THE BEAUTIFUL GAME

THEBEAUTIFUL

GAMEThe game of football means something different to everyone who makes ‘the

beautiful game’ a part of their lives.

These people don’t have to support a team, pay money to go and see their team play and buy their shirts, they do it for the love, the excitement, the unique highs and lows

that you can only really know if you’ve experienced it first hand. Many believe those feelings to be addictive, and one thing that rings true is

regardless of it’s place on the football pyramid, English conference or European knockout competition, every game of football is different, complicated yet equally simple

at the same time.

Football has barely changed since its inception, the game itself holding true as debates about technology and the continued corporatization has risen up and taken hold

of it at the top levels across the world. This has marred the experience of football for many, and it doesn’t seem to be reversing any time soon.

Players wages, transfer fees, agents, diving, rule changes, the ownership of clubs, media hyperbole, off the field antics and increased ticket prices have all played a part in

the shifting culture of football and the football fan. The media obsession with over analyzing every split second incident and decision de-

tracts from the game itself, which at the end of the day couldn’t be more simple. But it’s the money that rides on those decisions nowadays that makes them seem so

important and crucial.

Slowly eroding are the days of players being servants to one club, instead looking for the best deal financially. That is not to tar everyoneinvolved in football with the same brush by any means, but football is constantly shifting and developing for arguably the right or

wrong reasons depending on your opinions and perceptions. Whether we will ever see a return to the pure love of the game, and force money to take

a back seat remains to be seen, but this weekend, next weekend and every other weekend millions of fans will take the time to support their beloved team.

After all, it’s just a game, right?

“To the aesthete, it is an art form, an athletic ballet. To the spiritually inclined it is a religion”-PAUL GARDNER