We were **** from about 1975-1990 with one or two exceptions to the rule in between, I'm guessing that's when you started going?
That's a pretty long time to be ****, but I would have said you were fairly rubbish up until around 1995 / 96 when the Italian contingent started arriving. That's when things started changing for Chelsea. The first game I went to was Arsenal v Leicester 1984
Spurs have been in the top 5 for four seasons running and few on the Chelsea forum would agree that that makes us a really significant club. Chelsea had never achieved that in their history prior to Abramovich
I don't like the way that Roman Abramovich poured his wealth into Chelsea to propel them to the top, but you have to admit that Chelsea are a pretty strong outfit these days. When I first started going to games, Chelsea were a yo-yo team between the old 1st and 2nd division. It was when the Italian contingent came along in the mid / late 90's that Chelsea really picked up again I don't know how many of you on here used to go to Stamford Bridge before it was redeveloped ? But it was a ****hole, the running track around the pitch used to mean that the players were miles away and (in the away end anyway) the terrace had a horrible curve to it that used to give some terrible sight lines. That and the fact that the away end had no roof and away fans used to get locked in for hours after the game had finished, generally made for a pretty diabolical experience at Stamford Bridge. As I said, I don't like the way Abramovich's personal wealth catapulted Chelsea up the table, but for Chelsea fans, it has completely revolutionised your club and stadium.
If your first game was v Leicester 83/4 season we would have been in div 2 but getting promoted that season. We then had four glorious years in Div 1 including two consecutive top six finishes!!
And what have you won in that period? Players want success and to play at the top level. Pre-Abramovich we never bad to sell our best players ala Modric, Berbatov and soon to be Bale. We were still a top 10 club in Europe revenue wise. Outside London and Manchester's big 2, very few clubs have the kind of allure of other top European clubs, Liverpool probably the rare exception as they have a history of success, not a history of failure.
Mostly I agree, but its only recently that there has been such a big turnover of players - it was usually only one or two signings a season when I was young. But we bought Venables off you in the mid-sixties who was definitey your top player at the time - he didn't really fit into our style of play though. Most of the rest of the time prior to 1995 you never had a player as good as Modric, Berbatov and Bale! You barely won anything in 90 years prior to 1995 - same number of trophies as West Ham!
Thats exactly what small time clubs do when they punch over their weight. Most real Spurs fans are happy to see them win the league cup once every decade but these nouveau rich armchair fans expect them to be on par with the Chelsea's & Arsenal's and it frankly isn't going to happen which is why their team is full of players that the top clubs have discarded. Wouldn't bother with them DL they're all over here on a wind up because their board is so ****ty.
Actually I'm not happy with that. If you think Spurs are a small-time club you know nothing about football. Ahead of Chelsea on trophies won throughout history until 2012!
Superb post Ossie. All their arriviste fans post Bale 2010 will go back to supporting United when the cheating chimp moves there
According to an article in the Guardian the following are the stats for English players for London Clubs in the PL [table="width: 500"] [tr] l [td] [/td] [td]Arsenal[/td] [td]Chelsea[/td] [td]Fulham[/td] [td]QPR[/td] [td]Spurs[/td] [td]West Ham[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Number of Home Grown Academy Graduates[/td] [td]1[/td] [td]1[/td] [td]2[/td] [td]0[/td] [td]5[/td] [td]5[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Total English players[/td] [td]5[/td] [td]7[/td] [td]5[/td] [td]12[/td] [td]13[/td] [td]12[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Appearances 2012/13[/td] [td]123[/td] [td]129[/td] [td]50[/td] [td]177[/td] [td]229[/td] [td]242[/td] [/tr] [/table] I thought the differences were interesting but not sure whether they mean anything. The PL had 189 players qualified for England compared with 332 in La Liga, 269 in Serie A, 320 in Ligue 1 and 224 in the Bundesliga who were qualified for the home country. The article was trying to argue that the low number of English players was damaging to England's hopes of competing internationally. It does look as if only Spurs and West Ham's academies do a lot better than the others in producing PL players but that doesn't really help if they are not of International quality. What i don't get is why we are so poor at producing top players compared to the other major European countries.
1. Philosophy and Mentality - Winning and grinding takes precedence over enjoying football and maximising the potential and footballing ability of each individual player 2. Less UEFA qualified coaches 3. The Premier League - This new TV deal, are clubs like Norwich (who nearly went down) going to rely on youth to improve or buy top talent from abroad? We're seeing the answer. The FA have prioritised the Premier League over everything else in football. 4. Anti-sporting nation - contrary to myth we are not encouraged to play sports in this country, "No Ball Games" in open spaces and open patches of land. Same is happening with tennis, no free courts to play, everywhere in Spain Look at Spain, since the financial crisis they've brought through top talent. Silva, Mata and now Isco, Jordi Alba, Thiago, De Gea etc. When you have no money to spend, you are forced to turn to youth (see Inter as well re: Balotelli, Coutinho etc).
Hey, don't bamboozle Ozzie with science! The last time he was forced to re-think an argument he had a nose-bleed for a week.
Yep... Banter and footie... Seems it's only us, Spurs and Arsenal though! QPR fans keeping schtum since relegation!
The Spanners would also appreciate it some of you could please bring along some colouring-in books and a few comics.
