Has football peaked?

So that's the F... word everyone speaks of!!

Howard

Suggest that the fanatics are on their own footie forums.
Chelsea deserved to win but fail to stimulate any passionate responses. I believe there is cause for concern with a number of Australian Rules sides now playing in Japan.
Only a matter of time...

I follow erudite football, but did prefer it when everyone got a look-in - e.g. when terrestrial TV showed us league games from UK '3rd & 4th' divisions, before 'they' changed the names ...

For a while, the (currently Barclays...) 'Premiership' has been called 'Greedy Bastards League' by quite a few, and the 'Champions League' (or eventually 2 -legged knock-out pre-1-match final) has allowed teams like Chelsea (who weren't Champions in their previous 3 campaigns therein) to enter. (I have supported Chelsea for 41 years, and do not think that wasting money necessarily produces enjoyable football).

I am happy for my lot to win League Cup/FA Cup every now and then, but do prefer things when all English League sides are in the same league. In the old days, we had our free 'league ladders' with coloured tabbed team names to move about over about 92 slots, but it seems that now we need at least 3 of these cardboard charts.

Well done WBA - tough on Palace etc etc. Pity Henri's out of Cup final on Saturday, as Arse might have been due to do M.Ut.

...I won't mention the Liverpool 'goal' allowed against a tired, reluctant-to-have-a-shot Blues in poor 'Champ. Lge. semi'. I will hope they do fine against a Milan side who also were outplayed in their good semi(s) against the Dutch.

EUFA final tonight, where Newcastle should have been ...

Chris,

The "eurdite football" discussion was discussion between a relatively small number of people who have all either left / were banned / couldn't log on in the recent rennovation / purge of the padded cell (or something).

My impression is that there is no particular interest in Football here so once these people went that was that.

Matthew

PS Go Manchester Super Devils!

The SPL is a little more interesting than usual this year. The last games are this weekend and any one of 4 teams could be relegated, there are two teams still in the running for the title and there are two teams fighting it out for the last European place.

The interesting league in Scotland next year will be the 2nd division. The team promoted from the 3rd division are backed by a local millionare who's keen to see then in the SPL soon and they ended the season with a +101 goal difference after scoring 130 goals.

http://s2.forumforfree.com/index.php?mforum=freefootballstr

Steve
I doubt that Gretna will be able to hold on to Kenny Deuchar for long if he starts off next season like he did this last one.

Bob

or indeed piqued

Almost time for a post-mortem on the 'predictions' thread. Did anyone else pick Liverpool and Milan for the Champions League? Ahem.

Great play from Moscow there, and Oh Yeah, well done Ipswich too

quote:

Originally posted by bob mccluckie:
I doubt that Gretna will be able to hold on to Kenny Deuchar for long if he starts off next season like he did this last one.

Despite him scoring 38 league goals this season I think they will be able to keep hold of him for at least another season. Supposedly they're already paying him SPL type wages.

Last night's glorious victory was all that we deserved after the ludicrous farce perpetrated by Uriah Rennie in the first leg.

Ticket for Cardiff bought this morning Fritz. Which means I will get to admire the silky skills of The Thominator one more time.

Matthew

Excellent Our Mat, I trust you tipped your runner well ? I'm still contemplating going to next years World Cup Final, which ´will be held about 30 minutes walk from here, a trip I've made many hundreds of times actually, innit.

Fritz Von Russian Ref Hopefully

quote:

Last night's glorious victory was all that we deserved after the ludicrous farce perpetrated by Uriah Rennie in the first leg.

OK, I'm an Ipswich lad and agree you deserved your win last night (not over the season though which is the cr4p system called the play-offs!), and yes Rennie was pants on Saturday, but please don't start to sound like Bolton fans - instead look at the farcical mistakes for your first goal etc. etc.

I've love the 'your' bit !


Fritz Von It's not over till it's over

On the first West Ham goal there was a good (but not conclusive) case but the foul on the centre half but the game turned because:

a) the best player on the pitch having made the two goals was kicked to bits by a bunch of thugs that would have George Burley and Bobby Robson turnng in their graves (if they were not still alive obviously).

b) Rennie gave a ludicrous free kick that lead to a freak pinball goal that *completely* turned the game.

In four games this season between West Ham and Ipswich West Ham have won 2 and there have been two draws.

Matthew

Our Mat ! Question ? (2nd & last attempt) Do you please happen to know of a British Publication that (I assume will soon be published) that covers every club fixture of every league etc, for next season ?



Fritz Von Lead singer from a bunch of wallys

It won't be published until August, but the Sky Sports (formerly Rothmans) Football yearbook will do the job: http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/search-handle-form/026-3403618-6671624

Meantime, www.bbc.co.uk/football is pretty comprehensive.

Steve von notnotMatthew

Brillinat, thanks for that Dave, I owe you a pint Sorry, I mean't brilliant, I'm eating a sausage sarnie at the moment, smothered in lashings of Thai chilli (green top) sauce) innit.



Fritz Von Gooooooooooooooaaaaaaaaaaallll

Chaps

So: any opinions here about the Tampa Bucs owner (a Yank) buying Manchester United? Any grief at the Old Trafford?

Regards

Bruce

United fans seem to think it's A Bad Thing because it will saddle the club with loads of debt. Apparently the club has been pretty much debt-free, despite spending vast somes of money on transfers, wages and re-building Old Trafford.

Some fear he could take advantage of the popularity of the club by hiking ticket prices - despite being able to fill the ground every home game, ticket prices are relatively low. I suppose the argument is that if every game could be sold out twice over, then prices can go up and the ground will still be full.

I can't see that he'll impact the club that much - it's hardly in his interests to hamstring the club or he'll never see a return on his investment. Or perhaps that's his plan, and he's really an Arsenal supporter?

Others overlook the fact that football clubs have more usually been the playthings of rich businessmen, for better (Walker at Blackburn) or worse (Johnson at Everton) and that of the clubs who operate as PLCs have generally done very badly, with the exception of United. Actually, it's more likely that football has always been a bad investment, but it becomes more public when the club is listed on the stock exchange.

And as an Everton fan, that's as unbiased as I can get on the subject.

Bruce,

Glazer's plan has an enormous pile of debt including some £270m of preference shares from rapacious NYC hedge funds at a generous rate of about 12%.

He intends to pay this off from a business with a current EBIT of about £58m a year and additionally provide £20m a year for signing new players.

This implies he needs to grow the club's incomes by several orders of magnitude and the only way anyone could think of that was by challenging the TV deal in the courts and getting lots of money that is currently split evenly between clubs going to those with the biggest market value (ie Manchester United). In US Sports terms this is sort of like trying to turn the NFL into MLB in financing terms. Unfortunatly, this approach was pretty much nixed by the courts today and he's going to have reveal Plan B.

His other options for raising the extra money, as far as anyone can gather, involve persuading a few billion chinese people to watch webcasts of the games or else somehow persuading large tracts of Ohio to become soccer lovers.

It's difficult, therefore, to see how he is not up a proverbial creek and it will not all end horribly for Manchester United and football in general.

"Any grief at the Old Trafford?"

They have burnt effigies of Glazer outside the ground. I'm no marketing epxert but I guess when your customers are doing that it's not good

Whilst its legitimate that he knows nothing about football -- one can imagine the Walmart Manchester Super Devils playing at the Frito Lay Arena Of Dreams in Manchester, England or somesuch), there is, predicatbly, a lot of xenophobia in this sort of thing from the usual idiots (imagine, say, if the Yankees were bought by a Frenchman). Principally though the objections are really relating to the finance and the level of debt he's forced on a previously solvent club.

On the bright side my best mate got the splash on his newspaper (the UK's version of the New York Post) two days in a row with this story

Matthew

PS Fritz sorry I missed your question.

It's great for Our Micks free-enterprise, though if he'd waited a year or so longer (profit waits for no one unfortunately) Sir Alex wouldn't be leaving in tears so early, because he will, unless Starsky gives him a mega back hander and freedom until retirement, which he thoroughly deserves as one oif the greatest Managers of all time (And I'm a fucking Hammers Man) poor, but still a Hammers git.

Fritz Von It's likely I feel after so much water testing & teasing, innit.

Last Thursday Stretford Buccaneers had no debts.
By Monday their new owner had them in hock to the tune of £250 million.

BLOODY MARVELLOUS!

Bob

quote:

Originally posted by bob mccluckie:
Last Thursday Stretford Buccaneers had no debts.
By Monday their new owner had them in hock to the tune of £250 million.

BLOODY MARVELLOUS!

Bob

Gordon Brown job on a mini-scale