Hands up!

Anything yellow and blue
Kairdiff Exile
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Re: Hands up!

Post by Kairdiff Exile »

SmileyMan wrote:I'm not an expert on football supporter virtue signalling, but if the Swans go out and there are no 'academy' teams left, does it become OK to support the Us in the Trophy?
One man's "virtue signalling" is another man's "principled opposition"!

In answer to your question, I'd say no - it still wouldn't be okay. The problem is that if fans DO return to watch games - even at Wembley - it will give the Football League the impression that the new format was a success after all. The only way to guarantee that they drop this ridiculous, insulting format is to boycott the entire competition for the rest of the season.
SmileyMan
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Re: Hands up!

Post by SmileyMan »

Kairdiff Exile wrote:
SmileyMan wrote:One man's "virtue signalling" is another man's "principled opposition"!
I'll remind you of that next time I say MK Dons = Arsenal...... :twisted:

If fans turned up in huge numbers once the unwanted academies weren't in it, would that not also send the same message? Otherwise they could turn around and say there's no appetite for lower division cup football and scrap the whole thing. Granted, for some that would be a good thing, but I quite like the idea of a cup with a realistic chance of winning. Let's face it - any other silverware is probably quite a way off.
Kairdiff Exile
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Re: Hands up!

Post by Kairdiff Exile »

Well, ultimately everyone has to make their own decision - but I think it would still send a mixed/confused message if fans were to start turning up now. I take your point about it being our only realistic shot at silverware this year - but to me the competition this season has been so devalued that it's not worth winning anyway! I don't want us to lose, I just don't really care whether we win.

The more valuable prize would be to persuade the Football League to have a meaningful, constructive dialogue with fans about how to improve the format and make it an attractive competition. If THAT happens, I'll take a lot more pleasure from the boycott than I would from us winning a devalued competition.
ty cobb
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Re: Hands up!

Post by ty cobb »

No one cared about the cup last year until we played the Scum and then got to the semi final/final. Previous years the crowds have been poor and it was a cup to play the reserve team so I don't really agree with the argument that it's suddenly been devalued - it was never valued in the first place!

It's a cup we're taking seriously at a club, it's allowing some players to gain some confidence and get back to fitness and with the U21 experiment not going to be repeated (i.e. the point has well and truly been made) the organisation that is being damaged the most is Oxford United who suffer from the lack of funds of people not going.

So as with last year if we get to Wembley I'll go for a fun day out not caring too much if we win or lose - although with the prize money on offer it would be great if we did win. I don't think 50,000 people turning up to watch two football league teams will give any weight to an argument that the cup is now a success.
Kairdiff Exile
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Re: Hands up!

Post by Kairdiff Exile »

Well, as I say, everyone has to make their own decisions. But even with the assurances that have been made, I have little faith in the Football League's desire to put fan satisfaction above avarice. The one sure-fire way of making them (and member clubs) realise that the idea of Premiershi* B Teams is abhorrent to anyone who cares about lower-league football is to demonstrate that we won't watch a competition that accepts them.
ty cobb
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Re: Hands up!

Post by ty cobb »

But no-one did watch the competition anyway hence the changes made - 1000 fans watched us at Daggers last season!

The crowds have been down this season, but it has always been a competition that no-one really cared about apart from a derby game or when Wembley beckoned.
Kairdiff Exile
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Re: Hands up!

Post by Kairdiff Exile »

If you're asking me to defend the competition and its history, Ty, I can't - but that's something of a straw man. No-one can argue that the competition doesn't need reforming. But the issue is how the Football League initiated a reform without asking the fans or heeding their views. Boycotting the trophy this year might underline to them what all posters on this board know - without fans, football is nothing. As I said above, the prize is for proper engagement on what a revamped Football League Trophy looks like.
Kernow Yellow
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Re: Hands up!

Post by Kernow Yellow »

As I've said before, for me the whole point of a #BTeamBoycott was first and foremost to boycott any match involving an 'Academy' team. This was the best way of showing the authorities that we didn't want them in this competition. This on the whole is what happened with other clubs (I think), although I was very disappointed that we took 500 fans to Stamford Bridge and made that the best-supported fixture of the competition so far.

As Ty says, boycotting the whole thing now it has returned to near-normality will simply re-inforce the FL's case that the tournament is a dead duck and needs either killing off or revamping further. Now I would have no particular problem with it being killed off, but the club seem to like it, and it's been pretty good to Us in the last 15 months or so. And I certainly don't want to see any further revamping (or at least not of the kind that the FL seem to favour)!

So what to do now? Well, it's not too much of a dilemma for me, as I was never likely to attend any match that wasn't played in Plymouth anyway (though an area final at Yeovil might yet tempt me). Likewise, I suspect many of the vocal boycotters were not regular attendees of JPT matches. So their moral highground was anyway on rather shaky foundations. It's easy to (ostentatiously) boycott matches you wouldn't have gone to anyway, isn't it?

As to Wembley? I'll cross that bridge if we come to it. Though obviously if we were playing an Academy side I wouldn't even consider it.

And in the meantime, as long as we're playing other proper lower-league teams I'll have no problem with anyone who wants to go and watch and support the Mighty Yellows...
OUFC4eva
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Re: Hands up!

Post by OUFC4eva »

A fair summary KY.

I would hate us being outnumbered 4 to 1 were we to play
Luton Town at Wembley in April.
Mr T
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Re: Hands up!

Post by Mr T »

It was interesting how SKY Sports commented on the clips of last night's highlights, emphasising the small size of the crowds at each game, in particular the 53 Wycombe fans who travelled to Blackpool. Have they got an agenda that they're trying to push through? Will SKY be at the Wembley final again this year, and the semi-finals?
Bring back the black away shirt!
Radley Rambler
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Re: Hands up!

Post by Radley Rambler »

ty cobb wrote:No one cared about the cup last year until we played the Scum and then got to the semi final/final. Previous years the crowds have been poor and it was a cup to play the reserve team so I don't really agree with the argument that it's suddenly been devalued - it was never valued in the first place!

It's a cup we're taking seriously at a club, it's allowing some players to gain some confidence and get back to fitness and with the U21 experiment not going to be repeated (i.e. the point has well and truly been made) the organisation that is being damaged the most is Oxford United who suffer from the lack of funds of people not going.

So as with last year if we get to Wembley I'll go for a fun day out not caring too much if we win or lose - although with the prize money on offer it would be great if we did win. I don't think 50,000 people turning up to watch two football league teams will give any weight to an argument that the cup is now a success.
Has that been confirmed? Are they definitely not being asked to enter next year?
Yankee Clipper
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Re: Hands up!

Post by Yankee Clipper »

I agree with KE on this. For me the boycott was never about devaluing the JPT as rightly said it had little value anyway. The boycott was a voice against the potential Trojan horse that the tournament was being turned into to one day introduce B Teams to the lower leagues. Now I appreciate that this has now been taken off the table, however whilst Shaun Harvey remains as CEO of the EFL then the issue will never be that far from the agenda. And the EFL will continue to cow tow to the Premier League. Look at the double standards in this competition alone. At the insistence of the EPL clubs the fixtures have been downgraded to reserve games. They didn't want their kids gaining potentially lucrative first team appearances. However in the same fixture the EFL team would be fined if it didn't field the requisite number of the first team. The ludicrous declaration that this was in some way going to benefit the national team. For Luton then to be fined £5,000 for fielding too many young English players in a match where I believe Norwich U23's fielded a 28 year old Frenchman. Utter farce. Harvey has already gone on record to say that only in the later rounds do the crowds start to grow. If we all now start to return this will play neatly into that spin and the low group and early knock out round attendances will soon be glossed over. If we do make it to the final, we more than any other EFL club will have the opportunity to make the single loudest statement. Our absence when compared to our fabulous attendance last year would be a powerful voice indeed. The still waters of this run a lot deeper than a day out at Wembley. And I for one will go nowhere near a game in this competition as long as it stays in this format whoever we are playing. But it is about opinions and everyone has the right to decide to either go or boycott without the other side berating them for either being "scabs" or "less of a supporter" but sadly that isn't going to happen.
Geoff
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Re: Hands up!

Post by Geoff »

I agree with KE and YC. If Shaun Harvey believes attendances will rise in the later rounds then we must show him he's wrong and try to prevent a similar farce next season.

In previous seasons I've attended a few JPT (et al) games and went to Wembley for the Barnsley game. I have attended none this season and would not go to Wembley.

I'd be interested to hear people's suggestions for a revamped competition. You never know, someone from the club may lurk on here.
Jimski
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Re: Hands up!

Post by Jimski »

I was always a regular attender of these games too - Tuesday nights are always much easier for me than weekend matches, so I tend to go to as many as I can. Not this season though. I really hope we don't get to Wembley, as it would be tempting, and the family might want to go, but I really rather would not.
Hog
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Re: Hands up!

Post by Hog »

I will continue my boycott through all the rounds but if we got to Wembley and it wasn't against an U'21 team then I'd consider it ... :oops:

Anyway, I've given a little thought to how to revise the format to try and increase interest and wonder what you think?

There are 48 teams in L1 and L2 so divide them into 16 groups of three where the three are geographically as close as possible so you get the local derby interest so potentially higher crowds and less midweek travelling for supporters. They play each other home and away and group winners progress to a knock-out where the opponents are again decided on the nearest clubs geographically playing one another once only with the lowest placed team in the League getting home advantage (or the other way round if you prefer). Do the same for the next round and the semi-final.

If we use this season as an example the groups could look like this:

1. Carlisle, Hartlepool, Bradford City
2. Morecambe, Fleetwood, Blackpool
3. Bolton, Accrington, Sheff Utd (tricky to fit them in!)
4. Oldham, Rochdale, Bury
5. Doncaster, Scunthorpe, Grimsby
6. Mansfield, Chesterfield, Notts County
7. Shrewsbury, Crewe, Port Vale
8. Northampton, Coventry, Walsall
9. Luton, Stevenage, MKD
10. Colchester, Cambridge, Peterborough
11. Millwall, Orient, Barnet
12. Gillingham, Southend, Charlton
13. Slumdon, Oxford, Wycombe
14. Newport, Bristol R, Cheltenham
15. Portsmouth, Crawley, AFCW
16. Plymouth, Exeter, Yeovil

There might be an argument to say each group should include at least one club from each division but I don't have the time nor will to do it! Of course you could argue it may become stale after a couple of seasons if the same clubs are in the same groups each year but I'm guessing that promotion/relegation will shake the geography up a bit and move clubs around? Not sure!
The two finalists would end up playing eight games in all.

I guess there would still have to be something about the strength of side teams put out I'm not too sure what to do? Perhaps the purely arbitrary minimum six players who started the last first team game?
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