Soccernomics Read Online Free PDF
Author: Simon Kuper
was only moderately damaging in the past, when most English people were working class. In the late 1980s, 70 percent of Britons still left school at the age of sixteen, often for manual jobs. But by then, the growth of the middle classes had already begun. In fact, middle-class values began to permeate the country, a process that sociologists call
“embourgeoisement.” It happened on what used to be the soccer terraces, which because of high ticket prices are now slightly more middle class than even the country at large.
Nowadays, more than 70 percent of Britons stay in school past the age of sixteen. More than 40 percent enter higher education. More and more, Britain is a middle-class nation. Yet because soccer still recruits overwhelmingly from the traditional working classes, it excludes an ever-growing swath of the population. That must be a brake on the England team.
W H Y E N G L A N D L O S E S A N D O T H E R S W I N
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The shrinking of the talent pool is only part of the problem. Until at least the late 1990s British soccer was suffused, without quite knowing it, by British working-class habits. Some of these were damaging, such as the sausages-and-chips diet, or the idea that binge drinking is a hobby. “Maybe in earlier generations the drinking culture carried over from the working-class origins of the players,” wrote Manchester United’s manager Alex Ferguson in his autobiography. “Most of them came from families where many of the men took the view that if they put in a hard shift in a factory or a coalmine they were entitled to relax with a few pints. Some footballers seem determined to cling to that shift-worker’s mentality. . . . Also prevalent is the notion that Saturday night is the end of the working week and therefore a good time to get wrecked.” Of course, “problem drinking” exists in the British middle classes, too. And of course most working-class people have no issues with alcohol. However, Ferguson is explicitly describing a traditional working-class attitude.
Another problem was that the British working classes tended to regard soccer as something you learned on the job, rather than from edu-cationalists with diplomas. It was the attitude you would expect of an industry in which few people had much formal education. One British national soccer administrator, who worked for decades to introduce coaching courses, told us that clubs mocked his attempts as “some newfangled thing got up by college boys—as if there was shame in being educated.” He recalls that coaching and tactics became “shame words.”
“People would say, ‘The trouble with soccer today is that there is too much coaching.’ That’s like saying, ‘The trouble with school is that there’s too much education.’”
It would be crazy to generalize too much about the working classes.
There is a strong working-class tradition of self-education. Large numbers of postwar Britons became the first people in their families to go to college. Nonetheless, the anti-intellectual attitudes that the soccer administrator encountered do seem to be widespread in the English game.
These attitudes may help explain why English managers and English players are not known for thinking about soccer. When the Dutchman 22
Johan Cruijff said, “Soccer is a game you play with your head,” he wasn’t talking about headers.
Over the past decade these traditional working-class attitudes have begun to fade in British soccer. Foreign managers and players have arrived, importing the revolutionary notions that professional athletes should think about their game and look after their bodies. But one working-class custom still bars middle-class Britons from professional soccer: what you might call the “antieducational requirement.”
Most British soccer players still leave school at sixteen. The belief persists that only thus can they concentrate fully on the game. The argument that many great foreign players—Ruud Gullit, Dennis
“embourgeoisement.” It happened on what used to be the soccer terraces, which because of high ticket prices are now slightly more middle class than even the country at large.
Nowadays, more than 70 percent of Britons stay in school past the age of sixteen. More than 40 percent enter higher education. More and more, Britain is a middle-class nation. Yet because soccer still recruits overwhelmingly from the traditional working classes, it excludes an ever-growing swath of the population. That must be a brake on the England team.
W H Y E N G L A N D L O S E S A N D O T H E R S W I N
21
The shrinking of the talent pool is only part of the problem. Until at least the late 1990s British soccer was suffused, without quite knowing it, by British working-class habits. Some of these were damaging, such as the sausages-and-chips diet, or the idea that binge drinking is a hobby. “Maybe in earlier generations the drinking culture carried over from the working-class origins of the players,” wrote Manchester United’s manager Alex Ferguson in his autobiography. “Most of them came from families where many of the men took the view that if they put in a hard shift in a factory or a coalmine they were entitled to relax with a few pints. Some footballers seem determined to cling to that shift-worker’s mentality. . . . Also prevalent is the notion that Saturday night is the end of the working week and therefore a good time to get wrecked.” Of course, “problem drinking” exists in the British middle classes, too. And of course most working-class people have no issues with alcohol. However, Ferguson is explicitly describing a traditional working-class attitude.
Another problem was that the British working classes tended to regard soccer as something you learned on the job, rather than from edu-cationalists with diplomas. It was the attitude you would expect of an industry in which few people had much formal education. One British national soccer administrator, who worked for decades to introduce coaching courses, told us that clubs mocked his attempts as “some newfangled thing got up by college boys—as if there was shame in being educated.” He recalls that coaching and tactics became “shame words.”
“People would say, ‘The trouble with soccer today is that there is too much coaching.’ That’s like saying, ‘The trouble with school is that there’s too much education.’”
It would be crazy to generalize too much about the working classes.
There is a strong working-class tradition of self-education. Large numbers of postwar Britons became the first people in their families to go to college. Nonetheless, the anti-intellectual attitudes that the soccer administrator encountered do seem to be widespread in the English game.
These attitudes may help explain why English managers and English players are not known for thinking about soccer. When the Dutchman 22
Johan Cruijff said, “Soccer is a game you play with your head,” he wasn’t talking about headers.
Over the past decade these traditional working-class attitudes have begun to fade in British soccer. Foreign managers and players have arrived, importing the revolutionary notions that professional athletes should think about their game and look after their bodies. But one working-class custom still bars middle-class Britons from professional soccer: what you might call the “antieducational requirement.”
Most British soccer players still leave school at sixteen. The belief persists that only thus can they concentrate fully on the game. The argument that many great foreign players—Ruud Gullit, Dennis