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Post by Bilk on May 6, 2008 15:17:32 GMT
Sounds like you're a GAA man at heart Bilk! Locals, playing for the love of the game for their club and county. You go to any local football fan who supports their home town premiership team if they'd rather see more locals playing on the team, or premiership and European titles, and you'll find where their hearts lie. The great Liverpool teams of yore weren't even full of locals. King Kenny ain't scouse by birth. And the standard of football today far surpasses the football 'back in the day'. There are downsides that you have pointed out, but IMHO, I believe that the good points far exceed the bad points. I don't diagree with what you say in part, but at least Kenny was from these islands. And quite a lot of British teams won Euorpean Chapionships back then too. Celtic even did it with 11 scotsmen on their team. Ok there wasn't 3 out of the four semi-final teams who were English clubs. But then to get that you have got to have changed the rules, again for the sake of money. That is that there are 4 teams from England in it from the start (you note I didn't say 4 English teams, I said 4 teams from England). Shamrock Rovers, Linfield, and wrexham don't bring in the same revenues so they have to go to make way for three more English clubs. Fuck the supporters of those poxy clubs they are nobodies who don't spend enough money. Why should they be allowed in to a sporting event that is for the elite (By the elite we mean the countries that bring in the most money here, not necessarily the best teams). Football is not about sport and the right of all to take part, it's about making money. Where does that end? Should England, Germany, Italy, and a couple of others play against only the 4 or 5 top teams from South America in the world cup. They could each be allowed to play 4 teams, the A,B,C and D team. The money would come rolling in to the few, the rest can go fuck themselves, with their airy fairy ideas of sport for all. I don't agree that the standard of football today is better, it is all about speed and no finess, and rolling around on the ground if someone so much as looks at you the wrong way. If that is your idea of a better standard then so be it, it's not mine. Go get yourself some DVD's of Games of the time, The Brazilian teams in the world cup, a joy to watch. Different style of football than todays, but that does not make todays more entertaining, just different. And my point is that the same money making teams will always come to the top. Not because they are the best teams, but because they have the money to buy the best teams. We were talking football here, what you enjoy is monopoly the board game. |
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Post by earl on May 6, 2008 15:47:05 GMT
Bilk, the modern player is a much more honed atheletic to the heavy smoking/Drinking players of your day. Granted, there's an element of oscar season about some players, but overall, players would run faster and perform at a more hectic level than back in the day, plus they have to play nearly double the amount of matches in a season.
I was watching 'Escape to victory' there over the weekend. Seeing Bobby Moore, Péle, Michael Caine and Stallone beating the Nazis. Heavy tackles all round. I could see Ronaldo never getting up from one of those tackles, and that was just for the film, nevermind in an actual cup game with something at stake!
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Post by Bilk on May 6, 2008 18:49:19 GMT
Bilk, the modern player is a much more honed atheletic to the heavy smoking/Drinking players of your day. Granted, there's an element of oscar season about some players, but overall, players would run faster and perform at a more hectic level than back in the day, plus they have to play nearly double the amount of matches in a season. I was watching 'Escape to victory' there over the weekend. Seeing Bobby Moore, Péle, Michael Caine and Stallone beating the Nazis. Heavy tackles all round. I could see Ronaldo never getting up from one of those tackles, and that was just for the film, nevermind in an actual cup game with something at stake! Yeah it was a mans game then, not an arena for a prancing bunch of overpaid prima donnas. Ronaldo would've lasted one season in the first division of English football and went home crying to his mum. |
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Post by bearhunter on May 6, 2008 20:07:05 GMT
"plus they have to play nearly double the amount of matches in a season. "
Rubbish. They play four fewer PL games than they would have in the old Div 1. It's only if there's a cup run or Euro involvement that the number of games is expanded and there were cup and european competitions back in the day too. I agree that the players are in way better shape today than 20-30 years ago, but they are not playing more football.
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Post by Bilk on May 8, 2008 11:57:13 GMT
"plus they have to play nearly double the amount of matches in a season. " Rubbish. They play four fewer PL games than they would have in the old Div 1. It's only if there's a cup run or Euro involvement that the number of games is expanded and there were cup and european competitions back in the day too. I agree that the players are in way better shape today than 20-30 years ago, but they are not playing more football. Agreed BH the premiereship is actually smaller that the old division 1 was. And they managed to run in the European chamionships then too. the difference was the top 4 weren't running, only last years winners. When 4 teams from one league get so far in the champions league it makes a mockery of the English league, and most of the top four have enough players to have two first teams. So to say they are more fit is a nonesense, there is just more of them they don't all play in all games. In fact when it comes to the Carling Cup and also the FA cup in recent years, few of the first team players play in those games, because they don't bring in enough money. So they actually play a lot less games. |
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Post by bearhunter on May 8, 2008 19:54:26 GMT
I was just looking soemthing yesterday that brought all this home to me: When Everton won the league in 1985, the team that won the deciding game contained five Englishmen, three Welshmen, two Scots and an Irishman. I can't help thinking that that was one of the last teams that was made up of "home" players to win the league.
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Post by Bilk on May 9, 2008 19:21:48 GMT
I was just looking soemthing yesterday that brought all this home to me: When Everton won the league in 1985, the team that won the deciding game contained five Englishmen, three Welshmen, two Scots and an Irishman. I can't help thinking that that was one of the last teams that was made up of "home" players to win the league. Think you might be right BH, I certainly wouldn't argue about that. |
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Post by Bilk on May 10, 2008 21:09:07 GMT
Now I'm getting really pissed, now it seems we are to have 5 English clubs in next years uefa cup. It appears that whatever country comes top of the fair play league gets an extra team in the uefa cup. Who in the money making machine came up with this piece of skullduggery. Not satisfied with that, the next team in the league who should get in would be Blackburn Rovers. But no they come up with an equasion that would baffle a mathamatition and give him nightmares to get rid of Blackburn and instead rope in the other half of Manchester, as in Man City. I swear I will never watch another football game that is played in that den of iniquity, until they come back to the real world of football.
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Post by Jim on May 11, 2008 0:06:57 GMT
How long has it been since you paid attention to premier league football?
City have been accepted into Uefa through a Fair play league, not through the premier league, we are ahead of Blackburn because we dont foul as much, we have been given less yellow and red cards and have shown more courtesy to referees. Every other team to do that that is ahead of us have gotten Uefa or Champions league qualification before that.
Fuck Blackburn, I couldn't give a shite, I'm over the moon City have gotten into Europe and I've got my passprot ready and waiting.
Watch the fucking League one if your gonna moan about football losing its touch with the working class or if your yapping about money; Leicester City just got relegated into that league, theres a team for you.
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Post by Bilk on May 24, 2008 20:43:51 GMT
There are still hundreds of clubs at local levels, the Championship teams are still very local and fairly big compared to other leagues' lower divisions. TBH I could go and support a number of teams in the Championship and there will be none of the tripe you get at Premiership level, and know plenty that do and ignore the Premiership, a good mate of mine is a big time Southampton supporter and they're about to get relegated and he's spent the past week in the dumps about it, genuine fan, you rarely get that with top 4 teams. Can you picture United falling below 6th for a season? Most of their fans would end up being scousers tomorrow. Anyone who supports lower-mid league teams like Man City know hardship compared to top 4 teams and we are certainly not glory hunters either. I can understand your mates feelings, the reasons now are different. It is a terrible thing to get relegated, because of the money again. There are well known clubs in the championship struggling to stay afloat while the premiereship take all the money out of football. |
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