The way to tackle football hooliganism? No, prime minister
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Version 0 of 1. By now, we should probably know better than to be shocked by anything that crops up when politics mingle with football. Yet the relevant people might have to forgive me, after wading through some of the previously unseen documents released by the National Archives Office, for the occasional moment when it is difficult not to think they have surely been mixed up with the scripts from an old series of Yes, Prime Minister. The papers have been made available under the 30-year rule and that is certainly one hell of a masterplan by Bernard Ingham, press secretary to Margaret Thatcher, in his memo suggesting she enlists the help of the “more eloquent goalkeepers” in the old First Division to help “mark the return to decency in British soccer” after all those years, culminating in the deaths at Heysel, when football and aggro were as much a part of one another as mods and scooters. The campaign was to be called “Goalies against Hoolies” and if you are wondering why the people at the top of the country fixed their attention on the nation’s shot-stoppers then, of course, it was because the poor fellows were “often first in line of hooligan fire”. Further down the line, Thatcher would target Elton John and “all the glamorous pop names in soccer” – and, no, it isn’t immediately obvious who that means – to contribute. Yet the initial suggestion was that she was introduced to one of the goalkeepers who could help with a media blitz. “We are proposing you should give an interview to Gary Bailey, Manchester United and England goalkeeper, for Piccadilly Radio, Manchester,” Ingham explains. Bailey had been identified because he was “an articulate graduate”. What a quaint idea – and how easy to imagine a mob of, say, West Ham’s Inter City Firm having second thoughts about trying to storm the old Shed end at Stamford Bridge once the shout went up that Phil Parkes disapproved. Or the profound effect that a few words from Eddie Niedzwiecki might have in persuading Chelsea’s Headhunters to drop their weapons and remember that, at the end of the day, it is only a game. The documents list some of the weapons that were used at Heysel including rockets, flares, pieces of tree trunk and lumps of concrete, as well as confirming the presence of National Front members. What better way to cure the English disease than a few pearls of wisdom from Peter Shilton or John Burridge. The archives certainly act as a reminder about how hopelessly out of touch the establishment were when it came to football. At one stage an interview request comes in from Shoot! magazine offering a platform for Thatcher to urge its readers to stay away from trouble. The offer is declined. “My initial reaction is the PM should not do it,” according to one of her press advisers. “As I recall it, Shoot! is a comic rather than a magazine, aimed at 11- to 16-year-olds. While we may be reaching hooligans and potential hooligans of that age, it may be too downmarket a publication for the prime minister to make a contribution.” Some of it can make you wince in other ways. One recommendation from the Popplewell Inquiry, set up after Heysel to improve crowd safety and control in English football, was that the laws governing racist chanting were toughened up. What a shame Douglas Hurd, the home secretary, disliked the idea. Hurd had a folder on his desk telling him how far-right groups had infiltrated the sport and we all know the abuse that black players occasionally had to endure. But his memo to Thatcher, unavailable to the public until now, recommends quietly shelving the plan, adding with the benefit of confidentiality that he did want to get into an “open argument” with the judge about it. Hurd did “not think it sensible to ask the police or the courts to go too far into who is shouting what at a football match”. With that kind of history, maybe we should not be entirely surprised the sport is so pathetically pleased with itself now Chris Hughton’s appointment at Brighton has taken the number of black managers from zero, as it was from April to September, to a whopping five. What do these documents tell us? Probably what we already knew: that the people running the country had a contempt for football and that when it came to knowing how to tackle the sport’s major issues they were often, to borrow a line from Blackadder, as effective as a cat flap in an elephant house. None of us should really be surprised but it is worth bearing in mind in these times when so many people seem disenchanted with modern football and a lot of us, myself included, are maybe guilty sometimes of allowing nostalgia to work like a file on the good old days, buffing them up to a nice shine and removing all the rough edges. We all have our own complaints, whether it be the bumping up of ticket prices, the over-sanitisation of football crowds or the way various clubs appear not to have a moment’s consideration for the thoughts of their supporters, with obvious examples such as Coventry City and poor old Hereford United. Steven Gerrard’s announcement that he is leaving Liverpool is another reminder we are gradually losing that type of local hero, the guy who understands the link between a football club and its community, and we live in an age when traditionalists are probably entitled to feel a bit bruised. The third round of the FA Cup is a case in point with its schedule staggered over five days and the distinct feeling – with 15 out of 32 ties shifted to another day – that a sledgehammer has been taken to what is meant to be one of the most exciting Saturdays in the football calendar. Equally, let’s not distort the past and gloss it up too much. A few weeks ago, I wrote about the Bradford City disaster and the way, approaching the 30th anniversary in May, it was almost skirted over that nobody had been held to account – and some had ultimately made a tidy fortune out of the club – despite the scandal of ignoring safety warnings and effectively allowing Valley Parade to become a deathtrap. It turns out the prime minister was alerted the next day about the possible negligence. “How far were Bradford City warned about the fire risk at their stand?” reads one memo. The question is answered in the later correspondence, confirming “the tragedy would not have occurred” if the official safety advice had been followed. This is hardly a golden age for football, even before we get to Heysel and Hillsborough. Thirty years on, there is plenty of stuff about the modern game we all probably want to fix and it is certainly a very different world when the headhunters who are usually found at Chelsea these days are wearing pin-striped suits and have just left air-conditioned offices in the city. The documents on view at Kew are a reminder, though, that there is more good than bad when it comes to watching football in 2015 and at least in another 30 years we should not expect to hear about David Cameron trying to recruit the modern-day Gary Bailey or any other potential goalies against hoolies. Martínez’s case for the defence is weakening Name the club with the lowest number of clean sheets in the Premier League, the second lowest number of tackles, the highest number of individual errors leading to goals (11), the lowest save percentage (56%) and some of the worst numbers in the top division when it comes to making blocks and interceptions and all the other statistics that can demonstrate how good a team is at keeping out the opposition. It happens to be the Everton side that have lost four on the spin and conceded 33 league goals, six fewer than the number throughout last season and second only to Queens Park Rangers, with 35, as the worst defensive figures in the top division. Have the Toffees turned into Soft Centres? The evidence is hard to dispute and, for all the praise that was heaped on Roberto Martínez last season, there have to be questions about whether his managerial skills might be lopsided. Yes, he has brought in a more expansive style of play and there was a point in his first season after replacing David Moyes that Everton could match any team in the country. Yet Danny Higginbotham, one of the sport’s more astute pundits, said something interesting the other day about Martínez being “lucky” on the basis that he used to finish the season well at Wigan Athletic and that meant there was a slanted view of his work come the end of the campaign. A touch harsh? Maybe, but Martínez was certainly lucky, I would say, to inherit a highly capable back four from Moyes and, again, that there has not been more scrutiny about the way it has now gone to pot (a lack of publicity that may be directly linked to the focus on Liverpool’s difficulties). Everton have gone a bit Wigan, you might say. Their manager has plainly not seen in advance the deterioration that has set in and the awkward truth for Martínez is that we have been waiting a long time to see evidence of his expertise as an organiser of defences. Awards do the deserving a dishonour Every so often, I fall into the same trap of allowing myself to be irritated far more than I probably should about the honours list. It puzzles me that Sir Alex Ferguson was fast-tracked for a knighthood after winning his first European Cup at Manchester United yet Brian Clough, with two for Nottingham Forest, wasn’t treated the same. Then I think of the three times Bob Paisley’s Liverpool teams lifted the trophy and it is even harder to find the logic. Maybe that’s the key to understanding how it works: don’t try to base the system on an organised hierarchy of merit because one doesn’t exist, or at least not one that makes any sense. Anyway, from now on – and this probably started with Pete Tong’s MBE last year – I refuse to be annoyed again. James Corden is welcome to his OBE for services to, well, I’m not entirely sure, beyond making matey jokes with Rio Ferdinand and bantering on our television screens more than anyone feasibly should. Good luck to him, a thoroughly deserving chap to go alongside Bobby Moore, Gordon Banks and Gary Lineker from previous years. Besides, it shouldn’t change the way we think of people anyway. Just ask Roy Keane, who I note managed to write an entire book and, with a prolific kind of belligerence, stubbornly refused to mention plain old Alex Ferguson’s title once, even in the index. |