Mattyblue

Then the sport is f*cked.

Football has never been this reliant on TV money. If this would’ve happened 30 years ago the season would have long been postponed. This farce is only carrying on because the game is now totally in hock to television money, vast amounts of cash that goes straight back out of the game and into the pockets of players and agents. What should be the strongest, richest sport in the world is entirely built on sand.

3rd choice (or 4th) even better. Don’t need to play cup games or U23 games or even bother with match day squads.

And this is exactly why English football is in big trouble. A year + out of the ground and ‘Paul’s’ across the country, fans with decades of attending their club’s games, fans who have usually renewed their STs as a force of habit, realise that they don’t particularly miss it, then the sport in this country is over as we know it. Floating fans obviously float in and out, but you lose your core support and it’s game over. Which in someways will lead the sport to a well overdue coming to collective senses, but could also lead to a huge number of clubs folding and our unique pyramid will be finished.

So lads largely from working class backgrounds in their 20s and early 30 with wives and kids have ‘settled down’ and lost that edge, have they? For a bloke that isn’t particularly young you’ve a lot to learn Vinners

There’s obviously a big public appetite for rural based detective shows then! Get John Nettles a test ASAP!

Hull the first Championship club to break ranks and call for a curtailment of the season. Obviously a shed load of self interest there with them 21st, but a return to action doesn’t seem to be cut and dried as some posters thought. https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.hulldailymail.co.uk/sport/football/hull-city-allam-season-voided-4144894.amp

It probably will. Remember the first game after Kean went? The gate jumped about 5,000, it soon died back down. Our crowd is heavily built on the back of a hardcore of 8,000- 10,000 ST holders, we lose a fair number of those due to a plethora of reasons in the post COVID world and we will down to mid 80s levels.

The main issue is that even if a good number of clubs survive, 12/18 months out of the ground will see the habits of match goers broken and a collapse in crowd figures not seen for many a decade.

Indeed we don’t which is why I was lamenting the fall of two grand clubs in Rovers and Sunderland.

Of course keepers mature later. But in the modern game it is increasingly rare for footballers to come from the lower leagues well into their 30s to become a regular at a much higher standard. ‘Class’ I’m fairly confident, he ain’t. Neville Southall to answer your question - who was playing for a top side like 1980s Everton at 23. Not still in the third division at 33.

Of course, The Canadian isn’t even close to being back up quality. I’d have no issue with him as second choice, but just knowing how this club operates if Walton leaves and he does comes in that will in all likelihood be that.

I’m not claiming anything, it’s my opinion, as that’s what a message board is. I’m talking about the UK, couldn’t give a feck about the stances of other nations, good luck to them. Im sure ITV’s re-showing of Euro 96 is pulling in the viewers too, it’s a novelty at the moment. A year of behind closed doors football will see that novelty wear off very quickly.

Yes, most fans (Cue, ‘well me and my mates and family want to watch every single behind closed doors game, we can’t wait) Yes, rest of UK football. Scotland, League 2 and non league. League 1 will follow soon enough. Of course the PL and Championship clubs want to play on, that was kind of the point of my post...

This long ago stopped being about ‘sporting integrity’ in the PL. They know most fans aren’t particularly arsed if they just put a line under this season and point per game it like the rest of U.K. football will be doing, in fact it would just be a relief all round as we hear increasingly daft conditions placed on the matches - further diluting the sacred ‘integrity’. Yet, they stagger on creating an ever bigger PR disaster, absolutely desperate to grab as much cash as possible to pay their mind boggling wage bills. It’s all so very unedifying and I believe the game will be in for an all mighty shock when crowds dwindle away in 2021, they are just very, very lucky that the TV deals aren’t imminently up for renewal or the whole house of cards would have come crashing down.

Seen him on Sky. A run of the mill stopper that didn’t particularly stand out in League 1. Certainly shouldn’t be first choice at a Championship club with aspirations.

‘Class’? He’ll be 33 by next season and he’s spent his English career at Harrogate, Burton, Bradford and third division Sunderland. Looks like the expectations of Sunderland fans have fallen even more than ours.

Loving the baggy 90s suits

I can pretty much remember every game between 1992 and 1996. Yet if you asked me about most matches this season I’d struggle...

I was going post war, the other time records began (after 1992)

Get him on a podcast. Be like Fear and Loathing in Parochial East Lancashire

I saw Tugay vs Shearer the other day. Did surprise me when a few folk picked Tugay, largely down to ‘loyalty’. Fair enough, but for me Shearer has to be number 1. The bloke was the best striker in the world (or one of) In the mid 90s - and he played for us.

Sure I read that it isn’t a legal requirement to socially distance, nothing in the new legislation that can enforce a two metre gap.

The club was on the verge of cementing itself as a major player for the next decade, the fanbase was expanding rapidly across Lancashire and beyond. However, we totally messed up recruitment that summer and we never made up the ground lost again.

To judge we won’t have a vaccine in 3 months isn’t a particularly controversial viewpoint.