Why am I falling out of love with Football?

[ianthailand]

Peabody , you're right but spare a thought for me I've still got a season ticket and watching my local club when the whites are away and they are soo bad yesterday I headed for the clubhouse at half time . What do yo suggest for me now ?

Join a Lap Dancing Club.

He did but didn't earn much!

[ianthailand]

Agree wholeheartedly with Peabody. Living in Thailand (my choice) evening KO's are 2 or 3 0'clock in the morning. I don't now set the alarm to get up to watch, i've stopped paying 20 odd thousand Baht per annum for Truevision (Thailand's Sky) coverage amid a total lack of enthusiasm for the game i've loved since about 1954. I only watch Fulham and the occasional Man City game now.
Owners like FSG and the Glazers and it must be said our owners are killing the game for the man in the street with their greed and/or total lack of understanding of why the League structure was invented.
Personally, the sooner the Liverpool's, Arsenal's, Newcastle's, Chelsea's, Spurs and the two Manchester clubs bugger off to a Super League the better. I thank the Khan's for their financial support so far but they are going the way of the other greedy Yanks and Mr Khan's Senior's comments on takeover of only being custodians and we will uphold the traditions and values of the club are fading into the ether.

[Woolly Mammoth]

I agree with the OP.
It is no longer the Beautiful Game as we used to know it. Spoilt by cheating, whether it's feigning injury, which appears to be happening every 5 minutes during a game. Diving, trying get opponents booked or sent off.
Forever moaning and surrounding the referee.
What does my head in is the amount of players that continue to go down like a sack of potatoes pretending to be injured, from Goal Keepers to the number 11, have they no shame, they are not real men, just part of generation of wimps.
When they realise they are not getting a free kick, they get straight back up.
They are actually being coached to cheat which is a disease originated from overseas.
Furthermore players are completely detached from reality and the supporters, as they must wear their head phones in bed, i am waiting for them to wear them on the pitch.
All this has been accelerated by the mega money and Sky who place their favourite clubs on a pedestal.
All this is a nail in the coffin of football as we use to know it.
Which is why football at the top level is eating itself from inside and will collapse like a pack of cards as it is now built on sand by sheer greed and pandering to the needs of spoilt egotistical petulant players.
Football at the higher level is the
 walking corpse that twitches with all the self-awareness one associates with a zombie.

[KJS]

Football is no longer for the fans, after 40 years of having one this is my last season ticket and I will then follow my local team Worthing where at least VAR doesn't ruin the afternoon 😌

[alfie]

Football is no longer for the fans, after 40 years of having one this is my last season ticket and I will then follow my local team Worthing where at least VAR doesn't ruin the afternoon 😌

If it wasn't for VAR, Villa would have had a penalty in the first few minutes.

[Cumbrian White]

For goodness sake, I am 85 next January and I really am not enjoying the game I first went to in 1946. Could it be that the game has sold it soul to the betting industry or the amount of cheating that goes on, or the worshiping of the £, or even the loss of faith in the people that are responsible for the administration of football? All of these are a contributing factor. Oh and don't get me started on VAR.  Think I might give lower league a try. All of this said, I can't get Fulham out of my blood.

For me, I feel the same, its the players and their behaviour that does it for me, diving, cheating, I would never have allowed an opposition know they'd hurt me, we stayed on our feet, rode challenges and yes gave as good back. Harry Wilson was caught on Sky saying "ref, he touched me, he touched me". It's a contact sport Harry, or at least it was. 2 players going in hard against each other is rarely going to result in a serious injury, these days, 1 goes in hard and the other tries to get out of the way, that's what results in injuries.

The money side of it doesn't bother me, let someone earn as much as they want, couldn't care less, but attitudes within football stink and managers, including Marco, need to reign it in on the touchline. Passion is one thing, him, Klopp, Arteta are purely abusive.

I was physio for one season with my local amateur team and the attitudes were the same, going down at the slightest contact even when clean through and would have been 1 on 1 with the keeper, I now work with local and a couple of pro rugby players and much prefer their attitudes.

[H4usuallysitting]

Can't see it improving.... I understand there's moves afoot to make it easier for foreign companies to buy British companies....ie football club's

[ron]

For goodness sake, I am 85 next January and I really am not enjoying the game I first went to in 1946. Could it be that the game has sold it soul to the betting industry or the amount of cheating that goes on, or the worshiping of the £, or even the loss of faith in the people that are responsible for the administration of football? All of these are a contributing factor. Oh and don't get me started on VAR.  Think I might give lower league a try. All of this said, I can't get Fulham out of my blood.

Wasn't Johnny Haynes the first £100 a week player ? Correct me I'm wrong but wasn't that also an astronomical amount of money at the time ?!?!

Yeah the moneys got ridiculous but post pandemic people are more bored then ever and SPORT has become the anti depressant of the masses because people are repressed , similar to Roman times

Various estimates of the current value of £100 as it was in 1961 average out at £2500......for the best player in the land. It's not unusual for players to earn a hundred times that now.
And there lies the basic problem with the game.

[alfie]

For goodness sake, I am 85 next January and I really am not enjoying the game I first went to in 1946. Could it be that the game has sold it soul to the betting industry or the amount of cheating that goes on, or the worshiping of the £, or even the loss of faith in the people that are responsible for the administration of football? All of these are a contributing factor. Oh and don't get me started on VAR.  Think I might give lower league a try. All of this said, I can't get Fulham out of my blood.

For me, I feel the same, its the players and their behaviour that does it for me, diving, cheating, I would never have allowed an opposition know they'd hurt me, we stayed on our feet, rode challenges and yes gave as good back. Harry Wilson was caught on Sky saying "ref, he touched me, he touched me". It's a contact sport Harry, or at least it was. 2 players going in hard against each other is rarely going to result in a serious injury, these days, 1 goes in hard and the other tries to get out of the way, that's what results in injuries.

The money side of it doesn't bother me, let someone earn as much as they want, couldn't care less, but attitudes within football stink and managers, including Marco, need to reign it in on the touchline. Passion is one thing, him, Klopp, Arteta are purely abusive.

I was physio for one season with my local amateur team and the attitudes were the same, going down at the slightest contact even when clean through and would have been 1 on 1 with the keeper, I now work with local and a couple of pro rugby players and much prefer their attitudes.

I can just see it now Nobby Styles and chopper Harris going to the ref saying he touched me.

[jarv]

I agree with you Mr Peabody.  My own story of disappointment as follows.

I returned to UK (Scotland) after 34 years in USA. Had enough of it over there.

I got to 2 games last season, but I did arrive in March so 2 wasn't bad and was looking forward to this season.  Unable to make a game this side of xmas mainly due to being unable to trust the trains if I buy a Fulham ticket weeks in advance. Can't see the trains improving until the tory clowns are gone...FOR GOOD. The premier league games have become a bit boring now, much of it caused by var and poor referees. I have sky, often finding myself switching off, usually another 0-0 at HT. (Remember those days when action was taken to make it less boring, I think it was 3 points for a win helped)  Passing sideways and backwards just isn't football.

I am sure I will get to some games after xmas and enjoy the cottage atmosphere again and hope, in the meantime, we sign a centre forward.

Footnote... how about bonus points for goals  Perhaps extra point for 3 or more goals, even if it is a 4-3 loss.

[King_Crud]

Agreed Peabody. Thoughts of going to Fulham games don't even enter my mind anymore, due to cost. I've got a season ticket at my local team Bromley FC. For that i can bring two children under 11 in for free with me, and I get 20% off drinks in the bar. But my love for footbal still exists, and it exists with my 7yo son, he's obsessed. He's decided he's a Fulham fan, have only taken him to one Fulham cup game. But we go to all the Bromley games together and it's the greatest experience for him. He has the kit of Fulham and Bromley. He checks the scores of all the English leagues down to conference south, as his uncle lives in Tonbridge, so we've gone to a game there. He watches National Leqague highlights, as excitiedly as football league highlights and games, as excitedly as premier league games and MOTD, as excitedly as Bundesliga games. Football isn't dead but the premier league is an ugly beast.

[RaySmith]

Interesting listening to ex-West Ham hard man, Julian Dicks, interviewed by Chris Kamara on 5 Live (should be  available on BBC Sounds), showed how much the game has changed..

Amongst his anecdotes - a senior player giving him, a junior,  a 'slap' for putting the wrong number of sugars in his tea, or not cleaning his boots properly, and this was quite normal he  claimed, but he thought it character building.

Billy Bonds, the 'fittest player  in the WH squad even at age  42' Dicks said, and who knocked out an opposition player's two front teeth in a game, and when he,
Bonds, was manager, he used to make the players do five mile road runs, then run up and down a steep hill with another player on their backs.

Dicks and Frank Lampard were always miles off the back during the  road run, and once hitched a lift on a milk float, though they were found out by Bonds, who wasn't pleased!

Dicks himself spoke of a winger, who he found the hardest to play against, Franz Carr.
Once, he said, he, Dicks, was facing his goal with the ball, and heard Carr running up behind him, and so he automatically threw his elbow back into the player's face, and got a red card.

Dicks quoted a ref saying that one of his  his tackles was 'fair, but too hard,' and Dicks  found it hard to believe how this could be - tackles are meant to be hard aren't they?

The good/bad old days!

A lot different to today, when player's go down if  you even brush past them!

[filham]

Having said all that, I thoroughly enjoyed the Chelsea v City game, real cut and thrust.

And I bet a 5-0 Fulham win against Wolves with a Cairney hat trick would serve as good medicine.

[Logicalman]

For goodness sake, I am 85 next January and I really am not enjoying the game I first went to in 1946. Could it be that the game has sold it soul to the betting industry or the amount of cheating that goes on, or the worshiping of the £, or even the loss of faith in the people that are responsible for the administration of football? All of these are a contributing factor. Oh and don't get me started on VAR.  Think I might give lower league a try. All of this said, I can't get Fulham out of my blood.

I agree with all your sentiments, even though I'm 2 decades behind you, but to think that football was ruined when it all-embraced the betting sponsorship, or TV rights is, imo, much later than when it first occurred.
I'm simply referring to FIFA, the 'head' of world football, and it's own fall into corruption back in the 70's, though it was less obvious then, under Havelange, the seeds were sown and the infamous Blatter simply spread the corruption amongst lower level members to solidify his own position.

Using that as it's governing body, other international footie organisations fell into the same currupt practices, and has come to prove the saying "Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely".

We need oversight on all levels of the game in Engalnd, from the local organizations up to, and especially including the FA and PGMOL.
I submit to a belief that, under Webb, the latter is trying to clean up it's own form of corruption, whether that be found to be from hubris alone or for gain in some form (still to be determined but no insinuation from me).

[YankeeJim]

My two favorite seasons were the Europa run and our last one in the Championship. Having a third of the season with almost certain defeats against the top six and the reprehensively biased refering is getting boring. What makes football great is the competition. There is too little all too often in the Prem.

[Peabody]

My two favorite seasons were the Europa run and our last one in the Championship. Having a third of the season with almost certain defeats against the top six and the reprehensively biased refering is getting boring. What makes football great is the competition. There is too little all too often in the Prem.

Nice to hear from you Jim

[wback]

It's funny, apart from the cost, there's probably never been a better time to be a fan of a big club. There are 6-7 who seem genuinely competitive. All can beat all. All get regular glamourous matches in Europe. All get to see the best players. There are a lot of big matches.

But for yo-yo clubs like us, it all feels pretty terrible and disconnected. I think many of our sympathies lie with being 'down' rather than 'up'.

My favourite recent season was the Slav season where we charged into the playoffs and nearly made automatic promotion. Perfect balance of despair, then good play, then dominance, with lots of likeable players. You can't have that every year, but it's exactly what you hope for supporting a club like ours.

[Lester Burnham]

IMO it's not just football Peabody. It's the excitement of sport in general. I don't want this to sound like a Monty Python sketch....but;
As a sport fanatic growing up in the late 60's, early 70's, sport was EVERYTHING. As soon as I got back home from a Saturday morning school game, I went straight to the TV: Grandstand or World Wide of Sports. Watching a Question of Sport or the SPOTY's was a treat because we got to watch replays that were unavailable at the time. A live game was a rarity, outside of a the Cup games and England matches.
Nowadays, we can watch any highlights of any sport with the click of a button. That excitement has been diluted massively.

[Free Elvis Hammond]

It's a funny time at the moment

In terms of how the game is played, football is changing so fast - every few years there's a whole new wave of tactical innovations, then as managers find a way to combat those, something else emerges. Now pretty much every team plays out from the back, rehearsed passing patterns, fluid/multiple formations, strategic pressing techniques, high defensive lines - and the speed of the game at the top level is so different, even to the mid-2000s

But matchgoing fans have slipped to the bottom of the pile. TV income, commercial revenue, day trippers and hospitality, that's what all the clubs are chasing. The ownership situation is a disgrace, and it's those of us who've been going for decades who are being squeezed out

The obsession with refereeing decisions is dreadful as well - it's about half of the discussion on here, and that's the culture that's led to rubbish like VAR and games going on all night. There will always be mistakes, it's enraging when it goes against you, but that's the game. It'll never be perfect

As a curveball, I don't actually mind diving and all that. Love a bit of dark arts...

[Carborundum]

Here's a litmus test to see if you have fallen out of love with football.  Sunday morning walk, the direction of which should take in a park or open space where grassroots football is played.  Ideally a walk with someone else, perhaps a loved one.

Turn a corner at which point a grass roots game falls into view. You could ignore it and carry on with your conversation, either with your companion or just in your head.  Do that and you have indeed fallen out of love with football.

Alternatively, find that your pace mysteriously slows and the following six thoughts pass through your mind in the space of two seconds:

"Your playing the striker onside"
"The battle for midfield won't be won standing there"
"A further three yards up keeper"
"Right idea that"
"Tracking back isn't an option, it's the job"
"Keep up Lino"

If that happens you haven't fallen out of love with football. Just the ever increasing nonsense that surrounds it. 

Whilst there's strength in my body I'll enjoy live football. Should it begin to fail I suspect I'll tune in with the sound off.

The quality of football has never been higher. Ball control Berbatov dazzled us with really not that long ago is served up as standard.  Defending has got better too.  I love watching good defending, it's an art.

And every time there's a delay in play, remember the grass roots players gingerly picking their way through brambles or waiting for someone on the adjacent pitch to boot the ball back.  Footballers need breaks in play to function.  Always have, always will.

Football remains bloody wonderful.