Bouncing up the stairs at Seven Sisters into the dark to be greeted by a flurry of hail, right in the mush. Better than the sudden storm that burst around me as I drove up through Kent, where the road transformed into a snow scene within minutes. This was London hail, damp and cold. In the search for omens at the dawn of a new era in the life of Tottenham Hotspur, it’s an inauspicious beginning.

But we’re back on familiar territory, and that’s what matters. We’re late, so a brisk walk is the only option. Same old pavement, cracked and uneven, but no sense of what the traffic or crowds will be like. New signs, diversions, road closures. 50 years and counting now but this is new and unpredictable, so walk, 20 minutes max, probably miss the ceremony but in for kick-off, even if there’s chaos at the turnstiles, because something’s going to go wrong, isn’t it? This is English football, it’s new, electronic, something will go wrong.

Up the incline to High Cross. Past the home for Jewish incurables on the left, now flats, and on the right, the first synagogue in the area, now a rundown shopfront. To the left, set back from the High Road, the old Town Hall where Blanchflower and the boys lifted lifted the cup in Double triumph, where the streets were so packed as the team bus crawled past, people couldn’t move even if they wanted to.

The night of 27^th April 1901 was dry and cold, just above freezing, yet 40,000 people thronged the High Road down to South Tottenham station to welcome home the Flower of the South, Tottenham Hotspur and the FA Cup. No radio or other media, but word spread and the fans came out in the middle of the night to greet their heroes. Then and now, the Hotspur matters to so many.

And so we walk these same streets in their footsteps, three generations carry the navy blue and white in our hearts and in our soul. I can’t keep up with my son and granddaughter. Maybe the time is coming to pass the flame on. Not yet, not yet.

White Hart Lane, the world-famous home of the Spurs, except it used to be well-hidden. Betraying its origins as a football club embedded in a working-class, aspirational community, the old ground nestled in rows of terraced housing, masked from afar by the higher buildings of the High Road, invisible until you reached the Whitbread Brewery, merely a long Jennings-type punt away.

This is different. There it is, squat and skulking, futuristic and alien in old north London. Visible for the rest of the journey, it draws you in, just follow the star. It has presence, and it’s hard to take your eyes off it. This is our future.

Gradually it comes into focus. Past the old Mecca ballroom, where the players used to socialise after matches and where the Dave Clark Five packed them in, crowds way over the supposed capacity, swaying, sweaty and Glad All Over. I trust the Palace fans paused for a moment to pay their respects. Past the now defunct bagel bakery (I‘ll never stop grieving), past the shops and signs from many cultures, for whom Tottenham provides a home, just as it did in the late 1800s where immigrants were welcome and formed the community we know today. When people found a home on the terraces at White Hart Lane, where people could fit in and have a cause in common. A former council property is now an art gallery. Who would have thought we would live to see the day. Times are changing in N17.

We’re late and that makes it easy. Everyone’s already there, so it seems, and the streets are quiet. My entire twitter timeline has been here all afternoon, anticipating the future by reminding themselves of the past. The same journey, the same pub and burger stall, greeting old friends like Victorian explorers lost in the jungle, now found. A family with three young kids on their scooters, delightedly riding up the middle of the traffic-free High Road. They’re part of it too.

We’re dwarfed by the shiny shiny, little people in the street. The same street that fans followed when they wandered down Park Lane to the marshes in the early 1880s because they heard something was happening. And there’s the same reassuring smell, a  mixture of onions, beer and anticipation.

No queue, because everyone’s already in, everything works. No time for the longest bar or the burnished quartz tofu, or whatever it is. Dash up the few steps and there is the pitch, verdant green, just like I remember it when I first ran up to the very top of the East Stand and looked out, in April 1967. It wasn’t really like that, of course, because then Spurs played on a mudheap, but I allow my memory to play a trick on me.

We’re home, and home is the best place to be. I was knocked breathless by this magnificent football ground, at its best in the floodlights, because at night, surrounded by stands tight to the pitch, this is all there is, our world, can’t see out, just this. And I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.

Spurs have never played a home game, other than in wartime, more than about 500 yards from the ground. To stay here is testament to our heritage and a remarkable achievement in itself. Yet at the same time, this is otherworldly, pinching myself to believe this is our ground. The lights are so pinpoint bright, it’s like watching a giant ultra HD screen. The south stand rises endlessly into the sky. The ground is huge and spectacular, yet it feels as if everyone is connected. It leans in with intensity, rather than sprawling backwards.

The opening ceremony is mercifully brief. The kids’ choir is sweet and dandy, the fat opera singer who pops up from nowhere a waste of time, someone’s idea that somehow operatic voice conveys a superior culture. He sings ‘glory glory Tottenham Hotspur’, which no one has sung, ever. ‘Hallelujah’ is ours, the only bum note of the night, but then again, football people never, ever understand fans.

Then there’s the real noise. That blew me right away at kick-off. I declined the test events. Football grounds are nothing without the fans, so I waited til it was full, and it was worth it. I tried to join in but there was a lump in my throat and tears in my eyes. This is home, this is us, this is my life.

The game, oh yeah. At what point did I calm down and think, you know, it’s possible to lose this. Home advantage or not, this is as new to the Spurs team as it is to our visitors. Points of reference, player’s orienting themselves and getting their bearings, these things and more contribute to home advantage, it’s not just support.

Fortunately, Palace obliged with a busy performance devoid of attacking intent. Their first shot on target, a mishit cross, came too late. Zaha looked so dangerous – but that was in the last few minutes when Spurs were two up. I’m not complaining.

Spurs dominated without playing especially well and won, deservedly, with two scruffy goals. There were more signs of how Pochettino is trying to make up for the lack of depth in this squad. Here, Rose played wide left midfield in a 4-4-2 (ish) with Dele alongside Sissoko in the middle and Eriksen encouraged to get forward. So he did but it would have been more dangerous if Dele had been on the end of some of the balls into the box. While Rose’s presence gave Spurs an outlet and stretched the Palace defence, his end product was decidedly average. We might see him there on Tuesday to give Davies protection. Last night, the Welshman had a decent game.

The first half was all about being there. Thoughts of the table and the top four, 1 out of 15, receded into the night sky. Into the second, and there’s a game to be won. Just as it started to become a bit tense, Palace gave Son too much room on the right. He cut in and his shot took a big deflection. No opening worldies then to go with the might of the stadium.

The second was cut from the same cloth. Kane was tackled in the box. Several around me were bellowing for a penalty and didn’t actually clock Eriksen putting home the rebound as the ball squirmed out of the challenge. I thought the ref had given a foul against Kane, as did many others judging by social media, therefore celebrations were muted until it sunk in that he was indeed pointing to the centre circle and just walking back slowly.

Kane missed a classic Kane chance, through on goal and leaning back just too much as he opened his body out, but it didn’t look as if we were going to lose this one. A mention for Lloris, largely a spectator but alert when called into action late on, when Spurs looked worryingly fragile at the back. Sissoko was my pick, determined and strong, looking to get the ball forward when he could. It was great to see Harry Winks return, immediately up to the pace. I worry his injury will leave a lasting weakness, but that’s for another day.

If you like, finish reading here. This next bit is not so joyful, because there were teething troubles, understandably so. I can’t comment first hand on the concourse problems others experienced, like overcrowding, food running out and the queues for the gents – install troughs FFS not individual urinals (the toilets, not the food outlets). However, in our section, lower shelf level with the south end penalty spot, we saw several heated arguments and a few actual fights because of people standing. This went on for most of the game. I don’t mind standing, but I want to watch the game, not stewards wading in all the time.

Others experienced similar issues in the south stand, where many (most?) would expect to stand for long periods, but some fans seemed to want to experience the atmosphere without contributing to it.  This is a big problem for stewards who can’t openly allow people to stand because it breaks ground regulations but tacitly allow it to continue in certain areas. The point is, the fans in that section play to the same unwritten rules, not openly stated but understood by everyone who sits there.

White Hart Lane was a series of little communities joined together. We all have a similar outlook but behaved in different ways depending on where we sat, rules enforced by peer pressure built up over decades. Now, that’s all mixed up. Bloke a little way in front of me, chatty, not rude to anyone, simply said, ‘I haven’t sat down for 15 years.’ That’s how he watches the game and that’s what he wants for his money. Fine, but many around him brought a different set of expectations. That is, if you want to stand, go in the Park Lane, that’s why they got tickets on the side.

WHam had the same problems in their first season. It took a while to sort out. One difference is that at their place, it was easier to change to seats, whereas Spurs said they would not allow any changes in this season at least. Over time, it will work itself out and new norms form. Meanwhile it could be painful. Time to get to know the neighbours, I reckon.

 

I had to finish off the small section of fencing that needed repair, apparently, although to me it still fulfilled the basic requirement of a fence, namely a barrier between next door’s garden and ours. So I missed the first ten minutes.

I don’t like gardening. It’s a chore rather than a pleasure. Many extol the virtues of being outdoors, surrounded by the relaxing sights and sounds of nature, toiling the soil, turning the sod, but it’s not for me. No, I prefer a Sunday afternoon skewering my heart with twin barbs of hope and crushed ambition and corkscrewing my guts into a tormented helix of anger and frustration. Lead me to the cliff edge, tease me with an ebullient comeback, then for good measure chuck me off the precipice onto the rocks below.

This one hurts not just because Spurs came so close but because defeat was utterly avoidable. Moments. Football memories are a collection of moments upon which matches, and seasons, turn. In this case, we must begin at the end. Spurs were bad, Spurs were good, in the end there was a moment.

Lloris, captain, mainstay, World Cup winner, moves to his right with ease towards a soft Salah header, minute left, maybe two at the most. Two hands. Spurs are defending against Liverpool’s late onslaught that was more desperate than cogent. This to mop up the remnants of a set-piece. Steady, delay, keep the ball, whistle.

Instead of catching it, or pushing it forcefully away, he – he doesn’t do much, except bobble it feebly in front of him, where Alderweireld is covering. Hits Toby’s knee, and in. Caught in two minds, he didn’t seem to know whether to catch it or push it out, as is the fashion these days for keepers. Catch was the right option but Hugo’s indecision caused a calamitous, sickening error, which could cost us more than 3 points.

It leaves us on a run of 1 point from the last 15. We had regained our momentum after an excellent second half, under pressure amid a febrile Anfield atmosphere. This was the boost we needed, matching title contenders. Instead, it sucked the life out of us. It jeopardised our top four spot. It reminded us of a telling weakness in the side – if your skipper and keeper caves in under pressure, it’s no example for the rest of the team. I like Hugo, he’s made mistakes before but they have been exaggerated at times and his balance sheet for me is in the black, but this was a shocking error, at that point in the game, at this point in the season.

In the first half, Liverpool ruthlessly, gleefully exposed our problems in central midfield. Width plus running into channels laid a minefield of indecision for our 5-man defence. Stay back, come out – either way we were exposed. Liverpool are so good when they play like that, mind, let’s not forget that. Relieved it was only one at the break, partly because Poch belatedly dropped Moura back to elasticize our narrow midfield into a four to limit the danger out wide.

To their credit, Spurs lifted themselves after torrid periods in the first half and could have won, let alone take a point. We looked comfortable attacking, happy to be on the front foot and taking advantage of the space Liverpool conceded. Some of our football was a delight to see, especially after Son came on. Kane, getting little out of Van Dijk, became provider, dropping deeper to allow Son and Moura to push on. His quick free kick was a game changing pass wide to Trippier. Eriksen half-hit a pass across the box but it came to Moura who banged it in. The Brazilian had a good game, energetic and willing in a number of positions between midfield and attack. His pace and control comes into its own when he has space in front of him.

And there are other moments. Two against one, and one of them is Sissoko. He’d had a better second half, able to drive forward with power rather than be pinned back in an unfamiliar role. Clean through thanks to Son’s impeccable pass, settled on the ball, left foot and, well you knew where it would end up. What a waste.

There’s another reason this one hurt (more pain, I have it right here for you. One benefit of working from home is that on days like these, I don’t have to talk to anyone). To get where they are, Spurs have over-achieved but there is no denying the chronic shortcomings in the squad, laid bare in matches like this, flat out, toe to toe against the top teams, a fraction from victory. We’re taking on the best with no defensive midfield. A couple of injuries, in this case to Dier (who never should have started for England) and Winks, leaves Sissoko, bless him, on his own, trying his darnedest in unfamiliar territory. Wanyama is finished, I’m so sad to say, Skipp’s not ready, otherwise nothing.

To their credit, Eriksen, Dele (ran 13.2k apparently) and Moura worked hard but it’s not their game. Any manager has a limit if the players aren’t good enough or he doesn’t have the right players for his needs. How many windows? We’re trying to be contenders, for goodness sake. The team’s getting old, we need upgrades anyway, others like Eriksen may leave. Perhaps now we need a new keeper too. To repeat something I said at the time, Hugo’s drink driving offence must have affected him. Getting behind the wheel was a fundamental error of judgement. Perhaps there’s something else that led him to be in that state in the first place, we’ll never know, but a keeper with flawed judgement is lost.

These shortcomings are a snug fit to the ‘Spurs as bottlers’ narrative, which will be thrown at us if we don’t end up in the top four. It’s not the whole truth. Closing games out is a necessary attribute of all top sides but lately we’ve lost that hard-won resilience. Where we used to score late winners, now we’re conceding, avoidable goals at that. Burnley, Southampton, now this.

Before the break, the players looked physically and mentally jaded, wedded to familiar patterns of play that opponents have become wise to, devoid of creative inspiration to produce something new, prone to late errors. The team seem at full-stretch for many recent games, even the victories. The strain of plugging gaps, especially in centre midfield, key players like Eriksen who are not quite there, exposed full-backs (Souness when asked why Trippier didn’t come out to prevent Robertson’s cross for their first: “because he’s not a very good defender”) and the injuries have all taken their toll.

They appeared weary, the exception being Dortmund, where we raised our defensive game to produce a classic European away performance. Perhaps we’ll go back to the 70s and 80s when we lifted ourselves for cup games but were inconsistent in the league. We must look to the new ground to provide the incentive to find our momentum again.

Excitement about the opening of the new White Hart Lane (because that’s what it’s called) is building to a crescendo. The test events were tempting but I’ve waited this long so Wednesday will be my first time inside. There will be noise. Let us disregard the fact that the pitch, sightlines etc are totally unfamiliar to the players and anticipate a new stadium bounce, the team inspired by the roars from the stands.

To end on an optimistic note, Spurs didn’t look tired and played really well in the second half. Plus, we have five games at home out of the last seven, against teams we should do well against. The whole club must rise up after yesterday and take the opportunity. There are no medals for top four but I need it this season, to help us plan for the next and, above all, just to say we did it. Finish above a couple of our dear rivals. Because we can, because we are good enough. Pride matters.

I’ve nothing against Joe Hart. He cops a lot of stick but he’s a decent player, albeit one whose declining standards have been unfailingly exposed. But his time-wasting was high comical art. His thirst whenever he had to take a goal-kick, the slow draft from his water bottle, the meticulous positioning of the ball…positively Fosteresque.

I was livid. But here’s the thing – it’s not important. Not really. A minor irritant in the scheme of things. A projection of my frustration at Spurs’ inability to get past Burnley’s stout defending. Spurs dawdle to run the clock down, of course they do and so they should. It’s not as absurd as a grown man of temperate mood bawling at him to get on with it.

I know why. It reveals a truth about my life. This is football, this is Spurs and that matters. More than it should but it runs right through me, indelible and everlasting. It’s because Joe Hart made me feel alive.

So where were we? It’s been a while. Ups and downs, peaks and troughs. Life. But I’m back on the beat because through it all, there’s Tottenham Hotspur.

I’m missing home. Home is the most emotive and profound word in any language. It’s where I am comfortable, nurtured, sustained. Where I feel the foundations beneath my feet. Where I can open my heart and soul. The new ground will be magnificent when we get there but the waiting hurts.

I feel it in my legs as I stroll up the incline from the station to Wembley. I feel it in what’s missing. The skip in the step as I turn the corner, knowing that the Lane is in sight. The sense of anticipation in the turnstile queue. Popping into the Antwerp pre-game if there’s time. Come back to me soon.

I sat down to watch England Croatia, then turned it off. Couldn’t bear to look at Wembley. A low point. That’s stupid, up there with cursing Joe Hart’s drinking habits, but I had had enough. Saw Harry’s goal though. True love.

My son and I discussed whether to go to those open days. Not the cost or timing, but two adults earnestly debating the meaning of spending a Sunday afternoon in an empty football ground. You can see why I long ago gave up trying to explain football support to nonbelievers.

We decided against it. Football grounds are about the fans, about being full and raucous and vulgar and fun. About the noise. I’ve never been to a pristine football ground. Doesn’t seem right. So if you don’t mind, I’ve leave the videos of the lightshow or the installation of the latest bit of cladding for the time being. Hope the test events go well without me. I’ve waited this long, so let’s hang on for the first game. Whenever that is.

Because when that first game kicks off, the ground beneath your feet will be shaking with the noise, concrete and steel breathing with energy and life, trembling with joy and the release of the pent-up frustration. Waves of noise rolling out across the pitch and washing the wait away. That’s the only opening ceremony that matters.

Tell you what I have done though. I bought my son a badge for Christmas. You think I’ve been standing still all this time, but no. What the hell, pushed the boat out and got one for my lapel too. East Stand, it says, and I always will be. This is why I’ve paid 25% more for a seat on the corner of the Shelf compared with getting a view from behind the goal. Because it’s stupid, because it’s home, because it’s right.

A couple of weeks ago, I chaired a meeting in Bruce Grove with people I hadn’t met before. They were anxious that I would not be able to find my way to their home but I reassured them. Might have done the journey once, twice or a thousand times in the last fifty years. I took the opportunity of apologising to them for the disruption that descends on them two or three times a month. Unsurprisingly, they like Wembley more than me.

The man of the house was reserved and quiet. That’s OK, talking about the things I talk about is not a regular topic of conversation. But football breaks down barriers. Through a shared love of the club, we communicated, first about football then about other things. He trusted me, we were on common ground. Afterwards, another professional complimented me on being able to get through when others had not. I gave Spurs the credit. That’s what being a fan can do like nothing else.

Had a look round the outside of the ground. Had to. Couldn’t resist that. By the way, there’s a reason why they only show you pictures from the High Road side. But then it quickly became a reminder of what we should have but don’t, and there was a long queue of kids in Chick-King so I slipped away.

There’s been some great stuff this season that I’m never going to take for granted, and anyway I want to savour it all. Those Champions League games, fighting to get out of the group against the odds and succeeding, great nights. Marveling at Harry Kane, no matter how often I watch him play, no superlative matches his contribution. Living through the Age of Sissoko, where the groans come because Moussa has gone off injured and not because he’s coming on: truly these are strange times. Fury at losing to United that lasted well into the week, a properly big game that we should have won and would have banished many doubts about the team’s ability to succeed in crunch games.

This is how I felt as a teenager. No different. The joy and pain, I want to feel both because it means that it still matters. That I am still me. Ups and downs, peaks and troughs. Tottenham Hotspur are still there, the only constant in my life. I’ve moved away from my childhood home, losing all my friends in the process. Relationships begun and ended, opportunities missed more than taken, but with the navy blue and white there’s no regrets. That furious fire in the belly still burns.

I’ll talk a bit more about football next time. Promise.

 

“The point about football in Britain is that it is not just a sport people take to, like cricket or tennis or running long distances. It is inherent in the people.” …the way we play the game, organise it and reward it reflects the kind of community we are.”

So begins the Football Man, Arthur Hopcraft’s exploration of the character of football and its effects on people’s lives. Written in 1968, fifty years later the philosophy of football is a genre in itself but the original remains unsurpassed as a study of why football means so much to so many.

Football matters. It brings pain and joy, friendship and enmity, despair and elation. And we keep coming back for more. Sport, says Hopcraft, can be cruel. “Football can make a man more ridiculous even than drink can.” That I can identify with. Then, over the next two hundred or so pages, he reflects on the experiences of people transfixed by the game. He does so with grace and style. Here’s his description of player adulation, as a fan dashes towards the adolescent Georgie Best in the Old Trafford car park:

“the wind blew an old man teetering across the tarmac, wet and flapping in his overcoat like an escaped poster, and draped him across the windows of my car.”

Times have changed. The game is more popular than ever. Its reach extends to all parts of our culture. Football stars are celebrities. Football shirts are fashion accessories. Almost half the nation watched England lose in the World Cup semi-final. The Premier League is a global phenomenon.

Yet precisely at the height of its popularity, football is subject to a withering critique from many quarters that ‘the game’s gone’, increasingly distant from the supporters who have made it what it is and from the values that sustain it. In Hopcraft’s day, football remained accessible to working people, who found in it not merely an escape from a tough working week but also a form of expression, where emotions came alive and the dense, swaying terrace was the source of community, pride and personal identity.

Now it’s the global game. Spurs like their top six rivals are focussed on ‘growing the brand’ with annual summer American tours and an Asian sponsor. To keep pace, fans debate income streams and amortisation alongside 4-3-3 and a striker’s dodgy left foot, as again Spurs fans know only too well at the moment.

It’s complicated, but one word sums up the difference – money, or to use Calvin’s phrase, “the cult of monetisation.” Clubs generate more income than ever before through television rights and merchandising in order to compete in bidding wars. Transfer fees and player salaries soar to stratospheric levels, where the air is thin and fans choke on ticket prices that are similarly out of this world. In 1968, seven years after the lifting of the maximum wage, top players earned decent money but not to the extent that it separated them from the people who came to watch. Fans could still urge them to pull their finger out because ‘we pay your wages!’ No longer.

Even the term ‘a football man’ itself has come to have a different meaning. Hopcraft infuses the phrase with a dignity that comes from a deep commitment and passion for the game. Now, it’s become a term of derision, a shorthand for an incestuous boys club where experience, talent and qualifications are frowned upon and all that matters is that you are perceived by other football men to ‘know the game.’

In State of Play, Michael Calvin revisits Hopcraft. Like many of us who have spent a lifetime enthralled by the game, his faith and hope have been shaken by recent developments, especially the “rapacious Premier League”.

State of Play is his search for a reason to believe. What emerges is the most vivid, revealing insight into contemporary British football that you are ever likely to read. There’s no better place to seek the heart and soul of the game.

Calvin broadly follows Hopcraft’s structure, with sections on the player, the manager, the club and football people, including supporters. As with his recent works on scouts, managers and young talent, the strength of the book is the quality of the interviews. Calvin’s method is dialogue rather than interrogation. Underlying all the interviews is a single basic question: help me understand. Large sections of the interviews are presented without comment. Everyone gets a fair hearing. As someone who talks to people for a living, I know how hard it is to get people reluctant or unaccustomed to speaking up to be open and honest.  In a world notorious for its unwillingness to be candid, Calvin establishes an unparalleled degree of trust with his interviewees. They talk to him because they are confident he will represent them accurately.

Therefore, the reader can be confident of the integrity of what we are reading. The book rings true. This is authentic. This is what the game is like. Equally, Calvin respects his audience. He doesn’t preach or hector, instead allowing us space to read the evidence and make up our own minds. State of Play lays bare the modern game and encourages comparisons with the past. You decide what’s better.

One section where this theme is most evident is a lengthy chapter based around Watford FC. Calvin began his career in journalism on the Watford Observer. The then manager, Graham Taylor, provided the young reporter with insight into the doings at the club and life lessons about morality and carrying yourself in the right way that Calvin has never forgotten. Football does this to us all.

Scott Duxbury, the Watford CEO, takes us through their approach. Managers come and go not at the owner’s whim but because that’s the modern model. They have a two-year life cycle – they either succeed and then move on to a bigger job, or they fail and are disposed of. Long-term loyalty is passé.

Assiduous world-wide scouting identifies talented young players, especially in South America, able to improve not under the Watford coaches but at lower division clubs in Europe. If they end up being good enough, they return, if not, they retain sell-on value. Players come to Europe to better themselves and earn money for their family. You can’t blame them: Calvin certainly doesn’t, but wonders if the club gives sufficient priority to their welfare, a long way from home and liable to move around Europe while they wait for a work permit, or a ticket home.

Also, this sense of transience is in stark contrast to the loyalty of fans, who turn up year after year, decade after decade, who pass the baton down to long-suffering children because Watford is their club, their local club, and they support them for life. There’s little emotion in Duxbury’s vision, yet it’s emotion and passion that keeps the fans in the stands.

At MK Dons, Pete Winkelman talks at length – you can almost hear Calvin stifling a yawn – about global strategy and “the synergy with multi-national companies.”  Best get out of League 2 first. Both talk of being close to the community and to supporters, yet this language and the way of thinking that it represents serves to merely alienate.

Alternatively, are the Watford and MK Dons models a realistic response to contemporary conditions, designed to ensure success in a highly competitive market, which ultimately benefits the fans? You decide.

Calvin quotes one executive: “The Pozzos love football and they want to make money. If you had a shitload of money anyway, what better way would there be to spend your time, working they way they do.” Football is a sexy way of turning a profit. Long gone are the days when Calvin played darts in the clubroom against Elton John who was resplendent in pink and a feather boa.

If State of Play has a message, it’s that the biggest downfall of the modern game is a lack of compassion. Football is about people. Fans, players and managers aren’t commodities to be shifted and traded. It creates and maintains a culture where weakness is a sin. Players and managers all experience tension, anxiety and uncertainty, natural because of the pressures of the game yet largely denied throughout football as long as on the surface, everyone stays chipper. The existence of mental health problems is denied. Calvin is fearless in revealing the truth.

In the same way, discrimination is rife. Emma Hayes, head coach at Chelsea Ladies, has been hugely successful yet stands no chance (her assessment) of being appointed to the most lowly coaching post in the men’s game. Racism and homophobia persist.

But modern football is more than this. It’s contradictory by nature. It incubates hope and aspiration, it’s uplifting, and above all, it still reaches out when all other avenues have been closed. The book is full of examples. Tajean Hutton brings north London estate gangs together, not to preach but to play football and bring out long-buried positives. He refuses to allow these boys to be written off.

Everton and Liverpool fans jointly running food banks. Local businesspeople like Andy Holt rescuing Accrington Stanley, not as a vanity project but because he wants to restore a sense of identity and community he believes football has lost. For him Stanley is a community asset, providing social inclusion programmes, health and drug education. Nothing else in the town can reach out like a football club, least of all the politicians. The Stanley striker admitted he was depressed. Holt gave him time off. The groundsman is a recovering alcoholic. They both know that at Stanley, “they’ll put an arm round you and they’ll give you a cuddle. You don’t get that in football.”

Or how about Watford, where the hut where the darts match took place is now a sensory room for autistic children. Able to express themselves, some now sit in the crowd, proud father and son together, passing the baton, being together, communicating through football.

Football mirrors society, however much we pretend the game is an escape from reality. One difference fifty years on, Calvin says, is that we are now part of angry Britain. In Angry Britain, demand is instant, there’s a thirst for blame and negativity, and for those making the most noise, there are no consequences. Individualism is rife, community and solidarity minimised. Calvin is scathing about certain types of fan discourse on social media.

Typically, most of the comments in the preceding paragraph come from an interview, in this case with Sean Dyche. Calvin’s books reveal that time and again, people in the game are motivated by the right values. Dyche embraces sophisticated coaching and technology yet comes over as a man driven by upholding “truth and core values”, about treating players and fans with respect, about understanding the game’s responsibilities to the community.

This theme recurs throughout. At Erith where a local businessman saved a club no one watches, at Dunstable where a respected coach risks his reputation because, well, the team needed him and he couldn’t say no. Steven Gerrard sharing what he was taught at Liverpool, or, in the interests of impartiality, Arsene Wenger’s speech to an Arsenal AGM.

And, most movingly, in the opening chapter about Jeff Astle’s early onset Alzheimer’s. His family struggle first to look after him and then to get the game to understand the damage done by repeated heading of the ball. For Gordon Taylor and the player’s union to continue to deny this for so long is shameful.

The right values. Respecting people. Treat people the right way. State of Play ultimately leaves the same impression as The Football Man. The soul of the game is held by the people who are part of it, the heart is still beating strongly.

State of Play is rich, comprehensive and perceptive. It’s overflowing with insight and wisdom. Calvin digs deep into football’s being and spirit. Sometimes he uncovers dirt and muck, sometimes he finds diamonds, and that’s the way it has always been. For instance, pine for the good old days of the terraces but remember that club directors didn’t care about fans, who they took for granted, and ground conditions were primitive and dangerous.

Calvin is currently the best writer on British football and this is the best of his best. If you care at all about the game, read State of Play. You’ll understand why you care, and know yourself a little better too. Recommended unreservedly.

State of Play  – Under the Skin of the Modern Game by Michael Calvin is published by Century