It may not have escaped your notice that RTG doesn’t appear to talk much about the lower leagues and, indeed, you would be right. For clarity’s sake, RTG decided to rectify this today.
It is not a lack of interest in the other three tiers of professional football – and even lower leagues too – it’s just that, well, as the saying goes ‘you have to strike at the head of a snake to kill it’. So our focus has been on the Premier League, where RTG believes the vast majority of football’s problems lay.
Since the inception of the premiership in the ’92-’93 season, the financial gap between the top level of football and the rest has grown inexorably. So much so, that the Championship play-off for the final Premiership spot is now viewed as the most valuable match in the world. In purely financial terms it is. Not through the gate receipts for the match itself, of course, but for the TV money and increased ticket prices that membership of the Premier League affords.
However, if you delve a little deeper than the obvious (as RTG always tries to do), promotion to, and subsequent relegation from, the Premier League has proven to be a millstone around some clubs’ necks. Barnsley, Sheffield Wednesday, Bradford City, Coventry City, Leicester City and many others have struggled to come to terms financially with life outside the top flight. Taking Leeds as another example – all be it that their financial ruin began in the Premier League – it is now difficult for their supporters to ever imagine how they will get back there again, without the support of a rich owner, foreign or otherwise, as seems to be the requirement these days. This paradox is still being perpetuated by the media and pundits whose business it is to talk up the Premier League and make out it is the answer to every football club’s supporters’ aspirations. The reality is that in many cases, it has been the start of their demise and been a crushing of those aspirations.
If, like RTG, you are sick to the back teeth of pundits talking about the Premier League as ‘The Best League in the World’, as if it is something English football should be held up as a shining example to the rest of the sport, you will also be wondering how it is that English football is not developing at grass roots level as a result. Like all foreign commentators, RTG realises that the current strength of English teams in the Champions League is purely based on their financial might rather than the superior technique of English players. The difficulty Championship teams find in staying in the Premier league, and the subsequent problems many face, just highlights the gulf in class that has resulted since its inception. The bigger sums of money, and the undoubted improvement in the standard of football played, are not trickling down to help improve football at the lower levels. Quite the opposite in fact.
If you take the Division 2 Southampton team of 1976 that beat Manchester United in the FA Cup final, or the West Ham team, then in football’s second tier also, that beat Arsenal in 1980, they were still full of top class professional players that were at the beginning or tail end of their careers. The standard was not that different between Division 1 and Division 2. Contrast that with the Millwall side that was comprehensively outclassed by Manchester United in 2004, and the difference is clear. If you get the chance, check out ESPN Classic’s occasional broadcasts of old Match of the Days where you will see that the Second Division matches were not far below the First in terms of quality. If anything, teams in the Championship have to be more aggressive and direct to claw their way out of the division. But, in terms of a competition, it is far more interesting than the Premier League, with the lead changing hands, throughout the season, on a regular basis. Realistically it is still possible for half the Championship teams to gain promotion whereas the Premier League is a done deal within the big four, and has been for years.
Worryingly, as another side effect, the lower leagues do not appear to be acting as feeders of talent to the Premier League and, therefore, the England national team.
The next time you hear a pundit, or commentator, on TV extolling the virtues of ‘The Best League in the World’ you might wish to stop and think for a while of the price we are paying for the development of this elite league.
Reclaim the Game – The Week’s Events
- For those other clubs dependent on a ‘sugar daddy’ for survival, the plight of Gretna in SPL should serve as a warning to what could happen in the future. Owner, Brooks Mileson, has contracted a life threatening brain infection resulting in Gretna not being able to maintain his funding and will likely go bankrupt today.
- RTG felt the need to draw your attention to this letter from a Simon Charterton in The Guardian yesterday. "If England are to play the USA, allowing David Beckham to gain his 100th cap, why not name Gary Lineker as a substitute to come on and take a penalty so he can equal Bobby Charlton’s goalscoring record as well?" RTG’s sentiments also but, why not keep naming him on the bench until he breaks the record? In fact, why not name Sir Bobby Charlton on the bench also, so the two can go head to head? After all, this appears to be the main objective behind England’s friendly matches these days if the media are to be believed.
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