Newspaper on Football Culture
written by Kyle Grimwood
Football dominates this country. Rugby, golf, basketball, etc, cannot even come close to matching in its popularity. For several months of the year, houses, pubs and cafes become awash with the sound of Sky Sports and aggressive cheering and shouting. We buy shirts and shorts with footballers names and clubs on them and we spend a lot of money on shoes and balls because they were used on the pitch. And I don’t get why we do all this.
Sure, football culture has some good things about it - it's a sport (even in the USA where those HEATHENS call it soccer) that is recognised world over and it can bring people and communities together in a nice, celebratory sort of way, and not just through gatherings, the classic songs ‘Vindaloo’, a song with the name of a very spicy curry recorded for the 1998 FIFA World Cup, and ‘Three Lions’, a song recorded by two middle aged English comedians (who in 1996 looked like Oxford University Psychology students) for Euro 96, come to mind as examples of how football bleeds into pop culture that we still reference today.
On the other hand, seeing shirtless men brawling over a rival team in a crowded stadium doesn’t really give ‘togetherness’ vibes. I think alcohol has something to do with it, the fallout from when it was mostly banned from the 2022 Qatar World Cup was something else. The Budweiser sponsorship went mental on social media such as Twitter due to the ban of alcohol to the point where even Good Morning Britain got interested, this shows the reliance football fans have on alcohol to have fun and create that celebratory atmosphere. The hooliganism caused by football is also shocking - to see people beat others up because of one team scoring more than the other is not what the teams want to see I’m sure. If Jules Rimet saw what has happened to his beautiful game, I don’t think he would be gleaming.
Then again, the popularity of football has spread to all corners of British society. Pubs and restaurants can rely on sports to draw a decent crowd from May to September, their televisions showing a blur of Sky Sports and beer taps pouring a mixture of Stella, Morelli and intense team rivalry. Schools take time off from lessons for the really big football matches from what I hear and in Wales, some primary schools did the same for rugby last year. I remember the first match of the 2022 World Cup taking place during schooltime and dozens of people watched it on a school computer and the small screen of my iPad - the craze from when England scored a goal was so intense I had to cower under a desk for fear of being trampled (both me and the iPad).
There is also the exclusivity of football culture. Sure, during the World Cup the entire country comes together to see if England may be crowned champions, but at other times it feels like those who only have a passing interest in the sport are being gatekeeped from the fun. It seems like if you don't support a particular team, you're left out from it all. It even seems like some areas are entirely dominated by a particular team: Harlow is largely monopolised by Tottenham supporters, many of which arrived from the Spurs-heavy London suburbs of Tottenham and Edmonton in the 1950s.
It seems then that I am part of a very small minority who doesn’t understand this beer fuelled subsection of British culture. Who knows if it will evolve away from alcohol and brutalism, knowing us Brits it probably won’t.
Sure, football culture has some good things about it - it's a sport (even in the USA where those HEATHENS call it soccer) that is recognised world over and it can bring people and communities together in a nice, celebratory sort of way, and not just through gatherings, the classic songs ‘Vindaloo’, a song with the name of a very spicy curry recorded for the 1998 FIFA World Cup, and ‘Three Lions’, a song recorded by two middle aged English comedians (who in 1996 looked like Oxford University Psychology students) for Euro 96, come to mind as examples of how football bleeds into pop culture that we still reference today.
On the other hand, seeing shirtless men brawling over a rival team in a crowded stadium doesn’t really give ‘togetherness’ vibes. I think alcohol has something to do with it, the fallout from when it was mostly banned from the 2022 Qatar World Cup was something else. The Budweiser sponsorship went mental on social media such as Twitter due to the ban of alcohol to the point where even Good Morning Britain got interested, this shows the reliance football fans have on alcohol to have fun and create that celebratory atmosphere. The hooliganism caused by football is also shocking - to see people beat others up because of one team scoring more than the other is not what the teams want to see I’m sure. If Jules Rimet saw what has happened to his beautiful game, I don’t think he would be gleaming.
Then again, the popularity of football has spread to all corners of British society. Pubs and restaurants can rely on sports to draw a decent crowd from May to September, their televisions showing a blur of Sky Sports and beer taps pouring a mixture of Stella, Morelli and intense team rivalry. Schools take time off from lessons for the really big football matches from what I hear and in Wales, some primary schools did the same for rugby last year. I remember the first match of the 2022 World Cup taking place during schooltime and dozens of people watched it on a school computer and the small screen of my iPad - the craze from when England scored a goal was so intense I had to cower under a desk for fear of being trampled (both me and the iPad).
There is also the exclusivity of football culture. Sure, during the World Cup the entire country comes together to see if England may be crowned champions, but at other times it feels like those who only have a passing interest in the sport are being gatekeeped from the fun. It seems like if you don't support a particular team, you're left out from it all. It even seems like some areas are entirely dominated by a particular team: Harlow is largely monopolised by Tottenham supporters, many of which arrived from the Spurs-heavy London suburbs of Tottenham and Edmonton in the 1950s.
It seems then that I am part of a very small minority who doesn’t understand this beer fuelled subsection of British culture. Who knows if it will evolve away from alcohol and brutalism, knowing us Brits it probably won’t.