conn having a dig again

[norfstander]

for a change why doesn't he write about what Sheik Mansour has done for the community, for East Manchester in particular? No because that's what people DON'T want to read...all adding to the 'British Disease' JEALOUSY.....

Because that's not what this particular article is about, quite obviously.

Conn writes plenty of pieces about the good Mansour has done for City, perhaps you're just not privvy to them because they don't pop up on newsfeeds every three seconds. Pick up Issue 9 of The Blizzard if you want to read about Conn's opinion on, in your words, "what Sheik Mansour has done for the community, for East Manchester".

He's a great writer who writes for a fine newspaper. The issue here is that people don't digest what they read any more, and think they have to have an instant opinion on everything that's said or written about the club they support. The tribal nature of being a football fan means people are unable to take constructive critisicm on board. Conn's passionate about what he writes, and he's almost always bang on the money, but perhaps you'd rather read Martin Samuel's eighty sentence articles about Platini eating his own shit.

We have achieved success via a very rich man's money. We have to be willing to take critisicm for that. For me the constructive critiques of someone like Conn are much easier to read than the completely baseless tosh trotted out by most redtop writers. He cares about the club, there's no doubt about that. He's also, quite importantly, trusted by them more than virtually any other writer. We shouldn't be embarrassed about our blemishes and faults, we should embrace them and try to understand them.

 

[Yaya_Tony]

What a dick. Moaning old bastard. City, ruining David conn since 1983 when we were no longer a "top club" like he'd grown up being used to. I was born in 84 and grew up like many folk here during the 90's and 00's. Didn't fucking moan like this tit. It's as if he's got no grasp of how football has always worked for over 100 years, like other things money talks. Can fucking do one for me, we haven't got control whether programmes are a fiver or 20p, tickets are £90 or £1.50. In a nut, arsehole. On a fucking cup final weekend too. Get fucked.

 

[Prestwich_Blue]

Disappointing to see this kind of misplaced arrogance from you PB. If people are simply "knee jerking" at the sight of the name David Conn, then it's probably because this is his umpteenth "money's-ruined-football-oh-for-the-days-of-yore" type article, built around City, and there are perceived digs - only Conn will know if they were intentional or not - in there whether you like it or not (the £1 billion reference for example, whilst it may be accurate in terms of the Sheikh's overall investment in the club, is a known lazy and misleading rag soundbite about the actual cost of the team, and Conn will have been well aware of that, yet he chooses not to emphasise or clarify that point, but rather with the words "£1 billion spent amassing Manuel Pellegrini's likely all foreign team" effectively reinforces it.
As to the issue of people being incapable of reading properly, I would venture that many Blue Mooners have limited time when they log on here and therefore speed read, particularly on the lengthier tomes. And as one other poster pointed out, if you're going to make seemingly incongruous statements such as the one regarding Conn's brother's friend getting loads of stick, then it's understandable if people misread that as "Conn's brother", as it would make little sense for anyone as remote from the author as a "brother's friend" to find himself on the receiving end of any grief.

Firstly, apologies if I came over as arrogant. People who know me will tell you I'm far from arrogant. It's unfortunate that you, as an intelligent and thoughtful poster, took the brunt of my ire.

But my point still stands. People see Conn's name and assume it's an article bashing us and the whole concept of money in football. But when you read it, it's really a brief article contrasting football (& City in particular) in 1976, as seen through an 11-year old's eyes, with the game as it now appears to the middle-aged man he's become and wondering what today's 11-year olds will think of the game in 38 years time.

As I've said before, Conn has a fundamental dichotomy that he struggles to resolve. At heart he's definitely a Blue although he's generally moved away from actively watching football (he lives in the wilds of Yorkshire and has two daughters).

But the cynic in him, the one who writes about the greed and corruption in the game, feels that he should really hate clubs like the one we've become. The one with a mega-rich, foreign owner whose country has been accused of human rights abuses and that wins things only because we can spend sums of money that were unimaginable just 6 years ago. That's his problem to resolve, not ours. If you go further and look at the comments on the article, many of them actually accuse him of being too easy on the club he supports and of not being as critical of City as he is of other clubs.

I doubt Conn will be there tomorrow but Rick, his friend from those days, will be at Wembley tomorrow with his sons. Rick's brother Neil, the 21-year who cried in 1983 (as I did), will be there with his sons. As I said, it's not unreasonable to look at our journey and wonder what those boys will see if they take their own kids to watch us at Wembley in 2050.

 

[StrangewaysHereWeCome]

I'm very much of the premier league era, the halcyon days of paying sixpence for your ticket are well before my time, but surely nobody other than David Conn thought that we could get to the top table without a shitload of money?

I understand Conn's frustration that it's not the game he grew up with, much like Colin Schindler, I just wish they wouldn't use City as the example of all that's wrong with modern football, we didn't make it this way. I also think his sentence about the kids not enjoying it in the same way is petty, I'd have given anything to walk down Wembley Way to watch City in a cup final as an 11 year old.

His point is petty and without validity/sense. (struggling for right word here) Our children and indeed those under 25 only know the game as it is now. Where the coverage of football is immense. Massive, even. I remember how much of a big event the F.A cup was when I was little, then when it was over you had to wait for the paper the next day to read about it. Nowadays you switch on ssn to hear about, the internet etc. So the mystique I imagine isn't so great as it was. It's for them reasons and not because of Sheikh Mansour's investment which was a necessity for us to be where we are now. Makes me shake my head why we are still held up as the first club to spend big money on wages transfers etc when the reality is a million miles from that. To be fair I know the journalist here hasn't said that in this article. Fuck 'em anyway. Fuck em all. Cunts.

 

[gordondaviesmoustache]

Fantastic posts as usual, BSHR.

Going to the cinema in the 1970's was certainly more affordable than today and doubtless the local flea-pit was owned by a local businessman, but the facilities were crap, the acoustics terrible and they only sold one flavour of ice cream.

If Conn was writing an article about the evolution of the "cinema going experience", I expect he'd pontificate about the current cost, lament about the fact that cinemas are now primarily foreign owned, whilst conspicuously omitting reference to any improvements.

I don't have a problem with his view on the modern game, but he has a way of advancing his argument which is tendentious and self-righteous in equal measure.

 

[pride in battle]

norfstander....sorry for my opinion I will not express my view again....

 

[moomba]

We have achieved success via a very rich man's money. We have to be willing to take critisicm for that.

Why? Pretty much every club owes their success to a very rich mans money. We've not broken any rules of the game.

We shouldn't be embarrassed about our blemishes and faults, we should embrace them and try to understand them.

Being owned by a rich person isnt a blemish.

 

[bobbyowenquiff]

I read Conn's The Beautiful Game? when City were still broke and I was bought Richer than God for my birthday almost as soon as it was published. Conn is a “golden age socialist” and a prophet of doom at one and the same time. At least he has the honesty to admit that City fans, including himself, never accepted that failure was what attracted fans to City that City were content to enjoy cock ups while the “other team” got on with winning the cups, but after that you have to ask what did attract him to City. There were many things that we didn't accept in those “days of innocence” when football was supposed to be played by local lads putting a shift in for the love of the shirt. I don't think we cared much for the open sewers and other signs of contempt shown by the owners (they did exist in those days) of our club and others. This was at the time when the owners of Preston N E were regally stuffing one of the greatest of English players. But it was better then...

In Richer than God Conn claims that he was unaware that football clubs had owners and shareholders until the “Forward with Franny” campaign. He must be joking! He may not be old enough to remember the massive investment the owners of Everton made in the club in the early 1960s to build the “Merseyside Millionaires” who won the title in 1963, but he cannot, surely, have missed the three Manchester United share issues between 1986 and 1989, or the Spurs flotation followed by that of United? The talk was always of owners and leading shareholders: everyone knew of the Alexander family at City, the Edwards at Old Trafford, and the owners of Liverpool, who became famous in the late 70s and 80s precisely because they let the manager manage! Now City have Arab owners (why does Conn find this so noteworthy?) who invest in the club, the area, youth while building a club which can pay for all this. Let's get back to the bad old days...

I found myself asking with increasing frustration, “what on earth does Conn actually want?” and then I found it! He admires the German set up. This is the wonderful socialist utopia where the fans own the clubs, where fans can sit and take pride in the crock of s**** they're watching and can't expect any better because their “revenue streams” aren't big enough, where Hamburg have a billionaire praying to be allowed to invest but can't because “the rules don't allow it”. This is the level playing field that Conn craves – where more clubs are in more serious difficulties than in the PL and the FL, bit it's masked because the Bundesliga simply kicks them out to protect Bayern Munich's pre-eminence – who, by the way, have won the league 27 times in the last 43 years. The most competitive league in the world? Bayern are now picking over the carcass of their nearest “rivals”. Gotze, Lewandowski... who is next?

Those were the days my friend, we thought they'd never end... Thank God they did.

Brilliant post. Those who hark back to the so-called Golden days have lost the plot. For most of the 70s and 80s stadiums were half empty, hooliganism and racism was rife, the biggest clubs were all bankrolled but most of the chairmen fiddled attendance figures and lined their pockets by fleecing the fans. There were fantastic times and I was there for most of them but there was a lot of dross. The football was also negative and dreadful for most of these times. The most skilful players, Best, Marsh, Frank Worthington were frequently kicked off the pitch by thuggish players like Chopper Harris. Ticket prices are too high but football has never been better. Look at the goals scored by City and Liverpool this year. It has been fantastic this season. Any sport has to move forward and modernise or it will die. Nostalgia is great but wallowing in it is a recipe for disaster.
The point about Germany is spot-on. The Bundesliga has been dominated by Bayern and this season has been laughable. Financial fair play (led by teams like Bayern) will destroy German football. They have more revenue than anyone and will carry on cherry-picking all the best players..just like the rags used to do here.
The criticism City's owners get is appalling and driven by Xenophobia. What is wrong with investing millions of pounds in one of Britain's poorest areas and ultimately creating thousands of jobs, creating the world's most modern youth development facility, investing in a sport which is loved by people across the world, creating a level playing field with clubs like United, Barca, Real, PSG, and Bayern who have it their own way for years.

 

[Tim of the Oak]

Fantastic posts as usual, BSHR.

Going to the cinema in the 1970's was certainly more affordable than today and doubtless the local flea-pit was owned by a local businessman, but the facilities were crap, the acoustics terrible and they only sold one flavour of ice cream.

If Conn was writing an article about the evolution of the "cinema going experience", I expect he'd pontificate about the current cost, lament about the fact that cinemas are now primarily foreign owned, whilst conspicuously omitting reference to any improvements.

I don't have a problem with his view on the modern game, but he has a way of advancing his argument which is tendentious and self-righteous in equal measure.

Very good posts BSHR and GDM. I would just add that Conn, who I used to like reading, is now getting tedious. His repetitive theme about new money ruining football is a bit hypocritical given that he is blatantly making money on the back of this.

In Richer than God, a book I thoroughly enjoyed reading, Conn claimed that the Rags and FC Utd were more in step with the radical history of Manchester. I had to laugh at this when the news of Wayne Rooney's £300k salary was announced. It reminded me of Rooney's previous contract situation when Sky TV paid for a bunch of hooligans from Little Hulton to pose menacingly outside Shrek's House. They even came in the white van that Sky requested (allegedly).

There is one Club in Manchester that is keeping with footballing traditions - and a business in Trafford that threw the families of the Munich disaster victims out of their houses. Maybe Mr Conn could take off his scarlet tinted spectacles.

 

[Shaggy]

Conn is just a bitter old turd