‘FRIENDLY FIRE’

Summers like these used to be the worst for football fans, with neither a World Cup nor a European Championship to plug the gap between play-off finals and Community Shield. But it was a World Cup year, 1998, which brought home how much the ‘pre-season friendly’ has done to reduce that gap.

As Marcel Desailly lunged his way to a long-forgotten red card late in France’s 3-0 final victory over Brazil, someone cried out: “Does that mean he’s suspended for next week?” as Chelsea were due to play their opening friendly against the local non-league side, a mere six days after France ’98 had finished.

Within the living memory of most with whom I watch football, ‘pre-season’ meant a single trial match between the ‘Probables’ and the ‘Possibles’ within the one club. The concept of playing even one match against other clubs was a child of the sixties. These days, you can’t move for friendlies, tours and tournaments. Most of which seems to be on Channel Five, which I think says a lot…

The proliferation of tournaments has led to doubts about the veracity of calling games in them friendlies. One Arsenal fan asked: “Does the Emirates Cup count?” He was claiming unawareness of what he called the pre-season friendly ‘sub-culture’ but was probably anxious to hear the answer ‘no’ as the competition has represented the Gunners’ best chance of winning anything for a while now.

Despite concerted efforts by the football authorities, pre-seasons have steadily increased in length – as a cursory glance at the fixture list in today’s paper will confirm. In my living memory – and I’m the same age as the YOUNG new Foreign Secretary – pre-season friendlies in July had a novelty value which pre-season friendlies in June would have now.

Clubs would be fined for staging them prior to an authorised date – which was still early enough to coincide with some schools breaking up for summer. But non-league clubs in particular weren’t going to quibble at any resultant financial sanction when a hosting a Chelsea XI would see many times that amount pour in through the turnstiles, covering their wage bill until Christmas and beyond.

Such are the squad sizes of most professional clubs nowadays that friendlies often see separate XIs turn out for each half. An experiment which crashed on Sven Goran-Eriksson in his time as England manager, most memorably and hilariously against Australia at Upton Park.

And it is common to see the likes of ‘Manchester United’ and ‘Manchester United XI’ dotted all over fixture lists – and time zones – on the same day. It may be an XI which only contains two or three players with ‘first team experience.’ And that experience may be little more than having watched a Carling Cup third round tie over Sir Alex Ferguson’s shoulder from the dugout.

But a picture of a North West Counties League (Division One) striker taking the ball past anyone in a United shirt will adorn his club’s programme cover for months to come. And, of course, today’s youth team reserve or YTS apprentice could be tomorrow’s Ryan Giggs. More likely to be tomorrow’s Luke Chadwick, at best. But when you get 2,000 through the gate rather than the usual 94, what does that matter?

Another unique characteristic of friendlies is the quaint tradition of referees ‘asking for players to be substituted’ in situations which would normally warrant yellow or red cards. And the attendant, unwanted paperwork.

This is most prevalent in games like ‘local side v Manchester United youths reserves.’ These games are taken by qualified referees - Ray Lewis from Great BOOKham (ho-ho), refereed many a friendly. But Lewis, just like the others, was simply a local volunteer helping out one of his nearby clubs. And they don’t need any extra hassle.

Meanwhile, some ‘tournaments’ between bigger clubs have referees who are all too aware that a red card to a top player has a much higher publicity value in mid-July than mid-season, as Wayne Rooney found to his cost last year. Graham Poll’s record in pre-season tournaments is not recorded. But I could hazard a guess.

For altogether more noble reasons, the claim runs that Celtic “dinnae play friendlies.” It is certainly hard to treat pre-season games lightly when your support turns out in thousands at all venues – making Celtic among the most popular of testimonial opponents.

Celtic’s displays (and results) at places like Highbury and Stamford Bridge have tended to match the intensity of that support. And some view this as a pre-cursor to the Bhoys’ recent good results against Premier League opposition in European competition – their Old Trafford defeat the only loss in the last eight games against English clubs.

Alas, the good results were rather more to do with Celtic being further into their pre-season programme (won one, lost one already THIS pre-season), thanks to the Scottish Premier League starting on or about August 1^st (last year’s 1-1 draw at Chelsea came AFTER Celtic’s first league game). When Celtic met Liverpool in mid-season for Ian Rush’s testimonial, they were ‘gubbed’, as they say in Glasgow, six-nothing. Certainly “didnae play” that night.

With the UEFA Inter-Toto Cup in its third week at the time of writing, friendlies no longer herald football ‘starting all over again.’ But Arnold Town v Burton Albion on July 6^th is still – no disrespect to either club whatsoever – ludicrous. It could only get dafter if Highland League Keith were the visitors. Arnold playing Keith. In the first week of July. Madness.

So, as the percentage of eccentrics among football fans far outstrips the national average (how else to explain groundhoppers?), many people will have ‘done twenty games this season’ before ‘this season’ has begun. And there’ll be groups who eschew competitive football entirely, watching ONLY pre-season friendlies, saying emotional goodbyes in mid-August and “see you in ten months.”

Me? I don’t need football on July 6^th. I have a life, things to do on weekends. I’ll wait until…July 14^th, Colliers Wood v. Kingstonian. RESERVES. I’m normal.

‘MotorMurph’ is written b y Mark Murphy

Entry Filed under: MotorMurph Column

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