What killed English football culture?

[WalkerboyUK]

MK Dons
The fact that this vile abomination of a franchise continues to exist is a major blow to the soul of English football. The day they finally go bust, I will fly to the UK to organise coaches to Milton Keynes from Wimbledon to dance on their ugly concrete grave.

Please note – If you are a MK Dons fans and this offends you, good.


YAWN, YAWN, YAWN.......

They could have ended up anyway (nearly ended up in Dublin) and mainly because Merton council weren't willing to help fund development of the area.
Support numbers had plummeted and Wimbledon were already ground-sharing with Crystal Palace. "You took our footbal club" was always a good shout out from so-called Wimbledon fans, except the majority weren't attending games.

The only possible argument is that they should have folded completely and any move to MK should have seen them start from the bottom again. Reality is that the Football League accepted the proposal and they are the only ones who should be blamed, not Winkleman and Co.

There are fans who still travel up from London..... and Dean Lewington is still at the club, having been a Wimbledon player at the time of the move.

Chances of them going bust - ABSOLUTE ZERO!!
Stadium that is closing in on it's 32,000 capacity, is already used by Northampton Saints and will be used for Rugby World Cup. Arena that currently hosts "Collectormania" twice a year, will host indoor sporting events and could see concerts take place too.
The surrounding area hs been completely redeveloped, and by the end of this summer there will be an IMAX cinema and complex on site.

Besides which, I'm off to watch them play Crawley tomorrow.......

 

[Gassin's finest]

There are some valid points that I agree with in there, such as the banning of ST holders for standing, Sky Sports, KO times etc. But a lot of that sounds like it's being made by the sort of person who was giving football a bad name to begin with. Plenty I could pick apart but can't be arsed.

 

[Gassin's finest]

MK Dons
The fact that this vile abomination of a franchise continues to exist is a major blow to the soul of English football. The day they finally go bust, I will fly to the UK to organise coaches to Milton Keynes from Wimbledon to dance on their ugly concrete grave.

Please note – If you are a MK Dons fans and this offends you, good.


YAWN, YAWN, YAWN.......

They could have ended up anyway (nearly ended up in Dublin) and mainly because Merton council weren't willing to help fund development of the area.
Support numbers had plummeted and Wimbledon were already ground-sharing with Crystal Palace. "You took our footbal club" was always a good shout out from so-called Wimbledon fans, except the majority weren't attending games.

The only possible argument is that they should have folded completely and any move to MK should have seen them start from the bottom again. Reality is that the Football League accepted the proposal and they are the only ones who should be blamed, not Winkleman and Co.

There are fans who still travel up from London..... and Dean Lewington is still at the club, having been a Wimbledon player at the time of the move.

Chances of them going bust - ABSOLUTE ZERO!!
Stadium that is closing in on it's 32,000 capacity, is already used by Northampton Saints and will be used for Rugby World Cup. Arena that currently hosts "Collectormania" twice a year, will host indoor sporting events and could see concerts take place too.
The surrounding area hs been completely redeveloped, and by the end of this summer there will be an IMAX cinema and complex on site.

Besides which, I'm off to watch them play Crawley tomorrow.......

Agree. I have no affiliation with MK'Dons in anyway, but I thought this very harsh... the club nearly went bust, they found a way to survive, and a new Wimbledon AFC was established in it's place, who aren't doing too bad last time I looked.

 

[WalkerboyUK]

But they had to start at the bottom. You could argue that since the history of Wimbledon FC officially belongs to AFC Wimbledon they should have retained the Football League membership and the new entity the MK Dons should have started at the bottom.

Technically the history of Wimbledon belongs to neither MK Dons or AFC Wimbledon.
The Wimbledon history doesn't appear in any of the MK Dons records.
AFC was also formed in 2002 which was BEFORE Wimbledon moved to MK.

Also worth noting that the opportunity to move to Milton Keynes was also offered to Luton, Barnet, Palace & QPR, all of whom were looking for a bigger stadium.

Also to be noted:
Charlton Athletic nearly moved to MK in the early 70s.
Luton Town were close to becoming MK Hatters in the early 80s.
Wimbledon FC nearly moved to MK in 1979! Ron Noades who was Wimbledon chairman bought Milton Keynes City FC and planned to merge the two and stay in MK. He decided 2 years later not to merge the two and sold Wimbledon to Sam Hammam. So in this instance, what goes around, comes around!!

Only the Irish FA prevented them moving to Dublin..... Sam Hammam had looked at moving them to Basingstoke, Gatwick, Dublin, Belfast or Scotland - all of which were approved by the FA.
The owners of Wimbledon at the time of the move were shovelling £6 million per year into the club just to keep it running.

Anyway, I'm not supporting the move, just highlighting what so many Wimbledon fans ignored.

 

[aRTy]

I was just about to ask what all the hate for Mk Dons was about. So it's really all about them moving and keeping the league spot of wimbeldon? I saw someone on here mention their hatred for them, and now this article so i thought it was the wimbeldon thing along with fans like MillWall or something.

 

[Legend10]

Watched all 4 of the CL QF's this week and it was a complete embarrassment for English football. The atmospheres in the stadiums at Bayern, Dortmund and Atletico were incredible and then you had Chelsea which to put it bluntly was pathetic, it was about as lively and passionate as a Blackpool swingers bar for over 70's on a Monday night in January.

There is just zero passion for English football anymore, it has the money and it has the cream of tier 2-3 players and enjoys incredible world wide appeal, but that's it. For atmosphere it's boring and mundane, for all the wrongs of the 70's & 80's football in England has gone too far the other way. As was said earlier it's now about appealing to the consumer and ridding the game of the lower working class individual who back in the day supported his team with passion and fervour through thick and thin. I loved going to the Lane in the late 70's and through the 80's, these days on the days i do go it almost feels like a chore, the boozer before and after is the main reason i even go, sitting there in a near silent stadium listening to constant whining is actually pretty soul destroying.

Talking of the other night the atmosphere in the Atletico Barca game was just awesome, apart from the money i really don't see why players want to play in England anymore, it's so boring.

 

[markiespurs]

Watched all 4 of the CL QF's this week and it was a complete embarrassment for English football. The atmospheres in the stadiums at Bayern, Dortmund and Atletico were incredible and then you had Chelsea which to put it bluntly was pathetic, it was about as lively and passionate as a Blackpool swingers bar for over 70's on a Monday night in January.

There is just zero passion for English football anymore, it has the money and it has the cream of tier 2-3 players and enjoys incredible world wide appeal, but that's it. For atmosphere it's boring and mundane, for all the wrongs of the 70's & 80's football in England has gone too far the other way. As was said earlier it's now about appealing to the consumer and ridding the game of the lower working class individual who back in the day supported his team with passion and fervour through thick and thin. I loved going to the Lane in the late 70's and through the 80's, these days on the days i do go it almost feels like a chore, the boozer before and after is the main reason i even go, sitting there in a near silent stadium listening to constant whining is actually pretty soul destroying.

Talking of the other night the atmosphere in the Atletico Barca game was just awesome, apart from the money i really don't see why players want to play in England anymore, it's so boring.

Interesting you mention the atmosphere at the stadiums in both Spain and Germany, which I agree was and often is excellent.

If I remember correctly though, don't Spanish and especially German clubs charge much lower ticket prices than Premiership teams? If so then I think this goes a long way to explain poor atmospheres in premiership grounds.

 

[Legend10]

Interesting you mention the atmosphere at the stadiums in both Spain and Germany, which I agree was and often is excellent.

If I remember correctly though, don't Spanish and especially German clubs charge much lower ticket prices than Premiership teams? If so then I think this goes a long way to explain poor atmospheres in premiership grounds.

Much lower, i went to see Valencia in the Mestalla about 3 years back and got a ticket for a fiver!

They still have the lower working class fan going, whereas in England we have Charles and his wife Penelope going for a picnic with the Lambert-Smythes after a fine 74 Chianti and Olive Pasta snacks. Which is fine in itself but there are hardly any lower working class fans left with them at Premiership games, they can't afford it, or if they can they are paying so much of their hard earned they moan about it instead of supporting.

 

[riggi]

Bring back the casuals! I posted a thread about this ages ago showing pictures of the 80s.

 

[WalkerboyUK]

Much lower, i went to see Valencia in the Mestalla about 3 years back and got a ticket for a fiver!

They still have the lower working class fan going, whereas in England we have Charles and his wife Penelope going for a picnic with the Lambert-Smythes after a fine 74 Chianti and Olive Pasta snacks. Which is fine in itself but there are hardly any lower working class fans left with them at Premiership games, they can't afford it, or if they can they are paying so much of their hard earned they moan about it instead of supporting.

Never gonna happen though....
Why do you think Barca/Real are always at the top and in CL - because of the players they get and the wages they pay - funded somewhat illegally by the local government (stadium ownership/loans etc). That means tickets can be relatively cheap.
Here on the other hand everything is paid for by the club & sponsors so the revenue has to come from the supporters. If we want to bring in some of the better players and compete with the elite, the ultimate problem is that the common fan cannot afford to attend.

 

[Legend10]

Never gonna happen though....
Why do you think Barca/Real are always at the top and in CL - because of the players they get and the wages they pay - funded somewhat illegally by the local government (stadium ownership/loans etc). That means tickets can be relatively cheap.
Here on the other hand everything is paid for by the club & sponsors so the revenue has to come from the supporters. If we want to bring in some of the better players and compete with the elite, the ultimate problem is that the common fan cannot afford to attend.

We'll he seems to attend at Atletico, at Bayern even at barca where you can often find really cheap tickets.

It's a problem we've almost seemed to make unique, grounds throughout Europe are rocking and there isn't one prem crowd with a good atmosphere, unbelievably palace are probably the best!

 

[WalkerboyUK]

We'll he seems to attend at Atletico, at Bayern even at barca where you can often find really cheap tickets.

It's a problem we've almost seemed to make unique, grounds throughout Europe are rocking and there isn't one prem crowd with a good atmosphere, unbelievably palace are probably the best!

Do German clubs pay the highest wages in Europe??? Nope.....
Barca can charge less for tickets because they have 90,000 capacity and their marketing and sponsorship deals bring in more money than any other club.

Also I think fans here lack passion because they don't see it out on the pitch from the players. Too many foreign players looking for the big buck, diving, feigning injury etc. That's why you can go and watch Championship/League 1 and enjoy better atmospheres than most Premier League clubs.

 

[Rocksuperstar]

Nice article, but it doesn't really show the stages that each of those things has contributed to, and the knock on affects that have allowed/enabled/encouraged other points on that list.

Sky sensationalised the EPL, and, as the memory of Blackburns title win faded from memory, the money started to rule all - sponsorship became huge business and we all thought it had hit the big time. Leeds' owners stepped up to challenge the top teams, invested huge amounts and everyone was afraid but their investments didn't pay off, their finances didn't add up and football started to go cold. Clubs rightly started tightening purse strings and talking like a bunch of people who had just woken up on someones sofa after a cataclysmic party, sober for the first time in a week, going, "Christ, did you lot see what happened to that chap in the flat cap? Bloody hell, he was carried off by paramedics. They reckon he'll be quadra-spazzed on a life-plug after that bender..."

Then along came Roman, poured more money into one club than most of the rest of the league combined. Went around the globe buying up the best for incredible amounts of money and, basically, bought himself success. At this point, the teams that had a marketable brand and enthusiastic fanbase started looking for money too and, in some cases found it, leaving everyone else behind as year after year the cups went to the same teams, the ones with all the money and, as is common in life, money breeds money - without the big money you can't afford to buy over-priced players (which many are now) but, most importantly, you don't get a cut of the big prizes either. A culture of allowing the most rich to continue to grow richer, often at the expense of the poor... sounds... familiar

tldr; The game isn't on the pitch anymore to be enjoyed by fans, it's played by accountants & board members, who try to work out if asset A's price will be offset by shirt sales. It's monopoly, football is just the ad breaks.

 

[Legend10]

Do German clubs pay the highest wages in Europe??? Nope.....
Barca can charge less for tickets because they have 90,000 capacity and their marketing and sponsorship deals bring in more money than any other club.

Also I think fans here lack passion because they don't see it out on the pitch from the players. Too many foreign players looking for the big buck, diving, feigning injury etc. That's why you can go and watch Championship/League 1 and enjoy better atmospheres than most Premier League clubs.

German clubs don't get the tv revenue that English clubs do so in theory you would think that they would charge more for tickets, especially as they can't make a loss.

And what's Man City and Chelsea's excuse? They don't play by any financial rules, one is bank rolled by oil money and the other by dirty money and cash is no object to either so why do they charge their fans through the roof?

Plus diving and feigning injury is more blatant in other european leagues than ours, in truth i think they just love football more than we do.

 

[nailsy]

What killed English football culture? It was Jenas wasn't it?

 

[Gassin's finest]

Just go support your local club, or get involved with the game yourself... playing the game is where the real joy of the sport is.

 

[NP4_Yid]

Just found this rather interesting topic,you may want to grab a coffee or spark up a smoke as it's a lengthy read.....

English football culture used to be the envy of the world. Sadly, the most important part of that sentence is ‘used to be’.

These days, the atmosphere in the average English stadium is vastly surpassed by Germany, Sweden, Holland, Poland and many others across Europe. Even nations who haven’t traditionally cared about football such as Australia and America have been developing an interesting and exciting football scene. While the majority of teams in these nations have yet to capture the imagination of the public, the fans of Western Sydney Wanderers, Seattle Sounders and the Portland Timbers have certainly caught my eye.

It would have been almost unthinkable in the glory days of English football that you could have a better time at a game anywhere else in the world, never mind countries where rugby league, baseball or the American version of football are the most popular sports. So, how exactly did we allow our stadiums to become full of tourists, iPads and half and half scarves? Instead of a single factor, I believe the following ten factors are responsible for the rapid (but not irrevocable) decline of watching football in England:

End of the terraces

After the tragic death of 96 Liverpool fans at Hillsborough, English football was bound to change. It had to. At the time, the blame for this terrible disaster was put on the shoulders of the supporters themselves. Indeed, to this day, some ignorant people still believe that the fans themselves are responsible for what happened, rather than the real reasons of police incompetence, a stadium which was unfit for purpose and a lack of interest from the authorities in the safety of football fans.

A change had to come to protect supporters in England from something like this ever happening again, but the complete demolition of the terraces was not the answer. How many people died on the terraces in Germany last season? Zero. How about in any of the last 20 seasons? Same answer.

The introduction of safe standing would have allowed football clubs to keep prices low for at least one section of the stadium, ensuring that those who wanted to stand were catered for just as well as those who wanted to entertain corporate guests. By taking them away completely, a generation were priced out of the game. The result? Soulless, silent stadiums and kids in Premier League cities who will never know anything other than watching their team on television.

Margaret Thatcher

Thatcher hated football fans almost as much as she hated miners, milk and poor people. In addition to her government helping to cover up the real truth about Hillsborough, she was determined to kill the game for good.

She may have said that the target was football hooligans, but the fact is that in her eyes, to be a football supporter was to be a football hooligan. The Football Spectators Act of 1989 was set to make it compulsory for supporters to own a membership card to purchase tickets for away matches, complete with details such as their home address, passport number and more. While this plan eventually failed, the Act established many more laws which helped to repress football fans for many years, including airport style body searches, refusing fans entry for being drunk and much more. If she had had her way, it wouldn’t be English football culture which died, but football itself.

Euro ‘96

On the face of it, Euro ’96 was no different to any other tournament. England performed well enough to ensure that the country (and especially the tabloid newspapers) were whipped into a frenzy of excitement about lifting the trophy, before going out on penalties, finding a scapegoat and hating him forever.

However, the tournament had a lasting impact on football which went beyond ensuring that Gareth Southgate couldn’t go out in public for a couple of months. It made football ‘cool’ again. In the mind of the public, the game had been associated with drunken thugs rampaging across Europe throwing plastic chairs at French policemen, and wanted nothing to do with it.

This all changed with Euro 96, and suddenly it was cool to like football again. This attracted a new style of fan to the game, not to mention a wave of corporate interest. Taking a client to a game became an ideal way to secure a new contract or ensure a higher spend, with all parties involved more interested in discussing spreadsheets and accounts than actually following the action on the field.

With a new breed of supporters eager to get their hands on tickets, it made it easier for clubs to raise their prices without serious process. After all, for every lifelong working class supporter they drove away, there would be ten more people willing to take their place.

Sky Sports

There is enough wrong with Sky Sports that I could have listed them for all ten reasons, but perhaps the worst is their control of kick off times. How do you expect supporters to be at their best when they have been dragged out of bed at 3am on a Sunday morning for a lunchtime kick off in Newcastle?

A couple of years ago, before Vincent Tan came along, I attended every single Cardiff away game in a season, getting up at some extremely silly times to go and watch numerous defeats in former mining villages. The worst journey of the lot was also the closest, with Sky Sports deciding that 11:15am was a good time for the South Wales derby. Police restrictions meant that the coaches ended up setting off while it was still dark outside. Both sides still manage to inform each other that they were scum who enjoyed intimacy with their sisters and running away from fights, but it was nowhere near as intense as it could have been had the game been played at a reasonable hour. Something like 3pm on a Saturday, perhaps?

Just this week, the hideous creation that is ‘Monday Night Football’ ensured that Sunderland fans would have to take two days off work if they wanted to attend their crucial fixture at Tottenham. 300 of them did so and made a great amount of noise, but imagine how much better it would have been had they been able to bring an extra couple of thousand?

I understand that the contract held by Sky Sports means that kick off times are going to change, but I believe rules should be in place to limit how early games can be, and how far fans will be forced to travel for a midweek game.

Theme park stadiums

Thankfully, a number of English clubs have so far resisted the temptation to build a new stadium in a retail park several miles away from the city centre, but it is certainly a growing trend. Instead of fans being able to stagger out of a local pub half an hour before kick off and head for the turnstiles with drunken enthusiasm ensuring they genuinely believe that their slightly overweight striker on loan from S****horpe is better than Pele, they are forced to hang around Greggs, McDonalds and ASDA and so on for hours on end. Alternatively, they could enter the stadium early and ‘enjoy’ a pint of Carling in a plastic cup for four quid.

Just as the game is increasingly being taken away from those under the age of thirty, it is also being taken away from the community. When you cater for tourists rather than local supporters, is it any wonder the ground is silent apart from the noise of a thousand pictures being taken for Facebook?

Man City play much better football at the Etihad than they ever did at Maine Road and it’s certainly more comfortable, but ask their supporters which ground they enjoyed going to more and I bet I can guess the answer. The same goes for the new stadiums at Leicester City, Derby County, Hull City, Reading and many more. For the best example of all, just look at what moving to this kind of stadium did to Coventry City. After leaving their beloved home, they rattled around an almost empty Ricoh Arena for several years, before ending up playing in Northampton.

The Old Trafford refund

In August of 2011, Manchester United demolished Arsenal 8 – 2 at Old Trafford in one of the most embarrassing moments in the history of the club. Despite the fact they were well beaten, some pride was restored by the travelling fans. While some of them departed early, many more stayed and continued to loudly support their team until the final whistle.

In the days following the game, it was announced that the away fans who attended the match would be offered a refund. I was unable to find statistics on how many of the supporters chose to accept the offer, but I feel this was an incredibly significant moment in the history of English football culture, changing many supporters into customers.

By offering a refund for poor performance, it turns attending a football match into something similar to shopping at Tesco or going for a meal at a restaurant. Rather than getting behind their team and trying to inspire them to victory, they’ll sit back and wait to be entertained. I have noticed through my travels around Europe that when a side in Germany, Serbia or Holland goes behind, most of the time they will just sing even louder, as if they were responsible for conceding the goal because they weren’t putting enough effort into supporting their team.

Of course, this transformation in to customers was happening long before Arsenal made this offer, but it certainly helped to accelerate it. My question to those who believe it is acceptable to ask for a refund after a bad performance is, how would you react if the players walked over to the away end and asked for another £40 each every time they won?

Worryingly, Norwich City supporters also received a refund recently after a dismal defeat to Swansea. If this continues, you can guarantee that in the near future, a football club will attempt to charge their supporters extra every time they score a goal or win a game.

MK Dons

The fact that this vile abomination of a franchise continues to exist is a major blow to the soul of English football. The day they finally go bust, I will fly to the UK to organise coaches to Milton Keynes from Wimbledon to dance on their ugly concrete grave.

Please note – If you are a MK Dons fans and this offends you, good.

Banning orders

I understand the need for banning orders in football. If you decide that it would be a good idea to throw a flare into the Family Stand or charge across the pitch to try to punch Frank Lampard in the face, you deserve everything you get when the law comes calling. However, the issue arises when supporters are being prevented from watching their beloved teams for increasingly minor issues. This season alone, banning orders have been issued to Season Ticket holders at both Sunderland and Everton for standing up during a game. Even more ridiculously, the Sunderland fan in question had been standing up to celebrate a goal his team had just scored.

Now, Sunderland have scored so few goals this season that fans should be allowed to celebrate them by riding a unicorn round the pitch naked while setting fire to an effigy of Alan Shearer, never mind simply standing up and jumping about a bit. Banning orders have also been given for the ‘offences’ of swearing, shouting and singing songs which are deemed to be offensive by the police. Not racist, homophobic or anything deserving along those lines which deserves punishment, but merely offensive. It begs the question, where does it end? Should supporters be banned for singing they support “by far the greatest team, the world has ever seen” because it is offensive to the memory of 1970′s Brazil?

Something has to be done to make the offences which can result in a football banning order more reasonable. Have a wee against a wall in a city centre on a Saturday night? All fine. Do it outside a football stadium because 30,000 other people are waiting to use the toilets? That’s a three year ban sonny. It’s no wonder that many football fans sit down and stay silent, it’s the only way to get the police and stewards to leave you alone.

Greed

The modern football fan is undeniably greedy. If the reanimated corpse of Adolf Hitler turned up at a Championship side and offered to invest 30 million quid, you can be sure that fans would be wearing replica moustaches to the next home game and singing adoring songs in praise of their ‘saviour’.

Greed is the reason Cardiff City play in red, and the reason Hull City so nearly became known as Hull Tigers. It could also be partially blamed for the demise of Leeds United and Portsmouth. The money being spent by Peter Ridsdale and the dozens of owners of Portsmouth was clearly ridiculous, but very few people objected until it was too late and things had already begun to come crashing down.

The hype created by Sky Sports about the Premier League being the best in the world has brainwashed millions of people into believing that watching their team play in any other league is simply unbearable. For every Sheikh Mansour there are ten Vincent Tan’s, but this doesn’t stop people from demanding they become the plaything of a billionaire. Change the name, colour, identity of the club? Fine, as long as you can make sure we can play Man City, Chelsea and Liverpool every season.

Apathy

How many times have you heard “It’s all you’ve known” or “There’s nothing you can do to change it” when speaking out against a certain aspect of football in the modern era? I’d wager quite a few, and it’s certainly a phrase which pops up in my Twitter interactions at least once a week. Normally from somebody with a username like @TopLAD95 or @BantzLegend2K14.

Instead of protesting as others around Europe have done when their football culture is threatened, we stood back and, for the most part, did nothing. In Sweden, arch rivals AIK and Djurgården agreed to say silent for the opening stages of a match between the two sides, showing the authorities what football would be like without supporters. The 12:12 campaign in Germany last season did the same, where the fans of every single club in the league pyramid stayed silent for the first 12 minutes and 12 seconds of the game in protest at proposed legislation designed to place more restrictions on football fans. The silence was observed perfectly, before the stadium descended into chaos for the rest of the game. The DFL got the message, and the changes were dropped. Nobody is suggesting you have to give up your season ticket or throw a flare at Rupert Murdoch to protest, as long as you do something.

The fact is that if nobody had ever campaigned for change and a better way of doing things we’d all still be living in caves and choosing a partner by dragging them home by their hair. This still happens on a Saturday night in Newport, but most of the world has moved on. Being against modern football does not mean that you are desperate for a return of the days of football hooliganism and the chance to lay waste to a different town centre every fortnight. Germany and many other countries have shown how it is possible for football to be safe and enjoyable at the same time.

The reason English football culture died? We let it.

http://supportersnotcustomers.com/2014/04/09/what-killed-english-football-culture/

I agree with nearly all that but an 11.15am kick off for the Jacks vs Cardiff would have more to do with certain fans from both clubs than Sky Sports! At least they allow away fans to the games now.

 

[Oscar22]

I certainly don't blame things like CCTV. It catches people doing things like nazi salutes, and throwing bottles and coins at each other. That isn't being a fan or supporting your club, that's being a mindless racist div.

In this day and age there is no need or call for football violence. None. Football support should be about watching your club, supporting them through good and bad times, singing until the end of the 90 minutes regardless of score and most importantly trying to involve families so that good, decent support is passed down through generations through attendance at games and stories of glory days.

If you can't go to a football match without having to throw your bottles and coins at opposing fans and players, and using racist gestures and language then you shouldn't be allowed out of your own house let alone to a football match.

Standing at games and those sorts of issues i have no problem with, if people want to stand then they should be allowed to. However it should be noted that families go to football grounds and therefore a bunch of adults standing up may be blocking views of children etc who have just as much right to watch a game.

However, i feel that in that case the onus should be on the clubs themselves to arrange the grounds to avoid the problems, i.e arranging stands into seated and standing areas.

 

[LSUY]

Ticket allocations don't help. For the FA Cup Final Hull and Arsenal are getting 25,000 tickets each. So that's about 37,000 going to Club Wembley members and the 'football family' as the FA calls them. How about, instead of giving tickets to Budweiser, etc. the FA gives the tickets to the clubs so Wembley can be full of actual fans?

And on the topic of Wembley, that bloody band that plays at every single England game is helping to kill English football culture. I like The Dambusters, The Great Escape and The Italian Job I don't however want to hear the theme tunes for the entire 90 mins. Thousands of fans singing 'Three Lions' was vastly superior to that dreadful band. Andy Townsend commentating + the England brass band = the mute button being used.

 

[riggi]

Essentially families should be banned.

O and we need those beer guys coming round the stands.