Has the beautiful game lost its sheen

As I child I used to be taken to White Hart Lane... that was proper football, with a heavy leather ball that soaked up the rain and became a projectile, and dubbined boots that could weight a diver down... A goal? Back to the centre spot to get going again, without group petting sessions... Brylcreemed forwards and a goalkeeper in a tweed flat cap - those were the days! (Why? Don't ask me, I just type this stuff...)

My lot love football and with three local teams here on Merseyside it is no wonder,but mr.g. spends his most enjoyable times at the under 10s weekly matches where there are no prima dona's and no arguing the offside rule, he has been a regular at the local team matches since DS1 joined when he was 7 he is now 39,we are now watching DGS5 earning his trophies and still washing football kits !!

Best kind of football that.

My son gave up managing his son's team (under 10s, I think) because he was getting so much aggro from parents if their son wasn't in the starting 11 even though he played everyone who turned up and, while he was coaching from the sidelines he was often drowned out by the parents yelling!

Way back in the 70's, my husband who is a (was!) qualified referee gave up on the younger players, because he said the abuse from the parents on the side-line was offensive to say the least. He eventually gave up al-together because he felt all he was doing was trying to stop the players breaking each others legs! A bit of an exaggeration there, I think, but he did really get totally fed up with it all. I used to be one of the supporters of the youth club football team, and he was the goal-keeper even after we were married. I hated those thick woolly jumpers they used to wear, the mud stuck to them, and they weighed a ton when wet, drying them was a nightmare.

I'm just off to Craven Cottage to watch Fulham play, or should I say lose! Any other FFC fans out there? Come on you whites!

And by the way, it's Tottenham Hotspur, not Hotspurs...

DH and DS have just gone off to watch their team. I would rather gouge out my eyes with a rusty spoon than watch football, and I hate all the doom and gloom and examining of entrails when they lose, but my son travels sixty miles to spend the afternoon with his dad every other week, and that is worth it's weight in gold for both of them, and for me, because otherwise we wouldn't see him that often. There are too many foreign players, and too much money in the professional game, and ticket prices are beyond a joke - don't know how families can afford to go. My grandson, at eight, is mad keen on the game. He can give you chapter and verse about league tables and players. He plays for an under tens league team, and, on a casual basis, for a dad's and lads team and both are well run and good natured. I do, however, think he is in danger of becoming a bit one dimensional. We have tried to interest him in other things - rugby, cricket, fishing (what a disaster that was!), badminton - but it always comes back to football. At least it's keeping him fit!