This article featured in the April edition of the Gooner Magazine.
http://www.onlinegooner.com/covers/index.php?id=196
In 1990 football became the ‘new rock ‘n’ roll’, with footballers in turn becoming the new rock n roll stars. Italia 90 was the Blackboard Jungle moment; Paul Gascoigne was its Bill Haley, the chubby faced and non-pretty star of this sexy new genre who later would be afflicted by alcoholism and paranoia two decades later after his ousting from the spotlight by cooler, better looking and younger upstarts. The new rock n roll like the old one had grown up in a world of new found prosperity, however by the time the old one had approached the close of its second decade it had began to wither along with the world economy.
All had looked rosy on the surface for the old rock n roll, it filled stadiums and its stars had vast amounts of wealth, but this bloated excess had begun to alienate it from the common herd that had paid its hard earned and increasingly diminishing wages to view the ants from a distance within huge stadiums. It had also started to become a more adult orientated activity, which the youth were increasingly priced out of. A youth led backlash had to happen, and low and behold it did in the form of pub rock, punk rock and the new wave. Away from the enormous concrete bowl stadia, in the cheaper alternative of the 100 club or the crown and anchor, the stars of the show were close enough to see the whites in the eyes of their audience. So could something be about to emerge from the football world which equates to this kind of paradigm shift?
Richard Williams of the Guardian seemed to think so last May in his article ‘Stadium rock of top flight looks bloated against the joy division’ http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2008/may/12/stadiumrockoftopflightloo . He points to the continued increase in average attendances for the Football League, attracting more spectators in 2007/8 than Serie A, due to its ‘appealing to an audience in search of a more basic experience’. He also adds that ‘Looking ahead, it might be worth remembering what happened to pub rock. Its back-to-the-roots ethic and DIY practicality provided the direct inspiration for the punk movement, which came along to sweep away a generation who believed their hold on power was absolute and permanent.’
Since the credit crunch there is much to be said for the rise in demand of the cheap and the basic, one only need to look at the 80% rise in profits for McDonalds. It is always the way that in times of economic downturn such products experience boom years, and in turn bust when an economy picks up again. This was true of the football industry as a whole as attendances boomed from the depression and austerity years between the 1920s and 1950s, then dwindled as the country never had it so good and alternative forms of entertainment (like popular music) emerged. However since the 90s boom years, football has made itself a luxury for many; therefore Richard Williams is in the right ball park, however not entirely correct.
One only needs to look at admission fees in the championship and throughout the Football League to show you just how far an escape from football’s excesses it can be, with prices on a weekly basis hardly recession friendly. What also needs to be taken into account is the fact in recent years a much lower number of the countries top clubs go shopping for bargains in England’s lower divisions. Football League players today are therefore, more often than not, on their way down in the football world. For real punk football it has to be cheaper, have a cult-like obscurity to the general public, but also easily accessible. Vitally Punk football stars like the Pistols, Dr Feelgood et al in 1976 must also have the potential one day to take their raw talents to the very top. The answer therefore lies lower down in the football food chain, is very often seen at Underhill, though doesn’t at all involve Barnet.
As irony has it, Johnny Rotten, the man who’s sneer helped bring Punk Rock into the national consciousness happens to be a lifelong Arsenal fan who grew up in Benwell Road, which lies close to the concrete bowl of the E******* Stadium. As many may have seen in his YouTube rant outside the stadium, (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrz92Z0SsDI) he points and screams at the post-2002 cannon emblem ‘YOU HAVE LET ME DOWN...YOU FUCKING BASTARDS...I GREW UP SUPPORTING YOU AND I GET THAT!’. However he also ends his rendition of ‘You are my Sunshine’ with the line ‘I’ll always love you...but fucking hell, who took the Arsenal away?’ Punk rock did never actually totally abandon the anarchic concept of rock and roll and in the words of fellow Pistol Glen Matlock ‘looked to get back to the freshness and energy of the 50s’. Therefore, with this in mind abandoning one’s concept of supporting your existing passion shouldn’t come into it. And like Punk rock idealism also, it must be by the kids, for the kids.
It was one December evening in 1976 when the nation first got exposed to the Pistols with their infamous Bill Grundy interview and for me it was a December evening 32 years later when Punk football burst into my consciousness. For no admission fee whatsoever I had witnessed Eduardo’s comeback before a fervent crowd (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9lU8LQ4J0A), very few of whom over the age of 25 and probably even less of whom get into the E******* on a regular basis when you take account of the average age of a Premiership match day attendee being 43! The ‘Eduardo Da Silva – Arsenal’s No. 9’ song had been loud and continuous, even though his impact in the game had been little. I had also been there for the Cardiff game 2 months on, and despite Eddie’s explosive return I had found the E******* muted by comparison. Cardiff in February was also equally muted compared to the excellent 3-1 FA Youth Cup Quarter Final win at WHL in front of 19,084 for the princely sum of £3.00 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-eR67RXMlvE). It’s rather ironic also that the E*******’s Stadium Anthem on match days should be an Elvis number, seeing how his bloated excess was terminal at the same time as punk’s vitality was in the ascendency.
Sadly like Punk Rock, punk football is almost certain not to last forever and may even in a perverse way feed the great evil it seeks to destroy. The talents of Jack Wilshire and Jay Emmanuel-Thomas, like the Jam and the Clash before them, will leave the small venues behind to fill stadiums across the globe, their successors on the scene may be taken up by the footballing equivalents of the Leighton Buzzards. But, for the time being at least, never mind the bollocks – here’s to the Arsenal Youth!
A few weeks subsequent to this article Arsenal went on to win the FA Youth Cup, the home leg of the final had seen a 4-1 victory over Liverpool in front of a crowd of 33,000.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHRF1DPxlzU&feature=related
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