Cod Almighty | Diary

Keywords for footballers

3 June 2014

Since I read an article about it in February, there has been a book on Middle-Aged Diary's reading list. Keywords, by Raymond Williams, explored the way that the use to which we put different words - like welfare, bureaucracy or private - changes with time, according to our social and political context.

A football equivalent of Keywords might be instructive. To start with, there is 'football'. As Cod Almighty has observed before, it is a myth that 'soccer' is an Americanisation. Until the 1960s, football could mean any one of a number of codes. Indeed the distinctions between sports were sometimes fluid. Bradford City took up soccer in 1903 because they couldn't make a go of playing rugby league. Grimsby Town are by no means unique in having their origins in a cricket club whose members wanted something to do in the winter.

That brings us to the word that follows football in most team names. 'Club' implies a group of people with a common purpose or interest. Whether they play the game, help organise the game or merely support, a club is something they belong to. In this country, that word 'club' becomes more and more like an appendix the higher up the football pyramid you go, a vestigial word retained only because there is no evolutionary advantage in getting rid of it. They are not all in it together. The numbers who flock to a game are there to be fleeced, there to be charged for the ever-changing replica kits that give the outward appearance of belonging.

A few weeks ago, I read a Town blog Pontoon & Pavillion (Link added Wednesday 4 June 2014 - Ed) suggesting that, while the local Town fan can commit to the club through the purchase of a season ticket (the sales of which are the nearest thing we have to news today, except the promise of news tomorrow), the club could be getting more out of exiles. My initial scepticism was overcome when the writer too spoke of fostering a sense of belonging. Cod Almighty, in common with Sing When We're Fishing before it, leans heavily on Town exiles and that is no coincidence. The pull of the Mariners is all the stronger when you are away from home. Involving fans, in the club and in the Mariners Trust, is the way that clubs like ours are surviving against the competition of the Premiership.

Belonging brings us neatly enough to the word that precedes 'Football Club' in many names - Town, City, County, even United. Yes, the word is common, except that with the place name that goes with it it becomes unique, and a symbol that what we are talking about belongs to a community. No wonder one or two people who see themselves as sheep-shearers regard such words as an inconvenience.