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Life is a much bigger game than football: Smith on Soccer
IMAGINE an all-British team younger than Arsene Wenger's current side with more flair and two league championship trophies in the cabinet.
With European glory beckoning, imagine the power of that blazered and Brylcreemed team to capture the imagination of a country united by war and hardship.
Now imagine the national outpouring of grief when eight of that young team died on a snowy runway in Munich 50 years ago.
Could anyone have dreamed then that five decades on Manchester City supporters would, in embarrassment, ask for a minute's silence to be dropped because some of their number will want to wreck Manchester United's observance of the death of the Busby Babes?
But this is not just about Manchester City. You could see real hate in the faces of some Wednesday and United fans at Hillsborough on Saturday, you can see it on most grounds, most weeks.
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There are songs taunting Liverpool fans about Hillsborough, Bradford supporters about the fire and Rangers followers about the Ibrox steps.
It wasn't always like this.
Football hasn't always been the conduit for society's bile and spite but it seems the further away we get from real conflict the more football becomes the battleground of young men with nothing else to fight for.
The Sheffield Stars of February 6 and February 7 1958 reflect the scale of the tragedy with page after page of reports, pictures and analysis.
Doncaster's David Pegg died, Barnsley'sTommy Taylor also, everyone was affected.
Sheffield Wednesday were the first team Manchester United played after the crash.The programme for that night has 11 blank spaces where Matt Busby's teams's names should be.
Listen to the words of former Manchester City goalkeeper Steve Fleet. He was the best friend of United wing-half Eddie Coleman, who at 21 was the youngest person to die in the tragedy: "The shouting and booing they're frightened of wasn't about at that time," he said.
"Everybody in Manchester, whatever colour they were, felt for the people who had been killed. There were plenty of tears in the Manchester City dressing room. Life is a much bigger game than football."
Let there be a silence at Old Trafford on February 10 and let them ruin it if they must. That way we can all feel the shame of allowing football to become defined by hate and malice rather than a love of our own team and the game itself.
n When does a loss feel like a win? When you've just been beaten on penalties in the FA Cup and your side has given everything. Wednesday bouyed by Saturday's derby win almost overcame Derby and they'll probably get chance for revenge in the league next season. With the spirit showed in the last two games a mid-table finish should be the lowest of their targets.
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Saturday 26 May 2012
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