[Football] The 'football experience' - better or worse since 1980s?

GingerBeerMan · May 17, 2014

Trying to find a unanimous poll, perhaps this isn't going to be the one. Anyway, 1980s or 2010s?

1980s:
-Rife football hooliganism
+Cheaper
+Better atmosphere

2010s:
+Better quality football
+Comfy seats
+Safer
-Prohibitively expensive for some

Has football changed for the better or worse in the last 3 decades?

Bakesy · May 17, 2014

Give me the 80's any day

algie · May 17, 2014

Very good question.

Think i'll always vote for the 80's but maybe my views are clouded with nostalgia and the fact it was when i first started going.

Goldstone Rapper · May 17, 2014

1980s - there wasn't the financial doping that is in football nowadays. A title challenging team could be built by shrewd management, youth policy and wise transfers.

Goldstone Rapper · May 17, 2014

Also, the 1980s kit designs were better, although the material wasn't!

wellquickwoody · May 17, 2014

Mustafa said:
They're not. I wasn't old enough to appreciate football in the 80's, the childhood I remember was in the 90's, but football has got progressively worse in my experience. I have no doubt in my mind that football was better in the 80's, as it still had its soul before it was consumed by money.

Football isn't just about fancy, aesthetically pleasing football - in fact that's completely secondary to the fans. The football experience in the 2010's is so sanitised and soulless, money rules, it's become a plaything of the rich. All clubs need to maximise profit at the expense of the fans these days, including The Albion, and all football clubs operate predominantly as businesses. There isn't a massive difference from being in a stadium and watching it at home on Sky a lot of the time anymore - atmospheres are shit due to this commercialised, soulless crap that football is becoming/has become.

Did YOU just post that?

The Wookiee · May 17, 2014

I would like a mixture of the two, maybe like the Dutch or German top leagues

One Teddy Maybank · May 17, 2014

GingerBeerMan said:
Trying to find a unanimous poll, perhaps this isn't going to be the one. Anyway, 1980s or 2010s?
2010s:
+Better quality football
+Comfy seats
+Safer
-Prohibitively expensive for some

Has football changed for the better or worse in the last 3 decades?

Better Quality Football? I don't think so, the Liverpool team of the 80's, would have beaten Man City. Also I think the Mullery team of the early 80's would have beaten the Garcia team.

Mackenzie · May 17, 2014

Oh the 80's by a long margin......but I was a teenager then, and football is always more exciting when you're that age. (isn't it?)

BRIGHT ON Q · May 17, 2014

you had to be there I guess but it was a different experience. Although I love the Amex nothing can compare to those days in the North stand.

BRIGHT ON Q · May 17, 2014

MacKenzie said:
Oh the 80's by a long margin......but I was a teenager then, and football is always more exciting when you're that age. (isn't it?)

yes because nothing else seems to matter (much)

Leighgull · May 17, 2014

Personally I never minded the agg. It wasn't something I looked for but you know you're alive when you get through a scrape or two.

Some people took it too far with Stanley knives, darts and whatnot but the eradication of any and all matchday disorder makes it all so bloody DULL.

All of those under 30 reading this thread will have no idea what it was like then. But I'd wager that there's a lot of middle aged blokes, respectable family guys now, who remember the games when there were crowd disturbances or fights spilling out across hove park or wherever more vividly than any they've seen in the past 20 odd years. Even the most miserable lefty liberal middle class moaners who tut at it on here will still readily remember the tension and sense of danger as being life affirming at the time. I know because I have met a lot of them...so don't take the indignation now professed at face value.

It was a right of passage once. Now it's sterile and vacuum wrapped.

lawros left foot · May 17, 2014

The Eighties - except the shorts

tweenster · May 18, 2014

I voted for the 2010s because I feel quite safe to take my children to matches nowadays, be they home or away, that I would not have been comfortable doing so in the 80s. Hell's teeth, I nearly shat myself several times going to the football on my own back then; no way would I have taken children along.

Oddly, though, the 70s is when I first started following the Albion.

catfish · May 18, 2014

I wish my bladder had the same capacity it did back in the 80's.

atfc village · May 18, 2014

80'S all day long Villa ,Everton ,Liverpool and Arsenal the only teams to win the League in the 80's ,those teams can't do it now .Runners up in the 80's included Ipswich,Watford and The Saints ain't going to happen again.Open Terraces ,potd ,Shitty bogs ,4th Division players getting signed by top division clubs.Best era ever 77 to 84 we were the kings of europe.

BadFish · May 18, 2014

Leighgull said:
Personally I never minded the agg. It wasn't something I looked for but you know you're alive when you get through a scrape or two.

Some people took it too far with Stanley knives, darts and whatnot but the eradication of any and all matchday disorder makes it all so bloody DULL.

All of those under 30 reading this thread will have no idea what it was like then. But I'd wager that there's a lot of middle aged blokes, respectable family guys now, who remember the games when there were crowd disturbances or fights spilling out across hove park or wherever more vividly than any they've seen in the past 20 odd years. Even the most miserable lefty liberal middle class moaners who tut at it on here will still readily remember the tension and sense of danger as being life affirming at the time. I know because I have met a lot of them...so don't take the indignation now professed at face value.

It was a right of passage once. Now it's sterile and vacuum wrapped.

As a lefty liberal middle class moaner I would tend to agree to a point. Although I wish there was some middle ground, actually I wish I could go week in week out but those are the choices we make.

Gwylan · May 18, 2014

What I find hard to separate is whether the 80s were better because they were better - or because I was young and things are more fun when you're young.

I loved football in the 60s, 70s and 80s: the unpredictability of it (nine different teams won Div 1 in my first 14 seasons watching football - four have won in the last 14), the lottery of the pitches, the way that footballers didn't fall over at the slightest touch ... all great stuff.

Most of all, the cost was reasonable and you could decide to go to a game on a whim. I remember living five minutes from Highbury, deciding to go to a game at 2.50 (there's another thing, all kick-offs were on Saturday afternoon) and just strolling in.

My kids will never understand how simple football was then - gone forever

Zukey Seagull · May 18, 2014

I wouldn't know the 80s as I was born in 87. So would not know.

1234andcounting · May 18, 2014

Two words for everyone who voted 80s, Bradford, Hillsborough. Thread closed.

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[Football] The 'football experience' - better or worse since 1980s?

Which decade has the better football experience

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2010s

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