Regular readers will know I often get nostalgic for the ‘good old days’ of English football – namely the time when I first started watching the game in the 1970s and 1980s.

Well, I was recently challenged by one of you to explain just what it is about that era that I miss. Mario, who I am assuming is too young to remember those days, angrily insisted that today’s game is a more professional and refined sport than it was 30 or 40 years ago.

And he is absolutely right. Only a fool would deny that football has improved dramatically as a product over that time.

But for me, you see, football was never a product. It was a sport. And part of what made it my sport of choice was its flaws, defects and quirks. You want examples of the things I miss about football? No problem, I have a list. Some of them are trivial, others considerably less so.

Dodgy floodlights

Today’s floodlighting is infinitely better than existed back then which was essentially a rusty pylon in each corner of the ground with a bunch of 12-watt light bulbs strapped to them. Today’s night matches are played in lighting so brilliant you can see every bead of sweat on every player’s forehead. Does that make it a better product? Absolutely. But in some strange way, slightly murky lighting gave night games that little bit of added mystery and intrigue.

Muddy pitches

When I first started watching football, games in winter were often played on pitches that looked like they were freshly ploughed ready for planting crops. Modern pitches, with their hybrid mix of grass and plastic, are picture perfect all year round.

Now I find myself yearning to see a game take place in conditions that would make a mud wrestler feel at home. You know, when the ball gets stuck in the corners, a sliding tackle goes on for 30 feet and lasts a good 10 seconds and you have no idea which player is which because they are all smeared in mud from head to toe.

It wasn’t great as a footballing spectacle, but how much fun would it be to see a top-fight game played on a non-league grade mud bath?

The magic sponge

These days, when a star player goes down with a bad injury it’s like a scene from Casualty. Highly skilled, fully equipped medics are by his side in seconds, capable of treating just about any injury football can throw up.

There is now a chasm that is growing wider every year between the people that play the game and those that pay to watch them

But it wasn’t always that way. My first memories of the ‘trainer’ coming on to treat an injury involved a portly man puffing onto the pitch carrying a bucket of water with a sponge in it. Unless the injured player had actually lost a leg, he was given a quick scrub down with the magic sponge and told to stop being a big girl’s blouse.

Today’s players are so valuable that only the very best medical care will do. Again, better for the sport and for the player, but that bucket and sponge were symbolic of what felt like a proper man’s game.

Tackles

Talking of the physical side of the game, I recall when football was a contact sport characterised by tackles so strong the receiving player often ended up sitting in the stands. But you know what? The victims invariably stood up, shook themselves down and got on with it.

The game has become so sanitised these days that we will soon reach a point where players will be booked just for running behind an opponent and breathing hard.

It’s not big or clever, but I miss tackles that made you wince at the moment of impact, especially those that you knew were coming a minute before they happened.

Televised games

There was a time, and you don’t even need to go back to the 1970s for this, when watching a live football match on television was a treat, something to be looked forward to with anticipation and excitement.

Today it is almost the opposite. We are literally overdosing on the beautiful game. During the season you can pretty much watch a live football match every single day of the week.

They say you can have too much of a good thing, and I think that is precisely what we have now.

Connection with fans

Today’s footballers are about as far removed from ordinary fans as it is possible to get. I don’t begrudge them their money and fame – it’s a free market after all, and they are the basis on which the modern product is built. But I do miss the days when footballers were far more, well, ordinary.

As a child I often heard tales of how one player or another would go to the pub after the match and drink with the fans into the wee hours. These days they only hang around with their own kind, often in exclusive nightclubs where they think nothing of blowing 20K on champagne in one night.

There is now a chasm that is growing wider every year between the people that play the game and those that pay to watch them.

The FA Cup

When I was a young lad the FA Cup was an almost mythical beast, the most treasured trophy in the world, the ultimate in football glory. Today it is little more than a tired side show desperately trying to retain its relevance in an era when the Premier League reigns supreme.

FA Cup final day used to be an event of cosmic proportions that you would watch religiously whoever was playing. A real family event.

Today the world’s oldest competition is a lame old dog, struggling to keep up with the Premier League pup and I really do wonder if it might not be kinder to put it out of its misery. Sad, sad, sad.

A level playing field

Football is a rich man’s game these days. But a few decades ago it wasn’t like that. Every club could dream of being crowned champions even if it was extremely unlikely.

All of us who support smaller teams used Leicester City’s unlikely triumph last season as a way of clinging on to the belief that the impossible may actually still be possible. What we conveniently forget is that they happen to be owned by billionaires too. Understated ones, but billionaires nonetheless.

In the modern game, fairy tales can still come true but only if your fairy godmother is in the duty-free business…

So you see, football back then wasn’t all fun and games. It was rough and ready rather than elegant and refined. It was riddled with imperfections and contradictions. But somehow it was all so much more real and so much easier to relate to.

A lot of my bias could be based on the passing years and how things always look better in hindsight. But I suspect there are more than a few of you who will read a few of those and nod along, joyfully remembering a time when football was less polished but more pure.

sportscolumnist@timesofmalta.com
Twitter: @maltablade