Thoughts on this?

They'll Only Miss Us Once We've Gone

What is it that Guinness advert proclaims? "All good things come to those who wait". Well the Footballing Authorities may not have to wait too much longer until their transition of the game is complete. To rid the game of the bad and populate it only with the good. No more rowdy behaviour, no more rebels of society daring to stand up and make their feelings known, no more problems.

Their ideals consist of fans turning up every week, queuing to gain entry in an orderly fashion, having booked their tickets 3 months in advance. Entering the stadium and taking their seats, rising only to applaud goals where they dance along to carefully selected music over the PA, before clearing up their litter and disappearing into the countryside until the following weekend. No hassle, no passion, no noise.

As the game I know and love becomes more diluted by the passing year, I often wonder just when the breaking point will come. When will those authorised with sanitising our game realise the error of their ways? Or can they not actually see that they are breaking the very foundations of what has made this sport a success? Pound signs blur their vision, seen all too often in every walk of life. Greed takes over, people want more. They've exhausted the Premier League "brand" and now have visions of taking it further afield; the infamous "Game 39". Translated to you and me, meaning they have milked pretty much every penny they can from the "consumers" in this country, and now want to tap into the pockets of those football hungry consumers overseas. All in the name of expanding the pockets of the shareholders, players and governing bodies of our sport. Our sport, not theirs.

If I rewind 7 or 8 years; I'm leaving the house on a matchday and making my way to Anfield. There was no need to ring around in the morning; I'd just turn up and walk into one of two or three pubs around the ground, and would bump into people I knew. You knew where everyone would drink, and had done for years. The same faces, the people that made this club what it is. I can pop my head into those same pubs now, and I wouldn't recognise a soul. Those long standing supporters have now all but disappeared, replaced by families from all over, decked out in official replica sportswear and taking pictures of anything that moves. There's a smaller crowd of us left and tend to keep out of the way. We don't conform. Those areas around the ground have now been taken over by the new brigade, while the old guard retreat to pastures further afield.

Year after year, more and more people are dropping away. There's still a hardcore of a few hundred that travel everywhere. There's still thousands that go to every home game just like they always have. But it's becoming harder and harder for these people to carry on. Supporters being replaced by consumers. Participants being replaced by spectators. Just how much higher can the bar be raised by the controlling bodies before they've pushed away everyone that gave the game it's appeal in the first place? What happens when the passion disappears for good? You can't manufacture passion, no matter how hard some clubs try.

They have mascots running up and down the touchline trying to encourage the fans. At Bolton they play "I feel good" when they score, with two young lads running the length of the pitch with big flags. Music played after goals is now commonplace, as if fans don't know how to celebrate a goal by themselves. Is it because they realise the passion is dead and are trying to hang onto a small semblence of it? Or is it aimed at manufacturing a friendly atmosphere to suit their agenda?

Manufactured support; I can't think of anything worse. Handing out those clappers seems to be the next step this season, with the whole of St.Andrews clapping along with them before their opening game. This in a ground that used to be known as one of the most passionate and hostile in football; now transformed into a childrens play ground with everybody doing as they are told. Sat down and singing what the club want them to sing, and clapping when they want them to clap. So sad. Ticket prices on the increase there every season, and a ground I now refuse to visit. £40 for an away ticket some 4 years ago. No thanks. It doesn't take a genius to work out why they barely fill half of that ground any more.

Newcastle had their lowest league attendance for nearly a decade at the weekend, with cash turnstiles in operation, entry for £10 if you bought a replica shirt and other such promotions, but still had thousands of empty seats. Manchester United have been contacting everybody on their mailing lists trying to push season ticket sales again this summer. Whereas Old Trafford used to be like Fort Knox when it came to getting in, they're now closer to resembling one of the happy hour bars in Benidorm, with teenagers stood outside handing out cards with promotional offers to encourage trade. What was once a closed shop, is now opening it's doors and trying to drag people in off the streets.

Is the football bubble about to burst? I hope so.

On Monday night, Portsmouth's most famous fan, the bell ringer with the blue hair, or less commonly known as "John", was approached by the ground staff at Fratton Park and asked to keep the noise down. I'm sure it's not only me that's absolutely staggered by that. Asked to stop ringing his bell and keep the noise down, in a football ground! The mind boggles. But it's another notch on the many that have been made previously, in slowly sanitising the way we support our teams.
We are told we're not allowed to stand up as it's unsafe; yet rugby sides play in exactly the same stadia and those rules don't apply. Apparently it's safe for rugby fans to stand in those same seated areas, but not football fans (the reasons for that I could write a book on, and will address again). It's madness. They're also allowed to drink in their seats while watching the game. I know of a fan that was facing a 3 year football banning after peering over the exits at White Hart Lane to catch a goal he'd missed when coming down early at half time. He'd walked down the steps, was handed a pint by a friend, and heard the roar from the stands. He went halfway back up the steps to see what had happened, when two officers arrested him for consuming alcohol in view of the playing surface. It defies belief. But I'm told we're different. As our friend from Portsmouth has pointed out this week; would this sort of discrimination be accepted anywhere else, or by anyone else, but football fans?

I was on a final warning in my old season ticket seat for foul and abusive language. I was reported by fellow fans for swearing, and risked losing my season ticket. Now in that seat, I was reserved, very reserved. It was on the halfway line and not a noise was made all season by anyone. They were spectators, I'm a participant, or like to be. I want to go to the game and let off some steam. I go to work to pay the bills, put a roof over the family heads, and to enjoy myself during my time off. I choose to do that at the football, something I've grown up with. It's always been a part of who I am. But in that seat, I had to control myself and just sit and watch the game, conforming to those around me for over 7 years. I must have sworn a handful of times in that entire period, when telling the referee where to go or some other trivial slip of the tongue. Yet I faced losing my season ticket and not being able to support my side over it. I was one swear word away from walking away from the game for good. If this was in a family enclosure I'd understand. I know when swearing is unacceptable, and in my view, a football ground is one of those places where it fits.

When I go to the match, I want to stand with fellow fans, my friends. I want to participate in the game, I want to support the side. I want to shout and I want to sing. I want to do the things that made me fall in love with the game and going to the match. But one by one, the authorities are trying to take all those things out of our game. To have us sat in silence, only singing when they want us to sing, and singing the songs they want us to sing. Blaring music over the PA system we are supposed to dance along to. We're unable to create an atmosphere ourselves it seems. For the future, see American sports for how it will go. Club issue foam hands can already be seen, dancing girls have been tried, the list goes on.
Keep sanitising; you'll soon be wondering where it all went wrong, when the very people that made this game what it is, have all long since disappeared. There's not many of us left. Soon there will be none.

Enjoy modern football. Enjoy scratching your heads in some plush office arguing with each other about who's to blame when the crowds start to stay away. I'll be long past the caring stage. You'll have brought it upon yourselves and destroyed a game loved by millions in the process. I hope it's worth it.



Dont know where the article is from or who wrote it but its spot on in my book

 

(Y) (clap) (clap) (clap)

 

yep - agreed and the chelseas and man citys will push this even further

spot on

 

Bang on the button isn't it nt

 

Yep agree with all that, pretty much echoes my thoughts. I am currently considering cancelling my Sky Sports subscription as I just don't see the point anymore. I should stop contributing to the greed that is killing the game.

 

Lost interest in the Prem a long time ago

Rich boys play thing - these guys have no interest in football - just there to make a fast buck , Dinah or whatever else currency they spend!

 

Yes, The Bubble will Burst

Notice that Man Utd and Newcastle have available season tickets they can't sell, unheard of 2 years since. Are the football Prima Donnas outpricing themselves.

I, like, others are finding that Premiership matches are becoming a bit of a bore. I would sooner watch the cup or a Championship match. Considering dropping the sport option on Sky.

 

Good article

An argument further exacerbated by the FA's barmy decision to sell England to Setanta.

I used to watch all England matches with my grandad home or away at all hours of day...

However my 9 year old son will have to watch Xfactor tonight or the eurovision dance contest on terrestrial tv instead of England in a world cup qualifier.

Hang your heads in shame Football Association

 

found this on 606.
read on until the end,it gets funny as.

And another thing, all this city business is doing my head in as well, and not for the reasons that blues would like to think. I¿m sure this ballroot will throw cash about like it¿s nobody¿s business, but it must be a specific gene that only blues have that makes them take everything to the absolute extreme; the giddy goat gene.

This time last year Thaksin Shinawatra took over. They all started calling him 'Frank', hilariously, and decreed that this was a new dawn for their club. They would be in the Champions League within two years and champions within five. 'Frank' put his money where his mouth was too, paying the bucks to get in Eriksson and then a slew of players like Elano, Petrov, Bianchi, Bojinov etc. Don't forget that they spent about 50m last summer - the same as United. Six months later it had all gone tits up, as it generally does at city, and your average Bertie had changed his tune, err, massively.

Well a year later, history is repeating itself. City have more or less the same side as last season. Jo might well be a success, but frankly it's 50/50 on that one. He could equally be a Turkey. Shaun Wright-Phillips has always been a good player, but is simply not at the level whereby he will play every week in a top four outfit. He excels for mid-table sides, and if city are to be Champions League material it won't be with SWP in their first XI. Ask Chelsea. The elephant in the room here is Robinho, but despite the giddiness of blues about someone whose reputation, gleaned primarily because of his nationality, far outweighs any actual evidence of his quality, I would predict that he will flop badly. The very fact that he is at Eastlands, coupled with the whole pantomime extrication from Madrid, shows that he cares principally about money, closely followed by his own reflection. He is every inch the modern footballer, and now city have become every inch the modern club: hollow and self-regarding. We should know.

I don't doubt that the Sheikh has bottomless pockets, but surely there is more to success than just throwing dough at it. Arguments against that will cite the fact that Chelsea managed it, but Chelsea were never making as big a step as city are attempting. They were already an attractive proposition to the world's best talent and had been steadily building for the previous 10 years through the likes of Gullit, Vialli and Zola. Crucially, they had Mourinho. He was the single biggest reason why Chelsea won the league. He is simply a brilliant, brilliant manager, and players like Terry, Lampard and Drogba would never have become champions without him. Hughes is good, but is nowhere near the Mourinho bracket, and what will happen when the inevitable interference comes? It is just fantasy football made real for these billionaires, and they haven't invested their millions just to sit and watch some Welsh no-mark pick their team. Witness Thaksin vs Sven last year and the ultimate demise of Mourinho at Chelsea.

All these new owners are cnuts. Make no mistake. Except maybe Steve Gibson who appears a genuine supporter. Randy Lerner is getting a good press, but do you reckon he sat watching Peter Withe and Gordon Cowans from his ranch in Ohio when he was a kid? He has yet to reveal his true hand, but its only a matter of time before there are marches around the Holte End like there have been at OT, Anfield and even Stamford Bridge over the last few years. And let's not forget the loveable Glazers in all of this. They are the biggest cnuts of all because none of the rest of these feckers have put their clubs in hundreds of millions of pounds of debt for absolutely no reason whatsoever.

The only solution would be for English clubs to be judiciously banned from the Champions League and for all TV money to be divided up equally. The winners of Premier League should get the same as the relegated clubs - if not less. The likes of United would still have more due to gate receipts and merchandise etc, but it would not be a self-perpetuating cycle of success whereby no other clubs can get in. It would mean that we could avoid the current inevitability, which is that United and a select few others are so far out on their own so that we will win everything for the rest of history and that even clubs as big as Tottenham or Everton or Villa will never, ever, challenge for the title.

That's the way it is going at present, and that's the way it will continue to go because football is fecked and it has been for a long time. After this season I'm giving it up and going to write books, paint, smoke shitloads of weed and be a subsistent farmer in County Donegal. There I will wear nothing but sack cloth and have a harem of young girls, one of which I will sacrifice on the third Sunday of May each year to the gods so that the summer may bring a fruitful harvest. **** football, it's gay as ****.

 

i couldn't agree more with the article and with peoples comments.. it's doomed.

 

That article is spot on - it says what an awful lot of people think. Couple that with the impending recession, and football will have big problems.

First thing to go for many people will be the weekly £50 ticket, closely followed by the £40 odd quid subscription to $ky. Who on earth is going to pay £50 to watch football when they are struggling to pay the gas and electric bill and put food on the table.

And I've thought for years that people must be mad to pay for Sky. I dropped it in 1994 when it reached £20 a month.

I was reading the Mail this morning and there is an article in the TV mag about Coleen Mcwhatsername and her wedding. She was 35 minutes late for her blessing because her bridesmaid's dresses zip had bust and she needed sewing into it - but not to worry 'cos that why she ensured there were 2 stylists and a tailer on hand. Just thinking that I was paying for that would make me cancel my Sky subs.

Do it!. (blagger)

 

Fully agree with the article

And the following comments posted on the thread.

 

What an idiot

"I know when swearing is unacceptable, and in my view, a football ground is one of those places where it fits."

No it isn't.