It used to be that sartorial elegance was the mark of a successful manager, so let's hope British sport doesn't go the way British politics appears to be heading
Politicians have never been known for their trendsetting. A desperate desire to be associated with anything that is currently successful or has recently been yes, a genuine sense of what is about to become successful no. Although having said that it hasn't escaped my attention that the first lady of modern popular culture, Lady Gaga, appeared in a see-through leopard?print catsuit last month, only eight and a half years after Theresa May's similarly decorated if thankfully less transparent sartorial selection at the 2002 Conservative Party Conference, so maybe this really is changing.
Generally our leaders seem to spend most of their time following. For instance, on the very weekend that two of the four FA Cup semi-final managers ? not exactly accustomed to the role of trendsetters themselves ? turned up to their Wembley showpieces in trainers, and with not a single one of them having gone to the minor effort of wearing a floral buttonhole, the prime minister decided to dress down for his own trip to watch a high-profile match being played out in one of London's great cathedrals.
David Cameron's decision proved enormously unpopular, with one newspaper quite reasonably citing it as evidence of "idleness [and] contempt for tradition". He has since changed his mind, and will wear a morning suit after all for next week's royal wedding, a change of heart that one can only hope will have some kind of reciprocal influence on Stoke City's Tony Pulis, who masterminded his team's thrilling thumping of Bolton Wanderers last Sunday in a pair of tracksuit bottoms, come Cup final day.
If not, here's a statistical incentive for the permanently becapped tactician: only three managers in the entire history of the FA Cup (or at least as far back as I can reasonably be expected to check, which is 40 years) have lifted the trophy without a suit on. And of those one (Kenny Dalglish in 1986) had the very decent excuse of having named himself in Liverpool's starting XI, and another (Alex Ferguson in 1990) must have had his at the dry cleaners, having worn it during Manchester United's first attempt to beat Crystal Palace a few days earlier (the third was Sunderland's Bob Stokoe in 1973, though he at least wore smart leather shoes with his gaudy red tracksuit, and graciously hid both with a blanket for most of the match).
But politicians have something that most other cultural figures don't: the ability to change the law to force us to do stuff. Thus political decisions often have quite far-reaching ramifications, as anyone who thinks it might be nice if rather than having to buy books we were able to borrow them just for as long as it takes us to read them is currently discovering. And, while I've always been in favour of pretty much any electoral system that isn't the one we've got, I have started to worry about what kind of message a yes vote in the imminent referendum on electoral reform would send to the world of sport.
Such an outcome would surely be hard for sport to ignore. Indeed the fact that it is being considered ought to have provoked a fair degree of upset. Because it would suggest that the British people have a different definition of winning these days than the one we've all become accustomed to. It would suggest, in short, that the simple act of coming first is no longer enough for us.
The importance of finishing first is sport's one universal truth, but it now looks somewhat over-reliant on the idea. It is often said about sport, albeit not by anyone particularly successful, that it is not the winning but the taking part that counts ? and in politics this might soon be literally true: rather than the winner being the person who gets the most votes, soon whoever manages to take the biggest part of other people's votes could taste triumph instead.
It looks likely that Manchester United will wrap up a record 19th league title soon after the referendum, but it may cut short their celebrations when they realise that every one of those triumphs has been claimed under the now discredited system of awarding the trophy to the team that do best. And it may be a setback for whoever is first past the post in the big races at next year's Olympics if events held in this country can no longer be decided by such simplistic means, and as a result they end up finishing well behind someone who just finished well behind them.
If recent opinion polls are to be believed this is all likely to be moot. I wouldn't wish us to be damned forever with our current electoral system, but for sporting reasons alone it may not be altogether a bad thing if its suggested alternative goes the way of Theresa May's leopard-print stilettos.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2011/apr/22/sport-winners-suits-tony-pulis-politics
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