I always loved playing football but once I had hung up my boots my interest waned. I do often leaf through the sports pages of the newspapers though just to keep in general touch and because there is often fine photography. When one of my boyhood heroes, Harry Gregg, died recently I was struck by the photos published of his playing days. Here’s one.
Playing for Manchester United in 1958. (PA Images)
Same moment - different photograph
(In fact this is only one of several similar ones – originally I thought it had been doctored but now I see they are clearly different photos of the same moment. See right).
What struck me was how differently the game is portrayed now. In the days of dubbin and centre partings and black and white photography no one ever talked about “the beautiful game”. It was more Kipling’s muddied oafs and flannelled fools. Even the very high points were portrayed as existential moments – such as Harry Gregg’s dive above. Here’s another one.
Harry Gregg playing for Northern Ireland. Photographer unknown.
The individual player seems to be slightly divorced from reality in these shots. He is singled out heroically. Emotion is absent.
When these shots were taken the telephoto lens existed but the technological advances since then - zoom lenses, colour reproduction, shutter speeds, burst rates, lens length - all make possible now what was unimaginable in the 1950s. Photographic technology - digital technology - has changed the reality. What was once more like an elemental struggle is now more a form of theatre. (Every TV now comes with motion smoothing software to enhance the aesthetics of athletic performance. You didn’t think they moved as beautifully as that in reality, did you? What you see from the stand can be quite disappointing in comparison…….)
Theatre - or maybe amphitheatre? (Photographer unknown)
And where the postwar footballer was an icon of manly stoicism the modern footballer is more of an emotional maelstrom. Back in the day, a goal scorer got an encouraging pat on the back from his colleagues and no more. But in the digital age, a goal scored is as much emotional release as sporting achievement. The histrionics of celebration are all part of the show.
It’s done for the camera, of course. Photographer unknown.
The Greek word, techne, meaning ‘art’ is the root of the modern English ‘technology’. This might seem curious because technology appears to be more based on scientific process - so excluding the vagaries of artistic endeavour. Yet if we see ‘art’ as being something which can change your view of reality then maybe we can also see that technology, and digital technology in particular, is not necessarily quite as straightforward as it might seem. It looks like the bearer of truth but in fact it is the coordinator of truth. It marshals data to create reality.
I would have left it there for today’s blog but by complete coincidence the current issue of Blithe Spirit, the British Haiku Society journal, dropped onto my doormat this morning and in it I find published one of my own haikus on the subject of the man between the goalposts.
playing goalie -
so much time
to study the clouds
That was my experience of playing in goal, anyway.