The Premiership - Dull or what?

[algie]

What amazes me is in roughly a quarter of the amount of posts you have managed to post 4 times the amount of bullshit.

Keep to sucking cocks Les.It's what you know best

 

[Gwylan]

Between them Feyenoord, Ajax and PSV have only failed to win the Dutch league once since 1964 (AZ Alkmaar won it in 1981).

And even Feyenood have only won 2 of the last 22...

I believe that Belgian football is also dominated by a couple of clubs.

But it's not so much that only two clubs can win the league in England - other countries have had that - it's just that our league was the most competitive in the world at one point; we're just not used to this dominance by a few clubs.

In my first 16 seasons of watching football, 11 clubs won the 1st Division; in 15 seasons of the Prem, just five clubs have won it - and don't expect to see two of them challenging for many a year.

The next 15? Just two I guess....

Roll on the G14 Superleague.

 

[Les Biehn]

Keep to sucking cocks Les.It's what you know best

How do you know whether I give good blowjobs? How do you even know I give good ones for a man?

Only experience would have taught you these things.

 

[The Large One]

Cracking post there beardy.I didn't know you had it in you.Has to be your best post to date by a long shot.Mind you, it has nearly taken you 16000 posts to come up with it.A good read
Now back to another 16000 posts of bullshit and a waste of bandwidth

Cheeky cunt.

I used to work with a lovely young lady from Pamplona called Carmen. She had this lovely turn of phrase, which apparently was popular in that area when she was growing up.

'Cagué en su leche', she'd say.

Sums it up perfectly for me.

 

[Pavilionaire]

Back to the Football League, if you look back to the 20-odd years before the Prem then the following all won the League - Arsenal, Derby, Liverpool, Nott'm Forest, Villa, Everton, Leeds while the likes of Spurs, QPR, Ipswich, Watford, Southampton, Man City and Man Utd all came very close by finishing 2nd.

You tend to look back and think Liverpool dominated, but it wasn't as clear cut as that.

 

[Knotty]

Hypothetically....we get Falmer....we get taken over by the Dubai Investment Corporation....we're in the Premiership in 7 or 8 years...if we played anything approaching the kind of football that United and Arsenal are dishing up at the moment I'd be delighted!

Why would you not want that?

There are many things wrong with the Premiership but would you stop supporting the Albion if we got there? Surely for all its faults it has to be the ultimate goal.

 

[The Large One]

It's the ultimate goal, but - and this is what Liz Costa was alluding to a couple of weeks ago - we don't want the soul of the club ripped out from it.

If we can retain some dignity, continuing our excellent community programmes and supporter involvment, rather than being seen to be as some money-grabbing leviathan, then naturally we would all be delighted. The question is... Is the destruction of any fan-led infrastructure or involvement a price we ought to (or need to) pay for getting to the Premiership?

If this does happen, it would be a Brighton & Hove Albion in name only, and not strictly representative of the city or community it purports to serve. That would be my fear at any rate.

 

[1959]

Hypothetically....we get Falmer....we get taken over by the Dubai Investment Corporation....we're in the Premiership in 7 or 8 years...if we played anything approaching the kind of football that United and Arsenal are dishing up at the moment I'd be delighted!

Why would you not want that?

There are many things wrong with the Premiership but would you stop supporting the Albion if we got there? Surely for all its faults it has to be the ultimate goal.

You would be happy if the club was taken over by some foreign investment firm? For me, that would be the very, very end.

 

[bhanutz]

Coventry City in 1987
Wimbledon (yeah, I know it's London, but you know what I mean) in 1988

But I take your point.

Do Arsenal play with ANY English players at present? I'm trying to think, but none are obvious, aside from the odd traineee-through-the-ranks who gets shipped off to Reading once they hit puberty. In that sense, I am extremely proud and pleased that Brighton has the youth policy and set-up that it does have. It encourages a sense of commitment and loyalty. Something a mercenary from the Premiership would have no concept or understanding of.

I remember someone coming up to me one time and asking who my team was. I replied 'Brighton', of course, and they said 'no, which is your Premiership team?' I ould only stand there agog at such an irrelevant, almost impertinent question, based on such ignorance of learned footbal culture. I have little or no interest in the Premiership, let alone going so far as to say there is a club in that division that I actually care about enough to say 'I support them...'

It's also indicative of Murdoch's carpet-bombing style of marketing football to the middle classes - something it was felt in the 1990s would be the answer to many of football's ills from the 1980s and before. True, it got the game out of the gutter for a short time, and made it a more pleasurable, less hostile, safer place to go. The word 'football' is banded about far less in front the word 'hooligans' nowadays.

However, as was predicted at the time, the advent of all-seater stadia and raised prices to attract the middle-classes into football are not only part of the solution, they are also part of the problem. These newcomers with new money were brought in to 'enjoy the atmosphere' that football matches create, but at the EXPENSE of the very thing they were there to experience - they REPLACED the working-class, passionate, but often not overly rich men who were prepared to sing, shout and cajole their team (and in the opposition fans) because prices shot through the roof.

As a result, the top level of football is cash-rich, but soul-poor. Of all of the problems that have been sorted out with English football, the main one that has still to be done is the behaviour of the clubs' boards of directors. It's like we've finally come full-circle from Hillsborough, and for all this 'looking after fans' corpoarte bullshit we were fed, the fans are there for one purpose - bring in the money. Know your place, all your Premiership fans, cos that's what you're there for, and that's all you're good for.

What a load of bollocks!

So, tell me how you came up with this conclusion! The same people I know that were going to 'top flight' football 20 yrs ago are the same people going now! Is today's 'middle' class as you call it, yester years working class?

Define the whole class thing please!

Also, Look at ticket prices etc in the championship and even the 1st division (ie us) they are not too far off most Premiership ticket prices.

I agree the sitting down has ruined the atmosphere, but let me assure you the majority of fans that go are 'Real' fans!

 

[Knotty]

You would be happy if the club was taken over by some foreign investment firm? For me, that would be the very, very end.

I said it was hypothetical.

I was trying to make the point that I don't believe that people would have the same view of the Premiership if Albion were in it and the only way we would get there would be with massive investment that might be foreign. Also the Premiership surely has to be every club's aim.

I would be much happier if it were a British investment but if it HAD to be foreign investment to help the club to improve then, yes, I would accept that. How can it be the very end?

If the only way to pick the club up from where it is now (look at all the whinging and criticism on NSC at the moment) were foreign investment would you really walk away from it?

I don't have a choice in the club I support. It happened when I was 7 and nothing would change it regardless of who owns the club or which division we are in. I can't just switch it off.

 

[HAMPSHIRE DAVE]

Hate having anything stuffed down my throat about how good something is!
"Coming up folks"
The wonderful,fantastic,amazing Bolton v Blackburn etc.
NO EVERY BLOODY GAME IS NOT FANTASTIC!
Overhyped rubbish which just proves if you tell people something is great enough times they will watch it.
Another thing we have imported from America.
HYPE!!
The Super Bowl is watched by everyone in America cause their's nothing else on and because other people watch it American's think they have to see it.
Been to NFL games so know what I'm talking about.
NO YOU DON'T!!
Just like the Premership.
Look at the viewing figures for the Premiership and many games even involving teams like Liverpool etc get less than 2 million.
Even allowing for the fact many people may be watching it in the pub the fugures are probably still less than three million?
STOP WATCHING IT,DON'T GO TO SOME GAMES.
It's the only way to get the costs down!
Cause real fans like us on here would do that anyway.
It's the plastic Premership fans who still think it's cool to pay £50+ a season who will keep going.
TWAT'S!!
Rant over!!
HAMPSHIRE DAVE

 

[Yorkie]

Hypothetically....we get Falmer....we get taken over by the Dubai Investment Corporation....we're in the Premiership in 7 or 8 years...if we played anything approaching the kind of football that United and Arsenal are dishing up at the moment I'd be delighted!

Why would you not want that?

There are many things wrong with the Premiership but would you stop supporting the Albion if we got there? Surely for all its faults it has to be the ultimate goal.

I wouldn't be able to afford to go if we were in the Prem. When clubs like Chelsea charge £45 for concessions, then it is way over my limit.

 

[FalmerforAll!**]

I think its quite harsh to call the premiership dull.Reading sitting in 6th position and looking at Europe and watching Chelsea get done every week gives me alot of joy too after watching Match of the day last year aswell

 

[Domsdad]

Never mind Celtic and Rangers joining the Premiership. It would be a lot more interesting if Man U and Chelsea joined the Scottish league (any division)

 

[The Large One]

What a load of bollocks!

So, tell me how you came up with this conclusion! The same people I know that were going to 'top flight' football 20 yrs ago are the same people going now! Is today's 'middle' class as you call it, yester years working class?

Define the whole class thing please!

Also, Look at ticket prices etc in the championship and even the 1st division (ie us) they are not too far off most Premiership ticket prices.

I agree the sitting down has ruined the atmosphere, but let me assure you the majority of fans that go are 'Real' fans!

Is very far from bollocks, principally because you've missed my main point.

The point I was making was about people being priced out of the market. You're talking - quite separately - about the class issue. Perhaps I was over-emphasising the 'class' thing but the main gist is still not bollocks.

The majority of people YOU know still go - fine. But do they represent the majority of people who go as a whole? Not necessarily. Many people from 20 years ago have stopped going (and the vast majority back then were from what was considered a 'working class' background), and those who have replaced them are not from the same demographic. These are the people who have seen football become more sanitised (some would say 'safer'), more family-oriented, more 'Americanised' if you like. The people you are talking about still go, but they are not part of the entire make-up of football crowds today.

Like it or lump it, and this is absolutely true, football crowds have changed in the past 20 years.

Also, your point about Premiership prices and Championship prices also misses the point - in fact, it is largely irrelevant to the argument here. What division a club is in may or may not dictate that individual club's pricing policy, but it is not indicative of their own fans' ability to pay.

 

[Kent Seagull]

When we were promoted to the old division one in 1979, there was a lot of talk about whether we could emulate Forest a few seasons earlier and win the league at the first attempt. No doubt the same thought was in the minds of the famous "Team of the Eighties"! In those days it was possible for a team newly promoted to do extremely well in the top flight and whilst unlikely, winning the thing was a possibility for a promoted team.
It was certainly a lot harder to predict who would do well and who would struggle than it is now.

By and large, most teams that go up nowadays expect to go back down, because they know that the cannot compete with teams that have been on the Premiership gravy train for years. The gap between the top four and the rest of the Prem and the rest of the Prem and the Championship is much to wide.

Unless there is a better distribution of wealth in football and perhaps limits on how much clubs can pay players, the rich will be evermore successful while the rest simply cling on to the hope of a mid table finish at best. It's not much of a competition if you know in August that there's only really two clubs with any hope of winning the league. That's why the Premier League is a pile of shite that I can't be arsed to watch.

 

[desprateseagull]

perhaps they should pay the players, based on goals scored/ pons eon, each game- no goals = no pay! may bring ticket prices down for a bit, for the 'boring' sides..

 

[Kent Seagull]

perhaps they should pay the players, based on goals scored/ pons eon, each game- no goals = no pay! may bring ticket prices down for a bit, for the 'boring' sides..

Watching the Albion would be soooo cheap then!

 

[Simster]

Blimey - so we can nominate the Dutch for the much-coveted "European league which is as numbingly-predictable as the Premiership but without Sky's money" award? No wonder they always choke in the world cup.

Fuckinell COL, it doesn't get less competitive than your beloved BUNDESLIGA. Bayern have DOMINATED for about 15 years. Yes there are big gates elsewhere but Bayern have run away with it for decades. And the Ossies are represented by - what - two clubs in the top THREE divisions. They've bollocksed that right up haven't they.

In Spain, only nine clubs have EVER won La Liga - and three of those clubs have won it just the once, with Sociedad winning it twice.

Holland - utterly dominated by two clubs (Ajax/PSV), with Feyenoord playing the Newcastle role.
Portugal - see Holland, the third club being Sporting.
Scotland - as predicable as Holland and Portugal

And it's the same old story in Russia, Scandinavia, Poland, Czech republic, Hungary, Romania etc.

In fact, I'd say Italy is reasonably competitive - but it's domestic football is in a right f***ing state.

England is no worse than anywhere else. We've had Chelsea, Man U, Arse winning it regualrly, but Blackburn & Leeds have chipped in, and Liverpool & Newcastle have made handy "nearly men" on occasions.

f*** it - I quite like the Prem, I just wish Chelsea hadn't been taken over by that Russian crook. Bates had sent them on a one way ticket to Leeds street, which would have been great.

 

[Man of Harveys]

BUNDESLIGA. Bayern have DOMINATED for about 15 years.

Except when they haven't during that time, as I've pointed out. But why let the facts get in the way of a good "my country right or wrong" rant?