Gutterball

When the football season begun, the national game kicked off under the shadows of Olympian clouds.

The 2011-12 season finished with some of the most thrilling football and exciting campaigns to end a season. But after the seemingly bi-annual failure for England in a national tournament came one of the biggest Olympics in history. Thousands of column inches promptly lauded the feats of the Olympic athletes in comparison to footballers, who were perceived as overpaid mercenaries.

Since then, however, the sport has decided to respond to flesh out the negative imagery with even bigger clouds of misery.

Almost routine is a weekly firestorm of coverage about the latest negative incident in the sport, with each incident a further lowering of the perceptions of football. Of course, not all football players and fans are guilty of the same sins and tarring them with the same brush is a very unhelpful way to go.

Nevertheless the incidents that have taken place are extremely unhelpful and causing problems.

There is a wide variety of scandals both old and new used in the critics' cannon. Racism scandals and questions about how affordable the sport for fans is have been long running threads which have resurfaced again this season.

The affordability factor is an almost yearly thing fuelled by the BBC's Price of Football survey, which calculates the price of the cheapest day out. This does not involve the cost of travelling, which is also subject to interminable increases. With some clubs charging £60 and upwards for tickets to games (nevermind the £90 Arsenal and Spurs charge), a lot more fans are being priced out, leaving emptier grounds in the Premier League - nevermind the Football League.

The avalanche of money flowing into football has been reflected in the increased wage packets of directors and players. But keeping these people onside requires a delicate financial balancing act the ability of the clubs to trade in these climates is doubtful. Everyone knows the crisis that has befallen Portsmouth and Glasgow Rangers, but they are the extreme version of the norm, with many clubs struggling to keep their financial affairs in order ith the exception of sugar daddy owners.

The racism scandal is also a long running thread, albeit not quite as long. Luis Suarez and John Terry provided a massive talking point last season when they were accused of racially abusing opponents. These subthreads were an almost obligatory reference when the two players took to the field at all times since, with Terry's elongated after a court case meant his FA sentencing took place almost a year after the original incident.

Far from slowing down, the scandals have instead gone forth and multiplied. The England U21 side were involved in a very nasty incident in Serbia where players have described being racially abused. Things then spiralled out of control even further, with two players and a coach being summoned by Serbian police for their part in the mass brawl at the final whistle.

This was an international incident that was met with even more outrage when the punishment of a £65,000 fine was handed to the Serbian FA. For a sense of scale, Danish forward Nicklas Bendtner was fined an extra £25,000 when he revealed a pair of Paddy Power underpants during a game at Euro 2012.

UEFA president Michel Platini has said he may appeal the sentences to get them increased and he would certainly be right too as such fines are hardly a deterrent.

On a domestic scale, referee racism scandals have also arrived with disastrous consequences. Mark Clattenburg was accused of racism by Chelsea after a bad tempered game against Manchester United where the referee sent two players off and allowed a winning goal when Javier Hernandez appeared offside.

This could have gone two ways - either the end of the referee's career or severe trouble for Chelsea, not least given they were still under the cloud of the initial Terry saga.

The FA and police eventually cleared Clattenburg, who has since returned to officiating games. This gave Chelsea even bigger headaches for their public image and perception, which were then amplified amongst fans when they fired Roberto Di Matteo as manager seemingly on the whim of the teams owner Roman Abrahmovic.

It got even worse for Chelsea as John Obi Mikel got a three game ban and an FA fine for threatening the referee in the dressing room. All this is just even more negative publicity for the boys in blue, who have seemingly sunk from European Champions to laughing stock in half a year.

Racist actions by fans have also not helped, with extremely questionable chanting by West Ham supporters at Tottenham a few days after a Spurs fan was stabbed by a Lazio fan in Rome. This was distinctly uncomfortable listening for anybody with a taste of decency.

Fan behaviour has not been limited to this. The usual bad taste chanting is to be expected - Sunderland fans chanting "We wish you were dead" at Newcastle defender Steven Taylor was a harsh extreme chant after his comments before the Tyne-Wear Derby. But the Leeds fan punching Sheffield Wednesday goalkeeper Chris Kirkand and the people who hit Rio Ferdinand with a coin before trying to get on the field and attack him during the Manchester Derby have taken the game to poisonous depths.

These are stupid scenes that reflect badly on football and lower the sport's perception to those outside the footballing community.

Derby games obviously provoke strong feelings. These rivalries give games an atmosphere, and a lot of the time it helps incentivise players to perform for their supporters. But the ridiculous level of hooliganism does not help anybody, and it only reduces standings of both club involved and the game itself.

Lord Ouseley, who chairs the Kick It Out anti-racism campaign, recently declared English football as a moral wasteland. He was speaking primarily from his end of the spectrum and his concerns over the increase of racism scandals, which KIO is fighting to combat. But all these scandals build up in a snowballing effect and reach an almost hysterical level of bombast that drowns out reason, logic and, by extension, the actual football.

It paints a very negative picture of the sport, making it seem from the outside as an ungovernable and unaffordable mess. That's not to say this year has been full of forgettable football - the last day of the season in May 2012 was some of the most exciting in history and there has been plenty of exciting action to keep fans entertained. And of course, not every football fan is a thug wanting to kill opposition players for scoring the winning goal in a match.

But 2012, in particular the latter half, will be remembered as much for the baggage as much as the sporting action. This negative mess is reflected by the BBC Sports Personality of the Year awards, which bypasses football all together. The community can only hope 2013 goes a lot smoother and the focus is rightly back on the action rather than on the accompanying baggage.

The Black Keys at the O2 Arena - Live Review

Few bands have enjoyed the success this year that blues-rock duo The Black Keys have managed. In a year more than others where the press is saying "guitar rock is dead" the band have found themselves in a high position amongst bands.

A year and a week (almost) has passed since 7th album El Camino came in at 6th in the UK Album charts. Since then they've done three nights at the 7,000 capacity Alexandra Palace, sub-headlined Foo Fighters at Reading and Leeds Festivals and have returned with a six date arena run.

This is not quite the level they hit in the USA, where their tour included a 35 date arena headline tour with Arctic Monkeys as support, a headline slot at Coachella and five Grammy Awards nominations, but it is nevertheless very impressive. Now back in Europe they are playing even bigger slots than ever before, as they bring their show to the 20,000 capacity O2 Arena.

Such arenas are normally the haunts of the major names - Mumford & Sons were bringing their folk stylings to the venue the previous evening, while the likes of The Killers, The Rolling Stones and Robbie Williams have all recently been playing on the same stage.

There is certainly a strut in the step of singer Dan Auerbach and drummer Patrick Carney as they stride onto the stage looking to wow the crowd with their potent brand of bluesy-rock.

But straight from the off something just doesn't feel right. While Hyde Park is the London venue most notorious for having terrible acoustics, there feels like something missing from the acoustics for the bulk of the show.

Although they are a duo on record, The Black Keys are doubled live with the addition of a bass guitarist and a keyboard player, but for the bulk of the evening the bass is barely audible. This feels less of a problem when they walk off for a three song interlude, allowing Auerbach and Carney to jam it out amongst themselves like the old days.

The poor acoustics and slightly sleepy crowd means the show takes a few numbers to warm up. It takes third song Run Right Back to really wake the crowd up, but at this point the crowd begin to get up and get dancing.

The one-two of Dead And Gone and super hit Gold On The Ceiling really got the crowd bouncing, as their glossy poppier aspects work where the others struggled to fill the room. But it's the songs where the pair play by themselves which thrive better. With less instruments being fed through the speakers the songs have room to fill up the speakers, allowing a clearer and louder guitar to work with the drums.

In terms of the set, these three are in the minority. Only three other songs in the set aside from this portion do not come from either El Camino or preceding album Brothers, and even then they all come from 2008's Attack & Release - their first collobaration with El Camino producer Danger Mouse.

A lot of the songs follow the blues riff-led rock diagram, with the exceptions naturally proving the interesting exception. This includes the lovely ballad Little Black Submarines and the groove-based Tighten Up - both of which provide expert highlights in the cannon.

Tighten Up backs onto the heavy riff confection of Lonely Boy which gets the loudest cheers of the night. The song is nominated for the lucrative Grammy award for Record of the Year and it certainly works with a delightful riff and a great chorus.

This misleading "goodnight" means people leave rather than sticking around for when the band emerge to play an encore. The encore however sees a delightful part to the show with two mirrorballs - one positioned on the stage and one above the mixing desk - emerging, as the lights revolve around the arena during Everlasting Light.

A final run through of I Got Mine finishes things off with a flourish after a puzzling evening. While the band certainly look a good fit for the arena circuit and a number of their songs work, better acoustics would have helped the good vibes reach the back of the arena and avoided the disappointing muffled sound that clattered so much of the evening.

3/5



The support band for the evening was The Maccabees, who are also rising stars of the rock world. Their third album Given To The Wild went down a treat amongst the indie crowd and the South Londoners turned up on their home cities' biggest stage. They provided a pretty decent slot combining the darker atmospheric recordings of their earlier albums with the sprightly indie of earlier efforts, even if they also struggled somewhat with the acoustics of the venue.

The Game Of The Dons

Media hype for the FA Cup is normally at fever pitch but for Sunday's affair at stadium:mk the hype stretched to more than the chance to progress one stage towards Wembley.

Coverage of the third round tie the winners got - a trip to face Championship strugglers Sheffield Wednesday - is likely to be minimal in comparison to the circus accompanying this one. But then MK Dons vs AFC Wimbledon was never going to pass by under the radar.

The history of the teams in the tie always ensured baggage. Many people will never recognise MK Dons as anything more than a bastardised version of the old Wimbledon - something Pete Winkleman seems set to accept. In contrast AFC Wimbledon have dominated coverage, with endless articles about their progression and their feelings of being wronged by the FA among others.

Their progression is certainly remarkable, with the team taking nine years to progress from the Combined Counties League to the Football League. While this doesn't exactly fit with their narrative of "starting from the bottom" - they would have started 15 tiers lower if they had - it is still exemplary progress and a testament to their supporters' determination to get back to where they were.

The formation came when they red an FA report that re-establishing a team in Wimbledon would be "not in the wider interests in football". While it has been hinted this phrase was about having a Milton Keynes team put in the same tier as a new Wimbledon team from the off, this was nevertheless a banner adopted for their rise.

No matter who's right the old Wimbledon FC was on it's knees - by the time the broken husk of a team eventually moved to Milton Keynes in 2003 it had been homeless since 1991, been deserted by fans angry at the proposals to move north and was a dead club noone wanted to be associated with.

Little has changed for MK Dons since they rebranded, who remain football's most hated and are still in League One, albeit challenging for promotion rather than the relegation struggle they had in 2004-05. AFC Wimbledon are adjusting to life in League Two but in contrast are finding league life a struggle, with some fans arguably more interested in an upcoming relegation six pointer against fellow Londoners Barnet the week after.

This match, then, was an oddity - a game between a team most people would rather not existed against a team that wouldn't have existed but for an FA panel's report goading them to do so.

In the stadium, the atmosphere was buzzing - words not normally associated with MK Dons matches. But despite the hype, the bulk of the first half was as much about the crowd as the action. A handful of home chances that didn't really bother Wombles keeper Neil Sullivan and a few fruitless away attacks was the only football of note for the bulk of the first half.

The crowd was more atmospheric, with chants - some vulgar, like "You franchise bastards, you know what you are", some pilfered, like "Always the victims, it's never your fault", some amusing if a tad inaudible, like "Where were you when you were us?" - batted to and fro like a badminton rally.

Particularly impressive was the plane flown overhead with a larger version of the "We Are Wimbledon" banners that the away fans had bought comically small versions of. This sent the away end into raptures and the home end into a few sarcastic retorts of "Who are ya".

But despite the crowd providing a spark, the play failed to as much. MK Dons were impressive passing the ball around but, like Arsenal, lacked a cutting edge beyond the rigidly organised AFC Wimbledon defenders.

This was basically a game between two lower league sides, which are at times hardly known for their artistry. However a strike of impressive craft did fly in just moments before half-time. The ball was worked into MK's highly rated defensive midfielder Stephen Gleeson, who opted to take a crack from 35 yards. His strike flew from his boot into the top corner, with the devilish swerve that Sullivan would have required elasticated arms to keep out.

"You're getting beat by a franchise" sung the home fans with gusto, as Wimbledon heads begun to drop a little. The second half, in contrast, begun with a bit more chances. Dean Lewington saw a free-kick expertly tipped over by Sullivan, while Ryan Lowe and Dean Bowditch hit the side netting with efforts as MK threatened a second.

The home side had threatened to get the killer second and bury the match as a contest. But then, Wimbledon crept up the pitch and levelled. A well engineered move saw Jack Midson release loan signing Tom Ajala, before the striker dived in to meet the cross and level the tie.

Wimbledon fans' excitement threatened to boil over as they invaded the pitch, to a chorus of boos from the home side. But they had the moment they had come - a goal at the home of the franchise.

This stunted MK's rhythm, although it almost came back when the impressive sub Zeli Ismael crossed for Lowe to bundle home. However the home fans' joy was instantly cancelled by the offside flag, much to the delight of the away end.

A replay soon enough seemed the likely probability, but Wimbledon thought they had won it when a mistake in the MK defence let in Steven Gregory. The loan signing from Bournemouth let fly with an effort on goal but by the narrowest of margins ex-Wimbledon FC goalkeeper David Martin got a finger on it to tip it round the post and prevent what would've been a winner for the visitors.

This proved even more decisive just moments later. MK burst up the field to win a corner, which AFC had cleared. Ismael struck it in to a crowded area where two players were squabbling on the edge of the six yard box. Just outside this box stood full back Jon Otsemembor, who nonchalantly stuck out his right foot. The ball hit the back of the foot, looped up and into the net to decide the game.

Once again spectators were on the pitch, if a tad half-heartedly and still receiving the boos. But this had no bearing on the result as MK held on to secure a victory in this match.

On the pitch, the best team arguably won and Milton Keynes will point to this. In contrast, Wimbledon will see a moral victory and the fact their opponents required a brilliant strike and a slightly fortunate one to get the victory.

The hype for trouble was minimal, although the game wasn't all clean - reports of damage to seats and vendors in the away end, and the arrest of three AFC fans reflected badly on them. But the game struggled as much with the hype - articles about boycotts quickly became obsolete when it was revealed they bought more fans than they usually get at home games.

Neutrals were quick to paint the result as a "victory for all that is wrong with football" but the first meeting of the two sides was nevertheless a reasonable match. Wimbledon certainly did themselves proud with a good performance and came within a fraction of a replay, but with the game out the way it feels like a relief.

How long it is until they meet again is anyone's guess. It's unlikely the game will lead to an actual rivalry in the same way derbies or mutual hatreds do but a second meeting will be an interesting comparison the hysteria that accompanied this one. But until then dwelling on the result will be unhealthy for both clubs and their supporters - MK have a promotion battle and AFC's attention must turn to avoiding a first ever relegation.

So in the meantime, the game has happened and the history, hype and opinions have been pontificated on. Now it's all over, it's time to move on... until the next time.