If only tomorrow belonged to Dave Whelan
I was watching the FA Cup Final earlier this evening. Even twenty years ago one would never have said that, because for nearly a hundred years the Final always kicked off at 3 pm. Then along came the great God advertising ratings, and now it kicks off at 5.15. I don’t know why I mention that; probably something to do with the Death of Tradition at the hands of Mammon. I posted about football earlier in the week, and received the usual gratuitous haven’t-you-got-anything-better-to-do bollocks from people who don’t understand the game. According to one bloke, I was “chasing hits”. Dear oh dear: yesterday, some gobby tweeter described the Owen/Hall/Roache piece as “garbage” and then had a hissy fit because I suggested he was a moron. Last month, I banned a bloke who kept on breaking the House rules here; he proceeded to bombard me with offensive emails about how I was “a nine-bob note” and that banning him “was the measure of my cowardice”.
We have spawned a generation of eye-pokers who are stunned when one delivers a sharp, well-deserved slap in return. It seems somehow that nobody along the way has taught them about the heat in kitchens, and what happens in the end if everyone behaves like they do. And it’s about rule-breaking that I want to write tonight…alongside a discussion of those who seem never to quite make the break from me-centre-of-Universe puberty – and the giants who do, and then shame them by example.
Believe it or not, that’s why I started with the Cup Final, and how a bunch of brainless pillocks have diluted the tradition so much now, a great deal of the glory has gone. But not all of it. The rules of engagement state that underdogs in Cup Finals run out gallant losers – and that is what usually happens. But today, lowly Wigan Athletic frustrated and then outplayed a much-fancied Manchester City side to win 1-0 with a dramatic 90th minute headed goal. Athletic may yet be relegated from the Premiership, but today was their finest hour. For once, club loyalty, dedication and discipline triumphed over money.
As for City’s hugely expensive, foreign-player dominated side, they simply didn’t have the character or the desire on the day. But having chopped down a player heading for goal twice, the ref had no alternative but to send off a City defender. His reaction was that of a wronged saint. People don’t ‘take’ punishment any more, they resist it: parents oppose discipline handed out to their kids at school, managers oppose every refereeing decision that goes against them, and Jeremy Hunt looks deeply pained when Opposition MPs call him a liar.
But tonight’s Wigan victory was about more than just one game. It was about the fairy-tale crowning of the career of their amazing Chairman, Dave Whelan. I’ve seen Mr Whelan on and off over the years, his florid face and recessed eyes sitting beneath a mop of silver hair (he’s 75 years old now) but not until today did it click with me who he used to be: Dave Whelan, the hard-man half back formerly of Blackburn Rovers, who broke his leg in the 1960 FA Cup Final. Rovers lost 3-0, but Whelan still has his loser’s medal. Despite his wealth these days, the medal remains his most treasured possession.
Whelan never played in the top flight again after that leg-break. With the £400 compensation money he got afterwards, he set up a stall in Bury market, building a massive retail empire, and then eventually buying the club of the town where he was born. From rags he went to riches: but just as importantly, today he went from riches to glory. Not for this bloke a lot of self-pitying drivel about how the tackle by Deeley of wolves was a foul (it was in fact a terrible foul) and not for this bloke a litigious appeal against four hundred quid for a ruined career. He just rammed his nose against a grindstone and got on with it.
So today, you might say that a glorious, honourable past triumphed over a tawdry, spoilt, mean and money-mad present.
For most people today, a blank look is one’s reward for trying to describe the exhilaration of being good at a sport, and wanting to be remembered rather than enriched. At the age of sixteen, I played for the School House on Wednesdays, the First XI Saturday mornings, and then again in the Manchester Lad’s Club League in the afternoon. On Sunday afternoons, whenever possible, I would sign on as Cohen or Greenberg and play in the Jewish Maccabe League. Had there been a five-a-side tournament available in the evening, I’d have played in that too. I would’ve paid Manchester United to sign me. But of course I was never anywhere near good enough.
Five months ago, I was watching a Sunday morning kids’ game on local Common ground. After being approached by some busybody asking why I was watching – and taking great delight in telling her to f**k off – I spent a pleasant hour spotting fairly easily the three kids who could play from the nineteen who couldn’t. I used to get the same satisfaction as a nipper watching my Dad judging the quality of cloth, or my now estranged second wife sizing up the quality of a horse. Skills can be honed and developed, but without the talent in the first place it’ll never make you a natural. You cannot put a price on natural talent. Even the daftest, most bloated derivatives sector is not worth 1% of the talent of a person to make it to the Cup Final, see his dreams cruelly dashed, use another talent to build a business, plough it back into the community, and then get his final reward in this life.
For me, Dave Whelan is the personification of what philanthropic, gritty capitalist creativity should be. He took an uneven playing field, and played uphill on the bloody thing to win anyway. Having done that, he took aside other kids facing a cliff-face social task, and built them sports clubs from which they could benefit regardless of financial circumstances. The difference between this fine gentleman and most of the Blatterated crooks running sport these days is that, even faced with a level playing field, they will not miss any opportunity to tilt it in their favour by the foulest possible means.
There is nothing wrong with capitalism as represented by Dave Whelan. There is everything wrong with the monopolism thrown up by our profoundly sick culture. Today belongs to Whelan, and I pray that the future will too.
Earlier at The Slog: Why avoiding grand larceny is the hot new investment tactic
The Slog 