5 Reasons Why Modern Football is Great

What do Movies, Pro wrestling, and the game of Football have in common?

Aside from the fact that the top level of these revolve around hard-working people paying extortionate amounts of money to watch sweaty millionaires fall over each other, more importantly they are popular hobbies and sources of entertainment that have been around for multiple generations. Because of this subsequent appeal to old and young, there will always be a nostalgic and often arrogant claim that “things were better back in the good old days”.

I disagree.

While this sort of statement is often fuelled by the ageing longing to relive their youth, where their optimistic and energetic approach to life would have made any hobby seem wonderful and literally the greatest thing ever, I find it necessary to provide 5 reasons why ,in regards to football at least, the present is very much superior to the past.

1.  Safety

Safety first as they always say, though this remains the most obvious and widely used example of the football of yesteryear’s inferiority. Policing both in the stadium and on public transport is nothing short of superbly organised, and while once in a blue moon there is a fixture that provides news channels with scenes that could easily come out of the 1980’s, most recently games involving London’s East End and the Second City Derby, in general there is rarely trouble at games. Long gone are the days where thousands of scarf-bearing brutes would roam the stadia exteriors looking for trouble, as now both sets of opposition fans can pass each other freely outside the ground without the threat of a Doc Marten to the temple. As someone who briefly worked at Villa Park, I have seen first-hand the capabilities of the security team, able to zoom in with high clarity on any seat in the ground, the effectiveness of which being displayed recently with the swift arrest of a Spurs fan who decided it would be a good idea to throw a flare at the linesman.

Although safe-standing as largely been abolished in the UK (for now), nobody can argue against football being a family friendly activity in today’s climate, with parents having no problems taking toddlers to games, which can only be good for the morality and progression of football as a whole. There are many who use this aspect to discredit modern football, claiming that the lack of free standing has seen a decrease in atmosphere at games, but you can’t tell me that since the Taylor Report of the 1990’s, the Kop hasn’t roared, the Holte hasn’t rocked, and Parkhead hasn’t inspired.

2. Player’s closeness to the fans

I won’t deny that footballers are paid orgasmic sums of money. That might be a weird way to describe it but you’d be pretty pleased too with 200 grand a week, and personally I think they often earn it. This isn't the problem though. The problem comes from the misconception that they find themselves in a different world to the general public, seeing themselves high above us muggles in an ego-filled stratosphere of glory, a far cry from the days of players getting plastered in pubs with fans the day before a game. It’s my belief that players of today are actually far closer than those of generations gone, through social media platforms such as Twitter.

Nowadays fans can call Joey Barton all the curses known to man while simultaneously informing the new signing from Ghana that he put in a good performance, as well as witnessing hilarious interactions between players themselves; and it is for this reason that I see players as now being much closer to their audience.

3.  24 hour coverage

Thanks to creations such as Monday Night Football and channels such as Eurosport showing games between teams you’ve never heard of from obscure countries you can’t find on a globe there’s essentially a never-ending stream of live football, if you wish to view it, particularly if you’re into streaming on dodgy Middle Eastern sites. This gives the casual football fan far more chances to witness the beautiful game at all levels, and gives drunkards covered in kebab on a Friday night the opportunity to watch mid-table La Liga clashes with sure-firing certainty. Many critics will claim such obsessive and incessant coverage is damaging, and may well be responsible for the creation of the dreaded ‘armchair fan’, but as far as I’m concerned – the more football I can watch, the better.

4. Improvement in Quality

The level of quality amongst almost every aspect of modern day football is astoundingly high. Pitches are immaculate, medical facilities and staff are world-leading in many cases, and the footballers themselves are remarkable athletes, with conditioning and diet taking over their lives completely. Sport Science has become a huge part of the game as well, with immense levels of mathematics and science implemented in designing football boots, which in the past have had very basic designs. All of these factors have culminated in a more appealing and impressive product on the pitch, ultimately supported by the growing trend of teams striving to play good, attractive, passing football – started arguably by Johan Cruyff and optimised by Pep Guardiola’s success with ‘tika taka’ during the late 2000’s and beyond with Barcelona. Even Stoke City, infamous for ‘hoof ball’ have joined the bandwagon with the sacking of Tony Pulis, now providing possession football under Mark Hughes.

This type of football may seem like snobbery to some, though as long as Football continues to promote this progressive attitude to tactics (as it seems to be), it will only further improve in quality.

5. Big Games and Upsets

While the growing gap between the ‘small’ and ‘elite’ clubs in football, and rising amounts of money involved, are causes for great concerns, these two issues have respectively created some remarkable games of football. The huge gap between clubs now has left upsets in cup competitions now bearing huge significance, with the chubby kid crying at Anfield as his Havant & Waterlooville took a 2-1 lead over Liverpool being one of my most cherished memories of watching the FA Cup. While such Cup moments have been a staple of English Football for years, it’s undeniable that they are becoming both rarer and more significant as the gap grows.

As for the rising amounts of money involved, this has spawned what has now become what has become one of the most exciting and important games of the season, the English play-off final. Previously being considered somewhat a formality, victory in this game is now estimated to be worth £60 million, with the victor given entry into the promised land of the Premier League. It’s a similar story with Champions League qualification providing similar immense financial benefits, as well as almost every major cup final in the modern era.

While this raises many troubling issues in themselves, you can’t tell me saying that Kevin Phillips scored a £60 million penalty in extra time last summer isn’t bloody exciting.