British football inspires plenty of wit and intelligent debate – but it has a long tradition of suspicion towards the cerebral
Andrew Anthony, Observer writer and Spurs fan
First a few throat clearing clarifications. There are of course intelligent footballers, just as there are many work environments in which your bedtime reading of Joyce and Wittgenstein are probably best not boasted about. And while Roy Hodgson has been teased for his intellectual interests, what scares football is less that he admires the Austrian novelist Stefan Zweig than the fact that he's never won a major competition.
But even so, football, and I'd say particularly British football, has a long tradition of suspicion towards the cerebral. This is partly because of the anti-intellectualism that runs throughout British society and partly because an ability to understand endogenous growth theory is not one that's essential when you're one nil down on a cold night in Sunderland.
There's also a pronounced machismo in the dressing room that glorifies in targeting a perceived "weakness" such as an intellectual hinterland. Graeme Le Saux was famously mocked by his fellow pros for reading the Guardian, and his articulate manner led some to question his sexuality. While the influx of foreign players has broken down this inwardness, British football continues to value passion and aggression over rationality and reflection. Just look at how often the position of captain is given to players whose use of their head is limited to nutting the ball away.
David Baddiel, comedian, writer and Chelsea fan
I think my problem with this idea lies in something you've brought up straight away, which is that British culture is suspicious of intellectuals in general. The only way you're really allowed to be an intellectual in Britain is to be a foreigner living here, or at least sound like one (hence Alain de Botton), and I don't think that anti-intellectualism is particularly worse in football than any other mainstream arena. In fact, it follows exactly the same "it's OK if he's foreign rule", because we're perfectly tolerant of Arsene Wenger being one or, in the past, Dr – that's Dr – Jozef Venglos. There would have been no fuss at all if we'd discovered that Sven was an avid reader of John Updike or Philip Roth (certainly, he seemed to follow their lead on all sorts of other matters).
I think as well that there are clearly other types of intelligence in football beyond the "Roy's read a book that isn't by Andy McNab!" paradigm. Wayne Rooney is a very intelligent footballer: it's up to neurologists to determine what part of the brain is responsible for that, but I don't completely agree with a culture that would suggest a defence-splitting pass is de facto a lesser example of braininess than being able to quote Nietzsche.
AA We're in danger of being locked in the midfield stalemate of agreement, so allow me to open up the left wing. Given the extraordinary wealth of top flight football in this country, I do think the game owes a greater degree of pastoral care to its players, and of a more profound nature than sorting out their cars and living arrangements. Football clubs now gain control over players when they're youngsters, but not nearly enough effort is put into developing rounded, educated individuals.
Some years back a friend of mine was working for several football clubs as a teacher to their bright young stars. I recall his frustration when he was told by one kid – now one of England's most celebrated footballers – that he didn't have to take any notice of my friend because he, the young footballer, was going to earn millions, and pointed out that my friend earned a pittance. Naturally, no one at the club stood by my friend.
I think of that exchange each time I see the same player labour through some excruciating post-match violation of the English language. And while it's true that we're all too willing to fawn over foreign players and managers, it's also true that many of them speak better English than their English counterparts – as well as being able to make or coach a defence-splitting pass.
DB Well I'd obviously agree that the terrible jackboot of media training means that, post-match-interview-wise, footballers seemed to be schooled only in the art of saying nothing at all. But again, I'd say the same is true now for all people in the public eye, including those in more apparently intellectual arenas (such as, for example, parliament). Similarly, I think the Oz of fame and money works its bad magic on all sorts of young people now, not just those who would be footballers. You could probably say the same thing that you've said about pastoral care responsibilities to Simon Cowell. At least in football you genuinely have to have a singular talent to make it.
Meanwhile, what about the fans? I wouldn't want to over-romanticise terrace wit, but for example: when Man City played Chelsea at Stamford Bridge recently, just after City had been knocked out of the Champions League, the chant went up (possibly not copyright to the Matthew Harding stand, but never mind): "Thursday night! Channel 5!" It's not often that a reference to TV scheduling – for that is when and where the Europa League is shown – is so cleverly and economically utilised as an insult, and especially not en masse. I'd like to see Gore Vidal try to start a better chant, anyway.
AA One of the ironies of football is that although it inspires plenty of wit and intelligent debate, those qualities seldom seem to infiltrate the game itself. You're right that there are many aspects of popular culture that have become a kind of dumbathon, but football now occupies a singular position in British society and as such it carries singular responsibilities. I wouldn't mind – so much – if this country was producing an endless number of sublimely gifted footballers who did their talking with their feet. But actually I think there might be a correlation between the mindless football we bring to the international stage every couple of years and the mindless attitude we foster in young footballers.
It was Danny Blanchflower, one of the British game's most thoughtful players (a Tottenham man you won't be surprised to hear), who said: "Football is about glory, it is about doing things in style and with a flourish, about going out and beating the lot, not waiting for them to die of boredom".
It's not easy to see the beauty of that perspective if you can't articulate that sentiment. I suspect that if British coaches and players were to open their minds, they'd also begin to open up their football.
DB Actually I think the game is considerably more "intelligent" than it used to be: I saw Papiss Cissé score two enormously mind-expanding goals against Chelsea last Wednesday, and it's an English manager – Alan Pardew – who had the insight to bring him to Newcastle and play him in a very open way indeed.
But also we haven't even talked about Fever Pitch, and Gazza's tears and hey, Fantasy Football, and the whole way in which the discourse around the game has shifted since the 1990s. Some have resented this as gentrification, but I think it brought out a shared language of wit and passion and poignancy that had always been there. It's just more public now.
Now, I can tweet, as I did last week, "Turns out Roy Hodgson likes Philip Roth and John Updike: this endears him to me, though I don't know if they can play together in midfield", and get 200 clever, funny replies, all from football fans, all of whom know who all those people are.
The Death of Eli Gold by David Baddiel is published by Fourth Estate, 7 June. Read More
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