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How Many Sports are still "Working Class" in the UK?

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    #26
    Shouldn't this thread be titled sports that people left behind when a lot of them became middle class as a result of the upward social mobility allowed by free third level education in the 70's, 80's and 90's? The best example of this that I've seen up close is at Spurs. Where spurs season ticket holders are people who usually grew up in tottenham, but moved one or two to three stops out the northern line towards Enfield, as they moved up in the world. The tickets are held by the same families, but the people going are a lot more middle class now. Sports have clearly tried to make themselves more attractive to the rest of the middle class though, to build on this movement, and in some instances it has worked. But the age of the average premier league season ticket holder, and the length of time that they have held it for would seem to suggest that a lot of people going to matches are the same people who have been going for a very long time.

    Certainly the GAA threw a lot of money at coaching in Dublin in an effort to make it considerably more popular in middle class areas of Dublin, and it has had a major impact. Now the Middle Class in Dublin has always been split into a few subtly distinct sections. There's Dublin born people, who were always middle class. These people weren't particularly interested in the GAA. There are Dublin Born people, who were born working class, but have moved up. Their interest in the GAA is reasonably strong. And there's a huge chunk of the Dublin Middle Class who are from down the country, and have moved to Dublin to run the place. These people have always been interested in the GAA, if not necessarily in Dublin (but their kids are). It's the first two groups that they have hit like a gong, creating a Dublin identity, based around ultra professionalism, and so the GAA has expanded heavily in these areas, even in the face of the Rugby onslaught.

    It certainly goes a long way to explaining why Dublin have won five of the last six all irelands. Indeed they have thrown enough money at coaching and preparation, that Dublin have evolved a style of play that clearly owes more to Ajax 95, than anything else. GAA in the rest of the country has come on in leaps and bounds in every respect, but they lag behind Dublin, in that they don't have the capability to develop and coach such an elaborate way of playing. (as much because the other counties are limited in the number of times they can train, because a large chunk of their team have to drive down from Dublin, where they are all working. Dublin could train 5 times a week if they wanted, that's really not on the cards for Mayo or Donegal.)

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