Don't blame us footie fans
From Mr Charlie Corbett
Sir: I think Michael Henderson (Media studies. 14 September) slightly misses the point. It is true to say that football tends to attract sortie fairly unsavoury individuals, but the vast majority of fans, whatever their class, are committed, intelligent people who love the game and their club passionately.
Football is, indeed, seedy nowadays, as Mr Henderson rightly points out when he refers to the television money, rapacious agents and rootless players, but to write off the tens of thousands of loyal fans throughout the country who are forced to spend more and more to watch their own teams play is unjust — they are the backbone of the game and the true victims of the ruthless commercialisation.
My grandfather, who was a director and then president of Southampton football club for over 60 years, summed up well football's new ruling elite. It was while at an FA drinks in the mid-Nineties that he spotted an old friend of his, 'Lovely to see you here,' he bellowed across the crowded room, 'among all these shits.'
Charlie Corbett
London SW11
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