- Jun 4, 2005
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I don’t entirely disagree with most of what you’ve said. If we’re in it, we should try and win it for sure. But in my opinion, just because it’s a European trophy, it doesn’t make it any more glamorous. I’d genuinely rather win the fa cup or league cup than the europa conference. And I agree it’d be great for the likes of Brentford etc to qualify because 7th place is an amazing finish for them, but for us, even trophyless us, it is still seen as a failure to finish 7th because despite all the money everywhere else, we have still finished a lot higher than that almost every year for 15 odd years. I also loved watching us under Jol back in Europe for the first time in a decade or so and I would’ve loved playing in the Europa conference at that point… but not now. We’ve come on bundles since then and playing in that tournament now would feel like we’ve gone back 20 years. I’d still want us to smash it if we were in it of course, and much like every West Ham fan is doing now, I’d cut off people mid sentence to say ‘champions of Europe’ before letting them carry on, but deep down I’d know it’s a bit shit.I remember when Jol was in charge and we started getting into the UEFA cup (yeah I know the standard is much lower in the conference cup), but I still loved watching us against European sides. Not so much in the ECL but that was because we were crap.
West Ham won a trophy, and it may be the least of the European Cups, but it's something. For clubs like Villa, Brighton and West Ham I imagine it's great being involved in those competitions.
If we end up in the European conference league next year I'd like us to go for it and win it and I'd be happy if we did.
When you have 6 teams (NU, Chelsea, United, city, Arsenal and Liverpool) in the league who are spending ridiculous money, finishing 7th and winning a cup is a fantastic achievement. They should celebrate and sing champions of Europe.
Short of being owned by a country it's incredibly unlikely that these teams will ever get into the champions league.
The only (fair way) to do it is by growing the clubs income (like we've done), but this has taken a couple of decades and good ownership.
Anyway, I don't think we should belittle it, especially us.
As for the Forrest fans, they seem like a reasonable bunch and makes a fresh change to Villa and West Ham fans.
Opponents’ fans. Erm, yes I agree Forest fans seem nice.