Sexism in football

..and we return to the passions enflamed by spherical pieces of leather being kicked around a field.

Last night I attended a meeting with the same title as my last blog - Racism in Football.

A fellow socialist who I have known for some years gave the introductory talk, and I realised I am not the only one who believes that football has all the joys of dance, ballet, drama, comedy and opera - among others, rolled into one, and somehow made even better. More of this later, maybe.

At the very end of a good discussion, another (female) friend piped up with a comment along these lines: "What about sexism - are there any women in football? It completely alienates women - the only women you see at football matches are there with their husbands because they think they might get a meal."

There is no doubt that professional football is sexist in the extreme, in the sense that women are not allowed to play, and in that women's football is a starving, poverty-stricken relative of the men's game.

But the sexism is different from the racism. You don't get openly sexist chanting (though the songs about Posh Spice and other players' wives can be abusive).

As fans, women are welcome at matches and regularly attend. Although it is common to see women accompanied by men at matches, and less commonly by women or alone, in my experience women are in it for the football as much as the men are. Even listening to the telly, you can hear them scream as their team comes close to scoring. Stand in front of a woman at a game, chances are your ears will be ringing by the end.

I know a bunch of women who go to every Spurs away game. They have paid for away season tickets to do so, and make the effort to drive their minibus every time from the South Coast to places as far away as Swansea or Newcastle. I have also seen them abroad, watching pre-season friendlies with European sides. Not only do they know all the players' names, where they play, what their strengths and weaknesses are, who we are looking for in the transfer market etc etc they can out-sing and outshout any opposing set of fans anywhere in the country, as all good Yids should.

They don't need a man to take them to games, though they often do take men along with them, and it's patronising, even coming from a woman, to suggest otherwise.

I'd be all in favour of women playing in the football league, I think it would do wonders for the game and would improve skill levels and maybe even tactics.

And one day, given the billionaires' desperation to find the best talent and sell the game to audiences of millions, it will happen. All the big clubs have women's teams and should involve them increasingly with the academies that produce the top male talent.

It is too 'accepted' that football is a man's game, although there are voices out there campaigning for women in football - Tracey Crouch MP, for example: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-13874899 or players Eni Aluko or Rachel Yankey (a Gooner, unfortunately) http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2011/jun/21/england-womens-football-transformed

But to throw the baby out with the bathwater would be wrong.

Watching football at its best is sheer joy. Seeing an ordinary player do something no-one thought he was capable of; seeing the best players do things no-one thought anyone was capable of can inspire and amaze.

An Olympic athlete might dance a beautiful, choreographed dance with a ball, but how would he or she perform if Ledley King were trying to take that ball off them? It is the competitive element in football which demands the quality of skill, agility and strength.

"Football" as it is organised today, is sexist, but it does not alienate all women. Football is racist, but it does not alienate all black people. A game involving the kicking of a leather ball round a field cannot in and of itself alienate anyone.

Wet bottom incident

Statement of Claimant Andrew Timothy Burnyeat this July 12 2012.

Entering the St James Tavern on January 15 2012 at around 3pm, I took my usual place on a stool at the southern end of the bar nearest the stairwell.

Within a couple of seconds of sitting down, I noticed a damp, cold sensation around my buttocks and arsehole. I immediately got up to find I had a wet bottom.

I then noticed that my stool and the one next to it were not only damp but had puddles of water in them. It is important to point out that the bar stolls concerned are of the ‘saddle’ variety, containing shaped depressions.

Two soaking bar towels had been left on the bar to dry, and had dripped over the customer side of the bar onto the stools.

I went down the stairwell to the gents toilet, whereupon I spent half an hour trying to dry my arsehole, testicle region, buttocks and trousers ( I was wearing denim jeans which soaked up a lot of the water and were very difficult to dry) and boxers.

At this point, having been unsuccessful in drying my clothes, I then put them back on as I had decided to go home and dry them there. At this point, of course, my arsehole, buttocks and testicles got wet all over again.

It was a very cold day and by the time I got home I can say that I was very cold in very sensitive areas indeed!

I dried myself and my clothes and turned up the heating, stayed in all night and warmed up.

Would this marked the end of my tale of woe!

About a week later I found I was suffering from a cold and discomfort on sitting down. I took some lemsip and sat on cushions, but the symptoms just got worse. It was agony to sit down and the cold turned into a violent fever.

I went to see the doctor and he looked at me like I was a leper. “You look like shit,” he said. (This is now the subject of a separate claim.)

He diagnosed me with a terrible case of piles, after he had shoved his finger up my arsehole. (This is also now the subject of a separate claim.)

He also diagnosed me with the flu. When he found out about the wet stool incident, he said that was without doubt the cause of both conditions!

I immediately contacted ambulancechasersRus.com, a firm of caring solicitors who live only to help poor people that get into scrapes, even when they do it on purpose.

They said that I had grounds for a claim in excess of £11 million against the St James, but that they would probably offer to settle out of court for a free pint, in which case I should accept.

I therefore claim my £11 million and hope this will set an example to bar staff everywhere not to leave rancid dishwater in any place that might infect the arseholes of customers that frequent their establishments.

ANDREW TIMOTHY BURNYEAT

Racism in football

Walking towards White Hart Lane as one of dozens of fans, about 15 minutes before kick off vs Everton on Wednesday night, I overheard a fan discussing Spurs' plan to upgrade the stadium.

"Yeah, they should knock down all the houses in Tottenham with the scum in them, then send 'em back to the Sahara Desert." He wasn't joking. By the scum he meant local residents, many of whom are black.

I didn't challenge him as I was on my own on my way to meet a mate and he was very big and with his mates. I wouldn't even now know where to start with such a ridiculous statement.

After the riots, Spurs chairman Daniel Levy made a commitment that Spurs would stay in Tottenham. Looking round at the businesses in the area that depend on the trade of 30,000 fans needing food, drink and Spurs merchandise, it's hard to imagine what kind of desert Tottenham would become without the presence of the club.

Spurs is almost by nature an an anti-racist club, situated as it is in Britain's most ethnically diverse area, and one of its poorest. You don't hear racist chanting at Spurs in the main, though there have been exceptions, and I'm not including the chants of "Yido!" aimed at Jermaine Defoe and other players as a compliment every time they do something good.

The worst it gets at Spurs is chants of "You only live round the corner" to visiting Polish or Greek supporters during European matches.

I wonder if the recent events involving Tom Adeyemi, Luis Suarez and John Terry gave my fellow Spurs supporter the confidence to say what he did. It is certainly possible that Liverpool FC's defence of Suarez encouraged a racist fan to target Adeyemi.

Adeyemi's reaction was moving. It showed that racist insults can and do hurt their targets, and that this is reason enough not to do it. I feel this was a turning point in the recent mini-tide of racist incidents. It was a moment when millions of people saw a young lad desperately upset, a moment where people realised things had gone too far. A moment when people realised that the clubs must do more than they are doing to tackle racism.

Kenny Dalglish is a legend, and Liverpool is not a club known for racism - quite the opposite in my experience. But he and the club missed opportunities over Suarez and Adeyemi to put things right. In their actions, they made things worse.

Every recession is accompanies by outbreaks of racism as scapegoats are sought to take the blame instead of those in charge of the economic mess. Each time, it takes different forms.

Millions may hold the views they do about immigration, but this does not translate into millions of demonstrations of outright hostility toward people because of the colour of their skin. In order to change that, role models like footballers must be seen to be doing it on a regular basis and for this to become acceptable, even fashionable.

We must all make sure this never happens by making sure the clubs are under pressure to tackle the problem properly wherever it raises its head.

2012 finds 2011 a hard act to follow

In the 1950s, journalists were a lot more honest. If there was nothing worth reporting, the BBC used to announce: "There is no news today, so here is some music instead."

Indeed, I wonder if there are any stats out there about the popularity of music TV and radio channels rising in response to the dearth of interesting news content so far this year.

Yes, it's early days, but the sum total of world news so far has been 'Republicans attempt to pick leader' 'Assad gets tough' and some non-news medical advice on detoxing. Yawn, yawn and thrice yawn.

GONE are the stories about economic crisis; VANISHED are the scenes of city squares thronging with revolutionary populations; BURIED are the scandals of the kind engulfing Murdoch and his police informants.

A tinpot view of history, espoused by the BBC, purports that Great Years are Few and Far Between. Ranking 2011 alongside 1956 (Suez, the Hungarian Revolution); 1968 (Prague Spring, Tet Offensive, French General Strike) and 1989 (Eastern European revolutions), the Beeb goes on to suggest that the years in between are drab by comparison.

Paul Foot once said, quoting Wordsworth, that we live most of the time, 'between revolutions'.

So we should expect 2012 to be dull as dishwater, with only the prospect of Boris Johnson making an arse of himself during the Olympics or the Queen falling over during the Jubilee celebrations to brighten things up. Or Spurs winning the league; that would be nice.

The fact is that a boring year would suit most people down to the ground. Just one boring year, when you got through it OK, without losing your job or your home or being mugged or run over, where nothing bad happened. Most people would take that most years.

Which may go some way towards explaining why we are being fed a diet of soporifically, stultefyingly boring news.

The fact remains that the debt crisis is still with us - the Eurozone remains in deep crisis, as does the world economy. The Middle East remains in turmoil, with the Arab Spring yet to fully consolidate its gains. The inquiry into phone-hacking is still under way.

So all the stories we had last year have the potential to reassert themselves with equal force this year. Those fault lines still run under Japan and New Zealand.

I blame Christmas. Suddenly, 2011 seemed to melt away under a pile of steaming Brussels sprouts, or evaporated into a cloud of egg-nog - we know not which.

The streets of Brighton, where I write this, are deserted. The shops are empty, the roads clear.

Everyone has forgotten about the troubles of the world and refocussed on their personal lives. A hugely informative survey in the weekend's Observer found that while the vast majority are deeply pessimistic about the economy, a good majority are yet optimistic about their own family's prospects for 2012.

Christmas, the sticky, mince-pie stained curtain that drops over the class struggle at the end of each year, has killed 2011, and its clinging, comforting tassles tie us to a dream, from which we are yet to awake screaming.

How to slow down time - give up alcohol!

If I could turn back time, as Cher put it... ah, well there's a thought. I can't, and until they discover the Higgs Boson, fire it into the sun and alter the laws of physics, or something, none of us can.

But we can make time go an awful lot slower - at least, those of us who admit to being heavy drinkers can, by quitting.

After 20-plus years of drinking regularly, spectacularly and erratically, I have stopped. It is a sudden jolt to the system and a major adjustment to my life.

Those who know me will simply dismiss this entire article when they read that I am only nine days in to my new life of quiet sobriety. They 'know' that I'll be back on the booze sometime soon. And in all conscience, I can't say they are wrong.

I'm not doing it to lose the few pounds of cheese and red meat I doubtless put on over a most enjoyable Christmas, spent with my kids, my wife, from whom I separated three years ago, and her parents. It was, by far, the best Christmas since I left the marital home more than three years ago - and I enjoyed every mouthful I ate or drank, with no regrets at all.

In fact, I have made no resolutions to exercise, and eat rubbish whenever I please. The desire for treats accompanies the withdrawal from alcohol as the bods craves the sweet calories it used to be given in some abundance.

I am not doing it so save money, although I'll pause here: I have estimated that I spent in excess of £6,000 on alcohol last year.

My usual tipple is - sorry, was - real ale, at around £3.40 a pint. A real ale drinker taking an average of one pint a day would spend £1,241 a year. I didn't drink every day, but on the days I did, five pints was a minor session for me. I reckon £6,000 is not an unreasonable estimate of my own spending on alcohol.

So if I was doing it to save money, I'd no doubt see the difference in my bank balance fairly soon. When I tell people that a pint a day is £1,200 a year, they often doubt me until I produce my calculator and prove the point. The blanched faces I have left in my wake. It's an incredible incentive to quit, and people underestimate it hugely. The rate of beer price inflation overtakes perceptions of reality.

I'm doing it to change my life. I was slowly but surely starting to lose focus on my work, and it was affecting my 'relationship'.

Already, I am sleeping better, making better plans and thinking straighter. My short-term memory remains embarrassingly poor, but 'twas ever thus in my case.

I have managed to avoid 'hotspots' of temptation. I met a friend in the pub yesterday but had already arranged another appointment to start within an hour of my arrival. I ordered a lime and soda, drank it and left. Tonight I am going to White Hart Lane. I usually drink three to several pints before a game, allowing plenty of time to hit the pub before the game. Tonight I plan to arrive in Tottenham about 6.30pm, leaving just enough time to have a quick chat with fellow supporters before kick off at 7.45pm.

This give me another couple of hours in Brighton to actually do some work.

The journey to the Lane and back will fill a lot of hours I might otherwise have spent drinking - at home, or in the pub - although midweek sessions were always a rarity anyway.

But Spurs don't play every day. The sheer number of hours I spent drinking need to be filled in other ways, and so far I have very few ideas on how to fill them. I'd like to start going to meetings I used to go to but stopped going to, maybe visit the cinema once a week...after all, I'll have the money now.

But I know, because it's happened already, that there will be some evenings - or even weekend afternoons (especially when the footy's on telly) when I just haven't planned anything, there's nothing on the telly and I don't feel like reading a book or writing and I can't go to the pub because I don't drink any more. It's then that it gets you - I used to love going into a new pub and talking to the bar staff or the regulars. I nearly always end up in such situations sitting next to an Arsenal or Chelsea fan. So often did this happen that I can now spot them before they open their mouths. It's a gift, what can I say?

There is plenty to do of an evening, but most of it isn't stuff I enjoy doing - I'm not a DIY person - and there has to be some pleasure in life, right? So far, I'm telling myself that being bored is not the worst thing in the world - that nothing bad is happening, just nothing particularly good.

But I guess the effect is cumulative. Nine days ago seems like aeons, yet weeks would pass like speeding cars when I was drinking. One day, like the belly in the old Nike ad, the grey cloud of boredom will catch up with me - unless I find something to fill the time.

Maybe I should have thought of that before I stopped drinking!