conn having a dig again

[southstander93]

I can understand what he is saying about it. That 76 cup final will live long in the memories of anyone who was there (obviously I wasn't), and in a similar way the 2011 Cup final will long live in my memory, along with the QPR game. But with the amount of times we have been to wembley in the past 3 years, and the honours that we are challenging for now, I can't imagine the kids that are growing up watching this team will ever look back on a particular final and remember it as much as the older generation do for the 76 final, or my generation do for the 2011 one, especially since a lot of the posters on this forum have even said that the Wembley novelty is wearing off for them.

I would've loved it if we had become a top team again by bringing up young Mancunians through the ranks and developing a title winning team, it would've been a great achievement, but I'm also not completely stuck in the past like Conn. I know that modern football has no room for teams like that, as sad as it is. The only way City were going to change miraculously from a bankrupt, crumbling team that didn't own their own stadium, to a title winning, european giant, was from the input of millions and millions of pounds, just like Chelsea did, just like Blackburn did, and as much as they like to pretend otherwise, just like United did. We aren't ruining football like the media claims, we have simply joined in the game that the big teams have been playing for years, just in time before FFP changes the rules on the way money is spent. I personally don't care that City are good because of the money, all I care is that City are getting their rewards for all those years in exile, so Conn and all the other gobshite journalists can shove it up their arse.

 

[moomba]

How will todays 11 year old boy find the game? Fucking brilliant I expect. But 11 year old boys don't tend to be more obsessed about owners, nationalities and money as they are by 11 footballers running around wearing their clubs shirt.

 

[petrusha]

http://www.amazon.com/History-Modern-Israel-Colin-Shindler/dp/1107671779
same Colin Schindler?

No. That's this Colin Shindler, who's a different bloke: <a class="postlink" href="http://www.soas.ac.uk/staff/staff31810.php" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.soas.ac.uk/staff/staff31810.php</a>

 

[BlueKolarovWorker]

Having recently parted with more money than I can really afford, to go and watch the Blues in Barcelona and in their third cup final in 3 years, I can honestly say that the £700+ it will cost me represents greater value in my mind than the £15.00 I paid every week to watch the likes of Derek Parlane, Duncan Davidson et al. Yes I loved going to watch City at Maine Road in the late 70s & early 80s as a kid but did I really relate to the players more then because they earned less? No I just hero worshipped them, as I do the players now. The only difference is I'm 20 years older than most of the buggers now.

I loved it then when we were crap but I love it more now. I truly don't care that the Sergio grew up 7000 miles away, all I know is he gave me a moment I could share with my dad, my son and my best mate that will be with me forever and for that I thank Sheik Mansour. So David Conn, whilst I appreciate the changes to the modern game may not be to everyone's taste, I for one am grateful that a man with no connection to my beloved club chose to invest and make my dreams come true.

 

[nice neil]

Having recently parted with more money than I can really afford, to go and watch the Blues in Barcelona and in their third cup final in 3 years, I can honestly say that the £700+ it will cost me represents greater value in my mind than the £15.00 I paid every week to watch the likes of Derek Parlane, Duncan Davidson et al. Yes I loved going to watch City at Maine Road in the late 70s & early 80s as a kid but did I really relate to the players more then because they earned less? No I just hero worshipped them, as I do the players now. The only difference is I'm 20 years older than most of the buggers now.

I loved it then when we were crap but I love it more now. I truly don't care that the Sergio grew up 7000 miles away, all I know is he gave me a moment I could share with my dad, my son and my best mate that will be with me forever and for that I thank Sheik Mansour. So David Conn, whilst I appreciate the changes to the modern game may not be to everyone's taste, I for one am grateful that a man with no connection to my beloved club chose to invest and make my dreams come true.

Here Here ! Me too. Exactly. This......

 

[Wilf Wild 1937]

How will todays 11 year old boy find the game? Fucking brilliant I expect. But 11 year old boys don't tend to be more obsessed about owners, nationalities and money as they are by 11 footballers running around wearing their clubs shirt.

Nail on the head.
Conn himself admits that football had fundamentally changed from the days of the maximum wage to 1976.
Even in the days of the maximum wage clubs "bought success" from Arsenal in the '30s going back further to
United before the First World War and further back still to PNE right at the start of the league era.
Preston's "Old Invincibles" included several Scots who played a passing game which was more advanced than
the dribbling game that the other English teams played. Their team in the nineteenth century was essentially
comprised of "mercenaries" and more local players. Football today is just a progression from the time it first
went professional. Ah for the halcyon days of the amateur game when the public school teams dominated
because their players were better fed, bigger, fitter and more robust in the tackle (they were less scared of
getting injured because they didn't have to work) than the amateur working class teams that they faced.
Wanderers of course dominated because they cherry picked the best public school players ....
Conn clearly knows very little about the history of the game and worse naively thinks that football should be
frozen in time at the time he first started watching it.

 

[Beswick Prize Bands Big Drum]

Having recently parted with more money than I can really afford, to go and watch the Blues in Barcelona and in their third cup final in 3 years, I can honestly say that the £700+ it will cost me represents greater value in my mind than the £15.00 I paid every week to watch the likes of Derek Parlane, Duncan Davidson et al. Yes I loved going to watch City at Maine Road in the late 70s & early 80s as a kid but did I really relate to the players more then because they earned less? No I just hero worshipped them, as I do the players now. The only difference is I'm 20 years older than most of the buggers now.

I loved it then when we were crap but I love it more now. I truly don't care that the Sergio grew up 7000 miles away, all I know is he gave me a moment I could share with my dad, my son and my best mate that will be with me forever and for that I thank Sheik Mansour. So David Conn, whilst I appreciate the changes to the modern game may not be to everyone's taste, I for one am grateful that a man with no connection to my beloved club chose to invest and make my dreams come true.

Here Here ! Me too. Exactly. This......

And so say all of us

 

[ifiwasarichfan]

As someone from the same generation as Conn I can sympathise with a lot of what he says in this one and I don't necessarily see this as an attack on us but as on the modern game.

As some posters have already pointed out life moves on and change happens not always for the good. I too would like to see some home grown players and lower ticket prices but we know it isn't going to happen. I would also like to see a return to muddy pitches like the Baseball Ground and FA Cup ties that go to a third replay but I have to live in the "now". Like Conn I too worry about where the game is going and what it will be like in 20 years time.

Where he lets himself down in this piece are his words on building a team from the youth up and it being part of our "were not really here" dream. It wasn't part of mine. All the way back to the days of Bell, Lee and Summerbee this was all bollocks. Burnley who were in the First Division at the time saw there young stars picked off one by one by the wealthier clubs as did West Ham a couple of decades later with Joe Cole, Lampard, Ferdinand and Defoe.

My "we're not really here" dream was that someone would be crazy enough or even more far fetched, visionary enough to see a real potential for growth and would come in and spunk more money than anyone could imagine on us. This dream starting with what the wonderful Jack Walker did at Blackburn Rovers along with the common one of getting past a fucking League Cup quarter final tie it sustained me through the dark days.

His other ridiculous statement - only Joe Hart will be English, has been done to death by journalists everywhere and as well as City being far from the worst culprits in this we can also legitamately point to an incredible amount of players in the other three leagues having learnt their craft at Manchester City.

If Conn feels guilty about our fortune then all I can say is that he didn't suffer as much as you or I did.

 

[Blue Mist]

I remember the 1976 Cup Final with a fondness, of times past and never to be regained. I was 11 and I remember reading the match report the next day with awe. Journalist then were working class men who had earned the respect of their readers by doing it the hard way. They started life out on the local paper, working slowly upwards. In those days the paper was owned by a local man made good Now ? Americans dominate our hallowed print with wads of cash to throw around. The flash new breed of journalists just don't cut it with me. They will be at Wembley, quaffing champagne and caviar, not like in my day, a cup of Bovril and a meat pie. Proper times, proper writers.
I wonder if on Monday an 11 year old will read the match report and remember it fondly, proudly like I did as a lad ? I somehow doubt it.

 

[lancs blue]

I remember the 1971 Cup Final with a fondness, of times past and never to be regained. I was 11 and I remember reading the match report the next day with awe. Journalist then were working class men who had earned the respect of their readers by doing it the hard way. They started life out on the local paper, working slowly upwards. In those days the paper was owned by a local man made good Now ? Americans dominate our hallowed print with wads of cash to throw around. The flash new breed of journalists just don't cut it with me. They will be at Wembley, quaffing champagne and caviar, not like in my day, a cup of Bovril and a meat pie. Proper times, proper writers.
I wonder if on Monday an 11 year old will read the match report and remember it fondly, proudly like I did as a lad ? I somehow doubt it.

Sooo, were you supporting Liverpool or Arsenal?