oldtype

We should all take one day to just celebrate that we'll never have to see or think about Mike Ashley again for the rest of our lives. But to be honest, I do wonder if I'll ever be able to fall back in love with the club to the extent I had previously. I've deliberately not watched a single match of football aside from the World Cup for... I guess close to four years now? Life has moved on and there's so much I have to catch up with. I barely even know who any of these players kicking about on the pitch are.

Okay, maybe this time I finally have to get around to learning the names of our current players for real.

Would have preferred that they embarrass themselves relentlessly for a few more weeks before caving, but oh well. This will do.

I've only just now remembered that me showing up on the broadcast at Stamford Bridge when Cisse scored that ridiculous goal and the "oldtype in public" thread are two entirely separate incidents. They had merged into one in my mind.

Thanks Kanji! I feel all warm and fuzzy inside to find that basically nothing on here has changed.

These are going to be very difficult to explain to my infant daughter when she's old enough to use the internet.

I wouldn't know. I haven't watched a minute of Football for years. I had to google Sunderland to find out they were relegated.

Here's another example: people in Asia are obsessed with Leeds and their return to the Premiership. Leeds' fall and time in the lower leagues was such a compelling storyline, the slang term "Leeds" literally got added to the Korean language in the early aughts. It means "bygone days of glory." A bunch of kids use it now with no conception of where it came from. A bunch of people in Korea who've never watched football before know who Alan Smith is because he's the "Leeds guy" You lose all of these side stories that make the product compelling in a Super League. Add it all up and it matters.

There will never be another Merseyside derby. Or at least not a meaningful one, given that the Premier League will become a glorified reserves competition. Rooney scoring the hat trick to win Man United the title against West Ham loses a bunch of meaning when people probably won't even remember what West Ham is in five years time. It doesn't feel like it now, but these things matter in the long run.

It's literally been 10 years how is this still a thing

We should unilaterally declare that the Intercities Fairs Cup counts as one Super League trophy for us.

Won't deny that I used to be a good deal more obsessed than others but even for the relatively "casual" section of international fans the history is a huge draw. People want to be able to talk about legends, and rivalries, and famous games and all of that loses a good deal of meaning when everyone is starting from nothing in a Super League. I think even people who say that they like the idea now will have a change of heart once they see the actual product.

This is precisely the misconception that will have led to the creation of the Super league, and precisely why it might fail. International fans are attracted to European clubs because they have the one thing their local clubs can never have: a history of storylines accumulated over the course of a century. When I still cared about NUFC, I would obsess over the Derby and laugh at RTG threads on here just like everyone else. Asian Liverpool fans go nuts over the Merseyside Derby even though the vast majority have never been to Liverpool (or probably even met a real life Everton fan.) Strip that away and there's nothing to separate Premier League clubs from Saudi or Chinese clubs who have the financial backing to put a famous name on the back of the shirt; it's just that nobody gives a crap about the name on the front. Why devalue the biggest competitive advantage that Man U, Liverpool etc. enjoy over their global competitors by stripping away their natural habitat, weakening the connection with the local community, and dropping them into a totally fake league whose trophy may not feel much more meaningful than the AFC Champions League trophy, for all we know?

As others have noted in this thread, this is the first football news that's interested me in ages. Aside from the general shamefulness of the endeavor, the Super League clubs are playing with fire here in terms of viability of the product. It's a very delicate combination of factors - storylines, traditions, atmosphere etc. - that makes sporting events feel meaningful. So it's generally a bad idea to mess with a formula that's working to this extent. Take these "big six" clubs out of their natural habitat, into a strange artificial league, bereft of their traditional rivalries and storylines, fraying their connection with their own fans... I have a feeling it will all feel quite fake. Ultimately, we may end up with a Super League that feels fake and a Premier League that feels diluted. The big clubs kill their own golden goose because they want more eggs, and everyone loses.

I have not followed the club for about three seasons now. I haven't watched any of the games under Bruce, I barely recognize anyone on the current squad (or basically any football player younger than 23 at this point). Was kind of half-looking forward to, half-dreading coming back to the club while it looked like a takeover was close both last summer and this summer. I have to say life has been a lot less stressful since I just gave up. I suppose this makes me a bad fan, but once the club made it clear that it had stopped trying, I think fans are fully within their rights to reciprocate.

Knowing Ashley, he'd probably welcome an empty stadium and replace all the seating with Sports Direct ads.

No doubt the lesson Ashley draws from this will be that if you hire a popular manager, the fans become unruly when he leaves. Therefore, never again hire any manager that could become popular.

Not surprised you’re enjoying it TBH, I’ve though about quitting for a while. Definitely at the top level, where it’s just a competition to see who has the best sheik. American sports are genuinely just a better product. Not even those leagues have true competitive parity of course, but there's at least enough of it that you can sort of pretend.

I’ve watched a couple of NUFC games over the past two seasons, and basically no football outside of the World Cup. And I feel great tbh. Was a shitty sport to begin with.

What surprises me is that someone hasn't already been writing off every season since... Dear me it's been so long I can't even remember.

I'm very eager to get past the part where we wonder whether the takeover is real and get to the part where we gradually realize the new owner is worse than Ashley.

For this sort of thing the "expected timescale" is usually just "how inhumanely are you willing to work your lawyers?"

I think it's reasonably safe to say that it's (1) happening and (2) relatively soon as long as the buyer wasn't setting up some kind of fraudulent scheme to begin with. If he actually wants to buy the club and actually has the money, we're very close to done.

I'm no M&A lawyer, but this isn't the sort of thing you just set up for shits and giggles. At the very least, they seem to think that they're on their way to buying the club.

Just chill. It’s perfectly normal for formalities to drag on for a bit after terms have been agreed in principle. Don’t obsess over it. (Proceeds to hit F5 ever minute for the next week.)