Friday Freebie: Manners cost nothing
Insights into how people operate in football
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This week’s idea came from listening to the ‘Hard Truth’ Podcast co-hosted by Peterborough Utd chairman Darragh MacAnthony. Now you might ask what this has to do with non-league football.
Well, this particular episode had some reaction to deadline day and also an interview with Liz Elsom, who is club secretary at Posh, a great insight the whole pod gave me and made me a bit surprised at times with some of what was said.
There are probably very many who can relate to some of the stories Liz retold, even at non-league level and down to the lower reaches too, whilst there are only 92 secretaries inside the professional game, we’re talking around 1500 or even more for all of our steps in the grassroots game.
Whilst that wasn’t the point I took away to discuss there was more included within the chat about deadline day, something we don’t have to worry about at our levels until the end of the March. I still fail to see why the windows don’t mirror each other across the world, while ours closed for the professional level on 1st September other countries are still open for a few more weeks and can sign your players.
Why ours also is open once the season begins is pretty baffling too, there’s plenty of time to do business and should be shut a week before it all kicks off, the ability to lose any number of players once you’ve begun the campaign must be a kick in the teeth to management staff who’ve planned all close season only to have to ripped up a week or three after they’re underway, madness!
The real point I took away from the podcast was the disrespect and unbelievable manner of people. As a society I think over the course of the last three years manners have disappeared, everyone wants to be somewhere yesterday and abuse levels are higher than they ever have been.
We all know Premier League clubs have endless wealth; well it might end somewhere but since 1992 it’s showed no sign of slowing down. So, we have two parts here to talk about.
Having listened to Darragh to find out that dealing with other owners and chairman is a very mixed bucket I was pretty surprised. Have all these people forgotten they are human beings, every single one of us? Money or poverty makes no one person better than another, humility is in low esteem it appears.
The fact a lot of Premier League chairman won’t speak to other chairman outside their league is quite frankly astounding. I know some of you will argue a CEO or someone else can deal with things but regardless of what club you own you’re all on the same level, that’s some kind of rudeness in my book!
Can you imagine that happening throughout non-league football? No doubt some fall out with each other over players and suchlike but it’s hard to comprehend full stop the way these people operate it really is! It’s just another thing to detach me from the top level of the game, manners cost nothing at all.
The other thing as well to take was a Premier League club trying to get a player on the cheap. That’s an absolute smack in the face with the amount of cash they have to swim in. The player in question was Ronnie Edwards, an England international at Under 17 to Under 20 level so far, not a shabby players by any amount and not just because he was once a Barnet player.
He came from non-league and is one of the hottest properties out there, speculation has been rife for months he would be on the move. West Ham wanted to pay less than the asking price, a punt they suggested. Edwards might well have been over valuated I don’t know, but there were clubs lower down than the Hammers who came closer to what Posh wanted for the player.
Billions of pounds leaves our shores invested in players overseas every year that never comes back here, imagine what some of that could do invested in English players that in turn makes clubs lower down delve in the non-league game for more.
Peterborough are great for the non-league game, they keep tabs on all levels and they look after the club they buy the player from, in turn there is a lot of repeat business because players know there is a pathway to further up the leagues while the selling club knows that player if they do well will bring a windfall.
Not every club is going to have a good relationship with every other club but surely chairman can see they’re all are on the same level and there is no class hierarchy, maybe the game is too far gone for some, but for the rest of us we can enjoy it where the manners are a little more common.
Tell me what you think below in the comments, is their a divide that shouldn’t be there?
As someone used to say, “It’s a funny old game “.
I think that the same drive that allows someone to ruthlessly find their way to the top of their profession or to accrue huge wealth, often at the expense of so
much else life has to offer, is probably in most cases linked to some sort of neurological diversity. These people don’t operate in the same realms of human expectations that others do in relation to empathy and societal norms. As a result I think many of the most successful Chairs and owners have little connection with the average fan, barring attention seeking gimmicks when things are going well. At non league levels there is a little of this, but often the clubs are so small that a Chair is successful because of their ability to lead and inspire in their small community.