Russia should have been a wake up call but it seems football will sleep walk into a disaster.
I’m a bit later and if I’m honest I thought 90s football a bit dire, 00s was fun mind.
I’ve decided 90% of stuff around football is utter garbage, it’s 90 minutes now music on if it’s us and commentary on depending on who it is otherwise. Don’t bother with punditry before or after. Never cared for analysis before a game regardless.
Whatever it is we won 6 of them 
The Women’s Euros in the summer were actually brilliant. Hugely enjoyable and a brilliant atmosphere coming across in every game. The WC was 90% dire. Mostly players going through the motions. Only the African fans seemed to add any authenticity to proceedings.
On a personal note, my interest in LFC is just as strong, perhaps even stronger, than it ever was. There are probably two reasons for that: family and distance.
My son is a Liverpool fan too, and watching the game together is a great bonding thing for us. On a related note we each have a Prem fantasy team to see who can get the better of the other each week.
The distance might be a factor, as I moved to the States years ago, and keeping up with the football, in particular Liverpool, keeps me in touch with where I’m from, and I like that.
Back in the day two of my brothers went to the match all the time. I went less than they did. They were both at Hillsborough, and one of them was in the crush at the Leppings Lane end. Fortunately he survived, but it messed him up, and he has barely been since, though he attends the annual service at Anfield.
My dad went to the match when he was younger, and he talks about St John, Roger Hunt, Shanks and so on. He is well into retirement now, but when I phone him up and ask him about how he is doing we invariably get around to the match.
In some ways it is just football, and it is insignificant. But in other ways we make it what it is, and for me it is a lifeline through which I am connected to my roots and also passing something on to my own son.
As for what has happened in the game, with all the money and the dodgy ownership regimes and so on, it is sickening. The game needs much better leadership, so that sporting integrity might be preserved. The financial cheating is barely concealed, as clubs manufacture fake revenue streams and wage a PR war to normalize what they do.
At that point I am pretty sure that some sort of reckoning, or reset, is coming.
When, and in what form, is hard to predict, but the current trajectory is unsustainable.
Think lockdown was a turning point for me.
Made me more aware than I’d previously allowed myself to be, that football is so unimportant compared to so many other life events that we just take for granted.
Sure, it’s a form of entertainment, but the more thought I give it, the more it sickens me that in a country that has thousands of homeless and destitute people, we have this elite bunch being paid millions a year for kicking a pigs bladder around.
I’ll continue to watch it, but no longer make it a priority above other things I’ve arranged, and I’ll likely never be inside Anfield again
football is now almost 2 sports to me.
1st being the sanitised, robotic, over analised product that is the premier league… i love watching Liverpool with the kids, and its a great way to explain tactics, look at skill levels and discuss what it would take to become a paid proffessional. Its the pinacle of quality (even in our current form) and you have to show great appreciation for what it takes to get there…the noise surrounding it- even on here and at the local club- is weird, in that everyone seems to think they have a footballing degree, and everyone seems to think they, and only they, have the access codes to what makes the ‘correct’ football team, with the ‘correct’ players. as if its all a simple jigsaw…i find that funny in a way and sad in another, as for the kids i see who take a side, theres something about the tribal like banter that doesnt sit right with me, its toxic…for example, a kid will walk to the club and a simple statement like ‘shame about the club’ from an adult to a fucking kid is poisionous…why not just talk to them about football instead of bordering on belittling them.
2nd is the local football…its the real beautiful game, the one with the kid trying her best to improve her technique, the one with the bunch of 20 year olds spat out by better clubs who just wanna have a kick with their mates on a sunday league, its the one with the old men refusing to stop hanging out with each other and playing a decent bit of footy, its the one with the opposition parents congratulating or commiserating the other team becuase they played in good spirit, its the one where the kids score a goal and the look of delight for each other is papable instead of looking for a trademark celebration they can instagram…its all of those things and nothing SKY can do, nothing CR7 can do, nothing Dubai can do, can change it.
people fall into the trap of thinking just becuase hes a better player or he gets paid more or had a better career the game some how belongs ‘more’ to him…it doesnt…its our game and nothing anyone can do can stop it being so.
2nd
^^^ Great post
Be nice
There is a thread from Gordon Brown on twitter in a similar vein to this.
The only thing is I saw the link to the Guardian and couldn’t help but think that they were missing the bleeding point.
Couldn’t agree more, especially with this. Had this only yesterday. My eleven year old was walking around the house yesterday in his Liverpool shirt, and the builder we had in starting doing ‘bantz’ about football. Junior just looked really confused and I had to explain it’s just banter.
In a nutshell
Ironically it would make more sense to have called it Champions League pre-1993 and to currently call it the European Cup to mask the fact that it’s not just champions who participate any more
Sky call it Champions League but as far as I can make out… there is no league to win…!
The European Cup on the other hand well… What is it Jordan is raising above his head here… Looks like a Cup that was won in Europe :0)
1993, the year football sold it’s soul and started to eat itself.
It’s scoffed the entree, demolished the main course, and is now moving on to dessert.
couldnt find the FIFA world cup thread so stuck it in here as its kinda relevant…ish…
but FIFA have apparently decided to open an investigation into Argentinas behavoir after the WCF…
fucking. LOL.
after that whole fucking shambles, they are going to come down hard on a few players celebrating the wrong way.
fucking. roll. on. the. floor. LOL
you dickheads.
Bloody Argentinians
Edited to add
Or the ism thread would have been good as well.
and another…
Lovely
Pop/football will eat itself
Let’s be glad they only moved the Community shield to Leicester.