underover

43 minutes ago, Markthehorn said:

Particularly in the Netherlands.

Games regularly get held yo or even abandoned.

Apparently there was trouble last weeK with away fans in the home end .

 

 

 

It could just be recency bias but it does seem like it’s been slightly worse in NL than the last few years, equally likely that’s not the case though. The games are being cancelled now because of the ultimatum they made that anything on the pitch = suspension of the game anything further and it’s gone. 
 

There was indeed trouble last week too though not quite how you’re saying it. Without trying to condone the actions of either side it seems it’s not comparable (still poor and potentially it could have escalated to something like this but it’s seems as though it wasn’t quite the same/as bad). There were away fans in the home end but they were the players/clubs friends, family, and sponsors. Identical to the West Ham fans in Alkmaar last night. 
 

This is from an article on the incident last week and, hopefully my translation isn’t total nonsense, essentially cups of cola/drink were thrown (so I assume either plastic cups or bottle without lids knowing what they’re like in prem stadiums?) which is clearly poor and not nice to experience & verbal abuse/possibly threats. They were then escorted out at HT so who knows whether it would’ve escalated to the scenes we saw in Alkmaar last night. If WHU had lost then maybe. 
 

(https://www.nhnieuws.nl/nieuws/318880/az-wil-snel-over-tribune-incident-met-familie-en-sponsors-heen-stappen) 

This isn’t even the first time this has been an issue at Groningen although I believe the previous time the game was only temporarily suspended and they did end up playing the rest of that match (after the offending thrower was removed and slapped in the face). 

I understand they’re very very unhappy there with how their season has gone (if you look at the table it really is bad, only one team have done worse and they’ve done awfully though not quite as badly as Derby so every cloud I suppose), but it strikes me as incredibly selfish to be the person who throws something onto the pitch to mean the rest of the 10-20k people there don’t get to see the game they’ve paid to go to and paid to travel to etc. 

On 01/05/2023 at 14:13, Port Said Red said:

Pronounced Villhelm Tway as well

 

Just thought I would throw that into pedantry pot.

Well if we’re playing pedantry, it’s actually pronounced Vill-em not Vill-helm 

As someone who is highly proficient* in het nederlands, I’m of course happy to point out these intricacies where needed. 
*not at all proficient but I do know how to say some random obscure words so I reckon that qualifies me 

Anyway I have my own obscure Dutch team I’d like us to play in a friendly but that’s even less likely to happen than this one (and I can’t see this happening, if it was going to it surely would have by now?). 

On 25/04/2023 at 13:58, Kodjias Wrist said:

Agreed. Not sure whether its how the media highlights it. But there is certainly different treatment of English fans. Not sure its warranted either.

Agree, I think there are possibly some translation issues as some of the concepts just didn’t make sense but if I wrote a survey like this, and maybe the expectations are different for different degrees as mine is politics not psychology, I’d be told off for it… 

Nevertheless its an interesting topic and I wish the poster all the best with their data collection and writing the thesis, mine is actually somewhat similar but I imagine from a wildly different angle considering its not a psychology thesis! 

10 hours ago, ManCunian56 said:

Seems to be ok to be anti-Arab with all the racist terms branded about, about City's owner "dirty oil money" etc 
I didn't "come and argue the point on the forum of a championship club" I responded to an wholly inaccurate post about my club 
There's no need for you to be sorry about what you perceive to be my insecurity about the whole issue as I can assure you that I'm not insecure about anything and I have feel "zero cognitive dissonance"
So, an Arab gentleman buys a football club this is labelled "sportswashing"  what type of washing is the Arab nation doing entering into trade deals with the  UK Government?

Well as I said it’s a long documented phenomenon and doesn’t only apply to for example the owners of Manchester City or hosts of the latest World Cup. It also for example applies to the hosts of the 1936 Olympics, the 2002 Winter Olympics, the Argentinian Junta, and actually large sporting events are also part of the Welsh governments nation branding strategy. If any of the posters asking are actually genuinely interested in answers to their questions all you need to do is type ‘sportswashing’ into Google scholar and you will find a number of peer reviewed open access articles that will give you the very answers you seek. 
 

The phrase ‘oil money’ is not inherently racist or anti-arab, other countries other than the UAE, Saudi Arabia etc have oil and thus applicable to them too, infact similar has/had been levelled at Chelsea who, last time I checked, did not have an Arab owner. The fact also that the aforementioned states are rentier states is hardly a secret though, and everyone knows that rentier states, be it from oil or any other natural resource behave in different ways to those that aren’t rentier states, again this is a well documented fact. 

Again I make the point that if you actually want answers to some of the questions you ask, there are some great articles on it, they’re genuinely interesting and because they’re often not written by people who even give a flying F about football you’ll find them relatively free of any sporting biases (though of course no one is free of all bias). I’d love to leave you a detailed fully referenced answer but alas I only really spend any time on here on my days off and today was my last so I shall have to stop wasting my time on the internet and actually resume normal life. 
Do read up on it though I promise it’s interesting, if it helps your sensibilities read one about earlier Olympics or something. (And I don’t actually mean your regular media articles because they often have a sensationalist and also hugely overly reductive view of it, their job ultimately is to get clicks or sell papers so it makes sense really) (Also worth noting people quite often use the term sportswashing in place of soft power or similar, I’d argue that applies more the eg Qatar than sportswashing but again the perspectives and articles of sports writers vs politics/IR/policy/etc writers are often wildly different and the terminology too) 

21 hours ago, ManCunian56 said:

 “the propaganda machines of the zionist media owners. “ 

there’s nothing like a bit of casual anti-semitism to make your point is there! 
 

The phenomenon of sportswashing is well now well studied and easily definable, there exist plenty of academic articles on the matter many of which are open access and publicly available. It is simply a fact and has been well before there was actually terminology to describe it, it is a decades old phenomenon. 
 

I’m also not sure that saying that the UK and UAE have agreements and diplomatic relations really makes the point you think either, obviously they do, the UK has continuously had agreements and diplomatic relations with states that are to the general public morally dubious or unacceptable. The UK has also done things which to the general public are both of those things. 
 

I’m sorry that you feel so insecure about the whole issue that you feel the need to a) be anti-Semitic about it in general and b) come and argue the point on the forum of a championship club to presumably try and assuage some of the cognitive dissonance you surely feel.  It’s not your fault as an individual fan but honestly, that’s part of the broader phenomenon of sportswashing, which I promise you is a much more nuanced thing than many will have you believe or bother to try to understand. 

It must be me then, it’s not worked before in Belgium but I assumed it was my terrible connection but I’m on good WiFi here, I’ll send an email and try and see what the issue is, thanks all 

Before I try and figure out why it’s not letting me buy a march pass to watch the game (I’m in the Netherlands and am actually in the Netherlands rather than “in the NL” via VPN) and it’s not showing as an option, it hasn’t been selected for international broadcast somewhere that anyone can find has it? 
This isn’t the first I haven’t been able to get it to work from NL, France or Belgium - am I just being dumb? 

Not used it before but anyone know why I can’t get robins tv to offer video as an option? I’m in belgium and I’m actually in belgium so it’s not a country issue but it’s just not even as option 

Old Trafford had a similar policy at one point, directly following the attacks you could only have a small bag in the stadium, I'm not 100% sure if its still in place (I can't imagine its not its just not a common topic of conversation) but I know my mum, who has a large handbag because she stores all sorts of things in there including presumably a small country - possibly Liechtenstein, got a smaller one for essentials to take into the ground easy enough when it's a not even 5 minute walk from your home, small nation state thus not required, so it's clearly not just a Wembley/London thing, no airport style scanners for mum's gate but they do have the handheld metal detectors and have for a while. 

I agree with others the overground from Marylebone is really easy to Wembley including on an evening, we have also driven to High Wycombe and taken the train from there which is also very simple. 

Like others if anyone has 1 adult and 1 u21 or student ticket and can't go I'd be very grateful to buy them off you - my little brother (currently exiled in Durham for university) and my mum (currently exiled in Manchester) will be down to visit and we'd love if we could go together. I have my ticket already because I waste far too much of my time going to away days (last Saturday finally made the last few months worth it mind!) so home end & sitting on hands wouldn't really work for all 3 of us

The first thing anyone might want to do is to call Ukraine Ukraine and not "the" Ukraine which essentially plays right into the hands of putinist propaganda, I know a lot of you like to whinge about the nuances of language and snowflakes and want to know why it matters but in this case that one word makes a huge difference, here is why: 

essentially, Ukraine (possibly) translates to borderland, by using the definite article it essentially belittles the country to being part of/the borderland of russia/the ussr, it's why the usage of it fell off a cliff when they gained independence during the fall of the ussr, yes its likely no one in russia or ukraine will ever see it but essentially it's insulting and belittling, Ukraine is the official name of the country within its independence documents, I know its a tiny thing but language does matter a lot, if you're the type of person who usually thinks 'eh who cares' when people talk about how much language matters, let this be the one time you acquiesce, please.

Re: 'pointless' signs of solidarity, you never know who might see it who might find just a little bit of joy in it. I'm sure we've all seen just how much it clearly meant to Zinchenko at the Everton - Man City game, you never know who might have family, friends, their home in Ukraine who'll walk past a stadium or a building and see it and have it mean something to them even if its only for a few seconds. You never know who might see something on TV and have a gesture on TV mean something to them. Clearly its not material support, clearly they would rather have a no fly zone or more assistance or even help with food, resources etc (there are lots of initiatives going round so if you want to help that way and haven't a quick google or search on facebook should help you find somewhere to help in that way, if not, lots of the polish groups/societies/associations are organising that sort of thing so look there) but if something means someone to even just 1 second or 5 seconds then that's better than nothing no? Better than feeling totally isolated and alone. Considering it's no hardship to the club, no hardship to any of us I don't see any harm in it.  

(I'm not a fan of no.10 being lit in Ukrainian colours whilst they refuse to waive visas for refugees in contravention of what most other european countries have done but the club doesn't control that) 

43 minutes ago, Pezo said:

Tin foil time, do we really want to be that takes assets off of people because of hype?

The reason I say hype is there seems to be a lot of talk about RA but what about everyone else that's made serious amounts of dodgy (in another country) out of being linked to VP.

Or is it anyone that's from that starts ?

Or is it anyone our don't currently like while they search for popular ?

Are people that work for RA safe from seizing there assets? they've done well off of the dodgy money

All I'm really asking is what are the rules as you all see them?

Also what are the checks and balances because it's sounds somewhat mob rule /despotic to me at the moment.

Media hype? Yes the war, illegitimate invasion, bombing of civilians, posts form Russian soldiers on instagram talking about how they want to genocide ukrainians (obviously doesn't mean it's official policy but still) (and I know that quite the claim and I can post an instagram account but unless you speak Russian it won't do you any good re: corroboration), shooting down civilians, using thermobaric missiles, using cluster bombs, the death squads sent for zelensky, this is of course all just media hype

Never mind the fact that others have actually been sanctioned, Abramovich has been conspicuously missing from the list, so don't worry its not just RA, the fuss is around RA because he's missing from a list that already exists.

Obviously the existing govt don't care that London has been used by some as their personal laundrette for their cash otherwise something would have been done much much sooner, nevermind the donations from some of those now sanctioned to the conservative party, but now they 'have' to so to speak. There's a new bill coming in on the subject I believe so I suppose if you want to know what the rules are on the topic then, once that has passed read that statute.  

4 hours ago, Fordy62 said:

Hasn’t he said he’ll be donating the proceeds of the sale to victims of the war in Ukraine?

The cynic in me thinks that can be read in two different ways. 

Me too, I think it's cleverly worded but maybe I'm just very cynical... victims of course could be Russian conscripts, or the Russian speaking regions that supposedly needed liberating etc etc or even the poor old sanctioned oligarchs, multiple ways you can read that 

I would’ve said I’m surprised it hasn’t come up sooner but like others I’ve honestly never read it so I’d imagine that’s the same for a fair few people, including whoever was supposed to be fact checking apparently! 

1 minute ago, AppyDAZE said:

If you're talking about O'Dowda just standing there, let's face it how easy was it for them to find their way up to our penalty area in the second half?

Was all that down to one bloke?

It was the team that let Reading back into it tonight when we should have gone for the throat and killed the game.

 

Was literally just replying to that part of that post not commenting on the whole thing and I also did clearly say it’s not specifically his fault/can’t be blamed on him so… not sure what you’re wound up about there tbh 

Very often opposition players have had too much time & room against us, it was particularly bad from about the 65-70th minute today, I’m not disputing that or talking about anything else because again I was just commenting on something someone else mentioned that triggered a memory not writing a match report 

1 hour ago, JonDolman said:

On the Scott bit of the goal, how weird he didnt go for the tackle. Not like him.

But then Weimann is near Ince and stands there pointing allowing Ince to run with the ball into the box. 

Not sure what O'Dowda did in the build up to the goal? Seems like it was his fault as well but can't remember why?

Could’ve just been in the moment but I’m sure there was someone well before (well not ages 30 seconds ish) the 1st goal where odowda didn’t close someone down and just stood there which allowed them to start what the penalty came from, can’t really say it’s 100% his fault but I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why he was just standing there when he wasn’t marking anyone, mind you my opinions about football are normally terrible and I have an awful memory so…

9 hours ago, BRIAN WILSON said:

Is that Police Horse (Pretty WPC's by the way ) really wearing sunglasses ?? 

they are actually horse sunglasses yes! some horses have medical conditions where pretty much any light is either painful or causes a lot of deterioration of the eye, they do look pretty whack though 

Save yourself the time and leave much later! You’ll get there the same time it’ll just be less awful 

Currently M6 road works are the best they’ve been for ages, finished the oldbury viaduct, no more contra flow at Stafford but a 60 limit for about 20 miles, 50 limit for a bit just past Manchester.  Not done to Blackpool for a while but took a horse trailer to Fleetwood and it took about 4 hours (slower than it would take a car) but if you’re leaving wilts at 4pm on a Friday expect brum to be a mare, should be clear-ish after that because by the time you clear brum all the traffic up the m6 will have likely made it home! Basically 4-5hours maybe more depending on how lucky or not you get!

Edit: I’d also reccomend the m6 toll despite the cost, it really makes a difference (used to do Aztec West/Falfield junction to Manchester all the time) 

Scott definitely has a song, semenyo I’ve also heard the viva ronaldo to viva semenyo for. 
 

Not sure if there was originally an idea for Kalas that never took off but I always feel like there’s a bit of a sweet spot with songs and if it’s missed then they’re (unlikely to) get one, could be wrong just how it’s seemed in recent years, not sure what Kalas has to do to get one (maybe write it himself?), heard people singing/trying one for Klose at Preston 

3 hours ago, Eddie Notgetinya said:

Moron 

I see why you & others would be angered and annoyed by TR’s comment and whilst it certainly isn’t the point of the thread and I don’t think this should be derailed to discuss policing, that whole saga - the whole case, the vigil and the handling of everything around it in the following days - did cause a significant loss of trust of the police and especially the MET amongst women in general. Whether it affected Harriet Robson we will never know and it’s not really our business, just wanted to point out that whilst it was probably inflammatorily phrased it’s not the most moronic comment… 

Anyway respond/quote me etc if you like but I won’t reply because like I said I wouldn’t want to derail the whole thing but I did think it was unfair that some folks didn’t seem to be able to get where that post was (maybe/probably) coming from. 

11 hours ago, Alex_BCFC said:

Ok so pring made a mistake today but I think more the issue with him is when he beats a man or two he doesn’t release the ball quickly enough and ends up giving it away. That is more likely to be an issue long term than the 95th minute one where he should have just chipped it into the corner. If he can release it quicker and run on for a 1-2 etc then he’ll be a really good player at this level next season. 

I noticed he’s made runs & not released it soon enough a couple of times, definitely something to work on but hopefully it’ll come. 
 

As for the whole game, yes he made the mistake there but it’s so wholly unfair to try and blame the result on him, yes a bad decision but he’s almost the other end of the pitch when he looses it, there’s more than half of the team between the goal and the ball when it’s lost, defensively we were shocking for that goal and then yes a brilliant strike that probably 9/10 doesn’t go in. 

It’s easy to blame pring because I suppose if he makes a different choice the result is maybe different (though we’ll never know) but plenty happens or should’ve happened in the time after as well, as others have said no one player is responsible for the number of points we get, they win and loose (and draw) as a team. 

The audio is sickening, really uncomfortable listening, and the fact she’s recorded it means (presumably) its a continuous thing.. 

I just hope she’s got/getting the full support she needs from her friends and family and anyone else, what an awful thing to have to go through. 

4 minutes ago, TomF said:

Be interesting to see how Man U fans react to this while still seemingly brushing aside Ronaldo’s rape claims 

Well…. 

37 minutes ago, cidercity1987 said:

The world has obviously changed but she should have been straight down to the police with this, not plastering it all over the internet

There’s a lot of mistrust by women of the police to be able to handle this sort of thing well/at all, recent events certainly don’t to anything to assuage those fears. Obviously something happened or something clicked in her head that meant she felt like it was the time to post it - she’s had those for a while they’re from 2020 some I believe? We may never know what and it wouldn’t do anyone well to speculate really, it’s not the point of this.

I just can’t believe (actually depressingly I think I can) the people on Twitter who are trying to defend it, or the people saying the recording shows she ‘set him up’