Modern football is rubbish

[T.H.R]

I hate how difficult it can be to get to a game some times. I'm a member at Spurs but not a season ticket holder, am about to get myself on the waiting list but apparently it's likely I'll be waiting 4-5 years. Bloody annoying because I could get down to Selhurst Park or the Den or somewhere and get a season ticket no problems. There's a members window for games but I still often can't get a ticket by the time I can afford to buy one.

Also some of the crowd aspects (sitting down nicely etc), that's all bollocks. Still, the last game I got to - Spurs at Stamford Bridge - the atmosphere among our support was excellent, if anything we fed off the quietness of the home fans and it made us louder, and I was buzzing off it for the next week, despite our loss. I think as much as I am ready to complain about modern football, the enjoyment of it still outweighs my objections to the shitty commercialised, sterilised aspects of it.

 

[chieftain]

I hate how difficult it can be to get to a game some times. I'm a member at Spurs but not a season ticket holder, am about to get myself on the waiting list but apparently it's likely I'll be waiting 4-5 years. Bloody annoying because I could get down to Selhurst Park or the Den or somewhere and get a season ticket no problems. There's a members window for games but I still often can't get a ticket by the time I can afford to buy one.

Also some of the crowd aspects (sitting down nicely etc), that's all bollocks. Still, the last game I got to - Spurs at Stamford Bridge - the atmosphere among our support was excellent, if anything we fed off the quietness of the home fans and it made us louder, and I was buzzing off it for the next week, despite our loss. I think as much as I am ready to complain about modern football, the enjoyment of it still outweighs my objections to the shitty commercialised, sterilised aspects of it.

Away games are always much better fun for a multitude of reasons.

 

[ericjarvis]

Brentford was brilliant, it has to be said; terracing behind the goal with a roof on so there was plenty of noise. Oh, and we won too. If they sold beer in the ground it would have been perfect.

They've got a pub on each corner of the ground, how much better than that does it need to be?

 

[STFC]

Which is great before and after the game, but doesn't help much during it.

 

[London_Calling]

Away games are always much better fun for a multitude of reasons.

I'd agree, away games are another matter.

I think you can still rock up at a couple of Prem grounds and pay in cash - as away fans. Somewhere like Blackburn or Bolton def does it.

 

[aylee]

So, I fancy taking Eme to see a game at Cardiff.

Until recently this meant having a few pints at the pub and then turning up at the match and paying on the turnstile and the walking on the terrace to find my friends. Simple.

Here's how modern football does it.

1 Go through the palaver of registering as a fan on the hideous website
2 Pay £4 to become a fan capable of buying a ticket (£20 if I want to go to an away gane)
3 Register Eme as a fan (this involves logging off and starting over)
4 Log back in
5 Pay £4 on Eme's behalf so I can buy her a ticket
6 Battle with hideous booking system in an attempt to buy tickets remotely close to my friends
7 Fail miserably
8 Ring up and buy tickets
9 End up miles from my mates at the game

Modern football is rubbish.

If I was physically capable of supporting a team in Division 4 or below I would, but Cardiff's in my DNA (hence they can get away with charging me just to have the right to buy a ticket).

Sympathies, but the crap booking system and, in particular, the outrageous requirement to pay £4 in advance just to register aren't universal. Neither apply at Villa - the internet booking thing is easy to use.

And isn't there a part of the ground at Cardiff that stands throughout the match regardless? We do in the Holte End unless the stewards are feeling particularly frisky that day.

For a Boxing Day game? And have you tried booking a ticket for an away City game recently?

As for away games, I do think it's fair that season ticket holders should have first call on them. It's frustrating that I miss out on a lot of the London away games that I'd otherwise go to, but I don't think I've got a similar call on a ticket to someone who sees the Villa every week.

 

[Brother Mouzone]

Modern football can be summed up in the following quote: -

Everything you love, everything meaningful with depth and history, all passionate authentic experiences will be appropriated, mishandled, watered down, cheapened, repackaged, marketed and sold to the people you hate.

 

[upsidedownwalrus]

A lot of things can be summed up in the following quote: -

Everything you love, everything meaningful with depth and history, all passionate authentic experiences will be appropriated, mishandled, watered down, cheapened, repackaged, marketed and sold to the people you hate.

I agree

 

[upsidedownwalrus]

I do agree with the gist of the thread though. It's fucking shit.

But it's more than just football imo.... Look at festivals too, how much glasto costs now

 

[chieftain]

I do agree with the gist of the thread though. It's fucking shit.

But it's more than just football imo.... Look at festivals too, how much glasto costs now

Its everything, no youth/music scene has a chance to grow and develop before its leaped upon by the corporates desperate to give there brand an edge before its even got going. The worst thing is that the youth seem to have stopped noticing this hijacking and think its the norm.

Football is still a great game to watch, its just everything around the top end of it that's shit now.

Sunday league is proper footy!

 

[not-bono-ever]

Agree to a point

I just do international games now - invariably away

to go along to an unreconstructed stalinist concrete monstrosity, drink outside the ground, stand for the whole game, wade through the lake of piss that serves as the toilets - it has a charm and excitement that we seem to have lost in the UK upper divisions.

I can understand why the changes have been made, but it takes the edge off going to a game - you can understand why so many choose to watch on TV

 

[rosa]

Modern football can be summed up in the following quote: -

Everything you love, everything meaningful with depth and history, all passionate authentic experiences will be appropriated, mishandled, watered down, cheapened, repackaged, marketed and sold to the people you hate.

"Football fans:We know how you feel, because we feel the same." I can't be the only one who wants to firebomb Sky's offices every time they see this advert. No you don't feel the same, because my feelings on football are not "Wahey! Here's something i can bleed dry! Here's some people whose loyalty and passion can be milked for all it's worth!" When Oldham got relegated,i did not think "oh dear, how will this affect our media exposure and advertising revenue?" When we nearly went bust, i did not think "here's an opportunity to support a bigger more successful club, and City and United are only down the road".

Incidentally even in the lower leagues buying a ticket can get silly. When we played Leeds last season (which we have to do midweek on the insistence of Greater Manchester Police, who class it as a high risk game and say they can't police it on a Saturday because they don't have enough horses to cover both that game and Man U/Man City ), the police wouldn't let us sell tickets online or over the phone because that'd make it too easy for Leeds fans to buy tickets for the home end. They also made us give Leeds the whole of the Rochdale Road end, which, as it's the biggest stand and we currently only have 3 stands, meant that Leeds basically had half the ground, which kind of diminished the home advantage. The annoying thing is, a lot of Leeds fans bought tickets for the main stand anyway, because they have to pay (i think) £30 to become a member and buy away tickets,there was a bit of trouble anyway, so all the whole pointless exercise did was inconvenience our fans and pissed off the season ticket holders in the RRE who had to move.

 

[STFC]

That Sky advert drives me mad too rosa.

I'd managed to forgot about it though, so thanks very much for reminding me.

 

[editor]

Always time for this:

 

[invisibleplanet]

I should add:

10 Get told off by some Charlie for daring to stand up during the game when things get exciting
11 Get evicted for not immediately sitting down and acting like a nice football fan

g force: I live 170 miles from the ticket office.

But you are a nice football fan!
And standing up when the game is exciting is natural, isn't it?

 

[STFC]

 

[rosa]

aaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrgh fuck off!

 

[T & P]

Non-league football is where it's at. You can still turn up on match day, pay a tenner at the turnstile and stand on the terraces. And a bit further down the football pyramid, even swap ends at half time

 

[upsidedownwalrus]

Even at that level, a tenner is a fucking outrage when you think about it

 

[strung out]

Non-league football is where it's at. You can still turn up on match day, pay a tenner at the turnstile and stand on the terraces. And a bit further down the football pyramid, even swap ends at half time

you can still do that at plenty of league grounds. though not for much longer admittedly.

 

[bluestreak]

But if you watch old football on the telly a lot of it is really dull. I hate the modern footballing world, but the playing itself is better for it, IMO. Not sure the trade off was worth it though.

 

[strung out]

Even at that level, a tenner is a fucking outrage when you think about it

not really to be honest. remember that non league gets no big sponsorship deals, no television money, no rich benefactors. i reckon a tenner for non league football is a fair enough price and nowhere near as big a rip off as premier league football is. remember a few seasons ago when some new telly deal got signed and most premier league clubs could have halved their admission prices and still made more money than the season before. entrance fees, programmes, memorobilia etc in the lower leagues is a way of sustaining your clubs existence, in the higher leagues it's just a way of making more and more profit.

 

[newbie]

Well I can still turn up on the day and buy a ticket just before kick off for the vast majority of games I go to.

Also, I went to two games last weekend (Brentford v Swindon and West Ham v Fulham) and stood for 90 minutes at both.

is it really possible to just turn up at WH and buy a ticket without all the registration nonsense. I tend to go to Charlton on days when I want to watch footie because it's the only vaguely local one I know of that doesn't want to know my inside leg measurement.

 

[8den]

I'm a Man U supporter and was when I was six, during the Everton FA cup final, when Kevin Moran got set off, i was a fan during the abortion that was Big Ron's last few years when they languished mid table. Frankly I like supporting a team thats not doing well, it means you're a fucking supporter, not some fair weather cunt.

But the last twenty years have been fucking depressing. I'm embarrassed to be a fan. I hate the club, the prawn sandwich brigade (Thank you Roy Keane, the only thing that made supporting MU tolerable for 20 years) I want to thump Rio, n Beckham et all in the face. And Rooney, Wayne Fucking Rooney, fuck this tolerance in the ear, a dyed in the wool Scoucer has no business playing for MU. It's like switching Rangers for Celtic. I dislike tribalism but for fucks sake, show some pride. If you're going to play for another team don't play for your mortal enemies. Just on point of fucking principle. You shrek look alike grannyfucker.

Supporting MU is an incredibly depressing experience.

Still could be worse, I could be a Chelsea supporter.

 

[chieftain]

I'm a Man U supporter and was when I was six, during the Everton FA cup final, when Kevin Moran got set off, i was a fan during the abortion that was Big Ron's last few years when they languished mid table. Frankly I like supporting a team thats not doing well, it means you're a fucking supporter, not some fair weather cunt.

But the last twenty years have been fucking depressing. I'm embarrassed to be a fan. I hate the club, the prawn sandwich brigade (Thank you Roy Keane, the only thing that made supporting MU tolerable for 20 years) I want to thump Rio, n Beckham et all in the face. And Rooney, Wayne Fucking Rooney, fuck this tolerance in the ear, a dyed in the wool Scoucer has no business playing for MU. It's like switching Rangers for Celtic. I dislike tribalism but for fucks sake, show some pride. If you're going to play for another team don't play for your mortal enemies. Just on point of fucking principle. You shrek look alike grannyfucker.

Supporting MU is an incredibly depressing experience.

Still could be worse, I could be a Chelsea supporter.

Other than self indulgently slating Man Utd what point are you making about the modern game?

 

[rekil]

Other than self indulgently slating Man Utd what point are you making about the modern game?

It's some sort of ironic pisstake of glory hunting barstooler yuppie wankers trying too hard to be one of the lads or something.

 

[Stoat Boy]

I think the longer term damage has to be in taking away the younger generation of real support.

I started going to Palace as a kid. Me and mate would, at the age of 11, happily get on a bus, go to Selhurst Park and pay 50 pence to stand.

My Dad would take me on occassion but not every week and certainly not enough on its own to get the whole supporting experience into making me what I am today.

But that sort of experience for kids now is impossible. Ignoring the fact that a lot of people would not let their 11 year olds travel on the bus alone its almost impossible for anybody under the age of 18 to actually go to a game, in the top two or three leagues without an adult for all sorts of reasons.

And that has to have an impact.

 

[upsidedownwalrus]

The dangers of life in Britain are overstated in my view. I agree with the rest of your post though

 

[upsidedownwalrus]

not really to be honest. remember that non league gets no big sponsorship deals, no television money, no rich benefactors. i reckon a tenner for non league football is a fair enough price and nowhere near as big a rip off as premier league football is. remember a few seasons ago when some new telly deal got signed and most premier league clubs could have halved their admission prices and still made more money than the season before. entrance fees, programmes, memorobilia etc in the lower leagues is a way of sustaining your clubs existence, in the higher leagues it's just a way of making more and more profit.

I dunno though, like West Ham are still making a huge loss... Hard to see how we could cut gates... It's just silly though how cheap it is to get into big European clubs compared with even non league clubs here...

 

[Brother Mouzone]

I'm a Man U supporter and was when I was six, during the Everton FA cup final, when Kevin Moran got set off, i was a fan during the abortion that was Big Ron's last few years when they languished mid table. Frankly I like supporting a team thats not doing well, it means you're a fucking supporter, not some fair weather cunt.

But the last twenty years have been fucking depressing. I'm embarrassed to be a fan. I hate the club, the prawn sandwich brigade (Thank you Roy Keane, the only thing that made supporting MU tolerable for 20 years) I want to thump Rio, n Beckham et all in the face. And Rooney, Wayne Fucking Rooney, fuck this tolerance in the ear, a dyed in the wool Scoucer has no business playing for MU. It's like switching Rangers for Celtic. I dislike tribalism but for fucks sake, show some pride. If you're going to play for another team don't play for your mortal enemies. Just on point of fucking principle. You shrek look alike grannyfucker.

Supporting MU is an incredibly depressing experience.

Still could be worse, I could be a Chelsea supporter.

Errrrrr.

1. It's Manchester United, Man Utd, Man United or simply United. Not Man Yoo any self respecting United fan knows that. The name ManYoo started getting touted about during the early 90's and has always been used by our detractors. Never by any clued up match going supporter.

If you want to have a go a mercenary cunts do so by all means, but Rooney is poor example IMHO. Especially when you look at the choice you have e.g. Alan "I'll never play for Man United" Smith or Michael "I almost ended Ronny Johnsons career" Owen...