RAMÒN BENÍTEZ remembers when footballers were more willing to espouse their, mainly, left-wing leanings

FOOTBALL is … sorry, was a working class sport. Manchester United, the world’s biggest football club, was formed by Lancashire and Yorkshire railway workers.
And the Cardiff City terrace song ‘I’ll Be There’ (considered by historians to be the world’s oldest football ditty still sung today), which goes: ‘When the coal comes from the Rhondda, Down the Taff Vale Railway Line, With my little pick and shovel, I’ll be there .....