If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
Comparing boys football to girls in terms of quality is unfair. Girls' football is growing fast but there's so many more boys playing the game. In our league alone, there are 79 teams and around 1,200 boys. The equivalent girls' league is tiny in comparison. There are very good girl players, but there's a lot fewer of them.
It was Sunday afternoon. I was cold, wet and bored. And a 13-year-old boy had just called me a 'f***ing b*stard'... This is the kind of behaviour, completely unacceptable in the real world, that passes for normal in the world of kids' football.
The way forward must surely be members within the crowd calling others to account - it's surprisingly easy to say to somebody, "Mate, that's not on" even if you're not as physically imposing as me.
English football is still light-years from a state of good health, exemplified by exploitative ticketing. Unless concrete action is taken to challenge this, admonitions like Mr Farron's will, with any luck, become more frequent and more radical until something is done.
The resurgent Evening Standard newspaper in London, which still manages to look and read like a real newspaper whilst being a "free-sheet" held its an...
Mark Clattenberg is no angel, we all know this and he has had his troubles in the past. I do not want those misdemeanours to cloud this issue in the way they appeared to in the John Terry case.
It pains me to say that a bit of me will likely enjoy the unfathomable awkwardness that the whole case represents for the FA and the football press. I will, I am sorry to say, enjoy seeing how they manage to reconcile their recent history with their growing realisation that fate has dealt them a cruel, almost perfect and mouth-wateringly delicious blow.
It has boiled down to this; Rio Ferdinand's right not to wear a t-shirt supersedes that of a man found not guilty in a court of law.
Credibility is fundamental to campaigning organisations. People need to trust you in order to back your campaign and - crucially - tell someone else about it. They want to know you are speaking out and standing up for what you believe in. But you also need to have some access to those in power if you are to get them to listen to you and secure change.
Racism is of course not solely a football problem. It's a societal problem of which football is its most public symptom. This is why it is so crucial that when it emerges in the game it is dealt with seriously and without any attempt at equivocation or sympathy towards those guilty of propagating or normalising it.
There will be a million words and countless opinions on the written reasons for the John Terry verdict published by the FA. It is possibly one of the most contrived and brazenly arrogant documents you are likely to read; what shocks is how there seems to be little attempt to veil the hearing's motivation but more stunning still is that it shows a process so bewilderingly, frantically determined to get its man that the outcome is even worse than we could have thought.
When the FA assembled its learned John Terry star chamber, chaired by an as yet anonymous QC, we can be in no doubt that justice was going to "seen to be done". But the desired effect has been achieved. A procession of hacks, no doubt gnashing their teeth with rage and indignation when the judge delivered his verdict at the court trial have had a revival.
The English hooligan has been neutered by the police to the point that he can seemingly no longer get it up on match day. Whether that be through force of disincentive or direct police intervention the hunters have become the hunted when entering through the turnstiles.
Racism, it appears, has become another piece of point scoring over rival clubs, or something that should be as vigorously defended as if it were a dubious red card. It is not.
