Safe Terracing ( Hooray ! )

[Fred Perry]

Shrewsbury Town about to install it , closely followed by Northampton Town. The likes of Aston Villa and Man U want it.

The likes of Celtic already " successfully " have it , to vastly improve matchday atmosphere.

Even , now , the vast majority of Liverpool supporters are supporting it.

Most of us know , alot of grounds have become like theatres with " over the top " Health and Safety and too much from ," Big Brother / Jobsworths " , in the process , to spoil our " chilling out " day of watching football.

In Germany , supporters have far more of a say , how their football club is run , with more reasonable admisdion prices , particularly in the higher leagues. Most of their grounds , on matchday, are buzzing with flags and noise.

English football needs to rebrand itself like this , Imo.

[happytorq]

Shrewsbury Town about to install it , closely followed by Northampton Town. The likes of Aston Villa and Man U want it.

The likes of Celtic already " successfully " have it , to vastly improve matchday atmosphere.

Even , now , the vast majority of Liverpool supporters are supporting it.

Most of us know , alot of grounds have become like theatres with " over the top " Health and Safety and too much from ," Big Brother / Jobsworths " , in the process , to spoil our " chilling out " day of watching football.

In Germany , supporters have far more of a say , how their football club is run , with more reasonable admisdion prices , particularly in the higher leagues. Most of their grounds , on matchday, are buzzing with flags and noise.

English football needs to rebrand itself like this , Imo.

English football doesn't want to rebrand itself like this. The owners, players, and fans (at least, in the top division) are happy with the status quo. They clubs make a fortune, so do the players, and the fans get to watch the best players. There's no earthly chance the billionaire owners will say :hey, you're right, lets go to 50+1 like Germany".

Safe standing will come back in due course; removing was the right thing to do after Hillsbrough and the changes promoted by the Taylor Report allowed the game to grow - it's time to look at bringing standing back, although I don't think the Premier League clubs are going to care too much about it in the age of 'seat licensing' and corporate packages.

Also, please - for the love of Pete - you don't have to put space in front of every bit of punctuation.

[Jerry]

Fred what's going on with your ground?

I see your first match has been postponed.

http://www.thenationalleague.org.uk/sol ... oned-38109

[SenorDingDong]

English football doesn't want to rebrand itself like this. The owners, players, and fans (at least, in the top division) are happy with the status quo. They clubs make a fortune, so do the players, and the fans get to watch the best players. There's no earthly chance the billionaire owners will say :hey, you're right, lets go to 50+1 like Germany".

It should be noted that it's only really the teams at the top (into the Championship at the most) which are happy with the status quo. They stole the game from the fans and it's community roots through their hijacking of the problems of the 80s and all the bollocks they spun in the name of bringing the game out of it's malaise but in reality just to fill their own pockets. They pushed for the removal of shared gate receipts in the early 80s. They were responsible for pushing the EPL breakaway (and duping the idiotic FA) and in the process reducing the revenue sharing of TV money with the lower leagues - offering derisory payments in exchange on a take it or leave it basis. They were responsible for getting the rules scrapped about making profits from club shareholdings/income. These leading chairmen got away clean with millions of pounds in profit such as Martin Edwards at Manchester United based upon their shareholders which were never meant to be a source of income but a guardianship of a local community asset. They then made way for speculators, foreign billionaires buying clubs as playthings and investors buying clubs to flip them in 5/10 years of increasing value based upon increasing TV rights deals.

Very few lower league clubs are 'happy with the status quo', hell even amongst the pampered spoilt EPL fans resentment has bubbled up from time to time and there's a growing disgust with how commercialised the game has come. Unfortunately for them, for every 1 British fan who abandons Man Utd for FC United or gets bored of paying £60 a match to watch Arsenal and decides to watch Leyton Orient instead, there are 100 foreign plastic fans. 'Fans' with no knowledge of the history of the English game, no stake in the community aspect of the game and who only care about the commercialised marketed image of those clubs that they have bought into, who are more than happy to step up and replace them and continue funding the big club's coffers. Fans who could care less about football in their own country and look upon it with disdain rather than building it up, to have something for themselves, something real.

We've seen a number of teams struggling to come in the wake of this stealing of the people's game. Until now there have been very few clubs disappear entirely but there are a number that have plummeted down the leagues due to the financial stresses of modern football, others due to other reasons such as their own poor management or property vultures. It's only going to be a matter of time until one entirely disappears because of the utter inability to compete these days without extensive off the field revenue streams/sugar daddies. I do fear that Torquay United is one of the most likely to be this team. We're in an economically depressed area with little community spirit or shared identity due to a large % of native young people leaving in their 20s and being replaced by retirees and transplants from elsewhere in the country. If the club ever died, it'll probably be in a shower of apathy and lethargy with the locals shrugging their shoulders and a few hardy souls heading north to watch the Chiefs to get their football fix.

Modern football is broken. As you say it's not going to change, we've gone beyond the point of no return. I don't often praise the American way of organising sports but extensive revenue sharing like they do, to support the smallest teams, is the only way many clubs in this country will be saved for the decades to come but there are too many vested interests for that to ever happen....ignoring the fact we did once have a limited version of this (20% of gate receipts) and then got rid of it!!!

[Fred Perry]

FC United of Manchester ground is FAR better than Old Trafford.

I say it again, English football NEEDS to rebrand itself.

Football in England is loosing in popularity, to the likes of Rugby.

German football culture is far superior to ours - less over the top " Health and Safety " for starters !...

Supporters SHOULD have more of a say , on how their Club is run .

It would probably make sense to " regionalise " lower leagues ,,outside the Championship.

Does it make economic sense for the likes of Carlisle United to play Plymouth Argyle ? - of course NOT.

[happytorq]

Very few lower league clubs are 'happy with the status quo', hell even amongst the pampered spoilt EPL fans resentment has bubbled up from time to time and there's a growing disgust with how commercialised the game has come.

Probably should have made my point a bit clearer; when I say "the English game" I mean: the clubs at the top end, and the FA. The FA basically is the English game, and they've not demonstrated that they care about the little guys - if they did they'd have pushed for more higher solidarity payments (or whatever they're called). Currently League 2 clubs get about £240k a year from it, I think -that's a lot of money for a team at that level, but a drop in the ocean for your Chelseas, etc. They could easily double that *and* contribute to the non-league system without risking Liverpool going out of business, but they absolutely will try not to.

[merse btpir]

Very few lower league clubs are 'happy with the status quo', hell even amongst the pampered spoilt EPL fans resentment has bubbled up from time to time and there's a growing disgust with how commercialised the game has come. Unfortunately for them, for every 1 British fan who abandons Man Utd for FC United or gets bored of paying £60 a match to watch Arsenal and decides to watch Leyton Orient instead, there are 100 foreign plastic fans.

Not only foreign plastic fans but the home grown variety as well.......

Last weekend I was given a free pair of tickets to the Emirates Cup and saw Red Bull Leipzig against Sevilla followed by a 'cracker' between Arsenal and Benfica starting in front around 15,000 rattling around to a near full house for the main event. Sitting high up in the North Bank corner there were hundreds of very noisy, excitable little lads from the neighbourhood and then this plastic nob replies to his wife behind me "yes they are noisy aren't they.......never mind when everybody has to pay they won't be here"

You can imagine what I turned around and said to him.......typical of the way that the Premier League has gone and why when I went to London's oldest football ground this weekend ~ Clapton FC's Old Spotted Dog ~ to watch two years in existence Hackney Wick play their first ever FA Cup tie against Long Melford; there was no chance of such snobbery and idiocy. With my eight year old we had a whale of a time amongst the same sort of gathering as that seemingly unwelcome corner of the Emirates last week.

At my age and with hip problems I would be seeking seating over standing at any ground and you can see me there at the OSD; arms folded sitting behind the mayor but for the life of me I can't figure out where Calvin has disappeared to.........must have snuck off for a kick-around behind the stand!

I'll be at Enfield Town this Saturday and there they always get foreign fans calling in to pay homage to the game's first ever wholly owned fans' club; but these guys won't be plastic and they will be there on the same level as everyone else....don't forget that the combined support for lower and non league football in this country vastly outnumbers the Premier crowds each and every weekend!


There's me, arms folded in the cap surrounded by a very happy community from Hackney Wick!