Project Restart

Jon Berry

Description

It's an embarrassing truth for many football fans that it was only when professional football was eventually forced to close down that we recognised Covid-19 as a genuine threat to our way of life. Maybe just as shameful was the fact that once lockdown became normalised, it didn't take long for chatter to start about when the game might begin again. This book begins by charting what happened in the weeks leading up to that point, placing football in the context of furloughs, some new-found community awareness and dithering politicians. At the heart of the book are seven case studies of teams. From Burnley in the Premier League, down through the divisions to grassroots football, Project Restart looks at the hopes and fears of supporters and the actions of those charged with keeping their beloved clubs afloat. It looks at how we almost adjusted to the eerie echo of games on TV with no crowds and finishes by trying to address the biggest question in town: what will football look like in a post-Covid future?

Sujets

• Histoire
• Inglaterra
• England

Informations

• Publié par: Pitch Publishing Ltd
• Date de parution: 26 octobre 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781785318801
• Langue: English

Extrait

First published by Pitch Publishing, 2020
Pitch Publishing
A2 Yeoman Gate
Yeoman Way
Durrington
BN13 3QZ
www.pitchpublishing.co.uk
Jon Berry, 2020
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Print ISBN 9781785318009
eBook ISBN 9781785318801
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Contents
Foreword: We knew it shouldn t matter, but it did - a bit
1. Lockdown. When we admitted it really was happening to us
2. The Premier League. Burnley. Up with the big boys and surviving with ease
3. Something else - black lives - mattered
4. The Championship - where football remains at its stubborn best. Swansea get a miracle but don t quite make it
5. Things fall apart not Leeds this time, but a few others
6. League One. Tranmere. Done by a decimal point
7. League Two. The clue s in the name. Forest Green - the sustainable club that aims to be made of wood
8. National League. Solihull Moors wait it out with sanitiser and season-ticket deals
9. Winners and a few losers. Thirty years of hurt? Seriously?
10. And how was it for you? Well, pretty dreadful as you re asking
11. Southern League. Royston Town stopped in their tracks with success in their sights
12. Grassroots football. Working for diversity and inclusivity as we approach the new normal
13. Close season. Limbo, vague promises and confusion - and plenty of people trying to do their best
14. From the parks to the Prem - some kind of action gets under way
15. So, how important was it? And could football really make our world a better place?
Author s note
Index of teams mentioned
This is for all those in the National Health Service and the care sector who have worked so bravely and selflessly and who continue to do so. This book is for you and for all those campaigning to keep these services free at the point of use and in public hands. Our biggest tribute would be to make sure you are all properly and fairly rewarded.
This is also for everyone who emptied the bins, delivered our post and parcels, stacked the shelves, got our medicines, carried on teaching our children and did all those jobs that we know now make them key workers.
And it s for those in the game - at every level - who kept their clubs afloat, worked in their communities and never failed to imagine that, somehow, we d get some sort of football back again. The pandemic has taught us that football isn t that important, but maybe it s the most important of the unimportant things.
Maybe.
Foreword
We knew it shouldn t matter, but it did - a bit
I ve always known that I lived in a society where there was unfairness, inequality and tragedy. All the same, for a long time, I didn t think I lived in one where something really, genuinely bad would happen to everyone.
Sure, we d had those miserable climate warnings. For some, the UK winter of 2020 had already brought unbridled misery as persistent, torrential rain ruined properties and livelihoods. Doomsters had been warning us for some time that freak weather could become the norm unless we changed our behaviour. It all seemed a bit distant, though. Stuff like that really wasn t going to affect our lives in the long term.
Pandemics? Shocking and tragic as they may have been, they happened in other countries whose authorities didn t have stuff under control like we had. And then it became horribly real.
Like almost every genuine football supporter I know, I frequently ask myself a question to which I don t know the answer: why do I let the game in general, and my team in particular, matter to me? For all the jokiness, you ll know what I mean - checking the score when you should be grinning happily at your niece s wedding; knowing that you ll be grumpy that evening if you ve lost; flicking the remote from a major world event because you just need to know some entirely inconsequential scrap of football-related nonsense. Let s not even talk about planning holidays, arranging social events and skipping off work early.
In those first few shocking and unsettling weeks in March and April, we had to square up to what we d always known: football really isn t that important in the face of real danger and disaster. The impact of Covid-19 was all-consuming and despite the foot-dragging of many of those in charge, it soon became plain that professional football, played in front of crowds of people, was an unthinkable folly.
All of which lasted for about three or four weeks, by which time it became acceptable to start asking what was going to happen to the beautiful game. With plenty of time for idle contemplation during lockdown, I became fascinated by how this whole process of restarting football was going to play out. In the pages that follow, I ve tried to put together a living history of what happened, looking at football and its place in the wider world. At the centre of this are case studies of nine clubs operating at a range of levels. The choice was arbitrary other than trying to ensure that I got a spread of clubs from the Premier League to your local sports and social set-up.
Communicating with anyone from any of the fully professional clubs during the height of the pandemic was almost impossible. Attempts to set up online interviews, get a response to emails or find someone to answer the phone became a dispiriting business. In the lower leagues, many non-playing staff had been placed on furlough - a term which I don t think any of us had ever used in our lives before, but which became quickly installed as part of everyday conversation. Up at the top level, particularly as the restart became a fact of life, overstretched media teams became entirely inaccessible.
But there were - and are - plenty of other sources from which the temperature of the times could be taken. By trawling media - local and national - and loitering on forums and chat rooms, I ve put together a picture that I hope will be familiar in many aspects to fans of all clubs. Eventually, I got to speak to quite a few key people: members of supporters trusts and supporters clubs; stalwarts of non-league football who do everything from maintaining the website to painting the goalposts; managers, chairmen, chief executives, academics and researchers.
At the core of this book are the chosen clubs, from the Premier League to the parks, but there is plenty of mention of other teams and you ll be able to find where yours features because a handy index is provided. My principal intention has been to paint a picture of what was happening in football but to do so I make no apology for looking at the game in the context of what was happening in society in general. In order to do that, I ve had to engage in occasional political commentary. I haven t been so coy as to pretend any neutrality; you re at complete liberty to disagree with the opinions expressed and I ve even furnished you with contact details at the end so that you can tell me why I m such a fool to think as I do.
Much of this book was written in June and July. At that time, the only two leagues that were able to get back into full action were the Premier League and the Championship. Below that level, barring some play-off action, all we could do was wait and see and hope that, somehow, some sort of football would soon take place, not least so that some income could be generated and the employment of hundreds of people could become more secure. In this, especially below the top two levels, those who worked in football, in whatever capacity, were in the same boat as the rest of society.
One of the things we learnt during the pandemic was that the people who emptied our bins, stacked the shelves, drove the buses, worked at the pharmacy or delivered our post and parcels genuinely were those who kept us going. That s even before we get to those who cared for the elderly, tended the sick, nursed the terminally ill and worked until they were emotionally and physically drained. The pages that follow acknowledge that even though we were all trying to come to terms with a world turned on its head, it was just about permissible to strive for those things we knew were trivial: we re capable of carrying two ideas in our heads at once. We knew that it was possible to be respectful to those who had suffered while trying to grasp for some of the trifles that make life normal.
Footballers showed themselves as keen as anyone to demonstrate humility and a sense of perspective. Some went a great deal further than that. This book is written out of gratitude to the van driver as well as the star striker. Both remind us of what it is to be human.
Chapter 1
Lockdown. When we admitted it really was happening to us
I ll say it out loud. Football is important.
It s true that there are millions upon millions of people for whom it is a massive irrelevance. In many ways, people like me envy them. They go through life unburdened by anxiety about the performance of a bunch of athletes who wear laundry associated with their towns, cities and grandparents or who just happen to have made a simple, misguided fashion choice.
But for other millions, hundreds of millions in fact, football is important. I have no intention of dissecting arguments about it being a shield behind which men ca