Fans Comment
Ged Simpson

Everton: a pack of subversives?
24 November 2004

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Recognise this?

• Rodney Marsh on Sky expressing his certainty that Everton will be overtaken by Liverpool and Manchester United.
   
• Newspaper football columnists saying that the bubble must burst and calling into question the ability of a premiership team to remain committed for a whole season without having big names signed in January on huge wages.
   
• The same reporters insisting that Moysey must buy names they consider good enough in January.
   
• Pundits saying it is encouraging that Everton and Bolton can do well on limited resources…before turning to the more crucial question of whether a Man Utd player was hit by a vol au vent or a pizza.

So what’s this all about?

I tended to think until recently that it was pundits liking the football of Arsenal, Chelsea or Man Utd.  They could remember the success of the Reds a few decades ago and give them disproportionate airtime or column inches?

Jesus…  I’m naïve.

It is becoming clear to me that this is little to do with any kind of objective reporting or analysis.  This is about the passengers on a big gravy train ensuring that their loco does not run out of fuel.  The essence of the Premiership and its wealth is the merging of football with celebrity.  It is about making the wealth and private lives of the players more important than the football they play.  David Beckham and his wife are the embodiment of what this is all about.

This is about personality cult.

It is a marketing strategy that works well.  They know the football fans will largely remain with their team.  However the celebrity angle brings in those legions of exploited airheads who also read The Sun, Hello and OK, watch GMTV and probably struggle with the quiz on This Morning.

As in the world of film and pop celebrity, there emerge legions of people who can invent and then comment on the latest stories…..the price of a watch Wayne Rooney’s girlfriend buys to the latest off field bust-up.  What is vital for all involved, from players to showbiz columnists, is that there is excess.  There must be huge amounts of money to create the interest.

Equally important is the individual. The individual must be rich, good looking or talented, misunderstood, upset, in dispute, having an affair, about to move abroad etc.  The concept of the team is a dangerous threat.  There are not enough stories in the team.  A wife does not leave the team.  An agent cannot manipulate a whole team.  Imaginary twenty-five-times-a-night bedtime performance loses newsworthiness (if not realism) for a team of twenty five players.  The team bring the focus to the football pitch.  This is not the place where the money is made.

So back to Rodney Marsh and the rest of them.  The last thing any of them would want is for Bolton or Everton to win something.  Both teams have managers with great-team building skills.  This would be catastrophic to an industry that wants to report on the individual.  How can they justify their wages if all they can report on is every Everton player constantly saying that it was a team effort and no-one stood out.  That to be third in the table they have needed to work bloody hard rather than spend £30M on some player who has achieved his name by bedding a member of Girls Aloud and buying a house in Cheshire.

Even worse could happen.  What if Bolton, for example, won the Premiership and then the players all said they wanted to stay at Bolton and rejected moves to Chelsea, Man Utd or Real Madrid?  For God’s sake, this would not do!  If there are no huge transfers in football, writers may have to comment on the game.

The result could be a return to a game played on a Saturday that was accessible to those earning less that the top tax band.  It could mean footballers being footballers and fans being fans of their football.  It is vital that the chances of such clubs are mocked and ridiculed.  To do otherwise would be for them to welcome a change in the football industry that could well threaten their jobs and absurd rates of pay.

What about Europe I hear the pundits & players cry.  If we don’t engage in the ways of the European game we will become a nation with footballers who cannot compete at the so-called highest level (replace highest with richest?).

Well to most fans, European football is irrelevant (as is the England team).  The real rivalry is within this country each week.  That is where the passion is.  Check out the crowds.  Pundits and players will harp on about how important Europe is.  Well sod them.  They only say this as it helps their agents market them to a larger audience and increase their income..

So I’ll conclude this rant with something to consider.  I was discussing all this with a knowledgeable vicar.  I was saying how great it was that Everton were doing so well, with good team work and not spending a fortune.  His view was that this was subversive. I smiled.  I have always been so proud of our club.  This was summed up by Moysey calling us “The People’s Club.”

Now my local vicar calls our club subversive to the excessive wealth and sleaze of the Premiership and its sycophantic passengers.

My chest has swelled even more.

Ged  Simpson

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