North London Red Posted January 30, 2018 Report Share Posted January 30, 2018 On 24/01/2018 at 13:08, The Bard said: Hopefully somewhere like Bilbao On 24/01/2018 at 14:14, Welcome To The Jungle said: Oh, that'd be nice. Never been to the (attempts spelling 4 times and gives up) Real Madrid Stadium, but as a tourist I'd rather it was somewhere outside the capital. Valencia or Bilbao would be my shout. The latter lets me have a holiday in the Pyrenees too. Unlikely to be in Bilbao or anywhere else in the Basque country (or Catalonia, for that matter). Spain tend to move their home games all around the rest of the country and I've been burned before when trying to guess which Spanish city an England game will be played in. Nobody saw Alicante coming in 2015, and back in the early 90s there was a Spain v England friendly in Santander. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Malmesbury-Red Posted January 30, 2018 Report Share Posted January 30, 2018 I would imagine the FA making a case for away fans to be allowed like NI fans were allowed in Serbia in 2011. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JamesBCFC Posted January 30, 2018 Report Share Posted January 30, 2018 5 minutes ago, North London Red said: Unlikely to be in Bilbao or anywhere else in the Basque country (or Catalonia, for that matter). Spain tend to move their home games all around the rest of the country and I've been burned before when trying to guess which Spanish city an England game will be played in. Nobody saw Alicante coming in 2015, and back in the early 90s there was a Spain v England friendly in Santander. Must have been a big bank. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Welcome To The Jungle Posted January 30, 2018 Report Share Posted January 30, 2018 21 minutes ago, Super said: http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/42874561 I'm not at a cap level where I yet feel confident booking in advance. I can understand the decision, but fans should have been made aware sooner Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
North London Red Posted January 30, 2018 Report Share Posted January 30, 2018 5 minutes ago, Malmesbury-Red said: I would imagine the FA making a case for away fans to be allowed like NI fans were allowed in Serbia in 2011. I'd hope so, but I'm not holding my breath. Plenty of England fans have already booked non-refundable flights to Croatia, and then onward flights from Croatia to Spain for the game there three days later. Thankfully I haven't booked anything for Spain yet but those who booked Zagreb > Madrid are now looking at either a very expensive re-booking, or flying to Croatia (in order to take their onward flight to Spain) and not seeing the game. Question is, when did the FA become aware of the possibility that this game might be behind closed doors? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Malmesbury-Red Posted January 30, 2018 Report Share Posted January 30, 2018 2 minutes ago, North London Red said: I'd hope so, but I'm not holding my breath. Plenty of England fans have already booked non-refundable flights to Croatia, and then onward flights from Croatia to Spain for the game there three days later. Thankfully I haven't booked anything for Spain yet but those who booked Zagreb > Madrid are now looking at either a very expensive re-booking, or flying to Croatia (in order to take their onward flight to Spain) and not seeing the game. Question is, when did the FA become aware of the possibility that this game might be behind closed doors? I haven’t booked anything yet. As was waiting for Spain game to be confirmed but would be first away missed for a fair few years so figures crossed gets sorted or moved to neutral venue. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
North London Red Posted January 30, 2018 Report Share Posted January 30, 2018 3 minutes ago, Malmesbury-Red said: I haven’t booked anything yet. As was waiting for Spain game to be confirmed but would be first away missed for a fair few years so figures crossed gets sorted or moved to neutral venue. This game could break quite a few long 'consecutive game' runs that fans have. The longest any fan can realistically have goes back to 1988; England played in Saudi Arabia, and the Saudis didn't issue any visas for that game, so the only English attendees were the team, the press and a small band of expats already living in Saudi Arabia at the time. The Turkey game in Istanbul 2003, when England fans were banned from travelling, apparently saw around 20 England fans make it in to the stadium - and some of the stories of how fans got there are amusing, since I understand the most popular ports of entry were staffed with people checking any British passport holder's name against the list of travel club members (one fan went to Syria and crossed back into Turkey via the land border; one got a boat from a Greek island, etc etc...) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JamesBCFC Posted January 30, 2018 Report Share Posted January 30, 2018 20 minutes ago, North London Red said: I'd hope so, but I'm not holding my breath. Plenty of England fans have already booked non-refundable flights to Croatia, and then onward flights from Croatia to Spain for the game there three days later. Thankfully I haven't booked anything for Spain yet but those who booked Zagreb > Madrid are now looking at either a very expensive re-booking, or flying to Croatia (in order to take their onward flight to Spain) and not seeing the game. Question is, when did the FA become aware of the possibility that this game might be behind closed doors? Surely the FA would have been aware as soon as the fixtures were announced. They'd surely have been aware of Croatia having sanctions on them, all they would have needed to do is check their fixtures. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KnowleUtd City Posted January 30, 2018 Report Share Posted January 30, 2018 I did Macedonia in 2003 when England were banned from attending, was probably a few hundred there. Rooney's first England goal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bryans Left Peg Posted January 31, 2018 Report Share Posted January 31, 2018 What the hell is this? Where has it come from? Looks like a cracking set up, if implemented properly. First time I've heard of it though! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cowshed Posted January 31, 2018 Report Share Posted January 31, 2018 16 hours ago, North London Red said: This game could break quite a few long 'consecutive game' runs that fans have. The longest any fan can realistically have goes back to 1988; England played in Saudi Arabia, and the Saudis didn't issue any visas for that game, so the only English attendees were the team, the press and a small band of expats already living in Saudi Arabia at the time. The Turkey game in Istanbul 2003, when England fans were banned from travelling, apparently saw around 20 England fans make it in to the stadium - and some of the stories of how fans got there are amusing, since I understand the most popular ports of entry were staffed with people checking any British passport holder's name against the list of travel club members (one fan went to Syria and crossed back into Turkey via the land border; one got a boat from a Greek island, etc etc...) 89 Albania. Was officials and players except a coach organised by a famous England fan named Pitman who also organised a trip to Saudi. The Albania trip is legend because the England fans were part of a non existent cultural exchange and the Albanian authorities were made to believed they would be welcoming an orchestra travelling by coach at the border. At the border some of the intrepid England fans produced instruments they could not play, but blagged their way in. Some of the same appeared in Turkey. The handful of fans including a notorious Bristol City fan would appear on no travel club list because in the case of the City fan, he was the type to appear in Paul Lumbers book. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BCFC1512 Posted January 31, 2018 Report Share Posted January 31, 2018 When Northern Ireland played Serbia few years back the Irish fa managed to get a 200 allocation for people who had already brought travel. Would hope our fa would attempt similer although I’m sure more then 200 have already booked travel. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wesco Posted January 31, 2018 Report Share Posted January 31, 2018 I think the difference is wasn't that announcement quite late on? UEFA will claim that they don't need to confirm venues etc until 90 days before the game so why have people booked. I don't think you can blame the FA or even the Croatian FA as I get the impression they thought they had served this ban 3 years ago. UEFA should have made it clear before the draw was made. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BCFC1512 Posted January 31, 2018 Report Share Posted January 31, 2018 1 hour ago, wesco said: I think the difference is wasn't that announcement quite late on? UEFA will claim that they don't need to confirm venues etc until 90 days before the game so why have people booked. I don't think you can blame the FA or even the Croatian FA as I get the impression they thought they had served this ban 3 years ago. UEFA should have made it clear before the draw was made. Yes Croatia played 2 FIFA games and thought they’d count towards the ban UEFA saying they didn’t Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ExiledAjax Posted January 31, 2018 Report Share Posted January 31, 2018 My one change to the suggested system would be for each League to have a trophy, and each one to have the four team mini tournament that League A has. My idea would be a great week of international football, hosted in two stadia in the same country where at the same time you'd have the top four teams in each league (those from B, C, and D knowing they were already promoted) playing a mini three match tournament. Play all games over a week with Semi-Finals on Monday (D), Tuesday (C), Wednesday (B), Thursday (A) nights and then the finals of League D and C on the Saturday and Leagues B and A on the Sunday League A get a massive Trophy, B gets a decent Cup, C gets a lovely Shield and D a nice Plate. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sephjnr Posted January 31, 2018 Report Share Posted January 31, 2018 19 hours ago, JamesBCFC said: Must have been a big bank. We lost to Iceland in the Euros, when Farmfoods would have been a better fixture. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JamesBCFC Posted January 31, 2018 Report Share Posted January 31, 2018 9 hours ago, Bryans Left Peg said: What the hell is this? Where has it come from? Looks like a cracking set up, if implemented properly. First time I've heard of it though! It's been really underpublicised. I first found out about this on a Football Manager game a couple of years ago (FM15?), but didnt see anything in public in real life about it until the summer just gone. Essentially it will replace the meaningless friendlies that go on through the season. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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