Newcastle United vs Manchester City might have been a showcase for the Premier League, but what it showcased wasn’t much to be proud of.
It was, if you step back a degree or two, a fabulously entertaining match, featuring six goals, countless other opportunities, a raucous crowd and a result that cast some degree of doubt upon the previously assumed magisterial qualities of the visitors and pre-season title favourites. Newcastle United vs Manchester City, two of the great historic names of English football, doing battle at St James’ Park, a fixture steeped in the history of the game.
Except… it wasn’t, really, was it? Both of these names have been bought, and are now being used for something else altogether. The names of these football clubs now represent something different for the 21st century; they’re brand names being used to launder reputations, a vision of a future in which light entertainment is packaged in such a way that it obscures the behaviour of those who own these particular means of production.
Manchester City supporters have had a decade and a half to get used to not being who they used to be anymore, and it would be unrealistic to suggest that they don’t like it. A club which, prior to the intervention of hundreds of millions of pounds of oil money, hadn’t won a major trophy since 1976 and which hadn’t won the league since 1968 was suddenly in amongst the trophies again. And in a sporting world in which all success is bought to some extent or other, why should they care about the origins of the money funding it?
Except in the age of social media, such concerns do matter. To gain the respect and admiration of your peers for your own success is one of the smaller pleasures of winning, but it is a pleasure nevertheless. And Manchester City still have the advantage of being compared directly to Manchester United and Liverpool. These two clubs, so the argument goes, are not remotely interested in ‘financial fair play’. All they ever really cared about was maintaining a hegemony that maintained their control and power.
Manchester City, so the theory goes, get a soft ride because they’re not Manchester United or Liverpool.
Newcastle United supporters are just about to embark upon the same journey, but it seems unlikely that they will be cut as much slack for buying their success as Manchester City. No-one hates Sunderland to the same extent that many hate Manchester United and Liverpool, and while having local rivals…
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