Brendan Rodgers

[saj]

Without doing a load of research about other players and origins. But what about Frank Lampard/Michael Owen/David Beckham? Players like that are from Middle class backgrounds. You could even say Frank Lampard comes from a back ground of entitlement.

David Beckham is definitely from a working Class background, he's from Leyton or Leytonstone both of which are **** holes.

Frank Lampard is from Romford . It's hard to think of a more chav town in the south of England. I'd still say he was from a working class Background even if his family had a wealth of a Billion pounds . But the point I;m trying to make is with Fat Frank, he will have still been brought up with working values growing up in a **** hole like Romford. Fat Frank is Private school educated BTW and apparently has a supremely high IQ.

And there are stats that the majority of footballers are from working class or in some cases poor backgrounds - Football Focus did a piece a couple of years ago. Take Brazil for example - there are very few middle class individuals who become footballers. Tim Vickery (I think or maybe it was Marcotti) was saying that in actual fact Middle class youngsters are practically almost persecuted and rarely make it as footballers in Brazil and Kaka was a rarity.

Look at the English players in and around our first team. They are all from working class backgrounds - it's no coincidence:

Glen Johnson
Downing
Gerrard
Sterling

I have no idea about Henderson's background

[saj]

Shaun Wright Phillips and Alex Oxlade Chamberlain went to Grammar school I think. So did Chris Smalling. Found out today that Frank Lampard has an A* in GCSE Latin. He sounds so deprived.

Ridiculous comment: so if your working class you can't get an A* in GCSE's?

And Chris Smalling is another from Greenwich. He went to a Grammar school in Chatham which, you guessed it is another ultimate Chav Town. These so called Grammar schools are "selective" about who they enroll and they are not private schools at all and do require extra fees! It's normally based on how far you live from the school.

And Wright Phillips, well he has been adopted by Ian Wright. I think he had quite a tough upbringing.

[EwarWoo]

Ridiculous comment: so if your working class you can't get an A* in GCSE's?

I think the implication was more that working class schools don't have a tendency to do latin, the grade was an aside.

[Mattshark]

Saj being from a "chav" town doesn't indicate socio-economic status.

[Muddled]

And Wright Phillips, well he has been adopted by Ian Wright. I think he had quite a tough upbringing.

[fred_plasticine]

so working class families teach their children the morals of hard work and determination? that's a cliche from times gone by in my book. people are determined to succeed at sports or other walks of life regardless of their social background.
i don't know about england, but the so called working class doesn't really exist anymore across europe. what you've got is a growing number of people who have only little education who work unskilled jobs and whose children find themselves unable to break the spell. if anything, the general trend is one of disillusionment and alienation and not trying to succeed against the odds.

[dom9]

The last few pages of this thread are pretty much the most elaborate joke I've ever come across. Priceless. The level of commitment to each of your character roles us admirable. Must have taken much rehearsing.

Award for best actor? Rl mat as always.

[el matador]

The last few pages of this thread are pretty much the most elaborate joke I've ever come across. Priceless. The level of commitment to each of your character roles us admirable. Must have taken much rehearsing.

Award for best actor? Rl mat as always.

keeps things interesting around here.

when i said that players come from tough backgrounds / council estates i wasnt saying this off my own back.

I have spoken to lots of recruiters / scouts and they pretty much all said the same thing. I will give you an example, my youngest played in a couple of summer tournaments and they were in completely different locations. One was in what you call a picturesque typical middle class area and the second was in a very different area but in one of the 'rougher' neighbourhoods.

At one I saw all the scouts you could think of - leeds, bradford, man city, barnsley, huddersfield, man utd. At the other in the nice area there werent any. Not a single one.

On another occasion, I was talking to one of the youth coaches at a former premiership team and they had invited us over to play their academy team. We have a couple of really talented creative players who stood out in our team but he asked for the details of the toughest most physical player. I was surprised because technically the kid wasnt that good.

He said to me that we look for street footballers - players who will run through brick walls and who have that competitive, aggressive streak to their game. We do most of our recruiting from the roughest parts of the city. Thats where the talent is.

sorry lads, but this is the reality of football. Yes more middle classes are playing the game and will continue to do so, but there are differences in mentality in between lads from rougher estates and lads from the suburbs.

[Red_Polo]

I'm just amazed nobody has jumped on the talk of class and desperation.

[Neil Young]

Anecdote is data but it's not enough.

[el matador]

Needs to pull one off today.

Make us believe.

[dom9]

No he doesn't. Expectations are zero.

[Alex]

Yep. I'd be happy with a point. Pressure is off the manager today..

[el matador]

Don't know how people can say that.

We just going to lie down and let them piss all over us.

**** no.

[Fredo]

Yeah no pressure.