Michael Owen vs Robbie Fowler

The end of the football season has brought more retirements than usual. Fergie, Paul Scholes (again), David Beckham and Jamie Carragher have all called time on their careers. It almost makes you forget that it was only six weeks ago that Michael Owen got his news in first. For a few days in the middle of March the back pages stopped to pay homage to the ex-Liverpool and England striker who saw out the season with Stoke City, retiring at the tender age of 33. Strangely for a man who went from Merseyside to the Potteries via Real Madrid, Newcastle and Manchester United, much of the media chatter portrayed Owen as potential unfulfilled, a succession of injuries surely preventing him from achieving the glories his talent would otherwise have ensured. Thus we have Owen falling from the heights of the wonder goal against Argentina in the 1998 World Cup, beginning “the slow journey downhill” that would finish inevitably with a “sense of regret”.  His story was our story: “Owen, like us, ended up grasping desperately at a past that would forever remain out of reach”. Glenn Hoddle, who managed Owen at international level, accentuated the positive as he waxed lyrical about the striker: “He is in the top four of our greatest ever finishers, along with Jimmy Greaves, Gary Lineker and Alan Shearer. Some might say he is at the top of that list.” And on it continued, “Owen this”, “Owen that”, “Michael shoulda, woulda, coulda…” So, by my reckoning, now is as good a time as any to talk about Robbie Fowler.

Or rather I want to talk about what both Michael Owen and Robbie Fowler represent, in particularly to Liverpool fans.  Let me be clear from the outset - at his best Michael Owen was one of the finest strikers in the world. He was a predatory finisher, whose marksmanship was underpinned by the most blistering pace. From some, such as Jonathan Liew, there is just the faintest suggestion that Owen was a one-trick pony, a speedster with no downshift. It is certainly true that he didn’t possess the skill set of Ronaldo, the vision of Raul or the panache of Thierry Henry, but his career statistics tell their own story. Owen tallied 40 goals in 89 internationals, and 163 goals in 360 games at club level. Here is a man who scored everywhere he played, whether for club or country. Yes, you knew what you would get with Owen, but It was one thing for the opposition to identify what made him so special, but quite another to stop him.

And yet. While Michael will always be recognised, quite rightly, as a Liverpool great, for most Reds fans (me included) he will never be accorded the same legendary status as Robbie Fowler. In his autobiography, Jamie Carragher suggests that Liverpool fans always saw Owen as an England player who turned out for the club; in comparison Fowler, so often overlooked by the national team, was a Liverpool player through and through. Alternatively people point to the fact that Owen’s move to Manchester United was an act of unthinkable betrayal on the red half of Merseyside. But it is worth remembering that Fowler was “God” long before Owen assumed the role of Judas. 

Strangely the career paths of Fowler and Owen shared some striking similarities. Both would make their debuts at 17, both would win the PFA Young Player of the Year award, both would win England caps whilst still teenagers, and the pair would, of course, become prolific goalscorers. Both would see injuries impact upon their careers as professional footballers.

In his first four full seasons playing for Liverpool Fowler appeared in 188 games. Over the same timespan Owen notched up 160 appearances. It was an incredible stress to place on the bodies of professional athletes who were little more than boys. The prodigious talents of both players dawned in an era of fading fortune for Liverpool FC. When Kenny Dalglish resigned from his position of manager after Hillsborough he left behind an aging squad, short on fire power. To exhibit such extraordinary ability at such a tender age was the curse of both men. As Liverpool found themselves unable to compete with the finances available to the clubs newly formed into PLC’s, they looked towards their youth team players to arrest their footballing decline. The intensity of those early years – the result of a club desperate for glory, honours and revenue - almost certainly accounts for the fact that neither man reached his full potential.

 

But how do we account for the fact that Fowler will always be held in higher esteem than Owen? Well, the first reason is about football, pure and simple. Far be it from me to contradict Glenn Hoddle, but Owen, for all his talents, was simply not as good a striker as Fowler. Owen’s modus operandi – spin, sprint, shoot, score – was devastatingly simple. Robbie Fowler, in comparison, never possessed the same speed but could do things Owen could only dream about. He was genuinely two-footed, as deadly from outside the area as he was inside the six yard box, had an eye for the improbable and could strike a mean dead ball. And, for a player who was only 5ft 9in I remember him scoring a number of (very good) headed goals. If Owen’s game was premised on his pace, then Fowler just about had everything else. He could run the channels, hold the ball up, link play and produce the most imperious skill in the most unlikely situation. It would be an over-simplification (though only a small one) to say that Owen was an athlete who played football, while Fowler was a footballer who occasionally found himself having to do a bit of running.

 

But it was as much the man as the player. Unfortunately, unintentionally Owen always seemed stand-offish and aloof. During press conferences and in post-match interviews he had a tendency to come across like a slightly less interesting Alan Shearer. What a contrast this was to Fowler who exuded cheeky playfulness at every opportunity, a player who fans remember for far more than the goals he scored. There was the t-shirt in support of the Liverpool dockers, the attempt to talk a referee out of awarding him a penalty, the comedy spats with Neil Ruddock, ‘snorting’ the white chalk lines of the pitch in response to taunts from Everton fans. And it carried on long after he left the club. When he scored the winner for City in the Manchester derby he ran to the United fans, counting his fingers – a reference to Liverpool’s fifth triumph in Europe’s premier cup competition. If Owen was somehow destined to find himself at Old Trafford, Fowler was always going to play the role of prodigal son.

 

Occasionally Fowler let the halo slip - his disgraceful homophobic behaviour towards Graeme Le Saux was widely and rightly condemned. Yet for all his faults and failures, his goals and greatness, he was familiar to us. He seemed like the kind of guy you might bump into down the pub on a Friday night. Even as his property portfolio grew ever larger, Fowler was somehow different from the other, increasingly distant, footballing millionaires. He was the scally who grew up in the heart of Toxteth, who’d seen the riots first hand, who was still best mates with the people he had first met at school. He still felt like one of us.

 

Which leads us to the third reason – context. Just four years separated the debuts of the two players, but that time was of enormous significance. When Fowler made his debut in 1993 the era of the Premier League was just getting under way. Vast sums of television money, coupled with the changes brought about by the Taylor Report, was transforming English football. Slowly the drinking and gambling culture of the 1980s was being undermined; a new professionalism was being demanded, and footballers were becoming superstars, with more riches than they could ever have possibly imagined.

 

Michael Owen made his debut for Liverpool on 6th May 1997, just five days after the general election. As he burst on to the scene with a debut goal, Owen epitomized the new breed of footballer: clean-cut, clean-living, with a fresh-face that exuded promise. He was coached to be media savvy, saying all the right things and saying nothing at all, as though every word was scripted by a media relations expert and committed to memory. In the age of New Labour, he was New Football. All money and suits and smiles for the camera.

 

The 1990s saw football in transition, two eras colliding and for a brief period sharing the same time and space. The personalities and playing styles of Fowler and Owen seemed to reference this sense of the old and the new. Michael Owen was of the new breed, emerging at the point when clubs became corporations, the beautiful game a most lucrative business, and the players unreachable, untouchable idols. Robbie Fowler was an echo, a reminder of a time when heroes played and were just a little closer to the fans who paid good money to come through the turnstiles and cheer them on. We all knew that the club was owned by millionaires, we always knew that Owen would leave if they waved enough money in front of his eyes. But for the penniless football fan, with no power or control, Robbie Fowler always belonged to us.

Understanding Alex Ferguson's Success

As a thirty-something football fan I simply don’t remember a time when Alex Ferguson wasn’t the manager of Manchester United. His decision to retire, aged 71, seems as unthinkable as suggesting bad refereeing decisions, over-inflated salaries and prima donna haircuts should no longer play a part in our footballing landscape. He leaves behind a legacy of unparalleled success; the list of honours United have won under his stewardship serving as testimony to his achievements: 13 league titles, two Champions League wins, five FA Cups and four League Cups, not to mention a Cup Winners Cup, a FIFA Club World Cup, a UEFA Super Cup, an Inter-Continental Cup and 10 Charity Shields (one shared).  
 
The Ferguson era is defined not just by its success, but by its longevity. The final whistle will be blown on his career at West Brom next weekend, his 1,500th game in charge of the club. Other English clubs have enjoyed spells of dominance – Herbert Chapman’s Arsenal in the 1920s; Liverpool under a succession of managers through the 1970s and 80s– but none compare to the success attained by Manchester’s favourite Scotsman. Indeed it is hard to think of another team who match the sustained dominance of Ferguson’s United in any sport. Over the past twenty-seven years, entrenched in the Old Trafford dugout, the Scot masterminded the transformation of a club whose trophy cabinet in no way reflected its glittering history and reputation. When he took over in November 1986 United had not won the league for nearly twenty years. They had won the FA Cup three times in that period, success that most football fans would consider a pipe dream. But for a club of such stature, many of whose fans still remembered only too well the halcyon days of Best, Charlton and Law, the wait for league glory went on far too long.
 
Not that Ferguson’s managerial credentials are reducible to his United record alone. His achievements north of the border, firstly with St Mirren, and then as manager of Aberdeen, an unfashionable team in a Scottish footballing world perennially dominated by the two Glasgow clubs, Celtic and Rangers, was proof of Ferguson’s abilities. The three league titles and four Scottish Cups he took to Pittodrie cemented Ferguson’s burgeoning reputation. The 1983 Cup Winners’ Cup success, where Aberdeen beat Real Madrid 2-1 in the final, iced the proverbial cake. His teams were tough, hard-working, collective units though this is not to suggest that they were dull and uninspired – that certainly wasn’t the case. Ferguson has always sought to play attractive, sleek, eye-catching football but the team has always taken precedent over individuals no matter how talented. 
 
Such an ethos – of togetherness, teamwork and collectivity – was shared by the three great Scottish managers who preceded Ferguson: Matt Busby, Bill Shankly and Jock Stein. Each had grown up in working class communities, each had known poverty, and all had worked as miners in their youth. In the cases of Shankly and Stein they retained something of a left-wing consciousness throughout their careers in football. Jock Stein castigated Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s dryly remarking, "Prime Ministers and other ministers to interfere with football – they know nothing about it". For Shankly, politics found expression through the beautiful game: "The socialism I believe in is everyone working for each other, everyone having a share of the rewards. It's the way I see football, the way I see life". 
 
Alex Ferguson stands in that same tradition. As a teenager he worked in the Clyde shipyards, leading the apprentice strike in 1961 (and thereby earning himself immortality as a footnote in Tony Cliff’s autobiography). He is a life-long and outspoken supporter of the Labour Party, and regularly contributes to its finances. And as befits a man who has been fined a total of £75,000 by the FA for making controversial public statements he was never shy in attacking the Tories. Summarising his political views he said, "I grew up in a very working class area of Glasgow, believing Labour was the party of the working man, and I still believe that. All my life I've seen Labour as the party working to get better health care for ordinary people, and the Tories only caring about the people at the top." That working class thread connecting the footballing philosophies of Busby, Stein and Shankly extends to Ferguson. As Michael Crick argues: 

"Their Scottish socialist upbringings were important to all four men. For each manager their experience of real work before going into football full-time – the first three in the Lanarkshire coalfields, Ferguson as a Glasgow toolmaker – hardened them, taught them the value of collective effort, and fuelled the fires which propelled them towards their eventual triumphs.”

It would certainly seem that these early experiences manifested themselves in Ferguson’s belief that no one player was bigger than the club. Three years into his job he took the decision to offload Paul McGrath and Norman Whiteside - both fan favourites but prone to injury and, in the eyes of their manager, too fond of the 1980s footballers’ drinking culture. This lack of sentimentality would become a hallmark of Ferguson’s career. In 1995 the trio of Mark Hughes, Andrei Kanchelskis and Paul Ince were all moved on, having played integral roles in Fergie’s early successes, replaced by a clutch of young starlets at a time when some commentators thought you would never be able to win anything with kids. Jaap Stam tried to tussle with his boss but soon found himself ‘departed’ for Lazio. Juan Sebastian Veron was purchased for more than £28 million in 2000 but was ushered out sooner than you could say “expensive flop”. When David Beckham’s celebrity lifestyle seemed all consuming Ferguson gave him the boot, first to the head, then out through the door.

 

Yet Alex Ferguson’s success at Manchester United was not instantaneous. The club had remained trophy-less for the first three years in which Fergie occupied the top job, and legend has it that had Mark Robins not scored a last minute equaliser in the third round of the FA Cup in 1990 the manager would have been sacked. Instead they went on to lift the trophy - Ferguson's first as United manager. Still their league form again disappointed. They finished 13th, some 31 points behind champions Liverpool.

 

Manchester United would finally claim that elusive league champions crown in the 1992/93 season: it was Ferguson’s seventh season in charge of the club. On strictly footballing terms United were, without doubt, a class act deserving of success. Coupled to Fergie’s managerial abilities was a remarkably strong squad and the early fruits borne of the club’s youth team policies. The team oozed quality. In goal Peter Schmeichel drove tabloid hacks stammering to their thesauruses, failing miserably to find synonyms for ‘colossus’; Pallister and Bruce embodied the notion of defending ugly. In midfield Ince prowled and McClair harried, while, in turn, Kanchelskis, Giggs and Lee Sharpe twirled their way down the flanks. The team played so well Ferguson was even able to give his son, Darren, sixteen games that season.

 

The final, key piece to the jigsaw, however, was the signing of Eric Cantona. The talismanic, enigmatic Frenchman arrived from Leeds United almost by accident, the deal having been struck during a phone conversation in which the Yorkshire club had originally called to enquire about the availability of Manchester United’s Denis Irwin. Cantona brought nonchalance and swagger to the forward line, he dripped with arrogance and sublime skill, becoming the figurehead of the United attack. His influence on and off the field could not be underestimated. It was from this base that Ferguson would go on to achieve his extraordinary success. Constantly evolving his team, changing his players, watching on at stadium redevelopments, Ferguson remained the centre of his ever-changing Old Trafford universe. Only Ryan Giggs and Fergie’s piece of chewing gum remain from that first triumph some twenty years ago.

 

But there was more to Ferguson’s success than a shrewd tactical brain and an eye for a good player. The start of Manchester United’s period of domination coincided with the formation of the Premier League. In the late 1980s the top English clubs had met to discuss the idea of breaking away from the Football League. Their motivation? Money, pure and simple. Under the system as was, the revenue generated from the sale of television rights would be shared out to all the clubs in the Football League. It ensured the long term viability of the lower league clubs, fertilizing the grassroots of the game, and helping to foster the next generation of players. With the formation of the breakaway Premier League, and the switch from terrestrial television coverage to exclusive rights for Rupert Murdoch’s newly launched Sky television, money was to be divided amongst only those clubs who were in the top tier of the game. Sky paid £305million for a five year contract. It was a cash bonanza for the clubs lucky enough to be part of the deal, one which arguably saved Murdoch’s satellite empire from crumbling before it had really begun.

 

And there was a second factor. In keeping with the spirit of the 1980s, when greed was first good and market forces extended their reach to every facet of modern life, the boards of some top clubs – including Manchester United – floated on the stock exchange. Money flowed into the club, even if much of it stuck to the hands of chairmen and directors. Where board members had once been regarded as custodians of a game cherished by local communities they now oversaw its sale to the highest bidder. It wasn’t that what had gone before was a golden age of collective ownership, rather that there was a rapid qualitative shift towards explicitly remodelling football as a business. Ticket prices soared, replica kits were housed in club stores, fans were now consumers. And Manchester United were in prime position to take advantage of the economic explosion. As David Conn writes in The Football Business:

“It was only after the top clubs broke away, no longer able to share their television money with the rest of football, to form the FA Carling Premiership, that United finally won the League. It was as if, a floated corporation, they were bedded in, ready for football as a business, and the ring-fenced Premier League which would make it possible. Since it was formed in 1992, the Premiership has largely belonged to Manchester United plc.”

Alex Ferguson’s socialism may have played its part in producing results on the pitch but his success was underpinned and underwritten by the vast sums of money that flowed into the game at the dawn of the Premiership era. It is this tension, this seeming contradiction, that exemplifies Ferguson tenure at the helm of Britain’s (and for a time, the world’s) richest club. Perhaps it also helps to explain why Ferguson is universally respected but not widely liked, let alone loved. Of course, plenty of the ire he draws is from the fans of opposing clubs, sick and jealous of his success. Yet this alone cannot be the full story. At first glance one might imagine that Fergie, full of dry wit and with an anti-authoritarian streak, would hold some appeal for football fans regardless of the colour of their shirt. Previously he’s upbraided officials, launched verbal assaults on the FA, boycotted the BBC and even, somewhat ironically, lamented the powerful hold media has over modern football. But all too often when kicking back against the suits, it looked as though Ferguson, sat in his privileged position, thought he was bigger than the game.

 

No one issue gets to the heart of the matter quite as well as the question of “Fergie Time” – the tendency for overly long periods of stoppage time to be played at Old Trafford, particularly when United are in desperate search of a winning or equalising goal. A few years ago I heard the historian Peter Borsay suggest that Fergie Time was a throwback to a by-gone age, one in which the time we allocated to play was ‘elastic’. In doing so he referenced the games of pre-capitalist societies which would last as long as the players wished; ‘folk’ or ‘festival’ football matches that could last for days; when players would claim St Monday to extend the weekend. Borsay was wrong. Fergie Time is the antithesis of a time when play was once extended for the sake of enjoyment. The elasticity of time is now at the behest of a manager with a reputation for arrogance and bullying, backed by the wealth and power of a global sporting brand. In sport, as in life generally, the richest appear to be playing the game according to their own rules. As Robin Carmody so eloquently put it:

“Far from representing any kind of challenge to the orthodoxies of the modern game, he [Ferguson] is thus their ultimate embodiment, the epitome of the false, either-or dichotomies and the one-way Journey as if there had never been another option. Trapped within the dicta of capitalist realism even as he pretends to be uneasy with them, he epitomises the dilemma of so many British people with post-war, pre-Beatles childhoods, now steadily retiring from the public stage but leaving a legacy which continues to define their successors as assuredly as it will, eventually, define his.”

Fergie is without question the greatest manager the game has ever seen. And it is only fitting that this blog wishes him all the very best for his retirement, But in years to come one will look back at the man and his career and find a riddle more complex and compelling than any posed by Cantona during a press conference. Sir Alex Ferguson, the socialist with a knighthood, the Glasgow millionaire whose abilities restored unimagined fortune to a football company, the firebrand striker who rode the wave of football’s economic boom to become the most decorated manager in the history of the sport. The greatest irony is, of course, that with football now an industry in which the demand for a return on an investment has bred the most myopic short termism, were Sir Alex to be starting his Manchester United managerial career today, then the man who took seven years to win the league would most likely have been sacked long before he had the chance to lift his first trophy.

Time For Someone To Show Some Teeth.

Inside Left regular, Richie Moran, returns to take Liverpool's Luis Suarez to task for biting off more than he can chew - but concludes that the Uruguayan's actions were not an isolated incident. Rather it is another example of the violence witnessed on the football pitch, and too often tolerated by the games' governing bodies. It was written before the announcement that Suarez will serve a 10 game ban.

So just as the judge in the John Terry (and Ashley Cole) case gave carte blanche for anyone who chooses to use the term "fucking black cunt" to proclaim they are not a racist, the usual band of apologists have sprung to the defence of the non-racist, non cheating, charmer that is Luis Suarez.

So let's have it right from the start (and for the sake of our children who play the game). Biting someone deliberately is violent, despicable and unacceptable (no matter how good you are). Should that occur gratuitously in a street fight (or a boxing ring, as the convicted rapist and biter Tyson, now a vegan apparently, put, or maybe didn't, his five eggs in) it is met with outrage in the press and the law courts don't look too favourably on it either.

Should you be stupid (or perhaps crazy) enough to do it more twice, having already incurred a seven match ban (and respect to the Dutch for effectively ending his career there) and having previous for head butting a referee and breaking his nose, you should surely not have the cojones to insist you deserve no more than the statutory 3 match ban for violent conduct and perhaps thank your lucky stars that you practice a profession so amoral that you can continually get away with and be defended for such behaviour.

Branislav Ivanovic showed what I thought was remarkable restraint (I personally would be apologising to my team mates for the sending off I had incurred) and no little dignity. What makes the whole situation worse, if you watch the incident again is that when the light bulb comes on and Suarez realises, almost straightaway that he has been caught on camera, he makes a pathetic attempt to feign injury (hardly the first time) to elicit sympathy.
Leaving aside (or maybe not) his tasteless celebrations after his reprieve from his deliberate handball against Ghana in the World Cup, (which he again tried to disguise), there is the fact that he again needed to use the same tactic to knock a non-league side out of the FA cup. Thierry Henry is forever blemished for me for what he did against Ireland.
Then there is his relentless cheating (the pathetic dive against Stoke being one of many) including perpetually kicking and punching people in the most cowardly fashion off the ball, although Pat Nevin seemed to find it really funny on Match of the Day 2 recently, when he showed four clips of Suarez kicking people in such fashion, one being disturbingly close to Dembele's genitals.

Regarding the Evra incident, not only is my Spanish reasonable, but I was sent the transcript of what Suarez said in English and to claim that he merely called Evra a negro, or used some cute affectionate terminology is disingenuous to say the least. For the Liverpool fans (and former players) who have once again excused this vile behaviour, I would say to you that you besmirch the memories of the likes of the magnificent Anne Williams, who died last week and certainly Bill Shankly, Bob Paisley, Ronnie Moran and Joe Fagan, who I don't believe would have stood for this. How would any of you feel if someone stated that basically Norman Bettinson was a great cop, despite the fact that he vilified the victims of Hillsborough?

The argument that Suarez is a great player (which he undoubtedly is) is absolutely irrelevant. Had he been a youth team player, or not such a valuable financial commodity (which is pretty much the entire crux of the matter) he would have had his P45. So I say to Ian Rush who has vociferously defended him, you too were a great player, but can we really take seriously the opinion of someone who couldn't settle at Juventus, because "it was like playing in a foreign country"!

Graeme Souness - another fantastic player, but one of the biggest thugs on a pitch in recent years. I certainly remember him breaking someone's jaw, his disgraceful tackle against Steaua Bucharest, when playing for Rangers and many more, but at least I suppose he wasn't a coward, which is precisely what Suarez is.

Alan Shearer is another I hope hasn't pontificated too much. I have played against him and know exactly what he is. I'm sure many people have not forgotten his blatant and disgraceful kick at Neil Lennon and it was alleged afterwards that he threatened not to represent England again if action was taken by the FA. Likewise I remember as a non league player, playing against Martin Keown, who threatened to break my legs should I go past him again. Suffice it to say he didn't quite manage it!

There are many others over the years who should simply have been banned for various reasons, in my humble opinion. Current Sheffield United boss, Chris Morgan for his disgraceful assault on Tranmere's Ian Hume, which left him with a fractured skull, being one of them. Likewise John Fashanu for the same thing on Gary Mabbutt (and being a practicising martial artist I know how lethal an elbow strike is, believe me). El Hadji Diouf, who not only spat at fans at Liverpool, Celtic (and possibly Middlesborough), but spat directly in the face of Arjan De Zeeuw at Portsmouth and almost caused a riot at an Old Firm game is another, everyone should be glad to see the back of, no matter how gifted.
 
Wayne Rooney (again because of his worth) has been allowed to get away with several indiscretions, including having the FA support him for his pointless sending off against Montenegro and there was his vicious (cowardly) assault on Wigan's James McCarthy, of course played down by that man of integrity and paragon of behavioural virtue Alex Ferguson! Lee Hughes is still playing despite causing someone's death in his car and fleeing the scene (although he has served his time), as is Marlon King who has served time for sexual assault. When Ched Evans was convicted of rape, it was the victim who was vilified on Facebook and Twitter and had her identity revealed.

Had I been a team mate of Carlos Tevez (or a City fan), I would not have forgiven him for clearing off home for months, leaving his club in the lurch, notwithstanding the fact that he chose to ignore the driving laws of his adopted country on his return. Aside from anything else, if as is claimed his lack of English is a hindrance, is it not more than a little dangerous as he surely has difficulty deciphering road signs?

Earlier this season, Dave Whelan and Roberto Martinez sought to play down Calum McManaman's, potentially career threatening tackle on Newcastle's Haidara. Why oh why, when the evidence is so conclusive can't the player themselves (and his manager and chairman) just say, "sorry, I was wrong"? It is not that difficult!

So to return to the subject in hand (or mouth), how long until a very young child bites his opponent, because he has seen his hero the Liverpool number 7 do it ? And believe me it will happen. I have already seen children as young as 8, replicating the diving and swearing they see every week on the TV.

Liverpool Football Club are held in worldwide esteem and have a certain reputation for integrity, especially in light of all they have endured since Hillsborough. I lost respect for them when their players defended Suarez's indefensible racist diatribe at Evra, but firmly believe that the way Kenny Dalglish handled it, actually cost him his job. Rightly, or wrongly (very much the latter for me) footballers are perceived as role models, but such is the money and influence, they now command that so many believe they are virtually omnipotent.

How many Liverpool fans (especially with the Evra incident, because he played for their hated rivals) said Suarez was wrong? Likewise Chelsea with John Terry. It seems with tribal allegiances any behaviour (and language) is acceptable. Would the same people defend Saville, Mick Philpott or the Yorkshire Ripper owing to their football allegiances? One would hope not.

Whoever you support, what Suarez did was vile, cowardly, potentially dangerous and plain wrong and I'm sure many parents have had to chastise their children for biting, some probably even bit them back. I am no lover of Manchester United, but at least they had the balls to suspend their best player, after his Kung Fu kick at Crystal Palace.

I was not always a paragon of virtue on a football pitch, but if I was wrong, I was wrong. Simples!

I very much doubt it (and I still think a ban for merely the rest of this season is a Kop out), but serious action really needs to be taken (as it should have been when Defoe bit Mascherano), because this is simply not acceptable.

As someone who also have extensive knowledge of working in the mental health field, Suarez has a mixture of mad and bad. I do not accept that his so called will to win is any greater than many players over the years (regardless of ability) but how is biting someone going to increase that chance?

Let us hope the FA, Liverpool (and their fans) actually show some teeth and punish this reprehensible man and his reprehensible act accordingly!

Kick, Run and Think Books

Mark Perryman from Philosophy Football offers a selection of the best football, running and sports politics books of the quarter.

In England there’s no sportswriter quite like Dave Zirin. He writes about sport from the Left with such passion and style that readers will never spot the join. An American, the bias is unsurprisingly towards baseball, basketball and their own bastardised version of ‘football’, yet both the issues raised and his range of coverage are unmistakably internationalist.

Dave's latest Game Over should by rights be a major publishing event for the committed British sports fan, yet our fan culture is so parochial this superb book will be lucky to get a mention of two. Ownership, athletes on strike and supporting others on strike, Egyptian fans at the core of the Tahrir Square protests, the failed legacy of World Cups and Olympics. This book has the lot and more. The writing style provides a template for how to mix politics and sport yet keep the reader engaged whose interests leans more towards one or the other. Simply unmissable. 

The London 2012 Olympics more than any other event has helped stimulate at last some writing over here of the sort Dave Zirin provides in the USA. Accounting for sport’s meaning beyond the touchline, track, pool or ring.

In the build up to the Games Matt and Martin Rogan’s  Britain and the Olympic Games  provided a rare moment of context. Revisiting the 1948 London Olympics, dubbed the ‘austerity games’ for an insight into what London 2012 might become in a period of similar economic recession. Rich in interview material, one year on from London’s Games this is a book that deserves to be revisited as we ponder over the reality of the legacy claims.

Written since the Games ended Phil Cohen’s On The Wrong Side of the Track? locates those legacy claims firmly in the social and geographical context of East London. This was where the regeneration was supposed to take place, acting as a leveller between the city’s tourist and retail mecca, the West End, and the depressed East End. Beautifully written, with an uncanny eye for cultural detail Phil’s book is a powerful response to the overblown myths and broken promises of the Olympian legacy agenda.

 

None of this is to deny the very obvious joy so many of us felt during last year’s summer of sport. What it means though is the need to question the claims made of how these moments of excitement can effect lasting change. Sport is full of such moments, it’s what explains the unique, and enduring appeal. Moments of joy and despair. In terms of the latter a recent outbreak of football hooliganism attracted banner headlines and wall-to-wall media agonising. Of a magnitude city-centre public disorder when the pubs shut rarely if ever attract. Sport, especially football, provides a platform for social and cultural themes which ensure they get noticed, for good or ill. Geoff Pearson’s recently published  Cans, Cops and Carnivals  is an academic study that deserves to become the definitive work on modern English football fan culture. In-depth ‘participant observation’ over a sixteen year period, the book challenges so-called common-sense notions of hooliganism and the crowd control responses in an effective and thought-provoking way. 

 

Whether from the stands, or the sofa, no football match would be complete without a vocal suggestion that the referee needs an optician’s appointment combined with a questioning of his parentage, or words to that effect. We all like to think we know better, and given a chance could do better than the proverbial men (and sometimes women) in black. 

You Are The Ref  by ex-referee Keith Hackett and legendary illustrator Paul Trevillion provides every possible test for your suitability to challenge the officials’ decisions. Strip cartoon style, questions posed and scenarios described, rules patiently explained, the referee’s role described. Ref! With this book at your side blaming your side’s loss on one dodgy decision or another may never be quite the same again.

Football rarely inspires good fiction. Perhaps this is because the reality is so full of intrigue, heroes and villains, loyalty and disloyalty, that the make-believe version would never be as good. Rodge Glass’s Bring Me The Head of Ryan Giggs is one of the rare exceptions. A wicked plot of talent disappointed and dangerous obsession manages to create both a compelling read of fiction yet rooted in the sport that frames it.

Understanding sport requires more than anything else a social construction of sport, addressing the particularities of inclusion and exclusion of each and every sport. Precious few have produced such studies.

 

Global History of Running by Thor Gotaas provides this for the most basic sport of all, running, and by doing so gives an insight into how to write something similar for other sports too. Historical, anthropological and cultural with an international coverage combine to account for both running’s global appeal and national differences. Alexandra Heminsley’s  Running Like a Girl couldn’t be more different. It is written, designed and marketed in ‘chick-lit’ style, aiming for a mass audience of potential women runners with a dose of the self-help manual added too. Not for everyone, yet this is just the kind of writing sport needs if it is to appeal beyond the already committed, the spectator or the active.

Philosophy Football was founded with the idea of putting the words of Albert Camus on to a  T-shirt . “All that I know most surely about morality and obligations’ I owe to football’ was Albert’s maxim that inspired us so it seems only natural that my pick for book of the quarter is philosophy on the run provided by author Mark Rowlands in his superb book Running With the Pack.

This is a book that doesn’t simply explain the appeal of a sport to the individual who does it, but the purpose of sport as play in modern society. Mark doesn’t overload sport with meaning, though as a professional philosopher he does like to cite the ideas behind his core message. That the point of sport is that it is pointless, the joy is to be found in it being play, when we ascribe to it too much of one purpose or another the value of sport loses its meaning. And in the process becomes corporatised, commodified, the stuff of political spin.

There may well never be another summer of sport quite like 2012. Yet every summer there is the potential for sport to excite and infuriate in near equal measure. Once the Champions and Rich Runners Up League Final is out of the way there’s the centenary Tour de France, and the poignancy of the centenary of Emily Wilding Davison’s fatally heroic protest at the 1913 Derby too.  The Lions down under, the Ashes over here, Murray seeking to match his victory in New York with a home Grand Slam at Wimbledon. All this and more are socially constructed, read these books not to distract from the enjoyment of sport, watching or doing, but to inform and enrich the experience.

Mark Perryman is the co-founder of the self-styled ‘sporting outfitters of intellectual distinction’, aka Philosophy Football

A Minute's Silence for Margaret Thatcher

Earlier this week Dave Whelan called for a minute’s silence before matches in the Premiership and Football League this weekend as a mark of respect following the death of Margaret Thatcher. The Wigan chairman, a multi-millionaire and union buster, insisted that, “We have got to appreciate that Margaret Thatcher was a world leader who did so much for this country. So much that she deserves a minute's silence.” The response from the Football Association was as swift as it was pragmatic. Their answer was no. Officially the reasoning is that the FA is a non-political organisation. In reality of course it was understood that any attempt to mark the untimely death of Maggie Thatcher – coming, as it did many years too late – would draw a chorus of boos, cheers and a reaction that looks a little like this video.

Following a week of scenes which have driven the right wing press into a state of agonisingly amusing apoplexy, some voices on the left have joined the right in decrying those of us who have celebrated Thatcher’s demise. Perhaps if a minute’s silence had been held and then vociferously disrupted football fans would have also felt their ire, criticised for speaking ill of the dead. Yet football fans have always seen fit to honour their own. No doubt there are those outside what the highly paid administrators of the game like to call the “football family” who view the scenes of a dedicated minute’s silence (or as has become the norm, sixty seconds of applause), the black armbands, the shirts emblazoned with messages, with sceptical disdain. But remembering fans, players and managers has long been central to the culture of football.

On one level it is a manifestation of a distinct strand of working class masculinity, one in which emotional expression is stunted or denied in much of our day-to-day existence before bursting forth on the terraces. The autobiographies of footballers are awash with players recounting similar tales along the lines of: “I never saw my father cry, that was until the day Dixie Dean died and then he was in mourning for a week”. For many football has become both an outlet and an opportunity to feel; passion, anger, excitement, joy, disappointment, even grief are packed into those 90 minutes each week before the stultifying alienation of reality kicks back in again.

More than this, while multinationals and billionaires may hold the power, and increasingly stadiums prioritise corporate hospitality for the prawn sandwich brigade, most fans still consider football something of a community. Therefore when a member of that community dies, their passing is marked. It may be riddled with contradictions but being a football supporter still elicits an elementary sense of camaraderie, collectivity and solidarity. Thatcher was the antithesis of this. Huge swathes of football fans would break any minute of silence in honour of Thatcher not because they have no respect for the dead, but because they were full of hatred for her life.

Thatcher’s impact on the world of sport was in-keeping with the very many other reasons to despise her. The political support she offered the Apartheid regime gave cover to rebel cricket tours of South Africa during the 1980s, and was the reason 32 nations boycotted the 1986 Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh. Her attitude to football was one of instinctive distrust of the working class assembled en masse. Football hooliganism became another example of the enemy within; certainly not a symptom of a desperate society broken by Tory policy. Fans were vilified, ID card schemes touted. Then came Hillsborough. 96 Liverpool fans died in 1989, the victims of a police force, trained and steeled in the miners’ strike and the Wapping dispute, who saw working class football fans as little more than scum. To cover their guilt they constructed an elaborate story: the fans were drunk, they did it themselves, they pissed on the dead. It had to be real, because The Sun told us all that it was the truth. Thatcher knew from the start that the police were lying. One day the full extent of her collusion in the biggest state cover up in British history will be fully understood.

This weekend marks the 24^th anniversary of the Hillsborough tragedy, and a minute’s silence has been held at the Madejski Stadium where Liverpool are playing Reading as I type. It is a silence that was impeccably observed, because everyone in the ground knows that each of those 96 people who died was someone’s sister, daughter, brother or father. And not one of them was a friend of General Pinochet or responsible for the death of industry, stop and search or Section 28. John Madejski, chairman of Reading FC and a Conservative Party donor, was broadly supportive of Whelan’s call for football to pay its respects to Thatcher. Liverpool FC were having nothing to do with it. Brendan Rogers said the silence for the victims of Hillsborough is "the only remembrance there should be" this weekend, before adding that the Reading supporters would want the “opportunity to show their support for the families and the 96 supporters who are no longer here". In contrast, the only chance Dave Whelan had of getting a minute’s silence for Thatcher this weekend would have been to call for a minute’s applause.

Speaking Ill of the Dead

A guest post from Richie Moran.

Twenty five years ago on April 8th 1988, my lovely mother died (also my sisters birthday) at the ridiculously young age of 56.

How ironic that a woman she admired, but one I loathe, despise and hate (and yes, I thought long and hard about the use of such words and where she is concerned I am more than comfortable with them) more than most people to walk this planet should shuffle off this mortal coil on the same date.

 

Amongst her supporters and those in opposition too scared (or subject to political pressure) to express their real feelings about her demise, there is the usual historical revisionism, especially concerning her legacy, which if you look around this country today is appallingly evident in the financial crisis, moral turpitude, racism, cheating bankers and politicians, pointless and immoral wars, the exposure of lying policemen, clergy members, doctors and so called pillars of the establishment involved in child abuse and so much, much more.

 

In this age where the news is often deliberately manipulated for short term memory, I was actually heartened to see that as much as the predictable sycophantic rubbish there are so many who like myself are unable or unwilling to forget what she stood for and the havoc she wrought upon various communities.

 

I almost chuckled at the supreme irony of Tony Blair, having the temerity to say that people who celebrated her death were acting in poor taste. This from a man who obviously thought it was in good taste to bomb Iraq (a country where 42% of the population were under the age of 14) having already been responsible for the deaths of approximately 1 million Iraqi's from the US and UK led sanctions, which prevented children receiving even basic medicine. Then after fabricating the evidence to go to war, he did not even have the good taste to count dead Iraqi civilians! He is now making millions as a Middle East peace envoy, when his rightful place is in front of the International Criminal Court in the Hague. A Thatcher clone if ever there was one.

There appears to be much outrage that the old maxim of not speaking ill of the dead has not been adhered to. We are talking about a woman who stated that there was no such thing as society and was the prime advocate of the greed is good yuppie era, where people were actively encouraged to feather their own nests regardless of the effect it had on others. 

Hence the housing stock was sold off, never being replaced. People bought their council houses, many bought second properties (I remember the interest rate at 15% when I bought my first house) and this has led directly to the situation we find ourselves in today where there is not nearly enough affordable housing for those that need it, repossessions are rocketing and greedy unscrupulous landlords are charging extortionate prices in the private sector (though she would doubtless blame this on immigration)!

 

If people are not being respectful, is it any wonder? We live in an age where you can call someone a "black cunt", yet be found not guilty of racism in a court of law.

Most of the TV watched by the masses is based around conflict such as the odious Jeremy Kyle, and pathetic examples of reality TV such as Made in Chelsea, The Only Way Is Essex, Big Brother and the rest of the brain dead forums. Many of our leading footballers spout all kinds of rubbish on social network forums and are regularly seen abusing officials and condoning cheating.

 

In addition many hypocrites, bigots and loudmouths such as the aforementioned Kyle, Simon Cowell, Gordon Ramsey, Piers Morgan and Jeremy Clarkson are seen as national institutions!!!

 

From her coming to power in 1979 (when I was 16) until the start of the Falklands conflict, Thatcher was immensely unpopular and had an extremely low poll rating of around 23%. Although doing very well academically at school I actively refused to join one of her disgusting YTS schemes.

 

Around 1980-81 she had actively refused to give the Falkland Islanders (somewhere that most British people thought was near the Shetlands as I remember it well) British citizenship calling them merely dependents. I vividly remember the news at the time, the then Governor of the Falklands, Rex Hunt, stating many times that he had written to Thatcher saying that the Argentinians were threatening to invade and could she send a task force as a deterrent. Thatcher saw this as a perfect example to boost her flagging popularity and waited until there had been an invasion before sending a task force. In the ensuing 74 day war, Britain lost around 255 lives and the Argentinians approximately 700. This was entirely avoidable and a cynical ploy to ensure an election victory, duly achieved the next year.

 

I have a good friend, whose brother died at Goose Green, the day before his 18th birthday. Not old enough to vote, or even buy a pint, but old enough to die on a battlefield in a place the vast majority of the country had not even heard of!

 

Then let us not forget the sinking of the Belgrano (which as every one knows was outside the exclusion zone and sailing in the opposite direction) and the disgusting accompanying Sun headline 'GOTCHA'. Thatcher was also pictured with the thumbs up, Yet you ask people to show compassion and respect for a woman with blood on her hands.

 

This woman branded the world's (and possibly history's) greatest human being Nelson Mandela a terrorist. She is not even fit to kneel at his feet. An avowed racist herself, it was her support (along with the equally odious Reagan) that prolonged apartheid and I remember Botha's state visit here in 1984. I also remember Young Conservatives wearing "Hang Nelson Mandela" ties at a Tory conference. Whenever people tell me Mandela was a terrorist, I ask them to name one terrorist incident he was involved in. They never can. Please ask me about her or Winston Churchill and I can give you many examples! When the Great Man did his world tour on his release in 1990, she was one of the leaders he declined to meet.

 

Australian Foreign Minister, Bob Carr described Thatcher as "unabashedly racist" after in conversation with him she railed against Asian immigration, just out of earshot of his Malaysian wife!

 

Thatcher was one of those who believed that Britain still had an Empire, being white and English made her inherently superior and it is no coincidence that the National Front and British Movement flourished in her era. Her distrust of other Europeans, especially the Germans was rooted in the past and gave vent to many of the despicable racists in her party such as the odious Tebbitt, Bruinvels, Carlisle, Beaumont-Dark etc.

 

Again lest we forget she had the brazen effrontery to cosy up to the repulsive Pinochet, who was responsible for at least 30,000 deaths of his own people in Chile. She was also instrumental in installing the now reviled Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe, describing him as a freedom fighter.

 

The culmination of her decimation of the working class she came from, but despised was the miners strike. Even nearly 30 years on, there are still families divided. It destroyed whole communities, left families in poverty (again I attended many fundraisers) and achieved her ambition of crushing the last bastion of working class solidarity (having already destroyed the manufacturing industry). Again rags such as the Sun and the Mail spewed their usual propaganda to place all the blame with the miners. Again Thatcher (with that voice that I find even more irksome than an Afrikaans accent) showed no compassion for those whose lives had been ruined and whose children had literally no food. I will not forget the footage of miners being battered by mounted police. Nor will I forget the crowing police drafted in from Avon and Somerset, using the acronym ASPOM (Arthur Scargill Pays Our Mortgages). Nor will I forget the tragic death of taxi driver David Wilkie who died taking a non-striking miner to work.

 

I also remember her sneering contempt at the death of the democratically elected M.P. Bobby Sands (imprisoned for possession of a handgun) and the families of the other Irish hunger strikers. Like people say about her, these men were also somebody's sons, fathers etc. Her attitude lead to surge in recruitment for the IRA.

 

Does it not strike anyone as more than a touch ironic that a woman who privatised everything, including assets such as gas and electric whose reserves may just have bailed the country out its current financial predicament, now wants a state funeral, to be met at the expense of the taxpayer. Surely, as I believe film director, Ken Loach may have suggested would it not be appropriate to put it out to tender to the highest bidder? Frankie Boyle, who I don't usually agree with had it right when he said give everyone in Scotland a shovel and they could dig a whole deep enough too present her to Satan himself. Morrissey, another with whom I usually vehemently disagree, was spot on in his obituary.

 

Should it be expected that those in places such as Birmingham, Newcastle, South Yorkshire, Nottingham, etc should have any respect for a woman who seemed to delight in destroying their whole employment infrastructure? It is still not forgotten today in Liverpool how she again allowed the Tory press to vilify the whole city after Hillsborough, to the extent that those who lied, fabricated evidence and besmirched the 96 who died so appallingly are now only just starting to be bought to book. It has taken the best part of 23 years and the bravery and tenacity of the families (many of whom did not live to see it) to get to this stage. Again I have no problem with the opprobrium dished out to those who caused the deaths of the Juventus fans at the Heysel stadium in 1985.

 

Thatcher again made no secret that she regarded the majority of football fans as scum.

Again in football no surprise that the likes of Whelan and Madjeski (who would have been principle beneficiaries of her era) want a minutes silence to acknowledge her passing. The FA have not advocated it, as they know it will be met with abuse on so many grounds. I certainly, had I still been playing or in a crowd would not observe it, in any way, shape or form.

 

Likewise the Scots, who after being, as ever, the guinea pigs for the poll tax that eventually bought about her downfall, who at least had the good grace to wipe her off the political map. It was always evident that she had no regard for them at all.

 

As ever her supporters exaggerate her role. She opposed German re-unification, owing to racist views rooted World War 2. The current Con-Dem cuts that as ever, wreak havoc on the least vulnerable are merely an extension of what she started, as is the gradual dismantling of the NHS and indeed public services. If you read the reactions from around the world (with the exception of the insular shoulder to shoulder blah blah blah from the US) reading between the lines it is patently obvious that she was not universally liked. They say she changed this country and put the Great back in Britain. Personally I would be extremely mistrustful of any country that labelled itself thus! She certainly did change this country, unfortunately, for the worst and Blair and other idiots like the awful Boris Johnson and rich kids and chinless wonders  and elitists, Cameron and Osborne are no better, though I look forward to Ian Duncan-Smith living on £53 a week.

 

Her so called legendary intelligence is another lie. Everything about her from her image softening, that awful voice and her speeches was invented. I remember an interview with Jenni Murray where her notes had obviously been delayed and she was clueless.

Again a simple question. If like Churchill, immediately after the war, she was so good, why did her own party, eventually knife her in the back and get rid of her?

 

For those who say people celebrating her death are being disrespectful, I have as ever one simple question. How many of you believe in capital punishment? As someone whose political leanings usually engender a reasonable amount of compassion, I cannot even find it in myself to feel compassion for her odious children. Carol, another racist who a couple of years ago thought that using the word wog was OK. Then there is greedy boy Mark, who not content with becoming a millionaire overnight as a result of one of his mothers dodgy arms deals (and let us not forget Westmoreland), then like many of his colonialist ilk, thought it would be OK to start a coup in an African country to further line his pockets.  Obviously something in the DNA.

 

I remember the western world railing against the Russian invasion of Afghanistan and even boycotting the Moscow Olympics over it. Who would that be that Britain and the US have invaded now?!!!

 

She was the first woman Prime Minister, but what did she actually do for women? She abhorred feminism and let's be honest, she wasn't too keen on Carol, much preferring Mark. She had a chance to smash the glass ceiling and make life better for women in this country, but she much preferred men. How many women in her cabinet?

 

So no, like so many others I am not ashamed to say that I will not mourn her death one iota and have no problem with those who choose to celebrate it. Like Blair, Bush, Reagan, Churchill, Kisssinger et al she was prepared for innocent people to die and to wage war to further her own political ends.

 

There is so much more I could write, but I have wasted enough time and effort on this vile woman. As an atheist I don't believe in heaven or hell, but hey even if she did go to hell, she would probably try and sell it off.

 

A beautiful woman died on April 8th. Rest in Peace Mum. XXX

 

Richie Moran

Rejoice!

In funeral black a special T-shirt from Philosophy Football.

This one is for the miners, the steelworkers, the printers, the millions unemployed, the injustices the Hillsborough families were forced to endure, the Poll Tax protesters, those who lost their lives on HMS Sheffield, and the Belgrano, for what? For the women of Greenham Common and the Trident missiles we didn’t want. For the NHS and the nurses, our schools and teachers, the council houses sold off, the privatisation of our public utilities, railways and buses. For our school milk. For the reputation of St Francis of Assisi.

In remembrance of all we lost 1979-90, much of it never returned to us. A life remembered with decent human sympathy. But lifetimes remembered too, scarred by divisions we’ll never forget.

Special offer just £17.99 until the ceremonial funeral.

Order before Friday12th and Philosophy Football will do their very best to get in time for you to wear on the day of the Funeral. Available here.