You have one of the worst grounds in the division. The place is falling apart. Fanbase we've already discussed. Derby have a bigger fanbase than you, are they a big club with a rightful place in the PL too? We hate Leeds for various reasons, there's no reason to hate Hull. It's only Leeds fans that I've ever heard try to make being hated into something cool. When so many people despise your team, maybe they're all right? What about walking in unison has more to do with Leeds than any other city or football club? It's just a generic crappy motto like the others mentioned. Yeah, it's really embarrassing that so many more people came to our new stadium which could actually hold them. The 18,000ish who have been there on average since the KC opened should all have been at the 13,000 capacity Boothferry Park Embarrassing, they are. So they're not glory supporters, they just didn't think it was worth paying for 2nd division football, but it was worth it in the PL and in Europe. Right. We have the exact same problem. Except I suspect yours is exaggerated. Leeds had their season passes out in February when they still had an outside chance of promotion. Ours came out in late May and only for renewals even then. It was the middle of pre-season with a very uncertain air around the club when new supporters could finally get their passes. So whilst it's definitely the fault of the club and we deserve what we get, that excuse applies more to us than it does to you. Yes, but every club apart from Leeds manages to accept that without constantly measuring itself on the peaks and going on about how much bigger and better they are than everyone else and what a scandal it is that they aren't in their 'rightful place' in the Premier League, just because they once were long ago.
It's size I was on about, and ER in no way falling apart. Just because it's old doesn't mean it's ****. Likewise, just because certain grounds were built recently doesn't make them the dog's. Derby's fanbase is pretty small. Attendances do not equal fanbase. They get 25-33,000 - great. But they have incredibly reasonable tickets, a great marketing strategy and good connections between the people of the city and their football club. In reality though, they probably only have around 200,000 nominal fans, possibly a similar number to yourselves. Leeds have five times that at least, going on what indications we have from research. I tend to agree though, their rightful place is probably in the top flight, just about. I'm not on about how cool being hated is - although undoubtedly that is correct - I'm saying that for a whole set of fans like yours to obsess about another club like ours when we don't give two hoots about you lot and in many cases wish you well, that's a tinpot, unreciprocated 'rivalry'. It's unrequited hate. It's tantamount to jealousy. Look at the lyrics as a whole dumbo. Those three words (despite being part of the fabric of our club's identity) has nothing particular to do with Leeds, but neither do any of your songs. At least ours are mostly original and catchy. Embarrassing that they weren't having any of it when your team was on a downward slope, not that they consequently showed up for they glory (and like I say, may now be evaporating again back into their AON teacloth shirts). It was actually cheaper in the Premier League. I still have tickets from that era and they were about £20-25 for adults. In terms of value for money, of course it made sense for some people to stop going in the Championship, especially our non-local fans. Mate, ours are £600 quid in the cheapest area. We don't do under 23s tickets. We don't have any kind of marketing team putting up signs on billboards or going on the radio to announce that season tickets are being sold. We don't throw in any bonuses or discounts. Like you say, we release our cheapest renewals in February, at a time when fans can't afford them because it's just been Christmas, they've just shelled out £600 quid a few months before to get the infernal thing and they still have away games to pay for. Your strategy, to do it in May, is far more sensible marketing/sales. And for the other reasons I mentioned.
So fans who don't come to games mean you should be higher than you currently are? Is there a missing step in that logic or is it just nonsense? no club has a rightful place anywhere. I can understand when a team is expected to do well based on their current prowess - such as for example, the relegated teams and rich ones like Leicester - but teams being worth more than others based on irrelevant stuff like you've mentioned is just silly. I could just repeat what I said on this last time; there's no reason to hate us. There is plenty of unreciprocated hate in the world - it doesn't have to be embarrassing. I never claimed our songs did. You said our fans were embarrassing in part because we don't sing an 'original' song like MOT. We've now established that it means **** all just like other crap club anthems from other pretentious clubs like West Ham and Liverpool, and it certainly doesn't mean the majority of clubs who don't have a song like that are embarrassing. I thought I made it pretty clear last time but I'll try again: Boothferry Park was considerably smaller than the KC. We could only get 12-13,000 in, so more fans coming in when the stadium doubled in size was inevitable and certainly not embarrassing. Value for money is your way of dressing it up. You're saying lower-league football is worth less to your fans than Premier League football, ergo, that's glory supporting. Like I said, we have the same problem. Unlike clubs like Derby and Brighton we seem to have no desire to bring new fans in just ike yourselves. The advertising and promotion side of things is non-existant. I don't deny that our ticket prices are much fairer, but I don't think you can blame the marketing thing. It seems like only a small minority of clubs actually do market themselves properly. Getting passes out earlier obviously gives people a bigger window to buy them in, ours weren't out til the off-season, and it was mid-July by the time we really showed we meant business this season with a new manager and some signings. Until then it was very uncertain. You're by no means the only who don't market yourselves properly.
Yes, the missing steps are that A) many of them do go to away games, and B) that many more of them would go to, or go to more, home games if we didn't have to suffer the current regime's inadequacies. So that strong fanbase, one of the best in the country, is a reason in its own right why we belong in the top flight. I can't think of any one-sided football rivalries that aren't a small club hating a bigger club who tend to have attributes of which the small club are envious, which drives the hatred. I'm pointing out the link between clubs with no anthem, like you, and clubs with **** songs, like you, and the fact that they generally tend to be tinpot or embarrassing. I certainly see it as an indicator. "Who did you support before?" is still a major question in this inquisition of Hull's place on the cringe scale, and one which could be posed to many of the fans who only started to fill the KC when you looked like promotion contenders and then started rising up the leagues. The man on the street who sees an incompetent board in Ridsdale and then Krasner, an increase in prices, and the tearing away of his beloved team while they still have the effrontery to pretend nothing's wrong; that bloke's hardly going to be persuaded to go to every game and pretend all is well. You can say I'm dressing it, it's doesn't bother me. I've already willingly accepted that some who deserted us round that time were glory supporters and good riddance to bad rubbish where those ****s are concerned. We're not the only ones, but we are by far the worst offenders. So I think it certainly grants us some leeway in these matters.
Quite. 'We're caught in a trap... I can't walk out,' as Elvis once sung. ****, you lot will probably be bellowing that out come Tuesday night along with 'can't help falling in with you', and God knows what else.
That was my thoughts until friday night when Mrs Tickler had a word with me. She won some good money the other week which has paid for her Leeds and Lesta tickets. So against by own judgement and feelings for not wanting to go and give Robber Bates a penny of my money I shall be doing especially after saturday. The man in the ticket office has said that more tickets have been sold for the Lesta game than Leeds. No surprise that one. Indeed. Read www.goal.com and type in search ""McAnuff is Enough"" so nice to read a story like that. Steady now. My solicitor is on standbye you know ? Groundhog Day by the looks of.
I think it has more to do with game day - price and which is the more important. I know many who are not going to TWS game. The match ref for Leeds game is Roger East. He was the ref. for the Fulham WBA game on saturday. O/T......DQPR have lost striker Andy Johnson for a long time with an Anterior Cruciate Ligament injury.
In this day and age, even clubs like Wigan can have a good team. It's the other variables that make a club truly special. They despise us. You don't see Leeds fans singing 'we all hate Hull scum' at every away game (indeed... ever). Man U fans on the other hand where Leeds are concerned, that's a different story. Not to mention their little displays when they came to Elland Road last season. Some Munich songs still get sung. At least there's some ****ing wit in them, unlike 'Elland Road is falling down' and other such bilge. Yeah, I like to dress up as a mediaeval Spaniard and interrogate Jews. I don't care what country people support either, although they would indeed look stupid if they couldn't speak the language and hadn't visited the place. So I think there is some common ground here - I don't understand Leeds fans who can't speak English for instance. At the end of the day though, countries are just arbitrary lines on a map. It's not like a club which is in a tangible city or town. Two words: Arctic Tigers. And I don't agree that out of town fans are passionless at all - most of our chants are sung with a semi-cockney accent when we go to London and the South. And the Norwegian lads are mad for Leeds when they come over.
Looks like the away end sorry away stand wont be as full as many think. At least Dick Turpin had a mask on.
Does that Billy Bremner statue still have the brown envelope stuck in his hand? Let's not forget he got kicked out of his national team for being a piss artist and got sent off at Wembley in a pre season friendly in the days when you had to shoot someone to get a booking......
Godwin's Law? I'm surprised having got this far that it wasn't triggered when discussing how it's embarrassing to hate people who don't hate you back, since the Nazis, or at least Hitler had a respect for the British.
What with car hire - ticket - programme - fuel,, I almost did pay £340 yesterday. Ok ok £148 actually but simply worth every penny. Thankfully i saved money on the Pies. Took 4 of them from couplands prior to leaving Hull. £4 for a programme is normally a rip off but i guess i can live with that as well. Uncle Kens pockets must be getting deeper. The only free thing i got last night was a team sheet. Surprised about that.
