Have you ever felt less enthusiastic about an England match before?

[Billy the Fish]

I'm more concerned with the REAL England game which starts about this time next week

 

[Steve Foster]

On the way back. Cost me £50 for two tickets no concessions for kids to sit in the gods. After seeing the Woking game yesterday & back to the withers on Saturday, it's gonna cost me a few quid this week. One win would do!

 

[Spider]

Thank God I support a club I actually have a proper affiliation to. The idea of sitting through an England friendly tonight seemed almost laughable - and this is coming from someone who until a couple of years ago would always have watched a team purporting to represent England. f*** that nowadays - f*** the players who couldn't give a flying one, and f*** the idiot fans who make a mockery of supporting their national team.

 

[Icy Gull]

Well I enjoyed the way France played, reminded me of a more skilfull version of the club I support, England were better than I though they'd be too, but that wasn't hard

 

[Brovion]

Not sure about those figures. Tickets sales about a month ago stood at 44,000 and then tickets at £10 (adult) and £5 (children) were made available to Brent residents and other target areas. The match then magically within days became sold out. I wander how many of the expensive seats were sold at £10 and £5?

I doubt the FA will ever tell us the figure

By the looks of it there weren't many England fans there at all. Oh sure most of the seats were taken but you could tell it was all tourists and sightseers. A Mexican wave after about half an hour, no self respecting football fans would do that.

 

[Arthur]

By the looks of it there weren't many England fans there at all. Oh sure most of the seats were taken but you could tell it was all tourists and sightseers. A Mexican wave after about half an hour, no self respecting football fans would do that.

That's pretty much on the button. Lots of French dotted about all over the ground and why not they were playing after all. That said had the roles been reversed and we were playing in Paris can't imagine the locals would have been as accommodating.

Also very apparent there were lots of Brent locals there innit!

FA are an embarrassment from top to bottom. I'll be very surprised if we win the 2018 bid and to be honest I really hope we don't.

 

[ROSM]

That's pretty much on the button. Lots of French dotted about all over the ground and why not they were playing after all. That said had the roles been reversed and we were playing in Paris can't imagine the locals would have been as accommodating.

Also very apparent there were lots of Brent locals there innit!

FA are an embarrassment from top to bottom. I'll be very surprised if we win the 2018 bid and to be honest I really hope we don't.

I hear what you're saying Arthur and agree entirely with the sentiments on the FA. However I do hope (and it is a forlorn hope I fear) that we do win the 2018 bid as it would be an opportunity to take my kids to a world cup game in this country. Something that has only happened once before in history. This really was our best chance at getting it given the obvious issues with a joint bid by the Iberians and the Russian geographical problems. However it seems FIFA have been given a blank cheque to ignore those.

 

[Brovion]

...

FA are an embarrassment from top to bottom. I'll be very surprised if we win the 2018 bid and to be honest I really hope we don't.

Agreed. I really wanted is to get 2018, now, well I won't say I really don't want us to get it but I certainly won't shed any tears if we don't. It's hard to shake off the feeling that if you offered the FA the chance to host the W.C. in 2018 or actually win it in 2014 they'd choose 'host it' without a second thought.

 

[Arthur]

I hear what you're saying Arthur and agree entirely with the sentiments on the FA. However I do hope (and it is a forlorn hope I fear) that we do win the 2018 bid as it would be an opportunity to take my kids to a world cup game in this country. Something that has only happened once before in history. This really was our best chance at getting it given the obvious issues with a joint bid by the Iberians and the Russian geographical problems. However it seems FIFA have been given a blank cheque to ignore those.

Oh don't get me wrong we have got by far the best infrastructure to host the tournament and it will be great for the country and the economy to host it here.

However in recent years the FA have f***ed everything up they have touched and they don't seem to learnt from it. Ultimately all us football fans only really care about is how we perform on the pitch and even after abject performances after abject performances the FA are doing nothing about resolving the issue. Granted it's not going to come overnight but the should be sewing the seed for future generations now!

But they're not because they can't! Simply because they've got to service the debt created by the massive f*** up that was the rebuild of Wembley. To do so they've got to have untold daft sports there every other weekend and pop concerts in the summer. How much of that money is going back into football?? Bugger all!

That's happened now and we've got to move on BUT they then we go and give a bloke who can't speak the language a contract for £6m a year to produce what has got to have been our worst world cup performances (certainly in my living memory anyway).

How do they reward the loyalty of the fans who spent thousands following that campaign? By ripping them off at every given chance. Yet like mugs we keep going back!

The final straw for me last night was at the bar last night getting a beer at half time and a fella came up with his young lad and asked him if he wanted anything to eat. The lad said "can I have some chips please Dad?" so the chap asks the bloke behind the ramp for some chips only to be told that they didn't sell chips on there own and he had to buy a meal which are all over £8!!

The tide is changing though, only selling 44k tickets against high profile opposition suggests people are getting fed up. The members club membership only stands at 23k members and more closer to home the fact Mr Blobby (who hasn't missed a game since records began) couldn't be arsed to go speaks volumes.

 

[Gwylan]

That's happened now and we've got to move on BUT they then we go and give a bloke who can't speak the language a contract for £6m a year to produce what has got to have been our worst world cup performances (certainly in my living memory anyway).

You must be too young to remember 1974, 1978 and 1994 when we didn't even qualify but other than that, this is a spot-on rant.

Money's pretty tight out there and I was surprised that they got as many as they did for last night. I wonder how long this will continue though - too many poor performances and people are going to vote with their feet.

At the moment, as you put it, the mugs are going back but I'm sure there'll be a time when they won't

 

[ROSM]

Money's pretty tight out there and I was surprised that they got as many as they did for last night. I wonder how long this will continue though - too many poor performances and people are going to vote with their feet.

At the moment, as you put it, the mugs are going back but I'm sure there'll be a time when they won't

agree with Arthur and you entirely. The England national team has started to eat itself and the premiership will be next. In tough times football is a luxury and we will start to see bigger empty spaces at many lower premier league grounds next year. Although they rely so little on paying fans these days.

I watched 20 mins of the game last night and that was enough for me. Where I do have sympathy for Capello is that he has very little to work with in terms of players and those he does have questionable attitudes. At the world cup he had John Terry who was irked at being caught and we know the rumours with other players. I wonder how many others are subject to trying to keep aspects of their private lives quiet in the courts?

 

[Arthur]

You must be too young to remember 1974, 1978 and 1994 when we didn't even qualify but other than that, this is a spot-on rant.

Money's pretty tight out there and I was surprised that they got as many as they did for last night. I wonder how long this will continue though - too many poor performances and people are going to vote with their feet.

At the moment, as you put it, the mugs are going back but I'm sure there'll be a time when they won't

I meant final performance. You're right though I am too young for 74 and 78 but I certainly remember 94.

People are voting with their feet though. 44k were sold at full price last night, they lost 12,000 members from the members club for this campaign (granted you could argue that Poland/Ukraine doesn't have the same appeal as SA. But that said you could also argue that it is more appealing for many as it's more accessible both geographically and financially).

Sadly I want to do Montenegro so I'm having to keep my cap total up so I will be contributing to the FA's coffers again during this qualifying period (plus I've already paid my £75 to be a member - imagine the hoohar they'd be on here if once every other season you had to renew your away membership at a cost of £75 a pop! You do get a glossy magazine and a membership card though!!). I can see allot of those tickets being re-sold or simply not used.

 

[Austrian Gull]

You must be too young to remember 1974, 1978 and 1994 when we didn't even qualify

But the first two were at a time when qualifying for a World Cup was a decent achievement in itself - only 16 teams rather than 32 now. In 78, we were in the same qualifying group as Italy and going for one spot.

I'll give you 1994 though!