Off Topic Bill Nicholson Arms

The Hague has been notified

 

Carrying on the culture discussion, your further explanation does render my argument slightly redundant as I am somewhat in agreement about social culture. I think in England as a whole for many years the pub was at the centre of social culture. Certainly in my youth we were in the pub almost every day at some point, a couple of pints at lunchtime or a 'session' in the evening. We played pub games, in my case Darts, Bar Billiards and Pool in order to have an excuse to go to different pubs.

Unfortunately I also think that in the south we had a culture of gangs and street fighting, not the knife style gangs of today but regular drunken brawls, fist fights in the street sometimes just between 2 groups of lads because someone said something to a woman in the other group, and was therefore chatting her up, or between 'rival' popular culture factions be that Mods, Punks, Skins, Casuals, Bikers etc. I certainly recall that in Ashford in the 80s you avoided the town centre at kicking out time because someone was getting their head kicked in, and the atmosphere was always tense and often toxic. Canterbury was and still is a much better place for drinking.

But as Brian said on the other thread Fish and Chips on Friday, a days fishing at one of the beaches, the proximity of the coast for a trip to the amusement arcades and the good old days of a booze cruise to France that is Kentish culture.

 

You missed out rockers which is what I was. Hated Vespa's and Lambreta's. I never did get my dream Bonneville, if I had I probably wouldn't be here. I can feel and remember the culture now we have started talking about it. I took more of my culture from New Orleans, Chicago and New York than Canterbury or Folkestone.

 

Just tuned into Sky sports football thinking that's its an International break so they will have a league 1 or league 2 game, but no its only showing WSL today. Now before anyone thinks that I am having a pop at womens football I am not. The WSL gets plenty of coverage on both the BBC and Sky, far more than football league below the championship, and sky have 2 football channels so put the WSL on sky sports premier and football league on football, sky sports premier is currently showing people playing FIFA for ****s sake.

 

Wasn't sure if this comment goes on the new manager thread, but I'll put it here as it's just as much about "the human condition" as anything.

I've been hearing recently on the radio (and it's only getting worse) a series of Spurs "supporters" who seem so bound up in their hatred of Levy that they would rather be right about him being the problem than the team doing well. I could be wrong, but they were really convincing! Now obviously the radio would tend to put on the nutters, but I still think there is a sizeable minority that if the team does well for a while, will completely ignore that, and then one day (which is bound to happen anyway), something goes wrong and it will be "I told you so".

I don't think people on here are like that. People have their opinions but I think they have the good of the team at heart. For my part I've said I've wanted Conte gone, but if he'd stayed and been successful I would be more than happy to be wrong. But I think in this (and other things) the nature of football fans may be changing. And it's sad because you've got to appreciate the team doing well when it is, because one thing for sure is that there will never be a time when there will be constant success (although these "fans" again might welcome a financially rich / morally poor owner, I know I wouldn't). But barring a money no limits owner, there is no guarantee. And I wonder if these Levy-haters are perhaps going to miss out on any good things that happen, because they are simply waiting for it to go wrong?

Also there is a tendency toward all black/white too, eg Levy all bad, not having Levy all good. It's when things like the stadium are dismissed because only bad things count. But it's never black and white, it's always degrees of grey. But just by not hating Levy I'm sure a lot of the anti-Levy brigade would assume people like me are completely pro-him. Which is simplistic (and not true). And I heard one of these fans accept a few things that Levy had done, like saved us financially but gave him no credit. And I was reminded of the Life of Brian sketch, "What has Levy ever done for us" (or it might have been The Romans, but it might as well have been Levy). But once you go down that path, it's really difficult to take a balanced view. In summary, whatever I've said, I'm happy to be wrong if Spurs benefit. No caveats. I suspect that isn't the case for everyone!

 

In the interest of balance, it's fair to say that there are also fans who will support Levy, no matter his significant faults and repeated failings. The cult even has a name - The Bastard Sons of Daniel Levy.

As you say, the truth is that there is bad and good in most things...and so it is with Levy and ENIC. They have returned us to our status, prior to when Scholar ****ed things up and Sugar oversaw years of drift. On top of that, the club now has a fabulous stadium.

What we're losing is the hope that things will improve further and that the club can return to winning things from time to time. It's 32 years since we won the FA Cup. 39 years since we won a European trophy and 62 years since we won the league. Under Levy and ENIC we've hit a glass ceiling and have started repeating the same mistakes. The club lacks direction and planning outside of its property development ambitions and until that changes, we'll not be winning anything.

Like an increasing number of lifetime supporters, I don't see Levy and ENIC changing their MO and consequently, we won't be successful. If you're not willing to compete on spending, the club has to be run to a plan over a sustained period of time. We are the antithesis of this. As shown by the appointment of Mourinho, the club is run as DL's personal fiefdom and his lack of sporting success would have seen him sacked years ago if he were just an employee. I don't hate the bloke, but his time running the football club needs to come to an end to allow fresh blood and direction.

 

These are the facts that show the size of the hole we were in when ENIC took over.
Other facts show that our league position has been generally mid table for 50 years too. The league performance has demonstrably changed for the better.
Thinking we've hit a ceiling is conjecture and if it is untrue then risking everything on a new untried Chairman is bonkers.
That said, I would be perfectly happy to appoint someone as Chairman who has as good a record as Levy that wasn't funded by dodgy money. No-one has identified anyone who meets this description.

 

Conjecture drives 95% of the content on here. Without it we will be nowhere!

 

My honest thought

Imo some of the fans can quite frankly fck off with Levy

I’m sick of the fans who remind me of Alan Sugar and peddle the **** Levy has instilled into their minds.

people have short memories and seemed to get offended that Conte acts like ‘he was doing us a favour’ which I disagree with…his demands were just too high for comfort zone FC. I’m sure Levy has also allured to the fans not knowing how good they got it. He’s on record for saying this in the past. He knows how to put the majority in their place and get them at ease with mediocrity.

Those pandering for Poch…I recall under his tenure week in week out id hear words to the affect

‘we are punching above our weight’

not heard it since

so when we were actually challenging…most were clearly uncomfortable and had nose bleeds and didn’t quite accept that we are where we belong

like I said some of the fan base is a massive problem with their obsession with mediocrity

 

Conte and all the pro ENIC fans agree that only spending more money can make us fully competitive.
The only difference between the anti-ENIC fans and the pro-ENIC fans is that the former think that the solution is for a sugar-daddy owner to inject more money and the latter think the club can grow in a sustainable way.
Neither group are satisfied with mediocrity, we just have different solutions to the agreed problem.

 

Debate is more productive if it is based in facts rather than opinion.
The reason this board is so good is that most of the posters recognise that.
Opinions will certainly differ on how to solve the issues at Spurs but we ought to be able to agree on what they are.

 

We also seem to have different objectives - some - me for example want us to win the league and I would accept less than brilliant attacking football all the time to achieve that - others prefer the excitement of the individual game and want to see us play great football even if we don't win things.

 

Agreed. I was firmly in the latter camp but am now gravitating to the former as I think winning a trophy would make a big difference to confidence

 

I suspect you mean "opinion drives" rather than
"conjecture ..." (the latter usually has a strong degree
of support from other areas) .

 

I actually think there is a lot of good conjecture on here....at least if you agree with this.. https://gherittmasonrant.wordpress....fference-between-an-opinion-and-a-conjecture/
There is much less to be learnt from debating with someone who simply has opinions. That's the majority over the whole of this site but a small minority over the Spurs Board

 

Found on Twitter

 

And some of the fan base is a massive problem with their obsession with spending beyond our means. Certainly there has been lack of spending in a few windows, but there has also been quite a lot spent on the wrong players. But everything wrong with the club according to many is Levy's fault, while anything good is not to be taken into account.

 

Whether you think ENIC's reign has been a success depends essentially on two things...how you measure success and how quickly can things change. If you take the view that when ENIC took over we were a sleeping giant who ought to be winning a lot of trophies then it is hardly surprising if you think they have been a failure. If on the other hand you think ENIC took over a club who were rightly mid-table and never challenged for the League and rarely even qualified for European competition then coming second in the League and Champions League is a good outcome, particularly when they have simultaneously built a world class stadium and training facilities that should underpin future success.
To me the starting position is much closer to the second than the first...and the gap we had to overcome was very large.

 

You should read the posts of those that are disenchanted

no one wants Haaland or Mbappe

if we buy a winger we can’t get a CB

if we buy a CB we can’t buy a winger

abysmal attitude for a club our size