Value For Money

The Help For Heroes rugby game from Twickenham on Saturday was fine entertainment, a host of former England and Wales internationals were on parade, Lawrence Dallaglio, Colin Charvis, Scott Gibbs, Will Greenwood and Martin Johnson to name a few.

A match to raise money for soldiers injured in Afghanistan and Iraq was never going to be taken lightly, add to that a crowd of more than 50,000 and the scene was set for a cracking game. The rugby was quality and so was the pre-match and half-time entertainment.
At the interval electric string quartet Escala kept the crowd spellbound. Escala are the four young ladies you may have seen on Britains Got Talent or more lately the Sky Sports Premier League football trailer. Their instruments may look like something from a Science Fiction movie but are in fact two electric violins, a cello and a viola.

It got me thinking as to when I last saw any half time entertainment at a football match, in fact I can't recall there even being any at the FA Cup Final in May but I was so nervous I wasn't really paying attention to the pitch at half time. In the past I can remember the occasional parachute display, brass bands, drum majorettes twirling and dropping batons and kids in penalty shoot-outs. I presume those two spoilsports Heath and Safety have a lot to do with it. Burnley recently had a parachutist who got caught in the roof of the stand and one parachutist actually hit the roof of the stand at Villa Park nine years ago and was severely injured so I can see why that particular avenue of entertainment may have been curtailed. Nigel Rogoff was one of several RAF skydiving Santas descending into Villa Park in blustery conditions. Aston Villa fan Robert McEvoy continues the tale: "This gentleman hit the stand, and was promptly dragged off by his parachute, landing on the track in front of the Main Stand. To say the ground went quiet was an understatement, the worst bit, apart from watching a man fall approximately the height of two houses, was that there were six other parachutists behind him, and the man on the PA system was shouting for them to land elsewhere. As Villa Park is surrounded by terraced houses and the M6, they had little choice but to land on the pitch. Parachutist Number two had seen his mate hit the stand, and in trying to avoid that he missed the opposite stand by inches, as everyone in the stadium held their breath. The other five landed in goals, on corner flags and anywhere but the cross in the middle of the pitch."
Rogoff lost his leg in the accident but has since made a good recovery and even married the nurse who cared for him in the months after.

I remember a very amusing incident three seasons ago at Dean Court when covering an AFC Bournemouth match. The Royal Marines from Poole were giving an exhibition of unarmed combat, six mats were put out in the corners and on the halfway lines then six teams of four Bootnecks took it in turn to knock hell out of each other. An interested onlooker was Bournemouths mascot Cherry Bear, who was looking somewhat closely at the action, after a while he went up behind a Marine and swung a huge furry legged kick at the marines' backside, down he went and then all the Royal Marines went for the man in the oversize ursine head. Cherry Bear dispatched the rest of the Marines with consumate ease using a selection of throws, kicks, punches and a swipe with a baseball bat that left his assailant gasping for breath. The pitch was littered with fallen Bootnecks and the stands were full of people falling about with laughter.

West Brom had a race on Sunday between some of the west midlands teams mascots, the five participants had to run one width of The Hawthorns' pitch. Ladbrokes had been taking charity bets in the run-up to the race and raised £2,204, all of which will go to the BBC West Midlands Kidney Kids Appeal, Wolfie the Wolf saw off the challenge of Villa's Hercules the Lion, Albion's Baggie Bird, Walsall's Swifty and the BBC WM Wonder Moose, who finished second through to fifth, respectively.
That was good value for the paying customer but these days all we get is a kickabout by some of the fringe players or the reserve goalkeeper having a bit of practice. Not what you'd call "worth the admission fee" which being £38 at Fratton Park you'd feel a bit mugged by not getting anything other than deafening music and incoherent announcements. The officialdom gets in the way of entertainment too, referees are very quick to punish players who "over-celebrate" scoring a goal, surely this is what the punter expects to see, a goal a celebration it's what they pay for?

Come on football clubs give us a brass band at half-time, a shoot out, a hit the crossbar challenge or maybe even a Police Dog Display team, they were always good value. The cost of a weeks shopping is what it takes to go and see a football match these days and that to me is not giving value for money for ninety minutes football (plus added on time) and no unarmed mascot combat.