s. gerrard when interviewed reminds me so much of mes, he touches his ear like smith and the way he moves his mouth is identical. please watch out for this. i didnt realise what a great player rooney is. i call him 'wild boar' as he struts his stuff and seems very strong. its all very exciting. england to beat portugal??

It will all end in tears as Rooney gets a second yellow card and misses the final. He'll move to Chelsea, start off well, but then his thick-set body will start to work against him. He won't suffer Gazza's fate, but his early promise will not be fulfilled.

The negative prophet has spoken!

And I think Portugal will win in any case!

Aren't yellow cards wiped out after the group stage ?

yes the slates are cleaned before the knockout matches. what price on violence after the portugal match. also women seem to enjoy these big tournaments, i hope they will continue to love football in the winter!

yeah and ive heard that mes is really big into football and he thinks sweden are going to win. and he has asked members to comment on what their impressions of euro 2004 are so it will help him with his next album so in this case its really important that you all try and have some input in this regard and if you dont like football its important to say that as well cos ive also heard that mes doesnt like football and he needs some lyrics man!

I hope everyone is getting excited and putting up the flags...polishing those knives and locking granny in the outside toilet in case she hears you cussing. Get down that off-licence and get a bag of fish and chips in. And muzzle the cat!

Saw this article over at Harry's Place (thanks for the heads up Bagrec):

After the Bosman ruling and EU liberalisation created a freer market for players and the creation of the Premiership created a wealthy elite of clubs offering the best salaries in Europe, it was only really a matter of time until we had the Arsenal situation.

And when the increased internationalisation of English football began there was a consensus that there would be some sort of breaking point, where fans would struggle to identify with their team if there were hardly any players from their own country, let alone their own locality.

But that point never arrived. Arsenal fans have not walked out of Highbury in disgust and begun supporting Brentford because they can't identify with Thierry Henry. Manchester United fans probably had more difficulty with the notion of having a Scouser as their hero than they did with identifying with a Dutchman and a Portuguese lad as their two best players.

And then there is Chelsea - owned by a Russian geezer, managed by a Portuguese bloke and with a team that over the past five years has looked more like a Serie A side than a Premiership one. Ask a Chelsea fan of today who their favourite player of all time is and they would probably tell you the name of a little Sardinian.

Its the same all over Europe - Barcelona have been as much a Dutch side as a Catalan one for most of the past decade. Sven Goran Eriksson's scudetto winning Lazio side was half-Argentine and the real youth academy of French football is found in Africa not St Etienne.

And where have been the protests and the outcry from the fans?

Well, to the dismay of xenophobes and protectionists, there hasn't been any. Football is still overwhelmingly the passtime of the working class who we are constantly told are worried about foreigners and have this in-built 'limit' which must not be crossed yet no-one, apart from a few pundits, really cares.

Footballers, when they pull on the shirts of our teams, are judged by one single criteria -- their ability. If they are talented footballers then fans don't care where they come from, what language they speak or the colour of their skin.

But they do love it when a player 'does a Molby' - Thomas Graveson's scouse accent or Thierry Henry playing the barrow boy always go down well.

Its not the only in accepting foreigners in which football has shown itself to be one of the most progressive areas of British culture and football fans arguably among the most open-minded sections of society.

While the tabloid press trade in suspicion and dislike of Europe, trying to feed fears of or loss of identity, saving sausages and sterling, British fans have been spending more and more time and money travelling to European cities to watch football matches.

Even better, it is not just that they are following their own teams to La Coruna or Dortmund with the same ease as catching a train to Newcastle, but thousands of fans actually sit home and watch the Spanish or the Italian league on television even when there is no 'British interest' at stake. Large numbers of fans know about and are involved in a game that is truly European.

Likewise in Europe, the Premiership is hugely popular not only with Scandinavians, who have always loved English football, but increasingly with Spaniards and Italians who fill up pubs to watch Arsenal v United on the satellite sports channels while sat with a pint in their hands. Go to Soho on a Sunday afternoon and you'll find English lads in Italian cafes watching the Milan derby with Italian immigrants.

None of them feel they are betraying their cultural identity by taking an interest in or a liking for, foreign football. Its just a natural part of being a modern European football fan. European intergration is a fact in football not just for the players but the fans as well. If anyone suggested withdrawing from this new post-national football world they would be laughed at.

Is there a lesson in this for politics? Well first, lets be careful. People do seem to accept change in football with greater ease than they do in the rest of life. A good chunk of the fans' favourites at my team Burnley have been black players, heroes like Roger Eli, Ian Wright, Mitchell Thomas and currently Frank Sinclair - yet the town has the highest number of BNP councillors in the country.

And of course, anti-racist campaigners have long noted that black people are accepted in sport when they are not welcome in other areas of society. There is nothing new about that.

But I think there is something worth noting here. The rapid changes in football have been treated by media and politicians in a completely different manner to immigration. The sports media has not been full of outrage at the increasingly cosmopolitian make-up of the game. Apart from the fuss over Sven Goran Eriksson's appointment as England coach there has been little negative comment on the whole process - people have been left to make their own minds up.

People make their own minds up with the Macedonian lad who serves them coffee on the way to work in the morning. He's a good lad, making a living. The Turkish minicab driver is a decent bloke as well and the Nigerian working at reception always has a friendly word. The Polish painter and decorator does a good job at half the price and the Pakistani family down the road are nice people whose kids play with your kids.

Yet ask anyone about immigration and they will tell you it is out of control - something needs to be done. And the politicians agree.

I'm not saying the whole process is a result of media demonisation of immigrants, things are never that simple. But the media's role hardly helps and they have assisted in creating the impression of hostility to and fear of immigrants. Nor is it all the fault of racist or opportunist politicians - but they hardly help.

My point is simply that in the world of football people were left to make up their own minds about foreign labour and European integration the two most emotive issues in British politics. And they decided that not only could they handle the changes but they actively enjoyed the opportunities they provided.

That is surely both encouraging for progressives and food for thought for those who insist that there are limits that cannot be exceeded and lines that cannot be crossed.

Well argued, well written, spot on.

So if I argue a little in favour of home-grown talent being given a chance, that's automatically going to label me a racist. I really hope not. It's probably cheaper for a club like Arsenal to scout for young talent in Africa than it is to nurture young players at home. The three top clubs have so much money in any case that they can afford to buy more or less indiscriminately and keep players on the bench until they make (or otherwise) the grade. Djemba-Djemba was cheap enough and how often did he play for Man Utd? Increased liberalisation has led to the best clubs creaming off the best and leaving the also rans with the rest.

And have football fans really left racist attitudes behind? Not in Spain, not in Italy, not in Holland, not in E. Europe, and I doubt whether everyone is squeaky clean in England, either.

And I wonder how many Arsenal or Chelsea or Man Utd fans live in Brentford, were born in Brentford even, and have never seen their local side play?

I don't think the argument was that you are a racist for being against the current use of overseas players, merely that the way that players from elsewhere are supported makes a mockery of assumptions concerning racism amongts football fans.

Obviously that does not make every fan a Guardian reading liberal type, just that the massive hyping of racist immigration talk does not necessarily reflect the actual experience of many people - often the very same people expressing disquiet about immigration have positive opinions of individuals, but are perhaps not encouraged to make the link by the blatantly racist way the issue is addressed by the press and political parties.

As to club quotas, I am in favour of them for the sake of communities and of evening the playing field for the good of the game and the national side. I am not sure that the article argues against them as such.

As a Leeds fan, I know that without our academy we would be even more troubled than we are at present (hard to believe though that may be).

I have had many a problem of conscience with football the last few years.

The game has become a victim of it's own success. In England, the Premiership is a 3 tier league. Only 3 teams are capable of winning the league. Another 5 or 6 are capable of snatching the all-important 4th place. And anyone else is capable of being relegated.

The main reason of course is money. It makes me laugh to read letters in the Observer from Man U fans claiming that Chelsea have cheapened the title by buying the players they have. That Chelsea players earning forty or fifty grand a week have the blood of Siberian workers on their hands. It's all true, but Manchester United, Liverpool et al have long exploited the world's impoverished for their own commercial ends.

I used to go semi-regularly to Aston Villa, they're not my local side, but my uncle took me when I was a kid and that was it. 10 years ago they possibly had an outside chance at the title and even won the occasional trophy but I cant see that happening again.

The money they charge to see a team that (more often than not) hit staggering heights of bland ineptitude no longer seems a worthwhile investment to me and I haven't been in 4 years.

England, Spain, Italy - the big leagues are now drained of much of their supposed competitiveness by the spending power of an elite few. Jose Mourinho may have bought the title, but he still deserves some recognition. Inter Milan and Leeds United have spent big too in recent years and all for nothing.

I look at the achievements of the fans of smaller clubs such as Bournemouth, Wrexham and AFC Wimbledon and I feel something resembling jealousy. Local people working tirelessly to keep something they genuinely believe in going. Fans literally paying the players wages from money collected in charity events. Teams to whom survival is their Champions League. Minor miracles.

I pay to have Sky at home, and I tell myself that cancelling my subscription wouldnt make the game any purer - that theres always one more mug willing to pay £30 a month to watch a soap opera with an unchanging cast, few plot twists and a predictable script.

Maybe Everton will knock Man U out of the cup today (preferably with a Roy Keane own goal in the last minute) and that will seem like a shock. But it would still just be one bunch of milionaires beating another.

I used to mock sports like yachting and golf as the pursuits of the rich but to be honest Premiership football's no different these days. Watching some illiterate wifebeating cokehead on 60k a week kissing a badge he feels absolutely no emotional connection with - makes me sick.

There are still things that get us all talking at work the next day, the brilliance of a Thierry Henry goal or the disallowing of an England goal but something's definitely rotten in the state of the beautiful game.

And what it is is this, that I am not alone. There are probably millions of people like me across Britain. People who know there is no lasting drama in the game any more, that the romance of a team like Wimbledon winning the FA Cup is mythology now, that the money they shell out to Sky, to Arsenal, to Joe Cole, to the kit manufacturer is all so much fuel to the fire that used to warm the hearts but now burns the fingers.

But we do nothing, we watch games and contribute monies directly or indirectly to teams that want to establish a Super League for just the rich teams to play in. Wearing kits manufactured by kids in sweatshops. In front of shareholders not supporters.

If you want to look away now, the final score was Money 1 Sport 0.

As Granny on Bongos (on here) and others in the real world (!!) have pointed out, a great deal of the blame has to go on the disproportionate share of TV money paid out to the big clubs. Some fairer system has to be found.

I think alot of what has been said here is very true. But I just delight in the fact that teams as rich as Liverpool, Tottenham and Newcastle have been so badly managed that teams like Charlton :wub: can rise above them in the league. It is a shame that we know we can't ever win the league realistically despite are great progress as a team.
The top three are way ahead of the rest but some teams have proved the rest of the league is not as far apart as it sometimes seems. I think Ipswich qualified for europe in their first premiership season. Although they did get relegated the following year :D

Its a contrary world

...we have the fantastic Sam Allardyce doing miracles at Bolton
...we have Moyes pulling a team together after losing the boy wonder
...we have Curbishley year on year making his team better
...we have Keegan juggling also rans and increasing debt at COMSTAD
....we have Manchester, Salford and Blackpool all arguing over who gets the Casino rights and then MUFC turn up and say they want one at Old Trafford
...Chelski as the new Harlem Globetrotters

I think the magic is still there but its getting buried in all the money crap - any industry that allows its workforce to demand higher wages whilst at the same time delivering poor output is bound to go bankrupt eventually

The "political" question in the broadest sense is has football become a consumer commodity or is it still a sport in the true sense. My view is that at grass roots its still a lumpen enthralling mess of a sport. At the highest level it has now become a high value expensive commodity which I am afraid is fed by true loyalty - ie people cannot help themselves because of their love for club and badge.

We need to get football back to the community that owns it and loves it and away from rich men who represent noone except their own self interest. Mutuality of ownership is the only way to move on - that and getting overpaid prima-donnas to take a pay cut. In a pluralist social democratic society its an abomination that there are people living in poverty no more than a quarter of a mile away from the richest club in the world!

Angry of Eccles

ps Rooney will score a wonder goal and United will win!

Falparsi, are you a Leeds or a Burnley fan? I thought that the two were mutually exclusive. I talk as a Leeds fan who lives near Burnley.

I was agreeing for the most part with your comments on teams recruiting from outside, but I do not think that the argument carries across to immigration in general. Fans welcome anybody who strengthens their team, but may still have legitimate concerns about migrants moving into their area in large numbers.

Anyway, Burnley might have loved Ian Wright who is black, but they despise anybody from Blackburn whatever their colour. My wife is shopping in Burnley this afternoon, and I have told her to be well clear of the place before the end of the match. The last time Burnley lost to Blackburn at home, they destroyed their own town centre in a fit of pique!

I am off to watch Blyth Spartans v Witton Albion in the Northern Premier League. Blyth haven't won in ages. The crowd will be about 250. It is freezing cold here. But I can't wait.

Stuff yer super league. I urge every football fan on this forum to go to at least one non-league match a season.

blades have just drawn 1-1 at arsenal in the cup ^_^ restores yr faith a bit...

They deserved it

That Wengers a whinger of the highest order...!

In fact

Arsenal Whinger..... :P

Crowd 275. Blyth won 2-1.

Agreed,
I used to follow Chorley ,when I lived there in the 80's.
Watched them when Bolton were away from home & loved it just as much.
The appeal was in the completely different atmosphere. Individual cat-calls could be heard by everyone,You could hear the ball skid off the turf, and if you were really uncool you could run and fag the ball if it came remotely your way.

And there were always 7 away supporters.
Fantastic.

This has actually whetted my appetite for what was just a memory.
I wonder if Radcliffe Borough are at home this weekend?... :rolleyes:

Football in this country has increasingly become concerned with extracting money out of pockets.

You can see a top level game in Germany or Spain for the same price you pay to see a League 2 game over here.

There has been a large influx of money into the game but that has mostly been grabbed by the elite clubs who are now pretty much secure in their domination of the game . The "trickle down" of money to the lower divisions hardly happens because the top clubs see buying unproven players as too risky...safer to bring in a journeyman who's won things abroad and is looking for a final big pay day.

Its a fact of life its as much a part of the game as the offside rule. Infact it pre dates it. Burnley F C are credited with having the first scouting system. Heres ten bob go an get us a Geordie and chips.

The practice of scouting was quite a dangerous one quite often it resulted in getting a kicking and being told to not come back to Scotland ever again. A player would be invited to come and play plus they'd fix him up with a job as well. So no surprise that the big teams were from the thriving industrial regions.

Football has always been a contact sport on and off the pitch. At its most basic level it was them against us. Two Towns in afree for all battle which might go to a replay but definatley never decided with penalties. Check some books on British social history. And like any battle these towns would have their hard core nutters surrounded by the slightly softer lads and so on. So the crowd as twelth man thing has its roots in mass participation and probabley hysteria as well.

So next time you see the young guv'ners on the rampage spare a thought for your Great Great Grandmother who would have been out there with em.

Back to the future. Football is pretty much in the same state as it was when Burnley were leading the way with their cunning tapping up of foreigners. We have top clubs still centred around economic hotspots. The crowds are still their, bigger than ever. Technology eh. You can cause trouble in spain whilst watching your team at home, grudges still exist on and of the field. Ok your local world famous club might be owned by someone 8000 miles away who looks like Yogi bear. Or a Russian bloke who bought it just so he could hang out in England as theres less chance of assassination.

Nowadays you dont really need to scout these Beckhams and Coles do you. Every fart , house renovation and perk of the bussiness is public knowledge. infact some managers insist on a player having a Vogue cover shoot under their belt before their good enough for first team football. All thats needed is a bit of tapping up. How did Chelsea get caught playing the oldest trick in the book. Very shoddy.
Footballers are mercenarie by profession. Football Clubs are tribal. They go hand in hand.

I know I'm starting to sound like one of them "bring back the Birch" fella's So I'll shut up....but wouldnt it be a more fitting and time honoured solution if some of the Arsenal boys went down the Kings Road and battered that Mourinho bloke. Then twatted Cole on the way home. Everyone would be alot happier.

The only time I watch the football and get excited is when it's the world cup. It should really be called the South American European cup. They are the only ones in with a chance. A bit like when the US has there world series baseball hahahahahaha. Wouldn't you just love it if the Norweigans had been secretly practicing and joined in and won.

I'll have to think of a daft name for a Norweigan baseball team now. the wooden Whales for starters.

The cod liver boils. hahahahahaha.


I did enjoy reading your little piece though.

I don't know why there is this tribal mentality between British towns. I wonder if anyone ever wrote a thesis on it?

The same rivalry exists in towns in other countries and is not specific to Britain.

Well lets say Europe then. In North America it seems to be more between States. It's still strange behavior when you think about it.

Ah, but in the Simpsons, Springfield is really competitive with Shelbyville. So inter-town rivalry must exist for it to be lampooned in such a manner. :P

Anyway, if 2000 Leeds fans came to your town and put all the pub and shop windows out you's hate 'em as well.

[[QUOTE]QUOTE]Ah, but in the Simpsons, Springfield is really competitive with Shelbyville. So inter-town rivalry must exist for it to be lampooned in such a manner.

Anyway, if 2000 Leeds fans came to your town and put all the pub and shop windows out you's hate 'em as well. [/QUOTE][/QUOTE]

Well I'm not a Simpsons fan. I know it's good, but I find Homer too annoying to watch and Marg's hairstyle unbearable. There isn't much inter town rivalry in Canada...Edmonton and Calgary has the most I suppose, but it's not serious.

In Britain it gets to be deadly serious like with those Leeds fans....Bloody stupid and bestial. :angry:

When I spent a few weeks in Montreal last year, I got the distinct feeling that people there didn't like Toronto very much.

Here in the States, we have SF-LA, New York-Boston, a few others, I suppose. Most of the time there is simply too much distance between places for anyone to get worked up about the neighbors.

Is there any jealousy of smaller towns which happen to be state capitals, as with Sacramento in California?

Good point about distances, though...and maybe due to the fact that America is a comparatively new country?

I still don't really understand what tapping up means.

No, none whatsoever. In fact, Sacramento is dismissed as an uncultured cowtown around these parts (it sits smack in the middle of the largest agricultural boom state the world's ever seen, literally surrounded by vines and fields and cows and such, so it's not like the reputation is completely undeserved.)

Most state capitols are not highly thought of. They are rarely the biggest, most interesting city in their own state, and when they are, being a state capitol comes second to just being a big city.

Probably a little of both, but I suspect the distance thing is more of a factor. You have to drive about a hundred miles out of where I live, for instance, to find anyone who doesn't feel that they basically live in Los Angeles.

I also wonder about the role of sport in these things. Every town over in the UK seems to have its own football club. Not like that here. Springfield and Shelbyville - if they were as close as they seem - would never each have their own minor league club in real life.

Agents approach players without his club's knowledge and suggest that he can get a better contract elsewhere. Player either renegotiates his present contract or his club, realising the player is as loyal as a viper, agrees to sell him. Agent gets a profit, player gets his cut, the fan is left with more evidence that loyalty doesn't exist any more in high-grade football. It's like headhunting...enticing people to leav one company for another. There are rules against it but that has never stopped it happening.

We have that sort of thing here... he's called "Scott Boras".

In chelsea's case its more about monopolising. They are now in a position where they can just ask what a players getting from one club and then offer to double it. Can't blame em or the players really.

I see! Thanks Martin.

I wish he did! Looks more like the Angel of the bottomless pit has found his long lost spiritual home. :mellow:

There's been a lot of debate recently about the Cheats of Chelsea and what to do with their ' we're rich, sod you ' attitude to Football.

At first, I felt a little amused by their antics and the pathetic bleating from the other clubs involved, but now they are becoming a pain to those who follow the game. I think some of the actions of the club and its employees have far wider reaching implications than first thought.

Now I know the frustrations of dealing with the FA - I have been called to 2 hearings, admittedly at a far lower level and, although things have improved in recent years ( the first I went to, my whole team were called to give evidence, on a working day that we all had to give up, then the Chairman of the County FA refused to hear a single word from us and just fined us anyway!! ), there is still a yawning gap between the commercial world of The Premiership and the slowly catching up Football Association.

However, I think that Chelsea and their employees are trying to break free of the rules (and in any competition there have to be rules ), to the detriment of the abiders of the rules.

Now I know that ' tapping up ' has been in football for as long as the game itself, but these guidelines have been installed for a reason - they are there to stop the financially weak being exploited by the financially strong.

I think recent events have proven that fiscal punishment means nothing to Chelsea and probably encourage others to think, ' If Chelsea can do it, lets not be last in the queue, lets all do it ' and rely on the fear that exists within the FA that, in a few years time, the Arsenals, Chelseas, Man U's etc. of this league will be off to form a European League, so better not rock the boat. Hence the tiny fines handed out to all concerned the other day.

In the meantime, how about relegating Chelsea?

How about using this to slip the European Champions into next season's competition by the back door??

Opinions please.

Ah well, there's always a first. Knew the day would come that I had to bump my own thread, just didn't think it'd be this one.

And it's all gone quiet over there....

Possibly the problem is that it's similar in theme to this thread.

Bless you, Martin!

Didn't see that thread and was beginning to think I'd committed some kind of sporting faux-pas. :whistle: