Friday, 4 April 2008
Rain stopped play
Football. It doesn't really matter, does it? Twenty-two men kicking a pig's bladder about a bit of grass, and all that. There's real life, and then there's the football fan stereotype that advertisers use to try and sell us things – the one who paints his house in his club's colours and names his kids after the entire 1972 fourth division championship team.
But while football's profiteers exaggerate its importance, other sports just keep ticking along. And perhaps football could learn a thing or two from one of them – at a time when Sky TV is allowed to invent something called 'Grand Slam Sunday' and run trailers with apocalyptic soundtracks implying that every televised match is roughly on a par with the next global climate change summit in terms of its importance to the future of the human race.
The great thing about cricket is the draw. And particularly, the draw that occurs because it starts raining and the match runs out of time. Four or five entire days of sweat, toil and heroic endeavour can be nullified just because an area of moderate low pressure drifting in from the mid-Atlantic makes it drizzle a bit over certain areas of Hampshire.
This is brilliant because it's exactly like life. We've all been in the position equivalent to the cusp of a crushing innings victory, ready to revel gloriously in our mighty planet-stopping prowess, only to be thwarted by the equivalent of the rain stopping play. Furthermore, it acknowledges that cricket isn't the be-all and end-all. It says "yes, OK – it's only a game, and the course of global civilisation won't be altered as a result".
And before the morons who run the Premier League pulled out their staggeringly unpopular 'Game 39' idea, their counterparts at the Football League came up with a corker of their own. Remember Sir Brian Mawhinney's attempt to 'settle' every drawn match with a penalty shoot-out? Wondering why he's still in a job? Me too.
So let's turn the tables. Every match postponed because of the weather, instead of being rescheduled, should just be deemed a draw. A point is awarded to both teams in the normal way. A point is made that football doesn't really matter much in the grand scheme of things. And imagine the difference it will make to the problems of springtime fixture congestion!
Most significantly of all, the club most affected would be Rochdale, where Town are headed tomorrow. Spotland is notoriously prone to waterlogging, and awarding a draw for all postponed matches would deprive Dale of around 24 points per season – catapulting the Mariners above them into the play-off places. Not that football matters very much, but promotion might be nice at some point.
But while football's profiteers exaggerate its importance, other sports just keep ticking along. And perhaps football could learn a thing or two from one of them – at a time when Sky TV is allowed to invent something called 'Grand Slam Sunday' and run trailers with apocalyptic soundtracks implying that every televised match is roughly on a par with the next global climate change summit in terms of its importance to the future of the human race.
The great thing about cricket is the draw. And particularly, the draw that occurs because it starts raining and the match runs out of time. Four or five entire days of sweat, toil and heroic endeavour can be nullified just because an area of moderate low pressure drifting in from the mid-Atlantic makes it drizzle a bit over certain areas of Hampshire.
This is brilliant because it's exactly like life. We've all been in the position equivalent to the cusp of a crushing innings victory, ready to revel gloriously in our mighty planet-stopping prowess, only to be thwarted by the equivalent of the rain stopping play. Furthermore, it acknowledges that cricket isn't the be-all and end-all. It says "yes, OK – it's only a game, and the course of global civilisation won't be altered as a result".
And before the morons who run the Premier League pulled out their staggeringly unpopular 'Game 39' idea, their counterparts at the Football League came up with a corker of their own. Remember Sir Brian Mawhinney's attempt to 'settle' every drawn match with a penalty shoot-out? Wondering why he's still in a job? Me too.
So let's turn the tables. Every match postponed because of the weather, instead of being rescheduled, should just be deemed a draw. A point is awarded to both teams in the normal way. A point is made that football doesn't really matter much in the grand scheme of things. And imagine the difference it will make to the problems of springtime fixture congestion!
Most significantly of all, the club most affected would be Rochdale, where Town are headed tomorrow. Spotland is notoriously prone to waterlogging, and awarding a draw for all postponed matches would deprive Dale of around 24 points per season – catapulting the Mariners above them into the play-off places. Not that football matters very much, but promotion might be nice at some point.
Labels: cricket, draws, game 39, mawhinney, perspective, premiership, rochdale, sky, weather
Friday, 14 September 2007
Music is just organised noise
Have you been watching the Twenty20 cricket? It's like normal cricket, but with all the subtlety and intrigue replaced by brutal slogging and chart pop bands playing live between innings. Cricket fans pretend to like it, but they only tolerate it because it's the one form of the sport their children will watch. They might as well call it Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Sunny Delight cricket.
What bothers me most about Twenty20 is the music over the PA every time a wicket falls. This is in case supporters of the fielding side forget they should be celebrating, and would otherwise vacantly wonder why all those strange men on the grass in garish pyjamas are suddenly hugging each other.
This in turn recollects Town playing away at places like Watford, where goals for the home side would be greeted with a deafening wave of noise – but not from the fans, whose celebrations would be drowned out by tannoyed snatches of James Brown singing 'I Feel Good'. Again, it's all too easy to forget that you should feel good when your team scores a goal, and were it not for James' reminder you'd be contemplating the irredeemable hostility of a godless universe and the wisdom of leaving the stadium now to bagsy a nice corner table at the pub.
Blundell Park has never done music very well. For some of the 1990s Town used to run out to 'Simply The Best'. This was dismally unimaginative, and it was always hard to get excited because 'Simply The Best' is the sort of thing played at the end of motivational seminars at work when outside speakers on £600 a day come in and tell you: "Employee engagement is an attitude. It's about making a superior contribution."
Furthermore, of course, there was a supreme irony in hearing the words "better than all the rest" as a prelude to being thrashed 4-1 by Crystal Palace and Sheffield United every fortnight.
In one remarkable celebration last season, fans of tomorrow's opponents Stockport stood and applauded for minutes on end when they conceded at Barnet, praising the record run of nine clean sheets that had just ended. It's hard to imagine this spontaneous grassroots expressiveness at a bleak and remote new ground like that of, say, Stockport's neighbours Chester. Mind you, it's even harder to imagine Chester going nine games without conceding a goal.
GTFC have twice asked fans in recent years if we'd like goal celebration music at Blundell Park. Both times we said no. But we also said no when they asked about matches being switched to Friday nights. So if Buckley ever finds this elusive goalscoring forward, and Town ever build the Fentydome, don't forget your earplugs – or you might as well watch Twenty20 cricket.
What bothers me most about Twenty20 is the music over the PA every time a wicket falls. This is in case supporters of the fielding side forget they should be celebrating, and would otherwise vacantly wonder why all those strange men on the grass in garish pyjamas are suddenly hugging each other.
This in turn recollects Town playing away at places like Watford, where goals for the home side would be greeted with a deafening wave of noise – but not from the fans, whose celebrations would be drowned out by tannoyed snatches of James Brown singing 'I Feel Good'. Again, it's all too easy to forget that you should feel good when your team scores a goal, and were it not for James' reminder you'd be contemplating the irredeemable hostility of a godless universe and the wisdom of leaving the stadium now to bagsy a nice corner table at the pub.
Blundell Park has never done music very well. For some of the 1990s Town used to run out to 'Simply The Best'. This was dismally unimaginative, and it was always hard to get excited because 'Simply The Best' is the sort of thing played at the end of motivational seminars at work when outside speakers on £600 a day come in and tell you: "Employee engagement is an attitude. It's about making a superior contribution."
Furthermore, of course, there was a supreme irony in hearing the words "better than all the rest" as a prelude to being thrashed 4-1 by Crystal Palace and Sheffield United every fortnight.
In one remarkable celebration last season, fans of tomorrow's opponents Stockport stood and applauded for minutes on end when they conceded at Barnet, praising the record run of nine clean sheets that had just ended. It's hard to imagine this spontaneous grassroots expressiveness at a bleak and remote new ground like that of, say, Stockport's neighbours Chester. Mind you, it's even harder to imagine Chester going nine games without conceding a goal.
GTFC have twice asked fans in recent years if we'd like goal celebration music at Blundell Park. Both times we said no. But we also said no when they asked about matches being switched to Friday nights. So if Buckley ever finds this elusive goalscoring forward, and Town ever build the Fentydome, don't forget your earplugs – or you might as well watch Twenty20 cricket.
Labels: buckley, celebrations, chester, cricket, fentydome, music, stockport
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