Football

[paultheeagle]

The Palace didn't lose

[Dark Knight]

PTE
plenty of time yet, for your lot to keep us company

[paultheeagle]

PTE
plenty of time yet, for your lot to keep us company

I live in hope.

[barney]

The Gills were hoping for a league winning weekend, but not to be, losing away for only the second time this season.

Still, two more games left to secure the title

It will be nice to be crowned next Saturday at home to the Wombles

The ground is sold out and the atmosphere should be jumping.

Champers is on ice and ready

[gfwgfw]

How did Bournemouth get on at Scuny ?

[Manoverboard]

How did Bournemouth get on at Scuny ?

They decided to play Shrewsbury instead ... but won 0:3

[gfwgfw]

Mr MoB

Spot on dear sir

. . . and thank you

[oldbluefox]

I see the Millwall fans were fighting amongst themselves yesterday. For goodness sake it was bad enough fighting with rival supporters but fighting with each other!!! Pathetic!!
Hopefully it doesn't signal a return to the bad old days, I rather enjoy having a bit of a chat to 'the other side'. Unfortunately there are still a few morons around who would fight with their own shadow.

[Romig1]

We play Millwall next Saturday (at home). Following some "disturbances"..ie a pitched battle outside a pub 3 miles from the ground after a minibus of Millwall fans decided to stop and "have a discussion" with some Town fans who were taunting them, a couple of seasons ago - the police have dictated a 12.30pm KO. I wonder how many away matches Millwall actually play at 3pm???

As usual, we will be leaving the ground a few minutes before the end in order to be away before the fans exit.

[Manoverboard]

We play Millwall at theirs on Tuesday ...

In the good old days we used to enter their ground under a railway bridge where the locals used to pi** on you from above else into your coat pocket if you were in the wrong part of the ground. Even the kids used to invite you to " Look after yer car Mister ... ", dare one refuse ?

They have always had an upmarket and cultured embience

[gfwgfw]

Just enjoyed an excellent semi final at Wembley - though I wished Chelsea had won the match

[paultheeagle]

Last Tuesday 9th April, Grimsby Town booked themselves a place in the Blue Square Bet National Premier play-offs....They beat Dartford 2-1.....Once again I hear you lot saying 'so what'.....Well, the funny thing about this result is that the Grimsby scorers were Andy Cook and Aswad Thomas....Yep you've got it...Grimsby's goals were scored by Thomas, Cook......No wonder the Mariners have been so good on their travels this season

Funny that ain't it.


By the way and for what it's worth, there ain't another professional football club in the country that has worked harder than Millwall to rid it selves of the ...lets say unsavoury type of supporter..It's hard to know what else they can do...I feel so sorry for the true Lion's fans who will dislike what happened at Wembley on Saturday and distance themselves from it....Millwall with move heaven and earth to find the culprits and when they do those fans will be banned, probably for life.

I hope Wigan win the FA Cup Final.

[Not so ancient mariner]

Our Premiership clubs are widely regarded as some of the best in the world, while our National sides are frankly rubbish by comparison. Perhaps this discrepancy is explained by the number of foreign players plying their trade in our club sides. At the Man City - Chelsea semi final yesterday, only three of the 22 players that started were British. Come to think of it, that proportion probably reflects the clubs ownership too!

[barney]

Same as the Newcastle/Sunderland 'local' derby

3 British players on view in the 'English' Premier league

Makes me proud to support a cr***y little provincial team that I can watch every week

Love football / Hate the Premier League

[oldbluefox]

There is my dilemma. I love to see my team win and I want it to be successful but I don't like the Premier League. It seems unlikely we will be promoted (basically not good enough) but I am not too downhearted. If we did go up the ticket prices would rise, it would become more difficult to get match day tickets and for a while at least we would be seen as everybody else's whipping boys with not a cat in hell's chance of winning the league, just looking to stay up. Let's face it, it will more than likely be won by one of 3 or 4 teams so what excitement is there in that?
Football at the highest level in England has been wrecked. It is no more a sport but a multi-million pound business venture on a world scale with overpaid footballers, overpaid agents, overpriced tickets and overpriced pies. Give me the smaller unfashionable teams any day where there is a good atmosphere, plenty of humorous banter between the fans and the ability to enjoy a sport we all love, without aggro and intimidation.

[Manoverboard]

I would be very happy if my ' local ' lads were to make it to the Prem, and yes, Watford has a whole pile of them in their Academy being developed for greater things but if we come straight back down again then that is also fine by me because the club will have enough parachute money to guarantee their survival. Remember we were almost in Administration not so long ago.

[Dark Knight]

we will finish mid table
stay in the championship
play to a full house almost every home game
and the supporters will still cheer them, win lose or draw

now that is proper football

[barney]

That's the Blackpool model MoB

Seems like a good idea as well.

Not sure that Gills will ever reach those heights and not sure I'd want to, to be honest.

I'm happy with the rollercoaster of genuinely not knowing how the following season will pan out.

We are relatively financially sound and no longer overspending to chase the dream. We've won promotion with a wage bill of about half of Swindon's, who won it last season.
And they are now skint and needing to sell

Relegation next season, who knows?

[paultheeagle]

I really hope the Palace stay out of the Premier League....I've been saying that for years, it's nice to see that others agree with me and don't want their teams in the greedy premiership either...True fans will support their clubs regardless of what division they are playing in as long as they can compete and club's like Palace cannot compete in the Premier League.

ObF..I am a bit surprised by your atitude because Leicester are surely all set up for the Premiership...Big ground, very rich owners...Don't you think that with the right players, management team and organisation then The Foxes should be one of the top clubs, same as Derby (although I ain't sure who Derbies owners are.)

For a part time, teletext type supporter then the Prem is fine but as far as I'm concerned you can keep it. If we go up (and it's looking more and more unlikley) then I will have to grin and bear it for a few months because I know it won't be long before we are back to league football, real football for proper fans.

[paultheeagle]

Let the Premier League have as many foreigners as they want.....

I believe that the quality of players in the lower leagues and non league has improved and keeps on improving, simply because more and more young players are opting to sign professional contracts for smaller, less glamorous lower league clubs than those in the Premier League, where they will be given a game in the first team if they are good enough.....A 16-18 year old ain't got much chance of breaking into the first team in the Premier League...The very best kids will still get picked up by the Premiership, just not as many.

The England manager should look for players in lower leagues, the talent is there and not just pick players for the national team because they play for Arsenal, Man United or Liverpool.

[oldbluefox]

Paul, I think our owners have big ambitions for Leicester and are prepared to invest. However if we went up we would be little fish in a big pond. I am personally fed up with mercenary footballers and show-ponies who have no loyalty to the club or its supporters, and see playing football as a means of achieving a lucrative contract and giving nothing in return. Over the years I have seen such players come and go from my team and they epitomise all that is wrong with the game.
Unfortunately I was spoilt by watching football in the 60's onwards and remember the days when players were loyal to their clubs and played their whole careers with one club from boy apprentice through to international star. Nowadays they are no more than mercenaries looking for the next big transfer fee.

I enjoy watching lower league football which is much more honest in its approach and comes without the expectations of the Premier League. It is also good to see clubs developing their own talent or bringing on players who have been rejected by the bigger clubs. For me they represent the grassroots of our game and where you will find the genuine fans (like Barney and GillD).

[Manoverboard]

Er ... hello, excuse me.

I am a also a loyal supporter having supported the Hornets from the 3rd division South, when they wore blue and white and Leicester City were a post Club in the first Division, right through to Europe and the Prem ... and then back again of course

[barney]

Us clubs in the basement survive on producing youngsters to hopefully sell on to the big boys.

This stream of revenue has dried up a bit since the PL because they are looking at the global market and are happy to bring in Carlos Kickaball for 15 million quid with no understandung of English football.

The Premier League touts itself as the best league in the world. Do me a favour? Maybe the most physical, maybe the fastest, but never the best !

Gills have had a bit of fortune lately, selling on Academy kids and have spent the money wisely.
Matt Jarvis went from Wolves to Wet Spam with a 20% sell on for us
Gazzaniga to Southampton - couple of million
Ryan Bertrand to Chelsea on a steal (by them) but lots of add ons

Like Crewe and others, we need this to survive, but don't delude ourselves that we want to swim with the sharks

Look at Pompey. QPR will be next. Followed by many more.
That is the real impact of the Premier league. For every Man Utd there are ten Boltons

[oldbluefox]

Mob, calm down dear!!

I'll add you to my list.

[oldbluefox]

We ended up in administration as a consequence of relegation, the BSkyB deal falling through and a shedload of players all on Premiership wages whom we could not get rid of until the end of their contracts, and were frankly not worth the money they were being paid. Sadly nobody had thought to include clauses in their contracts in the event of relegation.