Luddite Posted February 1, 2022 Share Posted February 1, 2022 (edited) In discussion with @wastecoatwillyon another thread we went back and forth on how football has changed. It really belongs on a different thread so what follows is my theory piecing together events as I understand them. All opinions welcome and genuinely hoping to read some alternate views and learn something. I'm not looking to antagonize anybody, what follows is not "fact", just the perspective of an average Joe-Schmoe.... 1975 to 1978: Jock Wallace improves Rangers. Jock Stein and Celtic decline. Jim McLean improves Dundee Utd season-upon-season & Billy McNeill takes Aberdeen to within two games of a league/cup double. This kicks off a period, the only time in history, where the OF have been equally matched not just with each other (usually one OF team had been dominant) but also matched by provincial teams. 1978 - Alex Ferguson replaces McNeill at Aberdeen What a thing of beauty that would have been to have Stein, Wallace, Ferguson and McLean battling each other over the course of a season! Wasn’t to be though as Stein and Wallace leave their clubs the same week, both replaced by their reliable captains, McNeill and Greig respectively. ’75 to ’78 just also happens to be the period one Margaret Thatcher is Leader of The Opposition. With Busby retiring in ’71, Shankly retiring in ’74 and Stein spent as a force since his car crash in ’75 it’s pretty much the end of the traditional working class socialist managers, indicative of the change Thatcher will bring about to the trade union landscape in general. 0 Football clubs in “administration” during this period. 1979 to 1985: 2 English football clubs, 0 Scottish football clubs enter administration. Thatcher becomes PM and over the next few years molds every aspect of British life and every British citizen, her enemies included, (whether they realize it or not) in her image . Every single one of us. People bitch and moan and label her an evil witch, yet when it comes to “Right to Buy” or deregulation favouring small businesses/financial institutions and wider availability of shiny gadgets, toys and distractions for the plebs we all jump on board. So by the time she has finally crushed the miners, we don’t care. During this period Ferguson and Brian Clough rise, but they are a new type of “socialist”. They talk a big “collective” game, but Clough is a Thatcherite individualist and Fergie is a New Labour Thatcher-Blairite if ever there was one. 1986 to 1989: 3 English football clubs, 0 Scottish football clubs enter administration Ferguson leaves Aberdeen. Rangers director David Holmes and Lawrence Marlborough (US-based businessman and owner of the club) bring in Graeme Souness and shortly thereafter David Murray buys the club in '88. With Rangers having won just one league title since Jock Wallace's treble in '78, Murray breaks the bank to surpass Jock Stein’s achievements, aided by UEFA banning English teams from European competition, enticing top English players to move to Scotland. Celtic still operating out of a biscuit tin, Hearts’ hearts broken by events at Love Street, Aberdeen never to recover from Ferguson’s exit and Dundee United peaking with an agonizingly close UEFA cup/Scottish cup double that didn’t materialize. The Berlin wall comes down in 1989, bringing “the end of history” and Capitalism/Neoliberalism is the only game in town. We really are all Thatcherites now because There Is No Alternative. 1990 – 1996 9 English football clubs, 0 Scottish clubs enter administration Thatcher is out, but it doesn’t matter, Thatcher-ism is the water we all swim by this point. John Major is just a continuation but, even more importantly, Tony Blair, after a 1992 jaunt to meet with Bill Clinton’s advisors, starts planning Thatcher’s ultimate victory, the total vanquishing of any other considerations for how to organize an economy and govern a “society” (if there even is such a thing, according to ol’ Thatch). 1990: Italia ’90, a liminal football event on the threshold between traditional football and the shining city on a hill, serves to rehabilitate English football and English football fans. In the aftermath of Heysel, Bradford and Hillsborough much-needed stadia upgrades occur alongside other steps to sanitize the game and remove those pesky male working class ties....we are now supposed to be a “classless society” after all. 1992: The old English First Division gives way to The Premier League and Murdochball. Leeds United are the last champions to win that traditional league title before that horrendous Las-Vegas Beauty Pageant-esque Premiership trophy simply gets awarded to the richest club each year. This is also when the European Cup becomes the absurdly named Champions League. Another step towards creating money islands for the favored nations. ’94 Fergus McCann confiscates the biscuit tin and prepares Celtic for the 21st century because, again, There Is No Alternative….although at least he instills some sort of fiscally conservative ideals within the club, not cheating and bringing about their demise in the process. Without the kind of support the OF can garner, and with the Prem and "Champions" League becoming ever more glamorous the smaller Scottish clubs will be left in the dust. In other 1994 TINA news, Tony Blair becomes Leader of The Opposition and drags the country rightwards, obliterating any hopes of a strong left for decades/ever. 1995: Bosman ruling leads to player power leads to absolutely obscene amounts of money severing any possible connection players might have with every day fans. Those old-school traditional British managers who excelled in forging a group of working class lads into a cohesive force are finished, although Alex Ferguson, being the Blairite he is, adjusts seamlessly to the change. 1996: Euro ’96 and the sanitization/working class exorcism of English football is complete, and with Arsene Wenger joining Arsenal we see the first truly neoliberal manager in British football with his Taylorist measurable-data-driven-scientific-management ideology. 1997 to 2008 Between Tony Blair becoming Prime Minister in 1997 and the 2008 financial collapse / end of capitalism as a viable economic system / bank bailouts 32 English clubs and 8 Scottish clubs enter administration , with 2 being dissolved. Discuss... Edited February 2, 2022 by Luddite Formatting 15 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Monkey Tennis Posted February 1, 2022 Share Posted February 1, 2022 (edited) Lots and lots of stages, but I'd see the 1992 creation of England's Premier League as key. In European terms, the start of a Champions' League in 1992 is key, as is the switch to non champions qualifying in, I think, 1997. The technology that allowed football to be broadcast as it is was hugely significant, as was the change in consumer behaviour that meant people were willing to buy season tickets where that used to be a minority pursuit. I'm annoyed it's all been accepted and indeed embraced. Football fans are crap at organising. It needn't be anything like as imbalanced or expensive, but we're here now and it's shit. Edited February 1, 2022 by Monkey Tennis 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luddite Posted February 1, 2022 Author Share Posted February 1, 2022 Great point about organising I know the German structure isn't perfect by any means, but it something we should have aspired to. Alas, that ship has sunk. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crawford Posted February 1, 2022 Share Posted February 1, 2022 We went with satanta instead of sky. The rest is history. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alert Mongoose Posted February 1, 2022 Share Posted February 1, 2022 1 hour ago, Luddite said: Scottish clubs enter administration , with 2 being dissolved. Only read this bit. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luddite Posted February 1, 2022 Author Share Posted February 1, 2022 1 minute ago, Alert Mongoose said: Only read this bit. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luddite Posted February 1, 2022 Author Share Posted February 1, 2022 25 minutes ago, Crawford said: We went with satanta instead of sky. The rest is history. How do you see things turning out differently with Setanta? Wasn't it already Moneyball by that point? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alan_G Posted February 1, 2022 Share Posted February 1, 2022 Premier League and Sky are the turning point for me. Before then the gulf between the OF and other bigger clubs in Scotland for budgets was what 2-4:1. It's now 10:1? More? Previously the OF were on a par with European peers and now they are gulfed by them. (also funny when you hear one of them crying about the advantage the huge European teams have over them while ignoring the gulf from them to the rest of Scottish football). It's just galling that coming bottom of the second league in England gets more prize money than the entire top league in Scotland, all down to massive financial injection from TV money. Is there a good breakdown somewhere of ticket costs too as I am pretty sure if Scottish grounds costs inflated by 4 times in 40 years it will be 10 times elsewhere? So it's not even like clubs are using that cash injection from TV to subsidise their fans, they're spending more money cos it's there and demanding more from the fans who turn up. Bosman must have broken something significant too though. Growing up I was shocked seeing Dundee United paying 6 figures for players and now decades later we are lucky to get 6 figures for them. Meanwhile player transfer fees are going into millions for players who you might grudgingly think would fit on your teams bench. (although maybe Ivan Golac would have the last laugh and someone today would actually pay £20million for Jerren Nixon). 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tamthebam Posted February 1, 2022 Share Posted February 1, 2022 The rot set in when the League and SFA let corrupt greedy b*****ds move clubs from town to town. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luddite Posted February 1, 2022 Author Share Posted February 1, 2022 17 minutes ago, Alan_G said: also funny when you hear one of them crying about the advantage the huge European teams have over them while ignoring the gulf from them to the rest of Scottish football Have never been able to get my head around this at all 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luddite Posted February 2, 2022 Author Share Posted February 2, 2022 5 hours ago, Alan_G said: Premier League and Sky are the turning point for me. Before then the gulf between the OF and other bigger clubs in Scotland for budgets was what 2-4:1. It's now 10:1? More? Previously the OF were on a par with European peers and now they are gulfed by them. (also funny when you hear one of them crying about the advantage the huge European teams have over them while ignoring the gulf from them to the rest of Scottish football). It's just galling that coming bottom of the second league in England gets more prize money than the entire top league in Scotland, all down to massive financial injection from TV money. Is there a good breakdown somewhere of ticket costs too as I am pretty sure if Scottish grounds costs inflated by 4 times in 40 years it will be 10 times elsewhere? So it's not even like clubs are using that cash injection from TV to subsidise their fans, they're spending more money cos it's there and demanding more from the fans who turn up. Bosman must have broken something significant too though. Growing up I was shocked seeing Dundee United paying 6 figures for players and now decades later we are lucky to get 6 figures for them. Meanwhile player transfer fees are going into millions for players who you might grudgingly think would fit on your teams bench. (although maybe Ivan Golac would have the last laugh and someone today would actually pay £20million for Jerren Nixon). A lot of great points What’s your thoughts on Jim McLean mate? Seems to be very scant information on the guy, compared to the volumes on Fergie, Stein, Busby, Shankly, Clough, Revie etc 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Junior_Arab Posted February 2, 2022 Share Posted February 2, 2022 5 hours ago, Alan_G said: It's just galling that coming bottom of the second league in England gets more prize money than the entire top league in Scotland, all down to massive financial injection from TV money. I’m sure I heard somewhere that the team that finished bottom of the Premier League in England gets more than Real Madrid, even if Real were to win La Liga AND the Champions League. When you watch Man City now and compare it to a mid ranking Scottish Premier League game, it’s like a completely different sport. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Saint Huck Posted February 2, 2022 Share Posted February 2, 2022 15 minutes ago, Junior_Arab said: When you watch Man City now and compare it to a mid ranking Scottish Premier League game, it’s like a completely different sport. Personally, I'd still rather watch any Scottish mid ranking game to anything England offers. 17 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
coprolite Posted February 2, 2022 Share Posted February 2, 2022 8 hours ago, Luddite said: In discussion with @wastecoatwillyon another thread we went back and forth on how football has changed. It really belongs on a different thread so what follows is my theory piecing together events as I understand them. All opinions welcome and genuinely hoping to read some alternate views and learn something. I'm not looking to antagonize anybody, what follows is not "fact", just the perspective of an average Joe-Schmoe.... 1975 to 1978: Jock Wallace improves Rangers. Jock Stein and Celtic decline. Jim McLean improves Dundee Utd season-upon-season & Billy McNeill takes Aberdeen to within two games of a league/cup double. This kicks off a period, the only time in history, where the OF have been equally matched not just with each other (usually one OF team had been dominant) but also matched by provincial teams. 1978 - Alex Ferguson replaces McNeill at Aberdeen What a thing of beauty that would have been to have Stein, Wallace, Ferguson and McLean battling each other over the course of a season! Wasn’t to be though as Stein and Wallace leave their clubs the same week, both replaced by their reliable captains, McNeill and Greig respectively. ’75 to ’78 just also happens to be the period one Margaret Thatcher is Leader of The Opposition. With Busby retiring in ’71, Shankly retiring in ’74 and Stein spent as a force since his car crash in ’75 it’s pretty much the end of the traditional working class socialist managers, indicative of the change Thatcher will bring about to the trade union landscape in general. 0 Football clubs in “administration” during this period. 1979 to 1985: 2 English football clubs, 0 Scottish football clubs enter administration. Thatcher becomes PM and over the next few years molds every aspect of British life and every British citizen, her enemies included, (whether they realize it or not) in her image . Every single one of us. People bitch and moan and label her an evil witch, yet when it comes to “Right to Buy” or deregulation favouring small businesses/financial institutions and wider availability of shiny gadgets, toys and distractions for the plebs we all jump on board. So by the time she has finally crushed the miners, we don’t care. During this period Ferguson and Brian Clough rise, but they are a new type of “socialist”. They talk a big “collective” game, but Clough is a Thatcherite individualist and Fergie is a New Labour Thatcher-Blairite if ever there was one. 1986 to 1989: 3 English football clubs, 0 Scottish football clubs enter administration Ferguson leaves Aberdeen. Rangers director David Holmes and Lawrence Marlborough (US-based businessman and owner of the club) bring in Graeme Souness and shortly thereafter David Murray buys the club in '88. With Rangers having won just one league title since Jock Wallace's treble in '78, Murray breaks the bank to surpass Jock Stein’s achievements, aided by UEFA banning English teams from European competition, enticing top English players to move to Scotland. Celtic still operating out of a biscuit tin, Hearts’ hearts broken by events at Love Street, Aberdeen never to recover from the Ferguson’s exit and Dundee United peaking with an agonizingly close UEFA cup/Scottish cup double that didn’t materialize. The Berlin wall comes down in 1989, bringing “the end of history” and Capitalism/Neoliberalism is the only game in town. We really are all Thatcherites now because There Is No Alternative. 1990 – 1996 9 English football clubs, 0 Scottish clubs enter administration Thatcher is out, but it doesn’t matter, Thatcher-ism is the water we all swim by this point. John Major is just a continuation but, even more importantly, Tony Blair, after a 1992 jaunt to meet with Bill Clinton’s advisors, starts planning Thatcher’s ultimate victory, the total vanquishing of any other considerations for how to organize an economy and govern a “society” (if there even is such a thing, according to ol’ Thatch). 1990: Italia ’90, a liminal football event on the threshold between traditional football and the shining city on a hill, serves to rehabilitate English football and English football fans. In the aftermath of Heysel, Bradford and Hillsborough much-needed stadia upgrades occur alongside other steps to sanitize the game and remove those pesky male working class ties....we are now supposed to be a “classless society” after all. 1992: The old English First Division gives way to The Premier League and Murdochball. Leeds United are the last champions to win that traditional league title before that horrendous Las-Vegas Beauty Pageant-esque Premiership trophy simply gets awarded to the richest club each year. This is also when the European Cup becomes the absurdly named Champions League. Another step towards creating money islands for the favored nations. ’94 Fergus McCann confiscates the biscuit tin and prepares Celtic for the 21st century because, again, There Is No Alternative….although at least he instills some sort of fiscally conservative ideals within the club, not cheating and bringing about their demise in the process. Without the kind of support the OF can garner, and with the Prem and "Champions" League becoming ever more glamorous the smaller Scottish clubs will be left in the dust. In other 1994 TINA news, Tony Blair becomes Leader of The Opposition and drags the country rightwards, obliterating any hopes of a strong left for decades/ever. 1995: Bosman ruling leads to player power leads to absolutely obscene amounts of money severing any possible connection players might have with every day fans. Those old-school traditional British managers who excelled in forging a group of working class lads into a cohesive force are finished, although Alex Ferguson, being the Blairite he is, adjusts seamlessly to the change. 1996: Euro ’96 and the sanitization/working class exorcism of English football is complete, and with Arsene Wenger joining Arsenal we see the first truly neoliberal manager in British football with his Taylorist measurable-data-driven-scientific-management ideology. 1997 to 2008 Between Tony Blair becoming Prime Minister in 1997 and the 2008 financial collapse / end of capitalism as a viable economic system / bank bailouts 32 English clubs and 8 Scottish clubs enter administration , with 2 being dissolved. Discuss... I like your Adam Curtis style interweaving of a few select simplified narratives. Particularly linking the increase in inequality between clubs and players with the neoliberal consensus. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clown Job Posted February 2, 2022 Share Posted February 2, 2022 I’d say around 1893 when they allowed the game to go professional Its never recovered from it 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luddite Posted February 2, 2022 Author Share Posted February 2, 2022 1 hour ago, Junior_Arab said: I’m sure I heard somewhere that the team that finished bottom of the Premier League in England gets more than Real Madrid, even if Real were to win La Liga AND the Champions League. When you watch Man City now and compare it to a mid ranking Scottish Premier League game, it’s like a completely different sport. If your first comment is true that is absolutely insane. And your second point is fairly accurate, although I am now much more appreciative of what’s being offered in the mid ranking Scottish game. Took me too long to get there though, spending many years believing the hype around the English Prem and Champions League 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luddite Posted February 2, 2022 Author Share Posted February 2, 2022 (edited) 34 minutes ago, coprolite said: I like your Adam Curtis style interweaving of a few select simplified narratives. Particularly linking the increase in inequality between clubs and players with the neoliberal consensus. Cheers mate. I’m still trying to piece it together for myself so hoping insight from others will maybe correct me or bring new perspectives to light. Already had a few avenues to explore. Don’t know why it’s so important to me, just feel like I/we have been robbed of something. Any Adam Curtis stuff you could recommend? I’ve been reading a lot of Mark Fisher and Simon Reynolds stuff the past few years, and Curtis’ name keeps coming up. Edited February 2, 2022 by Luddite 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
forkboy Posted February 2, 2022 Share Posted February 2, 2022 7 minutes ago, Luddite said: Cheers mate. I’m still trying to piece it together for myself so hoping insight from others will maybe correct me or bring new perspectives to light. Already had a few avenues to explore. Don’t know why it’s so important to me, just feel like I/we have been robbed of something. Any Adam Curtis stuff you could recommend? I’ve been reading a lot of Mark Fisher and Simon Reynolds stuff the past few years, and Curtis’ name keeps coming up. Good starting point is a short he did for Screenwipe, Oh Dearism. Can then recommend the longer docs like Hypernormalisation, All Watched Over By Machines Of Loving Grace & last years Can't Get You Out Of My Head, all 3 of which should be on the iPlayer 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luddite Posted February 2, 2022 Author Share Posted February 2, 2022 3 minutes ago, forkboy said: Good starting point is a short he did for Screenwipe, Oh Dearism. Can then recommend the longer docs like Hypernormalisation, All Watched Over By Machines Of Loving Grace & last years Can't Get You Out Of My Head, all 3 of which should be on the iPlayer An, Hypernormalisation is on one of my watch lists somewhere…didn’t realize or forgot that was him. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Monkey Tennis Posted February 2, 2022 Share Posted February 2, 2022 5 hours ago, Clown Job said: I’d say around 1893 when they allowed the game to go professional Its never recovered from it Stupid, facetious, self-serving pish. Professional football needn't be as wildly imbalanced as it is, which is why, for most of its existence, it wasn't. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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