Why do we watch

[G Man]

I'm 37 years old and I've been watching football for what must be 30 years. I probably started watching more seriously in my young teens. It's a long time to follow/support something without your opinions changing as you grow up. I've noticed myself becoming increasingly irritated when watching a match, and frustrated (it's worse than frustrated but I'm trying to be polite) with players and all the rubbish that comes with them. So I'm now asking myself, 'why do I keep watching?'. And who is the game we call football now aimed at? 

I'm a Celtic fan but live in England and was lucky enough to have SKY Sports when football first took off there. It was a huge commercial investment and it was probably the start of what we see as football today. But it was great wasn't it. The excitement of Monday night football. Tough football, played well with a smattering of foreign stars adding some panashe. The blend was class, the games were exciting.

And now what do we have? We have players and managers who have a win at all costs mentality which means they can justify what they do (or try to do) to a club owner. Is there ever a game that you watch where there's not an incident that makes you mad. Players diving or conning the ref and then watching on to see what's happening while grinning? Big defenders giving it out and the diving when barely touched. Where's the sportsmanship? Dees it not matter? The press on diving has really dropped off. It's almost seen as acceptable.

I've been watching PSG over the last few years since their takeover. To me PSG are simply a FIFA team for kids. Youngsters potentially follow players more than they do a team because of the things I mentioned earlier, money, shoes, their celeb friends, Twitter blah blah blah). They're a team full of what ex pros what call 'personalities' with great experience. But they're not very likable are they, Neymar, Di Maria, Cavani, Dani Alves. They're all South Americans and maybe this is where the difference is (I'd like to hear a genuine opinion from a South American on this) but what is your want in a player? What skills and character appeals to you? I'm Scottish so skills come second, but I just want some honesty. If you're honest and you have skills, then that's your hero. Ronaldo (the original), Zidane, Shearer, Raul. Without it, who cares. In the past people would have said, they're poor so they've grown up scrapping for it so the winning is all that matters because they'll support their family if they make it as a footballer. Is that still true? They are a bunch of players who are trying to re-invent the game to suit their own personal gains. And they seem to have the power to do it because so many decisions go in their favour. And you don't hear too many pundits go against them either. Why? Because they want to stay in the game and get paid for as long as possible. Genuine opinions come second to getting paid.

I understand that sport changes and commercially I'm sure that football is better now than it ever has been. The players get paid more, the managers get paid well (but can have little influence over players). Large companies make a mint from rights and milking players for everything they've got. What seems to be the case now, maybe with higher class competitions is that winning means everything, and to me that doesn't make it a sport. You started watching football because it was fun and fair. Playing hard but fair and only occasionally crossing those boundaries. Now we have people suggesting that we must 'protect our prized assets'. Why? Football is a collective and if you suggest that players of a higher reputation (based on wage, likes, Instagram/Twitter followers, style) and all that consumer nonsense have more power or influence over others, then it's not a sport .

I'd honestly love to hear from people who do still enjoy football and why? Conversely, are you the same as me, you hate it but can't stop watching? A 30 year addiction!

[Rab]

And the award for best first post goes to...

[Azeem]

Am feeling like that towards every sport i like. I only look forward to tournaments/world cup and don't really care meanwhile 

[Large]

4 minutes ago, Rab said:

And the award for best first post goes to...

Surely this remark needs to be in my introduction thread @Rab? 

[Relling]

Thank you for a very good post G Man  I am a couple of years your senior and have watched (too) much footie since I was a teen. 

 

I guess I sometimes still enjoy a good piece of football, or an underdog working together to create the upset etc..

 

That being said, I feel that this is because of the joy of the game is hard to kill, no matter how hard the suits try. (e.g. RB Leipzig, champions league money based on ancient history,...). Sometimes I consider just reading more books instead. It would feel strange though. Maybe watching local amateur football  could bring back the old joy of it.   

 

As for the players, it seems to me that most of them are decent blokes. Usually a bit younger than you or I, and that shows, which is to be expected. I know I would not have looked good in interviews as a 20 year old (if I tried to say something else than "think of the next game" or the like). 

 

 

[Dan+]

I do feel a lot like this at times and feel like ultimately all I'm really doing is just deluding myself in the hope that one day it all goes bang and becomes more of a sport again rather than what it is now - business. Clubs must think fans are absolutely mental a lot of the time and in a lot of cases they're probably right.

It sounds ridiculous but there are times where I wonder if this European Super League would actually be quite good. What I mean by this is not the league itself. The league would fall flat on its arse within a few years when a league full of clubs supported predominantly by people who support them because they win all the time realise that this is no longer possible - how are Chelsea fans for example going to take coming 15th?

What I mean is that by creating this league, it may be what filters out so much that is wrong with the sport of today. You would lose your executives and parasites who are in the game just for a quick buck, you would lose your touristy, sterile atmospheres, you would lose this idea that winning the league is impossible (bad example given who I support but we were a one-off). It would be far better for the match-going fan who doesn't lose their Saturday afternoons to watch their side panned by one of the 'elite' on a Monday night and be told that you're meant to be grateful to watch this.

Put all of those things in this league for the elite and watch them all come crawling back within a few years with their tails between their legs, and watch football become more of a sport again rather than an industry where quite literally every aspect of it has become about business.

[nudge]

Brilliant post.

I wouldn't say I hate football as I still enjoy a good match but I definitely grew indifferent and became disillusioned with it all over the years. The sport has turned into pure business and has become way too commercialised in the last few decades; and while I still follow my team closely I must admit that I don't care all that much anymore either. It just doesn't seem to be connected to community anymore and doesn't feel genuine. 

[tlr]

I was giving this a bit of thought the other day. I hate football as a purely commercial entity; I think it's awful when you see the stands at the FA Cup Final half empty as the match interferes with corporate hospitality, or they draw the League Cup in rural Azerbaijan to appease sponsors, or they propose holding Newcastle v. Brighton in Riyadh because that's where the market is. It's made all the worse when you see the drivel on official social media afterwards, or in the sponsor's adverts, thanking those who turn up week in week out as if without them they'd collapse in minutes, whilst half of the time the whole thing is geared towards selling it to everyone but them. Thankfully after an awful start Venky's with Rovers have tempered a little bit, god knows what I'd have done if we'd started changing kits and names.

I think in broad terms I care less and less the higher up the ladder you get in football, most of the time these days I do non-league stuff; where you can get in for less than a tenner and if you want to stand and drink to watch the match then you can, and it's just so much more enjoyable. There still feels like an honesty to that level of football that has completely vanished from the higher leagues.

[G Man]

All good replies. Good to know I'm not alone on this. The empty midddle stands during an England match, drives me batsh!t crazy. Football tourists.......and I'm not even English!

[Stan]

6 minutes ago, G Man said:

All good replies. Good to know I'm not alone on this. The empty midddle stands during an England match, drives me batsh!t crazy. Football tourists.......and I'm not even English!

Not even sure they're tourist. It's the 'prawn sandwich' lot which affect that part of Wembley. Embarrassing.

Welcome to the forums though @G Man!

[G Man]

Sorry, I didn't mean tourist as in actual tourist. More of a Fight Club "tourist". Someone who is more interested in football to boast that they have some kind of influence based on the seats that they partially sit in.

[Tommy]

4 hours ago, Relling said:

or an underdog working together to create the upset etc..

So you support Fortuna as well? 

[Dan+]

This whole thread does kind of touch on another point for me altogether which concerns my own club.

Has anyone ever heard of the Chinese curse of "may your wishes come true"?

This effectively is a negative dressed up as a positive and it's like this... now that your wishes have come true, what do you want? What is there to fight for?

So in Leicester winning the league, the almost certain pinnacle I and any other Leicester fan alive will have ever witnessed, what can we ever actually achieve from here to top that?

Part of the fun about football in my eyes is the potential, the adventure you can go on, the goal that keeps you fighting for something in the long run, the sense that it's all going to pay off one day.

But what if you have already had that pay off?

I think that this is a genuine problem for us as a fanbase and I think that now we have hit the ultimate high, we are not likely to ever witness something like it again and that no matter how well we do in future, we will never top that feeling. Even if Leicester by some miracle won the league again, it wouldn't be quite as unthinkable as that first one, that one which we lifted 13 months after being given a small chance of even playing in the Premier League the following season.

In a weird way, it is quite depressing. I wouldn't trade it at all as we have witnessed a high that frankly only a very select few have, but it's one of those things that gets me a bit. It's like a hangover that might not go away.

[Dan+]

Also by what I put, I'm not anti business in general, but football to me should be escape from all of this. There is always naturally going to be a business side to it as ultimately without money football wouldn't be able to run itself. The problem now is literally all of it is dictated by money. You ask yourself every little aspect that takes place in football, any little thing about it that doesn't feel quite right, I can almost certainly guarantee it boils down to some kind of money being made for someone who doesn't have the same interest or feel for the game as you or me.

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2016/mar/04/champions-league-leicester-relevent-sports-charlie-stillitano

The article above sticks in my head. Obviously I'm biased, but I think it's very telling that this is the mindset of those calling the shots. That we accepted a place in his tournament that same summer after comments like that annoys me.

I think first hand experiencing what happened with us did alert me to how many of these types pollute the game in general. They gave off the narrative that what happened with Leicester was great but, deep down, they think "this is a bit of a disaster, we might be able to spin it as a positive as a one-off, but something like this categorically cannot be allowed to happen again". That is honestly how I feel like they see this.

[Berserker]

Well what caughts my eye in a player apart from ability is, character, determination, personality, passion, showmanship (not diving), and a little dirtiness is good to have in your team, and also adds some spiciness to the game. Someone who's just very skilled but is rather "dull" is not exactly my cup of tea. So someone like Ibrahimovic, Higuain, Zidane is my preferred type of player, someone who's not only a great player and extremely professional but who can also burst in anger and heat up a game, entertain, etc.

[Bluewolf]

Decent post... 

So many reasons why we still keep watching I suppose but for me personally I would say it's a bit of an addiction.. something that no matter how bad it gets or how silly it all seems to become each season it's just something I can't ignore no matter how hard I try... Being only a few days, possibly even minutes older than you I can relate to the long term commitment to the cause... Ever since I was a youngster football has been part of my life, I have seen my club go from being in serious financial shit wallowing in the relegation zones to the very top of the tree with cash spilling out of every pocket in my lifetime. Even if I vowed to never watch another game for the rest of my life I would always be having a sneaky check of the results.. I did cover this in a small way in the City v Chelsea thread where I can honestly say that even though we got beat by such a huge margin on Sunday that I did not feel one jot of emotion over it.. no anger, no frustration, no disappointment, nothing!! That tells me that bit by bit the game as I once knew it or more importantly had a lot of passion for has slowly been eroded away to become something else.. something less fulfilling. 

I think it was Harvey who once joked that maybe the older generation tend to look back on football from 'the good old days' whilst wearing rose tinted glasses and in some respects he is right in others not so much.. Back in the day before sponsors, huge wages, internet popularity, fancy hair do's and silly goal celebrations you just used to have a game of football... The violence was high, facilities poor, and the pitches like cow fields but I probably enjoyed watching Chelsea of old struggle a bit not knowing where we might end up in the table but having that pre -season anticipation even if it did end in another relegation dog fight than what I see these days.. There is so much money in the game now that it's taken over the level of effort required to earn it for me... 

Apart from Leicesters title win which was breath of fresh air footballing wise I can't think of a lot that has had the old excitement levels up like they used to.. You do get the odd neutral game that is a cracker but they are few and far between these days.. 

 

[Vegan Kel]

Great post. A lot of people are feeling this way because football becomes so far removed from its origins by the year that it's almost impossible for fans not to feel alienated from their club and the game in general. It's just people from the same lluciferian nonce clubs who infest every other aspect of our lives doing the same here. It is never going to get any better because people won't do the very obvious things needed to make changes - stop attending games, stop buying club merch, stop watching televised games. All these people understand is money and when there's no money in it they'll jog on. Supporters (who attend games to support the club) have been replaced by 'spectators' who want to sit back and be entertained as though they've gone to watch a film rather than a football match. 

There is so much wrong with the state of the game that it would literally take pages and pages of posts to cover them all and it's only gonna get worse