Friday, September 19, 2008
Understanding the Local Culture
This may surprise many but there is alot more to football than spending big money on star players. What makes the English game, sorry what used to make the English game, so special is the whole culture that surrounds it. Running yourself stupid like a twat, the rivalries, the culture that surrounds an individual club.
Many recent takeovers have been by people who, while successful in their primary businesses, have been momentarily blinded by the glitz and glamour of the premier league and are seduced by the perceived status they acquire when buying into it. A successful businessman isn't just the one who knows what he's good at. It's the one who knows where he's weak.
The Glazers at least understand that. United have continued to be successful because they have allowed Fergie to do what he does best. Manage.
Other takeovers haven't prospered so well. West ham's homely east end traditions of jellied eels and bovver boots have been replaced by, well, confusion, and it may now take an Italian to restore their 'Academy of Football' heritage. Never can one club have produced such prodigious talent in recent years only to spurn it. Or make a healthy product.
Defoe, Ferdinand x2, Carrick, Lumparse among others have been allowed to move on and find success while Wham try to find themselves in football's golden era. Gone are the likes of Malcolm Allinson and Ron Greenwood staying around to discuss training methods, Wham's youth today are more interested in their Play Station and i-Pod. The intelligensia of East London nuffing but a fading memory innit.
Let's all laugh at Liverpool! How not to run a football club, the two clowns who walked into Anfield have taken the headlines off the players and shifted it to their own egos. Fine, you don't like your partner, not my problem but how much are your brattish spats distracting from the business at hand which is moulding a successful football team.
Ashley up at Newcastle is finding out wearing a replica shirt and getting pissed with the fans, while great personal PR, may never appear on any upcoming MBA programme. The club is mired in confusion and the Toon is now little more than a synonym for confusion. Who does what and from where? Can you really run a football club 300 miles from the town? If so can I please run Tottenham?
Thaksin ramwonged ino Manchester City promising to have everyone from cleaner to centre forward waiing and eating pad thai. He turned the club into a laughing stock and, oh sorry, no he understood their culture perfectly well. All that was missing was inflatable hookers from Patpong to be bounced around the terraces.
All this makes the Arsenal approach seem quite sensible. They may or may not sell out to this American geezer later on down the road, that remains to be seen, but by appointing him to the board allows him to get an insight into how the club operates. He will learn the little idiosyncracies that make them so special and so if he does effect a complete turnover at least it won't be a shock to all and sundry as it would had he just barged in on day one with a wad of cash.
Many recent takeovers have been by people who, while successful in their primary businesses, have been momentarily blinded by the glitz and glamour of the premier league and are seduced by the perceived status they acquire when buying into it. A successful businessman isn't just the one who knows what he's good at. It's the one who knows where he's weak.
The Glazers at least understand that. United have continued to be successful because they have allowed Fergie to do what he does best. Manage.
Other takeovers haven't prospered so well. West ham's homely east end traditions of jellied eels and bovver boots have been replaced by, well, confusion, and it may now take an Italian to restore their 'Academy of Football' heritage. Never can one club have produced such prodigious talent in recent years only to spurn it. Or make a healthy product.
Defoe, Ferdinand x2, Carrick, Lumparse among others have been allowed to move on and find success while Wham try to find themselves in football's golden era. Gone are the likes of Malcolm Allinson and Ron Greenwood staying around to discuss training methods, Wham's youth today are more interested in their Play Station and i-Pod. The intelligensia of East London nuffing but a fading memory innit.
Let's all laugh at Liverpool! How not to run a football club, the two clowns who walked into Anfield have taken the headlines off the players and shifted it to their own egos. Fine, you don't like your partner, not my problem but how much are your brattish spats distracting from the business at hand which is moulding a successful football team.
Ashley up at Newcastle is finding out wearing a replica shirt and getting pissed with the fans, while great personal PR, may never appear on any upcoming MBA programme. The club is mired in confusion and the Toon is now little more than a synonym for confusion. Who does what and from where? Can you really run a football club 300 miles from the town? If so can I please run Tottenham?
Thaksin ramwonged ino Manchester City promising to have everyone from cleaner to centre forward waiing and eating pad thai. He turned the club into a laughing stock and, oh sorry, no he understood their culture perfectly well. All that was missing was inflatable hookers from Patpong to be bounced around the terraces.
All this makes the Arsenal approach seem quite sensible. They may or may not sell out to this American geezer later on down the road, that remains to be seen, but by appointing him to the board allows him to get an insight into how the club operates. He will learn the little idiosyncracies that make them so special and so if he does effect a complete turnover at least it won't be a shock to all and sundry as it would had he just barged in on day one with a wad of cash.
# posted by Me @ 5:56 PM 
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