TomYam

Bad end to an awful season: - The Isak saga - Awful forward line signings - poor football from us for the majority of games - promising cup runs that all fizzled out - ManU resurgence - Arsenal champions playing hideous football - Hearts cheated out of a thoroughly deserved SPL championship - Spurs staying up at the death, helped by an Everton side that should have been relegated themselves a couple of years ago. What does it take to relegate one of the greedy 5? - Sunderland, against all odds, qualify for Europe.

I share that sentiment. Dating back to the Irving Scholar years, I've actively disliked Tottenham for decades. In fact only ManU, Liverpool, Everton, Arsenal and possibly Chelsea are more insufferable to me. Unlike those other clubs I've never had an issue with Spurs fans. .... and Leffe is one of the best posters on here and comes across as great guy. So I'd be sorry for some of their fans but I'd much prefer West Ham to stay up.

Precisely. Not going to happen because the game has long gone far too far down the soulless road of greed and corruption, but... - The premier competition should be a knockout competition (let's call it The European Cup) between 32 clubs that won their respective leagues, with the weaker nations having to qualify among themselves. - The secondary competition should have a similar set up (let's call it the UEFA Cup) involving the runners up in their respective national leagues. - A third competition should be a 32 club knockout competition involving Cup winners, and possibly clubs finishing third or fourth in their respective leagues. This competition could be limited to, say, the leading 12 European leagues. - none of these competitions should use a seeding system and all ties should have home and away legs.

Yes. The south-west facing side has been student accommodation for many decades while the north-east facing side is private apartments.

Until the transformative advent of Arsene Wenger, Arsenal's nicknames had for decades been 'Boring, Boring Arsenal' and Lucky Arsenal. 1-0 to Arsenal was the standard scoreline. The club appears to have reverted to normal.

For the life of me, I cannot understand how you've reached that conclusion. The only thing clear and obvious is that the defenders hand is too high (and could potentially have lighty brushed the ball - although there is no evidence of that), but even then his upper arm is clearly raised inadvertently by the attacker's shoulder after pushing into him. Other than that. Is it clear and obvious? No. Did the ball hit his head? The trajectory and force of the ball makes that very evident affirmative. 100% NOT a penalty...and you have to question why the VAR assessor was so determined to overturn the onfield decision.

We had finished closer to the champions than 4th place. The mackems then lost to Swindon in the final....only to be promoted a week or two later due to Swindon being relegated for breaching financial rules. The most undeserved promotion since 1919 when Arsenal were somehow promoted despite finishing equal on points with Birmingham and Hull, 2 points behind Wolves and 4 points behind Barnsley. Arsenal, the only club to pay to be promoted to the First Division, never faced justice - quite the opposite, in fact, as they've not been relegated in the 107 subsequent years.

Precisely how I feel. I'd favour any club over ManU, Liverpool and Arsenal for this very reason and more....with the possible exception of Everton.

True, and if you substitute the royal blue of Everton for the royal blue of Chelsea, it's the same 5 clubs conniving and corrupting. Back then they had Murdoch to shore up the deal, these days their tentacles spread far and wide with big business and most of the media tickling their every fancy. As you say, it's only the hardcore fans, and especially those of ManCity and Chelsea, that halted the dastardly ESL fait accompli.

That's not how I remember it. I believe Philip Carter was both Chairman of the Football League and Everton F.C in 1988. Everton were one of the 5 clubs plotting greater financial rewards and greater executive control for themselves. Gordon McKeag was one of the FL administrators that compelled Carter to resign (by vote) as the Everton chairman was evidently going against the interests of the collective within the FL pyramid. In short, Carter was a spy in the camp. Gordon McKeag was a traditionalist and believed in the collective nature of the FL, but sought a middle ground to keep the Football structure together. Bill Fox, chairman of Blackburn Rovers was voted in to replace Carter at the back end of 1988 and he was more radical and spoiled for a fight with the Greedy 5. It probably antagonised them still further as the FA swung round in full support of tge breakaway PL that the Selfish 5 had long cherished.

Yep, good post. Just one thing, though. I believe the embryonic idea for a PL was first touted at the back end of 1985. Spurs, ManU, Arsenal, Liverpool and Everton were the initial 'Big 5', being the most recently successful clubs that were also well-supported. ManU, Liverpool and Arsenal happened to have fans of their clubs in most of the top roles at ITV and in the FA. From 1986 until 1988, ITV showed regular live matches (for the first time on tv). Other clubs were infuriated to fund that ITV were only really interested in broadcasting the self-appointed 'Big 5'. Those same clubs, with the support of the FA and ITV then demanded a greater share of game receipts (75% rather than 50% - the remainder going to lower league clubs), thereby breaking the FL's philosophy of the richer clubs helping out the poorer ones. So from 1988 to 1992, there were a greater number of broadcasted games and the top clubs received a greater share of receipts. The Big 5 were able to claim the public only wanted to watch those clubs play (mainly because other clubs were rarely shown) and the FA and ITV supported their stance. Hence even more money and influence for those 5 clubs. In 1988, The Big 5 had approached 5 further clubs that were perceived to be the biggest of the remaining clubs in Division One (Aston Villa, Newcastle United, Sheffield Wednesday, Nottingjam Forest and West Ham) with a view to forcing through their demands under opposition from the FL. I believe those clubs sat on the fence saying they had only just been approached and had no desire to walk away from the FL but that they didn't want to be left behind by the other clubs either. In the end, the FL managed to diluted some of the demands that the Big 5 and the FA had demanded. Come 1992, the broadcasting of games had been very successful. Rupert Murdoch had seen the investment opportunity to turn Sky's fortunes around, the FA had seen a way to take more control of the national game away from the FL and the Big 5 (or, by now, a Big 3) wanted an ever greater supply of money and influence over football administration. Hence the PL was formed.

I've long held the belief that bats should reside near cricket grounds and have no right to hang out by a football stadium.

Surrey, I believe. Pedant that I am.

Too close to call at this stage. Leeds have a points advantage and usually play with spirit. Tottenham are sinking like a stone with injuries and now, possibly, some players make fake/exaggerate injuries as they have no desire to jeopardise their futures (like us in 1988), Forest simply lack quality and cutting edge, while West Ham have hit some form - but will they be able to sustain it (doubtful). Whatever, I hope it's Spurs that take the plunge (even though we have a splendid fan of theirs on this forum - soz).

I don't know if there's anything in it but, as I'd always hoped the takeover would lead to serious investment in projects around the city centre (and especially the stadium vicinity), I found Edwards's line about city centre investment intriguing. It got me thinking...is there any scope for a new stadium immediately to the west of Barrack Road or a slight rerouting of Barrack Road itself? It doesn't look feasible with the Stanhope Street blocks of flats etc, but could there be a way...?

I disagree. Cecil and Cedric are way cooler names than Keith, Keith.

Damned shame for The Foxes as he was a great owner.

Over the last 20 years five clubs have utterly dominated all 3 major domestic trophies - 85% in fact. It was as bad in the decade before when four of those five clubs dominated. So I've long held the belief that a modern 'cup shock' has to involve one of those clubs losing (to one outside that group). On that basis, I've honed in on the matches we've played against those five clubs over the past 36 months: we've been drawn against them 43.5% of the time (10 out of 23). In that time we've also been drawn against other PL clubs such as Villa, Spurs, Forest, Fulham, Brentford and Brighton but none of those clubs are likely to win the competition so were omitted from the calculation.

I guess he's part of the 'elite' now. A Mini Musk if you will.

Play a little game with me Leffe. Bruce, Big Sam, Dyce. 3 candidates, must choose one. Which one?

Over the decades, I've never had any problems with Spurs fans at all - unlike many clubs, especially Everton. My dislike of the club is informed by the Irving Scholar era of the mid to late '80s. They were the epitome of that era - flashy, first club to float on the stock market, first club with a dedicated marketing department, the initial driving force behind restructuring the league system in pursuit of greater profits (leading to PL formation), PLUS they tapped up my favourite player of that time, Chris Waddle, a nabbed Gazza 3 years later. Bastards!!!

Willock has become pretty unsellable too..

In my lifetime we've had 4 great managers (KK, EH, SBR, JH and 3 good ones (Cox, Benitez, Hughton). Roeder gets a pass. The worst years were the Gordon Lee-Richard Dinnis-Bill McGarry farrago 1977-1980 which ripped the cub apart. Even worse than 1988-92 and the dismal Ashley years.

West Ham weren't at the races until the 1960s. Few would have considered them one of the the 'biggest' 20-25 clubs in the country. Chelsea were a marginally bigger club (with one major trophy and intermittently big crowds) prior to the '60s. After that, he two clubs were of similar size until the advent of the PL. The geography of Chelsea has long worked in their favour. Arsenal were the first 'big' London club, having been the first financially supercharged club. Tottenham really broke through after WWII (as did ManU). You could certainly argue that Charlton Athletic were bigger than either Chelsea or West Ham in 1950, say.

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