Been avidly watching The Big Match Revisited on Saturday mornings. Re-runs of the old football show showing matches from the mid-to-late 1970’s.
Some things make a stark contrast from today’s football: the shocking state of the pitches; back-passes which the ‘keepers (some of whom are not wearing gloves) pick up; and tackles that can only be described as ‘agricultural’ but should perhaps have led to assault charges. Some things are amusing: post-match interviews with players in the bath; the parentage of referees being so frequently in question; and managers in sheepskin coats and sunglasses, smoking cigars, looking like Joe Pesci long before Joe Pesci was Joe Pesci.
As a former football-mad child of the ‘70’s, watching The Big Match Revisited is a delightful nostalgia-fest! Some programmes I remember watching at the time. Occasionally, I was there in the crowd! At times, I’ve paused the programme, hoping to spot my dad holding me tightly as I sat on the barrier (long before Hillsborough and all-seater stadium). And whilst a few players are clearly underwhelming by today’s standards, My God there were some fantastic and talented players!
As a central midfielder, I always loved those players. As I sit watching these old matches, I marvel at the wondrous skills of Tony Currie, Stan Bowles, Laurie Cunningham, Liam Brady, Ray Wilkins, Glenn Hoddle, Vince Hilaire, Leighton James and my boyhood hero Trevor Francis. I see them turn past a player and spread a 40-yard ball across the pitch or thread a perfectly-weighted throughball between defenders or cut inside and curl one in the top corner and waves of nostalgia flood over me like a warm blanket of childhood memories and love for the game.
Then I go on one of the many political Facebook groups I joined against my better judgement. I read racist posts and comments that read like propaganda from the National Front of the ‘70’s. I read the most appalling, derogatory views about immigration, the working class, black people, women, benefit claimants, people in poverty and it feels like we never moved on.
Undoubtedly, we have made many progressive gains in the last 50 years – society in general has a better understanding of equality issues and people’s rights are now enshrined in Law – in many instances, discrimination is illegal. But it is also clear that those progressive gains are now under threat. Over many years, the political right, aided by the billionaires’ media, has engineered a backlash to our progress towards equality and equal rights. Despite the facts of modern-day gender and race-based disadvantage, so many people have been conned into believing that women and black people are now ‘unfairly advantaged.’ The phrase often-used is that ‘they now have the upper hand’ which says a lot about how people are taught to view society as one big competition, especially between different elements of the working class. A ‘win’ for my oppressed sister or brother is now seen as a ‘loss’ for me! This assault on a more progressive society is exposed as the classic ‘divide and rule’ tactic of the capitalist class.
Resentments and blame are embedded while the rich go shopping for super-yachts.
Similarly, so many people have been conned into believing that ‘political correctness has gone too far’, despite it actually just being a force for good in creating a more inclusive and less discriminatory society. Instead of ‘political correctness’, I prefer to just use the word ‘decency.’ Trump railed against political correctness at almost every (Nuremburg-style) rally and it’s been a regular target of Murdoch’s The Sun for decades now. Of course, other than the undermining of equality and people’s rights, at the heart of capitalist attacks on political correctness is the associated attacks on workers rights, on unions and on pay and conditions.
And so it is that, on so many of the ‘political debate’ pages of Facebook, people still live in the 70’s. They simply long for the days when they could say racist and sexist things with impunity, when they could laugh at Bernard Manning’s racism and expect their dinner on the table at six.
Trump supporters always say they love him because he’s ‘not afraid to speak his mind’ and ‘tells it like it is’. They mostly mean that they like that he says racist and sexist things and they just want to do that too. I fear many of Boris Johnson’s supporters are exactly the same. Boorish and rampant prejudice is venerated and, as Steve Bannon (who was messaging Johnson while he wrote his vile, Islamophobic 2018 Telegraph column) knows, it certainly gains votes. It’s something to aspire to if you’re stuck in the 70’s, still on the terraces, throwing bananas at black players. Oh yeah, that happened too.
Meh….. nostalgia’s not what it used to be.
Tom Lane
PLEASE SUPPORT US FOR JUST £2 A MONTH
