WAR AND PEACE AND SOCIAL COHESION

Printed in the Southern League South and West Division programme v Andover. 8th September 2007 Oh my god, we actually won a game 2-1 - first time since January. Attendance - 215 very happy people.

Just for a moment the people of Iraq were united in celebration. Iraq had won the Asia Cup in a team made up from Sunnis, Shias, Kurds and Turkomans. As he bounced with joy with friends outside his house in Baghdad, Taha Mahmoud, a 25-year-old computer programmer, said: "In 90 minutes, 11 men on a soccer pitch thousands of miles away have made millions of Iraqis happy while 250 MPs, our government, the mullahs, imams and warlords can't provide us with a single smile. I hope this is a turning point for our country." "It is the greatest gift since the fall of Saddam Hussein, and shows how Iraqis from all walks of life can work together to achieve success," said Hozam Mahmoud, a Kurdish policeman, who had abandoned his traffic duties to join noisy celebrations. "Football alone may not be able to heal the nation's deep wounds, but for the moment it has induced a sense of cohesion, and we can all build on that if we try."

While Iraqi’s were celebrating, fans of Edgware Town were reeling from the news that after winning an unprecedented treble of trophies during the most successful season in the club's 68 year history, the club looked doomed. Property developers who own their ground had given notice to quit just a few week before the season kicked off.

Being a small football club in London is becoming a precarious business. The pub that had given the ground its name, the White Lion, has already gone, pulled down ten years ago to make way for a faceless Premier Lodge hotel. Near neighbours Wealdstone have been homeless for 16 years (and spent ten years groundsharing at Edgware). Hendon have to vacate Claremont Road and Enfield Town are still looking for a home to call their own. At least for Wealdstone there is light at the end of the tunnel, but land in London is at a premium and small football clubs are easy pickings for circling property vultures. An unsympathetic council and you’ve had it.

So reading the internet forums, I was surprised to read that it wasn’t the council or faceless developers that were facing the wrath of supporters but immigrants.

No doubt Edgware has changed beyond all recognition since the club were set up at the start of World War II by construction and engineering workers. I don’t have the figures handy but I doubt Edgware Town have ever really pulled in big crowds. Despite their best season ever gates averaged just 73. Would it have been any different if the area had stayed the same since their formation? On my Slough travels to the very white commuter belt places like Epsom and Marlow these clubs are hardly packing in the punters. Football has a hell of a lot to contend with nowadays, not least an explosion of matches live on the TV. There’s tons more leisure pursuits available and people have a lot more cash in their pockets if they want to spend the day, god forbid, shopping!

One fan complained that all these immigrants ‘probably don’t even know we have a football team’ - but whose fault is that? Football is popular throughout the world, and as the Iraqi victory shows can bring people together and build bridges. It’s an extreme example, but if it can happen in a country rocked by civil war, then surely it’s within the capabilities of smaller clubs to come up with ways to reach out to the communities in their area and get them through the gates?

Football can be a force for good but losing community assets such as football grounds, pubs, allotments, community centres etc is one sure way of losing any kind of social cohesion. This isn’t just romantic old tosh, but having these places where people can meet makes our neighbourhoods better for everyone. After the longest and most expensive study in the history of criminology the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighbourhoods concluded that the most important influence on a neighbourhood’s crime rate is neighbours’ willingness to act for one another’s benefit. For example if your local park was full of rubbish and the local council removed it all, the rubbish would probably return in a few weeks. But if the local community organised a meeting to clean up the park, with a chance for people to meet, solve problems and work together, the benefits would most likely be much longer lasting and the park would probably remain cleaner for longer.

The research in the Chicago Neighbourhoods study shows that crime and anti social behaviour is most effectively fought not with more laws and more jails, but by building strong communities where people take control of their own lives.

But what the hell has that got to do with Edgware Town? In the melting pot of humanity that is London, it is clubs like Edgware, that play a game of football that can help bring different people together, that is priceless and worth fighting for.

For the time being the club are safe; playing back at their higgidiggly piggidly ground just off the High Street. But their future doesn’t look bright, unless they find ways of getting more people through the turnstiles, be they immigrants or people who have lived in the neighbourhood all their lives.

* Edgware Town blog http://www.gvshaw.blogspot.com