I cannot, under any circumstance, follow a sport where one of their top "athletes" was named The Fridge!
Must confess it's really not my kind of thing either. Far too stop start. In my opinion ( !!! ) it's a poor mans rugby. I like both union / league, however prefer union I think now. Second sport tennis.
I enjoy most sports. Football is (and always will be) my number one, I'd argue rugby union is second, tennis third, F1 fourth, and then American football. Can't stand golf or cricket.
Is F1 even a sport? I have to choose one sport to be a professional athlete in I would likely choose Cricket (Though would be torn between that & Football) Working in Sport, I've got to meet some people who work in some weird & wonderful sports.. Tchoukball, Rifle Shooting (Olympic Sport after all!) and Hill running are some of the most niche, but also most passionate I've met. As you'd expect the sort of people who work in Snow Sports are some very free spirits
F1 was a massive love of mine 1993 - 2007 or so. Then, penalties galore came in and it's become micky mouse. DRS reminds me of Mario Kart mushroom boost... double points one race. It's just become an embarrassment. The curtain for me was when I went to Malaysia 2014. I remember being at Silverstone 1995, and the engines were screaming. Got photos of me by Hill / Couthard / Schumacher's cars. Was amazing. Unfortunately, Malaysia 2014 they didn't sound right. Sounded like a chavy idiot driving around Tesco carpark with a Suburu Impreza with the noise a suped up car makes when they change gears. I cannot watch it anymore sadly. Ask me who won any race from the 90s I could tell you, heck, perhaps even the podium or some races 94-96 the entire points order. I was absolutely obsessed with it at that age, 94 - 97 over football for me any day of the week. Not a fan of cricket either, but would like to go to a 2020. May like that format more. I can watch the last couple of hours at an open. I do love most sports! Miss playing hockey for school.
No, of course it hasn’t, and this is rather the whole point. We have finally abandoned McCarthy’s mantra of ‘get points this week, sod the future’ in favour of a no pain, no gain strategy to attempting to lay some foundations. There is no guarantee that it will work this time, but as someone who has built a successful business over six years I can tell you those early years were tough - and I would have got paid a lot more just by working for somebody else in a comfortable role, and there have been times when I could have taken a quick buck that would have had a negative effect further down the line - I’m seeing the rewards of this approach and I’m far more concerned about where Town will be in three or five years’ time than I am about beating Birmingham on Saturday. Apart from the points in the final league table not many people will even remember it in six months’ time. I am not massively interested or excited about Town as a Championship side. I want to see players like Harry Kane, Sergio Aguero and Mo Salah coming to Portman Road. We now have a whole generation of youngsters and even twentysomethings who have no idea what it’s like to go to school or work on a Monday morning and talk about having seen the biggest stars in the land and sometimes beating them. At one time ours were the biggest stars but even I am not old enough to remember that. That should be the vision - a young boy or young girl waking up on a Saturday morning not able to contain their excitement that they are going to see Mo Salah at Portman Road that afternoon. Once that happens regularly we can talk about trophies or European football, but that vision should be the minimum, because frankly compared to that we have a pointless existence as a football club at the moment. In that context whether we play in League One or the Championship really makes no difference. Let me reiterate, a whole generation has only had a single match - the League Cup semi final against Arsenal - to see top talent and really be thrilled about and they would have to be at least teenagers now even to remember that. Mick McCarthy? Do me a favour.
To be fair, nuggets, before the internet many of us got the Evening Star daily and the Green Un weekly in print and they were never afraid of a good headline! The difference now is the echo chamber of comments that previously would have been confined to a discussion on the terraces or in the pub or the office. The tone is always different on a screen because we can’t see facial expressions and voices to help us interpret and communicate, which leads to a lot more conflict and panic.
Obviously up the A140 we all think Hurst is doing a fine job. I can see why some of you are getting ansy but he really needs more time. With that said, if it turns into no wins in 15, 20 more there has to be a limit. But as YLHL has said, you are trying to embark on a long term hopefully more fruitful strategy. Hurst looked a decent appointment for that, ME has to see how long he can hold his nerve if the wins remain elusive. The counter argument as always is, building for the long term needs to be on solid foundations, can Hurst provide them? You seem OK defensively maybe thats the start, look at how many times Farke has had false dawns, neither of our clubs will be attracting a manager of Bielsa's pedigree and ability to have an instant impact anytime soon, not with our resources. So hang in there hopefully it'll turn for you. I'd love to see another PL derby match in my lifetime, trouble is neither of us look well placed to make that happen. I'll probably get dubbed a glory hunter but I'm a 49ers fan from back in the rice/montana era, in my defence, the only person I knew in the states or really have known was my old mans best mate and former band buddie who moved to and had a small record studio in San fran. I like most sports too, Union probably second to Football (Its getting closer too, not so much of the child like play acting and so far not the same obscene monetary influx) Used to like F1, my old man used to work for team Lotus and travelled with the team. It has declined loads of late for the reasons mentioned by WL. I rarely now watch. The boxing scene is finally going through another half decent spell, but as ever it is hampered by promotor self interest and politics. Bah!
Evening Melchett I would say an acceptable limit is no wins and bottom three after 15 games because statistically then we are almost certain to be relegated. At that point the situation needs to be reviewed and questions asked. If I were the owner now would be a good time to make the manager aware of this to put some pressure on him to throw everything at it.
I think that's essentially what we've all been saying, we just all have different ideas of how long a wait is acceptable. I am a little confused though because you have said championship/League 1 bears little difference if we trust the long term plan. The question is if after game 14 we're still winless would we accept going back to hoofball just to get the win on game 15. If hoofball was successful how would we then treat game 16 onwards. Would it reset the clock?
Mike, very simply, I think there comes a point when you have to say Hurst is not the right man for our long term future. Being relegated doesn’t necessarily concern me but what really does is a lack of imagination. It shouldn’t require playing hoofball to get a bit of a buzz going. So I think if the owner putting a rocket up his arse doesn’t bring that out of him then he just doesn’t have it in him. We are at the point now not to call time on his Town career but where we need to see a bit of urgency.
A fair response, if Hurst isn't the right man for the plan then the onus falls on Marcus to act and find the right man, the trouble is every man has a different plan - unless we aspire to the Watford model. You could argue there's been too much pressure to display imagination. There was a "buzz" at the start of the season and we were playing "well" but without the results, the games kept ticking by and the win wasn't, and that's how we ended up with the Brentford starting formation. How long do we keep the pendulum swinging from one idea to the next? Is that showing imagination or a lack of faith in his own systems or, even worse, a lack of effective scouting? In short, is the plan already being sacrificed and if so, why wait till game 15?
Yorkie are you serious when you say relegation doesn't necessarily concern you? The devastating effects of a considerably lower income with a team shorn of anyone of substance is frightening, Christ you couldn't make it up.
Spot on Westy, there appears to be a school of thought that relegation is what we need to wipe the slate clean and automatically come back stronger and go on to bigger and better things, with this owner? Do me a favour, anyone who was worth anything which isn't many would be gone, gates would fall considerably, league income would be greatly reduced, its just the most horrendous outcome I can think of, but there again I haven't consulted BetFred or Paddy Power, and I'm the 6 year old.
People forget that George Burley was relegated. He didn’t manage for the entire season but we were absolutely abysmal in his first half season. The club that Hurst inherited was in a far worse state to that one. So just because we don’t start well or on the basis of our final league position alone it doesn’t mean the manager doesn’t have a future.
The answer is that if we are bottom 3 after 10 games there is still a good probability that we will climb the table. If we are bottom 3 after 15 then the odds are really stacked against us climbing out of it. For anyone who is interested, that is based on looking at the bottom three of the division after 5,10,15,20 games and the final league standings over recent seasons. So that tells us that somewhere between that 10-15 game mark is the point at which you’ve had enough time to climb out of it, if you are ever likely to. What happens next in terms of bouncing back or changing the manager and how that affects things, I didn’t look into.
That was a truely woeful Season with "that" Man U result particularly painful.Still I would regard relegation as a real disaster and hate to contemplate it. I remain positive that we will turn things around.
