Bedred31

If you think being a parachute payment team is irrelevant, you’re gong to have to explain why Burnley and Sheffield U - two teams who had a terrible season last year- are 1 and 2 in the league- and by a country mile.

And, like, having no commercial income at all from ticket sales, food, drink etc for over 12 months was irrelevant to all this?

People who think the Landsdowns are ‘a pox’ need to explain where the £20m + pa to cover our losses is going to come from without them? Vague ‘financial consortiums’ don’t come up with that sort of write off money, fans like SL do. And while I dare say that some is the spending under Junior/ Ashdown was unwise, these were the players ( ie this was the spending ) that allowed us to compete in the top half of the Championship. People on here who complain about ‘deadwood’ and ‘financial mismanagement’ really understand nothing about modern football, the effects of Covid or FFP. SL is a great chairman and when he’s gone- and I dare say he will be soon- we’re going to miss him mightily.

Yeah, I remembered about 16k! We had some good Boxing Day results. Encouraged by this one, whole family went to the Hawthorns on Boxing Day a couple of years later and we were thumped 3-0. My mum was so appalled I don’t think she went again until the final in 1987- which we also lost.

Outstanding OP - and much appreciated. Christmas exile to family in rural Suffolk- no Sky. Personally would take a draw now.

My conditional category 3 ticket for the final- allocated via the ESTC and valid had England reached the final - was about £700. ( I paid this in June, incidentally- refund probably about February next year.) In other words, a seat behind the goal was the equivalent of almost 2 years season tickets at the Gate. And my cat 1 Euro final ticket last year was £900. Pricing for major competitions is now beyond obscene and FIFA will simply lose the fans if this continues. As a more mature fan, I can remember the 1982 World Cup in Spain. Terraces and tickets cost a few quid- sold on the day from cigarette kiosks in Bilbao!

We’ve lost £64m over the last two seasons. £64m. I really don’t think we’ll be bringing in 6/7 players in January. And if NP decides to stay, I’ll be pretty grateful. It’s pretty crap at present and I suspect it’s going to get a lot worse over the next 18 months or so. We’ve been here before and survived. We’ve been relegated before and bounced back.

Just about to post the same. Complete hero- even got a positive response from D Dublin.

Budweiser, I agree, is not exactly real ale, but when it’s 32 degrees and you’ve traveled over desert by bus to get to the flippen ground, it would have gone down nicely, even at £12 for 500 mills. Good chap on the England Supporters Travel Club Facebook page has posted an exhaustive Doha drinking guide. I fly tomorrow. And on a strictly personal note, since this morning my growth is not a ‘tumour’ but a ‘cyst’, meaning that it’s not cancer and I’m apparently not going to die, although it seems that a chunk of my tongue may have to be chopped out. So if you’re at Gatwick’s South terminal around lunchtime tomorrow and you see a 50 something bloke lying on the carpet, laughing uncontrollably and swimming in Stella and his own urine, do say hello.

Actually, 50 years on 25 Nov- first game was a 1-0 win v Sunderland. On the plus side, the 5p program ( which I still have) is now £2.99 on the inter web. Bizarrely, I’ll be in Qatar for the USA game on the anniversary- would never have believed that then.

I’ve been supporting City for 50 years next month (blimey) and this is a very long way from the worst I’ve seen.

Bit of (admittedly tangential) context. In my area, Luton airport has just finished the Luton Dart- a monorail between the station and airport. It’s only 1.4 miles long. It replaces an efficient existing bus service. It cost £210m ( that was the 2017 budget- final costs are not confirmed yet). And it’s sole purpose is to reduce the journey time for passengers ( essentially EasyJet) by 4mins. This, I’m told, is ‘levelling up’- not helping people in Portzed to commute to work in the docks or the city.

Classic example of the truism that when an employer adopts a complex appointment process, the successful applicant is usually the candidate who best adapts to the process, rather than the best person for the job.

Doesn’t make his matchday experience any cheaper! Means effectively he has to pay for a second ticket for a carer, which is reduced from what it might otherwise be, but that he pays as much- and generally a bit more- than you or I. Or, in other words, that being disabled makes life more difficult and more expensive. ( My adult son is severely disabled and, honestly, there’s really no upside, financial or otherwise).

Years and years ago at England matches, it was ‘one man went past Mo, went past Maurice Malpas, one man and his guide dog went past Maurice Malpas’. Now, as a ageing, respectable professional member of the establishment, I still laugh at that.

Virtually any footy crowd can be controlled by half a dozen British policeman- 2 on horseback, 2 with dogs, 1 with a video and 1 to drive the van. Then there’s France or Italy, where you have half a dozen different para military outfits and officers equipped with automatic weapons, handguns, tear gas, riot shields and mirrored sunglasses.

I did a bit of refereeing in the late 80’s after I finished playing. N and E London, specifically the magnificent Hackney Marshes. The piece of golden advice I was given when I started was ‘don’t referee kids or the Greek League’. Sound advice then.

This, I know, will jar with the modern zeitgeist, but female presenter interviewing England’s women players for their halftime thoughts is not the way to cover England v Germany.

Fair point about free coverage. And to be fair, Le Saux’s an ok contributor.

Yes- results aside, quite the most awful footy coverage I’ve ever seen. Can’t think of a single aspect that is better than dire.

Southgate going the way of all England managers. Playing players out of position and players who are demonstrably out of form and not playing for their clubs, because they’ve served him well in the past. He seems to have lost any ability to inspire or motivate, and he’s always been a fairly ordinary tactition. His major advantage- luck ( he’s never had serious injuries like Erickson and has two pretty favourable draws in competitions- seems to be deserting him as well. With a bit of that luck, we’ll have a respectable World Cup, but I can’t see him in post this time next year.

A look at the Championship ins and outs is striking. Virtually every club has significantly more outs than ins. Burnley really the only club with a number of big sales ( one or two other isolated examples) and almost every fee ‘undisclosed’. Compared to 3 years ago, the Championship market has collapsed, although the parachute payment clubs can still evidently pay competitive wages. If NP achieves anything from this he’s a genius- no City manager has been so restricted since Russell Osman put his hand in his pocket at a presser and pulled out coppers.

Bugger- it’s tomorrow isn’t it.

But not in the next hour and a half- absolute genius having a full fixture list on deadline day.

Ref then allowed + 5 mins, primarily to allow for the numerous Cardiff subs in the second half, notwithstanding that it was ‘their time’! As a postscript, I remember no subs- just. Came in for the 1970 World Cup, I recall, as FIFA were worried about playing at altitude and heat in Mexico.