I hate to break the news to some people, but those Chelsea fans in Paris could afford season tickets and probably also Sky Sports subscriptions.
Oh, and have you ever been to West London?
But then, the hooligans of the 1970s, the 1980s and into the 1990s had the time and the money to travel all over Europe in the days before budget airlines or the Eurostar.
This has never been about class.
Or, at any rate, it has never been about class in the way that people thought and think.
It is 3 years since your last book. When is the next one? We are all counting on you.
ReplyDeleteThen don't.
DeleteOn topic, please.
Football has always been a very expensive interest.
ReplyDeleteThe tickets have always been more expensive than those for the theatre.
DeleteLeading one to assume that people who regularly attended football matches have always been richer than people who regularly went to the theatre, while those who treated themselves to an occasional afternoon on the terraces have always been richer than those who treated themselves to an occasional evening in the stalls.
West London isn't a rich area, thick kid. There's plenty of parts of it rougher than Glasgow on a Friday night. Almost every area of London is a complete mix, (bar some parts of Knightsbridge). There are council estates aplenty in Chelsea.
ReplyDeleteYou can tell you come from oop North.
Not a clue. You probably think Southerners are all rich.
No, just the ones who can afford to be on a jolly in Paris in the middle of a normal week.
DeleteOr who can afford to go to one of the biggest football clubs in Europe on a regular basis.
And I know the West End quite well.
Your first post sounded like Alex Salmond talking about the South. If you think hooligans with away tickets are rich kids in disguise you haven't a clue (many have been banned from matches for fighting and get them from touts, and away fans are always more extreme than home fans as they tend to be the hard-core supporters). Unemployed people also tend to drink mid-week.
ReplyDeleteI don't know how well you know London, but in you're post you certainly came across as the kind of person who thinks all of Chelsea is a "rich area". Which is like saying London is a rich area.
I know where Chelsea Football Club really is, despite its name, for one thing.
DeleteAnyone who can afford to be in Paris, from London, heavily tanked up, during the week, is doing just fine financially.
And poor people can't afford to go to home fixtures, by no means only at Chelsea. They certainly can't afford to go to away ones in this country, never mind abroad.
The haters on here know less about football than you do, Mr. L. You have dared to challenge their smug assumption that football hooligans and all racists were plebs.
ReplyDeleteMade in Chelsea.
ReplyDeleteQuite.
DeleteAlthough it is now in Fulham, which I know very well is a mixed area. But look at those pictures from Paris. Who they are glares out at you.
It is odd to think that Steptoe and Son was set in the Fulham-Hammersmith-Shepherd's Bush area, complete with references to the Goldhawk Road and what have you.
As I say, that is now very mixed. But it is rapidly becoming less so, in the other direction.
It will soon be full of people who are so rich that they can even still afford to go to football matches. Yes, as rich as that.
As seen in the pictures from Paris.