Football is indeed back but not necessarily as we know it, Perkins
Following the resumption of football’s Premier – and other – league seasons there has been much discussion of how playing in empty seasons due to the current post-lockdown restrictions has impacted teams, back-room staff, broadcasters and the game generally.
Opinions are somewhat divided on most aspects but, from a personal viewpoint, I’m just glad to see the players playing again not least for its symbolism that to an extent the world is gradually returning to “normal”.
When times are as bizarre as these, there’s a degree that nothing surprises anymore and at the end of the day the novelties of the situation are only “what they are” and (whether good or bad) we’ll endure them for now thank you very much. Ultimately, two or three seasons hence – hopefully – we shall be looking back on this period as a quaint example of “do you remember when?” and not much more.
Just for the record, however, for me the accompanying “canned crowd noises” are superfluous, unnecessary and de facto detract from the watching experience.
They’re just an attempt to promote the concentration and adrenalin rushes of the players and kid the viewing audience that things are back to normal.
But why stop there? In some dystopian future, why don’t those who run football just “go the whole hog” and rid themselves of all the bother and complications that can and do arise from gatherings of large crowds of fans and instead just have blow-up dolls and/or three dimensional CGI-generated fans filling their stadia stands and similarly-artificial crowd and other noises?
Just think of all the costs of policing crowds, specially-laid on trains and buses, even all those otherwise associated with opening grounds at all that could be stripped from the ongoing fixed costs of football clubs and the authorities by doing so! The global television audience would scarcely notice the difference anyway. Bring it on, I say!
Elsewhere, Jonathan Liew is a thought-provoking sports journalist who is always worth reading.
Today he provides a typically perceptive piece on the changing roles and indeed purposes of football pundits over the decades – see here as appears upon the website of – THE GUARDIAN
