This week David and Helen talk with the historian David Kynaston about his diary of the 2016-17 season in football and in politics, when a lot happened both to the world and to his beloved Aldershot FC. It's a conversation about loyalty, identity and belonging, and about what sorts of change we can tolerate and what we can't. Plus Helen reflects on her life as a West Ham fan.
Talking Points:
For David Kynaston, football is about identity.
- We all have our personal myths.
- Continuity of space, even colours, is also important.
Football in Britain has derived a lot of meaning from the relationship between club and place.
- The continuity between location and fan base broke at some point in the 1990s, maybe earlier.
- And then there are questions of ownership, management.
For David Kynaston, football is rooted in place; politics is not.
- Small and medium sized towns feel ‘left behind’; these places have also been left behind in the football sense.
- But anger about the inequalities or the premier league doesn’t have a lot of political purchase.
What is the relationship between the planning period of the 50s and 60s and Brexit voters?
- People who lived through that maybe had reasons to distrust people telling them what was best.
- There was also a coarsening of popular culture, led by Murdoch and the Sun.
Mentioned in this Episode:
- David Kynaston’s new book, Shots in the Dark
- Anthony Powell, A Dance to the Music of Time
- Colin Shindler’s books on Manchester United and Manchester City
- Our post-Trump episode
- David Goodhart on somewheres and anywheres
- Liverpool’s vote and Sun readership
- The Financial Times editorial on Trump and Portland
Further Learning:
And as ever, recommended reading curated by our friends at the LRB can be found here: lrb.co.uk/talking