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A two-way debate about re-introducing standing room at English football grounds has raged since ever since all seater stadiums were introduced, and both sides of have strong, well developed arguments to back them up. However, the unfortunate reality is that much of the debate is rendered invalid by the simple maxim: money talks. Until fans and fans’ groups realise that, no-one is going to listen to what they have to say.
Things don’t change in football without money as a motivation. The 1989 Taylor report is, rightly, associated with increased safety at football grounds in England. The reforms that it introduced – most crucially, all-seater stadiums – have been effective in, bluntly, stopping deaths at football grounds. However, looking more closely at how the Taylor report came about, and in particular who sanctioned it, gives an indication as to why things changed. Fans’ safety, alone, was not enough to make the authorities act. More likely, the prospect of re-branding English football to bring in the custom of a newly affluent middle class, was in the mind of Thatcher’s business-loving government, and future Premier League chairmen, when they decided that safety was finally an important issue. It cannot be a coincidence that the Premier League ‘occured’ just two years after the Taylor report.
Any move back to allowing some standing room, then, as has recently been proposed by the Football Supporters’ Federation, must convince clubs that there is profit in it for them. Because, if safety doesn’t force change, then ‘a better atmosphere at games’ certainly won’t. It’s not about what you want, it’s about what you can afford.
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Last night’s announcement that Gareth Bale has been named PFA Player of the Year was not a great surprise to many. Bale fought off competition from the likes of Charlie Adam, Rafael van der Vaart, Carlos Tevez and Nemanja Vidic to scoop the prestigious award, voted for the highest proportion of his fellow professionals.
What has raised eyebrows amongst the media and fans alike however is the fact that voting for the award closes at the beginning of March! Surely we are in a position to question the nature by which a player is crowned PFA Player of the Year with a third of the season still remaining. Michael Owen eluded to the strange nature of the voting system on his Twitter account, tweeting that “Only half the season has gone when we post our vote.” He did however pass on his congratulations to Gareth Bale and PFA Young Player of the Year Jack Wilshere.
Stan Collymore, now a leading pundit on TalkSport Radio also tweeted his feelings on the matter, suggesting that “PFA should now have player of season rather than player of year. We work in seasons from Aug-May,so only that period should count.” Having experienced the voting system throughout his career, Collymore also stated that “Problem is,ballots are given out and done as a bit of a giggle in the dressing room.” We as football fans know that this award may not be all that is seems. So have the right players won this ‘Years’ awards?
Gareth Bale is the fourth Welshman ever to have won the prestigious prize. Having had an excellent start to the season, Bale’s form for Tottenham in the Premier League and Champions League was outstanding. Bale shows many of the characteristics of a young Ryan Giggs in the way that he moves with the ball and eases past opponents. His eye for goal has seen him score on 11 occasions this season (seven PL, 4 CL) and notch up three assists in the League. Bale’s injury problems however have seen him miss nearly 800 minutes of Premier League football this season so far! Some would say that Blackpools’ Charlie Adam is hard done by, having scored nine goals and achieved seven assists in the Premier League alone. He has also only missed three games (and these were due to suspension). Whilst I don’t want to assess the credibility of all the PFA candidates, I consider it important to note a significant absence from the nominees. Everton’s Leighton Baines has played 2970 minutes of Premier League football this season, meaning he has not missed a minute. During this time he has scored on four occasions and assisted 11 goals! His ability to defend as well as attack is comparable to Gareth Bale. The fact that Baines was 1. Not nominated for the Player of the Year award and 2. Not included in the PFA Team of the Year is simply a travesty. In typical form, seven of the 11 players selected in the Team of the Year came from Man Utd or Arsenal.
PFA Young Player of the Year
This award was far more accurate in terms of the credibility of the Winner. Arsenal’s Jack Wilshere has broken into the first team and has shown maturity way beyond his years. Perhaps his most significant performance came over two legs when his Arsenal side met Barcelona in the Champions League. Despite eventually exiting the competition, Wilshere’s indvidual performance was outstanding. Amongst the world’s finest Midfielder’s in Xavi, Iniesta and Messi; Wilshere looked calm in possession, creative and not in the slightest bit overawed. Wilshere has also broken into the England team this season and rightly so. Other nominees for the award such as Joe Hart (Man City), Luis Nani and Javier Hernandez (Man Utd) and Gareth Bale (Tottenham) were rightly beaten to the PFA Young Player Award by a player who will certainly captain England in years to come.
So… the PFA awards go by for another year. Whilst I certainly do not begrudge the winners of each award, I maintain my argument that the voting system is flawed. Having to cast a vote for the season’s outstanding players with 12 week’s remaining of the season is ludicrous. One would hope that next year’s awards may be entitled the ‘PFA Player of the Season Awards’, with the significant word being ‘season’ not ‘year’! One would also hope that the Team of the Year showed a little more diversity by selecting outstanding players from teams outside the Premier League’s top four.
You can join in the debate this evening on TalkSport Radio, where Mark Saggers and Stan Collymore are sure to tackle this debate head on during their live phone-in show. For now, we say Congratulations to Gareth Bale and Jack Wilshere on their respective awards.
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Who would voluntarily choose to be a Sunday League referee?
Meet Mo Awill
Childhood is seemingly the defining factor in what position someone ends up spending the majority of their life playing the beautiful game in. The sprinter on the wing, the disciplinarian in the middle and the big lad will play at the back.
These are formulaic standards that characterize most people’s earliest associations with football. For some people though there is a hole in this and it’s referee shaped.
Apparently not fussed by the glory of participating in the match, those who choose to be referees selflessly blend into the background so that law and order can be maintained in sometimes physically passionate circumstances.
The role of referee is in general a thankless one, just ask Mark Clattenburg. One mistake puts your position in the spotlight and the countless correct and acutely well observed ones are immediately forgotten about. After all if a referee has a good game, it isn’t back page news.
If a player makes a mistake though they’re are able to hide behind the potential successes of their team-mates, but a referee has no such safety, as if he makes a mistake he’s alone, often in a sea of disagreeing fans and players.
Thankfully some people are seemingly gluttons for punishment and are willing to accept these pitfalls and voluntarily choose to oversee games of all levels, but why? Mo Awill is one such person.
He isn’t though a Premier League referee, or even a referee in a professional division, he has the most thankless task in football. He’s a referee in London’s Southern Sunday Football League.
To make matters worse, when I go to see him it’s a bleak and cold winter’s day, pouring down with rain and it’s prematurely dark considering it’s only a little after midday.
It must be love if you’re happy to play in these conditions. Welcome to the Southern Sunday Football League
Barring the girlfriend of a player, no one was watching the game, the rain was lashing down on a drearily dark afternoon, the pitch was a few glasses of water short of a bog and the goal net was held in place by twigs, which had been used as substitutes for missing pegs.
This isn’t the glamorous football that millions of people have familiarised themselves with on TV thanks to Sky Sports extensive coverage of the game, this is something entirely different. This is Gun Show vs. Sporting Club Balham in the Fourth Division of the Southern Sunday Football League.
There were no comfortable seats from which to watch the game, just a muddy surrounding area and there was no protection from the unrelenting rain. Welcome to Clapham Common and it’s a million miles away from the comfort of the Premier League.
The game itself was dominated by the squelching of the ground underfoot, as players initially struggled to adapt to the swamp like conditions and at times the play resembled a rugby scrum, with players doing their best to hide the colours of their team by covering themselves in mud.
With players often running past the ball as it remained stubbornly in the thick earth the game became a test of endurance and determination, as the teams fought to overcome the English winter weather.
At first glance this could be considered a horrible scenario that no one should put themselves through, but on closer inspection and with the benefit of the same feeling towards the game, I understood that this was a genuine expression of love.
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