Season 2011-12 Fan Articles

Worse than the wrestling

By Kevin   Sparke  ::  05/10/2011   40 Comments (»Last) Back when I was young kid in the early 1970s, my non-matchgoing Saturday afternoons would often be filled with the sound of Ken Walton commentating on the ITV wrestling. Those of you of a certain age will remember the stars like Les Kellet, Jackie Pallow, Mick McManus, Pat Roach (later to find fame as ?Bomber? in Auf Wiedersehen, Pet).

The show was everything that WWW isn?t and would normally be filmed in a small hall or a venue like the sadly defunct Liverpool Stadium. Later the wrestlers would become more theatrical and old pros like Shirley Crabtree (Big Daddy), Giant ?Haystacks? and Kendo Nagasaki would don costumes and play out their 3 minute 5 round bouts with one of them being cast as the bad guy and the other as the goody.

These ?fights? were tiny morality plays where the good guy normally won after being battered for three or four rounds, he?d then get up and beat seven kinds of crap out of the baddy, often egging the crowd on and whipping them up to near hysteria. As a pre-teen I could see from a mile away that these bouts were fixed and were all about entertainment. The same four our five wrestlers would normally end up winning all sorts of meaningless ?World Championship? belts and the vast majority of the ?grapple fans? would go home happy having seen their favourite triumph against the odds.

I remember as an 8-year-old being fascinated, but when I got to the age of 10 I?d outgrown it and ?knew it was fixed?. I was checking on viewing figures and at its peak, ITV managed to get about 10 million domestic viewers on a Saturday ? programme executives at Sky Sports would kill for such figures these days.

Now fast-forward life 40 years and picture the scene last Saturday morning. I?d had a conversation with my brother earlier that week, a fanatical Evertonian and ex-season ticket holder who is like so many of us ?losing interest?. We have similar but not identical views on why we?ve both fallen out with the game.

He has views on Moyes and Kenwright which I don?t hold as firmly as he does, but we both agree that the financial gulf between those who have coin and those who don?t is killing the game. The gist of the conversation we had was we both wanted Everton to win but ?couldn?t be arsed? getting worked up about it. I remember pre-derby games in the past when the two of us wouldn?t sleep for a week and the topic of conversation was always the same ? "How are we going to beat the bastards?"

Premier League football has become worse than 1970s ITV wrestling ? you know at the start of the season who is going to win the league between two or three clubs. You know clubs like Everton, Sunderland, Aston Villa etc are cast as the ?spoilers? and ?bad guys? to be overcome and media and financial darlings like Manchester United, Chelsea, Liverpool and now Manchester City are cast as the heroes doing battle with villains.

We?re obstacles to be negotiated for the greater glory of the financial elite?s worldwide TV fan base and Sky Sport. We?re the Christians being fed to the lions, the bulls trotting into for ritual slaughter in the bullring, the ?bad guy? wrestler to be battered by the ?good guy? and it?s not difficult to believe that the matches are often just as ?fixed? as the 1970s wrestling ? this is dangerous as, if this notion becomes commonplace, football will die.

You don?t believe me... have a look at snooker these days. In the mid-90s, I worked for a very short time for an online bookmaker and it became commonplace for betting on Snooker games to be suspended due to ?untypical betting patterns? ? these betting patterns usually involved certain players, some who were at the peak of their careers and household names. The result: snooker?s credibility became suspect; people stopped watching.

Now, Martin Atkinson?s performance on Saturday. At first I was convinced that the guy had a deliberate but individual agenda to favour the perceived big club by penalising at the first opportunity any threat of brawn triumphing over skill. Therefore, when he saw Rodwell ?clattering? Suarez, his automatic response was to reach for the red card, before he had a chance to note Suarez?s poleaxed Bambi act, to witness Lucas screaming in his face or the Liverpool players becoming a deranged mob demanding justice.

In this scenario, Atkinson was acting as protector of football and scourge of brute force over footballing finesse ? my immediate reaction to his decision was ?this is bent?. This initial conviction was strengthened when I considered the catalogue of crap decisions we?ve experienced in the past. I?m not going to list them here; sufficient to say I can?t remember these ever being evened out.

No, the truth is more bland and in a very real sense more disturbing. Atkinson made that appalling decision because he was expected to. He made that decision because the narrative of top-flight football in England in 2011 demanded he should. He made that decision because his paymasters the FA Premier League via Sky Sports expected the ?right? result.

To understand what I mean is to note that to referee in the English Premier League represents the peak of the career of a minority of referees. To get to this point you need to have officiated at junior level, non-league, and worked your way to the Premier League ? you will need to have officiated at thousands of games, been subject to scrutiny, have your performance monitored by other officials and players, and be judged on your suitability.

Yet, he made the most basic of errors in sending off a player who barely made contact and I'd argue never even fouled his opponent. If this isn?t ?bent? then it?s an example of appalling decision-making brought about by pressure to encourage physical contact of any sort is edited out of the game and ensure that the pampered rich clubs who can afford the silky skilled elite of football cannot ever again be challenged by teams with lesser skilled players who play with commitment.

In short, football is becoming an exhibition sport ? where the ?right? result is almost guaranteed and the supporter of the Premier League team who doesn?t fit the demographic of the ?Big Club? armchair TV package fan in China, Norway, Laos or Western Samoa can get used to it. It?s become as authentic as a soap opera and just like the wrestling is enacted to please a fee paying armchair audience of 'big club' punters who expect to see their man triumph.

Sorry, but football has become a farce - and it bears little relation to the game I fell in love with as a 8-year old... and more like the wrestling 'sport' I ditched when I was 10.

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