Forgive me if this has been done before.
Mowbray's comments in his interview set me thinking. He repeats the epithet that Blues is a 'working class club' and seems to associate this with style and values - hard working, aggressive, front foot football.
But which clubs are not 'working class' and what sets them apart?
I guess all clubs will have fans from the working class (whatever that means nowadays) so is it a sense of entitlement? Wealth? Tika-taka? Geography? What's the consensus?
Aston Villa aren't a working class club. There's one for you.
I’ve always thought that when clubs get described as working class, what they really mean is, a bit rough and ready, a bit scruffy, prone to bouts of violence.
And yet if Thongs is right - and when is he ever not? - there are plenty of scumbags at 4 sheds....
PeakyblueBut which clubs are not 'working class' and what sets them apart?
Fulham. Sponge cake.
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Think it's just a cliche thats bandid about the majority of football fans are working class work in week Football weekends. My personal opinion is it's mainly used on clubs that don't do very well they struggle but always put a shift in You never hear a big club called working class.
Well it depends what you mean by "working class". Keir Starmer got in a bit of a pickle trying to answer that one but it's not easy any more. Traditionally, it meant anyone who has to earn a living, probably doing unskilled or semi-skilled work, but nowadays it's more an attitude to life - no bs, pragmatic, getting by on your own means, not having a rich sugar daddy. Dunno, tricky one.
And yet if Thongs is right - and when is he ever not? - there are plenty of scumbags at 4 sheds....
All my family are pure dvb's off the council estates. They're just as working class as the majority of us.
The filth probably have more working class fans than us, but I Wouldn't describe their club, as such.
Yeah, any team close to the top of the arrests league!!
It always appears to me that the moniker is reserved for clubs that traditionally do worse: Everton, Sheff Utd, Blues etc. Whilst people look at clubs like vile, Liverpool, and Sheff Wed as more middle class.
I suppose more successful clubs tend to attract wealthier, more distant fans. But TBH, I find the whole thing a joke, especially these days. As you say, what even is working class. We're supposedly a working class club but plenty of people on here make the kind of money that seems definitely to be in the middle class bracket (although they probably don't see themselves that way). Class distinctions are silly in today's society.
I always thought the North of Birmingham was more White collar and the South Blue.
The number of factories and the amount of manufacturing in the south was surely greater than the north of town.
It was only post war that Birmingham started to build 'estates' in the south that were supposed to give a better quality of life.
A lot of slum housing that stretched from the City to the south was cleared to make way for more modern buildings.
e17blueI always thought the North of Birmingham was more White collar and the South Blue.
The number of factories and the amount of manufacturing in the south was surely greater than the north of town.
It was only post war that Birmingham started to build 'estates' in the south that were supposed to give a better quality of life.
A lot of slum housing that stretched from the City to the south was cleared to make way for more modern buildings.
"The extensive housing estates of Kingstanding were built after 1928 on land previously under the control of Perry Barr District Council. At that time the Kettlehouse estate with over 4000 houses was the biggest social housing project in Europe"
Isn't it just an attitude thing - We expect our players to work hard chase every lost ball, prima donnas not welcome thank you very much etc - Gerrintum, lump it forward etc.
bluer than bluesThat's how they started out. Vile was a money-making project from at least 1878, illegally paying under the counter to attract support while other clubs were still pretty much by the members for the members. Liverpool was created by the owner of Anfield because Everton had told him to stuff his rent increase and he bought in a shedload of players from Scotland - where professionalism was still banned.It always appears to me that the moniker is reserved for clubs that traditionally do worse: Everton, Sheff Utd, Blues etc. Whilst people look at clubs like vile, Liverpool, and Sheff Wed as more middle class.
Sheff Weds was the first Sheffield club to turn pro and they basically ate up every other Sheffield club going. United was created by Yorkshire CCC as Bramall Lane - which had been used by many of the Sheffield clubs - suddenly had no tenants for the winter, so was also somewhat middle-class in origin. Wednesday, in a staggering misjudgment of history, encouraged United into the League in order to create some local competition...
Another middle-class club was Warwick County, set up by Warwicks CCC, with backing from the Ansells brewery, but they were a day late and a dollar short - the fanbase had already chosen.
Also starting off as poshos: Blackburn Rovers, which was the grammar school side in Blackburn, who used superior wealth to dismantle the working-class Olympic, again with under-the-counter payments; and Walsall Town, who merged with the working-class Swifts to form Walsall FC.
That they all of course attract working-class support - which after all is what they were meant to do - does not lessen that the richer strata of society tended to jump on their bandwagons rather than those from the grottier ends of town...
A counter-intuitive one for that is Celtic. The Brother Wilfrid charitable foundation lasted about six months. Then the moneymen noted that east Glasgow was something of a footballing desert, that the population was growing because of the loco works' expansion, took over, and created a superclub by recruiting from all over Scotland. The name Celtic was chosen deliberately NOT to alienate the "local" Scots - it was meant to be an Irish AND Scots club, albeit with Irish-origin players. Indeed they were so 'cosmopolitan' that there was an Irish rebellion from Celtic to form another club in the area - Glasgow Hibernian - but that crashed and burned. (Rangers' sectarianism took off after WW1 - and that turned out to be good business as well...)
