As I am writing this, the Premier League match between Blackburn Rovers and Bolton Wanderers has just started at Ewood Park. As a long time supporter of Bolton Wanderers I live in hope rather than expectation. Since Owen Coyle took over as manager from the less than popular Gary Megson, Bolton have won only one of seven games. In fact it is worse than that. As of this moment, Bolton have gone 460 minutes in the Premier League without scoring a single goal. They have collected 3 points from 27 available in away games since they beat Birmingham last September and they haven't beaten Blackburn since the current manager of Blackburn, Sam Allardyce left Bolton in 2007. So will Bolton win today? The runes suggest not but, as I say, I live in hope. It has to be said that many of their regular supporters who go to watch games are losing the will to live. Crowds at home games are fading away and in the FA Cup game against Tottenham last week only 13,000 bothered to turn up. The match was on TV, of course, so on a cold and dreary Sunday, many non-season-ticket holders would have opted to save their money and watch at home rather than on the wind swept terraces of Reebock Park.
Football is a funny old game, according to Jimmy Greaves, a former Tottenham and England player - he was in the World Cup winning team of 1966 - who was 70 years old yesterday. He freely admits that he doesn't watch football much these days and prefers rugby. In recent years, football has become a battle between rich owners of clubs with English names and proud traditions but staffed with players from here, there and everywhere whose only common denominator is an obsession with money and a rich lifestyle. Few teams can persuade 50,000 people to pay £40+ for a ticket to watch them home and away, week after week, year in and year out. Rugby, on the other hand, has become a game played by fit, fast and powerful young men who have transformed the game from the slow and old-fashioned slog of yesteryear. For the most part the players are home grown - via public [ie private] schools it must be admitted - and we do have the possibility of building teams that can match the best in the world. I enjoy much more watching rugby - although the Italy v England match in Rome last Sunday was enough to drive everyone away from the game as the two teams indulged in a display of ping-pong, kicking the ball from one end of the field to other for most of the time; nobody seemed to want to run the risk of doing something positive.
Bolton are swanning around next to bottom of the Premier League - above Portsmouth, who via the owners or the Inland Revenue look doomed to bankruptcy - but Owen Coyle says he is confident that they will soon start to win games. They may and a couple of wins would hoist them into the middle of the league because there are many other clubs who are also quite useless. Half the league only exists to provide a rich points harvest for the top five clubs. Why do we have to import so many players? Why do we not have a steady stream of great players coming into British football? It may be because, of course, we have stopped kids playing football and other sports at school. It may be good for H&S but it is no good for sport.
It is now half-time at Ewood Park and Blackburn are 1- 0 in the lead. Oh, Sam, why ever did you have to leave Bolton?
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