Possible league reform

[Mooro]

Nonsense on stilts. If that’s the best Greg Dyke can come up with then I reckon the biggest problem the English FA have is that’s he’s in charge of it.

And now Scudamore.

It makes Brian Lee look half-sensible.

I can't help but wonder about the timing of this current witchhunt against Scudamore, which appears to have been unleashed only days after criticising Dyke's plans.....!!

BTW - good article from Martin Samuel on Scudamore and witchhunts in general
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/footba ... ulous.html

[Snake]

Nonsense on stilts. If that’s the best Greg Dyke can come up with then I reckon the biggest problem the English FA have is that’s he’s in charge of it.

And now Scudamore.

It makes Brian Lee look half-sensible.

I can't help but wonder about the timing of this current witchhunt against Scudamore, which appears to have been unleashed only days after criticising Dyke's plans.....!!

BTW - good article from Martin Samuel on Scudamore and witchhunts in general
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/footba ... ulous.html

And more - http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/articl ... f-job.html

Now the Daily Mail ask where the Lenagans where when his Warriors were doing their stuff. Lol - free tickets from Firoka perhaps?

[Kairdiff Exile]

Now the Daily Mail ask where the Lenagans where when his Warriors were doing their stuff. Lol - free tickets from Firoka perhaps?

Thanks for posting that link, Snake. This bit interested me as I was hitherto unaware of it:

Lenagan is also chairman of League Two football team Oxford United and an FA councillor. He was one of four councillors who spoke out in favour of Hull City owner Assem Allam being allowed to change the name of the club to Hull Tigers which the FA voted to reject.

If that's accurate (and this is the Daily Hate Mail, so it may well not be), I have just lost tonnes of respect for Lenagan. Up until now, I'd been giving him the benefit of the doubt on many things, but this would suggest he's the wrong man to be in charge of any football club and only adds credence to the argument that he's not a real football man at all.

#AgainstModernFootball

[Snake]

#AgainstModernFootball

It’s a price you have to pay to succeed (in all but a very few examples), and I’ll bet you’d change your views if Richard Branson bought Us out and named the place the Virgin Arena after he’d tarted it up a bit on and off the field.

[Kernow Yellow]

Thanks for posting that link, Snake. This bit interested me as I was hitherto unaware of it:

Lenagan is also chairman of League Two football team Oxford United and an FA councillor. He was one of four councillors who spoke out in favour of Hull City owner Assem Allam being allowed to change the name of the club to Hull Tigers which the FA voted to reject.

If that's accurate (and this is the Daily Hate Mail, so it may well not be), I have just lost tonnes of respect for Lenagan. Up until now, I'd been giving him the benefit of the doubt on many things, but this would suggest he's the wrong man to be in charge of any football club and only adds credence to the argument that he's not a real football man at all.

Yes, if that's true I'm very disappointed with IL.

[Kairdiff Exile]

#AgainstModernFootball

It’s a price you have to pay to succeed (in all but a very few examples), and I’ll bet you’d change your views if Richard Branson bought Us out and named the place the Virgin Arena after he’d tarted it up a bit on and off the field.

Well, no, I wouldn't actually. You might be happy for a future chairman to change our colours to purple, change the name to the Thames Valley Oxens or move the club 60 miles away to a different town (all of which have some sort of precedent), but in any of those instances I - and many others like me - would walk away. There comes a point when 'our' team is no longer 'our' team at all, and changing the club's name seems like a pretty obvious example of it. So Alam at Hull City or Tan at Cardiff (and people like Lenagan who could stand up to them but don't) are all IMHO tossers who are fundamentally ill-suited to being custodians of a football club.

[SWA]

Great post that ^^^^^^

AMF

[slappy]

Football sold out decades ago.
Clubs have changed names, merged, moved stadium, changed shirts, had shirt sponsors, ground naming rights, moved games for tv, gone on overseas pre-season tours to new markets.

If Hull or Cardiff got dropped by their owners and found themselves in five years time back in midtable L2 or the Conference, I bet their fans would be wondering if it was really worth complaining about the colour of the shirt, or not having Tigers after the club name.

This isn't moving dozens of miles from home, or feeder clubs / B teams. Football club owners have the right to try and maximise the marketability and revenues of the club worldwide, and unless you are a club purely bankrolled by an owner with no hope of ever breaking even, then you have to accept the commercial reality of football finances.

[SWA]

Depressing reading slappy
No wonder more fans are now following non-league teams...

[slappy]

Depressing, or realistic?
Our club used to be called Headington United, we used to have a club badge with an ox in profile, we originally played in orange and blue with no sponsors on the shirt, played in a ramshackle ground in Headington named after the local area rather than any person or company, with kick-offs presumably on a Saturday afternoon.

What happened, and why did no-one kick up a huge fuss? (apart from perhaps Oxford City who effectively had their place as the city's premier team usurped).

We aren't talking Thames Valley Royals here.

It's all very well wanting to preserve everything in a sepia tinged nostalgiac memory of the 1980s, but the costs of running a football club these days mean only a few in the whole football league will have broken even in the past few years, and so owners have to look at all ways of bringing in revenues. I wasn't particularly happy with the likes of Debt Doctor, or the Oxford United mobile phones, or the investment schemes which the club has lent it's name to, or allowed to be associated with the club by press release. But clubs have to sometimes take moral decisions for the sake of the club's finances and continuation in business.

[Kernow Yellow]

If Hull or Cardiff got dropped by their owners and found themselves in five years time back in midtable L2 or the Conference, I bet their fans would be wondering if it was really worth complaining about the colour of the shirt, or not having Tigers after the club name.

Well some might. Others might be happy that they were no longer the plaything of an overseas owner with more interest in boosting their popularity back home (wherever that is) than the long-term wellbeing of a community football club with many decades of proud history (both good and bad) long before they turned up with their squillions. Wouldn't it in fact be better if clubs went up and down through the leagues more often rather than some buying their seat at the top table with unimaginable wealth while others are grateful for any crumbs thrown?

You are right of course that many fans are quite happy for success to be bought, and get positively orgasmic at the thought of a takeover of their football club by the tyrannical ruler of a Gulf state. But people who don't get excited by their club's brand value on far-flung continents have every right to complain when owners try and change things that have been the same for generations against the will of the vast majority of fans - such as shirt colours and club names.

I certainly wouldn't object if Branson (or anyone else for that matter) wanted to change the name of our ground and make it a decent place to watch better football. But not at the expense of being a community club, trying to live within our means (as far as that's possible in football) and respecting the history and values that long-standing fans would expect.

When FC United of Manchester was first formed I didn't really get it - they had a club to support so why were they setting up a new one? But in the last few years I completely understand where they're coming from. They want to feel some kind of connection to the players on the pitch, to the ownership of the club. They want to stand on terraces where they can mingle freely with old mates. And much more besides. And they don't get any of that at Old Trafford now.

The Premier League may have sold the soul of football long ago, as you say, but we shouldn't just shrug our shoulders and let it devour what little is left of the game we once knew.

[Snake]

#AgainstModernFootball

It’s a price you have to pay to succeed (in all but a very few examples), and I’ll bet you’d change your views if Richard Branson bought Us out and named the place the Virgin Arena after he’d tarted it up a bit on and off the field.

Well, no, I wouldn't actually. You might be happy for a future chairman to change our colours to purple, change the name to the Thames Valley Oxens or move the club 60 miles away to a different town (all of which have some sort of precedent), but in any of those instances I - and many others like me - would walk away. There comes a point when 'our' team is no longer 'our' team at all, and changing the club's name seems like a pretty obvious example of it. So Alam at Hull City or Tan at Cardiff (and people like Lenagan who could stand up to them but don't) are all IMHO tossers who are fundamentally ill-suited to being custodians of a football club.

I wasn't talking about name changes or kit (though Vincent Tan is a hoot), I meant that in order to succeed in modern football you can't do it on the cheap. And worth reminding that it was IL who was one of only four chairmen to vote (allegedly) for the Hull name change.

[Matt D]

It's all very well wanting to preserve everything in a sepia tinged nostalgiac memory of the 1980s, but the costs of running a football club these days mean only a few in the whole football league will have broken even in the past few years, and so owners have to look at all ways of bringing in revenues. I wasn't particularly happy with the likes of Debt Doctor, or the Oxford United mobile phones, or the investment schemes which the club has lent it's name to, or allowed to be associated with the club by press release. But clubs have to sometimes take moral decisions for the sake of the club's finances and continuation in business.

very true, but there are ways and ways.

ever-more ridiculous sponsorship 'opportunities' are one thing i think we've learnt to live with, but clubs spending well beyond their means to name changes and the mk dons move are the very worst manifestations of 'modern' football we've seen in my view.

it's the context of football today that incentivises those kind of things precisely because it's been turned into such a high stakes game. it's a situation that has to be addressed at an administrative level. changing that can't come from one club. a chairman trying to do that and demand that everyone else behave sensibly too is just going to be left a modern day canute.

so yes, i agree there are times when i think all clubs have to hold their nose and take the money (even barca have something on the front of their shirt now), and you can't do it on the cheap as snake says, but it's also about where the money's coming from and what's left of the club afterwards.

[SmileyMan]

Yeah, when Woolwich Arsenal decided to both franchise themselves up to North London to get bigger crowds, and change their name at the same time to drop their historic roots, it was indicative of all that's wrong with modern* football.

Still, the orange and blue army of Headington United need never worry about such things, eh?

*modern = 1913

[Snake]

Good - http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/27743046

And using football language allowed inside the turnstiles then Greg Dyke comes across to me as a fat, old, baldy wanker who has little idea about grass roots football.