Denzil McDaniel: Fans win for now but money men and television still control

And, indeed, when you see old pros in tears recalling big games and how the club was saved, you realise what football means to people of all ages.

The film also brought back memories for me; when I was a boy, I remember being brought by my older cousin, Tom McFarlane, to the Brandywell to watch Derry playing north of the Border in the Irish League.

It must have been in the early to mid-60s; I recall the pitch had grass on the wings but mud up the middle the full length, and even at that tender age, I liked Dougie Wood’s style of play.

I was fortunate to have role models like Tom, and another cousin, Ken Balfour, who brought me to see Glenavon on occasions.

Even before that, my Granda Woods took me to games in Enniskillen. We’d walk to the Broadmeadow, or cycle to other places, and when we got back to his home at Westville Terrace, I’d sit beside Granda as he turned on his old radio to listen to the football results.

I suppose it was then that I started supporting Spurs, about the time they won the double in 1961, and I vividly recall watching the 1962 FA Cup final.

I can still see Danny Blanchflower sending the Burnley keeper the wrong way with a penalty to make it 3-1.

Imagine – that 1961 side was the last Spurs outfit to win the league in England.

On my mother’s side, I came from a football-mad family, and I know it’s a cliché, but football was in my blood, and it always will be.

Any time I got a chance, I’d be out kicking a ball, often playing games in the street with friends and into my teens playing organised football with Enniskillen Rangers Youth.

By the time I made Sandy Fulton’s first team in the early 1970s, The Troubles had ignited and impacted on football.

I have to say that in the 1970s and 80s in particular, football ensured some sense of normality when players on both sides of the community played together.

We loved slogging our guts out at training during the week, and playing on Saturdays, sometimes in awful “muck and nettles” conditions.

The cups and medals we won along the way were nice, but far more important was the enjoyment and great friends we made along the way.

But Derry City – already badly treated by the Irish Football Association – were forced out of business in 1972 when other teams deemed it unsafe to travel to the Brandywell, beside the Bogside and the Creggan.

As the film showed, by 1984, four men from Derry who’d played the game at a high level began a campaign to get senior football back to the city.

One of the 'gang of four' was Tony O’Doherty – still a fabulously stylish footballer when I went to watch him playing for Finn Harps in the 70s – who told the documentary that football can change the world.

These four men overcame all the obstacles to get Derry City into the League of Ireland in the south.

And for many people in the city, against the backdrop of troubled times, it did indeed change the world, with thousands of families spending hours travelling all across Ireland for some glorious experiences and memories.

That’s the thing about football; it creates those memories and friendships, and crosses boundaries, and crosses generations.

A column once written by Irish News journalist Brendan Crossan touched a chord with me when he recalled his dad bringing him to matches everywhere, including the Buncrana Cup.

I, too, remember being brought as a boy by the cousins I mentioned, but more than that the article resonated because I remember bringing my own son, David, to football all the time.

Not only all those training sessions and Saturday mornings when David played for Ballinamallard 2001s in the National League when I coached the team, but all the other games we watched around the Fermanagh and Western.

And David, too, supports Spurs, with the two of us having some fantastic trips to watch them at White Hart Lane and Wembley.

Which brings me, belatedly, to Tottenham Hotspur and their fiasco in the so-called European Super League. As someone who has supported the club for 60 years now, I’m embarrassed.

Thankfully, the project fell. But the six club owners – note, not the clubs, but the owners – should not be let off the hook.

Make no mistake, the fans have won for now, but this whole sorry episode serves to show how far we have come in football selling its soul to the moneymen and television.

Daniel Levy and the owner of Spurs, Joe Lewis, who lives in The Bahamas, simply don’t get what the game and the club means to the fans.

They, and the owners of the other clubs, particularly the Americans, don’t get that people like me, those Derry City fans, and millions of others, have an affinity for the history of the clubs we have followed and, to use another cliché, they simply don’t understand the love of the game that fans have, or the connection with their club.

Before my son went back to university at the weekend, we’d been chatting about planning a trip to the new stadium. Now, I’m not so sure.

I will still support Spurs. To be fair, Daniel Levy has done some good things, particularly a new stadium and a few great years under Pochettino.

But he’s made serious errors this season. Appointing Jose Mourinho was bad enough – a man who just didn’t fit our traditions; and far worse, the participation in the Super League.

These owners don’t understand what makes me cough up hundreds of pounds to travel to see Spurs on numerous occasions, like in 2013, at home to Fulham on the most miserable weekend.

The weather was miserable, the team looked tired after a midweek European match, the game was boring, and, sure enough, the result was miserable, when our old manager Martin Jol’s Fulham nicked a 1-0 win, with another old boy, Dimitar Berbatov, the scorer.

Imagine that journey home – the Tube back into London, and the train back out to Gatwick ... and still we went back the next season, like millions of fans all over the world who support different clubs, including many from this area, and many fans who go week-in, week-out.

I think that’s what the American owners in particular don’t understand.

In their country, American football or baseball is run on a franchise basis; fans are like customers, and the Yanks think if they put on a show, like in a theatre, the punters will come.

They don’t even understand the concept of ‘relegation’, which is at the very heart of competition.

A Sky journalist recounted that one owner went to a game and had to ask someone what colour his team was playing in; another still doesn’t understand offside.

I’m a football fan and love the history of clubs like United and Liverpool, the stories and the glory and drama they’ve brought us over the years.

But the mighty dollar is what matters to Joel Glazer, Ed Woodward, John Henry and the rest.

The reality is, we were faced with the prospect of United v Liverpool kicking off in the middle of the night in an empty stadium to suit a television deal in the Far East, with the punters’ money there more important than the fans who make the trip to Old Trafford or Anfield?

To be honest, I’m already a bit fed up with football.

There are too many games on television, for a start, but VAR is sucking the enjoyment out.

There’s no spontaneous reaction to a goal; we wait to make sure somebody’s toe, or armpit, is not offside. The Super League would’ve been the last straw.

But football won’t die – definitely not.

Just look at the joy on the faces of kids out playing football after lockdown – the same joy I felt all those years ago, and still do.

If I’m passing the Forum and see young players having a kickabout, I can’t help but stop and watch.

And all over the world, football fans will follow their local clubs, real football, and not the plastic clubs trying to dictate to make massive profits.

I hope this is a watershed moment, and that fans realise that they really do own the game.