For the past 19 months, I’ve written a series of articles for the New Statesman about football. This magazine may not seem the obvious forum in which to write about the game. Hunter Davies’s irreverent observations have long been a staple and the sport has reared its head elsewhere in the print edition from time to time. But football is now more than simply a sport. It always was a cultural phenomenon too, a deeply-rooted part of the way we were. And increasingly it is a business. So, what I thought might be interesting was to write regularly about where these circles of influence intersect. What happens when entertainment meets business? When culture is commodified? When the game seeks to maximise its business value while simultaneously undermining what makes it valuable?
It seems that those articles struck a chord. I’m told they generate “good traffic” – the greatest honour a journalist can hope for these days – and they certainly get retweeted and discussed and referred to. I’ve written a book based on them and been asked to speak at meetings about the ideas in them. And I’ve met a lot of interesting people and had a lot of interesting conversations because of them. At times, I’ve also thought I was starting to make sense of the often ridiculous, frequently infuriating, invariably overhyped but still fundamentally beautiful game. Or at least, what is happening to it at the moment.
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