*Official* English Football Season 2009-2010

[The Sean]

United have been the most hated club in England forever, including in their barren years.

Were they? Obviously I wasn't over here at the time and I knew they were never anyone's second team or anything, but I genuinely didn't realise that United were clearly the most hated team even in the 1970s and 1980s. Given that most of the hatred today seems to be based around "glory hunting plastic fans who didn't know what football was before 1996" or some such thing, what were the reasons 20-30 years ago?

 

[grecian]

Arsenal aren't all that hated. This is just a line that supporters of big clubs use to justify why they are hated. United have been the most hated club in England forever, including in their barren years.

Yeah this, Sick to death of that argument. Always hated them, never hated Liverpool. Always been an annoying facet to many of their supporters. They've always had plastic supporters, have to remember that the FA Cup was almost as prestigious as the League at one point, so this they didn't win the League for years is just a little misleading.

 

[Uppercut]

Arsenal aren't all that hated. This is just a line that supporters of big clubs use to justify why they are hated. United have been the most hated club in England forever, including in their barren years.

Yeah, in Liverpool.

Arsenal aren't especially successful. They were a lot less popular when they were, phone-ins were overflowing with your standard footballing melter ranting about how Johnny Foreigner was ruining the game with his diving and poor discipline. Not less popular than United, but a lot less popular than they are now that they've stopped winning stuff.

 

[GIMH]

Hull did it last year! Swansea are in the playoffs this year, I still think of them as a Division 3 club. And Burnley are definitely a Division 2 club at best. The only thing that's changed is that Tranmere have gotten worse and other clubs have gotten better. It might change back some day, it might not, but there's been no wholesale paradigm shift that makes it now inherently possible for a club to improve. It might feel that way when John B****s is your manager, but that's not the way it is.

No, no, no, you don't get it. Hull isn't a rags to riches tale anyway, claiming that would be like using Citeh as justification for the factg that the top four was a myth all along. Any club that gets up there has to have serious funding. We had a bit (alot compared to now) BITGN but we were a small club with low attendances playing good football, built around a solid youth system. Our youth has declined, do you think that's because we're doing things differently? Or because Liverpool & Everton have academies and get a lot of the local talent that we used to produce ourselves?

To say the only thing that's changed is that we've got worse is hugely naive. The game itself is still as enjoyable, but the infrastructure of English football is horrible now comapred to the 90s, and teams can't build themselves up based on solid youth and the odd wise free transfer, because even where the young players go is based around money.

Having followed lower league football my whole life I can tell you that it is a lot tougher to break through the ceiling these days. Of course teams can rise up, but do you think you'll ever see another Oxford, going up three flights at once? Luton? Notts County?

Notts County, well they actually might....and that's kind of, my point....

 

[Uppercut]

Ah, fair enough, I didn't really see what you were getting at.

There's still no way Tranmere or any other team are stuck where they are though. Any side having a decent season can get promoted in the lower leagues, often just with a good end-of-season burst taking momentum into the playoffs. The infrastructure's not what it was, especially with bigger clubs invariably poaching your best players, but it's still not impossible, and I think Swansea's continued success shows that.

Also, lol'd at your used of BITGN .

 

[GIMH]

Oh, I'm sure we'll grace the Championship again one day. Beyond that? I doubt it. And if we did, it would be one, maybe two years.

Of course, if you can stick those two years out then you can make a go of it. Normally need a few £££ to do that though...

And I know I've defended the big four in the past; I don't think caps or anything should be put in place. It's just the way it is and we have to accept it, but it doesn't mean it's not a shame. Lower league supporters make up the majority of football fans in this country and most of us will never see our team in the big one.

 

[Prince EWS]

No, no, no, you don't get it. Hull isn't a rags to riches tale anyway, claiming that would be like using Citeh as justification for the factg that the top four was a myth all along. Any club that gets up there has to have serious funding. We had a bit (alot compared to now) BITGN but we were a small club with low attendances playing good football, built around a solid youth system. Our youth has declined, do you think that's because we're doing things differently? Or because Liverpool & Everton have academies and get a lot of the local talent that we used to produce ourselves?

So awesome.

 

[sledger]

BBC Sport - Football - Manchester United's Rio Ferdinand gets four-game ban

BBC Sport - Football - Tottenham confirm Eidur Gudjohnsen loan capture

 

[sledger]

BBC News - Gary Neville applies to build flower-shaped home
Dire.

 

[Scaly piscine]

• Manchester City have made a formal offer for Adam Johnson and the Middlesbrough winger could act as a replacement for Robinho as he closes in on a loan move to Brazil.

Would like to see Johnson move to a proper club, he's far too good for Middlesbrough. Could see him get a few caps in the not too distant future.

 

[grecian]

Would like to see Johnson move to a proper club, he's far too good for Middlesbrough. Could see him get a few caps in the not too distant future.

Yeah agreed, from what I've seen he looks a serious talent, couldn't believe it when Wolves were linked to him, he's better then that surely.

 

[Jarquis]

He's gone.

He's not broken it.

 

[Pothas]

No, no, no, you don't get it. Hull isn't a rags to riches tale anyway, claiming that would be like using Citeh as justification for the factg that the top four was a myth all along. Any club that gets up there has to have serious funding. We had a bit (alot compared to now) BITGN but we were a small club with low attendances playing good football, built around a solid youth system. Our youth has declined, do you think that's because we're doing things differently? Or because Liverpool & Everton have academies and get a lot of the local talent that we used to produce ourselves?

To say the only thing that's changed is that we've got worse is hugely naive. The game itself is still as enjoyable, but the infrastructure of English football is horrible now comapred to the 90s, and teams can't build themselves up based on solid youth and the odd wise free transfer, because even where the young players go is based around money.

Having followed lower league football my whole life I can tell you that it is a lot tougher to break through the ceiling these days. Of course teams can rise up, but do you think you'll ever see another Oxford, going up three flights at once? Luton? Notts County?

Notts County, well they actually might....and that's kind of, my point....

Yeah it is hard to imagine that we were once the highest placed club in London, which came after an extraordinary rise through the leagues. Does not overyl bother me though, although it might be becasue the prospect of top flight football has really never been there since the second world war (relegated the first season after) and we have only been in the second tier once since the 1950's.

Would have mixed feelings about a rise through the league on the back of big investment, for one thing would mean leaving Griffin Park, which is supposed to be happening anyway have been talking about it for at least a decade but would just be awful, really don't want to play in one of those soulless mini versions of the Emirates or something. Would get used to it of course but would never be quite the same.

 

[grecian]

Meh, Exeter got 4000 last match, we don't deserve any better then division 4 realistically.

 

[Matteh]

Think my generation are split firmly down the middle when it comes to Man Utd. You're either plastic tosser who supports them on some tenuous grounds or you absolutely hate their guts with no middle ground at all. Even MK Dons, despte being hated by all don't inspire that same level of hatred people have for Man Utd.
When it comes to the rest of the top 4, generally don't mind them. Chelsea i've liked since about 1997 because of how much a gun Zola is. Arsenal i don't mind, helps they were pretty average in the 90s. Liverpool i don't mind, because in the 90s they had that group of young English players who were all supposed to be amazing and yet Liverpool never got close.

Agree with Corrin about lower league clubs too. The ones that have shot up through the divisions (looking at Hull, Fulham, Wigan in particular) have all had generous benefactors to help them up, christ i remember beating Wigan 6-2 in a league fixture about 12 years ago or so. Those clubs that have always been alright and are structured well with financial sense are those that pretty much are on a long slow down, one bad start to a season and they might go down, on a good season they might scrape into the Playoffs, but they won't go up. Perenially stuck in the limbo of League One/Two.

 

[Furball]

Think my generation are split firmly down the middle when it comes to Man Utd. You're either plastic tosser who supports them on some tenuous grounds or you absolutely hate their guts with no middle ground at all. Even MK Dons, despte being hated by all don't inspire that same level of hatred people have for Man Utd.
When it comes to the rest of the top 4, generally don't mind them. Chelsea i've liked since about 1997 because of how much a gun Zola is. Arsenal i don't mind, helps they were pretty average in the 90s. Liverpool i don't mind, because in the 90s they had that group of young English players who were all supposed to be amazing and yet Liverpool never got close.

Agree with Corrin about lower league clubs too. The ones that have shot up through the divisions (looking at Hull, Fulham, Wigan in particular) have all had generous benefactors to help them up, christ i remember beating Wigan 6-2 in a league fixture about 12 years ago or so. Those clubs that have always been alright and are structured well with financial sense are those that pretty much are on a long slow down, one bad start to a season and they might go down, on a good season they might scrape into the Playoffs, but they won't go up. Perenially stuck in the limbo of League One/Two.

Who do you support btw? I know Corrin supports Tranmere.

 

[chalky]

Meh, Exeter got 4000 last match, we don't deserve any better then division 4 realistically.

Don't know what makes us we have only been getting 2500 in the last few games

 

[fredfertang]

Sadly what goes up must come down - Reading were in the old fourth division when I first started following football and despite all the fans howling at Madejski over the years to throw money at the squad he got us a decent stadium and a Premiership team in less than 15 years by being, as Gordon Brown would say, prudent - May 2007 and a top eight finish - nosebleed time - Jan 2010 and the third tier beckons - meh - back where we belong - at least we should still be in a higher league than Aldersh*t

 

[BoyBrumby]

Arsenal i don't mind, helps they were pretty average in the 90s.

Two titles, two FA Cups, a league cup & the Cup Winners Cup.

Happily take that kind of "pretty average".

 

[Matteh]

Two titles, two FA Cups, a league cup & the Cup Winners Cup.

Happily take that kind of "pretty average".

Thinking the mid-90s immediately after i got into football. ECWC cup final aside, think QPR finished higher of all people for at least one season.