Jonas

Its an absolutely colossal mess they've made - really don't see how this mess and the ones to come was worth it just to protect the cartel, was fear of a big8 really worth this shit?

Football has for at least all my time been about a pecking order of money really. The only value 'sporting merit' would have is if everyone started equal every season. Even if the champions of the previous season recieve more money, its skewered by money already. The order might change but invariably wealthy clubs are at the top. Relative sucess and hard-times of clubs has been relative to how rich and then not clubs were (Blackburn, Napoli, Parma, Boro, Leeds, PSG, Milan, OM, ourselves under various owners) which impacts the sporting merit side. I'm not in favour of rampant spending but am even less in favour of preserving the contemporary elites at the expense of ambition and change even dreams. Except Arsenal they usurped other clubs to get there throughout history and should no more be protected than the dozens of clubs they overhauled especially as they cemented their lot in the money-era where things had been changeable previously. We (and Villa) were building very reasonably doing very smart business and even that has been blocked and glass ceilinged. That's been a massive over-reach.

Cant fill their ground. Discuss extensions. Remember seeing that in the back of the Echo at work the night before the first game of 05/06 season, they'd just been promoted and had over 10,000 empty seats. Can see where Bob Murray's sad one more seat philosophy comes from

This just in from the chair of the pro-FFP/PSR committee

The atmosphere is bad almost everywhere and anywhere that's not would be without momentum and has been before. In recent weeks I've heard Anfield described as "very, VERY, quiet" and Molineux asleep. Every forum you look on talks about how bad their atmosphere is. Its nothing to do with stadium contours, standing v sitting (it was dead pre Keegan with 80% standing) is sort of to do with season ticket holders but only really as a generation. Were now a few generations into the sanitised non-aggressive (for better or worse) era - i cant see that being undone Can see it all over the net and on here how quickly and easily modern fans turn on their own team/club when the entertainment doesn't meet their standards - rather than get behind them or get on the opposition. Its hard to imagine that isn't replicated by those in the stadiums. Don't think any normal fans went for 'entertainment' back in the day, people in the boxes maybe, it was a rare occurance in any event (Keegan and Ossie were exceptions at the time) but you kept going back because that wasn't your raison d'etre as a fan. Now it seems it very much is and the prices paid for entry, why wouldn't it be I suppose.

Yes. Was in what they called 'the shelf' a few seasons earlier. When Beardsley scored we realised it was more a mixed zone than infiiltration. If you look at the QPR away game in 94 there's fifty or so empty seats but we had the half the paddock which they didn't normally open to away fans, pockets all over the place and chunks of the stand opposite the main. Probably had a third of the crowd.

Was there not a travel issue with the Spurs game in 95? Similar to Old Trafford later on with the snow? Cant quite remember in the case of Sours but doesn't fit we'd have 5000 at Stoke for a league cup game midweek four days earlier and taking more there for a pre-season friendly a few month before..

That's interesting. Wonder if we just got sick of the up and down nature of being a seated away fan and decided to stand. In the earlier days of that experience it was constantly an up and down, graze the shins affair but remember standing except for half-time at games at Coventry under Dalglish which cannot compare in importance or entertainment. Guess its all about whether someone in front of you takes the responsibility away. Know from sitting front row of the East Stand from 1991 I was conscious of standing in seated areas, but would have been fine to.

Can count the good atmosphere's in the league cup going back nearly 40years on one hand. (Boro 92, Man U 94, Leicester/Saints 22/23). Nowhere is much different. Thats not the stadium contours and cant even be pinned on the contemporary demographic of fan. At the risk of getting chewed out by someone from the match thread - the Man United 5-0 was followed by the worlds apart Oldham 1-0 in the league cup and that was in the KK era at the peak of fandom

He's not been remotely impressive mind, even as a fill in where I'm not expecting much.

Don't see anything funny about getting a insecure fantasists 39k having the best start to a season you've had in a decade whilst your neighbours have a 51k sell out for all intents and purposes for a nothing knock-around against lower league opponents but not being a mackem I find their sense of humour difficult to grasp. I'd be mortified by what they'd find funny, if they were actually capable of making it happen.

Was explained fully in the bit you deleted from the repost mind, almost as if you had to do that to make that point, congrats on that life though

Anybody around at the time get Oldham 96 vibes from that? How could you not really? Good result against a Manchester club at the weekend, exepct a nice fluid hefty win of a showing against weaker opponents in the league cup midweek, few changes and a complete damp squib of an outing, penalty, 1-0 win. Doesn't have to mean anything but still a come down.

Nothing. The second half of last season was a flash in the pan.

Yep, sure is a shame that Palace's form at the end of last season has turned out to be a flash in the pan after their wanky fans and owner got carried away and all big time about it.

Well worth the protection money for them. Tough break on those other clubs though.....and the inventors off FFP/PSR rest very happily at all that.

That a Fulham based not on history as is supposed to be the point of these current rules but purely on luck of geography will have bigger gate revenues than Sunderland or Middlesbrough, with investment from outside sources contraband, is a mockery and another case of the already advantaged being advantaged more.

Seems like our chances of relative success would only slightly improve either way (expansion/move) under present rules. A few thousand seats either way isn't going to change anything in regards to competing with the teams were aiming to compete with. Might be worth baring in mind re what we'd be getting and what we'd be giving up for little palpable gain football wise.

Was perishing that night. Remember not envying the players playing and quite preferring the spectating. Also recall someone as we passed under the Leazes saying Cantona had been sent-off for attacking a fan. Thought it was just good banter. If only that bad was a bit longer. No that was the Ascoli game, coaches on the pitch and all that.

Ironically that was the first home game I'd missed since Cambridge in 1991 (excluding Cesena in the Anglo-Italian). Small world.

Just on law of averages we might be due one after dominating this fixture in recent years

They'll come up smelling of roses. Were supposed to be on the cusp of doing a Leeds when Abramovich floated by. Then when he was being turfed out and they could have been in trouble more people with a blank cheque books came along. They've gone on to continue to spend absurdly and get away with selling things they own to themselves. Already after Matthew Harding's money transformed them from Middlesbrough of the South. Teflon c*nts.

Looks only slightly different to White Hart Lane in the mid to late 90s. Slightly steeper and slightly less panelling at the top of the ends. To the point, though they have to move from that ship wreck, that's caused infinitely more hassle than has gone into its planning Exactly the sort of generic park I'd be mortified if we went for.

So clubs are punished or not punished and their seasons and the seasons of others in their vacinity in the league dictated by whether or not lawyers find loopholes in these new rules and whether they are passed or not in court. Albert Camus must be spinning in his grave.