Blog written by dusth
Published: 11th September 2022 17:07
On Saturday 9th February 1952, Ipswich Town lost 0-2 away to Plymouth Argyle.
King George VI had died three days beforehand. I don’t know who scored for Plymouth and I doubt, given the distance and the cost of travel in times of austerity and rationing, there were many Town supporters there if at all.
But the game was played, as was the match the following Saturday, a day after the King’s funeral, when Town lost 2-4 to Exeter City. I don’t know who scored for us at Portman Road, maybe there’s someone alive who was there and remembers, but it’s unlikely. Interesting coincidence that those two sides are shortly coming back at us soon. Are we in a timewarp?
The obvious point is that in those times of great reverence for the monarchy coming not long after the war when the then-King and Queen had achieved a similar if not more intense bond with the public, the full football programme went ahead.
This year, the opposite happened. After the Queen’s death, with a lot of hand-wringing, the full football programme was cancelled. If you are a regular visitor to the TWTD feedback pages, either the Forum or the Comments in the news section, you’ll be aware that this has sparked an intense debate, possibly exceeding in intensity the conflict over whether we should have sold Andre Dozzell and '£9.5 million' Flynn Downes.
I took part in this week’s debate and even got a bit heated, which is rare. I detected a hint of piousness here and there so I don’t really regret taking a pop at the (no names) reverent ones who dissed the 'Why can’t we play on Saturday?' brigade for not being sufficiently mournful.
What, if anything, has changed in 70 years? Well, for a start back in 1952 there were many letters to The Times about the “football betrayalâ€. There was general outrage. Football was thought to be out of touch with popular sentiment.
Rugby union, horse racing and hare coursing (all the posh sports) were “respectfully silent before the nation’s sorrow†but football and its supporters who should have tugged the proverbial forelock to their betters still went ahead and “contented themselves with merely outward signs of griefâ€.
I’m trying not to laugh here. In fact the government advice was that social events should be cancelled but work should carry on. If the matches were cancelled the players wouldn’t have been paid for 10 days and that in the end, quite rightly settled it.
In 1952 the minimum wage for a football player was £7 a week and the maximum was £15. Footballers were paid by the week. The show went on. I revered Ipswich owner John Cobbold almost as much as the Queen but if they hadn’t played, a free pint or two of ale would probably have been all the Town squad got.
Now everybody’s got an opinion and there’s nothing wrong with that, unless it gets personal. The government made it clear it was up to individuals and organisations to do what they felt right.
The tabloids owe a lot of their circulations to football but their view of footballers is often that they’re overpaid and badly behaved and football supporters have had a bad press since the Euros.
There was quite a bit of nonsense talked. One of the London newspapers suggested that if the games went ahead there might be ugly demonstrations of anti-monarchy feeling. Really? Did the football bosses think they were in for a hiding? The Premier League and the EFL bottled it but they were damned if they didn’t and are now damned that they did.
Cricket at the Oval ahead of the start of play on Saturday showed that emotion while fresh could be something special. I know Town supporters, still raw from the shock of the Queen’s death, would have given Her Majesty a magnificent send-off and I’m sure we will on Tuesday night, but I wonder if it will have the same spontaneity.
Let’s hope we mark the occasion with a cracking big win. Plymouth and Exeter too.