Stifler

I’m never a fan of playing fellow Premier League teams in pre-season friendlies. I suppose it’s the way money is earned now though.

So far they haven’t had their fingers burnt though. I’m sorry to say it, but we are not going to get the level of tourists as other clubs have, even with success. We are not based in London or Manchester. Our airport has no real direct connections to many destinations that are not European city breaks, or package holiday destinations. If you want to travel here for a football match, you likely have to go via London, or Manchester, and no one is really going via these places and not taking in say either of the Manchester clubs, Liverpool, or teams like Arsenal, Chelsea, Spurs, or even West Ham. Our economy will just see a level of local tourists, then they will fall away once it’s not new to them. We have a good fanbase though, and we could sell out a 70k-80k seater stadium that is priced so local fans can come in. That is more than what most Premier League clubs could offer. Outside of the top 6, and say the likes of us, Villa, and West Ham, you are not going to be getting fans into mega stadiums. The Americans will get their fingers burnt. Their NFL teams are able to price their tickets high because they largely are followed by the whole state, if not multiple states. The wealth disparity over there means that people are largely either well off, or very poor. They are able to sell high priced tickets to the well off people, and have the less well off pay as and when they are able to save up for it. Other sports like the NHL, and NBA have smaller arenas, meaning tickets are more in demand. This is why sports coverage over there is a big thing. The vast majority of fans can’t afford the thousands of dollars it requires for a season ticket, and they can’t afford the hundreds it costs for a single ticket frequently. They therefore have to resort to watching it on the TV. The problem is compounded when it’s not unusual to follow multiple sports over there. Here in the U.K. the demographics are different, and the way of following a team is different. We have the blackout on Saturdays that makes most professional football unwatchable unless you attend. Following multiple sports is fairly unusual over here, and with football being the number 1 sport, it means that sports channels and things like sports bars and the culture of watching matches on the TV can’t take off. Can we fill a 70k-80k capacity stadium? Yeah, but don’t expect day trippers to be a large part of that in the long term, and don’t expect to be able to house stupid levels of corporate. The same applies for the likes of Villa, Everton, and to a lesser extent West Ham, and Leeds if they take off. Outside of that, I’m sorry but the likes of Crystal Palace, Bournemouth, Burnley, Sheffield United, Wolves etc are never going to be getting those crowd levels and that type of following. Even if we close the Premier League, it would take decades for the smaller clubs like those I mentioned to be getting those kinds crowds, with enough people locked out to enable the selling of tickets to tourists who come for 1 game every year or so. I firmly believe though that the Americans will destroy our sport figuring this out and attempt to force it.

Spurs face an away tie in Frankfurt and needing a win, somehow to go through. Man Utd have a better chance at home against Lyon, but I still think Bilbao will prove a tough test.

They are under a suspended relegation. They need to sort their accounts out by the end of the season.

They are in real danger of being relegated from Ligue 1.

All the build up to it was people saying if Arsenal score early then it’s game on and they could overcome the 2 goal deficit, I had a quite confidence that we would score at some point and put the game beyond them.

10k already beat you to it.

Sounds like it’s based on areas only. Shame, it would have been good to have an N-O supporters club.

More and more evidence that the Premier care not about PSR, but limiting certain clubs. Everton, and Forest were just examples thrown into the fire.

It’s also right between 2 big football clubs though. I guess you could argue that Burnley is with Blackburn and Preston.

South Shields isn't big enough of an area to have been able to attract enough crowds and income to sustain staying in the league pyramid for any extended period of time. Gateshead is too close to Newcastle as well for it to have happened there either. Outside of the big 3 clubs, only Hartlepool have really been able to have an extended stay within the League system, and ultimately they fell out of it twice. Darlington likewise, although I concede that their demise had other factors about it. Even Carlisle on the other side of the A69 have always been strugglers, and finally look set to leave the football league system.

It’s in South Tyneside. It is basically is the border. Similarly further in land the Southern perimeter fence of Sunderland's training ground backs onto Cut Throat Dene, which is the border of South Tyneside and Sunderland.

It does.

I agree, like I said I wasn’t justifying it.

Not at all, like I said, not to excuse it. I was only suggesting that people were antagonised that day. It doesn’t make it right, but also it indicates that it wasn’t a simple case of mindless gourding.

Not to excuse it, but there was videos of PSG fans hitting people in the streets of Newcastle before the match.

I’m not convinced Madrid are out of this. If any team is capable of winning a 2nd leg 4-0 then it’s them, and if any team is capable of letting a sure thing slip through in the 2nd leg, then it’s Arsenal.

Wrexham is a forgotten working class town lacking in investment. It’s had nothing to shout about for decades. For the town I wish them well, however I don’t think their model is unsustainable in the Championship. I think they will have to change tactic in terms of recruitment and outside investors once again.

As much as I’m glad they won because it confirms England’s 5th place, even though it was happening in anyway, I want them to lose. I want all the English teams to lose and go out. The Champions League I don’t want any other English team to win because of jealousy, the Europa League, or Conference League I’m less concerned about, but the clubs left are Man Utd, Spurs, and Chelsea, so fuck them.

Aye, they even look shit, and that’s getting away from them being nothing but filler shirts during very darks days of Ashley. Absolutely nothing of the Ashley era should be offered up as a retro edition. The club should move well on from that period of time.

Aye, I paid £50 for it during lockdown.

The mini one or the full sized one. I bought the full sized one during lockdown. It’s a bastard, it comes in different bags, but the bags are not labelled, and they are not sorted in stages like with regular Lego. So you have to open all the bags from the off.

New Oddballs underwear available. For what it’s worth, the original version is now available for kids, and women, including a bra.

Baseball jerseys are not the same thing as American football shirts or basketball shirts. I believe there was a discussion about a Letterman jacket, again not the same thing at all.

4. We’d go above them on goals scored.