IN SOME countries, there is a limited away-fan culture and visiting supporters are often in small numbers when they do turn up. Just look at some Spanish and Italian games and see if you can identify the small band of flag-wavers penned into a miniscule section high in the stadium, often outnumbered by burly stewards […]
Tag: Football
TIFO Football video: The economic impact of the Corona Virus
GAME OF THE PEOPLE is delighted to have linked-up once more with TIFO Football in the production of a video on some of the possible affects of the Corona Virus on the world’s number one sport. Football is the people’s game and its wealth, sustainability and support is underpinned by the mass gathering of spectators. […]
Manchester United, the religious argument
ACADEMICS somewhere in the world are probably debating right now whether football has replaced religion as a defining element of society. To some people, football is the prominent feature of their life, the opium that drags them away from the mundane. The importance of the game, to those who have little else to lift their […]
Dressing up in costumes, playing silly games: The football experience
WE ALL like to think that football is more than just 22-28 young men kicking an object around an oblong field – if only because it elevates our interest beyond obsession to something that is more deep and meaningful! Journalists fantasise, marketing and advertising folk commercialise, romantics eulogise and academics intellectualise the importance of the […]
Portuguese football: For Três Grandes, business as usual
PORTO won the first big Portuguese Primeira Liga clash of the season when they recently beat Benfica in Lisbon, a big psychological boost for the “second club” and, perhaps, a signal that the title race this season may be even tighter than 2018-19. Porto won 2-0 in the Estádio da Luz, their fifth victory at the […]
The football condition: Devotion, delusion, distraction… deserving?
A CHIN-STROKING professor, trying to explain the typical extra-curricular activities of British people, once remarked that in any group of 100 men, around 50% spent much of their free time watching “association” football. He went on to explain that for many of these people, the game of football was, to a certain degree, the replacement […]
Manchester United, the religious argument
ACADEMICS somewhere in the world are probably debating right now whether football has replaced religion as a defining element of society. To some people, football is the prominent feature of their life, the opium that drags them away from the mundane. The importance of the game, to those who have little else to lift their […]
Europe’s Champions: 1957-58 Real Madrid
REAL MADRID completed a hat-trick of European Cup wins in 1958, but they had to work hard for the top prize in a gruelling final with AC Milan in Brussels. In doing so, Real also completed the double of domestic league title and European Cup for the second successive season. Nevertheless, football historians have always […]
New stadiums for old – reinventing a club
FOOTBALL fans consider the club stadium as an extension of their personal space. They go misty-eyed when they talk about the terraces they once stood on, the end of the ground they occupied and they stick very close to a long-established ritual of going to the match. The stadium is “home”, integral to the club’s […]