JEDDAH, 21 June 2006 — Without doubt, the best way to experience the full imperial majesty of 22 apparently sane men chase an air filled bladder round a field is to observe half that number of Saudi journalists watch 22 apparently sane men chase an air filled bladder round a field.
The “round ball game” I cannot bring myself to use the “F” word with its stylized ritual of war, synthetic heroism and the cheering mass of baying aficionados is redolent of Roman times. “Panem et circenses” is usually rendered into English as “Give them bread and circuses” or in the present context as “Give them fast food and foo...” whoops! “the round ball game.”
“Bread and circuses” were the demands of the Roman public to their emperors. For more than half a millennium — from 200 BC to 300 AD — entertainment in amphitheatres, circuses and theatres was the most important pastime for inhabitants of the vast Roman Empire.
It is ironic that generally speaking, and for this month in particular, history is repeating itself. The masses are no longer part of the Roman Empire but are certainly part of the widespread commercial empire of owners and managers — the emperors — of the games business. One look at the advertising for the modern “circenses” will reveal the “panem” substitutes. So where is the real difference? No difference.
Education, lifestyle and general awareness has improved for most of the paying public. So what is it that drew so many people in simpler times to the games two millennia ago and still has such a powerful attraction today?
Bill Shankly, Scottish international player and sometime manager of Manchester United is quoted as saying, ‘Some people believe football is a matter of life and death. I’m very disappointed with that attitude. I can assure you it is much, much more important than that.’
Absolute tosh! It is far, far less important than that. However, Shankly may inadvertently have touched on the fact that the explanation lies deep in the human psyche. It seems that for many the “F” game is the only way they can express their frustrations or territorial aspirations.
The lives of most of us are not filled with adventure and adrenaline. For many around the world life is nasty, mean brutish and short. For most urbanized souls, life and death are not every day issues and the game has perhaps become a substitute for the stimulation of defending, or the acquisition of, territory — war in other words.
This may be the result of the territorial imperative, described by Robert Ardrey in the 1960’s, in which it is argued mankind needs to establish territory, physical or metaphysical, as the top priority in life. That would certainly be a plausible explanation for the tribal and nationalistic behavior of fans at games. In the defense of territory, real or imagined, local differences may be overlooked in the interests of national unity. To explain national unity, even in countries divided by tribalism and war when their putatively “national” sides meet in a match, one needs look no further than Franklin H. Giddings in his “Principles of Sociology” (1896). “Consciousness of kind,” he argued, “is the original and elementary subjective fact in society.” Giddings defines this term as “a state of consciousness in which any being, whether low or high in the scale of life, recognizes another conscious being as of like kind with itself.” Interpret that this month as “We will stop hating each other temporarily in the face of a common enemy — the other team.”
All of these primal drives and imperatives, if that is what they be, are now the stuff of marketing and hype, cynically manipulated to enrich the manipulators. It is war by proxy for profit; in Roman times the profit was the emasculation of the people’s political aspirations. Today, it is that plus good hard cash.
And you call it a “beautiful game”? It is not the overpaid bladder chasers we have to be critical of. They are so caught up in the illusion of the importance of what they do for a living that it is as impossible for them to divine their real function as it is for a tea leaf on a tree to extrapolate from its existence the entire history of the East India Company. The sinister elements in the “game” sit in boardrooms and marketing seminars speculating on what they can sell us next. Buy into it if you will. Fortunately the television in the newsroom does have an “off” switch.
Rugby, however, is another matter altogether.
