The football played today is almost a different sport compared to football played in say 70's or 80's (the 70's being first era of watching football, so wrong of me to make comparisons prior). But with few exceptions (Keegan, Dalglesh) most were no fitter than the average bloke that liked to run 10km 3 times a week today.
Micky Quinn was the Harry Kane equivalent of his day, I rest my case.........lol
This era of footballer was more accustomed to necking 10 pints of beer with his Chicken Biryani as his pre-match meal, many of them partial to a packet of fags too.
For the fans the excitement was arguably better than today, but I could be blinkered by two things here, I'm a Spurs fan so I went to a few Cup finals in this era and I was a young man then too, you know optimistic world all ahead of me etc.. I'm far more cynical today as I was then, what I read in the press I never challenged as wrong or click bait. But there were certain things that were much better in terms of the experience of watching football and that was standing and specifically on a terrace. This is important in that I could turn up on match day and pay on at the turnstile, I didn't have to have an ST, I didn't have to acquire a ticket days in advance and it was totally affordable even as a kid. It's also barring in mind that for probably the first 5yrs of taking myself to a game I genuinely saw no more than fleeting glimpses of the players, there was always someone bigger standing in front of me and despite getting into the ground two hours before kick off just so I could get to a barrier or get a spot where I could rest my heels on the step behind me, by the time KO came around I was surrounded by geezers on all sides blocking my the view, but whilst annoying it never spoilt the day.
Also and this may be my imagination, but I don't recall melters, I've seen us get battered so many times and back in the day no one lost their shit, it was a shrug of the shoulder and see you next week. There was disappointment and discussion but also no scapegoating of players, no vitriol. If you lost a Semi-Final or Cup Final you stayed to clap your side off the pitch, many actually staying to applaud the winning team!! "There's only one Danny Thomas". As I type this now, I think this is what I hate most about today and what I loved most about yesterday. I can't stand the melts, I can't stand the new football fan who isn't linked to the club through family or locality (I'm expressly calling out those who melt here, not those who support from far away and are don't melt). I will add though, living most of my life in North London with mates supporting either Spurs or Woolwich was/is special and whilst I have mates who support Spurs from the Home Counties there is something that is different, the intensity of living every waking minute inside the furnace of football fandom was fucking brilliant, when every teacher, shop keeper, dustman, roadsweeperl, market stall trader whoever had their allegiance. Now with social media that has gone, it's become faceless and irrelevant. Sorry if this makes me a snob but just speaking from the heart.
TDLR: The football is simply brilliant today, played at a far superior tempo and intensity. But the support isn't "support" today, it's just fandom and the match day experience (whether you are at the game or not) is worse because of it.
