Big blubbery lips like Mick Jagger

Ron Waller

Words get wasted in football in 2008. All the time, words are spoken and written and they mean nothing. When the Premier League makes proposals that they know are going to be unpopular, hundreds of thousands of words get wasted on blogs, message boards, in fanzines, in pubs, by coffee machines. When football clubs raise ticket prices, words get chucked around, articles get published, there are chants, songs and plenty of abusive shouting. All a waste. Big waste. Cyril Smith’s trousers.

Football fans talk a lot, and in the Internet age, they write a lot. The more political or issue-based writing on football, though enjoyable, sometimes thought-provoking and even entertaining, is starting to come across as the biggest waste of them all.

Time to face facts, for facts sake. On the announcement of the 39th Step by the Premier League - the extra game to please the ex-pat fans across the world - an internet petition against it was quickly set up. To date, around 14,000 people have signed the petition. 14,000. A full Adams Park and nearly a half. Wow. From the whole country. From every fan for every club in the country. For every single person who is involved in the 43,000 registered football clubs in England, 14,000 people have signed a petition against the dreaded 39th game. It is an eye opener for some, a nail in the coffin for others. In case you’re still a bit sleepy though, give them a rub.

There are enough people in this country who support the Premier League plans. There are plenty of people who support Premier League clubs and have no interest in the remainder of domestic football. There are thousands of people who don’t look at £52 for a ticket at Craven Cottage and feel repulsed. They just pay it - they can afford to. There are fucking loads of them. Everywhere you look, everywhere you drink, there are people who are football fans, who love the Premier League, and don’t even know, let alone care, what division Wycombe Wanderers are in. Why should they? The Premier League is run to make money for its clubs. Football League clubs are run to make money for their owners. People pay thousands upon thousands for tickets, hospitality and all the rest. This is how it is.

At Wycombe Wanderers, it is no different. The club spends wildly beyond its means, in the hope that League 1, and then the Championship, and the money that comes with it, will be the end result. Everything at the club is valued by money. There is no other possible purpose for anything the football club does, other than to make money. The much-vaunted Football in the Community schemes are possible because they are cheap and they pay for themselves. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t happen. Any community work that creates goodwill is welcomed, not for the goodwill itself but because the goodwill might create some more customers, who bring some more money. Match reports are written on the official site in the hope that someone will read them and then come to a game and spend. The state of the pitch can be jeopardised but justified by anything that brings the club money. And where does all the money go? On the greedy players. Greedy, greedy Kevin Sheedy, as the old Bucks nursery rhyme goes.

So why do we have to pay these gluttonous players so much? The ones who Football Club Directors fawn over in one bar, then move through to the next bar to tell supporters these players are the reason - the greedy, greedy reason - for the club’s impending financial abyss. Well, really, because everyone else does. Bit childish? Would we jump off a cliff if Reading did it? Er, like so totally, yeah.

Why do we charge £5 for a child’s birthday to be advertised on the Great Big Screen? Answer: Well, Watford charge £30 – so have a pop at them eh. Why is £5 to park at the ground now? Answer: Well, Reading’s a tenner – so whinge at those fuckers. Why do the club take a £3 entrance fee from about 11 people for Reserve games? Answer: Well Aldershot charge that for Reading Reserves, and might even have to stand up there. The only reason to not charge would be goodwill, because goodwill brings more money, but then people who go to Reserve games aren’t big spenders, so we need their money up front. Cough cough, Frank Bough.

The big one of course is: why do we pay up to £1500 a week for players? Answer: Because we have to compete. We have to be promoted, and that’s what all the other top teams pay. If anything is certain in football, it’s that nothing is certain. One or two people will tell you different, that there is no certainty that money will bring promotion, or that a player paid one wage will be guaranteed to get you promotion, while a player paid another won’t. The only certainty, says the old man in the anorak, is that if you keep borrowing money, you have to pay it back one day.

Basic stuff son, basic stuff you say. It’s the way of the world and we have to live with it. We do, but we only do if everyone agrees with it. I don’t agree with it. I believe football clubs have greater value than money. I believe there is more to Wycombe Wanderers Football Club than the pursuit of cold hard cash. But it only matters if other Wycombe fans believe it as well. I’d like to think they do.

I could start an internet petition and eleven people could sign it, and it would probably be the same eleven twats who pay to watch the Reserve team. What a waste, and all that.

15.02.2008. 10:21

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