Unlike most of the experts on this thread I was there in 79, so am able to make some kind of meaningful comment. Players were less skilled but more honest, much less phoniness and superficiality generally in the game, we were skint, but we had Keith Edwards who was certainly better than any striker on our books, and a small but committed crowd, who supported the club as fans not customers wanting 'entertainment'. They were the worst of times, they were the best of times. Thanks for reminding me.
I was there too and it was mostly depressing. We would have sold Rambo Billy's bollocks for a minute in the first division.
I know. If Hernandez hadn't been there maybe Dio would have got more of a contact, it's speculation really. They were both in a decent position anyway. Though strikers stepping on each others toes probably isn't what you want, it worked out ok here though it could have messed it up as well.
Yeah, and look at us now.....a **** manager who had us promoted twice, a FACF and the Europa League rubbished for wearing a tracksuit and trainers, and defending leads. You couldn't make it up.
So all these other people on this thread with a different opinion are all armchair experts and managers are they? I think you need a time-machine back to 1979 going on what I just read, I remember the old days too and a lot of the games were very enjoyable. People pay money to enjoy a match they don't subscribe to a list of achievements
We didn't qualify for the Europa league, we only made it to the playoff round. "Ah well, we were 2-0 up but lost the cup but at least we were there." That seems to have been the mentality of a fair few fans and it's a small time mentality to have. Coming runner up is bollocks, especially when you have a 2 goal lead. The only reason he painted us as little Hull City in the cup final was to mask the fact that we chucked a healthy lead away and due to our club size that was to be expected so don't worry about it. Bollocks. It doesn't matter whether you've been going since 1979 or 2009, that's such a **** thing to roll out, as if you get more credence to your argument for being older than somebody else.
Bringing up the Europa League too well that sums it up all pretty well, what a wasted opportunity which completely exposed Bruces lack of ability to think out of the box and exposed his negative failings as a manager.
If he had won the Cup you could actually justify the starry eyed City Man nonsense, as it was you are spot on
Funny thing is, I remember the days of collection buckets and David Lloyd. I was about 8 years old (during the Lloyd time, not the buckets, I was older by then) and I distinctly remember thinking "this is ****. Really, really ****." (The situation, not the club or team). They weren't glory days, they were ****ing awful. I hated waking up and wondering if I had a team to watch the next day. And as good as the Great Escape was, it still was a magnificent mess of a time that I couldn't really enjoy properly as the money thing wouldn't go away. And I totally agree about enjoying the games, some people (like myself) will sit and analyse and scrutinise and that's okay because that's what I enjoy doing. Some people will go and take it at face value and enjoy the score line. That's okay too. I usually watch a game a day online because I love the sport, I can't stand it when others dictate what the right way to be a fan is. Knob off.
The flaw with what City Man says is that because of his achievements Bruce should be the manager, but managers have a shelf-life- Everton had Howard Kendall who had great achievements but became very limited as a manager and it's the same thing with Bruce, to any fan who hasn't got their head in the sand you can see things aren't right with his tactics (Bruce) and how the team are motivated and express themselves. You can't live off former glories as a manager, even Mourinho got the chop last year. Harsh maybe but it's the correct thing otherwise teams go downhill at a rate of knots. That's football in 2016, 1979 was a different time
Arsenal are having a similar thing with Wenger too, should he stay because of his achievements or leave because he is on the wane as a manager
I don't know why Wenger hasn't been sacked sooner, they qualify for the Champion's League and then never actually do anything decent. We were done under Bruce, it was time for him to leave. Hopefully the next guy can be just as influential.
I think he should have had this season Bruce out of respect but I agree he'd been treading water for the last 2 or 3 years and like a few people have said we seemed to get away with it last season which is very rare in modern football, I still can't believe we went up to be honest after losing the same amount of games as the bottom four teams and carrying certain players for large periods, not to mention nearly spunking a 3 goal lead in the play-offs at home when we just needed a goal for partytime. No coincidence we looked a much better team without the main suspect when it came to that on Saturday
Indeed it was. Uninfested by sycophants, utterly uncool, off the radar of self-aggrandizing rich ****s, of no interest to the type of blogging turds who pontificate about football nowadays and largely free of any bullshit. Happy days.
