Modern day football.
Like all things (supposedly), football is better now than it used to be in the old days, because simply put we have progressed. With the benefit of more knowledge, better education, faster technology, sporting breakthroughs in science, modern day football is so much better nowadays.
But sadly, modern day football, like modern day life, in it’s desperation to demonstrate continued progression, the pursuit of true progress has fallen by the wayside to progressiveness. Producing something which is so sterile, it is devoid of the passionate football we fell in love with all those years ago. It has become something which we barely recognise, the bare skeleton of 22 men on a pitch, dripping only in rags of ridiculous rules, VAR, TV companies (along with their biased narratives) and money, money, money.
What am I on about now, Dear Readers?
I have finally brought myself round to watching the Livarpool game.
Ah.
Now you know what I am going on about. And I have to say, I use the word “watching” in it’s loosest meaning. Those of you who subscribe to SkyTVisf**ings**t understand what I am on about. The bit that I was really interested in “watching”, I couldn’t actually “watch”. As Gary “If Rashford can get an OBE for a non football related thing, why can’t I get one” Neville kept reminding us, “they” couldn’t show us the challenge.
Why not, Gary?
By the way, Gary, I understand you want to be the one who champions “real” football fans who want “fairer” football for fans. I understand you want football to have more stringent rules of ownership etc. and you want “proper fans” to have more power and a say of how they want their football clubs to work. I know, because you say this ad infinitum given the opportunity. But I don’t think you understand the hypocrisy of where you are coming from. If you take your situation in it’s most basic form, you are a TV pundit. Your wages are paid for by the very TV company who has singlehandedly helped ruin football for matchgoing fans since 1992. The team you part own, Salford FC is sponsored by a division of the parent company of SkyTVisf**kings**t. By this virtue alone, YOU are part of the problem, NOT the solution. I love it how you preach (on SkyTVisf**kings**t) about how fans are cheated by bureaucracy and how “the System” needs to reflect what fans want and that fans “need a voice” and true representation. All this whilst you and your pundit pals are responsible for churning your rhetoric narrative, nauseatingly at times, in order to get what your bosses, the True Gods of Football, want. Which is football on 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, so they can get their audiences and all their viewing figures up there to create all the advertising income they need to fund their greed. The greed which in turn, feeds the greedy agents and players who just want to line their pockets more. The TV companies need constant exposure and their pursuit of their global brand is the only thing that drives their ambition. Their addiction is publicity, and they will stop at nothing to keep themselves at the top of that tree. Why do you think they spend so much time on the non stories which are the transfer windows when the football isn’t particularly interesting? Why do you think they blow every little bit of “news” out of proportion? To keep the audience figures up, Gary. It’s airtime and the longer they can keep folk addicted to their channels, the better.
Gary, give yourself a break lad. You aren’t going to get an OBE like Rashford. Even though he could feed all the poor and needy children in the UK with what he earns in a week. Even though, what he gets in sponsorship alone in a day is more than what most people earn in a year, no one will see that. Why? Because they choose to ignore it. It’s like film and TV stars at the Oscars, or the Emmys making “statements” about lack of inclusivity and poverty, all whilst parading obscenely expensive outfits and jewellery, barely a stone’s throw from some of the most impoverished people in the cardboard box ghettos of Hollywood and New York. The stench of hypocrisy hidden from the glittery lights by the perfume of the middle class Elite.
I digress – back to the blog.
Free the Pascal One.
Why couldn’t you show that tackle, Gary?
Was it really that bad? After all, from where I was in my stand, it didn’t actually look that bad. In real time, Struijk went in for the challenge, they both got up from it, or at least Elliot tried to get up but sat back down again. The ref turned, looked at them and played on. Both of the teams played on for a few seconds. Salah went up to Elliot, told him to stay down and Gurning Klopp ran onto the pitch. Then a load of people ran onto the pitch. It was then, and only then, must have been 10 seconds later, that the ref ran back and blew. I couldn’t see what was going on properly, the stretcher with the head stabilising board came onto the pitch, but Elliot was clearly conscious. It didn’t look like a head injury. Yes, there was a load of confusion, but the lad was clearly alert and it wasn’t a concussion. It wasn’t an incident like the sad Christian Eriksen episode, which incidentally the cameras were focused on 100%. Did Gary and SkyTVisf**kings**t think it was as serious as this? Honestly?
I’m no doctor, but I’m pretty sure if someone is still conscious and moving, they are safe. In real time, if the challenge was that dangerous the ref should have stopped the game there and then and brandished his red card, rather than waiting for Klopp, Stockley Park, the 4th official and the rest of Klopps relatives to tell him to do so. It wouldn’t have surprised me if GCHQ, Menwith Hill and the Big Ball at Fylingdales hadn’t put their two pennorth in as well. And all the time, there was Gary on SkyTVisf**kings**t saying “We can’t show it”.
Why Gary? We have all seen Roy Keane’s tackle on Alfie. We all saw Cantona’s two footed leap at that Palace fan. We even saw that Son tackle on Everton’s Gomes.
The TV audience has been completely desensitised to any violence / peril / gore over the last 30 years. What is the actual difference of watching that tackle going to make?
30 years ago, you wouldn’t have heard the F word said in the cinema without having a XXX certificate shoved in your face. You used to have “parental advisory” stickers on your “risque” album covers. Now Samuel L Jackson has that as his personal Snakes On A M****F***** Plane motto and even cartoon characters use smutty language.
We were brought up on the likes of Clint Eastwood in Dirty Harry, and Rocky and Rambo. Later on it was Tarantino and Kill Bill et al. The 30+ year olds were brought up on a diet of GTA and TuPac & Biggie gangland shootings. The 20+ year olds have been brought up with SAW, Gears of War and Halo. The 15 year olds are brought up Fortnite and The Walking Dead. The average 18 rated film of the 80s in the cinema, has now been totally eclipsed by the 15 rating films in today’s film theatres. We don’t need to be protected and cossetted by SkyTVisf**kings**t and FA old codgers censors board. As if you lot know what is right and proper, your moral compass is so far apart you wouldn’t know inpropriety if it smacked you in the face with a wet fish.
With the advent of Youtube and social media, all you need to do is whisper something about action films and those cheeky algorithms will select similar content for you to see next time you switch your device on. Tailored content which increasingly gets more intense the more you look. Before you know it, you could go from Colin The Caterpillar to watching The Human Centipede. Incidentally, this is an extremely unpleasant film – please do not go to Blockbuster and hire it.
What I am trying to say is that, in the 70s and 80s the scariest films you saw were Carrie, The Omen and Salems Lot. Nowadays, even the 12a films show violence and bad language de riguer. Limbs being hacked off and 15 minute fight scenes are common place. The Disney Channel is the only place to watch The Walking Dead. Disney – that’s right – the company that brought you Steamboat Willy and Minnie Mouse, showing you gruesome, gory zombie fight scenes.
Some of the Drill and Grime music on the radio glorifies gangs and violence and the music videos that kids and young people aspire to show scantily clad persons in suggestive poses and are little with lurid language. It’s a far cry from the New Seekers “I’d Like To Teach The World To Sing” and “All Kinds Of Everything” by Dana. We sat through the Sex Pistols and Punk for Pete’s sake. No one needs a modern day Tipper Gore to protect us. And for those of you who don’t know what I mean, here is the link. The might of Christian values and wholesome good Old American values – God Bless Dee Snider
https://www.udiscovermusic.com/stories/filthy-fifteen-pmrc-censorship/
The viewing customers of today have been so anaesthetised by modern day life, nothing is going to phase them, Gary. Modern day sport includes a dedicated boxing channel, two competitors punching the living daylights out of each other. Boxing is an Olympic sport. MMA which is much more violent, isn’t an Olympic sport, but it’s still readily available to stream. Two guys punching and kicking the s**t out of each other in a cage.
So, Gary, when you say “We can’t show you this” and “No one wants to see this sort of thing” actually no. Not really. No one is particularly bothered about a football challenge. Christian Eriksen having a medical emergency, that’s what we don’t want to see. A competitive challenge in a contact sport? That’s part and parcel of the professional game.
I’ll tell you what we don’t like to see in the professional game. Cheating and diving or to give it it’s modern day football correct terminology, clever game management. We don’t like to see things shown out of context, manipulated by the TV camera angles to make things look different to what they actually are. We don’t like deliberate selective misinterpretation, for effect, in order to sensationalise something. We don’t like to hear insinuation, supposition, hearsay or speculation, which may exaggerate or over emphasise something that isn’t really true. We really just want to watch the football as it happens on the pitch and listen to the commentary of the game as it happens.
As for Elliot, I hope he gets well soon. No hard feelings. Even he admits the challenge was fair and the way he landed, or perhaps how he stood up after the challenge caused the accident which damaged his ankle. At least he admitted it. He will hopefully heal and get back quickly as he’s young. Struijk? How long is it going to take him to heal? He’s been accused of deliberately going in with an illegal dangerous challenge. He didn’t, it was a fair tackle. He knows that, Elliot knows that. The FA may know that, but they are not going to admit it. After all, with all the furore that it has generated, with all the mass hysteria from Klopp and his team, with all the confusion from the ref not looking at VAR (why do they have VAR again?). Together with all the exaggeration from the TV pundits, they are going to look a little bit stupid if they withdraw the red card.
All this just plays right into the old adage of Them v Us. As if Leeds fans didn’t already have a massive persecution complex. As if we didn’t need anymore excuses to feel let down by the FA and footballing authorities Elite.
They All Hate Leeds Scum