FOOTIE

Football, according to the Liverpool legend Bill Shankly, is much more important than life and death. I wouldn’t go that far,though, but football is the pivot of a lot of people’s lives.

As far as I’m concerned modern football isn’t as appealing and important to me as it used to be. The reasons for that are manifold. There is, for instance, the factor money which has driven players and supporters apart. The odd Joe Bloggs in the stands cannot relate to the large sums paid to players these days. Some players earn around 100,000 quid a week – more than the large majority of supporters pocket in a year.

Another thing is the set up of the teams. You hardly find any home-grown talents in any of the major teams anymore. The players mainly come from all parts of the world but from the country, let alone the city, they’re playing in. The latter they often do on a short-term basis and hardly ever sit out their contracts. As a result, their bond with the respective club isn’t exactly strong and supporters find it ever more difficult to identify with the squad.

Talking about supporters, their make-up has also changed over the last let’s say 10-15 years. I’ve been following Man United for ages and, unlike many other clubs, a lot of the same people still go, although the number of supporters increased considerably in the late 90’s when United kept winning trophies galore, culminating in winning an unprecedented treble in 1999. From then on, it all went downhill for me and a lot of others. You couldn’t top this anymore, but we carried on regardless and followed the Reds all over Europe. We went to places as far away as Athens or Belgrade and always had a cracking time. But the team started falling apart and hasn’t achieved anything major in Europe since then.

This season I only went to Paris to watch United play Lille, which was one of the most appalling United performances I can remember. The trip, however, was dead funny though, with thousands of Reds roaming the streets around Gare du Nord. You still bump into the same nutters everywhere you go with United, which makes me go time and again. At Old Trafford you get the armies of glory hunters that also plague the likes of Chelsea and Arsenal. But away from home you still find many of the old die-hard United fans.

2005 was a sad year for all United fans since our legend George Best died in November. The grief and anticipation all around the British isles was enormous. Apart from the teasing the usual suspects from Merseyside and across the Pennines dished out everyone was united in mourning this outstanding player and character. I never had the privilege to see Georgie boy play live but the few tapes I saw made me realize how good he must have been. On top of that he was an extraordinary bloke and football’s first true pop star.

It’s at this point that I’m coming back to modernism and the Sixties. George Best reached his prime in the late 60’s and was very much part of the London lifestyle of then, which is often referred to as Swinging London. He was often seen partying the night before major games, courting the birds in a swish nightclub with a drink or to in his hands and a grin on his face. Not only did he become a ladies’ man, but he also turned into a fashion icon, always looking the part and opening his own boutique down in Soho.

But London also caused him to ruin his career and leave the game prematurely. When he got the sack at United he did try his luck at clubs like Southampton, Fulham or Hibs. He even spent some time playing football, or rather boozing, in the US. One of his plethora of quotes aptly describes the spell across the Atlantic when he said something along the lines: ‘When I played in the US I lived only five minutes from the ocean. I never made it to the water though because there was a bar on the way to the beach’.

There are numerous other stunts to tell of, all of which can be found in his excellent autobiography Blessed, in which he tells of the women and the booze that eventually left his life in shatters.

What has all this to do with mods you may ask? Well, many British youth cultures had strong links with football, and the mod movement was no exception. Violence and clothing, clubbing and music, and, of course, women – mods and football lads alike took to pursuing similar pastime activities. Many football lads used to be mods or still were when the era of battling at football games was launched in the late Sixties and, with a vengeance, during the Seventies. Many older football lads I know still have fond memories of scooter ride-outs, brawls with the Old Bill and northern soul nights at The Twisted Wheel in Manchester. They grew up with both, the football and the mods.

Even today, at the big scooter rallies such as the one on The Isle of Wight, you bump into loads of footie lads who are still pretty much into scootering and all things connected to the skinhead and mod scene.

On the Continent, again, the interests are not really the same. There are a few people who are into football and mod lifestyle, but the majority prefer watching a match on the telly – if they are at all interested in football. But then again, it’s each to his own…

 

To be continued…