A New Year message of hope for Sheffield United and Sheffield Wednesday
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A joint New Year wish for Sheffield United and Sheffield Wednesday - for the Premier League to become a goal actually worth striving for.
Because currently it isn’t, and hasn’t been for some time. Unless you judge “worth” in financial terms alone. And even then the cost of staying up can be destabilising to say the least.
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Hide AdFootball shouldn’t be this way. We know it, everyone knows it, even those greedily feasting at the top table, you suspect. Far be it for the game’s future health to rest with this, or any, government. But if there is hope it lies in the legislation going through parliament for an Independent Football Regulator.
The devil is in the detail, of course, but the bigger demons are the ones that need exorcising and the fundamental aims are clear. To level the playing field across the leagues and make it sustainably possible to aspire to top football and keep it for longer than one wretched season.
Obviously the Blades can boast the upper hand in this city, having fleetingly had four Premier League campaigns since the Millennium, compared to the Owls’ none. And maybe a fifth in sight. So 4-0 to United then and a sort of reverse of the famed Boxing Day massacre.
Except that Bramall Lane followers could tell their Hillsborough counterparts that, apart from one year when they finished a still scarcely believed ninth, the experience has been demoralising. It also took good managers, two of the Lane’s finest, down with it. Neil Warnock and Paul Heckingbottom were powerless to defy gravity.
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Hide AdChris Wilder has so far survived the swirl, albeit on a dramatic return to a club where he has been party to two relegations. In all their cases, none of this should eclipse the preceding promotions. And nothing changes.
You look at this campaign and see last season’s promoted trio, Southampton, Ipswich and Leicester all scrambling for a foothold. And all three have been bigger backed in recent times than the Sheffield outfits. So, too, Brighton who have bucked the trend thanks to major investment. Ditto Nottingham Forest, Bournemouth and Fulham.
There are exceptions, albeit rare. The stand-out achievement, truly exceptional, is by Brentford whose progressive selling-and-buying model shines brilliantly.
It should offer a beacon of hope and, of course, it’s the way all clubs should operate in an ideal world but you’d have to recreate the exact conditions for it not to be a one-off.
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Hide AdThe problem is you can hardly turn down promotion, can you? What, £200m? Certainly, no owner can. But unless you have the resources to spend that and more, you’re foolish to chase the dream.
So more power to the football governance bill in the hope it can make football a proper competition again.
While there’s a chance to get some fairness back into the game, I fear there’s one thing we have lost for good.
The importance of match-going fans. Or lack of. They are treated so shabbily and taken for granted that it’s a wonder they keep turning up in such numbers.
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Hide AdAh, you hear people say, TV relies on the spectacle of big crowds and soon there will be empty seats. That’ll show ‘em! But do you see any sign of that happening? I don’t. Crowds are holding steady at all levels, even on the up.
And this is in spite of everything. High admission prices, ridiculous anti-social kick-off times, even VAR which either ruins the match day experience or threatens to do so at any moment. Through it all, folks keep turning up, even for live games on the box. And when isn’t it a live game anyway? Most matches are accessible to a TV audience either legally or illegally.
It’s just as well in one sense that people remain addicted. None of us who love the game would wish it to be any other way. Football is nothing without a proper live atmosphere to go with it.
But it means the game’s rulers can keep on riding roughshod over those who should matter most in their quest for ever more money to feed the monster. The desecration of the FA Cup is perhaps the outstanding example. There’s a tendency to blame the broadcasters, Sky especially, for all this unwanted manipulation. But remember this, TV only does what it is allowed to do. It’s the game itself which has sold itself out and us with it.
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Hide AdI’d love to see the Premier League and the EFL reclaim some control in the next round of deals by rationing the number of games that can be partitioned off and imposing a stricter stipulation on kick-off times. But it won’t happen because the media companies would lower their bids and no club will vote for less money.
The horse has well and truly bolted leaving fans well behind the stable door. But let’s try finishing on an up. And maybe this is the fundamental reason why attendances remain healthy. Going to a game beats watching on TV any day!
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