It was an unnecessary endeavour, which would have failed to stop fights outside grounds and was obviated anyway

 

It was an unnecessary endeavour, which would have failed to stop fights outside grounds and was obviated anyway by the arrival of CCTV inside them, but was enthusiastically trumpeted for too long by the shrill Colin Moynihan, aka The Miniature for Sport, until the Hillsborough tragedy sank the soccer ID ship for good.

 

The Thatcher years did foment some form of politicisation among fans and legacies of her general disconnection from the industrial regions who breathed football strongest included the Football Supporters Association, the start of supporter involvement in clubs and a burgeoning fanzine culture rejecting the official face of the game and the authorities.

 

The grassroots were very green in the late 1980s as Thatcher's reign tottered towards its inevitable end, but football remained very much a minority satta king result  interest in Britain as a whole. The fences, the strict policing, the labeling of fans as hooligans by the largely right-wing media had created a siege mentality among die-hards constantly challenging the public consensus that football belonged in the gutter. The enlightenment of Italia '90 and the seismic year zero of Sky TV's Premier League in 1993 lay in an unimagined future.

 

Thatcher's successor John Major was less abrasive than his predecessor towards everything, and immediately said he was a Chelsea fan, making sure he was filmed attending games with fellow Tory David Mellor MP, although interestingly his sporting interests were listed as 'cricket and rugby' before he became PM.

 

Pavarotti, Gazza and all had brought a spring-cleaning no-one had expected, but the after-effects in England of that summer in Italy were too powerful and popular to ignore at the highest level again. Engaging with England's football culture was now de rigueur for its top politicians.

 

Tony Blair joined the club, claiming he was a Newcastle fan (his constituency was in the North-East), kicking around with Alex Ferguson and Kevin Keegan and rushing to tell the nation he was one of us when England were knocked out the World Cup.

 

Gordon Brown has wasted little time kicking a ball for the cameras to launch England's 2018 World Cup bid, and the Scot who lost an eye at rugby made sure the film crew was there to see him grinning at the Three Lions winning at football on telly.