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Unless you count in boarding school

Luke Edwards spotted

‘Shit, we’ve been rumbled. Who knew there’d be cameras here?’

Nah, that’s just him any time he faces criticism or is asked to take responsibility which is why he so rarely does sit down interviews. He’s basically an entitled child who feels he’s above the rules.

**screams in reconsider**

Tax dodging fucker.

Also Rafa didn’t lay cables whilst eating a canny bag of Tudor.

I might add now his SPAD is Carrie Johnson ffs!

This cunt has absolutely no idea how things actually work.

Prime Minister lies. Marr tells him it’s untrue. Prime Minister repeats lie. FFS.

The new Sufjan Stevens album is taking up most of my time at the mo, a real return to form. Also, more Japan https://youtu.be/aj8rDCTulG8

Lol. Laters.

Football and tribalism – ‘Do the English really care more about full stadiums than quality of football?’ George Caulkin 3h ago 17 As long as football is something people care deeply about there will always be tension and ill-temper in it – Arthur Hopcraft, The Football Man, 1968 This one is for the perplexed and non-plussed, the believers in peace, love and understanding, for those who wonder why we can’t all just get along. This one goes out to Matt W, a despairing voice in The Athletic’s comments section a little while ago, who doom-scrolled through barbs and insults at the bottom of a Manchester City article and wondered how football – beautiful, life-affirming football – could become such a “dick-measuring contest.” “I know I’m just a dumb American,” Matt observed after wading through an impenetrable back-and-forth stirred by Pep Guardiola’s request for City supporters to fill the Etihad Stadium, “but do the English really care more about full stadiums than quality of football?” And, “Is everyone really more obsessed with sticking one to your rival on Twitter than the results on the pitch? It’s so bizarre to me.” To which Jonathan T replied: “The answer to both questions is ‘no’. No-one cares, it’s just harmless teasing.” Or, as English football would doubtless put it: “fuck off back to baseball, Matt.” That’s a joke, Matt (something we’ll come on to). Seriously, you’re very welcome here, and you raise a fascinating point. Take a step back and why the hell should Liverpool supporters have any interest in Manchester City’s attendances, in a statistic relating to a quantity of people? Why are there shades of support – “real fans”, “plastic fans”, “shit fans”? Why do we grade the bigness of clubs? Why, when surrounded by such artistry, do we waste so much time expressing our disdain for others? And why, as you put it, does “a sport that never misses a chance to glorify itself as ‘the world’s game,’ behave with such insularity and anger”. As Liverpool and City, these two gorgeous teams crammed with wondrous players, prepare to play each other, how and why do feuds develop? Why, when we are so global and expansive and glorious, are we so small and petulant, too? The most obvious explanation is that football mirrors society and we are living in a polarised era of fake news, anger and conspiracy on social media and inflamed, confrontational discourse. “The negatives are always going to be there, but that’s not a football tribalism problem,” Andrew Lawn, author of We Lose Every Week, a history of football chanting and a Norwich City fan, says. “It’s just that some people are inherently violent, racist or unpleasant.” Football has those people and yet this is also something else. Because, quite frankly, Matt, we’ve always been like this and most of the time we revel in it. We can touch upon anthropology and sociology, but rivalry and inexplicable pettiness are a heartbeat. “Tribalism is important to the sense of community that football is so powerful at creating,” Lawn says. “If there’s going to be an ‘us’, there has to be a ‘them’ to contrast yourself with.” There are plenty of examples of us and them crossing the line; spiteful songs and insults, trouble, hooliganism. “Tribalism has that nasty edge and you can’t just accept it and give it carte blanche and let it go,” Lawn says, “but it’s also such a small part of it. It’s the most visible bit, the bit that the media focuses on, but tribalism brings huge positives to loads and loads of people’s lives. It’s something that binds us together.” So what does that “us” mean in the first place? In the most existential sense possible, nothing connected to football is real. In the words of Patrick Marber’s play, The Red Lion, “the game is ritual; made-up roles, man-made oppositions. Make-believe. The crowd, the ceremony, the collusion of souls willing it to matter – makes it matter.” If we feel it, it is because we choose to feel it, but then this applies to other sports or pastimes, to leisure or to art. Football’s difference is in how much it matters. “No player, manager, director or fan who understands football, either through his intellect or his nerve-ends, ever repeats that piece of nonsense: ‘After all, it’s only a game’,” Hopcraft, the journalist and scriptwriter, said in his seminal book, The Football Man. “It has not been a game for 80 years; not since the working classes saw it as an escape route out of drudgery and claimed it as their own.” This was from 1968, long before it also became big business and tied to geopolitics. We decided that clubs represent us; our towns, our cities, our parts of cities, our regions, our traits, our colours, our heritage. “Being a football fan is inherently illogical,” Lawn says. “There’s absolutely no reason at all to travel 400 miles to watch Norwich lose at Newcastle in a pre-season friendly – they’re just 11 blokes in a coloured shirt kicking a ball. It literally means nothing. But it also does mean something. It gives you this sense of identity, it gives a focus to your week.” In its moments of uplift, tribalism brings, “A sense of belonging, a sense of being part of something bigger than you and that your role in it matters,” Lawn says. “That you’re having an effect. It gives people a sense of power that they might not have in their day-to-day life. And that pure binding element of when a goal is scored and you’re hugging people you’ve never met before and won’t ever see again but for that moment you’re completely as one, I think that’s really powerful.” Is there something cultural at play? Did Antonio Matarrese, a former president of the Italian FA, have a point when he looked across the Atlantic in 1994, when the World Cup was staged in the United States, and said, “The atmosphere in the USA isn’t right. The American public look at a game as a day out to eat hot dogs and popcorn. In Europe, the fans can’t eat because their stomachs are tight with tension.” This seems a little lazy. We do eat. American sports are just as much about contest and competition and feature their fair share of tension and aggression – sport as war – but there is less tradition of away support, of song and counter-song, of ribbing in person and, occasionally, of actual physical fear. Of travelling teams and their fans entering enemy territory like an invading army. Us and them, on the road. “The same applies to other sports in this country like rugby and cricket,” Lawn says. “And a big part of it is the separation of fans. In the Six Nations, you’ll get English rugby fans going to Cardiff to watch them play Wales, but everyone is kind of sat together. That influences the way the crowd behaves, because it takes away that physical difference between us and them. It’s much harder to be abusive if you’re surrounded by the people you’re being abusive about.” Which brings us on to “them”. Why are we so bothered by the other lot? In terms of local rivalries, it doesn’t require too much unpicking. They are too close to us, too similar but also vaguely different and therefore a cause of suspicion. These skirmishes often have their roots in historical disputes or grievances. They can be sectarian; our tribe, their tribe. They are often nasty and putrid, where everything about the us and them is highlighted. They are also noisy, raw, vibrant. Away from derby matches, big clubs compete for the same trophies, bringing hype and attention and often inflating ill feeling. “I had a lot of hatred for Arsenal because they were big rivals,” Roy Keane, the former Manchester United captain, said recently. “I can’t think of any other word that springs to mind when I was going into battle with Arsenal. Hatred.” We are in a different era from Keane, Patrick Vieira, Sir Alex Ferguson and Arsene Wenger, mind games, and “Pizzagate,” but it is a partial explanation for the kind of enmity which now festers between Manchester City and Liverpool, for City’s team bus being pelted by missiles en route to Anfield before the Champions League quarter-final in 2018. “We come here to play football and I don’t understand this kind of situation,” Pep Guardiola said. Occasionally, there is a mix of these things. Manchester United versus Leeds United is the War of the Roses, Lancashire and Yorkshire, red rose and white. Both teams chased the league and FA Cup double in the mid-1960s, ferocity on the pitch leading to fighting in the stands. Big players were traded. They fought it out for the title in 1992, there was the grudge between Keane and Alf-Inge Haaland, chants about the Munich air disaster and the two Leeds fans who were stabbed to death in Turkey. “After Rio Ferdinand’s transfer (from Elland Road to Manchester United), I saw a T-shirt at Leeds that said ‘Traitors’ and had my name and Joe’s (Jordan), then Eric Cantona and Rio. And that’s 25 years after I left. Some of the people wearing it weren’t even born when I left,” said Gordon McQueen, who made the same journey in 1978. “I got soured against Alex Ferguson,” David O’Leary, the former Leeds manager, said. “I was behaving like a Leeds fan.” Players, managers feel it and are often caught up in it. “I do hate Arsenal. With a passion. No money in the world would ever tempt me to play for them,” Teddy Sheringham, who supported and played for Tottenham Hotspur, said. When Sol Campbell, the Spurs captain, crossed the North London divide, he was a “Judas” to supporters, expanding the religious theme of tribalism, the crowd as singing congregation, the grass as sacred and Sir Bobby Robson’s “cathedral on the hill,” at St James’ Park. Most of the time, tribalism is far less heated or pronounced. “The Manchester City case is a really good example,” Lawn says. “By any measure, they’re a hugely successful team, so what does a supporter of a team who is not as successful on the pitch use to degrade them and to make themselves feel better? You have to find some chink in the armour, something they’re not perfect at. “So that can be attendances or number of fans or away attendances or history or any number of things. There’s always something you can contrast yourself with and say, ‘Yeah, you might have won all those trophies, but you have 10,000 less fans than us at home games’. And City can say, ‘Well, we don’t care about that, we’ve got all these trophies’. You need it to create that sense of community. “And I guess that tribalism is like red wine; a little bit is good for you, but too much and it becomes a problem.” It is why, to other fans, the City business was so perfect; the chink was exposed by Guardiola, one of their own, thereby legitimising it. But empathy withers inside football. Newcastle fans distraught at their club’s lack of ambition are “deluded” for expecting better and ungrateful for their position in the Premier League. You can say the same for Arsenal under Arsene Wenger or Manchester United’s four-year “trophy drought”. There is always somebody worse off. The other element is comedy, Matt. Some people get it and some don’t. In 1908, Lord Baden-Powell, the founder of the Boy Scouts, described football fans as, “Miserable specimens, learning to be hysterical as they groan or cheer in panic unison with their neighbours, the worst sound of all being the hysterical scream of laughter that greets any trip or fall by a player.” What Baden-Powell failed to understand is that falling over is intrinsically hilarious. “That’s where a lot of this comes from,” Lawn says. “It’s not a uniquely British thing, but an important British character trait is having a sense of humour and taking the piss out of people. It’s oneupmanship, having a laugh about something that’s perceived to be different or worse than that particular thing about me.” Newcastle United hate Aston Villa because when Newcastle were relegated in 2009 a few Villa fans held up banners which said ‘Sob on the Tyne’ and “Who’s your next Messiah, Ant or Dec”? Newcastle were perplexed by the apparent glee, the chanting and songs, which greeted the distressing end to a toxic season. As The Mag fanzine put it, there were “no strong feelings about Aston Villa fans or sense of rivalry before that match.” And now? “Contempt. “It’s what football is all about for me, the piss-taking,” Leighton Castle, who made those banners, told the Birmingham Mail. “I’ve been going down the Villa since the late eighties and I don’t want to sound patronising, but the best thing about it is having a laugh. Football is about tribalism and being part of a crowd. I don’t mean in a hooliganism sense, because I find all that pathetic, but going along and winding up the opposition fans is all part of the fun.” This leads us to football writhes with arcane, forgotten slights, some random event when the other lot said or did something and set all this in stone. Last year, the Coventry Telegraph published an article under the headline: “Explained: Why do Sunderland fans hate Coventry City and Jimmy Hill,” after a clip of a Sunderland fan shouting at a statue of Hill, the former Coventry chairman, outside the Ricoh Arena went viral. The explanation was deemed necessary given that the teams are separated by 200 miles and the rivalry relates to events in 1977, when Sunderland were relegated on the final day of the season and Coventry stayed up. It is far more convoluted than that but, really, all you have to do is watch the video, which shows a grown man pointing and bawling at an inanimate object. “Norwich fans of a certain generation also hate Coventry – and Everton – because in 1985, we finished the season well outside the relegation zone, Coventry had three games in hand, they won two of them and then played Everton in their last game,” Lawn says. “Everton were already champions and basically phoned it in, Coventry won and Norwich were relegated. That really still bubbles along. “There’s Portsmouth as well, purely for David Nugent, because he always scored against us and always celebrated in front us. So Portsmouth are fiercely disliked. I really enjoy those little rivalries that come out of absolutely nowhere from one incident in one game and forever more those two sides despise each other. That’s part of football and you can’t really explain it beyond fans having long memories and it being something else to have a go at each other about.” Earlier this week, Crystal Palace hosted Brighton & Hove Albion live on Sky Sports. Some of these secrets must remain locked away and Brighton vs Palace is one of them. Nobody – nobody – cares about Brighton vs Palace apart from Brighton and Palace and hardly any of them can remember why they ever cared about each other in the first place. “Trying to explain why we hate (Crystal) Palace is like trying to explain why grass is green,” the punk poet and Brighton fan Attila the Stockbroker, once said. “We just do.” “The only reason that game was picked for Monday Night Football was because they knew that Selhurst Park would be hostile and loud,” Lawn says. “You’re not picking that for your prime TV game if it’s not the A23 derby because there’s no added interest. It makes it a better spectacle.” It sounded awesome, Matt. Hostility and entertainment go hand in hand. Why is the Premier League so compelling? You can argue that it’s about the money and the glitz, the richest teams and best players and managers, but as we witnessed during lockdown, remove the crowds – often baying and brutal – and it loses its elemental appeal. Without noise, without volume, without tribalism, make-believe loses its meaning. Back in 2006, Jose Mourinho took his Chelsea side to Sheffield United and said afterwards, “Places like this are the soul of English football. The crowd is magnificent, singing: ‘Fuck off, Mourinho’.” He was absolutely right. The soul of English football, or a large part of it, anyway, is being told to fuck off. When Dave Beasant, a former Southampton player, signed for Portsmouth, their local rivals, in 2001, he was expecting stick from fans, “but in the circumstances I was seen as doing Pompey a favour.” And how did this gratitude manifest itself? “The supporters did sing, ‘We’ve got a Scummer in our goal’, but with affection.” Humour is laced with anger. “It gives you a place to channel your aggression for 90 minutes,” Lawn says. “Where you can just go and be really angry for 90 minutes, get it out of your system and then come home again. It makes us all arseholes – I wouldn’t want to watch the video back if you recorded me at a match. I’m petty, I’m angry, I’m not a particularly nice person. You get so swept up in the moment, you’re engrossed in the game. It’s all that matters.” Desmond Morris, the zoologist, ethologist and author of the Naked Ape, wrote a book about football in 1981 called The Soccer Tribe in which he compared attending a match to “a public ‘rage room’.” To AA Gill, the writer, “the whole ghastly secret, vile, dark laundry basket of young Englishmen’s fears, prejudices and braggadocio,” was, “hideous and invigorating and group therapy.” Tribalism teeters along a tightrope. England fans still sing about “Ten German Bombers,” 76 years after the end of World War II. Rival national anthems are booed. When some Liverpool supporters serenaded Billy Gilmour, Norwich City’s on-loan Chelsea player with homophobic chants of “Chelsea rent boy,” earlier this season, Jurgen Klopp, the club’s manager, met a representative of Kop Outs, Liverpool’s LGBT+ fans group and described the perpetrators as “idiots.” Klopp also said: “I never understand that, why you would sing a song that is against something in a football stadium, I never got that and never liked it.” The Kop is renowned for the inspiring call to unity of “You’ll Never Walk Alone”, but Anfield at its best – and the same goes for all the great arenas – discomforts opposing teams. Love is not enough. Discomfort based on discrimination is always wrong, but can you really have love without spice, without an edge? Chelsea and Liverpool; big clubs, big rivals. The dichotomy is that as football becomes more wealthy, as clubs chase money and ticket prices rise, what happens to the people who, in Hopcraft’s words, “claimed it as their own,” who gave it meaning in the first place? As the world game opens up, as stadiums become tourist destinations and family-orientated, as the whole event becomes nicer and plusher, how do we summon or nurture the hostility and noise that defines us? They are not new questions. “They sit and admire the stadium, waiting to be entertained as if they were at a musical,” Ferguson said about the changing nature of Manchester United’s support in 1997. “We have lots of visitors for whom it’s a weekend holiday and that’s no use to me or the players.” Keane famously railed against corporate fans who “have a few drinks and a prawn sandwich and don’t realise what’s going on out on the pitch.” And, naturally, other fans lapped this up. It meant that Manchester United ticket holders didn’t really come from Manchester, they were all day-trippers from London or the south. Manchester City were the Manchester club, hapless and self-defeating, until they were taken over, when they became about oil money and then Liverpool and all the rest sneered at them for a lack of history. “If you’re an outsider looking in, to all intents and purposes, clubs are much of a muchness, particularly nowadays,” Lawn says. “They’re just massive organisations that happen to play football in different colour tops. So you need something us to bind you and differentiate you.” Thankfully, football has largely moved away from the routine outbreaks of disorder and violence which were commonplace in the 1970s and 80s. Tribalism back then could be terrifying; Stanley knives and black eyes. Some still glorify it. Strongbow, the cider, was once promoted in the US with the tagline, “helping fuel soccer riots for almost 40 years,” (which Bulmers, the makers, admitted was “an error of judgment,”), and a lot of it feels like contradiction. The game craves immersion, meaning, decibels. We also want respect, diversity, acceptance. We want a form of hatred, but it should never be threatening or harmful. Lawn is also a founder of the podcast and “atmosphere campaign group,” Along Come Norwich. “We said from the start we want Carrow Road to be carnivalesque, colourful, fun, inclusive to everyone, but also hostile,” he says. “And it’s not an easy thing to explain how you make that happen, how you make it a really fun experience for 90 per cent of the people there and a horrible experience for the other 10 per cent. “I think it’s possible, though. Maybe that’s based on my own experience of watching football, that when I go I’m loud, I’m hostile to the opposition, I’m doing what I can to put them off, whistling corners, booing the referee and appealing for everything. And then as soon as the game ends, that’s it for me; I’m perfectly happy to walk up the street with opposition fans and chat about the game. “You can do that; you can be hostile and then friendly and welcoming outside the ground. But you also need a sense of self-awareness, knowing that in the grand scheme of things football doesn’t really matter once you step outside the stadium. But inside? You need to really, really care.” But it does stray outside, too. We stick one to our rivals on Twitter, we laugh at them and patronise them and ridicule them and however much we deny the accusation, we’re all utterly #obsessed, as the hashtag goes. In our worst guises, we cross the line, but in our best we lose ourselves in each other, feeling bigger and better and part of something. And if our tribe is to mean anything – if this whole, ridiculous edifice is not to come crashing down upon us – then we need other tribes, to beat, to be beaten by, to belittle, to fear and measure our own dicks against. To repeat, Matt: we just do

Absolute psychopath

That was it, Bertie. Cracked me up

Lol

I think an important qualifying aspect to this which people leave out is the notion that yeah, many men might be able to make a sexist joke or an objectifying comment and laugh off without feeling the need to go and rape someone, but some other fellas have a far lower threshold. So when we say all men need to police each other's behaviour, it's not because we think all men might be closet rapists - it's because it's the only reliable way to weed out or shut down the ones that are. And for the men who feel put out about that - yeah it sucks that you have to be policed in this way, but surely it's better to have it set up like this than another woman is brutalised at the altar of "lad culture". Men need/have to stop taking this as some kind of attack on them as men, and see it as a collective exercise in protecting women