Poll

I’ve not actually voted. Just think it’s interesting. I’m not sure, but I’m creeping towards no. When you’ve spent six months actively terrifying the population into believing this is the coming of the apocalypse, I’m struggling to see how you can credibly row back enough from that position to allow 10,000 folk to cram together without people realising all the death, unemployment, suffering and sadness you’ve needlessly created. I just don’t see how that’s possible.

And that’s aside from the possibility of us moving stadium, going out of business or starting up in say league 2 by the time we’re allowed back in.

 

As someone who’s one of the biggest proponents of lockdown who admits to disinfecting their shopping, I’m interested in under what circumstances would you personally go back? Let’s say we get a credible vaccine in say 5 years time. Let’s say it’s 50% effective, both of which are hugely optimistic metrics I’d say based on historical precedent. Would you sit next to someone in a busy stadium then?

 

I voted no.

It's not like I'm 75 or something - I'm 41, so my pessimism is not age-related.

But I don't believe I'll ever set foot in Oakwell again. The vast majority of non-Premier League clubs will go under.

I'll watch a club with the name Barnsley in it again, starting at a very low level, but it won't be the club I currently support, and it won't be at Oakwell.

 

Were your cynicism/scepticism to be proven true, I think I'd be done with football.

As it stands, unless it's a big match, there is no excitement to watching on the television. Maybe it's just early season boredom on my part, or the fact that we seemingly wish to emulate last season by not investing in right areas. I can't see my continuing to pay for away games though, even at a tenner. I'll just go back to being a 'Ceefax supporter' as a young teen.

 

I really hope I am not correct, mate, but that's the way I think it's going. Knowing me as you do, you'll be aware that I am pessimistic about abso-fvcking-lutely everything, and my thinking is always worst-case scenario. Hence, I don't blame you if you discount my fears as just more doom-mongering on my part.

However, I remember a conversation you and I had on our way to some away ground in the season we last got promoted, so it was pre-virus. You had the idea that there would come a time when fans no longer bothered to go to matches. There'd be no need for a stadium - clubs would only require a pitch with a bit of rope around it.

This was based on the fact that people younger than us were consuming football in a different way. Many don't support a club, they support Messi, Ronaldo or Neymar. They are content to watch the most interesting bits of matches, but attention-spans are on the wane, and 90 minutes is a slog when you can just get the most exciting parts on your social media.

My fear is that the conclusions of said conversation are coming to pass, more quickly than either of us had realised. Damian invited me to his house for the Boro game, and we sat around his laptop and watched us fvcking get beaten again.

We were chatting about this and that afterwards, and I basically said: fair enough, we've lost, but look at the positives. We have paid a tenner between us, and sat in the warm with your kids nearby, cuddling the dog, eating crisps and drinking tea. You don't miss your children growing up, you don't get grief from your missus for fvcking off for the whole day; and I haven't sacrificed half of my weekend going up to the game and back, and then stayed in bed half of Sunday to catch up on the sleep I missed because I was on the club bus at stupid o'clock the previous day.

Maybe I'm just getting old, or maybe my enthusiasm will return if a) they let us back in again and, obviously b) we manage to not lose every week. But it feels to me as though things have changed. The past is a foreign country, and all that.

 

Look at the absolute lack of transfer activity below the Premier League for a clue as to the financial predicament of so many clubs. Without fans this season and without some kind of bailout from the greedy cùnts in the top flight, many EFL clubs are knackered. So it's ridiculous that the government halted plans for fans to return. Most other European nations have allowed fans back, albeit in very small numbers initially. New Zealand (who have seemingly decent humans running the country and are also an island nation) had 30,000 inside a stadium at the weekend for the Rugby.

I've coped on a personal level better than I first thought I would throughout all this, but the last week or two has been tough. It's hitting me a bit. Christmas (which I love) seems a write-off, I'm learning to drive and expecting lessons to be cancelled again at any point, I'm worried I won't get away for a holiday for the second summer running, and I look around and all I see are greedy cùnts. From top to bottom. The world is pure greed, run by bastârds.

On that note, I'm off to bed. Got a swab up my nose and down my throat in the morning.

 

I was one of the biggest proponents of having a proper lockdown a week or so before it happened and fully supporting all businesses with the 3 billion that has been instead given away to Tory mates, whilst an effective track and trace system was developed, not 7 months of half arsed measures that are the worst of all worlds. I don’t disinfect shopping but I do leave it in quarantine for a few days so same thing I guess. I’ve also said many times on here that my mam is in the highest vulnerable category and I work in part in a special school and that I am trying to protect others, not necessarily myself. We can’t protect the most vulnerable without the people who interact with them taking measures seriously and if I get mocked or insulted by you for it I don’t really give a damn.

As for answering your question, I’m not sure on an exact number but when case numbers are low and/or when I’m able to self isolate before going back into work (which is tricky due to set holidays and the season dates) but as I’m only 32 I’m pretty sure it will be again in my lifetime.

 

I was talking about the poll with my partner Anne and I went all gooey-eyed at the thought of sitting on the Pony with the rain blowing horizontally into my face and The Reds losing to an injury time penalty awarded for a trip ten yards outside the box....

 

I ll be honest I'm really enjoying my sons footy more than watching us on ifollow and that's a first this year for me. You just can't beat a live game even with just a few mums and dads in attendance. I don't think the younger generation will stop going, there's plenty of teenagers around me in the ponty
Cant wait to get back, I've bought my first thermals ready ( also for work because of windows having to be open) and just hope its sooner rather than later.

 

I said this at the time they announced that games would be available to watch on IFollow following the resumption. The longer it goes on with people not attending games, the more they'll get out of the habit of not going to football games. A dangerous precedent.

 

I voted for yes but didn't know if saying no was because covid restrictions will be forever, our club will go bust or we are off to play somewhere else.

 

No. On 2 counts.

1. We've given our (incompetent/evil) Govt unlimited powers to control our lives. Save for a few MP's on both sides there's no appetite in parliament for this to be given up - by stopping people doing things they think it looks like they're doing something and we've got to the point where the more draconian you want to halt everyday life, the more human & caring you can claim to be. Truly dystopian at the minute. Keir seems fully on board with that. Today anyway, if Twitter decide the opposite tomorrow then he might change his policy.

2. It would appear that our previous owners allowed themselves to be persuaded to sell to folk who can't back their promises up. AFC Barnsley might need to be set up again. If Shefftyke wins the lottery again. Or is he dead ? Or was that his brother ?

**** me, what a shower.

 

Plus where are the fans of the future coming from ? They'll all be institutionalised.

https://acamh.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/camh.12428

 

Very good!

I meant the Ponty obviously....

 

I know, I know... but I just couldn't resist it.

 

Don't blame you, I would have done the same.

 

I see the problem being keeping people far enough apart in the concourses before the game and at half time. People may do as they're told the first game back, but I wouldn't see it lasting.

 

The concourses were to be closed during games and to be used as corridors from the turnstiles to the stands only.

 

I didn't know that. That does make a big difference.