Are You Envious?

Correct. I have got past the stage of tribal nonsense years ago.

One of the reasons why I found it rather distasteful was when I went to this match


After being right in the middle of the tribalism, or carnage, of that evening it wasn't hard to understand that following a team does not mean having tribal instincts against others. Furthermore one can have objective views on what's going on and be able to discuss what's happened without resorting to "That happened to us therefore it should have been a penalty" or "Never a penalty in a hundred years by our man"

And no. A derby day is just another game to me. At the end of the day it's still three points on offer and one doesn't get to climb a position further if one beats somone from the same metropolitan area. As far as I am concerned the players should treat every game as a derby game and that they should look at the Premier League and think that there's nineteen other rival clubs here and play accordingly.

I've a mate who is a fan of his chosen club and can I discuss football with him? No. Everything Manchester United is bad as far as he is concerned. The players, their staff and their fans in his eyes are 'scum'. How can one have a reasoned discussion with anyone like that? He won't even conceded that SAF is one of the best managers we've seen in these isles for heaven's sake.

So, no. I will will leave the tribabilsm to one side, if you don't mind. I will still follow my team and be happy to chew the fat with supporters of other clubs no matter who they may be.

 

At the very least I have to be worth as much as Cisse

 

I suppose better to ban me than Bankok

 

Worth as much or paid as much?

 

Fair enough, thanks.
I cant imagine what it would have been like at Heysel.

 

Still got it after nearly 29 years, do you collect old tickets etc are is it just because of events of the day?

 

Lads can we leave this discussion now, how are Bradford doing these days ?
Remember them back in the day imagine if they got to go to Wembley
.....oh wait a minute, how did that go so Sunderland are now know to me as Bradford

 

OK Take a vote and I will go with it but only after Feb 1

 

Agent Todd

 

I saved all my concert tickets from when I first went to the City Hall in '77. As time goes on they are still collected but they're on the notice board in my office. So I can see my first gigs at Newcastle all the way to the latest ones I have attended last year (front row seats for Albert Lee again, he says smugly). That ticket I saved because it was the European Cup Final and also because I offered written evidence of that evening and it's an evening I can't forget.

The events still come back to haunt me. As I was right in the section where it happened I had a series of panic attacks on the underground in London during rush hours and when I moved to North Wales about fifteen years ago I had a period of agorophabia* attacks which were diagnosed as being due to this event and treated. Anyway, during this time when I was working in Europe I stopped playing football (when one was brought up in the early seventies in the North East there one way, and one way only, to tackle. The continentals didn't like it) when I was constantly being sent off, even in training. So I started to play rugby and go to the then Five Nations games.

Now, that's how crowds should behave. Start on the pre-match build-up on Thursday in Paris, Dublin or wherever, mingle with the opposing fans. Drink. Sing. Mingle. Drink. Go to the match, drink, sing some more and come home in the same clothes that one went out in. There's rivalry but the nature is utterly different and there's no segregation. I started to go racing more and more; one can have huge crowds and like rugby the only drink fuelled incidents were only caused by people rolling down the steps blotto.

I've been to Twickenham so many times in such a state that if I were at a football match I would have done six months hard labour at Wandsworth. It goes to show that ones doesn't need tribalism to have rivalry and the sport then was better for it. I say then, rugby is ruined by the professional game and I don't watch it any more.

Back to football clubs and the neighbours. No, I don't hold any grudges at all and I do sincerely wish them well. I would rather the cup go to them than to a club outside of the area. If their fans start to go on, just look them in the eye, shake their hand, buy them a contratulatory pint and say "Well done" and then they'll shut up. They will have deserved that pint because even though some of you detest Sunderland AFC, I still see them as a proper old-fashioned local club that's not been poisoned by commercialism and plastic fans. For that reason and that reason alone I wish them well as we need, and I say this with no discredit, smaller clubs in the game because the way that Chelsea and Manchester City in particular are taking the game it's becoming more and more like the American Major Leagues with each year that passes.

So, do I have ill feelings towards any club. Yes. I do. It's not because of the fans, the players but because of the club itsself and of their actions. After Hillsborough, Liverpool have been crowing on for years how they have been the victims of a miscarriage of justice. Yes, their fans were harshly treated that day and afterwards by the Government, their agents: the police and the press. But what doesn't sit easy with me is how the club brings out the Hillsborough card by showing how caring they were in the aftermath when I don't remember them visiting hospitals in Brussels and Milan. I found the double standards shown by the boardroom to be utterly distasteful and even the fans should have shown more restraint. Heysel was still in recent memory when the fans surged through the gates at Lepping Lane. They didn't care.

Liverpool received a paltry ban, as far as I am concerned. Every English club, I believe received a five year ban (which infuriated the Everton fans whose team just won a fortnight earlier in Rotterdam in their final) and Liverpool received an extra five years because they were held to be responsible. That's effectlvely five years for their fans causing the deaths of thirty nine people. They should have got a thirty nine year ban, one year for each person killed.

Yes, I am bitter about it because I remember it well as if it were yesterday. I will never forget the sound of the wall going, the police allowing the Juventus fans to tear down the fences at the opposing end, run the length of the side of the pitch and throw the railings, like spears, into the crowd and I will never, ever, forget the Liverpool fans charging and charging again into opposing fans and Belgian families causing a stampede which will killed those people.

One last thing; I've been pilloried on here in the past for opposing standing at football matches. I think you may understand why. Until the day that football fans don't require segregation from each other in stadia then I will be against standing areas. Others views will, undoubtably, differ and I respect that as I hope that you will respect mine.

There, that's got that off my chest. Apologies for that rage




(* Agoraphobia is often mis-associated with wide open spaces as Agora means 'market place'. However said market places in the ancient world were teeming with folk; full of people selling carpets, gourds and, of course, black turbanned sword weilding assassins. So, agorophobia really fear of crowds.)

 

> 2010

Sorry, your message came in after I wrote the above screed.