Fulham-Blackpool—the encounter I watched last Saturday with real attentiveness—is, in a weird sort of way, my kind of match. Not that I don’t enjoy the big clubs with their expensive workforces: especially when they play one another there’s an entertaining Clash of the Titans feel to the enterprise.
But the inevitable major storylines are not altogether to my taste. Will this catastrophically costly player justify the billions spent on him? Will he be able to play effectively with Catastrophically Costly Player #2? If not, when will the manager be fired? How will CCP3 deal with getting only two brief substitute appearances in two months and otherwise spending games in a parka, blowing onto his hands and huddling with the other benchwarmers? What silverware will the team win or fail to win? And above all: how close is the team to bankruptcy?
It’s not that such narratives are wholly absent from Fulham-Blackpool. Managerial uncertainty is nearly universal in top-flight soccer leagues, and money troubles are constant. But the players’ stories are different, and different in interesting ways.
The second-tier teams tend to have a good many players whose careers are in transition or whose quality is debatable, and I find these matters interesting and fun to think about. How good are Clint Dempsey and Charlie Adam, after all? Does Damien Duff have anything left? Has Bobby Zamora been underrated all these years, or is he just having something of a late(ish)-career blooming, thanks to a combination of his using his own skills intelligently and the team’s knowing how and when to employ him? What would Blackpool have to do—what strategies, what tactics, would they need to adopt, what levels of energy and resourcefulness would they need to achieve—to evade relegation? Who on that team has what it takes to draw them together and bring out their best, or at least something much better than their average? (The answer to that last one is clearly Adam, whose role greatly resembles that of Joey Barton at Newcastle, but he can only do so much; and if it had been hard to imagine Blackpool staying up before the Fulham match, it’s close to impossible now.)
Yes, when Fulham play Blackpool greatness is rarely on display. The strikes aren’t quite as powerful and accurate, the passing combinations tend to lack elegance and precision, the playmakers aren’t quite as quick and imaginative as you might see at the very highest level. But those are, nevertheless, superb athletes out there, and when the moments of great skill come—as they do, if not as often as in Camp Nou or Old Trafford—they can be all the more exciting for their unexpectedness; if you look at the spectacle in just the right way. I can’t wait for Sunderland and West Brom.
by Alan Jacobs · April 9, 2011
Such is the beauty of football; so many questions, never near enough answers. The unknown is compelling viewing.
I puts caviar on me hotdogs.
Fulham are in some debt – around £300 million actually.
@Dr Lister Which is why the post says “money troubles are constant,” I’d guess.
I prefer watching smaller teams. It could be because I am more interested in relegation battles than who will lift trophy at the end of the season. How many teams are contenders for titles each year across different European leagues (two, maybe three..)? Does another La Liga title means a lot to Barcelona supporters? Maybe, it does, but I am not sure if it can compare to joy of Blackpool’ supporters (or West Ham, WBA…) if they stay up. I am sure Arsenal supporters will be disappointed without winning any trophies, but I think it does not come even close to the agony of Aston Villa’s supporters if they go down this year.
Well u did get a super scoreline at Sunderland. Added to that were a sensational Phil Bardsley strike, a come-from-behind win and a high profile relegation battle. So much for entertainment.
@ZZ I suppose it’s obvious that I agree wholeheartedly. For me the most interesting storyline of last Premier League season involved Burnley, with its early successes (defeating Man U!) followed by the slow and yet inevitable decline into relegation. It would have been fun to write a book about Burnley’s brief return to the top flight — call it A Season on the Brink, maybe. If that hasn’t been used before.
I don’t see any of the so called top clubs sporting garish full color statues of Michael Jackson. Something to think about
A lot of the times the best clashes are the top dogs versus the under dogs.
Like in the Carling Cup final, it was the first time I noticed that Zigic actually peels away from central defenders on purpose to contest long balls with the shorter fullbacks, fully making use of his height.
There’s a brain behind brawn.
If I had a Dollar for everytime I heard a commentator say (during one of these type of games) “If Lionel Messi had done that…”.
Why, I would probably have nearly $20
Total Respect for this article even if I am watching rarely small team when I am in front of Match of the day, (i am belgian and I am in Brussel) …
I feel the same way as an MLS fan, with the added fact that I’m at the stadium watching real live players and I’m 10ft away from the opposing keeper for 2 hours as I tell him to “$@#* off” for 90 mins and I know he hears it. Because after he stops a game winning pk, he turns around and flips me off.
I understand what you mean, it seems to me that the relegation battle isn’t nearly as predictable as the battle for the league title. But then, I enjoy watching just about any EPL game…
I’m an American whose first football match was Fulham v. West Ham on Boxing Day earlier this year, and one need not be a football fan to understand the dichotomy of the two fan bases within minutes of arriving at Craven Cottage. Most of those in Fulham kit’s were confused with mixed feelings of middle class support of their club (a notion that directly translates to American sports) and meteorological discomfort (I learned new meaning to the words “cold as fuck”). I say most because there were pockets of zealous supporters, but they paled in comparison to what seemed a more industrial economic base of West Ham supporters. It was like giving everyone in Green Bay rabies and amphetamines, then dropping them into the Thunderdome.
I’m not sure why I started this post other than to say my brother and I came away with a glorious respect for the athleticism of English football. Later we were told the match was the English equivalent of a mid-January Golden State-Sacremento game, but we didn’t care. I still check in with both clubs from time to time, and find myself watching (the original) football more and more. Thanks Fulham.
“Yes, when Fulham play Blackpool greatness is rarely on display”—
Ah, but greatness is relational (not relative) and thus you are right to say that the Arsenal v Newcastle match earlier this year was great, although it was the exact quality of ‘un-greatness’ which produced it as such.
Just read this piece and I couldn’t agree more. Having come into soccer fandom rather late in my 20+ years of life, I must immediately point out that the matches that I remember really enjoying… really really enjoying!… were Swansea vs. Portsmouth, and Hartlepool vs West Ham in the 08-09 FA Cup.
Seeing 3,000 supporters in the Welsh countryside rain at night singing their tiny teams’ anthems while they play another team that’s one or two rungs higher on the league pyramid in their lovingly taken care of little stadia… that was immensely fun to watch.
And now that I think about it, the fact that the FA Cup (and other domestic cups around Europe) even exist is to reliably manufacture these brief snapshots of sporting: the Chelsea giants visiting the Watford nobodies. Those 10k fans will never forget that night or how hard their team fought to keep Chelsea to only 1 goal, or 2 goals, or it-doesn’t-even-matter-how-many-because-we-love-our-team goals.
I have same feelings “I feel the same way as an MLS fan, with the added fact that I’m at the stadium watching real live players and I’m 10ft away from the opposing keeper for 2 hours as I tell him to “$@#* off” for 90 mins and I know he hears it. Because after he stops a game winning pk, he turns around and flips me off.”