"It's not worth being in football unless you're in the premier league"?!

[Cheshire Cat]

Why does anyone listen to Talkbollocks radio anyway?

 

[tube train]

I have thought and said this for years.

I hate the premierSHIT, at least 50% of teams in that league have got nothing to look forward to but survival and finishing top of the bottom half. It has become a joke to me. Whereas the Championship, i believe is one of the best leagues in the world (definately the best in England).

100% agree the championship is the most interesting league in the world.. any team can win it and any team can beat any team...its a joy to watch roll on a few years time when we get in the mix

 

[portlock seagull]

The different leagues are almost completely different sports these days, and to some extent that applies within the Premier toboot. But I like Parry, he's a gifted broadcaster and anyone who takes his bait deserves to be taken for the ride he plainly wants you to take.

Ironically, I hear this from many Premiership fans and yet they don't get it - they've reduced the sport to such poor competition that unless they follow a big 4 team they've as much chance of winning anythin as BHA. Less if you count the fact they're not allowed to enter the Paint Pot!

 

[tube train]

Ironically, I hear this from many Premiership fans and yet they don't get it - they've reduced the sport to such poor competition that unless they follow a big 4 team they've as much chance of winning anythin as BHA. Less if you count the fact they're not allowed to enter the Paint Pot!

very true, last time a fulham, stoke or blackburn were at wembley/millenium stadium... we had the play offs final and nearly there last year in the paint pot... i dont want brighton to be a team playing for 11th...

 

[Foolg]

Personally, I have virtually no interest in the Premiership, and in fact it looks so incredibly boring that I'm not all that bothered if we don't get there. Playing in a league that we couldn't possibly compete in ..... hmmmm, not sure that sounds like much fun.

Down the Leagues we can be looking over our shoulder one week at the possibility of relegation, and a few weeks later, I'm looking up the division, thinking we can be right up there this time next year. I enjoy that rollercoaster too much to especially envy Premiership teams who dream of being 12th every year.

Sums it up perfectly for me. The premiership fans i know (who are proper supporters and not just the sort to watch if they're on tv) have often said they're looking forward to being relegated. Fans of teams like Wolves etc know they have very little chance of finishing any higher than say 12th, and fans often cannot afford to even watch the team reguarly. Both my Uncles are Portsmouth fans, one of whom had a season ticket for a few seasons, but simply cannot afford to renew, and hardly ever goes to away games due to the ridiculous ticket prices. Similar has been said to me from other fans i've bumped into travelling with the albion.

 

[Captain Haddock]

Then you've got Colleymore, who believes the Premiership should scrap relegation, and just be made up of the biggest / best teams "historically".

Jason Cundy, who has no concept or awareness whatsoever of there being anyone or anything outside of the "Big Four".

Darren Gough, an illiterate northern monkey who can barely string a sentence together and struggles to read out text messages

Ronny Irani, who gabbles on inanely about f*** all, and loves his voice so dearly he can barely let ANYONE finish a sentence without butting in with his own junk before they've finished what they're saying.

Its basically The Sun coming over the airwaves. I used to listen to it for H & J, but the station is just so horrifically dumbed-down these days that its almost unbearable to listen to now. You can almost feel your IQ falling away.

.....and that, sir, is one of the finest posts ever to grace this here forum of otherwise trivial delights and ego-flexing profferings!

You are a diamond in the rough and Easy on the reading eye, so to speak!

Spot on.....especially re: ubertwats Arani and Mike Let's-mispronounce-every-name-in-sport-including-the-'un-miss-pronouncables' Parry

 

[Captain Haddock]

Some people say football is a matter of life and death I assure you, it's much more serious than that". Those were the words of the late Bill Shankly of Liverpool fame.



Football was even talked about when it could be your last conversation.


"Three Tommies sat in a trench one day,

Discussing the war in the normal way.

They talked of mud and they talked of the Hun,

Of what was to do and what had been done.

They talked about Rum...

But they point that they argued from post back to pillar,

Was whether Notts County could beat Aston Villa."


Football is part and parcel of old and modern day Britain. Fans turned out in their many thousands, crammed into unsuitably small terraces to watch their heroes take the field. These were ordinary men who often held down another job and lived just down the road from you or even next door.

They were generally men from ordinary beginnings, inflated to hero status, but preserved their wholesome attitude, integrity and rarely would you find a player with air and graces and a feeling of superiority. In short, most of the local heroes at the very top were a completely different breed to the current football player - Yes, John Terry, I am talking about you and your fellow professionals.

Having read the rather excellent My Father and Other Working Class Football Heroes by Gary Imlach, you can see why football was embedded as an essential ingredient in English society, during the golden era. Professional footballers went off to war, covered by ageing pros to warm their boots, fell and died fighting for the King. Can you imagine Rio or 'JT' doing the same?

Football nowadays is a greedy sport. I used to love it. I still love Brighton & Hove Albion, but football as a whole has grown into a gruesome monstrosity. I am not sure how comfortable I would feel supporting a club that pays a player more in the space of 10 days than our premier, Gordon Brown (ignoring whether or not you think he is a doing a good job!), earns in a year.

I would rather not contribute towards some rotating alloys for a materialistic thug with a limited footballing ability, earning 20 times the amount a nurse or entry level teacher.

Fans are being priced out of live (in the flesh) football. People are turning their backs on their local club simply because it is easier to stay seated in the armchair and follow a team courtesy of Sky television.

Day-by-day my dislike for professional football grows at an alarming rate. The whole Premiership bubble makes me sick to the bottom of my stomach.

The 39th farcical game, allowing the brand to be spread across the world, was obviously about sharing the love of the game and nothing to do with filling the pockets of those that are already bulging and splitting.

'Super Sundays' for the best league in the world, encouraging those who do not know better to spend the day glued to the sofa. £50m for finishing bottom of the top flight with a guaranteed £24m parachute payment to soften the blow.

Hours before a potential winding up order and deadline for Rotherham United, their 'headline' was a little subtitle, the main news being that Man Utd's Wes Brown was on the verge of signing a multi-million pound deal. A community was on the verge of losing their football team and various news sources were focusing on a contract for that donkey.

'Stevie G' holding out for a new contract with Liverpool. "I am not willing to sign yet as I want to concentrate on the game itself". Cue a fortnight of flirting with other clubs and an eventual £20,000 a week pay rise offer. "It has always been about Liverpool. No-one else".

Phil Gartside, of Bolton Wanderers, wanting a two tier Premiership with no relegation from the lower tier. A closed shop.

Restless 20 year olds not content with their £2,000 per week salary, despite giving up edukation (sic) at the tender age of 14.

A game run by buffoons at the very highest level with corruption galore across the globe.

An (Ex-)England captain with no regard for anyone but himself - I won't list his numerous misdemeanours.


Fit and proper persons tests for Premier League ownership that apparently ignores abuse of the Human Rights Act.

It's ludicrous. A world away from the happy smiling faces of African children making do with a ball made from a multitude of plastic bags and some twine. Imagine what the £2000 spent on a Newcastle United heated substitutes seat could do for a little village of keen footballers without access to clean water?

To be fair, I am sure that the footballers earning obscene wages do have some links to charitable work and do sign off the odd cheque. However, they could do so much more.

Generally, money and footballers are an unhappy marriage in more ways than one.

Ulises De La Cruz did not forget where he came from. He went that step further and set up 'Friends of FundeCruz' in which he donated 10% of his wages. This money was spent supplying basic needs of his Ecuadorian village. He was later named a UNICEF ambassador.

Welcome to Friends of Fundecruz

Even a pantomime villain in the shape of Craig Bellamy has set up a foundation and poured some of his money into the fund to give some Sierra Leonians a fighting chance after years of civil war and oppression. Liverpool FC refused to insure him, but he went anyway and has not looked back.

Craig Bellamy Foundation

Bah. I lost my train of thought after the trench poem.

Hopefully this doesn't come across as being a jealous rant.

Wow! Bout sums it up, I think!

 

[glasfryn]

Personally, I'd love it, LOVE it, if we were a yo-yo club like West Brom. Regularly good enough to go up to the Prem, and sometimes just about good enough to stay there, but on the seasons where we don't and we get relegated, we remain a very good (and SOLVENT) Championship club.

Never a dull moment for the Baggies fans. Thats what I aspire to for our club.

I'd take that.

me too nothing better than the roller coaster of the Albion seasons

 

[Easy 10]

.....and that, sir, is one of the finest posts ever to grace this here forum of otherwise trivial delights and ego-flexing profferings!

You are a diamond in the rough and Easy on the reading eye, so to speak!

Spot on.....especially re: ubertwats Arani and Mike Let's-mispronounce-every-name-in-sport-including-the-'un-miss-pronouncables' Parry

Crikey, thanks chap

The one I didn't mention is Adrian Durham. Unlike most of the tools on that station, he does at least have a much wider perspective on football in general, what with him being a Peterborough fan, so he does actually have half a clue about the lower leagues. But then he'll still soil himself with an absurdly contrary viewpoint on something or other (which he absolutely will not budge on) just for the sake of getting the calls in.

I've all but given up on Talksport. 5-Live and the Danny Baker podcasts is where its at.