Championship Fans – Sounding Board Sept 2014

OK, calling all championship fans – we’ve all got time on our hands right now, so - the quickest of all surveys coming your way, it’ll take 30 seconds only! So all in please by Friday 12th SEPTEMBER - before our next league games, not this weekend but the next. You haven’t got to answer every section, just those that you like! Around 20 clubs in on this ...

Here goes –

1 * The BEST championship team of the season so far, by attractive play on the pitch, in your opinion?

2 * The biggest surprise package – which team has fared much BETTER than you initially expected?

3 * The biggest disappointment – which team has fared much WORSE than you initially expected?

4 * The best individual summer/close season transfer in your opinion? (not including your own club players here)

5 * The most interesting young hope, in your opinion? (not including your own club players here)

6 * Your wild guesses as to the next THREE championship clubs to part with their manager, for whatever reason?


I’ll get the conclusions back in a couple of weeks. No scientific way of doing it, but simply by using common sense. Most replies will be copied over and rested on this Royals Rendezvous topic for posterity! - http://royalsrendezvous.co.uk/topic/10165192/1

Enjoy it!!


Daib0/David

 

1 The BEST championship team of the season so far, by attractive play on the pitch, in your opinion? Unable to answer


2 The biggest surprise package – which team has fared much BETTER than you initially expected? Wolves (Probably)


3 The biggest disappointment – which team has fared much WORSE than you initially expected? Bolton


4 The best individual summer/close season transfer in your opinion? (not including your own club players here) Pilkington to Cardiff


5 The most interesting young hope, in your opinion? (not including your own club players here) Unable to answer


6 Your wild guesses as to the next THREE championship clubs to part with their manager, for whatever reason? Leeds (Again), Bolton, Fulham

 

1 The BEST championship team of the season so far, by attractive play on the pitch, in your opinion? Like Thai, not seen enough. Maybe Bournemouth, but that's purely based on our game. Watford are scoring a lot.


2 The biggest surprise package – which team has fared much BETTER than you initially expected? Millwall


3 The biggest disappointment – which team has fared much WORSE than you initially expected? Fulham - I didn't think they'd be quite so bad...


4 The best individual summer/close season transfer in your opinion? (not including your own club players here) Callum Wilson to Bournemouth


5 The most interesting young hope, in your opinion? (not including your own club players here) Like Thai, I just don't know enough about Championship teams.


6 Your wild guesses as to the next THREE championship clubs to part with their manager, for whatever reason? Middlesbrough, Bolton, Fulham

 

1 * The BEST championship team of the season so far, by attractive play on the pitch, in your opinion? Watford

2 * The biggest surprise package – which team has fared much BETTER than you initially expected? Forest

3 * The biggest disappointment – which team has fared much WORSE than you initially expected? Fulham

4 * The best individual summer/close season transfer in your opinion? (not including your own club players here) Wilson to Bournemouth

5 * The most interesting young hope, in your opinion? (not including your own club players here) There must be a new product from the Saint's academy!

6 * Your wild guesses as to the next THREE championship clubs to part with their manager, for whatever reason? Fulham, Leeds and Bolton!

 

Many thanks, excellent! Please keep 'em coming in over the next week or so!

 

1 * The BEST championship team of the season so far, by attractive play on the pitch, in your opinion? Bournemouth

2 * The biggest surprise package – which team has fared much BETTER than you initially expected? Millwall

3 * The biggest disappointment – which team has fared much WORSE than you initially expected? Fulham

4 * The best individual summer/close season transfer in your opinion? (not including your own club players here) Have to agree with Dave and say Wilson, though I actually think our summer activity has been the best

5 * The most interesting young hope, in your opinion? (not including your own club players here) Wilson is still young so I guess I'll go with him again.

6 * Your wild guesses as to the next THREE championship clubs to part with their manager, for whatever reason? Fulham, Birmingham and Bolton!

 

1 * The BEST championship team of the season so far, by attractive play on the pitch, in your opinion? Unsure

2 * The biggest surprise package – which team has fared much BETTER than you initially expected? Charlton

3 * The biggest disappointment – which team has fared much WORSE than you initially expected? Fulham

4 * The best individual summer/close season transfer in your opinion? (not including your own club players here) Not necessarily a signing but Blackburn holding on to Jordan Rhodes could make a big difference to their season

5 * The most interesting young hope, in your opinion? (not including your own club players here) Callum Wilson or Igor Vetokele

6 * Your wild guesses as to the next THREE championship clubs to part with their manager, for whatever reason? Fulham, Ipswich, Blackpool

 

Here you have EVERY reply from just on twenty different forums - http://royalsrendezvous.co.uk/topic/10165192/1 - and every user name is credited for his/her efforts.

So what's happening? Well, there's a similar story on various questions so far; whilst fans obviously favour their own team Forest and Wolves are felt to be the most attractive sides, though Norwich is indeed mentioned.

However, the best surprise team of the season so far is rather shared out; at the other end Fulham seems obviously for the overwhelming majority of fans to be the most disappointing, unfortunate, though it's never seen as personal vendetta.

Then Leeds and Blackpool far and away the sides most likely to have a change of manager soon.

Best transfer and most promising youngster is also interesting, with so many different suggestions. I've also re-produced a few humourous comments as they all add a bit of spice to things!

The final resume will be a bit more specific and meticulous on my part, so keep them coming in for a few days more if you're looking in for the first time! The more entries from your forum will probably result in benefit your forum in the end calculations!

Have a great weekend lads and lasses ...

daib0 / David

 

Are you having a bloody laugh!

 

Excuse me JWM, this is a questionaire posted on the Norwich board for Norwich fans to answer, so what is the point of your stupid interjection?

 

" Forest and Wolves are felt to be the most attractive sides, though Norwich is indeed mentioned. "

Yep, I should have said better that Norwich and Watford are very well perceived, definitively the best four (with Forest & Wolves) in fans' opinions up and down the country at the moment anyway ...

 

His answer was so stupid I felt the need to interject.

Don't worry I'll leave you girls to it!

 

What part?
If you are upset about the Ipswich bit, don't be. It said for whatever reason so I took a punt that Ipswich might change manager.

 

No worries mate!

There is no way that Bolton will sack Dougie Freedman!

 

1 * The BEST championship team of the season so far, by attractive play on the pitch, in your opinion? Football league highlight - Forest

2 * The biggest surprise package – which team has fared much BETTER than you initially expected? Wolves - they beat us but were poor I thought.

3 * The biggest disappointment – which team has fared much WORSE than you initially expected? Ipswich - expected more of a fight from them

4 * The best individual summer/close season transfer in your opinion? Assombalonga for forest

5 * The most interesting young hope, in your opinion? Will Hughes Derby

6 * Your wild guesses as to the next THREE championship clubs to part with their manager, for whatever reason? Leeds, Fulham & Bolton

 

So ... last couple of days for the last replies guys – LAST CHANCE! - I’ll take late Friday night as cut-off point. I’ll be going through every entry one by one – and noting down every team suggestion and individual player suggestions. The resume will be as precise as I can make it, early next week ...

In the meantime, if you’d like to see EVERY reply from every forum up to today Wednesday, well, I have noted them all down here: http://royalsrendezvous.co.uk/topic/10165192/1
Last time of counting I think we were at over 80 in!! So some authority this survey should have – anyway, stay tuned !

 

Hello all Championship fans!



As promised I’m coming back to report on the findings of our survey. As I previously said, this is no scientific study; it is for championship fans by championship fans. We’ve just tried to use common sense. Not everybody answered every question, so percentages for total number of entries of some sort – EIGHTY THREE received - don’t apply as such, so I’ve taken the number of votes for a particular selection and left it at that. Occasionally somebody couldn’t decide between two options, so I noted both - and we’ve included both.



Most interesting reading, so let’s take it question by question.




1 * The BEST championship team of the season so far, by attractive play on the pitch, in your opinion?

On this, Wolves have proved to be the team regarded with the best attractive football play, though Forest and Watford are also seen very favourably. I should clarify that I was not looking specifically for the ‘best’ team as such but rather the most ‘attractive’, and certainly the most attractive/interesting for a neutral fan. However, even so, I think you are all saying that these following teams all have high possibilities of finishing very high up in the final table. Here goes for the votes cast:
27 – Wolves
18 – Nottm Forest
15 – Watford
10 – Derby
4 – Bournemouth
3 – Sheff Wed
1 – Middlesbrough, Wigan and Huddersfield



2 * The biggest surprise package – which team has fared much BETTER than you initially expected?

This was a difficult one to answer because we had the two concepts of A) surprise compared to other teams in the division and for even more of you B) surprise in that a more modest team had done better than expected of itself. So this dealt more with surprise teams being a ‘surprise’ than what might be expected by history, finances etc. and here Millwall and Charlton were obviously your first choices, with newcomers Wolves again faring very well. The exact votes were:
26 – Millwall
22 – Charlton
15 – Wolves
4 – Brentford
3 – Nottm Forest
1 – Leeds, Blackpool, Watford, Norwich, Ipswich, Rotherham and Bournemouth



3 * The biggest disappointment – which team has fared much WORSE than you initially expected?

This has been the most unanimous part of the entire survey – I am very sorry Cottagers, but Fulham stand out alone here. Still, things are very much in the early days yet – maybe here I should mention that as a Reading fan myself (though try to be impartial in Inter-Forum stuff!!) I can vividly remember just three seasons ago the Royals being pen-ultimate in the Championship after 6 games, and went on to take the title! Or even last season when Blackpool stood first in the division at this point, yet went on to dangerously flirt with relegation towards the end of the season. So there’s hope for everyone! Anyway, votes cast in this section were:
67 – Fulham
3 – Wigan
2 – Reading, Ipswich, Middlesbrough, Blackpool and Leeds
1 – Derby and Brighton



4 * The best individual summer/close season transfer in your opinion? (not including your own club players here)

Here there are simply too many names (twenty eight in fact) to mention every one, but the top voted (5+) mentioned figures were the following, all likely to be major influences in their teams’ fortunes this season:
16 - Grabban (Norwich) *****
15 – Assombalonga (Forest)
7 – Wilson (Bournemouth)
5 - Vetokele (Charlton)
5 – Vydra (Watford)



5 * The most interesting young hope, in your opinion? (not including your own club players here)

Here again we had two dozen suggestions, so I limit myself to naming only the top few (5+ votes); all would seem assured of brilliant future careers! -
17 - Hughes (Derby)
6 – Roberts (Fulham)
6 – Wilson (Bournemouth)
5 – Assombalonga (Forest)



6 * Your wild guesses as to the next THREE championship clubs to part with their manager, for whatever reason?

Here I think we can safely say there are 5 or 6 front runners, they seem the likely ‘suspects’ to me. With the question of Leeds there is obvious substantial insecurity, for the answers are directed at the next manager who we do not yet know! The exact figures were:
60 – Fulham (Magath)
52 – Bolton (Freedman)
36 – Blackpool (Riga)
33 – Leeds ( ? )
26 – Birmingham (Clark)
11 – Cardiff (Solkjaer)
4 – Middlesbrough (Karanka)
3 – Brighton ( Hyypia) and Reading (Adkins)
2 – Blackburn (Bowyer)
1 – Ipswich (Mccarthy) and Forest (Pearce).



So, who’s happy with the results? Sure to be some “I told you so’s” later, but a large fan indication usually holds some weight!

I’d be very happy to hear your thoughts on how these turned out, so feel welcome to post a summary – above all, I hope you enjoyed it!!



daib0/David – “Royals Rendezvous”

 

Did you have a load of responses from one forum Daib0? Would be interesting to see whether some of the teams/players further down the lists fared worse because it was their own fans who predominately contributed.

 

No, to be honest I was happily surprised at the cross-section received, no one club dominated at all, and at the impartiality of so many supporters. It's true that some - Wolves and Sheff Wed to name 2 - were perhaps over-generous to themselves, but on the whole I believe this was a pretty clean operation. The Forest entries could be counted on one hand, so virtually all their votes came from fans of other teams. I've been at pains to tell them I've not got any vested interested in certain results going one way or another, simply that as someone who is accepted favourably on a lot of forums for never trying to stir things up, it was something I felt might add a little bit of spice at this stage of the season. Might well be back at the half-season point and try something new as regards Championship 'oversight'!!

All the best ... and thanks for the Canaries input


David