This is a kind of purpose: to ask what these things mean. How is it that the story-craving and myth-making parts of our imaginations are able to see greatness and find joy in some arbitrary movements on a field? What does the rhythmic sidestep or the incisive pass echo in human experience? When the ball goes up like a firework about to burst and knocks in off the top corner of the goal, what does it say about the man who sent it there? What does it say about us? A hundred years ago the game made so much sense that crowds filled the terraces almost by instinct; today a billion people can see it and feel the same thing. What is it telling us? What language does it speak?
Read More: Eric Cantona, Historical Goals, Manchester United
by Brian Phillips · February 15, 2008
I’m not sure, but one could really admire Cantona’s arrogance. A special kind of showman.
I don’t in all honesty think you can answer these questions outside the realm of theology. And I (unsurprisingly) dispute your contention that the billion people of today feel the same things the people on the terraces did a hundred years ago. Football in the flesh *is a different experience* than watching it on the telly. That’s a fact. At the game, you are aware of a hundred thousand more nuances than you are in your armchair. Above all, you can choose where your focus lies – and take in far, far more. At home, you have no choice. You see what the director wants you to see. That’s all. It’s an imperfect, incomplete experience compared to the real thing at the ground – and to try and equate them doesn’t make any sense.
Jim, your point swings from one extreme (they’re not the same thing) to another (one can’t equate them).
What if you had more choice at home? What if you could choose the camera angle? (Some sports broadcasts have offered these kind of capabilities at times) What if technology advances so we do have some choice on the focus — maybe a 3-D choice some day?
And is watching the real thing at the ground really a perfect, complete experience?
Watching a game on television is a more mediated experience than watching in the stands, no doubt. There are a lot of differences. But for me, anyway, the feeling that comes from seeing a great piece of play isn’t one of them. It’s the same excitement, the same awe, the same joy. On the other side of the experience, when I’m seeing my team lose, the frustration and disappointment are the same wherever I happen to be. I think most people have found that to be the case, and that it’s why so many hundreds of millions of people like to watch sports on television. Honestly, this just seems obvious.
Tom, I remember John Lanchester writing in his World Cup blog last year about how eye-opening it was to see football on HD-TV for the first time. It will be fascinating to see what happens as technology develops the capability to bring us even closer to the game. I’m looking forward to it!
ALSO: Right on about Cantona’s arrogance. That delayed triumphant arm-raise/too huge for mere celebration celebration has to be one of the most self-glorifying gestures in sport: it’s saying, I’m so good I can afford to scorn overstatement. You want to tell him it’s hubris and to look out for poisoned arrows, but you know he’ll just do it again. Something worth seeing, absolutely.
Tom, I’m not sure how my point swings from one extreme to the other. They are different experiences (point one) that are impossible to treat as equal (point two).
No doubt via the red button, many interactive options will be possible – and it’s interesting how computer games are already ahead of TV in this regard. But my eyes can wander wherever they like whenever they like during a match. Whatever happens, there will always be a limited number of cameras and a limited screen size on which to display those images. And even choosing camera angles still leaves you in the hands of the director.
And Brian, just because *you have the same emotions on the couch as in the stand, it doesn’t follow that the billions watching on TV do, or that they share their feelings with the saints in glory. It will be one of the regrets of my football life, that I never went to Notts County the Saturday after Sturrock left. The game itself (not televised, natch) was a bland 0-0, Luke saved a penalty given for a handball that hit Shelley’s chest and the then ex-managers son had a goal ruled out for offside. But 2000 Pilgrims turned up to say, effectively, that managers come and managers go but our loyalty to Plymouth Argyle remains the same. Even if the game had been on telly, there’s no way I could feel the same intensity as being there. The point was to go – to share in a communal outpouring of grief, defiance and loyalty. The casual fan in a Chelsea shirt in Seoul won’t feel the same as the Accrington fan from 1910, watching his former workmates alongside his family and friends. Honestly, this just seems obvious.
There is no absolute. Watching a game in person and watching on TV is just different. As to which one is *better*, this depends on what you want to see.
Just doesn’t add up to say that millions upon millions of people have fallen in love with football in radically different contexts and time periods, but their feelings have nothing in common and are only valid in certain specific circumstances.
There’s a connection here, a line into human nature, that begins in the sight of a player making a brilliant sidestep, dropping the ball off to a teammate, taking it back and firing it into the top corner of goal. It speaks to people however they see it, wherever they are, and that’s what I find fascinating. Crowd intensity and community/tribal loyalty add something to it, but at bottom it’s not the same as either.
And Jim, if the only way to talk about that is to talk about theology, then let’s talk about theology! So much more interesting than one more rehash of the debate about television.
Jim, I don’t want you to burst a blood vessel, but like you Orange thinks the future of football is 3-D (pdf)
A small sample: