Author: Andy Gardner

At the Wheel

Posted on by Andy Gardner

Argyle’s full-circle journey that sees a winning run ended by Charlton before returning the favour at Home Park

The real beauty of following a football team outside the Premier League is the sheer unpredictability of the story that makes up the season. More generally, it’s the possibility of a wide range of outcomes that makes pretty much all sports so engaging and enthralling. This League One campaign for my team, Plymouth Argyle, has so far been much better than almost anyone would have predicted, with the team recovering from defeat on the first day of the season to embark on a 16-match unbeaten run.

That streak of results came to a shuddering halt on Saturday 20th November away to Charlton Athletic, which just happened to be my second Argyle match of the season, with my attendance seemingly predicating an outcome that was completely foreseeable.

That’s always the issue with any sequence of results, especially one so positive and so long – eventually it has to come to an end. Argyle defied all the odds to be in the position they were going into this game, while the hosts themselves were recovering from a shocking start that cost manager Nigel Adkins his job, meaning the Addicks were being marshalled on a temporary basis by former player Johnnie Jackson. Under his stewardship, Charlton have improved hugely – they were terrible when I saw them lose 2-1 at MK Dons in August – and they undoubtedly deserved this 2-0 win at the Valley.

Moments before kick off at the Valley; 26,000 fans in attendance, including 3,000 visitors

Being a supporter in exile – or ‘up the line’ as it was always known in he Westcountry – adds a layer of detachment from the team that can make it hard to keep up. One of the really great things about supporting a team is the immersion it brings, especially in a one-club community where there are no local rivalries to contend with. When I was young, I remember my parents receiving local newspapers – Western Morning News and Evening Herald – where Argyle were the entire focus of local sports coverage, with match reviews, previews, transfer rumours and conjecture around matches meaning it was easy to keep up to date and feel part of the journey.

Being 250 miles away makes that more tricky, although the wealth of online media makes that easier, even if club-controlled content is, at the very least, polished.

After that phenomenal string of results came to an end in South London, there was an instant demonstration of the importance of momentum in sport with Argyle losing their following two league games against sides chasing promotion as both Wycombe and Wigan came away from Home Park with all three points.

Form and momentum in sport can be so important, but also so fragile. One minute you can be flying and everything feels easy, happening almost naturally with the minimum of effort. That positive sensation can be incredibly difficult to maintain and often there can be little or no way to identify what makes everything click for so long.

On the flip side, that momentum can switch almost instantly and those games where a win was snatched or a draw somehow claimed against the odds become so much harder to find and all of a sudden, it can feel like trying to turn the tide of defeats. It must be incredibly difficult for people in sport to handle momentum in this way – how do you maintain the positive outcomes when you know they can’t last forever and how do you arrest the slide before it becomes insurmountable?

After a brief break to win at Rochdale in the FA Cup, Argyle’s next league game was a trip to somewhere far more familiar to me, MK Dons at stadiumMK.

The day before the trip to Milton Keynes, Argyle took perhaps a more significant blow to their ambitions than a couple of disappointing recent results with news emerging that manager Ryan Lowe would be leaving to join Preston North End. Ryan is a Liverpudlian through-and-through and the vast majority of his career prior to taking the Argyle hotseat has been in and around the north west of England. His previous job saw him take Bury to promotion from League Two with a side playing expansive, attacking football, something he has successfully transplanted to Plymouth, only for the club to succumb to years of appalling mismanagement and ultimately going out of business.

Argyle Twitter went into something approaching meltdown on the day the rumours of Lowe’s departure began to surface, with fans showing their displeasure by giving oxygen to all manner of salacious rumours. Fans are always very quick to turn on players and managers who they feel have wronged their club and this was the case, with many appearing to cite Lowe’s reluctance to relocate to Devon as a sign of him never really committing to the role.

I think it’s important at this point to remember that football people are people too – when Lowe and his managerial team lost their jobs as a result of Bury’s collapse, they would have been in a position of needing to take up a new gig to protect their careers, reputations and to keep a roof over their families’ heads. As a man in his early 40s, Lowe has a settled family in the north west and moving them to a new city, hundreds of miles from home, potentially taking children out of schools and expecting them to settle instantly is, at best, unlikely.

Instead, and as is common in football, he would have taken temporary accommodation in Plymouth, either a long-term stay in a hotel or by renting an apartment, working at training during the week, leading the team into matches and maybe getting home to see his family when the schedule allows.

Add to that the additional restrictions created by the last 18 months in a global pandemic and trying to maintain a connection to his family would have been more difficult than ever.

With this in mind, when he was presented with the chance to return home with a club a division higher (at the moment), it’s hardly a surprise that Lowe took the chance to move to Preston. Even if Argyle are capable of winning promotion to the Championship, Devon will always be a long way from home and that separation will continue to put strain on a man, his family and their happiness.

I don’t blame him at all for making the switch, even with Argyle enjoying a fantastic first half of the season, as it’s impossible to know when the next chance might be. In addition, the ‘life expectancy’ of a manager in the Football League is incredibly short – what would have happened to Lowe if the team’s form had taken a dip, as it did last season, and all of a sudden his job is at risk?

Stepping into the manager’s shoes for the team’s trip to Milton Keynes was his own assistant, Steven Schumacher, making for a sensible appointment that guarantees stability while also providing him with an opportunity to step up and take charge of a team for the first time. Schumacher has been instrumental in establishing the team’s style of play and he will know the characters that make up the dressing room, having worked with them since the start – it strikes me as a situation that works for everyone, especially with Argyle pocketing compensation for Lowe’s departure.

I was able to switch my season ticket seat at stadiumMK for a spot in the away end, creating an unfamiliar feeling to somewhere I know so well – I was there when it was a big concrete whole in the ground and again when it first welcomed football as well as attending some great moments in my time working for the Dons. Taking a seat in the away section for this game was a first for me and it was an interesting change of perspective.

The game itself, which was live on Sky on a Wednesday evening, was actually pretty terrible. The hosts capitalised on a couple of mistakes in Argyle’s defence to take the lead after 20 minutes and then seemingly tried to remove any life from the encounter by reducing the match’s tempo to practically zero.

Argyle made changes after the break and took the game by the scruff of the neck – in particular, the introduction of midfield playmaker Danny Mayor changed the game, and it was no surprise when he was involved in the equaliser, scored by Conor Grant, with about 25 minutes to go. Both sides went on to strike the woodwork before the end, but with 45 minutes of dominance each, a draw was probably the fair result.

The equaliser gave rise to Argyle’s fans celebrating their new manager’s reign with chants of ‘Schuey’s at the wheel’ and ‘Shoes off if you love Schuey’. I was far too cold to be exposing my feet to the concrete steps, but it was a bizarre sight to see so many young lads waving their footwear behind the goal.

Shoes off if you love Schuey: Argyle fans celebrate their new gaffer by raising their footwear

Seeing stadiumMK as a visitor was an eye-opening experience; it is a fantastic stadium, no doubt, and while it is easy to criticise the club for lacking the support to generate the atmosphere it deserves, games there do lack the intensity of a large crowd, with such a huge percentage of the ground sitting empty and large gaps between fans as a result. It’s great for social distancing, but it  does nothing for bringing supporters together and creating the sense of community and togetherness that fosters support and emotion.

Whether or not MK will ever truly have a team befitting of this wonderful stadium remains to be seen. I hope it does, but my personal experiences from this season have left me feeling indifferent towards the team, primarily because the matchday experience lacks much of the edge and energy that makes going to football such a great event.

Argyle’s next away day probably provided the exact opposite atmosphere with the prospect of English football’s longest trip by way of a trek to Sunderland. I had considered making this journey myself as the Black Cats’ Stadium of Light home is a ground I’ve yet to visit – however, I was left feeling inadequate after deciding it was a trip too far for me after learning that over 1,000 away fans did make the trip. Perhaps next season, depending on the two clubs’ respective outcomes this campaign, when I’ll have the majority of my Saturdays back after not renewing my season ticket at stadiumMK.

It’s incredible to think that so many fans made that trip and it must have been heartbreaking to see Argyle go two down in the first 13 minutes, but these things can happen and they so often do. In the end, Argyle claimed a goal in the second half to lose 2-1, meaning that their 16-game unbeaten run was instantly followed by four defeats in five in the league, including a draw and a defeat for the new manager.

But football has a strange habit of weird sequences and symmetries; almost exactly a month after seeing their bubble burst on a Saturday afternoon in South London, Argyle would welcome Charlton to Plymouth for the return fixture and the first for Jackson since being confirmed as the Addicks’ full-time manager.

After a start which saw the visitors come close to scoring twice in the first 20 minutes, Argyle took the lead in first half stoppage time through Kieran Agard and after the interval they created the better chances, deservedly claiming the win despite being unable to double their lead.  I would’ve loved to have been there for this clash – Schumacher’s first home game in charge and a worrying dip in form turned around just in time for the busy festive period (Covid cancellations allowing), but unfortunately that’s the nature of being an up-the-line fan.

Even though I’ve only seen Argyle in action three times so far this season and I was really apprehensive about how I’d take to following them again after so long, I’ve absolutely loved the experience so far. While Premier League clubs seem to be more detached from their fanbases and communities than ever, becoming essentially the content generation departments of corporate investment growth conglomerates, it’s been fantastic to re-connect with the club that fostered my original love for going to matches and actually watching football.

And while it’s obviously easier to become attached to a winning team, it’s not as straightforward as that – seeing the team encounter and overcome the challenges that are inevitable in the course of a season are what makes football – and, more broadly, sport – so enduringly engaging. You hope it will go well, you expect that it won’t and whichever way it goes, you just have to roll with it.

When things are going well, you have to make sure you ride the wave and remember the good times, because when the coin is flipped and you’re on the end of a sticky patch, the memories of the good times can keep you going.

Football, Grassroots, Photography, Sport

Parklife

Gallery | Posted on by Andy Gardner

On Saturday 30th October, I took a walk to my local playing fields to take some photos of a football match – Willen FC vs Stewkley in the Premier Division of the North Bucks & District League.

It was a cracking match – Willen went into the break two down, but after switching to a more direct style of play in the second half, they turned the game on its head to win 3-2 with a last-gasp, direct free kick – and that despite a moment of controversy when they had a goal ruled out after the ball cannoned off the crossbar, onto the goal-line and back out, a la Geoff Hurst in ’66. Where’s VAR when you need it?

Anyway, I took a bunch of photos – these are probably the pick of them (or at least man as I had time/patience to develop on a Sunday morning!)

  • The winning goal – a well struck free-kick that evaded the Stewkley ‘keeper and snuck into the bottom corner.
  • The moment of controversy – Willen’s forward beat the advancing ‘keeper, but his shot bounced down from the crossbar onto the line. I couldn’t see if it was in, so we’ll have to trust the lino.
  • In the second half, Willen went more direct and played everything through their number 6 – it paid off and he scored two of the goals, both direct free kicks.
  • Classic.

Exile, Imposter or Just Another Fan

Posted on by Andy Gardner

After such a long time away from being a match-going supporter, was it slightly ambitious to think it would all just be like it was?

Twelve years is a surprisingly long time. That’s how long it had been since I last saw the team I watched most growing up, Plymouth Argyle, in actual live action. There’s numerous reasons for that, central to which was geography but equally important was an overall waning of interest in football and, therefore, a reduced willingness to part with cash for the experience.

The last Argyle game I saw was a Championship fixture in September 2009 at Peterborough, with Plymouth manager Paul Sturrock in his second spell at the club leading the Greens to a 2-1 win thanks to goals from Jamie Mackie and Rory Fallon. It was Argyle’s first win of the 2009/10 season and ultimately both sides would be relegated to League 1.

Fast forward to October 2021 and so much has changed for me – house purchases, changes of career, weight loss, marathons and loads of other memories wiped out by late nights and their supporting substances. In that time, I’d almost totally lost interest and energy for football – no longer a game or the never-ending soap opera it once was, now more of a corporate content factory where victory in the transfer window and social media bear pit trumps actual form on the pitch. Announce Icardi! Take the ratio, admin.

At the height of the pandemic-enforced global lockdown, many of us fell back on nostalgia to replace the hope vacuum created by an uncertain future. I spent a lot of time thinking about my favourite football memories and why they particularly stuck in my mind. Almost exclusively, my personal highlights revolved around watching matches in the flesh and sharing that experience, with friends, family and total strangers. Having televised games on wall-to-wall during lockdown was fine, but watching a series of ghost games played out in front of empty stadiums with canned audio only underscored what was missing, both from matchdays but also my own existence.

An Argyle fan places a flag in position before kick off at the Kassam Stadium

So far this season, I’ve enjoyed going to watch matches again, taking in games at stadiumMK as a season ticket holder at MK Dons. However, the ambition this year was always to re-connect with Argyle and try to see them in action whenever their away fixtures brought them close to my Buckinghamshire home. The first such match, after having failed to get a ticket within the sold-out allocation at Wimbledon, was a trip to Oxford United’s Kassam Stadium.

It was hard to know how the game would go as a lapsed, exiled fan – I don’t have a Westcountry accent so I would probably stand out a mile. I also don’t have the knowledge of the team that more committed supporters build up over years of comings and goings, so what if I seem like some kind of bandwagon jumper, especially seeing as the team are, at time of writing, top of League 1, having enjoyed a fantastic start. What might happen if I was seen as some kind of imposter, taking up the place of a proper fan among the 1,800 away fans?

I was apprehensive, nervous really, about trying to be a fan again, which is crazy really – I’m a middle-aged man who has been to hundreds of games in my time at all kinds of levels. But wanting to be a part of something, a community, and to share that experience creates a huge fear of rejection and humiliation.

Very soon it became clear that those fears were irrational and unnecessary. The game itself was a rollercoaster and was perfect for this return to being a fan – Argyle were behind early, then equalised quickly and went in at half time 2-1 up. Oxford then wasted a series of chances after the interval, but Plymouth weathered the storm and eventually doubled the lead in the closing stages.

Argyle fans and players celebrate the 3-1 win at Oxford

All the emotions of supporting a team came flooding back – the disappointment of conceding early, the relief of an unexpected equaliser and the joy of seeing a game turned on its head. Then the nerves of seeing your team pushed back, waiting for the inevitable levelling of the scores and ultimately the surreal sealing of the win with the third goal. The pantomime jeering of an opposition player with the temerity to celebrate his goal and the hero-worshipping of a midfielder from Guinea-Bissau who was born the year I took my GCSEs (Panutche Camara, scorer of two goals against Oxford, in case you were wondering).

I’d expected to be something of a detached observer, quietly taking in the game and making astute observations (not that I normally do this anyway, but still). Instead, I found myself completely unbridled, on my feet from the early exchanges and joining in all the songs as best I can – it always did feel odd to me to proclaim Plymuff Argo as the greatest team the world has ever seen, not because they’re not excellent, but because my Home Counties diction struggles with the colloquialism.

Argyle’s fans are terrific. I was sat in the quieter of the three blocks, but the noisy and boisterous support on either side was infectious and it felt totally normal to be sharing the game with the elderly couple on my left and the guy on the right who was enjoying a day out with his boy seeing as his under 11s game had been played the night before.

I’d worried before the game that I wasn’t a fan any more, that I was too aloof and too distant from actual supporters to be able to enjoy the experience, but I couldn’t have been more wrong. My whole desire to get back in touch with football fandom was fuelled by nostalgia – powerful memories from my youth, shared with friends, strangers and, particularly, my parents. Football may have totally changed in those times, but it’s also exactly the same, depending where you look.

Above all else, it was a sense of normality and regularity that I took from the game – no questions about the bigger picture, the future of the sport or the potential damage being done by financial disparity and European Super Leagues. No concerns over foreign ownership, petrostate transfer budgets or games being moved to fit TV schedules – just a football match, three points and then onto the next one.

It was simple, uncomplicated and energising. I’d expected to feel like a fish out of water and for the game itself to be relatively low standard – that couldn’t have been further from the truth. Because I felt invested in the outcome, it was exciting, enjoyable and it felt like it mattered, which is something I’d really missed from my match going hiatus.

Prior to the start of the season, Argyle were expected by many to struggle, maybe even candidates for relegation after a terrible finish to the last campaign. The fact that they are currently top of the table, admittedly having played more games than those around them, just shows the unpredictable nature of football outside the ‘big six’ Premier League bubble.

Whether or not Plymouth stay in the race for promotion is unlikely but also irrelevant – just that there is the opportunity to do so is what makes the sport exciting.

Ashley’s Era Finally Comes to an End for Newcastle’s Fatigued Fans

Posted on by Andy Gardner

Newcastle takeover heralds bright future for club’s supporters, but what does it say for the game as a whole?

After 18 long months, finally, they can dare to dream. The deal to pass ownership of one of England’s most storied football clubs, Newcastle United, into the hands of an investment vehicle that is in no way connected to the ruling monarchy of Saudi Arabia (despite being chaired by the nation’s Crown Prince), is finally complete.

Since the club was purchased in 2007 by Mike Ashley, more Clown Prince than Crown, and his Sports Direct empire, the Magpies have unquestionably regressed. The team that were known in the mid-90s as football’s entertainers, attacking with cavalier style under Kevin Keegan and boasting stars such as David Ginola, Tino Aspilla and Alan Shearer, have become an average-at-best outfit with Premier League survival their only ambition every season.

It is no wonder that the supporters want – need – something to feel excited about.

  • The glory days, 1997, when Newcastle were the last team to beat Barcelona (speaking of clubs in decline) at the Nou Camp in the Champions League prior to this season

As a city and wider region, Newcastle has suffered in a similar way to many other northern towns and cities under generations of British governments. The decline of traditional industries means that there are fewer and fewer things to unite ordinary, working class people like the mines once did, fuelling feelings of neglect and amplifying the importance of the long-standing community institutions which remain.

Clubs mean so much more to their fans and the residents of their locale than simply who wins a match each week. As a one-club city, this is even more the case for somewhere like Newcastle, where the football club goes a long way to putting the place and the people on the map.

While the club has essentially become the Premier League version of Slazenger or Lonsdale, it is not just the team which has suffered from financial malnutrition. Reports suggest that the club’s training ground, stadium and entire infrastructure are decaying at a visible rate, adding to the sense that Ashley and his Sport Direct goons couldn’t give a massive mug of tea for their footballing investment.

It is easy to see why Newcastle’s fans are excited about the takeover led by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund (PIF). The promise of Manchester City-style investment, not just in eye-catching signings to lift the team up the league but also in the entire region, are hard to resist. Under the stewardship of Adu Dhabi’s own investment fund, Abu Dhabi United Group, City have developed an entire campus based around the Etihad Stadium which rivals the best facilities in the world, while the team has become one of the best in Europe, based on a similar model to Barcelona (no coincidence when the club’s Chief Executive and First Team Coach are former Barça employees).

Manchester City are lauded for creating a successful, stylish team while there is recognition for ADUG that it has all been done ‘the right way’, investing significant amounts of money not just in the playing staff but also the entire environment, regenerating the area and bringing hope to the region.

But that’s exactly how sportwashing works.

Much of the conversation around PIF’s takeover of Newcastle United has centred around the Saudi government’s approach to human rights, their enforcement of laws preventing homosexuality and the murder of critical journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Many of the same question marks around human rights and tolerance exist in relation to Abu Dhabi and also Qatar, the de facto owners of arch villains Paris St Germain and hosts of the 2022 World Cup.

  • Newcastle fans celebrate the news of their club’s takeover by the Saudi-backed Public Investment Fund

So what makes this acquisition less palatable than those? Well, nothing actually – they are all clear and obvious attempts to brush over any negative views attached to those regimes and present their rulers and their nations in a more positive light.

A quick scroll through the social media cess pits shows that the general response to any negativity around PIF’s takeover of the Magpies is a universal demonstration of whataboutery; a sense that any questioning of the takeover is some kind of conspiracy against Newcastle as city by the metropolitan elite or an attempt to protect the footballing hegemony of the big six/four (delete as applicable).

While those big clubs would go to any length to protect their status – see ‘European Super League’ – the fact that it takes an investment from a questionable (at best) sovereign state to provide football fans with any hope for the future is a damning statement about the game itself.

It has always been true that money talks in football. The Premier League points tally at the end of the season nearly always matches the wage bill table, with the biggest spenders occupying the top places and the strugglers paying out the least.

But the gulf between the haves and the have nots continues to grow at an unsustainable pace in terms of maintaining viable competition. It is now impossible for fans outside the top six to conceive of breaching the upper echelons without the levels of investment being speculated upon for Newcastle. Despite the massive monies being poured into clubs from huge TV deals, the financial inertia around the biggest clubs means there is zero chance of anyone making it big.

Admittedly, Leicester City have bucked this trend in recent years, winning the FA Cup last season and the Premier League itself five years earlier – but their story is the exception rather than the rule (and their owner, Aiyawatt Srivaddhanaprabha, son of Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha and heir to the King Power estate, is hardly short of a few quid). Everton, meanwhile, since receiving investment in 2016 from Farhad Moshiri, whose estimated net worth is greater than Liverpool’s owner John W. Henry, have spent over £500million on transfers alone in that time but have yet to finish in the top six (they are currently fifth).

Football at the highest level no longer belongs to the fans or the people – it hasn’t done for years. It is now a profit and PR vehicle for wealthy owners, distant investors and giant corporations, which includes the bodies who supposedly run and police the sport.

Questioning Newcastle fans for being excited about their new owners is neither fair nor worthwhile and it misses the real point. it is not their fault that PIF’s connection to the Saudi state makes their club the latest sportswashing weapon and it is hard to begrudge them a moment of hope after years of neglect.

But that owning a club, a social institution and community pillar, like Newcastle United can only be achieved by such an organisation speaks volumes about the state of the game. After the European Super League fiasco earlier this year, football media was awash with positivity about fan ownership and the game returning the people; it is clear that this is as far away now as it has ever been at the highest level.

Asking whether Newcastle should be taken over essentially by the Saudi state or attempting to block the acquisition is essentially pointless and it would do nothing to address the real issues which the deal exposes.

The purchase of Newcastle United raises huge questions about ownership of clubs and the use of football for soft power sportswashing, many of which have already been asked of the game’s major stakeholders, investors and powerbrokers. At the same time, it does herald the end of a bleak period for the club, one that no fans would ever wish to endure – but it highlights the parlous state of the game’s governance when it requires turning a blind eye to all manner of actions and behaviours in order to gain hope from an acquisition effectively funded by a secretive petrostate with a painfully opaque agenda.

Embracing the Rain While the Champions League Comes Calling

Posted on by Andy Gardner

In celebration of being a part of the action by attending in person instead of taking in a game on the box

The near instant transition from summer to autumn confirms that the football season is firmly up and running, to the point that looking at league tables is now valid. With that in mind, it’s both surprising and encouraging to see my two League One sides, Plymouth Argyle and MK Dons, threatening the upper reaches of the table.

Before the start of the campaign, both teams had reason to be negative about the months ahead, with Argyle’s form last season suggesting a possible relegation battle while the Dons headed into the unknown having lost their manager just days before their first game.

Instead, both sides have won more games than they’ve lost, picking up 19 points from their first ten games and defying expectations.

While Argyle can be seen as the division’s real surprise package so far, rubbing shoulders with the likes of Sunderland, Wigan Athletic and Wycombe Wanderers, the Dons are perhaps the league’s entertainers, scoring 20 goals and conceding 13 in their opening encounters.

The most recent fixture at stadiummk saw Fleetwood Town visiting; a side who have struggled so far this season, picking up only ten points from their first nine games.

Taking place on a Tuesday night, the game represented an example of a lower league club’s worst nightmare – direct competition with a televised Champions League matchday, the focus of which was a clash between Manchester City and Lionel Messi’s Paris Saint-Germain, a game which many believe could be a pre-cursor to the ultimate winner of that competition.

Attracting fans to a stadium for live action when a big game is on the box is a tough challenge – made even more difficult by torrential rain in Milton Keynes with casual punters dissuaded from parting with their cash in favour of kicking back to see how that PSG front line is actually working together.

Before the start of the season, my knowledge of my local team and its players was practically zero. After a few games, however, I already feel more in tune with who the team’s leaders are, who the potential match winners are and who could be concerned about their place in the side.

Meanwhile, my connection to my ‘big’ side, Tottenham, continues to wane – and not just because the club seems to be constantly searching for a new crisis, ready to lurch from the current one with spectacular drama and embarrassment. That’s not solely down to the side’s steady drift down the Premier League table, but also because, in my opinion, actually going to matches is a big part of the experience of following a club.

There’s so much more to attending games than simply the game or the action, much of which revolves around the social experience and sharing it with other people, even if they are total strangers.

On this particular occasion, those of us who eschewed the televised action in favour of the real world were treated to a proper game between two sides who really went for it. Despite their lowly position in the table, Fleetwood played on the front foot and looked to get bodies forward, which hasn’t always been the case for some of the Dons’ opponents so far this season.

It made for an entertaining game, not just because of the 3-3 scoreline, but because both teams looked like they wanted to attack and create chances. So far this season, I’ve been really impressed with the standard of football on show from almost every side. In particular, my previous visit saw Portsmouth as the visitors for an evenly-matched, entertaining game, which ultimately resulted in a 2-1 win for the Dons.

I don’t come at this from a particularly technical point of view – I’m not a coach or an expert in tactics by any means – so I’m just a punter with no horse in the race, but still the experience of going to matches again has been well worth the investment in my season ticket. Thinking back a few years ago, football at this level was not always a great spectacle; most sides seemed happy to be solid and hard to beat, aiming to maybe nick a goal with a set piece, but sies playing in that manner seem to be the exception rather than the rule.

While I still wouldn’t class myself as a Dons fan, there’s no substitute for actually attending a match; watching games, highlights and YouTube clips from afar is not the same as actually feeling it when the action takes place in front of you. Even on a rainy night in a quarter-filled stadium, you’re essentially part of the game rather than simply observing it on the box.

It’s essentially a case of an active experience in contrast to a passive one – when watching football on telly, it’s easy to drift in and out of attention. You pick up your phone and briefly scroll the socials, maybe like a few cat videos and then return to the game when Gary Neville’s commentary reaches fever pitch. When you’re actually in attendance, you’re far more immersed in the occasion, observing the actions of the players in any given situation and taking in the reactions of the crowd.

This is even further amplified when the result really matters – nothing beats the feeling of a last-gasp equaliser or that moment of brilliance that turns a game in your team’s favour. While my match-going experiences so far this season have been limited to attending as a neutral bystander, I can’t wait to get behind Argyle when I can. My first planned trip to see the Greens in action was at Wimbledon a couple of weeks ago, but all tickets were sold to season ticket holders before general sale, showing the popularity of following the team on the road. It’s now looking like my first Argyle game of the season might be Oxford away on 16th October.

Back at stadiummk, the crowd of 6,600 (including probably 100 visiting fans) were treated to an absolute cracker of a game, which ultimately resulted in a share of the spoils thanks to a late equaliser from the away side. Dons were dragged through the game by an excellent performance from Scott Twine, who sealed a brilliant hat trick with a direct free kick that smashed the crossbar, bounced down onto the line and into the roof of the net.

It must have been a great night out for the away fans who made the trip; the journey is a shade under 200 miles as the crow flies, making it a late night on Tuesday. Those who did make the trek certainly looked like they were enjoying themselves and they would definitely have gone away happy, having claimed a richly deserved point with an 88th minute equaliser.

While City were being put to the sword by Messi, Neymar and pals, I never once regretted my choice to go out and watch the game as opposed to staying in for a different one. It was cold, it threw it down with rain and there were no petrostates inflating the wage bill, but it was real, it mattered and I felt like a part of it.

Going Back to the Match

Posted on by Andy Gardner

Standing in a queue and waiting in a car park to finally return to a stadium and catch a game. In a strange way, it felt kind of apt – I don’t know exactly how long it’s been since I last went to the match, least of all as a punter, but it’s definitely in the realm of years rather than months. In itself, that seems extremely sad; the boy from the middle of nowhere with the insatiable appetite for football, a passion so great that he studied the sport at university and toured the south of the country in search of a career, bouncing from club to club like an unsure golfer.

So why now after so long away? If the truth be told, I totally lost my love and interest in football. One of the dangers of turning your passion into your paycheque is that you close off what you do to escape from the real world. Working in football became a real grind; watching matches lost its sparkle, especially when fans become customers and the attendance is more important than the result.

After so long away from it, much of my interest returned during the pandemic, partly because, in all honesty, there wasn’t much else to focus on. I stopped going to games because time is precious and I wanted to waste mine doing other things. Over the years I continued following my big team – Spurs – and enjoyed seeing them improve massively from where they were when I was young. That bubble kind of burst, however, when they appointed a manager who ‘guarantees trophies’ but in a style totally at odds with the club’s tradition and with a management approach based on avoiding blame, singling out individuals and generally protecting his own reputation. The trophies never arrived so Mourinho had to go.

That appointment typified priorities of the biggest clubs – instant success is more important that traditions or values, because neither of those bring in the money. Being in the Champions League is all important now to the clubs with the biggest outlays in order to preserve their status at the top table and prevent anyone else from stealing their slice of the pie.

With that in mind, it was never a huge surprise when the European Super League was announced earlier in 2021; owning a football club is an expensive business, so protecting your investment to guarantee a future profit needs a secure stream of income in the short term. That kind of steady revenue is totally at odds with the competitive nature of sport where risk is inherent – a poor run of form here or a bad string of injuries there and all of a sudden that Champions League spot becomes Thursday night trips to far flung Eastern Europe and a greatly diminished tv revenue.

Queueing the rain at stadiumMK to watch Dons vs Spurs in pre-season. I eventually made it into the ground 10 minutes after kick off to see Spurs comfortably win 3-1 – it was only after I got home later that evening that I learned Dons had missed a penalty in the first five minutes.

Front the point of view of the ESL club owners, it makes sense – protect your income, massively reduce the chance of seeing that income fall into the hands of someone else and watch your investment steadily grow.

At the time, I remember reading something that likened the ‘big six’ English clubs to being like the ‘big four’ supermarkets – greedily gobbling up the little businesses by hoovering up their customers while also expanding into new markets, leaving behind their traditional fanbases, laughably referred to as ‘legacy fans’. In this sense, fans like me are no more than customers – years of supporting the club that my dad did means nothing.

This makes it difficult to love your club. There’s something unique about going to football; admittedly a lot of what makes it great also makes it repulsive to many – the passion and tribalism that creates an indescribable bond spills over all too easily into pathetic scraps on the street and juvenile ‘banter’ in the stadium.

There’s a couple of old cliches that try to explain what it’s like supporting a football club: that it’s either a religion where everyone gathers to worship and pray or it’s like being part of a family except that everyone wants much the same thing. You can add in a couple of extra layers to both those ideas by including the shared experience of going to a match and the sense of community created by following a single entity that represents your town, city or borough.

All of which is lost when football becomes purely a made-for-TV exercise.

Watching games on television during the height of pandemic lockdown did make for an excellent distraction: something to focus on other than the rising death toll, something that really wasn’t important in the grand scheme of things. But after months of games in front of empty stadiums, it probably struck home to the big club bigwigs that those pesky legacy fans really aren’t that important to the whole business anyway, so why bother considering them in the next evolution of investment protection?

The biggest clubs in Europe are now essentially vehicles either for state-funded soft power PR campaigns or investment arms for (predominantly) US capitalists. In essence, the name of the club, its geographical location and the community links that infers are now irrelevant – these clubs are realistically franchises that could play their games anywhere in the world so long as it suits the broadest TV viewing market.

Complaining about this feels a little like ‘Old man shouts at clouds’ and it will take an unimaginable shift in the way the game is run to turn this particular tanker. This summer’s transfer splurge by Paris Saint-Germain (Owned by the Qatari state), only highlights this by taking star players, for ‘free’, from Barcelona, Real Madrid, AC Milan and Liverpool, plus a big-money transfer from a powerless Inter Milan, in a real demonstration of strength.

The state of the game at the highest point got me thinking about what it was I really enjoyed and loved about football. It was never about the biggest names, the transfer gossip or the endless debates on telly (who remembers Andy Gray and the Boot Room off the mid 90s?). For me, despite being a Spurs fan, it was never about going to watch them play – my parents retired to Cornwall when I was five years old, so I grew up around 250 miles from Tottenham and my supporting experience was limited to watching frequent disappointments on Sky.

Instead, my live football fix was formed at my local league club – Plymouth Argyle. When we first moved to the south west, Argyle were an old Division Two (now Championship) club. I remember going to my first game – I’d fallen in love with football, like so many people my age, during Italia ‘90, seeing England get the semi-finals, Gazza’s tears, Lineker’s goals and all that. It was a great time. Over the summer, I joined a local football club (not easy to find in deepest, darkest rugby country) and I wanted to consume every possible aspect of the game possible.

We were encouraged to take in a game at Argyle’s ground, Home Park, during the pre-season to 1990/91 and a friend of ours got hold of a pair of tickets for a friendly with Wimbledon – the Crazy Gang! Just two years on from the greatest FA Cup upset of all time, beating Liverpool 1-0 in the final at Wembley, the Dons would be bringing the likes of Vinny Jones, John Fashanu and Dennis Wise to Plymouth for a warm-up match before the new campaign. It promised to be a great introduction to live match action.

The game finished goal-less and and my Dad vowed never to return to Home Park. He broke that vow 18 months later to accompany me on a trip with my football club to see Argyle play Newcastle United in a league match just before Christmas. That game was also dire, with both sides setting up either side of the halfway line and launching long balls at each other until eventually the visitors broke the lines and stole the win with a goal from Gavin Peacock. It was more like trench warfare than football and the old man renewed his vow to avoid visits to Argyle, a promise he would keep this time for over a decade – and I don’t blame him; it was awful.

Plymouth Argyle’s Home Park: AKA the ‘Theatre of Greens’. The tight turnstiles, the wooden seats, the pasties. Brilliant.

However, and somewhat bizarrely, I was hooked. Most Saturdays for me meant either playing football myself or, as I grew up being a swimmer, taking part in competitions up and down the westcountry – it should be noted that I was never any good at swimming, but my mum was the coach, so I had limited choice. Even as Argyle slid down the leagues into what was originally Division Four, but was at the time known as Division Three (It’s now called League Two), the experience of going to games was addictive. I grew attached to Argyle as my ‘little club’ and the fortunes of the team and players became as much a part of my fandom as those of Spurs.

Going to matches as a teenager would be restricted to once a month initially, but as I got a bit older I could get to a few more of the bigger matches. In particular, after multiple seasons of decline, Argyle found themselves in the bottom division of elite football, but with an up-and-coming, energetic manager in charge: Neil Warnock. I didn’t really understand what good or bad football was at the time, but Warnock turned the ship at Home Park and the team were on the up. Games were exciting with the team playing fast, attacking football and winning games.

The 1995/96 season would end with Argyle being promoted via the play-offs. I couldn’t attend the final itself but the semi-final second leg remains to this day one of my all-time favourite moments watching football.

Argyle were pitched against Colchester United (more about them another time, probably). Play-off semi-finals are played over two legs, home and away with the winner on aggregate progressing to a winner-takes-promotion final at Wembley. After losing the first leg 1-0 at Colchester’s ground, Argyle knew that they would need to win at home to make it through.

I was stood on the terrace behind the goal – the Devonport End – where all the songs and the noise originated from. As a 15 year old who had never really belonged in any group or felt part of anything before, it was amazing – singing, shouting, swearing – it was liberating and exhilarating.

Argyle were fantastic that day – they raced into a two-goal lead on the night, making the aggregate score 2-1, only to be pegged back to 2-2 with the visitors scoring in the second half. If the game finished that way, it would go to a nervy period of extra-time and potentially a penalty shoot-out.

Into the final five minutes and the action was taking place way down the other end of the pitch. Even 25 years later, I can vividly remember thinking that momentum was going against Argyle and that they had no chance of making it through. Then from nowhere, a cross in from the right hand side found Plymouth’s diminutive left-back, Paul Williams, in space at the back post. His diving header was awkward, but effective, finding the net and giving the hosts a lead they would hold to book their berth in the final.

The stadium erupted – Home Park at the time was a ramshackle collection of terraces, stands and uncovered sections. For a club that normally had attendances of around 5,000, to be part of a 19,000 crowd felt like the biggest barrage of noise, celebration and joy imaginable. Everyone streamed onto the pitch, singing sings of salutation for the players, the manager and even the chairman.

It was an evening that had everything – at its best, football has that ability to ebb and flow between failure and success, with the ultimate outcome in the balance. The best matches are never the 5-0 thrashings, but the ones where your side appears to have thrown it away but somehow manages to steal victory.

There would be times in life where I would attend Argyle games more regularly, especially in my early twenties and with my mum. We formed a really close bond by attending games together (she was originally a fan of Crystal Palace), and some of those games, afternoons and moments before she died in 2004 are among my most treasured memories.

So that’s how I came to find myself stood in a queue in the rain in Milton Keynes in 2021. Because while I know I cannot repeat that sense of belonging and that attachment which grew in my teenage self, I want at least some of the experience to be refreshed.

After deciding that I wanted to get back into watching games live, I thought long and hard about what it was I got out of going to watch games and why it was something I cared about. I could go and watch my big club, especially now they’re in a new, huge stadium – I have been to see Spurs play in the flesh, many times, and have experienced some fantastic atmospheres and occasions at White Hart Lane, but, if the truth be told, I do feel a bit like a tourist when I’ve been there because I don’t go regularly enough – I couldn’t afford the cost or the time.

The commercialisation of top-level football makes following a big club even less attractive – there’s so much discussion and promotion of Premier League football that it feels like a never-ending soap opera; it doesn’t feel real or genuine as the superstars are so vast.

I mulled over some options for securing my football fix: living in MK means there are a number of different options within an hour or so but my instant reaction to paying £25 to watch Northampton or Luton play is that it’s too expensive – not because of the sheer cost, but because I don’t care how they do. Part of the joy of the experience is in the emotions created by the outcome so attending every game as a neutral will always leave something of a hollow feeling.

On the flip side of that, stumping up to watch a Premier League team is an expensive hobby – the cheapest season tickets at Spurs cost more than £900 and a single Matchday, including ticket, travel and food, will set you back around £100. For that kind of investment, its understandable that you want to feel entertained, see attractive football and, ultimately, a positive result – none of these things are guaranteed in sport.

I decided that now was the time to rekindle my love for my small club – Plymouth Argyle at a time when clubs outside the Premier League need all the support they can get. To re-visit the supermarkets analogy, there has been a real energy in the last 18 months to shop local where possible and I feel that supporting your local or lower league club is the football equivalent of this.

It’s not feasible for me to make the 500-mile round trip to Devon every other weekend, but I did consider a season ticket at one point to put something into the club and to show my support. Instead, I’ve opted to use my central location to get to as many away games as I can – there are roughly seven or eight fixtures within a reasonable journey from where I live, including a few that I haven’t been to before. I can’t wait to follow the club’s progress, even if they are among the favourites to be relegated from League One.

Meanwhile, in my research for match options, I came across this season’s promotion from my new(ish) local club, Milton Keynes Dons. The reason I live in MK is that I came here to work for the club and enjoyed seven amazing years doing just that (again, probably more on that another time). After having had no fans in the ground in the last 18 months, you can now buy a season ticket at stadiumMK for £230, which equates to a tenner a game and is much less than during ‘normal’ times.

In my opinion, the club should be applauded for this step and I want to show support for this initiative, so in addition to watching my team on the road throughout the season, I’m now a season ticket holder at stadiumMK – I think League One is going to be really exciting this season with a lot of teams realistically in with a chance of promotion. While I do have a strong affiliation to the Dons after my time on the staff, I’m still of a mindset that I’m going there to watch games involving two teams, not supporting one or the other (except when Argyle visit, of course).

The irony of this situation is not lost on me – I feel totally disenfranchised by my big club and a desire to watch ‘real’ football in person, so part of my solution is to watch the original Franchise Football Club. Much has been written on the story of Wimbledon, MK Dons and everything in between, so there’s no need to add to it here.

In the course of planning this article, I’ve read much about the Dons for this season and they’ve put together an interesting team, looking to play attractive football. However, on the eve of the campaign, their promising young manager, Russell Martin, was spirited away to Championship club Swansea, sending the club into turmoil, which could affect their fortunes through the year – time will tell.

So this marks the start of something, although what that might be is unknown, which is kind of the point. I have no idea what experiences, positive or negative, might be waiting out there or what characters might be encountered along the way.

As football clubs welcome fans back after 18 months away, my social media timelines have been buzzing with positivity and happiness for supporters to be reunited with their heroes, their friends and even their families. It’s been great to see and after my own hiatus stretching back further, it feels even better to be a part of it again.

Crash! Bang! Wallop! Sport’s Fight for Market Supremacy

Posted on by Andy Gardner

Wow! What an incredible spectacle: the world’s finest athletes going head-to-head in a winner-takes-all fight to the finish. Scenes everywhere.

It seems as though a growing number of sports are in their own deathmatch in a quest to claw their share of the television and therefore monetary pie, with triathlon’s SuperLeague being the example that immediately springs to mind.

Admittedly, triathlon is a difficult sport to televise and monetise: there’s three disciplines to cover, possibly closing down a city centre or out-of-town venue with races that range from just under two hours to almost eight hours depending on the format.

One of the perceived troubles with endurance sport is that there will always be long periods of non-action when looking on as a spectator – anyone who watched the entirety of last week’s Milan-San Remo bike race, all 300km of it, would testify to that, with the race only really coming to life in the final 30 minutes.

So why not just get rid of all the boring stuff and condense it down into a YouTube-friendly package? After all, we are constantly told that attention spans are dwindling, social media controls all and people get bored super easily – what fans want is all the action, constant dicing for position and sprinting for the line.

SuperLeague looks to deliver this by the bucket load. Admittedly, the SLT Arena Games, born in the midst of the pandemic with competitors swimming in an actual pool before riding and running in a virtual world, makes the best of a very difficult situation. Large-scale, mass participation events are difficult when trying to control a respiratory virus, so the more controlled the event can be, the better in this respect.

However, SuperLeague was already thrusted upon us before the Coronavirus was even a twinkle in a bat’s eye, with it’s self-appointed role of disrupting triathlon through innovative formats, which essentially translates into making the disciplines a lot shorter and changing their order.

Races are chaotic and closely contested – a natural result of not actually doing much racing and instead doing three times as many transitions. In the outdoor SuperLeague events, athletes are routinely awarded power-ups, such as ShortChutes (shortcuts) or alternatively hooked from the race if they fall too far behind. One wonders if they might occasionally be able to de-rail opponents with exploding tortoise shells.

Each event features multiple rounds, across different formats with points being awarded for positions and ultimately a winner crowned at the end of each race weekend and eventually the season. It’s utterly confusing and almost impossible to know who is actually winning from one event to the next, but put that minor detail aside and isn’t great to watch!

Well, no actually – it’s just a bit different. Not better, just different and well marketed. And considering that triathlon is one of the most inclusive and equal sports going, there’s a separate conversation needed about the different uniforms needed for men and women, with the latter seemingly required to wear eye-wateringly high-legged swimsuits, presumably because more flesh equals more viewers.

This feels like the latest in a line of attempts to reduce sports to just the highlights in a bid to catch the eye. Cricket was probably the first to do it right with the birth of Twenty20, reducing a five-day contest to a three-hour face-off, full of huge sixes and spectacular wickets – goodbye maiden overs! There are similar stories in snooker, pro cycling and athletics as more and more sports seek to squeeze their events further and further to produce an exciting, schedule-friendly product. Latest reports in football suggest that Champions League bigwigs are considering a TV subscription package where customers (fans?) pay sufficiently to only watch the final 15 minutes – who cares about the previous 75, after all?

Except the only thing that all these reductions seem to actually do is make the longer forms of competitions look long and boring. Why would you bother committing a full afternoon to watching something on telly when you could catch up with the best of the action on demand and then get back to some doomscrolling?

It begs the question of where this might end. Why bother with all that tedious football when you can cut straight to a penalty shoot out? Let’s just have a tie break in tennis and make Formula One a drag race.

There’s so much more to sport than the result; it’s the preparation, the discipline and the hours that going into making the start line. It’s the concentration, the camaraderie and the tactical nous on the day itself. Sporting competition is great because it ebbs and flows – you might be winning early, then on the back foot as your opponent regroups only to then find something special to claim victory.

Condensing the action down into a TV-friendly package feels akin to reducing a meal from a Michelin-starred chef into a convenient pill-form, because who has the time to waste it actually eating or socialising? Read a book you say? No thanks, I’ll just skim the Wikipedia page, that should tell me all I need to know and if it’s any good.

The issue stems essentially from the competition that exists for every eyeball and every pound in revenue. The roaring success of football’s Premier League in the last 30 years has forced every other sport, governing body and event organiser to consider their own ‘product’ and how best to ‘develop market share’.

Without meaning to sound like Old Man Abe Shouting at Clouds, what happened to sport for the sake of sport? Competitions and races whose main purpose was the challenge they provided for the competitors or the opportunity for the best to test themselves against their peers.

Perhaps if finances and airtime were shared slightly more evenly without the need to try and steal viewers from the all-conquering football behemoth, there would be more opportunity for sport to breath organically, rather than this stifling quest for self-suffocation.

But where’s the fun in that? Just show me the best bits and send me to the gift shop!

Can Two of Cycling’s Recent Greats Still Mix it with the Golden Generation?

Posted on by Andy Gardner

Men’s pro cycling appears to be entering into a golden age, with Mathieu van der Poel and Wout van Aert crossing over from cyclocross to compete head-to-head with the likes of Julian Alaphilippe, Tadej Pogacar and Primoz Roglic – not to mention other up-and-coming talents like Marc Hirschi, Filippo Ganna and other more specialists riders in the sprint and general classifications.

Cycling’s current talent pool is undoubtedly in a rich vein, making for spectacular competition. Already this season, some of the racing on show at Tirreno-Adriatico and Strade Bianche in particular was incredible, with van der Poel, van Aert and Pogacar all going at it hammer and tongs.

Straight away, the fact that a Tour de France winner like Pogacar is even racing with a burgeoning classics maestro like van der Poel is itself eye-catching, but to see another XC convert in van Aert beating the sprinters in a sprint stage, climbing with the climbers, then out-muscling the Time Trial specialists in a TT speaks volumes for his cross-the-board potential.

Watching races which feature three, four or five of these characters almost guarantees a spectacle to remember. Thinking back a year or so, Alaphilippe’s dashing style and panache made him an instantly lovable character; his time in yellow during the 2019 Tour de France was incapsulating and his attempt to hold the jersey was more than just a romantic ideal; when he won the time trial in Pau, it seemed like he genuinely could go all the way to Paris and break the long-standing drought for French riders in the Tour.

To draw a parallel with another sport, cycling seems to be at the start of a period similar to that still being enjoyed by tennis, where the giants of Roger Federer, Rafa Nadal and Novak Djokovic (and Andy Murray) have shared and dominated the headlines for nigh on twenty years.

However, to continue that reference, before Federer became the world’s preeminent Grand Slam collector, the tennis scene was dominated by Pete Sampras and, to a lesser extent, Andre Agassi, with their rivalry and contrast making for fascinating viewing at times.

Cycling has it’s own Sampras & Agassi – the men who shone for a while and are now in danger of being forgotten in the shadow of the current behemoths: Peter Sagan and Greg van Avermaet.

In the case of Sagan in particular, it seems incredible to be thinking of him almost as being yesterday’s man, but the numbers don’t lie – the man who won three consecutive world championships in 2015, 16 and 17 has won just one race since 2019 – a stage of the Giro d’Italia – and while there are mitigating circumstances, such as injuries and his recent run-in with Covid, he has been conspicuous by his absence from race podiums.

There’s no doubt that Sagan will always have star quality and races do certainly miss his attacking flair and sheer strength of character at the sharp end of proceedings. At the peak of his powers, Sagan is a formidable foe, which may well be one of the reasons his win rate has slumped.

At the heigh of his form, if the Slovakian was on a race start list, it almost felt like it was him versus the peloton. Often you might see a break go up the road followed by a frustrated Sagan attempting to organise the chase, only to be greeted by reluctant opponents, many of whom knowing that helping him bridge a gap would only result in his victory and their defeat. When at his best, Sagan has that versatile strength which makes him almost as good as the best sprinters and right up there with the strongest puncheurs. When given the opportunity, he is a tough man to beat.

In that spell between 2015 and 2018, Sagan was almost untouchable; his approach to races changed the way other teams and riders raced, forcing pre-made plans to be thrown out of the window. While others relied on structured team tactics and lead-outs, he would ride completely off-script, surfing from wheel to wheel in search of the best position in a sprint or attacking at will with an almost playful attitude.

Beyond just his racing style, Sagan once threatened to be cycling’s breakout, cross-sport superstar – the finish line celebrations, the video of him and his wife miming to Grease, the slightly bizarre post-race interviews – in general, his Sagan-ness, which made him a hugely likeable character in a sport mainly dominated by efficient and slightly predictable robots. He was different, eye-catching and vivacious.

Sagan’s nearest rival at the time was undoubtedly van Avermaet, the reigning Olympic road race champion who now seems to have been wearing that golden helmet since the mid-70s. A true Flandrien tough guy, van Avermaet is always there-or-thereabouts in the big races, but definitely lacks the palmares that his ability deserves. True, that Olympic Gold is backed up by a Roubaix cobble, two Omloop wins and success at E3-Harelbeke but without Sagan, van Avermaet would most likely have many more wins to show for his efforts.

Without a win to his name since 2019, van Avermaet is now 35 and the emergence of cycling’s new superstars makes any further major victories unlikely, but he is a steely character who always shows willing to dig in and make a fight of a race.

Occasionally the victim of unfortunate accidents and injuries, such as the 2016 Tour of Flanders where a crash in the final 15kms saw him break a collarbone, van Avermaet always comes back when you think he might be beaten. He’s tough to shake off and refuses to give in.

Having moved to join the AG2R Citroen team this winter, he has a contract that takes him up to the end of the 2023 season, so there’s still time for him to add to his haul. In particular, it would be fitting to see him win on the home roads of Flanders, going beyond his two second places and one third.

With each passing week it seems like another star is born in the men’s peloton, while the likes of van Aert and van der Poel also appear to grow stronger – even Alaphilippe appears to be losing ground to the two XC titans. That makes it increasingly unlikely that we’ll see Sagan or van Avermaet add to their medal collections, but the prospect of seeing even more potential winners in any given race is a tantalising one.

Races right now seem more unpredictable than for years, especially with van der Poel’s penchant for long range or even whimsical attacks. The addition of an on-song Sagan or an unshakable van Avermaet would add an extra dimension to an already complicated race equation, which would only further increase the excitement and action for us as spectators.

Hopefully cycling’s growing golden era still has time and space for two of the sport’s finest recent champions as the whole picture would undoubtedly be richer for their presence.

The Boss: Why One Rider Must Surely Be Seen as the Best

Posted on by Andy Gardner

Last weekend’s World Cyclocross Championship was billed as being a clash between two of the sport’s greats, with Belgium’s Wout van Aert and Mathieu van der Poel of the Netherlands going head-to-head on Ostend.

As these two continue their rivalry on the road in addition to their history through the mud, they are increasingly becoming the Federer/Nadal or the Hunt/Lauda of their sport; two geniuses seemingly driving the other to greater and greater heights, something that we as fans can look forward to for years to come.

While the race itself ended as something of an anticlimax as a result of van Aert’s puncture and subsequent deflation, there was another great to be celebrated over the weekend, with arguably the greatest of all time also taking on the dunes, waves and man-made bridges of the World Champs course.

After all, how many cyclists possess a palmares that includes winning the Giro d’Italia on three occasions, three road world titles, seven world cyclocross wins, victory at the Ronde van Vlaanderen and multiple successes at Flèche Wallone as well as their national championships, in both the time trial and road race. Not forgetting Olympic gold medals and a list of further one-day classics as long as your seat post.

Worked who that might be yet? How about if you add in four wins in the Trofeo Binda and one Women’s Tour in 2014? And she’s only 33 years old.

Marianne Vos wins the 2014 Cyclocross World Championships – her sixth consecutive crown.

Marianne Vos has to be considered among the greatest cyclists ever. Few athletes have enjoyed the kind of longevity she has endured and continued to claim the highest honours across a variety of disciplines – in addition to the above wins, she has also won World Championships and Olympic gold on the track and she has a history of winning mountain bike races too.

In all honesty, comparing cyclists of different eras is wholly pointless as the sport changes so much from one generation to another as to make those comparisons pointless. This is even more true when it comes to comparing men and women; the worlds in which the two sports exist are so vastly different, with resources, support and coverage being just the clearest contributing factors.

If you’re hoping for a straight-up Vos vs Merckx battle to the death, then this article may be disappointing.

After a change of teams this winter, Vos joins the Dutch Jumbo-Visma squad, making their first forays into women’s cycling after out-Skying Team Ineos over the last couple years in the men’s peloton. This will be Vos’s 17th as a professional as a result, in an elite career stretching back to 2002 when she was just 15 years old. Two years after first making an impression on the Dutch cyclocross scene, she won her first international race in 2004, followed quickly by the junior world championships, indicating the precocious talent she was developing.

Having won the senior world cyclocross title in 2005, her breakthrough season was perhaps more arguably 2006, when, still aged just 19, she retained her world XC crown and then followed it up with a series of successes on the road, leading to claiming the rainbow jersey from a stacked field in Salzburg, Austria. That success was then backed up by overall victory in the Women’s World Cup in 2007, second place in that year’s world champs and then two track gold medals in the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

For a rider to be as consistent as Vos across all the different disciplines is incredible. As she continued to dominate her sport through and beyond another Olympic cycle, including winning the 2012 gold medal on the road from Britain’s home favourite Lizzie Deignan, Vos also won the 2014 Giro d’Italia Femminile and the first edition of La Course, having been instrumental in bringing about the creation of a race in France from the organisers of the men’s Tour.

However, as she continued to rack up the victories, it was clear it would take something huge to halt her ascent, something which arguably came to pass in 2015, where a combination of injuries and overtraining forced the Dutch superstar to take an extended break from the sport.

In recent years, there have been several high profile cases of riders taking time away from competition to evaluate their continued commitment and determine whether or not racing remains a high enough priority to justify the sacrifice and the suffering. The latest example being Vos’s fellow Dutch rider and briefly team mate, Tom Dumoulin, who last month announced that he will be taking a hiatus of unspecified length.

Speaking in October 2015, Vos made it clear that taking time away was the right thing to do, even if it went against every instinct she had grown to rely on. She said: “Rest is currently the best way to return as soon as possible on the bike; that’s the hardest race of my career because I have always achieved results by working hard.” To recognise the signs of overtraining and take steps to address that issue goes against the common characteristics of almost any elite athlete, most of which are used to going further and further to achieve their goals.

However, Vos deserves huge credit for the way she approached her condition, recognising that she couldn’t power through and take her usual winning approach to crushing her opposition, due mainly to the unknown and unpredictable nature of recovering from overtraining. “The only thing against it that helps is complete rest. I then, with the doctors, took up to three months to fully rest.

“Overload is difficult to gauge and for me it’s also unclear. It would have been easier if I had a broken leg. That is easy to explain. I do not feel bad, but I simply do not recover from great efforts… It’s frustrating when you want to perform well and you find you are unable to pick up your level.”

As this kind of career break becomes increasingly prevalent, it only serves to highlight the commitment and resolve that someone like Vos must have needed to return from her own time away when she resumed road racing in 2016. By this time, she surely had done everything she could in the sport and on our return the landscape of competition had changed with compatriots Anna van der Breggen and Annemiek van Vleuten now the dominant forces in the peloton, seemingly sharing the big victories between themselves.

It’s at this point that Vos should be recognised for persisting with her return despite not enjoying the ascendency as she did previously. Surely it would have been easy, perhaps natural, at this time to see that her place at the pinnacle was no longer assured, something which would almost certainly have diluted the enjoyment for many others in her position.

However, Vos was seemingly determined to prove that her joy from cycling went deeper than domination, as she has slotted back in amongst the group, taking opportunities to claim wins as and when they arrive, including two European Championships, another La Course and that fourth Trofeo Binda.

No-one doubts that it’s tough at the top of any sport, but being so clearly better than your competition must make the relationship between the work needed and the success enjoyed more straightforward to comprehend. When you know how it feels to win and you understand the pathway to success, it surely makes the sacrifice needed more bearable.

The reverse of this must also be the case when a true great sees their place in the sport’s order upset by newcomers. The temptation for Vos to walk away from her sport completely after her recuperative period must have been vast, but seemingly not as great as the desire to continue competing and, ultimately, winning.

That level of dedication, to come back after physical and mental fatigue and still be among the regular winners after such a long and celebrated career, demonstrates why Vos must surely be recognised as the campianissimo of the sport – the very, very best.

Men vs Women – are London Marathon’s Good for Age Times ‘Fair’?

Posted on by Andy Gardner

London Marathon – always one of the best days of the year, either following friends and loved ones in the race or, a couple of times, actually running it myself. Mid-spring, just as the weather turns bearable, making London a little less grey and smoggy. Except this year it’s October, it’s hammering down and I’m watching the elite-only race on TV rather than from the barriers between mile 13 and 14. Thanks Covid.

Earlier this week I was asked a question that seems to circulate among club runners at least once a year: is it easier for women to get a Good for Age time than men?

For anyone unfamiliar with the idea, a Good for Age (GFA) time is a standard that race organisers set out for qualification to enter an event. Every year, hundreds of thousands of people apply for the ballot to enter London Marathon, so your chances of holding a golden ticket to join the 40,000 starters is slim and for many people, raising the required funds to run for a charity is probably a stretch too far.

So the alternative route to the start line is GFA – for each age category, the organiser defines a set time that permits entry to the race. For instance, as a male 18-40-year-old, that time is currently three hours exactly (they change every now and then – a few years ago it was 3.05). It gets a little more complicated if there’s more qualifiers than available spaces, so you might actually need to go a little quicker than the set benchmark.

For female 18-40-year-olds the GFA boundary is three hours, 45 minutes, which at first glance does always look like a big difference, which is perhaps reflected by the fact that I know more women with GFA times than men.

Looking at the nearest example to home, that of my partner Sarah and I, we take part in sport at a roughly similar level: we spend pretty much the same number of hours training and we’ve been completing races for about the same length of time. We both take it fairly seriously – more than most, but not as much as some. My marathon PB (from 2019) is currently 3.03 while hers, which she achieved earlier in 2020, is now 3.18, so if anything she has nudged ahead of me.

That means I’m currently over three minutes outside the target time for my age, while Sarah is 27 minutes inside.

So, on the surface, I would have to say yes, I do think the GFA time for women is easier than men. However, the more important question is whether or not that’s fair – and again, my answer is yes. Here’s why.

Firstly, one of the stated aims of London Marathon’s race organisers for a while has been to achieve and maintain an event with a 50/50 split between male and female competitors. For a start, that’s a very noble ambition, but that target becomes even more important when you think that this a huge public and televisual event, broadcast in the UK on BBC and watched by millions.

It’s long been said that sport isn’t so much about the winner, but the taking part – I think you can extend that and add a layer of inspiring others. In 2012 when the Olympics came to London and it felt ok to be British, the whole spirit was around watching sport, getting involved and encouraging others to join in too.

In this respect, role models aren’t record breakers and medal winners – they’re the invisible, everyday heroes who are getting up at 5am to log their miles and juggling work, family and training commitments. Seeing thousands of other normal people who look, talk and live just like you encourages others to think that they could do that too.

When I look at the difference in times for men and women, it isn’t as straightforward as the numbers in black and white. At that particularly moment in time, it could be argued that 3-dead for men requires more time training, greater commitment and less chocolate than 3.45 for women, but us men have an advantage we don’t always like to talk about.

When the first London Marathon took place in 1981, it was only 14 years after Kathrine Switzer was dragged from the world’s most heralded 26.2 race, the Boston Marathon. The reason for her ejection was simple – women were not permitted to take part. How come? Because, in the eyes of the race organisers and, no doubt, conventional wisdom at the time, women were incapable of completing the distance.

As I watch today’s elite-only race, 2019’s winner Brigid Kosgei is probably harbouring dreams of breaking either her own world record of 2.14.04 (set in a mixed race) or Mary Keitany’s benchmark of 2.17.01 (set in a women’s only race). Not bad considering barely 50 years ago women were viewed as being so much weaker they wouldn’t make the finish.

Meanwhile, marathon running, athletics generally and, more broadly, sport altogether, have been and continue to be male-dominated arenas. When you look at other sports events, it’s always that way – for instance, when I made my failed attempt at Ironman in 2019, there were 250 women in the entire field of 2,500 – there were more than 250 men in my age category alone.

It’s kind of just accepted that men take part in sport, while women stand on the sidelines cheering, usually cradling the children as the prehistoric view goes.

Right from a young age, there are undoubtedly more barriers, both socially and culturally, that prevent women from taking part in sport, committing as fervently as their male counterparts and going on to enjoy incredible achievements.

While men might look at the GFA times and think ‘ok, I might need to train a bit more, recover a bit better or cut back on the chips a bit’, that’s nothing compared to the vast majority of women who have generations of misogyny and patriarchal patronisation to overcome. Factor in the near-certain judgment of friends, colleagues and strangers, often bewildered as to why a woman would want to be out in the cold and rain on a Sunday morning when they could be nursing a hangover or pretending to like their in-laws, and it becomes clear that the challenge for female runners is far greater than just x number of miles within a given period of time.

By positioning the goalposts for entry in a way that facilitates a 50/50 split, London Marathon should be celebrated – I would hazard a guess that running clubs up and down the country now look a lot more equally populated than athletics clubs did a few years ago and it’s the concept of equality that should be focused on here.

Often when people talk of equality, they think of giving everyone exactly the same access to something as everyone else – a completely open ballot system, regardless of age, gender or ability. Except that isn’t really equality – if anything, especially in an environment so skewed traditionally towards one particular group, white men, it only serves to exacerbate the status quo and keep the doors locked to everyone else.

In my mind, equality is less about treating everyone the same and more centred on creating opportunities that provide everyone equal ability and facility to participate. In this particular case, if that means a seemingly ‘easier’ timeframe to allow the same number of male and female runners to be there or thereabouts for qualification, then so be it. Over time, if that encourages more women to take part, the sport will see a raising of the bar and narrowing of the time gap in order to maintain a 50/50 split and that cannot be a bad thing.

So, going back to the original question: Do I think the GFA time for women is easier than men?Yes. But do I think that’s fair? Yes – yes I do.