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
Doug Stenhouse offers his predictions for the forthcoming season
Imagine a club in your league makes up a new rule to dissolve the competition as it stands and form a new league expelling five clubs. Imagine all the clubs are circulated with the proposal except the five to be expelled. Couldn’t happen? It has happened before: this is exactly what Glasgow Rangers tried to do in Scotland at the end of 1965-66. The five were Stranraer, Albion Rovers, Berwick Rangers, Stenhousemuir and Brechin. Only a last ditch court room battle and intense lobbying by Berwick chairman George Shiel won the day. A costly result for Rangers as two years later they lost to lowly Berwick in the Scottish Cup.
A fans' preview of the Scotland's Division One season
AIRDRIE
Jim Milton
How will your team do? Well we made the playoffs last season when nobody fancied us, so the same again must be within our grasp. Much will depend on manager Alex MacDonald’s close season activities.
Most important figure? With the club about to return to its roots with the opening of our new stadium, chairman David Smith’s role in relaunching the Diamonds within the community will be crucial.
New piece of merchandise? A Johnny Martin goalkeeping doll that burps, farts and swings on a replica crossbar.
Change to matchday environment? Bring back the target golf or referee/goalie mime troupe which proved so popular years ago at Bloomfield, and dump all these pointless mascots.
An assessment of the likely winners and losers in Scotland in 1997/98 – no prizes for guessing the former
ABERDEEN
Keith Davidson
How will your team do this season? With Celtic having a complete shake-up over the close season, perhaps second, although the general view from the Scottish press is fourth.
John Williams of the Sir Norman Chester Centre for Football Research previews some of the main findings of the 1997 Carling Premiership survey due to be published next month
You know that smug Carling poster ad, with the guy with his head in his hands contemplating the message of his son’s catastrophic defection to (gulp) rugby? The words a father most dreads hearing? Forget it. Much worse is to learn that your offspring has resisted the obvious charms of your own footballing heroes for another football club.