Iflash back in time to January 1, 2000. You pick up a 70p Saturday Guardian, featuring a photo of Earth from space and a headline that thunders. in the light of the new millennium. You’ll soon read a multitude of predictions about how the 21st century will rise—through science and sport and life itself—many of which oscillate between the fantastic and the terrifying.
By 2010, a pet robot was born, you will learn a neat little essay from Andy Beckett Wired was born. By 2030 they will be “in brain-to-brain contact, via electronic implants, without the need to talk to family, loved ones and friends.” If that’s not a little wild, one expert estimates that by the end of the 21st century, “it’s not clear whether we’ll be humans or robots.”
But he also assumes from men that which he touches. Because in the sports section, heavyweight boxer Julius Francis reminds us of Armageddon. “If we’re looking at the end of the world, I want to be prepared,” he adds.
What were the keenest minds in Fleet Street thinking about the future of the game when they woke up in the year 2000? And for 25 years, how accurate were they?
The first thing that comes up when you dig into the archives? No one predicted the rise of the women’s game. For one columnist who focused on the issue was disheartened.
“In your mind’s eye can you see the women of the All Black team?” Robert Alexander wrote in the Belfast Telegraph. Does it generate the same kind of atmosphere when performing a haka? I don’t think so! On the other hand, if they put on the edge of the grass and did a Māori dance before kicking off, it could be quite an exciting sight.
It sounds like something an unconscious 70s stadium comedian would say, especially since the Black Ferns won the Rugby World Cup and performed the haka the previous year. Although Alexander later made a nice addition to the positive note. “Don’t be too chauvinistic here,” he said. “A lot of professional women’s soccer teams are really quite good. In the last five years, the development of women’s soccer has improved dramatically.”
This, of course, was quite different. The Internet is hardly outside of its embryos. It’s not social media. I don’t care how much. Huge numbers of newspapers were sold every day. They panicked, the shop did not show off the staff and the radio.
It seems strange now, but the feeling was also widespread that Britain was a nation in sporting decline. Most notably, he won one gold medal with Team GB at the previous Olympics in Atlanta and England, wrestling under Kevin Keegan. qualify for Euro 2000.
Speaking to Harry Harris in the Mirror, Sir Bobby Charlton cried out that they look more vivid than ever. “I am sorry to be killed in England,” he said. You must be wondering where we are going and asking: ‘Are there enough dedicated players?’ It’s not just football, it’s rugby and cricket. Many sports suffer the same fate as football.’
Naturally, the state of the national game was on the minds of many sportswriters, with many predicting the big football-bound bubble to burst. The reasons were troubling. Rachel Anderson, the only woman registered with Fifa in 2000, predicted in the Guardian that “within five to 10 years we will lose 20% of football clubs, as most of them cannot make ends meet”.
Attendance at the recent third round of the FA Cup was disappointed, with Manchester United’s decision to withdraw from the tournament to play in the Club World Cup also ringing bells.
At times Simon Barnes felt that something was in the air. “Not more than 15 years ago, football was a pariah game, and you are brave to speak up and say, well, it happened as a matter,” he wrote. “The dying game itself was part of a dying culture. Middle-class games were what bet.
“He solved his problem very well, as MEDIA, of course. In turn, they came around Gaza and Italy 90, other bright tears followed. [but] not once the game starts to grow, it will always grow day by day.
That theme was discovered by the Guardian respected football correspondent David Laceywho warned that football was about to enter a new century “knowing the limits” they carry the greatest plan before the sad. Lacey noted that Manchester United had recently increased Roy Keane’s wages to £50,000 a week, and did not add to the finances.
“There should be an end to what the players can earn and the spectators can be charged an extra amount to settle the higher payment bills,” he added. “Most clubs should view the £20,000-a-week limit as a not unreasonable basis for dealing, although this risks losing the best English talent abroad.”
However, Lacey’s other predictions proved eerily accurate as she predicted the arrival of the video assistant nearly two decades ago. “Reporting controversies have become endemic because the methods of televising and analyzing decisions have become more and more sophisticated,” he wrote. “It is now a strong temptation to resist a TV referee as a friend rather than an enemy.”
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But Lacey also warned: “The fourth state of affairs in the televised round of closures and giving its opinion through the ear may eventually become as much a part of football as cricket, although viewers will quickly tire of the confusion of this question. to do so.”
Everyone was not told from. In Sunday’s Telegraph, Owen Slote wrote an excellent piece that predicted – at the top level – the game would just get even bigger. He was also the president foreseeing how the level of collective action would fall even further. Barry Griffin, the managing director of Asics, predicted that fewer people would actually buy sports shoes. “On top of the net, they will watch TV, they will park,” he added. With each passing year, the activity figures from Sport England prove it more correct.
However, forecasting is a tough business and even Slot got it wrong to predict that cricket gloves and company would soon be in big business. There was logic behind his prediction, mind. As Slot noted, outside of football, the biggest TV audience sport in 1999 was the Grand National, followed by the Brazilian Grand Prix, the World Athletics Championships, the men’s Wimbledon final and the Rugby World Cup match between England and New Zealand. While the Open, then on the BBC, was just 18th.
It is known that cricket failed in the top 20 of the World Cup and in boxing, the year Lennox Lewis did not come close to beating Evander Holyfield twice, added Slot.
So how did he see the future? “Wrestling may hardly exist as a professional sport in the next decade.” No such thing as a keyboard, either. Divisions two and three of Latin football will be full amateur semi-professional leagues. Rugby Union in the Northern Hemisphere will still be discussing the structure of the season. The last bit is still true today.
Perhaps the best piece of all about the future of the game came from Simon Barnes. It meant that the game was now bigger than Hollywood. But, like the film industry and capitalism, he believed that what he called “Megasport” inevitably carried the seeds of its own destruction.
“Megasport is the modern Olympics, today’s 32-nation World Cup finals, the Super Bowl, the NBA finals, it is the new world of club football: it is every aspect of entertainment for mass consumption,” he wrote.
“But as the administrators of sporting events are always looking for bigger events, the premise that they will watch the sport no matter what it is, we see the sport suffer, the athletes suffer. Ronaldo’s debacle at the World Cup gave a clear indication that the games are reaching the stage when he is too big, too rich and too influential for mere mortals.
“And as the world clings to too many overhyped wet squibs, the game will no longer be able to escape Who is the hymn: You will not be played again.” The game will continue to grow bigger, but the seeds of decline are already apparent in its incredible success.
Barnesius therefore sounded a logical argument. In fact, even now. And yet those seeds grow into great bullets. Back in 2000, Sky only showed 60 Premier League games a year – a figure unchanged since the Premier League was formed in 1992. Next season, up to 270 games from England’s top flight will be shown live across a range of broadcasters.
Sports dominate television ratings more than ever before, as subscriptions grow. During the Olympics, for example, the live BBC show peaked in ratings for 17 consecutive days. And while there are perennial fears about the lower level of the Football League and sports, Megasport is sounding. And who is to say that in another 25 years he will not be stronger?