Greedy Footballers Should Have A Look At This!

[mrtoad]

Okay, guilty in some respects of a double posting, but I think that this deserves a mention.

If you don't look at the lower league thread then you may have missed a little discussion between myself and Chavy.

As all of us know these days, pro footballer have become very well payed and with it very self interested. This particular story os about how some pro footballers in the early 1980's sacraficed a lot to save their club. There are certainly a few individuals in football who should have learnt a little it ore about the dignity that these guys had and how they handled a truly awful situation not caused by themselves but by the mismangement of their club.

It was quite something that they did really, if you put it into context. Professional footballers in the 1970's were still not making the sort of money that the guys do today, so they were forefeiting a lot of their future earning potential or maybe their retirement fund, there was little in the support of the PFA at this point, although Gordon Taylor was involved in the negotiations he comes out with little credit. Makes you sick when you here people like Ashley cole complaing that he was only offered 55,000 a week, which he found insulting. Then there were the guys from Leeds, such as Fowler, Mills, Viduka, Ferdinand et al still being paid of sever5al years after leaving the club. Okay, I know that they were entitled to that money, but it makes you realise that a lot of the guys today have no interest in the club or the fans and are fuelled by self importance perpetuated by the ludicrous amounts of money and false adulation that are thrown at them.

You might find this link interesting, it was done in January of this year to commemerate the 25 years of this lanndmark involving Bristol City, it includes interviews with the players concerned.

This is really fascinating listening, and for any football fan a must

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bristol/content/artic...s_feature.shtml

I look forward to hearing what people think about this, as it really is quite relevant in todays game.

Edited August 24, 2007 by mrtoad

[taxexile]

whilst on the subject of greed in football , i must recommend ....

BROKEN DREAMS . VANITY,GREED AND THE SOURING OF BRITISH FOOTBALL by Tom Bower 2003( isbn 0 7434 4033 1)

" all fans should read this expose of footballs financial secrets , thanks to his trademark tenacity in the pursuit of elusive facts bower has done football an important service. a tour de force , the evidence it assembles is devastating"

anthony holden, the observer

"at leeds the fans have been singing "wheres all the money gone?" bower has looked for it and we are all in his debt for doing so"

the independent.

he digs the dirt on redknapp , bates , venables , the fa, agents and much more.

[EastSaxCol]

whilst on the subject of greed in football , i must recommend ....

BROKEN DREAMS . VANITY,GREED AND THE SOURING OF BRITISH FOOTBALL by Tom Bower 2003( isbn 0 7434 4033 1)

" all fans should read this expose of footballs financial secrets , thanks to his trademark tenacity in the pursuit of elusive facts bower has done football an important service. a tour de force , the evidence it assembles is devastating"

anthony holden, the observer

"at leeds the fans have been singing "wheres all the money gone?" bower has looked for it and we are all in his debt for doing so"

the independent.

he digs the dirt on redknapp , bates , venables , the fa, agents and much more.

I can remember even when the headlines where more concerned with a professional footballers latest haircut and less about the game being awash with money, glamour and foreign stars. Reading 'Only a Game?: Diary of a Professional Footballer' (1987) by Ex-Millwall player, Eamon Dunphy, talking about "petty bourgeois directors" who cared nothing about the game, only about fleecing their own pockets.

If some of us were cynical about how it was all going even back then , how much more today ?

Once upon a time West Ham supporters demonstrated in our thousands against the proposed 'Bond Scheme'. Today, they're more concerned about how our new our new found wealth should be securing the best players with playing in the Champions League in mind. We've all sold our souls to Sky TV it seems.

Myself, I'd sooner kick the arse of the big teams occasionally than be one of them. The consequences of which are too awful to contemplate. What's the point of supporting a team who expect to win every match ? How much sweeter the taste when you expect to loose but actually win.

So in a way, it's good sometimes to put things into perspective. Whilst the Premiership has all but taken the game away from the reach of ordinary fans and put into the hands of global multi-nationals and sponsorship. Consider those who have no stadium to play in and are refused entry into Britain because they're considered -- I kid you not --"too poor".

http://comment.independent.co.uk/columnist...icle2883835.ece

Edited August 24, 2007 by Happy Hammer

[Sunderland]

Whilst on the subject of greed in football, I can only pray and dream that Sunderland steal 3 points today against Liverpool.

[mrtoad]

whilst on the subject of greed in football , i must recommend ....

BROKEN DREAMS . VANITY,GREED AND THE SOURING OF BRITISH FOOTBALL by Tom Bower 2003( isbn 0 7434 4033 1)

" all fans should read this expose of footballs financial secrets , thanks to his trademark tenacity in the pursuit of elusive facts bower has done football an important service. a tour de force , the evidence it assembles is devastating"

anthony holden, the observer

"at leeds the fans have been singing "wheres all the money gone?" bower has looked for it and we are all in his debt for doing so"

the independent.

he digs the dirt on redknapp , bates , venables , the fa, agents and much more.

Thanks Taxexile, I have bee meaning to have a look at this book. Any ideas if I can actually buy it in Thailand, or am I going to have to import it?

Whilst on Venables, Bates et al, there is a great Article in the latest Four Four Two magazine about Leeds United titled shattered dreams. It seems that they are doind a bit of a continuation into investigating mismanagement at clubs, the previous two issues covered Exeter City and the Torquay United.

I can't speak highly enough about this magazine, I think that it really is the best football magazine available in the UK, it has easily surpassed World Soccer, and I make sure I have it sent here every month.

[taxexile]

i got mine at dasa secondhand bookshop ,but i haven't got it anymore.

i'm sure asia books or kinokunya books will order it for you though.

thaksin should feel right at home in the premier league , and they will probably teach him a thing or two about making deals and the surreptitious trousering of hot readies to boot.

[EastSaxCol]

whilst on the subject of greed in football , i must recommend ....

BROKEN DREAMS . VANITY,GREED AND THE SOURING OF BRITISH FOOTBALL by Tom Bower 2003( isbn 0 7434 4033 1)

" all fans should read this expose of footballs financial secrets , thanks to his trademark tenacity in the pursuit of elusive facts bower has done football an important service. a tour de force , the evidence it assembles is devastating"

anthony holden, the observer

"at leeds the fans have been singing "wheres all the money gone?" bower has looked for it and we are all in his debt for doing so"

the independent.

he digs the dirt on redknapp , bates , venables , the fa, agents and much more.

I've actually just read some readers reviews on this book over on amazon with thoughts of giving a whirl. However I was eventually swayed against it by this review -- the best and most informed of all, imo.

"Having read some of Mr Bower's earlier exposes, I had rather hoped that he would do to the world of football what he had earlier done to such doyens of the seedy world of business as Robert Maxwell, Tiny Rowlands and even Richard Branson. The result, sadly, is rather underwhelming.

First, the good points. Bower is excellent at making sense of the myriad of scandal and financial turmoil that has dogged the game. I wouldn't say that he has simplified it, but he certainly removed the spin from the reality. As an outsider to the game he views the way football is run as a business dispaionately and is particularly good at exposing the largely non-sensical world of agents, who grab 5% plus of every transfer fee going - even when they've done little or no work. Why, one ponders, can club chairmen bot just call each other to sort out transfers like they used to?

Yet it is Bower's outsider status that most undermines the book. He clearly had little interest of the game before he wrote it, and developed little love of what happened on the pitch while writing it.

Yes, football can be a seedy world - but so is practically every big business. Lots of money has unquestionably been wasted by clubs, but it is too by politicians, bankers, bureacrats and so on on a daily basis. Footballs woes are never placed in any sort of external context; nor does Bower once make the link between the unbridled joy a goal or a win can bring, and what has passed off the pitch. David Dein, the Arsenal vice-Chairman, for instance, takes heavy criticism; but if my club chairman had frittered away a couple of million on agents fees and produced a team like Arsenals - well, frankly, I wouldn't care in the slightest.

His lack of knowledge about the football itself is abundently obvious and occasionally hilarious. Leeds United apparently bought Rio Ferdinand from West Ham after he had 'humiliated' Leeds in a 0-0 draw at Upton Park. Come again? There are plenty of assertions just like this, which bear no relation to anything any right-minded fan or journalist would state about a performance.

The text is also replete with factual and spelling errors. Everton's Duncan Ferguson apparently went to prison in 1998 for 'maliciously biting' an opponent. Oh yeah? Similar mistakes crop up every couple of pages.

Bower also sinks into gross generalisations of a whole variety of characters; and the complete disdain he shows to other individuals undermines any criticism that follows. How, for instance, can he be dispassionate assessing Ken Bates' business affairs when (without any sort of foundation or accusation) he intimates that Bates lied about his own upbringing. Who do we trust?

I don't think the book deserves to be trashed; but equally, I certainly don't believe it was worthy of any of its critical or commercial adulation, and CERTAINLY NOT the Sports Book of the Year Award. How a man, who obviously knows little about football as a game and apparently cares even less, could win such a prize defies belief.

Ultimately, only if you're interested in the murky world of sports business, and football in particular, it's a worthwhile read - but do so with extreme reservations."

Myself I'm still looking for a new book to read after finishing what has been described as "the thinking mans Fever Pitch,"

'We Don't Know What We're Doing' by Adrian Chiles is a book that I can highly recommend about that strange thing-- football obsession. A great read which had me laughing out loud more than a few times and wondering why it is for some what is your blood eventually becomes more like a disease for others. I know the feeling only too well.

I also know Adrian a little, and as in real life he comes over as 100% genuine. Read it. You'll enjoy.

Extracts can be read here.

http://football.guardian.co.uk/News_Story/0,,2134042,00.html

Edited August 25, 2007 by Happy Hammer

[toasted]

4-4-2 Magazine is available in Asia books without the need to order. It is very good; I particularly like the letters page. They don't solely focus on the glory boys, but also have articles on teams and players further down the divisions.

[mrtoad]

Toasted, how much is it sold for? I had a recollection that it was around 750 baht when I last saw it here.