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The Game Is About Glory

Good pod again, lads. Not much to add beyond an emphasis on the point other folks have already made that there's a distinct rhythm to the way you four discuss things and it feels authentic - always critical to a pod. Sort like some of the better episodes of Football Weekly when James Richardson used to host it. ;)

The point on abuse players having increased today is interesting, but I think overlooked in the discussion is the sociocultural element of it, the nature of tribalism in the modern day.

Football today is a multi-billion dollar industry spanning continents, and particularly in the Premier League, your average footballer will earn far more in a year than everyone bar the top 0.1% - 0.5% of British society. The argument used to centre on the strangeness of footballers earning more than nurses, policemen and policewomen, essential workers and military personnel, but today footballers outearn most lawyers, doctors and MPs as well. In terms of the socioeconomic gap between the men on the field and the folks in the stands, it has never been greater.

Football is also increasingly disconnected from the communities it's played in - time was most teams had squads where most players grew up in the community and came up through the ranks, and the ones that didn't were an anomaly. Today you're lucky to have five or six players like that in a squad of 25 - the remainder come from all over the world.

The two elements - the wealth divide and the disconnect between players and the areas their clubs are based in - probably factor into why players get so much abuse today. Human nature makes it so that you're a lot less likely to 'other' someone whom you can relate to - earns what you do, comes from where you do, suffers from the same local and national events and trends along with you. It's why this sort of phenomenon is arguably lot less prevalent (still there, just less so) at lower league levels, particularly non- league et al - the bricklayer playing right-back might be crap, but at the end of the day he's your neighbor or lives on your road, and he's not paid 200k a week or the sort of money you'll never see to give away a penalty every game.

Same thing applies, in reverse, to the Premier League. It's in-group bias, something we all have and need to learn to overcome - it can also partially explain why youth team players get more leeway to begin with and are generally thought of marginally more fondly, although it doesn't last and evens out in the long run (something you also brought up).

Just my two cents. I think social media and the power of anonymity definitely plays a role, and I also think football being a release from the constant, draining background stress of COVID means a bad performance is looked at more harshly (it's supposed to be an escape from the misery, after all). But part of it is also the loss of 'in-group' cohesion amongst fanbases and their clubs in football these past thirty years.
 
I also suspect that the role of rituals and shared beliefs in a fanbase is pretty important to maintaining in-group unity, which translates into a more supportive fanbase overall. Pool fans are like cultists, no disputing that - RAWK even has a wall of silence where everyone on that forum occasionally posts a wordless period in memory of the 96. But I also think they're probably the one team in England that gets the biggest lift from their fans and the mythology of Anfield, and I think that has a lot to do with the fact that the shared delusions and rituals of their fans bring them together in a way.

But, different topic althogether. :p
 
DubaiSpur said:
Good pod again, lads. Not much to add beyond an emphasis on the point other folks have already made that there's a distinct rhythm to the way you four discuss things and it feels authentic - always critical to a pod. Sort like some of the better episodes of Football Weekly when James Richardson used to host it. ;)

The point on abuse players having increased today is interesting, but I think overlooked in the discussion is the sociocultural element of it, the nature of tribalism in the modern day.

Football today is a multi-billion dollar industry spanning continents, and particularly in the Premier League, your average footballer will earn far more in a year than everyone bar the top 0.1% - 0.5% of British society. The argument used to centre on the strangeness of footballers earning more than nurses, policemen and policewomen, essential workers and military personnel, but today footballers outearn most lawyers, doctors and MPs as well. In terms of the socioeconomic gap between the men on the field and the folks in the stands, it has never been greater.

Football is also increasingly disconnected from the communities it's played in - time was most teams had squads where most players grew up in the community and came up through the ranks, and the ones that didn't were an anomaly. Today you're lucky to have five or six players like that in a squad of 25 - the remainder come from all over the world.

The two elements - the wealth divide and the disconnect between players and the areas their clubs are based in - probably factor into why players get so much abuse today. Human nature makes it so that you're a lot less likely to 'other' someone whom you can relate to - earns what you do, comes from where you do, suffers from the same local and national events and trends along with you. It's why this sort of phenomenon is arguably lot less prevalent (still there, just less so) at lower league levels, particularly non- league et al - the bricklayer playing right-back might be crap, but at the end of the day he's your neighbor or lives on your road, and he's not paid 200k a week or the sort of money you'll never see to give away a pelanty every game.

Same thing applies, in reverse, to the Premier League. It's in-group bias, something we all have and need to learn to overcome - it can also partially explain why youth team players get more leeway to begin with and are generally thought of marginally more fondly, although it doesn't last and evens out in the long run (something you also brought up).

Just my two cents. I think social media and the power of anonymity definitely plays a role, and I also think football being a release from the constant, draining background stress of COVID means a bad performance is looked at more harshly (it's supposed to be an escape from the misery, after all). But part of it is also the loss of 'in-group' cohesion amongst fanbases and their clubs in football these past thirty years.
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Superb feedback mate, thanks very much. Your boldface point is great and will be taken up on Sunday's pod (credited of course!)...
 
thfcsteff said:
Superb feedback mate, thanks very much. Your boldface point is great and will be taken up on Sunday's pod (credited of course!)...
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Haha, by all means mate - I just think you hit upon a great subject of discussion, with a lot of potential responses. :)

Re: the point in bold, it fits with the findings coming out about major decreases in mental health levels worldwide and accumulating COVID fatigue. Noticed it myself - I'm regularly a lot angrier about Spurs now than I was even when we were a lot worse than we are now. I dislike Mourinho and greatly miss Poch, but it isn't that - I think it's that I subconsciously view Spurs as a way to get away from the stresses of COVID. But I recognize that I'm still better off than a lot of other folks just by having people to rely on, a job and a secure income - for folks for whom those things are at risk, I would guess that it's even more stressful, and thus football becomes even more of an escape. Which makes it even more depressing when things go wrong - sort of a negative feedback loop.

Just another suggestion on why abuse has increased.
 
Cheers @DubaiSpur they are some really interesting points. @thfcsteff maybe we should set aside 5 or 10 minutes on Sunday to pick up these and some of the other points that have been made since. If anyone else has any thoughts on player abuse, we'd love to hear and include them.
 
Episode 10

Wolfsberger walloped. The team get together for a special edition mini-pod where the 4-1 win over Wolfsberger, Dele Alli, Bart Simpson, Dier hair, Star Wars, pyscho eyes, Martin Scorcese AND Moura’s super-dribble-finish are all discussed…well, one of these isn’t, so tune in and find out what’s what on your favourite THFC pod.

@thfcsteff @LutonSpurs @AuroRaman and @milo discuss
  • Wolfsberger v Tottenham Hotspur
  • West Ham - Tottenham Hotspur

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ShipOfGoldblum said:
Great book. His second best. Not sure what happened to him after the vase one.

I suppose that means I have to listen to the podcast. Audio is so inefficient, though.
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The Collector Collector and the Thought Gang are both very good. I've read Voyage to the Bottom of the Room but it's no where near the quality of his first three.
 
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