The Official Football League Thread

Gosh Alex,

Some brave predictions there son. I suspected an anti-Yorkshire bias but then I saw Wednesday to go up! How so? I think Turner will need at least two more seasons to turn around the decay therein.

Ditto West Ham up. The club is rotten and Pardew is not the man to sort it. Give him three more years and they have a chance.

Now, where are the rest of you?

I know there's more real football fans out there.

Mike

My powers of prediction are largely on a par with Alex's (see the Euro 2004 thread) so I was not surprised that he did not predict an immediate return to League 1 for the Seagulls - which means we are doomed.

I would guess...

Up

Wolves
Leicester
Ipswich through the play offs

All three returning after the next season

Down:

Leeds,
QPR
Watford

Brighton winning the last game of the season to escape on goal difference...

League 1

Bristol City
Luton
Hull

Sorry Alex, I don't see Wednesday being promoted yet

Down...

MK Dons
Blackpool
Bournemouth
Torquay

hmmm three seaside towns...

Sorry, don't care.

Okay, what's going on here then? Every time I click on this page I get the sound of wind howling through somewhere very empty. It's a very good joke but how is it done?

Mike

I should perhaps add

1) That last post was serious, although it only seems to happen in Opera and not IE6???

2) It's Saturday and I will not let this thread fall off page one as a matter of principal. Are there really so few fans of lower division football out there?

Mike

"Are there really so few fans of lower division football out there?"

Yes. But:

1) There are only a handful of people who talk regularly about football here in total so having a specific lower division thread is probably untenable.

2) I think you rather put people off with your elitist attitude and inverted snobbery.

3) A Football League thread means no scope for many of the better footy posters (Alex S, Nick Lees, Chris Dolan, Steve G, Bhoyo, John Channing, etc.)

I suggest if you want to talk about football you do so on a thread that doesn't exclude 90% of your potential audience and alienate the other 10%.

Matthew

Mathew,

1) I am happy to be untenable. Perhaps people have never had the opportunity to talk about it before or their comments are drowned, insulted or ignored on the other thread (thanks for the private emails on that one by the way from those of you who do care!).

2) "Elitist attitude and inverted snobbery"? What would that be then? "So, fed up of the assumption that the world revolves around the corporate farce of the Premiership?". That's the only thing I've said that could even remotely be viewed in that context and I would guess that, sadly, most people don't feel that way (looking at attendances and viewing figures) but some of us do. If that makes me and others here a minority then I won't apologise for being proud to support my club and observe how the big clubs have consistently undermined grass roots football in this country.

3) "A Football League thread means no scope for many of the better footy posters". Well, I agree with you about the quality but I would have thought suggesting that I need or ought to attract a particular sort of poster would put me into "elitist attitude" territory. Remind me to never post on my CDX"/XPS2 combination for fear of excluding some of the better posters on CD5s and CDS3s!!!

I suggest if you want to talk about football as it is lived out in the lower leagues then this IS the place to be!!!

Now, Alex, good result for the Owls?

Who'd have thought things would have improved so dramatically after the opening day? Looking forward to my visit to Hillsborough. Fantastic game last season (and not just because we won either!). Anyone coming to the Racecourse this season (apart from the administrators?)???

Mike

I think Matthew is still in denial about the fact that the Hammers are a 'Championship' team and are likely to remain so for the foreseeable future.

Only one point from 4 games BUT the 3 teams that have beaten us are filling the top three places in the division (ok so 3 of the points they all got were from us). It was always likely to be a tough start and we would be doing well if we were not bottom at the end of August.

Mike,

You posed the question as to why your thread was not getting many replies so I answered. To wit: there isn't much interest here in football in general let alone in lower division football and what I percieved as your attitude both here and on the other two threads where you have made a number of comments about "the real world", etc.

"Perhaps people have never had the opportunity to talk about it before or their comments are drowned, insulted or ignored on the other thread"

Really? How so?

Besides, if Steve G and Bhoyo can successfully discuss an obscure backwater Northern European league I don't suppose you'll have many problems on that front.

"I suggest if you want to talk about football as it is lived out in the lower leagues then this IS the place to be!!!"

By all means and good luck.

FWIW I suspect, given the low volumes involved, you would be better off just adding it to the general football chat in the other thread but far be it from me to get in your way. I was just answering your question.

Matthew

Alex,

Most definitely looking forward to the third of January. Your attendances alone still mark you out as a big club in the division. What happened to Derek Geary? I know he had injuries but he always looked good when he played. Where is he now?

Seagull,

I actually think you'll be okay. Very unlucky to be relegated a couple of seasons ago and I suspect your start is as you say, a quirk of the fixtures.

Hadn't appreciated that the ever pointlessly provocative Mr. R. is a Hammers fan. I do love the way in which teams relegated really refuse to accept life in the lower divisions as being exactly where they should be as though it is but a momentary blip in their otherwise celebrated existence in mid-table or below in the league above.

Mathew, you're right. You don't belong here. Bye.

Man City in Div. 2 was a great example. A visit to Maine Road revealed a club run in a manner reminiscent of every other lower league club. They were second division in every respect and, even now, a visit to the City of Manchester stadium reveals an entertaining level of incompetence well below the standard of service achieved by the volunteers during the Commonwealth Games!!!

Now, the league cup tonight. Wrexham off to Hull. Lovely fans and a nice stadium with another team that plays football. As we have no width this season (at least until the return of the mighty Carlos in 2005) we look tidy and compact but, if you can stop us playing down the middle then we're stuffed. I suspect Hull will let us play but will then out play us. Prediction 3-0 to Hull.

Mike

"Hadn't appreciated that the ever pointlessly provocative Mr. R. is a Hammers fan"

West Ham are my adopted local team since moving to London. By birth (Salford) I should be a ManYoo fan, by family history I should be a Bolton fan but I actually grew up a Blackpool fan and they remain my first allegiance (at least in principle if not in attendance).

As someone whose first game as a paying fan involved my team being relgated to Div 3 for the first time ever in a history as glorious as most; whose first full seasons involved a further relegtion to Div 4 and then a humiliating application for re-election (the first club to get all 92 votes); and then witnessed years of mismanagement; a failed ground redevlopment plan of truly epic proportions (Blackpool were the first club to propose a multi-million £ all-seater uber stadium with retractable roof); and the bizarre sequence of events that resulted in our chairman languishing in jail a convicted paedophile I think my "I'm More Punk Than You" lower division cred is entirely respectable.

FWIW I think West Ham (and Man City where I was also a regular once) are a wonderful football club and holding their sometime success and size against them seems utterly perverse.

Matthew

Mathew,

I have been working in Salford for twelve years and lived there for ten. Love it. Much changed though even in that relatively short time. Where were your whereabouts?

I shall be going to Blackpool v Wrexham in the next few weeks and am looking forward to seeing the ground developments since my last visit a few years back when the police where overly aggressive; the wooden stand looked worse than Wrexhams' old one and we stood out in the open air. Chips and gravy were reet good though (although not quite as good as Preston)!!!

In the meantime I enjoyed watching my team confound my 3-0 prediction and saunter (!) away with a 2-2 draw and a 3-1 win on pens. after Dibble svaed three of their five. A remarkable night. Cannot remember the last time we made round two. Now we just need a decent draw to generate a bit of cash.

As you can tell, I am REALLY good at predictions!!!