If you keep the Shift key pressed down when typing that phrase you get "THE BIG $". Co-incidence?
I am not believer in the myth of the big 4. Not a fundamentalist believer anyway. There was a time not long ago when Everton and Spurs boasted elite gold card membership to the big 5 (or BIG%). Then Arsenal were inpenetrable, then it was never, shortly after the deification of Alex Ferguson, that anyone could ever challenge the supremacy of the big 2 (BIG"). Then Liverpool won a unique (not meaningless, surely) quadruple .
Finally Roman Abramovic arrived with his literally billions and everyone predicted a thousand year reich at Chelsea.
Now, a good way into the season, we have Man City in there mixing it at the top. We will have to wait until the end of the season of course but remember that not too long ago Everton did the same, before predictable annilihation in Europe. (I am not going to mention Leeds, out of respect for those that have passed away).
This is not to say that the big 4 are not better than the other premiership teams at the moment. Over the course of the season they take more points off each other, and throw away less against the lessergods. It is just that they are not as untouchable as is made out. The big 4 will not be the big 4 forever. This period of dominance will last for probably just a few more seasons. Admittedly a few seaons is a long time in football years. It is an era.
This myth of big 4 omnipotence is the fault of sports commentators and pundits. The narrative dictates of sport require that you need elites, underdogs, plucky contenders, and also rans. Hovering around like cliches in archetypal fashion. Womens' tennis is a great example of this. Graf and Navaratolova were invincilbe, who the fuck was Zina Garrison though, or that weepy Novotna. Seles was all set to dominate forever, oh no, we actually mean that little swiss miss Hingis, we mean the Williams sisters and Davenport are too strong, no we mean THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING! oh. Robust competitivivty is simply not as interesting a concept as elites vs the rest. It removes the notions of triumph and dominance that make sporting stories pull at our primeval heart strings. To a point.
There are actually elites in sport. This is most apparent in the gap between the Premiership and the lower leagues. Earnings being the most telling example. The law of the market dictates that this creates a gulf in terms of quality.
So to see it in a biblical sense, returning briefly to my theme of fundamentalism.
Money begets earnings, earnings beget quality, quality begets elites, elites beget sporting narrative. A narrative which, by the way, everyone says they are bored with. As we want the teams in lower leagues to have a chance to make it all the way to the top, for Port Vale to pull one over Man U, or for Grimsby or Stoke to give a hiding to the Gunners. For Leeds to make it back into the Premiership. Fairyta
le land innit? The current Premier league financing system just doesn't permit it. (Well, maybe Leeds' wish might just come true).
The only way to bring about a change of this magnitude would be to radically redistribute football's wealth. For all the teams, across all leagues, to take an even percentage of the premiership pot. And European earnings. Let me just say that this is never going to happen. Although we might eventaully see a little more cash flow the way of the Championship, to even things out a little.
Staying in the realms of the fantastical though. What would happen if football added a more, uh, Marxist style of wealth redistribution. Undoubtedly there would be more grassroots investment, more homegrown talent and homespun support as a result of the inevitable dip in foreign transfer fees. We would see an awful lot less of lazy milionaire footaballers. That phrase really should be an oxymoron if it already isn't. Lazy and milionaire should never be seen together in the same sentence. We'd see less European success but more international achievement. And if this was combined with European labour laws being lifted for football, as does seem plausible, football would have a free moving paperless workforce exisiting in an absolute meritocracy. A totally level playing field (or should that be pitch). There would be no more big 4 (BIG$). In this way football could propose a revolutionairy economic alternative. But, as we kow, this ain't ever going to happen. Secretly we probably like the big 4 anyway. It gives us a sense of injustice and something to carp on about.
There will be some of course who say that these ideas are not just pie in the sky, but that they are plain unsound. We would just be rewarding mediocrity they would say. But, in a world where a filthy rich Stan Collymore was once caught dogging, a russian gangster nad Thai humanrights abuser are hailed as saviours, and lots of twats with good hand to foot co-ordination but limited social skills lounge around in swank luxury palaces banging page 3 girls (I guess, sometimes, maybe) would rewarding mediocrity really be such a bad thing? At least the best managed clubs would succeed and have their day of glory. Not just the best managed clubs that have the most money. The two do not always reflect one another.
All this brings us to the real reason why the big 4 are, right now, the big 4. It is very simple. They are the richest and best managed clubs. Newcastle, Spurs, and especially Leeds can tell you that money ain't everything.
I am not believer in the myth of the big 4. Not a fundamentalist believer anyway. There was a time not long ago when Everton and Spurs boasted elite gold card membership to the big 5 (or BIG%). Then Arsenal were inpenetrable, then it was never, shortly after the deification of Alex Ferguson, that anyone could ever challenge the supremacy of the big 2 (BIG"). Then Liverpool won a unique (not meaningless, surely) quadruple .
Finally Roman Abramovic arrived with his literally billions and everyone predicted a thousand year reich at Chelsea.
Now, a good way into the season, we have Man City in there mixing it at the top. We will have to wait until the end of the season of course but remember that not too long ago Everton did the same, before predictable annilihation in Europe. (I am not going to mention Leeds, out of respect for those that have passed away).
This is not to say that the big 4 are not better than the other premiership teams at the moment. Over the course of the season they take more points off each other, and throw away less against the lessergods. It is just that they are not as untouchable as is made out. The big 4 will not be the big 4 forever. This period of dominance will last for probably just a few more seasons. Admittedly a few seaons is a long time in football years. It is an era.
This myth of big 4 omnipotence is the fault of sports commentators and pundits. The narrative dictates of sport require that you need elites, underdogs, plucky contenders, and also rans. Hovering around like cliches in archetypal fashion. Womens' tennis is a great example of this. Graf and Navaratolova were invincilbe, who the fuck was Zina Garrison though, or that weepy Novotna. Seles was all set to dominate forever, oh no, we actually mean that little swiss miss Hingis, we mean the Williams sisters and Davenport are too strong, no we mean THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING! oh. Robust competitivivty is simply not as interesting a concept as elites vs the rest. It removes the notions of triumph and dominance that make sporting stories pull at our primeval heart strings. To a point.
There are actually elites in sport. This is most apparent in the gap between the Premiership and the lower leagues. Earnings being the most telling example. The law of the market dictates that this creates a gulf in terms of quality.
So to see it in a biblical sense, returning briefly to my theme of fundamentalism.
Money begets earnings, earnings beget quality, quality begets elites, elites beget sporting narrative. A narrative which, by the way, everyone says they are bored with. As we want the teams in lower leagues to have a chance to make it all the way to the top, for Port Vale to pull one over Man U, or for Grimsby or Stoke to give a hiding to the Gunners. For Leeds to make it back into the Premiership. Fairyta
le land innit? The current Premier league financing system just doesn't permit it. (Well, maybe Leeds' wish might just come true).The only way to bring about a change of this magnitude would be to radically redistribute football's wealth. For all the teams, across all leagues, to take an even percentage of the premiership pot. And European earnings. Let me just say that this is never going to happen. Although we might eventaully see a little more cash flow the way of the Championship, to even things out a little.
Staying in the realms of the fantastical though. What would happen if football added a more, uh, Marxist style of wealth redistribution. Undoubtedly there would be more grassroots investment, more homegrown talent and homespun support as a result of the inevitable dip in foreign transfer fees. We would see an awful lot less of lazy milionaire footaballers. That phrase really should be an oxymoron if it already isn't. Lazy and milionaire should never be seen together in the same sentence. We'd see less European success but more international achievement. And if this was combined with European labour laws being lifted for football, as does seem plausible, football would have a free moving paperless workforce exisiting in an absolute meritocracy. A totally level playing field (or should that be pitch). There would be no more big 4 (BIG$). In this way football could propose a revolutionairy economic alternative. But, as we kow, this ain't ever going to happen. Secretly we probably like the big 4 anyway. It gives us a sense of injustice and something to carp on about.
There will be some of course who say that these ideas are not just pie in the sky, but that they are plain unsound. We would just be rewarding mediocrity they would say. But, in a world where a filthy rich Stan Collymore was once caught dogging, a russian gangster nad Thai humanrights abuser are hailed as saviours, and lots of twats with good hand to foot co-ordination but limited social skills lounge around in swank luxury palaces banging page 3 girls (I guess, sometimes, maybe) would rewarding mediocrity really be such a bad thing? At least the best managed clubs would succeed and have their day of glory. Not just the best managed clubs that have the most money. The two do not always reflect one another.
All this brings us to the real reason why the big 4 are, right now, the big 4. It is very simple. They are the richest and best managed clubs. Newcastle, Spurs, and especially Leeds can tell you that money ain't everything.
Little known fact: Karl Marx (pictured above) was a regular at North London derbies
4 comments:
There's also the inverted snobbery of people who, supporting lesser teams, declare themselves the 'real fans' because they are happy to turn up and watch, well, basically, failure, 38 times a season. This definition of a real fan includes every single Newcastle fan, who have paid just as much as Man U supporters over the last 20 years and watched their badly managed team win nothing at all.
There's also, along with this inverted snobbery, the fantasies of fans, so that Newcastle, while being stocked with 'real fans' is also a place where fantasies of being 'a big club' run rampant, despite some Fairs Cup victory before television was invented.
I think that 'we are a big club' thing deserves a post. It is always laughable seeing Tottenham Hotspur declaring themselves a big club, despite having won nothing for millennia. Rather than talk about the Big 4, it is perhaps better to talk about the clubs that win things, regularly. Chelsea used to not belong to this group, now they do. Liverpool still win things, sometimes, as do Arsenal. Man U win things. Who else wins things? Hmmm, none of the other clubs win anything, or look likely to.
Alexei Sayle did a show about a league run on Marxist lines where goals were shared out evenly, at least, that was the idea, but then there was a goal shortage and so all the games ended in 0-0 for three seasons, only everybody who came to watch had to swear blind that the goalfests reported in next day's newspaper were the case and players and clubs were lauded appropriately, managers still being fired after a disastrous run of (imaginary) bad results and so on. I think the last level would be for the matches not to actually take place, for the attendances to be humungous, and for the league to be an amazing thrilling, neck-and=neck affair each season, full of amazing 11 goal thrillers.
You missed out the most important BIG CLUB, the last member, that makes up the BIG 5 - England!
Of course, BIG CLUB England, hotly fancied (by nobody but their own muppet fans) to do well in EVERY tournament and win EVERY game. I just can't get over all the people who buy England shirts to wear, signs of massive sporting failure, but wear them with pride because, well, "It's ENGLAND!"
I watched Argentina's recent match with Chile and it reminded me of why I love football. Argentina's passing, trickery, intelligent movement, and all-round artistry in the way they approached the task of Winning a Football Match was exemplary. England at international level are light years behind how football can be played, but don't you dare say they are not a BIG CLUB in the Dog & Duck on a Friday night unless you want a good old fashioned English stomping!
The last thing you describe is kinda less like a baudrilliardian reality run amock and more like fantasy football leagues. In itself quite a big business.
Argeina are indeed a very good side, and England less so. But remember that Argentina were playing Chile.
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