiership/ Champions League philosophies now running amok in the game. This whole debate as to whether football has got better or worse is pretty fatuous anyway. What’s happened is that the game’s enemies have changed, not disappeared. If we’re going to have any chance of standing up to these people, then at least we need to know who they are, which is what The Death of Football was trying to do. So, Neil, if you’re happy with a game pricing out some of the people who sustained it in its darkest days, and with a domestic and European game becoming increasingly predictable and uncompetitive, then by all means enjoy it. Just don’t pretend it is evidence of a game in ‘great health’.
Tom Davies, Leeds
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