OpenC

An inspirational position for all concerned to be in

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2026/mar/12/why-relegation-needs-to-happen-for-tottenham I love a good Guardian booting. People should really be starting to wake up to the realities of the desperate pursuit of commercial success by pushing away traditional fans. Being able to compete because you put gigs on and have a retractable pitch is a complete chimera imo, spurs have spent years desperately trying to rejoin the big boys this way. A proper cautionary tale for me.

Postcodes get pretty big out here in the sticks

WE HAVE BRIDGES IN SUNLUN TOO AND THE BRIDGES

If anybody feels better because their local rivals drew against Barcelona after they lost against Port Vale it certainly says something about the relative values to them of the game of football on the one hand and a bit of good old fashioned tribalism on the other

Spurious attempt to set light to Leazes Terrace maybe

I thought I heard them saying it on Radio Newcastle just as I was getting back into my car after being taking pictures outside. It'll be goal music next

Were there.. pyrotechnics?

what's the prevailing crack? "Barca aren't all that, we'd give them a game" I guess. "just shows that Europe isn't what it was last time we were in the prem" etc?

Yamal absolute cock end

Baals

I think I've posted this before but no matter how I try, I can't remember Kieron Dyer being anything other than pretty average for us. Always surprises me when I see his stats being respectable.

Ultimately I now think things have changed and it's not for any of us to gatekeep. It's the direction things have been going for a while, and that's really all there is to it. There's a lass at work goes whenever she can and watches every game over multiple subscription packages on the telly. She doesn't know that much about football, just likes the players and the excitement, but she obviously does love it. She's getting what she wants out of it, NUFC get her patronage at top dollar when she can get there, the media companies get her subscription payments. Hard on those of us that don't get in and bellow like it's 1998, but also hard to argue that it's not working as intended.

Aye, that's exactly it. All the circumstances are in place for it to have transformed the Premier League into just another example of focused hype and conspicuous consumption targeting the better off and making them spend their money on something new - social media friendly, newfound mass market appeal, a sociable experience, something to talk about later. It's a product, it's capitalism in action I've been a bit mean about gentified punters going to the game in the past and I've changed my mind a bit, I think most people who go probably do enjoy it in their own way, just not the way some more seasoned matchgoers do. I know a couple of people that regularly go now who wouldn't have dreamed of going back in the day but love the atmosphere now, although most of us consider it pretty flat and safe. They certainly wouldn't consider going to an away game though, or even going two or three miles to Alnwick Town or Morpeth to watch them play Newcastle's reserves in the Senior Cup for example - not a proper stadium, don't play Local Hero, not the same. I guess this outcome has been inevitable since Sky got in on the act and made people hundreds of billions for just playing football. At some point the rate of gentrification gets exponential and, as somebody said yesterday, there's no putting the toothpaste back in the tube.

Pretty blunt assessment but can't really argue with it like. You're bang on, it's pro level football that's fucked and that's the top and bottom of it really

Yeah the original Mrs OC had a degree in classics and would have been helpful here

Google recommends "Veni, Vidi, Imitatus Sum" but it's not getting the tense (?) right (it translates back as I Came I Saw I Was Imitated). More work required

Threads gettin deleyted left right and centre marra

anything we can do they can do worser

lerl FT

Pre match should be the 2004 approved sequence of Blitzkrieg Bop, Alan Price's version of the Blaydon Races, O Fortuna just before the teams come out then Local Hero. Never bettered imo, despite the cheesiness of Alan Price's Blaydon Races the parps ringing out though the shit PA were so evocative Couldn't give a fuck what he does HT or post game but I wish he'd sack off New Radicals and Status Quo. And happy birthday messages

Yeah, if it wasn't for the ticket prices it's 100% the way to do it, put radgies who just want to go to the game next to the away fans. The ticket prices will probably keep the radgies away but I can't object to the thinking if it's basically cash turnstiles for the day

There's a Mountbatten-Windsor out of a job at the minute

Some headline from the Guardian pretty brutal feature all told, worth a read

Should have been Sunlun North marra. Fucking magspitality industry