It's a sad inditement

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Not Andy Naylor

Well-known member
Dec 12, 2007
8,995
Seven Dials
Yeh, but they were Brighton players, and they were full internationals! Believe me, that was f**kin' marvellous!

And Willie Irvine played for Northern Ireland when they beat England 1-0 at Wembley in 1972. It was then that I realised how much more I cared about the Albion than England. Irvine had helped us to promotion and his goal against Villa had come third in the MOTD Goal of the Season but what had any of the England players done for me lately?
 




BN9 BHA

DOCKERS
NSC Patron
Jul 14, 2013
22,683
Newhaven
...when the Miami Dolphins and St. Louis Saints fill Wembley more than England at the home of English football. Masses of empty seats tonight.

Says a lot about the state of English football and the rise of American football.

What do we expect from a ex palace as manager?

I know nothing about American football or the teams.

But was this game a one off, have the teams played at Wembley before?
Was the game also shown live on ITV?

I have already posted that the NFL game was on a Sunday.

May be some reasons for the difference in attendances.
 


One Teddy Maybank

Well-known member
NSC Patron
Aug 4, 2006
22,991
Worthing
No, 65,000 is brilliant to watch a team ranked that low. (Unless of course the tickets were only £10 in which case it's about right). In 1984 I saw England play East Germany at Wembley and the attendance was less than 24,000. And in those days you could POTG, indeed I only went as a spur-of-the-moment things as I was working in North London that day.

Not surprised the NFL attendances are higher though, it's a far better sport.

Not really. This is the national team, this is a one-off opportunity to see the cream of this country’s talent, we should be selling out or close to it.

If we aren’t selling out, poor team apart, they need to look at why.

I saw England vs Czechoslovakia in 78, 100,000 sell out, perhaps it was more of a boom time for British football........ but given the PL is it?

Perhaps the starting point is restricting foreign players, I don’t know, but over the years it’s become more and more boring.

Is Wembley accessible enough?


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Dave the OAP

Well-known member
Jul 5, 2003
46,761
at home
I know nothing about American football or the teams.

But was this game a one off, have the teams played at Wembley before?
Was the game also shown live on ITV?

I have already posted that the NFL game was on a Sunday.

May be some reasons for the difference in attendances.

No not a one off...they now have regular games over here....I think it is 4 two of which are at Wembley and twickdnham and there is negotiations to bring a full franchise team over to play their regular season games at the new white heart lane. Wouldn't surprise me if it is the Chargers or possibly the Jags.

But where in the us, you tend to get no away fans at all, this was full of fans from practically all the teams in the NFL.

IT was on live on TV( BBC2???)
 




Hotchilidog

Well-known member
Jan 24, 2009
9,120
No not a one off...they now have regular games over here....I think it is 4 two of which are at Wembley and twickdnham and there is negotiations to bring a full franchise team over to play their regular season games at the new white heart lane. Wouldn't surprise me if it is the Chargers or possibly the Jags.

But where in the us, you tend to get no away fans at all, this was full of fans from practically all the teams in the NFL.

IT was on live on TV( BBC2???)

Actually you do get loads of away fans. Sadly at Fed Ex too often the opposition will have anywhere between 10-20,000 fans in attendance and if it's the Steelers around 30,000!

The transient populations in several major towns means you quite often get large numbers of away fans. Steelers, Cowboys, Packers, Raiders, Seahawks, Patriots etc are de facto national teams with fans everywhere. Even the Skins dominated the crowd at the recent game against the Rams in LA.

I tell you what though, I'd rather watch the Jets v Browns than an England game at the moment, way more entertaining.

Getting back to the wider point of the OP, the problem England have is that they are just dull. The money at the top of the football tree has increased the importance of club football and diluted the interest in international football. Couple that with the blatant corruption at FIFA and the unpalatable prospect of a WC in the human rights black hole that is modern day Russia and the obscentiy that it is the Qatar 2022 tournament I'm surprised as many as 62,000 turned up yesterday. In my opinion that was a decent turn out. Me? I went to the opera instead.
 


Brovion

In my defence, I was left unsupervised.
NSC Patron
Jul 6, 2003
19,864
Not really. This is the national team, this is a one-off opportunity to see the cream of this country’s talent, we should be selling out or close to it.

If we aren’t selling out, poor team apart, they need to look at why.

I saw England vs Czechoslovakia in 78, 100,000 sell out, perhaps it was more of a boom time for British football........ but given the PL is it?

Perhaps the starting point is restricting foreign players, I don’t know, but over the years it’s become more and more boring.

Is Wembley accessible enough?


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It's not a one-off opportunity though is it? There's a constant stream of friendlies and qualifiers. As Simster points out one of the reasons the NFL Wembley attendances are higher is because they ARE less common.

He's also right (as are you) about the problems of Wembley. Back in the 60s, 70s and 80s when I used to go to England games we used to joke that if they were going to build a national stadium now the last place they'd put it is in an over-crowded, inaccessible part of North London. They had the ideal chance to rectify this when the old stadium reached the end of it's life. And what did they do ? .....
 


McTavish

Well-known member
Nov 5, 2014
1,587
In American football the ball is in play for the full game is 60 minutes 100%. In football it's approx 68%. You get more bang for your bucks despite or in spite of the average game time of 3 to 3.5 hours. I was a sceptic until I watched learnt the rules then eventually played.
But that's just a quirk of the rules, if you reduced a football match to 60 mins but stopped the clock every time it went out of play you would get 100% exactly as in American Football. The only thing that would change is that, as in the tedious bore-fest that is live American Football, the actual action would be spread over a much longer period as there would be no urgency to get the ball back in to play
 






One Teddy Maybank

Well-known member
NSC Patron
Aug 4, 2006
22,991
Worthing
It's not a one-off opportunity though is it? There's a constant stream of friendlies and qualifiers. As Simster points out one of the reasons the NFL Wembley attendances are higher is because they ARE less common.

He's also right (as are you) about the problems of Wembley. Back in the 60s, 70s and 80s when I used to go to England games we used to joke that if they were going to build a national stadium now the last place they'd put it is in an over-crowded, inaccessible part of North London. They had the ideal chance to rectify this when the old stadium reached the end of it's life. And what did they do ? .....

I know they feel like a constant stream, but how many international home games are there?

4 perhaps 5? Not really that many......

There are 4 NFL games this season. I actually don’t think all of those will sell out based on the number of emails I’m getting.


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jimhigham

Je Suis Rhino
Apr 25, 2009
8,037
Woking
Since the South Africa World Cup I'm afraid I have just switched off from the national team entirely. Watching Rooney berate England supporters after their anaemic 0-0 draw with Algeria just did it for me. The impression now is that there is relatively little pride to be had in playing for your country so why should I care about these players? They seemingly represent nobody but themselves. Contrast this with David Seaman only eight years earlier. I recall him being interviewed and asked if he was aware of how much the supporters back home were getting behind the team. He replied that no matter how much the supporters wanted it he could assure them that the team wanted it more and then bawled his eyes out after the Brazil defeat. Gazza anybody? Our recent farcical tournament exits seem to be greeted with nothing more than a collective shrug from the team.

I imagine I'm not the only one that feels this way and this is reflected in the attendances.
 




Mackenzie

Old Brightonian
Nov 7, 2003
34,009
East Wales
Wales have got it right.

They keep ticket prices low (£20 adults/£5 children) and play at the Cardiff City stadium. This ensures that tickets are sought after (only 35k capacity) leading to sell out crowds and the small enclosed stadium means good crowd noise and support. Those matches are a proper event, I'm as English as it comes but I love going to watch them.

Hopefully they'll get a result tonight in Georgia and then it's the big one on Monday against Duffy's Ireland. Can't wait!
 


whitelion

New member
Dec 16, 2003
12,828
Southwick
I posted two articles with facts. That's neither trolling nor conceding.

But you got your facts mixed up then had the temerity to tell me to email Martin Perry about something he is already aware of. I maintain that you get confused on occasion.
 






whitelion

New member
Dec 16, 2003
12,828
Southwick
Since the South Africa World Cup I'm afraid I have just switched off from the national team entirely. Watching Rooney berate England supporters after their anaemic 0-0 draw with Algeria just did it for me. The impression now is that there is relatively little pride to be had in playing for your country so why should I care about these players? They seemingly represent nobody but themselves. Contrast this with David Seaman only eight years earlier. I recall him being interviewed and asked if he was aware of how much the supporters back home were getting behind the team. He replied that no matter how much the supporters wanted it he could assure them that the team wanted it more and then bawled his eyes out after the Brazil defeat. Gazza anybody? Our recent farcical tournament exits seem to be greeted with nothing more than a collective shrug from the team.

I imagine I'm not the only one that feels this way and this is reflected in the attendances.

Nutshell.
 


Brovion

In my defence, I was left unsupervised.
NSC Patron
Jul 6, 2003
19,864
I know they feel like a constant stream, but how many international home games are there?

4 perhaps 5? Not really that many......

There are 4 NFL games this season. I actually don’t think all of those will sell out based on the number of emails I’m getting.


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Yeah, there are only about five or six, but without wishing to sound TOO pedantic that's still more than a 'one-off'. And there are only 8 NFL home games in a regular season - assuming you don't lose one to London!
 


BBassic

I changed this.
Jul 28, 2011
13,055
Since the South Africa World Cup I'm afraid I have just switched off from the national team entirely. Watching Rooney berate England supporters after their anaemic 0-0 draw with Algeria just did it for me. The impression now is that there is relatively little pride to be had in playing for your country so why should I care about these players? They seemingly represent nobody but themselves. Contrast this with David Seaman only eight years earlier. I recall him being interviewed and asked if he was aware of how much the supporters back home were getting behind the team. He replied that no matter how much the supporters wanted it he could assure them that the team wanted it more and then bawled his eyes out after the Brazil defeat. Gazza anybody? Our recent farcical tournament exits seem to be greeted with nothing more than a collective shrug from the team.

I imagine I'm not the only one that feels this way and this is reflected in the attendances.

Agree with this and I think selection policy has a part to play as well. Some players seem to get called up regardless of performance at club level. Wasn't it Jack Wilshere a year or two ago who got called up despite only playing something like sixty minutes of football across the entire season?

It's something I've thought about for a while now but the FA / management really need to expand their horizons and start looking at the lower end of the Premier League and the Championship rather than picking the same players all the time.

There are quality players out there who don't get called up because of the reputation of their club or the league they play in but you just know they'd play their f**king nuts off in that shirt.
 


warmleyseagull

Well-known member
Apr 17, 2011
4,386
Beaminster, Dorset
You should have been there - huge roar when a paper dart gracefully wended its way into Hart's goal in second half.

Enjoyed watching the Thai tourists in front of us with scarves and tat bought before the game taking enough selfies to fill the memory of three iphones.

Wouldn't have missed it for the world....
 




Thunder Bolt

Silly old bat




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