Difficult to be rational after that

Awful. Henderson had to carry him for the whole game. And the Italy game he must have lost the ball about 8 times from that stupid f*cking diagonal punt that he ALWAYS plays from one corner to another.

Like a scouse Eric Tinkler.

 

My attitude to football in general is much the same as yours mate, but I have to say that every game I've watched in the tournament so far (England apart) has been worth watching. Lots of open games, attacking football, and some great goals.

Of course, lots of play acting and cheating to wind you up too, but there's been more worth watching in a week of the World Cup than I've seen in the last 4 years on match of the day.

 

I agree about the ref. Godin should 100% have been sent off. But the England players dived all night. And, the passion of the Uruguayan's bettered ours. Second to every 50/50 we were. Spineless.

I actually hate football. If I wasn't in love with my Barnsley FC, I'd sack it off.

 

It was a blatant second yellow at best. Could have altered so much, if we're honest.

 

To be fair, that's not been difficult. Barnsley really haven't been up to much. The fact that we all keep going is a minor miracle. It's nothing to do with football though really, it's our home town.

I was on holiday when the 2013-14 season started. I set MOTD for series record with the intention of catching up when I got back. I was busy at first, so couldn't watch them straight away and missed a couple more as I wanted to watch them in order. As this went on, I found that I enjoyed Saturday nights far more when I didn't watch MOTD. I never did try to catch up, deleted the recordings and turned the series link off. Haven't missed it one bit. I'd already given up on live European games years ago.

I realised that I didn't like football any more. After watching the game for above 35 years, I no longer cared. The money has ruined it. I still have the same passion for Barnsley as I ever did, maybe even more so, but in my opinion the game is damaged beyond repair. I dare say I have missed some very good games at this world cup, but my interest has gone. I might watch some of it as we get in to the later stages, but that will probably be if I have nothing else to do, rather than setting aside time to watch a game.

 

What about the two challenges on Rooney, neither of which were given a yellow card, both of which could have resulted in serious injury. I don't think the ref protected the players nearly enough. Not that footballers help themselves by trying to con the ref all the time.

 

It's really interesting that Jay, you've got there about a year after me. I wonder why? I put mine down to a combination of the way the modern game is allied to fatherhood giving a shift in priorities, but I think for me you can trace it back to the Gordon Shepherd incident.

I'm not even that bothered about Barnsley anymore to be honest.

 

Ahh national pride at its best, no fecking wonder we fail to achieve when half the country seem to want us to fail.
Thank **** Rooney scored at least it's not going to be his fault we didn't win the world cup.

 

I would say that both England games also come into that category, just maybe more difficult to see that when we lost.

 

And yet the England player didn't dive and roll about on that one - in fact the commentator even said that had he rolled about he might have got the player sent off. So seems now that in order for the ref to do what he should do the fouled player has to cheat!

 

The Gordon Shepherd incident nearly did for me with Barnsley. If me dad didn't go to games, it definitely would have done, but I carried on going because I sat with him. I also had that feeling that I wasn't going to let the b'stards spoil it for me, so I kept going even when I didn't care. Because I kept going, I did begin to care again. Then last season something special happened. We weren't good enough to stay up. Nowhere near good enough, but we did. And we did it in a season when you needed record points to stay up. We did it because the players went at each game like they really cared. That struck a chord and I was back to where I was before any of that **** happened.

Would I still care if I lived across the Pennines with a full time job and a child? Zero chance. It would be part of my past. But I live in Barnsley, my wife works long hours, I work irregularly, I have a lot of spare time and BFC fills a hole.

Falling out with football as a sport is much easier to explain. Like TFP has always said, football is ****.

 

Hmm. It's strange. I go, admittedly irregularly, and then I am bothered, and I think I've got the bug again - Charlton away this season was probably in my favourite 20 games ever - but then practicalities get in the way of getting to the next game and I'm out of it again.

I'm the same, after the Shepherd thing I only kept going because my Dad was going and it was a way of staying in touch. I think it did start the whole thing off of caring less though because oi guess it opens your eyes to the fact that a love that you put so much time and worry into is completely unrequieted.

It is ****, though like. Rugby league, cricket, tennis, American football, and nipsy are all better to watch...

 

What's the shepherd thing again?

I'm sure it's been mentioned on here before but I can't remember the gist of it.

 

I want to start nipsy up again, but I'm entirely the wrong person to do it, what with being a lazy b'stard and that, so what I really want is to find someone with some get up and go, who thinks starting nipsy up again would be a great idea, and they can do it all. The older I get the more Barnsley I want to be without having to actually do anything.

I can't believe I don't know this, but is your kid a boy or a girl? I did know, but I've forgotten. Not that it makes much difference these days, but you can usually get almost all lads to go to the football at least once, where as it's a 50/50 with lasses, as they may have already been got at before you make the suggestion. Wanting to go back is about the same amongst the sexes I reckon. That's where your passion might start up again, if you take your child and they enjoy it and want to go back. Then you do what your dad did with you and travel all over the country watching the reds.

 

"the Gordon Shepherd incident"

Sounds intriguing. Or like a chapter in a Sherlock Holmes novel. Or an allegation that I've been fiddling with farmyard animals.

Care to expand, or would your legal advisors politely advise you against this?

 

It's not for me to say. It was something that affected Tyketical Msterstroke and as such it's up to him if he wants to make that information public.

I had my own incident, but I still don't feel the time is right to speak about it publicly.

 

Well if you mention it on here you really ought to expand instead of being so cryptic ...