End of Reign Stops Play

That this country has a Royal Family is often a controversial topic. I know people who are staunch supporters of the Royal Family, but I also know people who would be more than happy if we no longer had a monarchy.

I am by no means a royalist, but neither am I a republican. I guess that on the subject of the Royal Family, I am agnostic, but on balance, I’d probably say that having a Royal Family is a good thing.

Whatever your view on the monarchy, you would have to have a heart of stone not to have been affected by the recent death of Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II. The story that broke about The Queen’s health on the morning of Thursday 8^th September was ominous. The fact that family members were said to be travelling to Balmoral was even more portentous. Tweets from various MPs about the atmosphere in Parliament suggested that this was serious indeed, so when the news finally broke that the Queen had died, the shock - while still palpable - was tempered to a degree; I suspect that most of us knew what was coming.

Despite my ambivalence about the Royal Family, I can’t say that I wasn’t affected a little when I heard that Queen had died, and it’s really rather bizarre what made me a little teary. It wasn’t any of the archive footage of Her Majesty, or anything any of the commentators said, it was actually this video of The Queen and James Bond making their entry at the Opening Ceremony of the Olympic Games in 2012, in London.

But there again, there’s a lot associated with the 2012 Olympic Games that makes me a bit emotional, especially Mo Farah’s Gold medal winning run in the 10,000 metres (see One Night In Stratford - An Olympic Retrospective). It saddens me that the euphoria, the joy, and the pride in being British that the Games of the XXX Olympiad brought to the nation has evaporated in the last ten years.

The Queen’s death left many organisations with decisions to make about whether to continue with their normal activities or to cease temporarily. Among them was The Football Association, and whatever decision they made, they were not going to please everyone. Had The FA decided that football continued as normal, marking Her Majesty’s death with the usual formalities of black arm bands and two-minute silences, half the country would have been up in arms, muttering about ‘disrespect.’

The fact that the Queen was Patron of The FA, and her grandson, Prince William, is its current President, must have influenced their decision to cancel everything from the Premier League down to grassroots football, but that decision inevitably provoked indignation and rage in the Twitterverse (some of which bordered on hysteria) especially since some other sports like Rugby League, ice hockey, and cricket opted to continue. There were suggestions that just one weekend of postponements could threaten the very existence of some clubs and cause severe hardship for people who earn a living from the game. Clubs may well have lost money – and so will fans who booked transport and overnight accommodation to attend games that were postponed - but of course that happens week in, week out during the winter months due to the weather, and often with even less notice.

Presented with the binary choice as they were, The FA were always going to make the wrong decision in the eyes of some. The only decision they could have reached that would have been worse than the alternatives would have been to leave the choice to the individual leagues or clubs, which seemed ominously possible when the hours until an announcement was made grew and grew.

Completing the day’s programme, but observing the usual niceties, would have been preferable in my view, but the decision to postpone matches was understandable, although it was surprising that no formal protocol already existed. Most organisations have disaster recovery or contingency plans for events like this, and it is something that I would have expected The FA to have concrete plans for, and if they had, they could have kept speculation to a minimum, kept everyone off tenterhooks, and put themselves in a position where they could have informed everyone earlier than mid-day on Friday.

It has often been said that these days society has less respect for the monarchy, traditions and customs than was once the case, and that in years gone by, postponing entertainment and sport would have been the default position when the monarch died: Not entirely true. Although virtually all sport was cancelled for a fortnight after the death of Queen Victoria, The FA’s decision to postpone matches then was not met with universal approval within the game.

The Football League were not happy that The FA had taken this decision without considering the financial implications for its clubs and some wanted to play in protest. On 26^th January 1901, four days after Queen Victoria’s death, some matches did go ahead. There were games in both divisions of the Football League and in the Southern League, with some clubs bringing forward league fixtures to fill the gap left by cancelled FA Cup-ties.

But after the Queen’s father, King George VI, died on 6^th February 1952 there was a full programme of football matches on Saturday 9^th February with games preceded by a minute’s silence and with players wearing black armbands. Notable games in the First Division that day saw Chelsea beaten 4-1 at Sunderland, and Arsenal winners 2-1 at Tottenham. 

Football results for 9th February 1952

That particular Saturday was also the date of the Third Round of the FA Amateur Cup, and eight games took place, with some famous old names taking part. Scores included Barnet 4, Bromley 2; Briggs Sports 4, Brentwood & Warley 0; Leyton 4, Dulwich Hamlet 2, Crook Town 4, Romford 4 and Tilbury 0, Walthamstow Avenue 2.

Grimsby Town manager, Bill Shankly, third left, at Blundell Park on 9th February, 1952

As is so often the case, there were some who felt that rules did not apply to them when The FA announced their blanket suspension of football on 10^th September. Sheffield International of the Sheffield & District Fair Play League decided to play a friendly. They were subsequently charged by The FA with bringing the game into disrepute. Whatever you may think about The FA’s decision to suspend football, nothing confers the right to pick and chose which of their rules you abide by.

Meanwhile Eton School played two matches against Rossall School. Eton is of course, famous for providing Britain with twenty Prime Ministers, starting with Robert Walpole in 1721, and most recently, Boris Johnson. All over the rest of the country however, schoolboys and girls who would otherwise have been playing football were left to find other amusements.

Clearly, the art of breaking rules that bind the rest of the country but which Etonians find inconvenient or tiresome is on the curriculum at that school.