The Hero & The Manager

.....We've all done it. Sat there at a game as the announcer reads out the line ups, through that muffled acoustic which seems synonymous only with British football grounds, and In your head tried to piece together where each player will play. Images of blank tactic boards being filled with darting lines & bending arrows, compile a series of mental profiling that goes on until the match starts. Finally you can start to break things down visually, and analyze player traits and assess individual & collective performance. At half time if the team are down a goal or two, the poor sole sitting next to you is forced to cop an ear full of tactical vehement, symbolic in our own minds to that of a young Churchill plotting an allied assault on the opposition. The game finishes with little more than a whimper in the second half, and you trudge out the stadium kicking empty bovril cups in anger, with a head full of "What was the gaffer thinking picking him" & "I would have done X,Y & Z differently." Off now to the local watering hole where I might sit with other's echoing my discontent, further verifying that we all know better and that the manager should take a leaf from our book.

This may seem all too familiar to many a football fanatic, as it's been a factor in watching the game since the dawn of time. If we're honest it’ll probably continue to be the case for many years to come, but why has our game developed a generation of football fans who seem hell bent on taking the-afore mentioned a step further? Why do our supporters revel in the "You don't know what you're doing" chant, when many of them may share that same quality. Football fandom has retained a number of characteristics throughout the years, but in recent times a sub-culture of spectator has developed, who en mass seem able to defy logic and administer "information" into fact without a glimmer of doubt.

As short term-ism's grip on the neck of professional football tightens by the minute, it's become as tough a task as any to truly make your mark on a football club these days. The "results business", as our media have lovingly labeled our top flight, has brought a heightened level of spotlight to our game since the EPL boom of the early 90's. The vast array of panel style productions that populate the airwaves have created a shift in how football fans process match footage, and in turn formulate general opinion. We are served up a series of pre & post game footage, often deposed in bite sized vignettes, that lead to the creation of a narrative that is further hammered home by the former pro’s who spoon feed it to us. Many of these "talking points" have already been pre-selected & are duck taped together with all the by-partisan verve of a right wing party political broadcast! Often when a manager is under pressure his tactical outlays are highlighted more notably. The camera seems to find a way to give more lens space to a managers reaction in the heat of a particularly poor refereeing decision, as if it were his bad luck that created the situation in the 1st place. Finally...and this one's my favorite....when a managers team concedes a goal, the camera instantly zooms to a shot of said coach standing angered with his arms folded and a furrowed brow. The announcer further compounds the situation by stating something along the lines of, "When your lucks out, nothing seems to go for you." I can't remember a manager in the history of the game being happy when his team conceded a goal, but somehow it seems more relevant to include that shot when his team is on a bad run of results.

The byproduct of this form of media is the creation of a populous who conform to a mindset largely dictated to them. Before I go all "area 51" on you with my conspiracy theories, no I don't believe media companies have it in for football clubs, nor do they wish to condemn certain individuals. That said sport is often lauded as theatre, so the broadcast media seem obliged to provide their viewership with the most dramatic experience available. So are we all just getting caught up in the moment and not deciphering the facts correctly? It would seem that with many individuals that we are, and as such we need to re-program how we perceive performance at the top level.

Football is a creative & inspirational sport but, like any long term endeavor, it does not always bear instant fruit. Picking a winning 11 to many is the pinnacle of management, but in isolation it represents a fairly low % of what will contribute to a club's long term success. Clearly it helps to create winning football teams, but to be done so efficiently is to create a dynasty of success, versus a bank rolled starting line-up that are forged together in the search for the next 3 points. Our reactionary measures to what we label "failures" are contributing little to the future of a game that is currently in a state of repair in the UK. We as fans should never doubt the power we have at our disposal, but it's in the hands of the managers to offer deliverables that culminate success. Collectively we can all contribute to a system that allows a new manager the time & the foundation to fully immerse themselves into the football club, and imprint their philosophy across the whole organization. There are some unbelievable coaches in the world today, many of which possess the qualities to improve any club at the top level. What currently prohibits them from doing so is a systematic chain of insecurities that range from a lack of trust from the fan base to try the unknown, to a board/owner group that feel the need to service the fans desires, and therefore select a coach based on the most popular name in the hat versus the most talented. With such a highly populated body politic as many of our top clubs have acquired, it may be trivial of me to suggest that they could unite in a common cause such as this. However it's for us as fans to explore the notion, and at the very least believe it can happen.