phantom

3 hours ago, Never to the dark side said:

Eddie Hitler

You did not reply to the posting about me knowing about the new EFL deal twelve months ago

regarding the items that secret Sam wants to give away I would be very interested in the paper cuttings

Have you been in touch with the heritage and Archive group? 

I'd imagine you must have an immense historical collection of City related memorabilia 

FSA view on FA Cup replays? Keep them!

Posted on 19th April 2024

The FA’s decision to scrap FA Cup replays in all rounds of the competition has been met with what can only be described as anger by many EFL and non-league clubs, football figures and supporters at all levels of the game. 

As well as replays there is real concern across football that many of the things which make the FA Cup special – its history, heritage and tradition – are also under threat.

The level of anger at the decision to scrap replays should not come as a surprise to anyone at the FA as we have consistently made clear, in a number of recent meetings, what supporter feeling is when it comes to this issue. 

In addition we outlined the problems that stretching a “weekend” from Friday to Monday causes travelling supporters but the FA are still pressing on with that scheduling and even extending it during the 4th Round which will run from Friday to Wednesday. More TV disruption for matchgoers.

Bottom line – the FSA supports FA Cup replays in all rounds of the competition.

We are not exactly new converts to this either, as it’s something we’ve warned about for decades right back to when we passed a motion supporting replays at our 2004 AGM.

In our submission to the Fan-led Review (July 2021, see p84) we also argued that the remit of an independent regulator should extend to the FA Cup in order to offer another layer of protection and supporter engagement. 

This was not included in the Football Governance Bill which is currently passing through Parliament but we’d certainly support any amendment which proposed it.

Wrecking ball to replays? UEFA also to blame

No football competition organiser exists in isolation and, while the FA are rightly being held to account and facing protests, neither UEFA nor the Premier League’s richest clubs should be allowed to dodge the bullet either. Their greed is the catalyst for this decision.

The start of this process can be traced back to UEFA’s capitulation to the demands of the richest Champions League clubs for whom nothing was ever enough. The competition format never satisfied them as they wanted more and more games (translation – more and more money).

This ultimately led to the expansion in European competition which we will see next season with an extra 4-6 Champions League games per club “thanks” to the Swiss Model – and it’s the FA Cup which has paid the price to free up those additional dates.

We raised awareness at a continental level and lobbied UEFA with our friends at Football Supporters Europe (FSE) for many, many years warning that this could be the outcome and that “the FA Cup would become primarily a midweek competition without replays” if European competitions were allowed to bloat.

Football fans across the continent backed an FSA motion at 2019’s European Football Fans’ Congress (EFFC) which opposed the increase in the number of European fixtures and established six key principles against which any reform should be measured. We were proud to lead that debate and establish something which supporters’ groups from a variety of countries could get behind.

In summer 2022 we were a co-signatory to FSE’s #WinItOnThePitch campaign which argued that “more European games will make the rich richer and undermine competition… the extra pressure on domestic calendars would also endanger domestic cup competitions.”

We predicted that this would happen if football executives were given the sole responsibility of determining the direction of the game. Supporters’ voices across the continent were ignored with greedy owners largely getting their own way on this one.

We have met with the FA a number of times and told them every time that replays were a critical part of the FA Cup’s heritage and the majority of fans would oppose any attempt to scrap them. We pointed to FSA policy and supporter surveys.

It’s yet another example of why an independent regulator is badly needed to rein in the power of clubs and give supporters a real voice in shaping our game and competitions.

While our biggest football institutions argue amongst one another, supporters are left on the sidelines with no voice in the room or votes to cast when these big decisions are taken.

How is FSA policy decided?

The FSA supports the retention of FA Cup replays in all rounds of the competition – this is an established policy which was set by members at the 2004 Annual General Meeting (by one of our predecessor organisations the Football Supporters’ Federation) where policies are proposed, debated and voted upon.

We test our headline policies against support opinion on a periodic basis and our National Supporters Survey (released August 2023) asked a range of questions relating to the FA Cup – they showed that support for replays still exists.

69.5% of fans said replays were an important aspect of the FA Cup.

26.1% were in favour of abolishing replays in the FA Cup.

Meanwhile 38.8% of respondents felt that if both clubs agree in advance then they should be allowed to avoid a replay and go straight to extra time and penalties.

Those stats are based on the responses of almost 10,000 individual supporters.

Following that we ran a consultation amongst our member supporters’ organisations to dig into the views of our supporter groups in a little more detail. That work was, by design, more detailed and contextualised the feelings of those groups.

Once again the majority supported the concept of replays with arguments often reiterating the importance of tradition, heritage and the magic of the Cup. Those who were agnostic or opposed replays tended to focus on practical matters – reducing fixture congestion and / or saving on tickets, travel and other matchday expenses

2 hours ago, northsomersetred said:

City in favour according to this spreadsheet and page

 

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/119dSeHfdaXguSElRMRA2xTmQm8M8aP0iMjxq7H4JQuU/edit?pli=1#gid=0

 

 

1 hour ago, ExiledAjax said:

Based on Norwich's press conference from yesterday? I don't buy it. If ever there was a time for "I don't believe it until I see it on the OS", it's now.

Am I missing something here? 

Where have we said we're in favour? 

It's just a list of clubs who come out and said they're against it 

Answered my question during the match comms

Kookaburra is machine made, the Duke ball is man made

Completely different seam because of this

Kookaburra seam is 1/4 depth in comparison to the Duke making the ball feel smaller to a bowler 

Kookaburra doesn't shine as well, and doesn't swing as well

Kookaburra reverse swings better

Duke is a waxier material

Only England and West Indies use the Duke ball

Still unsure why they are using both though

The Championship is looking really interesting to see who will be taking our place 

This Sunday (21/04) is:

Lewes (11th) Vs Crystal Palace (1st)

Sunderland (2nd) Vs Charlton (3rd) 

Sunday 28/04 is:

Charlton (3rd) Vs Southampton (4th)

Crystal Palace (1st) Vs Sunderland (2nd)

Hameed gone for a third ball duck !!

Can someone answer what is going on with the balls being used please?

Last week it was a Kookaburra ball, this week a Duke ball

6 minutes ago, spudski said:

If you expand the photo showing the number 4, you can see it's hand stitched and not on straight. The last bit was common back then though. 

I just got forwarded this 

11 minutes ago, Topper 123 said:

Why would we have been doing it for years our crowds have never been near to sell outs before ?

Exactly, they are never released for sale

If you look it is the same gaps in specific parts of the stadium over time

15 minutes ago, Walshy said:

It may be a genuine replica shirt from 1986, but the style of number isn't correct for a match worn shirt. The numbers that season had a red line border on them.

Could be a reserve or youth team shirt, or just a fans replica who put their own number on it.

Difficult to compare to this picture as the red line isn't the outline, where as the pic on the eBay account is

It is odd though that they have no picture of the actual number

20 minutes ago, frenchred said:

.......if supporters have to endure another borefest of football and a mediocre finish............

Personally I would say this has been most of the years I have been watching since 1987

14 minutes ago, TV Tom said:

He was on City's books, my boy went to school with him, a lovely kid

Remember him playing for us, good to see him still playing to a decent standard 

Here's an interesting angle of the celebrations 

https://vm.tiktok.com/ZGeHmcKrE/

Highgate needed a 12 goal swing to make the play-offs in the ninth tier Midland League.

Final match of the season last night 

Taunton relegated after losing at home to Weston 1-0

Marlon Jackson with an 84th minute winner 

Didn't know that rule either 

I assumed it was one of those instances where an official missed a booking 

No, you've got it wrong 

He did show him the yellow 

Confirmed yellow during a game is separate to in the shoot out

1 hour ago, Topper 123 said:

The only tickets available other than on our site are the complimentary tickets that don’t get taken up at last minute and restricted views , Bristol City do not hold batches of tickets back WHY WOULD THEY 

I assume you realise we have been doing exactly this for years?

Have a look at the sales for the Leicester game where extra sections (not just corporate) became available

3 hours ago, Clutton Caveman said:

Get our singing section out of that bloody corner

Do they want to move?

21 minutes ago, ollywhyte said:

Reduce the max away following to say 2k and then release the 1.5k or so spare seats on an unallocated basis to home fans. Far to accommodating to away fans as it is. 

Where are those extra supporters coming from?

2 hours ago, Robbored said:

The competition has to have the same regulations in every round. It wouldn’t be acceptable to introduce ‘no replays’ in round 3 when the big boys join in.

Already raised about 5th round onwards, but why are replays still happening in the qualifying rounds?

With the crazy backlogs for many non league sides at the moment, I am sure they could benefit from needless replays too

2 hours ago, sephjnr said:

There should have been a provision to guarantee home draws for non-PL teams vs PL. That would be much fairer to increase revenue instead of nebulous donations to 'grass roots', which I suspect is slang for 'bypass the other professional outfits and establish our own training facilities'.

How would a side with a capacity of 10k make more moeny being at home against a team that could hold 40k?

1 hour ago, Dredd said:

How about if it's all square at the end of 90 mins after the first game the PL club can choose to forfeit the replay and go out of the competition. 

If we think VAR takes a long time, imagine how long a board of directors would take to agree on this

15 hours ago, 22A said:

OK folks, a neutral has answered our eternal question.

 

Blimey that's a great flashback

Appeared on the early pages in this thread a while back

5 hours ago, TV Tom said:

Look at Dave with the showbiz gossip 

You should see the graphics he has on his movement - it is epic

1 hour ago, The Original OTIB said:

Right at the very end. It isn't my technology Dave. I'm glad it worked for you this time. They are aware of issues. I've had numerous conversations with them about Word Pay and its failings. That aside, merely pointing out that leaving it to the last minute to renew not necessarily a good idea. Piss take booking fee as well given the large amount of money being spent. Oh, such joy.

Is word pay the only option you can use?

I genuinely don't know the answer - if it is can you let me know and I can raise for you at a higher level

15 minutes ago, wayne allisons tongues said:

All because the bigger clubs wanted less fixtures, voted for more European games, so the smaller teams miss out on extra income and the bigger clubs make more.

Interesting, but how many top clubs consistently progress to the later rounds?

Also many top clubs, especially Man City they play full strength sides all the way through so they are clearly not worried

What it does take away is the potential money maker from an additional game, but personally I like the idea of playing to a result on the day

It also means no stupid midweek trips

1 minute ago, BigTone said:

On the flip side it can be quite a revenue earner for some of the smaller clubs.

Agree, but ultimately how often does a smaller club get a replay with a big club?

Interesting debate on TV last weekend between key stakeholders, horses are obviously bred to be a top animal and are given a top lifestyle, but on a flipside nobody wants to see any of them pass away

One thing I didn't realise last year, the group that were behind all the demo's are a group that not only want to ban horse racing but they also believe any animal should not be kept as a pet - I'm not so sure if dog / cat owners had been made aware of this they would have got the support they got

Another fact highlighted, more people get killed on a daily basis in car accidents, but there are not calls to ban cars

Actual deaths on courses nowadays are much lower than in the past, and it was good to see those involved with the National listen to animal welfare groups about their recommendations to improve the safety, which ultimately was much better than in previous years

Behind football Horse racing is the second most watched sport in the UK, so there is clearly not that big an issue to the majority

Didn't the 3 Lions sell a replica of the shirt from around that time?