Anti-football, Anti-Arsenalism And The Misguided Self Preservation of English Football – Part I
ByThe horrific injury to Aaron Ramsey has left a bitter taste in the mouths of Arsenal fans and football enthusiasts ALIKE. Predictably, an unsavoury side of the English football establishment bore its ugly head for all to see.
Bear with me as I address what I feel are the key issues around the related themes of Anti-football, Anti-Arsenalism, and the misguided defence of the ugly side of English football that has no place in the modern game.
Before I lay my case out in this 2 part article, there is a very relevant sub-context to this topic that I’ve comprehensively covered in another 3 part article series Called ”How ‘English’ is the English Premier league”. If you have the time, check out:
- How ‘English’ Is The English Premier League? – Part I
- How ‘English Is The English Premier League? – Part II
- How ‘English’ Is The English Premier League? – Part III
I’ve covered a lot in the above series relating to the impact and necessity of foreign influence in the EPL – and I believe it’s very relevant as it already answers some of the questions that this two part article on ‘Anti-football’ will pose.
You can also read Part II of this article here.
Arsenal midfielder Aaron Ramsey in action
1. The Systematic Targeting Of Arsenal
1.1 The Context: Technique vs Physicality
It has now become widely acceptable that for some teams, the only way to stop Arsenal is to kick the hell out of them. There are teams that with all due respect, will never be able to match the technical superiority of Arsenal.
It has become urban legend that the only way to play Arsenal is to throw them off their stride with an overly physical game that involves a combination of rotational fouling and a more coherent strategy of ’hard tackles’ to take Arsenal’s creative players out of the picture.
In the Sky Sunday Supplement on 28/02/10 – Patrick Barclay of the Times aptly captures the issue of deliberate Arsenal targeting.
When Barclay is asked whether Arsenal have a case when they say they are deliberately being targeted, he responds:
Some teams simply cannot beat Arsenal at football so they go about it in a different way and it’s down to referees to stop them from things like yesterday.
Tackling in English football is out of control and must be addressed by the authorities before more damage is done to the game. There’s a wildness and a physicality about the English game which I don’t think is healthy.
It’s important to make a distinction here between the teams in the EPL that have resorted to this insalubrious tactic – and the teams that are for most part, able and willing to play respectable football that doesn’t have a seedy element to it.
The teams that usually occupy the top 8 places in the EPL table, as well as other selected teams like Burnley, Wigan, Portsmouth and Fulham are not the issue here.
These teams for most part approach the game with a healthy mindset of playing football. Coupled with a healthy and non-dangerous application of physicality, they are eager to go toe to toe with opposition in not only entertaining, but also in achieving a fair competitive edge.
The argument I have is against Birmingham City, Blackburn, Bolton, Stoke City, Hull City and Sunderland. My issue is also with a cabal of English managers within this group, namely Sam Allardyce, Phil Brown and Tony Pulis.
These 3 managers have anointed themselves as the guardians of the unsavoury brand of English football and excel in promoting the anti-football agenda on and off the pitch.
1.2 The Culture And Mindset of Thuggery Disguised as Good ‘ole fashioned grit and steel
For too long, the inability to play football has been excused by the relentless promotion of physicality and brute force as a virtue.
This ”we’re well ‘ard” culture is typified by constant references to attributes such as grit, graft and steel. They are portrayed as the quintessentially English virtues of the game, and those who choose to approach the game in a different way are ignorantly labelled as weak and spineless.
I see it as a culture that is stuck in a time warp of a Neanderthal approach to football and one that is desperate to retain a dying tenet and brand. It’s a desperate attempt to remain relevant in a constantly changing sporting environment.
It has become common belief that this sort of physicality disguised as the virtue of ‘commitment’ – is one that needs protecting as it is the very representation of a dying breed of what is typically English in football.
It’s a culture that suggest that football is a contact sport and therefore the English brand of physicality is part and parcel. There’s a difference between being physical and being reckless and dangerous.
A common cliché bandied about in the media is that “you need an English spine” to achieve anything in the game. This is coupled with the shameless and unprofessional promotion in the media of teams that are seen as having this so called core and backbone.
In truth – this culture and approach has masked a significant deficiency that fails to address the inadequacies of English football. Furthermore, anything that is seen as different is labelled as ’not worthy of the grit and steel’ that is the joy of the English game.
It is a culture that has heavily contributed to the demonization of the foreign influence in football. Arsenal is acutely affected as they are a visible representation of what is ’Not English enough for the establishment.
It cannot be acceptable for physical aggression to continue to be seen as a valid substitute for the inability to play football. It is also counterproductive to suggest that anyone who chooses a different approach to this ugly side of football has no place in the game.
This approach to football is just thuggery – plain and simple.
2. Defending the Indefensible
2.1 The Apologists and Sympathizers for Ryan Shawcross
Stoke City defender, Ryan Shawcross
Take a look at the news wires over the last 48 hours and you wouldn’t be mistaken to think that Ryan Shawcross was about to be anointed as a Knight of the Realm – and Buckingham Palace had asked the football world for a public reference.
I would re-mortgage my house for the opportunity to see how the media and apologists would react if Shawcross had broken the leg of Wayne Rooney, John Terry, Frank Lampard or Steven Gerrard.
The point is simple. Aaron Ramsey is the one in hospital and is the one who’s career has been threatened. This misguided self righteousness that seeks to show plastic support for a professional who needs to take responsibility for his actions is just sickening.
I don’t care if Shawcross was distraught and left the stadium crying to go and lay under his mother’s bosom. The only reason he reacted that way is because he realised the consequences of his actions.
Clearly, maiming Aaron Ramsey wasn’t as he thought it would be like with that “I’ll get in his face and up his nose to see if he can take it” attitude.
Once is a tragedy, twice a coincidence and 3 times in 4 years is just unacceptable. Any attempt by the media apologists to defend the reputation of Ryan Shawcross and the systematic targeting of Arsenal is just bang out of order.
2.2 The Case Against Ryan Shawcross
- Shawcross dangerously tackled Francis Jeffers in 2007 from behind and broke his ankle.
- In 2008, Shawcross deliberately lunged at Emmanuel Adebayor with his studs up when the ball wasn’t even in play. Adebayor was out for 4 weeks because of that rash and malicious challenge.
The media and apologists should stop insulting our intelligence and cease with the sickening wheeling out of Shawcross as the saint of association football. It doesn’t suit him.
The lad has form and if he stood in front of a judge with that form he’d get a custodial sentence that laughs in the face of this “Shawcross is a first time offender and needs a second chance nonsense”.
Instead, he gets rewarded with an England call-up as if in affirmation that his behaviour is the virtue that should be aspired to when seeking to play for the national team.
2.3 Intent Doesn’t Come Into It
Let’s quit this nonsense about whether Shawcross had intent or not in executing the tackle. His apologists can’t get into his head, in the same way they can’t get into the head of any other footballer to selectively determine intent.
The only thing we can go on is the context and environment, as well as the player’s previous form in carrying out malicious tackles.
Whether Shawcross had intent to injure Ramsey is irrelevant. The bottom line is that it was depraved indifference.
When you approach a game against Arsenal with that systematic and strategic rotational fouling and reckless physicality supposedly to put them off their game – there is a viable risk that what happened to Ramsey will happen.
It’s like getting behind the wheel of a car when your drunk and thinking that it’s not possible to injure or even kill someone. No drunk driver goes into their car with the intent to kill or maim someone else.
However, because they constantly drive drunk with impunity, the law of averages suggests that they will kill or maim someone eventually. It’s the depraved indifference of the drunk driver that is the issue and not his intent to kill or maim.
In the same way, we need to stop this talk of ”Shawcross didn’t have any intent”. He was reckless, period.
Join us in the final instalment of this article tomorrow when I address whether the case Arsenal is making is a hill of beans, or whether it’s justifiable. I’ll touch on the role of the players, managers, match officials, administration and the media.
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Tue 13th September 2011; 19:45, Dortmund
Shawcross. Maybe in England reckless drivers who kill or harm innocent victims are / or should be defended by the press. Delibrate recklessness is a crime.
Salut Sir! I like your logical and systematic approach to counter a culture that is dominated by demented subhumans with little brains like the Alan Hansens and Sam As and the Phil Browns.
Another outstanding post Darius, and a fine example of citizen journalism.
It puts Fleet Street to shame.
Is A Reckless driver, without any intention to kill or hurt anyone, guilty when the car hurt someone?
Shawcross, the overrated reckless cunt, gets away with it because:
1) the injured player is from Arsenal
2) the sheer stupidity and bias from the press
3) the overrated cunt is a “rising star” with high hope for the national team
4) excuses made all over the place for this reckless incident because Arsenal can’t tough it up
5) Ramsey, the poor poor boy, is no one important considering his passport and nationality
6) the overrated cunt cried and went home straight away with his mom so he’s a good boy according to his manager who is;
7) a stupid and cold old cunt who deserves a big hard punch from Arsene Wenger. He has some brains to moan about Cesc’s tackle towards the end of the game. It’s a 50/50 tackle so it can breaks someone’s leg according the many people. But Tony Pulis does not get criticized, no. Stupid press really believe the cunt.
I stand by my statement that:
Anyone who defends and makes excuses for Ryan Shawcross saying that it is not his fault is both an inhumane and/or blind human being.
The tackle was not a 50/50.
A 50/50 tackle DOES NOT BREAK A PLAYER’S LEG IN PIECES! That’s the stone cold fact my friend.
Stumbled across this link, great piece.
Nice patient analysis with facts.
Win The League For Ramsey
This is probably the best article/blog I have read about the whole Shawcross tackle. Darius you have a constructed your view expertly and I commend you for that, never has a truer word been said.
I also listened to Patrick Barclay’s comments on Skysports and I was pleasantly surprised to hear what he had to say. He also made an excellent observation about the “wild” tackling that the English Premier league has evolved into.
He mentioned that if RS keeps his tackling with his feet on the turf then Ramsey doesn’t get injured. Barclay also mentions the Eduardo incident, saying that Taylor didn’t need to over stretch for the ball with his studs showing, again if he goes in to win the ball on the turf Eduardo wouldn’t have broken his leg.
Darius I completely share your view on the metaphor, and my opinion is slighlty more bias I do believe that RS went into the challenge to let Ramsey know “he was there.” There is a difference between a 50-50 when two players are coming towards one another sliding for the ball with their bodies and legs colliding. Vieira and Keane used to do it all the time and that was a physical as it got.
The question that I think is unanswered is why is RS going in with such force if he doesn’t intend to hurt the player in front of him. It’s not as if he was on the edge of his own box and looking to clear the ball down field. He was in our half and looking to lace the ball out of the stadium….why? Ramsey in typical Arsenal fashion was looking to knick the ball away to start an attack, RS was there to stop him from doing that “by taking him out”. A Maldini or Baresi or Koeman would’ve jockeyed across and body checked Ramsey, concede the free-kick and move onwards.
Of course RS didn’t mean to break his legs – (not even Wayne Bridge would go into terry to intentionally break his legs), but the intent is to get the man and the ball.
As Barclay says it’s the “wildness in the English tackling” which has resulted in one of the best centre midfielders to come out of the UK – worrying whether he’ll be able to play again, let alone play at his peak.
I overheard an Arsenal fan on the train to work today saying he wished Arsenal were simply in a European league when players play football and referees pull back any tackle where studs are showing. On last night’s evidence I couldn’t agree more.
I swear if we win the league this year it will be sweeter than going the season unbeaten and winning at WHL, or the season we came from 14 points behind to topple Man U.
This season has been wretched for us with injuries and would put huge emphasis on the squad doing all it can to win the league.
Barclay finished off saying that Arsenal are mentally the strongest team in the premier league and stated managers gang up on him because he doesn’t share a drink with other managers after the match.
Let’s win this league and stick fingers up to everyone below us.
Come on you gooners!!!!
Added your site to my top favourites – enough said !!
Brilliant blog.
You know Darius, I have a nasty feeling about this phenomenon: It took a Hillsborough to elicit action on stadium safety from the authorities. It, likewise I fear, is going to take someone having his head smashed in to shake the authorities out of their slumber.
It’s a terrible thing to say; but that’s what I strongly feel.
You have put in a serious analysis here Darius. We as Arsenal supporters, like Arsene, are in a minority.
I think that physicality is ok provided it is used within the rules & is used with discipline throughout the game.
In the Stoke game they started just like that but couldn’t keep it up. They tired quite badly & Shawcross lost whatever discipline he had in going for a ball that had already gone.
It is not really possible to get any satisfaction from the punditry. Even Keown & Dixon were towing the party line. Split second late, unlucky etc….
That being the case even they, who are relatively recently retired, missed the point. This lad was late & to me it wasn’t a tackle at all. He was trying to kick a ball that was no longer there & Ramsey got the full impact. I am happy that there was no malice but there was such a poor level of awareness & technique from a player, who is not only performing regularly in the top flight of English football, but has now just been picked for the England squad.
He has previous – Jeffers & Ade (definitely malicious yet condoned by Jonathon Pierce – yet another to tow the party line).
Arseblogger has put in a couple of must reads. Today he has a quote from Bentner. I would love to know the true thoughts of Sol Campbell. If the break had not looked so bad & shocking I have a feeling that this would have caused a major bundle.
Sol’s conduct after the incident says it all for me.
Meanwhile England will struggle to add to its solitary trophy/final, because brawn is still of greater value than technique for the bone headed majority of football fans in this country.
Arsenal fans are a minority but until we become part of the majority the England football team will continue to be an embarrassment, when it comes to competing at the top level.
I believe Bob Wilson has said much the same on the BBC site, but has already been called an idiot from one of the cream of the island race.
Saloner and Darius,
I am going to repost my comments I made on your last blog as I believe it applies here best. My issue here, like you Darius, is the notion that footballers do not intend to hurt others, this despite Roy Kean’s admission a couples of years ago. Nobody goes in maliciously, and Arsenal are not targeted, that is what Alan Hansen would have you believe. This is what he says in his article in “The Telegraph”. I wish one of these footballers was put under the scrutiny of a psychologist.
I am going to say only one thing “most tackles, like the one Ryan Shawcross committed, in football are malicious and therefore intentional”. You may disagree it’s my view, which stems from a little psychology. The only problem here is we cannot get a psychologist to go deep into the minds of perpetrators. If we could, the folly of such statements as “he had no intention to hurt …” would be exposed. The only reason one (a footballer) would use the tricks of “… they do not like it up them” is because it would cause so much pain to the opponent to the extent that they (opponent) would be afraid of coming across and attempt to go past the perpetrator again (cue Jose Antonio Reyes vs the Neville brothers back in 2004). It is used as a deterrent, a painful deterrent!! If your opponent is not going to be deterred, it would not be worth it? Now, tell me, is that not intentional? That means the perpetrator intentionally causes pain to the “opponent” who, in return, has to think twice to go past the perpetrator.
To me this “… no intention …” thing is absolutely nonsense! Most footballers would not agree with my view, just ask Hansen and Shearer and even Arsenal players (they are not angels as everyone knows) or any one that has played football; but that is what would be going on in their minds when they are perpetrating such acts. “Make him / them feel the pain of your challenge, that way he will not try his tricks on you again”. Do not let these footballers fool you! The first thing is “intention to cause pain”, the next is the extent / level of pain which is dependent on the severity of the injury. Severity of injury will, more often, depend on the amount of force used.
Darius, I wrote in your blog last week, that most injuries that Arsenal suffer from opponents in games / matches are caused by malicious tackles from the opposition. These are the kind of tackles I was referring to. They are malicious because, the opponents go with the intention of causing pain. In many cases they are actually premeditated because these oppositions would discuss how to stop Arsenal in their dressing rooms, so do not tell me they did not intend to. If you tackled and took the ball with minimal or no pain, your opponent would not be afraid of you, and therefore will repeat their tricks or find a better trick against you and be able to go past you, and make a good pass or score a goal. This is the footballer’s mindset not only in England but elsewhere, particularly where there is light or no punishment for such acts.
Last season, on the same Britannia stadium, Arsenal lost three players, two from serious injuries (Adebayor – by an off-the ball tackle by who else but the “… he is not that sort of …” Ryan Shawcross; and Walcot by a tackle from behind by Delap) and one van Persie for a red card. This time Arsenal has lost two, Ramsey (return date only God knows) as well as Song (for two matches) for something, in the first place was not even cautionable, and even if it was, Stoke players (some of whom committed more serious offenses) could not be booked for. Shawcross got away with it last season (he nearly did it again this time, the referee was reluctant to even caution him until he saw how serious the injury was), the referee and every pundit and FA and almost every other premier and non-premier league fans applauded his acts. They are supporting him again. No surprise there. Unfortunately, this is not the first time he (Shawcross) has caused such serious injury, just ask Francis Jeffers in 2007 and Emmanuel Adebayor last season. How long will people continue defending him that “he cannot hurt a fly”? Of course, I understand that he is the least to blame, the football establishment and the thuggish culture is. Like many gooners have suggested, I wish Arsenal could sue Shawcross and his club, and the referee or if it were possible, the FA for sanctioning the “bullying / kicking / up them” or whatever other name it is called” of Arsenal.
Brilliant piece of writing, as usual.
These were some of the same points I raised in my comments yesterday:
How would be British react if Rooney or Lampard had their foot broken?
How could anyone “read” Shawcross’ mind to determine intent?
How many legs does this have to break before he is labelled a thug?
What is the relationship of the quality of english footballers and England’s performance in world and continental tournaments?
Excellent piece, Darius! Most excellent. My anger and disgust is a litle subsided. And thankfully, the Dreggs stayed away today. They obviously underestimated the depth of our feeling.
The sheer scale and range of those seeking to defend not just the Shawcross tackle, but the footballing culture in England that gave rise to it – and other similiar thuggish tackles/assaults – really is incredible.
It’s a celebration of ignorance of the highest order.
No wonder “Ingerland” has consistently failed to win anything at international level since 1966.
Darius.
Congratulations on a sound, articulate and reasoned argument, I look forward to tomorrow and your conclusions.
Cheers
Brilliant article Darius keep the good work up.I also believe that we should get on the fF.A.’S back let them know we will not tolerate this kind of criminal and thuggish behaviour.this has not just put our players in danger but the very game we all love. Please fellow Gooners vent ur anger and frustration at the the bodies who can make a difference F.A.&. FIFA.I urge u all take a few minutes out and write to them make your points then maybe just………..maybe we might see the last of this caveman ideology sunk in to the past where it belongS.
I stumbled across this arsenal blog through Newsnow and I must say I find your blog academic/intelligent approach to football and Arsenal very refreshing. I enjoyed reading the other articles you put a link up on and I am looking forward to reading your articles in future. Please keep it up!
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