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Impossible, surely. Aristocrats, elite, giants of the game. Come on. Yet, in my watching lifetime, both clubs have been demoted – Man United in 1975 and Spurs in 1977. But that was then. This is now. These sorts of upsets don’t happen any more. Or do they?
One of the pleasures of this season for football fans has been watching Man United and Spurs being rubbish, getting stuffed by lowly clubs. And for a while Man City came off the rails as well. Gosh, what fun.
It is, of course, wrong to gloat when the mighty come a-tumble, but for football fans it is one of their innocent pleasures, often their only one: having a team to hate, usually the scum down the road, whom you have been brought up to boo and hiss at, a release when your team is being totally shit: banter in the playground or pub.
We know that Man United will return, back among the top dogs; they’ll have their swagger back, their fans shall be unbearable again. Not so sure about Spurs.
It happens in most walks of life, enjoying the fall of those who once lorded it. What fun the nation got when Boris took a beating, when Truss got trussed, and when Trump was trumped. (Hold on. He got back…) And on TV, when a smug, smooth star turns out to be a bad lot, we all love going tut-tut.
In the olden days in football, there was another harmless pleasure – the giant killer, the minnow taking down the monster. In the third round of the FA Cup, there was always a shock when a non-League team beat one from the First Division. The names of the local heroes that day would live on locally for decades.
Or when a team from the so-called depths rose up through the leagues. I can still hardly believe that in 1974 Carlisle United, one of nature’s lowly Third Division North teams, made it into to the top tier. Even more amazing, on 24 August 1974, when they beat Spurs 1-0, they went to the very top of the top league. Honestly. I still have the league table pinned on my wall in front of me.
OK, it was only after three games. At the end of that season they got demoted; tumbled down the leagues to the bottom – where they are now unlikely to remain in the Football League (sob, sob).
Those sort of rags-to-riches stories of teams rising from nowhere, beating the Goliaths, are unlikely to happen these days. Leicester surprised us all in 2016 by winning the Prem, but they were never as lowly or as remote and impoverished as Carlisle. Notts Forest, the big surprise of this season, are also not nobodies. They have a distinguished history.
Today there is so much money in the Premier League that almost all Prem clubs are insulated. They can buy their way out of trouble. A poor patch? Sack the manager or get a new striker. Their scouts in eastern Europe, Africa and South America are always on the alert for bargains. Even the Bournemouths and Brightons can still lash out £50m to prop up their defence. At the bottom of the pyramid, clubs like Carlisle United can’t afford nuffink.
While we enjoy Man United and Spurs struggling in the Prem, if just temporarily, it does not hide the misery behind the scenes. Even the multi-millionaire stars get humiliated. Poor old Marcus Rashford, sitting on the bench this season, feeling sorry for himself, knowing the world is watching – yet he was so loved and admired, as a player and a person. No use saying he is on £300,000 a week. Money does not make up for humiliation. They do have feelings, our heroes. In a way the pain is worse, when you fall from on high, for whatever reason.
The faces of the managers of Man United, Spurs and Man City have been pitiful so often this season. How can they sleep? I imagine them grinding their jaws all night, ending up with TMD.
I have that at the moment, thanks to my own teeth-grinding, and it is agony. Yet all I have had to worry about is the pump packing up on the old Dutch barge I bought this season on the Isle of Wight. So stupid, and self-inflicted. But for star players and star managers it is their whole life, their whole being, when they fail.
[See also: Class war]
This article appears in the 29 Jan 2025 issue of the New Statesman, Class War