Making football middle-class friendly

Some commmentators recently have argued that Irish football needs to emulate rugby and attract a ‘middle class’ audience. In this piece, which focusses on the impending smoking ban in British stadiums, Rod Liddle answers those who think the way forward is to kill off the culture of the live game...

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It is the passion and fervour and partisan loyalty — dangerous things! — that the middle class find most threatening about football, and so, gradually over these past 20 years, they have been eradicated from the game almost entirely. Football is a congenial entertainment best viewed through the medium of some kind of box (the directors’ box, for the chosen few, or the box in the corner of your living room for the rest), seems to be the attitude.

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Well the middle classes certainly have more money. But is EL football going to distract them from their burgeoning consumerism and cocaine habits? :D

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Originally Posted by CollegeTillIDie

But is EL football going to distract them from their burgeoning consumerism and cocaine habits? :D

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It didn't get in Barry Ryan's way. :D

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Originally Posted by BohsPartisan

It didn't get in Barry Ryan's way. :D

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He wasn't playing for UCD at THAT time so I couldn't possibly comment! :D

I'm not sure that chasing the middle class is even a strategy that's worth pursuing - they're probably the most event-driven group in terms of leisure activities and the most promiscuous in terms of loyalties. Just look at the way certain pubs become trendy but only stay that way for a while. This may not apply as much outside Dublin, where there's only one team in a town so local identities are stronger.

It's all a bit academic anyway, as the LoI doesn't have the facilities that would stop middle class people turning up their noses.

Am I the only person that cringes every time class is brought into football discussions?

We should be looking to attract people from every walk of life to the league. End of story.

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Originally Posted by Galway Harps

Am I the only person that cringes every time class is brought into football discussions?

We should be looking to attract people from every walk of life to the league. End of story.

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There is no such thing as the middle class anyway.

Is this an admission that everyone here is a lower-clas scumbag?

Middle class people do go to LoI games. So do working class people. The problem is, we don't get enough of either.

What makes a person middle class anyway? Some of the most uncultured people I know are those with the most forced up-their-arse accents. "Family friendly" is probably a much better sales pitch. I'd rather clubs just looked to the "community", and didn't descriminate between any potential punters...which is pretty much the way it is now.

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Originally Posted by Eoingull

What makes a person middle class anyway?

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Well objectively speaking, the middle class(es) are the peasantry and the Petit Bourgeois (shopkeepers, small business people) both are pretty small now (in the Western world at least), though over the 20th C there was a mini industry in trying to convince anyone who wasn't destitute they were middle class.

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Originally Posted by BohsPartisan

Well objectively speaking, the middle class(es) are the peasantry and the Petit Bourgeois (shopkeepers, small business people) both are pretty small now (in the Western world at least), though over the 20th C there was a mini industry in trying to convince anyone who wasn't destitute they were middle class.

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So, if you worked in that industry what class were you in?

Well depends. If you are the owner of the class factory then you're bourgeois. If you sell your labour to the owner of the class factory you're working class - upper end of but class comes down to your relationship to the means of production not the number on your payslip.

There's a very funny (yet acutely observed) Billy Connolly joke re. the middle classes. Hmmm, I'm not sure what DVD it's on though...

Talk of class and football is always painful to listen to. :o

Football is the world's biggest sport. It is the national sport in more countries than any other game. I doubt there is a single genuine country where it isn't played. It has literally billions of viewers and players across the world. Yet some people insist on claiming it for only one class, just becaue some teams used to primarily attract pit-workers from grim northern English cities, or dockers from the less salubrious part of Buenos Aries.

The irony is that footall was created/codified on the public school playing fields of Eton, Harrow, Rugby etc in England. You only need to listen to the voices of people like Alf Ramsey to appreciate that football never had the pure working class soul that misty-eyed nostalgia addicts would like us all to believe it had. And it's original roots were ironically about as far from being working class as you could get.

Read a good article yesterday about how the design of English stadiums has lead to the Premiership being the richest league in the world. The move to all-seater stadiums post-Hillsborough (and before the rest of world football) began the process of football being priced out of the reach of the poorer sections of society. With success in football now all about money, the days of grandad getting in for 1 and sixpence whilst lifting you over the turnstiles are long, long gone. For the majority of society in countries like England and Ireland, however, modern football is still affordable to varying degrees. Certain teams less so - but if you really want to watch live football, you will be able to affiord to do so.

What has really killed the atmosphere at football is the fact that it attracts every section of society - including a lot of people who see it as no different than a trip to the cinema or a museum, who have no genuine heartfelt interest in the team they are watching. It's not about class - it's about falling victim to its own success.

Does that mean that upper class people like me will no longer be welcome??

Huh!

Eoingull u hit the nail on the head, should be classless and all embracing of the community. Its like we have kids in our mini leagues from the poorest backgrounds and kids whose Mummy & Daddy are Solicitors & Doctors etc. Sport should have no boundaries.

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Originally Posted by Magicme

Does that mean that upper class people like me will no longer be welcome??

Huh!

Eoingull u hit the nail on the head, should be classless and all embracing of the community. Its like we have kids in our mini leagues from the poorest backgrounds and kids whose Mummy & Daddy are Solicitors & Doctors etc. Sport should have no boundaries.

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No-one in Monaghan is upper-class. Self selectively so....... :D

;)

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Originally Posted by Galway Harps

Am I the only person that cringes every time class is brought into football discussions?

We should be looking to attract people from every walk of life to the league. End of story.

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Spot on. Who cares where a person is from, what colour, religion or creed they are as long as we can get more through the gates? To me it smacks of racism the constant finger pointing of what "class" you are. Horsesh1t.

Better facilities will attract people for a start.

KOH

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Originally Posted by dcfcsteve

No-one in Monaghan is upper-class. Self selectively so....... :D

;)

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You would think.....but there are a few and there are alot who think they are!! :D

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Originally Posted by Magicme

You would think.....but there are a few and there are alot who think they are!! :D

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Which of those 2 groups do you fall into then. Me suspects the latter..... :p ;)