London's Fields

Mark Waldon

Description

London's Fields: An Intimate History of London Football Fandom celebrates the turbulent rivalries, local antagonisms and even, on occasion, the fraternal harmonies held in common by the supporters of the capital's many professional football teams. The us and them dichotomy of a local derby is told here through the voices of us, the fans. In a one-club town or city your choice of team would appear to be simple. However, in a city with a dozen clubs the choice is less straightforward. London is a place of constant flux and change; it's diasporic nature may have taken people far from their ancestral heartlands but the football clubs that remain there have, in a sense, travelled with them - local bragging rights and capital gains remain just as important. The author's upbringing was steeped in football, he has played and coached the game; written on it and worked in it. His less than conventional path to choosing his own team forms the foundation upon which the stories of other fans are richly rendered.

Sujets

• Gran Londres
• Greater London
• Grand Londres
• London

Informations

• Publié par: Pitch Publishing Ltd
• Date de parution: 08 février 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781785318979
• Langue: English

Extrait

First published by Pitch Publishing, 2021
Pitch Publishing
A2 Yeoman Gate
Yeoman Way
Durrington
BN13 3QZ
www.pitchpublishing.co.uk
Mark Waldon, 2021
Every effort has been made to trace the copyright.
Any oversight will be rectified in future editions at the earliest opportunity by the publisher.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the Publisher.
A CIP catalogue record is available for this book from the British Library
Print ISBN 9781785318214
eBook ISBN 9781785318979
---
eBook Conversion by www.eBookPartnership.com
Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction
1. Never Meet Your Heroes
2. Cultural Capital
Introducing the Teams
3. She Wore a Yellow Ribbon
4. Can t Smile Without You
5. We the Kings of Orient are
6. They Fly So High, Nearly Reach the Sky
7. Bob-Bob-Bobbing Along
8. We Really Do Care, Don t We?
9. You Say That You Love Me
10. Underground, Overground
11. Just a Bus Stop in Hounslow
12. Hi Ho Super Rangers
13. You re Just Too Good To Be True
14. Carefree, Wherever You May Be
Dedication:
For Elliott Joseph
London s Fields
Football matters, as poetry does to some people or alcohol to others Football is inherent in the people There is more eccentricity in deliberately disregarding it than to devoting a life to it. The way we play the game, organise it and reward it reflects the kind of community we are.
Arthur Hopcraft, The Football Man
Acknowledgements
MANY THANKS go to the people who volunteered their time to talk to me, with so much passion and enthusiasm, about the football clubs they support. Without you, this book, just like the game we all love, would not exist.
Also to Jo, without whose gentle prodding this book wouldn t have been written; Mum, Dad and Alan for their input; Paul and Laura for lending a critical eye; and of course all at Pitch Publishing for taking a punt on me.
Introduction
IS IT any coincidence that many people s recollections of their first football matches involve colour, smell, noise and weather? Feelings of sensory overload are common. The vivid green of the pitch. Onions on the burgers. The oohs and aahs of the crowd. Songs and swearing. And then that split second when the ball nears the goal and 40,000 people fall silent in expectation - reality suspended. The heat of the new season. The dramatic dark of a December afternoon This first game feeling reeled me in and hooked me. There are times, even now, when I m transported back there in an instant.
I have been going to football matches for over 40 years. For most of that time my home city and its many clubs and grounds have provided the stages upon which I have been so richly entertained and, unfortunately at times, frustrated and disappointed. Though I have always supported the one team, London s other teams have also piqued my interest, continued my education, furthered my passions and in some cases extended my enmity. What this book most represents for me is an exploration and celebration of London football fandom. It is wilfully self-reflective, perhaps even self-reverential in places, for the simple reason that football is our game first and foremost; a tribal game that transcends at times common notions of sport, forming instead part of the cultural zeitgeist.
London is home to an impressive number of professional football teams - 12 at the start of the 2020/21 season. By my reckoning, it s the most of any city in Europe and second only to Buenos Aires globally. From Islington to Brixton, from Mile End to Shepherd s Bush, there are football fans all over the city. As London has grown and grown its citizens, past and present, have been part of an ongoing process of migration. These patterns, or diasporas, have taken some out of the metropolis and into the suburbs and countryside - where they ve held on to their tribal sporting passions - and has brought newcomers in. Many are from far-flung places on the breeze of a shrunken, accessible and globalised world. Thus, these wonderful old clubs have many supporters not just in St Albans, Guildford and Southend but also in Accra, Melbourne and Seoul.
I ve endeavoured to put people s stories at the heart of this book. I ve interviewed a cross-section of supporters from all of London s clubs and I have added my own reminiscences, deliberations and prejudices. I hope to have my thoughts challenged, my eyes opened and to learn something new about my neighbours. Perhaps we will uncover hitherto unknown or seemingly irrational rivalries, hatreds and even alliances. We might find a consensus on who is London s most agreeable and nice team, and everyone s second team if you can stomach such an idea. And we might even get to the bottom of why everyone seems to hate Tottenham.
This book isn t an objective, statistics and data-driven overview or history of London football and its clubs. There are numerous books out there catering for that, specifically on London football as a whole or indeed those focusing on individual clubs. The oldest of personal recollections in this book belong to people who were born either during or just after World War II. The memories, passions, rivalries and prejudices have been formed by the people I ve spoken to and interviewed in the late 20th century and into the 21st. This doesn t mean that they, I or you are unaware of the history of our clubs and of our local rivals. These shared histories are passed, almost via osmosis, down to us. Who knows how history would ve worked out had Millwall Rovers (later Athletic and then just Millwall FC) stayed in the Isle of Dogs and not crossed the Thames into southeast London. Or how north London would have looked without Arsenal. And if Charlton Athletic would ve even existed if Arsenal had stayed in Woolwich, to note but a few examples. We are all aware of the controversies involving our clubs and their local rivalries, from rigged elections into the league, questionable relegations and proposed mergers all the way through to dodgy Belgian politicians, plates of lasagne and a statue of Michael Jackson.
For the purposes of this book, London has been defined as the 33 London boroughs and therefore does not include Watford (apologies). The book features the 12 London clubs within the four top divisions as at the beginning of the 2020/21 season. The book also does not feature non-league clubs, so the likes of Barnet and Dagenham Redbridge, who both recently featured in the English football league, miss out. So too do many teams who provided the landscape to much of my childhood in the form of away trips with my dad to such exotic destinations as Enfield Town, Welling, Hendon, Wealdstone and Carshalton Athletic. In recent years, I ve taken my eldest boy along to Hayes Lane and have seen Bromley play Sutton United - two teams I know so very well - a couple of times. It still brings a smile to my face now as I recall both sets of supporters chanting You re just a shit town near Croydon at each other
Chapter 1
Never Meet Your Heroes
I GREW up with lots of fellow football fans. Two happened to support Arsenal. Their dads did and so did they. These were two kids who were never going to get a say in who they supported. It was handed down to them. It was hereditary fandom if you like and given Arsenal s history over the last 40-odd years, I don t think they ve much cause for complaint. This may be how you came to be following your team too. Your dad handed it down to you. Some don t have a choice but many others do. Perhaps you support your team because a grandad, an aunt, an uncle or a sister did. You might have been born near the ground. Perhaps you liked the name or the colours. Maybe you fancied one of the players or maybe you were one of the players.
I chose Spurs against steep odds as an eight-year-old watching the 1981 FA Cup Final. I think I liked the kit. I certainly liked Glenn Hoddle, who was almost immediately installed as my official idol. The odds were slim because I had no connection to Tottenham Hotspur, the area or the club at all. I was born a wind-assisted goal kick away from Selhurst Park and raised in Croydon. From where I lived in deepest south London, the journey to Tottenham was and has remained a long and arduous one. My dad didn t and couldn t take me to football yet - he was a player himself in the Football League before I was born and afterwards in non-league football. My dad had been born near Arsenal s ground - Highbury, not Woolwich. The family left the Angel in the late 1950s. My nan says she remembered being offered council houses in Tottenham, Plumstead and Morden. Such was the experience of many at the time. They chose Morden. On such small details large events turn. How life might ve turned out differently had they chosen Tottenham.
Despite being born in Islington, neither my dad nor any of the family supported Arsenal, though he does remember he and his brother being lifted over the heads of spectators and passed down to the front when they got in to see Wolves play at Highbury - Billy Wright and the glorious Wolverhampton Wanderers team of the 50s being the main draw, not the Gunners. When I pressed him on it, my dad would admit to a preference for West Ham, something to do with the World Cup win in 66 and the skill of Trevor Brooking. He was keen to remind me, however, that he was a footballer first and foremost and didn t support any particular team. It was a harsh lesson learnt at a young age - those involved in the game