BBC cameras, sometimes sweeping the venues of many of the great sporting events we’ve had at the London Olympics have been picking up row after row of empty seats at different times of the day and evening on a fairly regular basis. And trust me, had they been allowed to do their work more freely and thoroughly, the glaring examples of horrid absenteeism would have shocked countless more viewers.
It’s not just the television watchers I’m thinking of but the countless enthusiasts who’d have just loved to be present at some of these competitions and would have paid whatever it took just for the chance TO BE THERE. Just be present at the London Olympics but couldn’t because they just can’t get hold of the tickets. Why should this be? Lord Coe, one of the main organisers has said that millions of people want tickets and apply for the limited number that become available each day so it was little wonder that the web site booking system got jammed up and couldn’t cope.
So what does it all mean? Simple answer, that the countless numbers of people who paid good money to get into the Olympic site could only watch the events on giant television screens dotted around the venues. That was the closest they could get, just a wretched television screen. The London Olympics at second hand. Who was kidding who? They really weren’t there at all. It was the seriously privileged or the people with money who were where it mattered and second hand stuff for all the rest, the fun-filled flag wavers. People high with media generated patriotic enthusiasm who decided that now was the time to be British.
Sorry, I meant that now is the time they wanted to demonstrate how proud they were to be British. Identify with another gold medal winner or prospect for the price of a tenner.
So who are the privileged who got into all the venues? Who are the faces we see? Well Jeremy Hunt, Culture Secretary, had every right to be there I suppose, especially if he needed to accidentally bump into and have a chat with Rupert Murdoch on the way, but there were of course many other prominent Tories. David Cameron and his wife were just about everywhere regularly as was dear old Boris Johnson, Mayor of London. Well didn’t they have every right? Just imagine how hard it must have been for them to get all those tickets though. And the same for ex-Tory Prime Minister John Major!
Politicians? Those were only a few from the top. I saw many more faces. And the royals? First the two princes, appointed by the BBC to be cheerleaders every time they were seen, brought into focus and adoringly mentioned as providing a seal of accolade and approval for every Team GB success. They obviously wanted to be in on everything big from rowing and cycling to athletics and so they were. British medal hopes specially performing for the royal highnesses so they’d better do well!
William and Kate everywhere with laughing boy Harry, but there were others too. Fergie and her daughters in on this, that and the other. Just imagine how hard it was for them getting tickets, same as all the bankers, City of London traders, company directors, all friends of friends with tens of thousands of tickets from corporate sponsors going their way. Well, we sponsor the venues, the athletes, their equipment, their accommodation and food so we want plenty of tickets for all our mates. It’s the entire corporate establishment of finance, industry and politics topped by the aristocracy and royalty, all coming together to enthuse over and watch British sport.
Sure there were plenty of plebs there alongside them, from those lucky enough to win the lottery for seats on the website, then all the competitors, their families and friends, but the great majority of the former either got seats at the back or top of the stands or watched on the screens outside.
So nice to see all the royals funning it up and being so hip inspirational but there was my grandson of 13, lean, lithe and great at sports at school. Strong, potentially good at so many things who’d have loved to watch the cycling, the shooting, the athletics and weightlifting. What it must have been like for so many kids of that age. Not a chance dear boy. Not a chance! The many millions of our young sporting enthusiasts never got anywhere closer than a television screen. You needed to be British Establishment and our sporting youth fodder for their pleasure so maybe it’s better that my talented grandson won’t be all fired up and enthusiastic for sport if that’s the way they want it. And it’s here, thinking of his already fair achievements as a cross country runner at 12 that I remember a film.
The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner starred Tom Courtenay as a teenager at a young offenders institute who had a talent for running which is recognised and encouraged by an officer there. As he trains and runs he reflects back on his depressed working class life and despite his athletic promise lives with his feelings of being a social outcast just like the hundreds of thousands of kids we have in this country who can’t participate in a sport because their schools and places they live lack facilities. Can’t have the thrill of going to the Olympics because there’s no money at home.
In the film Tom Courtenay is built up to represent his young offenders institute in a key race against youths from middle class schools. Those of a much higher social status in the eyes of his mentor who wants to use him to show what kids from a much poorer background can do. He participates and is easily winning his long distance race but throughout, his demons of social class deprivation return to haunt him. It’s not so much the better off kids that he resents but the fact that his talent is being used. He doesn’t want to be part of someone else’s plans. He wants to be a person for himself and in a great act of defiance, when he’s so close to winning the race he stops short of the line. He won’t be part of the system.
All the athletes competing at the London Olympics are part of a system. Sure they train and compete to achieve excellence for themselves but they are nonetheless part of someone else’s game… the country they’ve been chosen to represent (the political consequences of their achievements for countless small nations is very considerable in terms of status)… the patriotism stirred up by the national media, each athlete’s victory becoming a matter of national pride, or failure something they’d rather forget or put down to injury… the fervour of nationalism whipped up by the same media… the athlete being an integral part of teams such as Team GB… so that they’re not really competing for themselves anymore but for politicians, for their country, for national pride. For something outside of themselves.
To be a top class athlete in any sport today it’s essential to be part of a system. Without it they won’t get the financial support, the sponsorship they need. The sponsorship equates to their national potential. They’re part of something much bigger now. Their nation, their monarchy with its royals and princes, its elite politicians and money-men. You don’t say go fuck yourself like Tom Courtenay. That takes real guts, but then you can also win if you’re tough enough and determined. Stand on the podium and raise your gloved fist in defiance if you don’t like the way your fellow black people, or any people for that matter, are being treated.
Olympic Games and its sport can therefore also be a symbol for everyone. Pleasure for the rich and powerful who can pay to be there and watch. Inspirational and personal for the youth who compete. Sporting prowess is a matter for the youth not the politicians who want everyone to be included in their own less clean, less wholesome game.
And now, just when you’d thought you’d read everything, just another little word about FOOTBALL and the English football team! You’re going to love this! On Wednesday 8th August FIFA the International Football Federation officially announced that they’d given the English Football Team third place in their world rankings. There’s no mistake here! Third in their World Rankings!
Now this would have been laughable enough if it had just been for Western Europe but no, we’re talking the whole f… ing world here.
So, Roy Hodgson’s side of pathetic lamentable losers that have mastered the enormously complex skill of passing the ball backwards instead of forward joke, joke, are third best in the world. Okay, let’s look at a few other teams, say Spain, Germany, Brazil, Italy, Argentina and Portugal. Six national football squads and England rated better than any four of them. Say England better than Brazil or Spain, Germany or Portugal! Now I’ve said the names, I ask you to consider England’s recent performances, their players and the skills they’ve demonstrated compared to theirs, especially their achievements in tournaments
Roy Hodgson’s England squad is currently not even a team in the making as the talk up merchants and other pundits around them have said. It is a rat-bag team that has demonstrated precisely nothing, only the fact that it is going nowhere. It has utterly failed to prove itself despite being given various opportunities to do so. Its deep seated woodenness, fundamental lack of imagination, coordination and basic footballing skills demonstrated so far by its players means that there is something so deeply wrong that it would be far better wearing Humpty-Dumpty tee shirts than England colours. A team cannot be made from this group of players let alone one that is genuinely third best in the world, so FIFA, come on? Where are you people getting your ideas from?
Spain, never mind their showing in the Olympics, we’ve all seen them play… seen Germany and Portugal. Is Roy’s squad better than those? Better than Brazil? Better than Argentina? Better even than South Korea? For whom has such a ranking been sent out? Is it for our Ere we Go, Great Escape, Rule Britannia skinhead mob of tattooed to the eyeballs gormless travelling fans who will always believe and have undying faith that the lazy, clueless so called professionals who make up the basis of Premier League Football with no more than tuppence worth of skills between them are worth 50 grand a week each for ninety minutes’ work and that’s to say nothing for the jokers at the top. Is that who it’s all for, the faithful who willingly squander fifty quid and more every week to watch these monkeys play hokey jokey.
Or could it be that making Roy’s squad seem ten times better than it is will up the value of its players and make them better financial prospects in the transfer racket? In that respect I leave you with something to think about. Usain Bolt playing for Manchester United in the Premier League. Hmm… we could be talking serious money here! Don’t knock it! It could still happen yet if some grubby agent gets the idea in his head!
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