The end of the football season is nigh. For most, this will mean nothing at all. But for those British adults who follow ‘the beautiful game’ (42%), this ordinarily entails a period of relative misery, as they wait with baited breath for the next season to begin.
But this summer is different – it’s a World Cup year. Eyes and ears around the country will be glued to TV sets and radios, to get this most special of football ‘fixes’. Even a substantial 44% of those who claim to not normally follow the sport (57%) say they put aside their usual reservations and make an exception for the World Cup, which is to be held in South Africa.
Super strikers
However, we aren’t quite there yet. A handful of games still remain to be played in the Barclays Premier League, and with the season fast drawing to a close, we asked the football-following British public which of nine top strikers they believe to be the best in the premiership, leaving aside club preferences and injury considerations.
Over half (53%) of the football-watching population chose Manchester United’s Wayne Rooney as their number one striker of choice, leaving Liverpool’s Fernando Torres in second with 19% of the vote and Chelsea’s Didier Drogba in third with ten percent. We also asked who, between Manchester United and Chelsea, fans would rather see win the title this season, which produced fairly even results, with 47% showing a preference for United and 45% preferring Chelsea. Eight percent, however, couldn’t choose between the two football team giants.
The interested public also claimed that the top three teams they would most like to see promoted to the premiership from the championship would be Newcastle United (43%) Nottingham Forest (16%) and Blackpool (13%).
Fair wages?
Despite our football-based poll showing that a majority of people had no interest in the sport whatsoever, with women showing the least interest (71% of women claim to not follow the game), our survey showed similarities when the questions turned to footballers’ famously high wages. When asked the extent to which they agreed footballers’ wages were ‘fair, considering the job that they do and the industry that they are in’, 89% of non-football followers disagreed. When we asked football-followers the same question, we found that 81% feel the same about the high wages of their football heroes. It seems that while fans compete with unparalleled passion for favourite teams, strikers strive to score and World Cup fever starts to take over, a simmering dislike of players’ inflated wages still unites us all.
