Millwallawayveteran1988
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Yep, the number of early leavers is a mystery to me.
PL Ipswich Town (h) post match thread
- Thread starter Stoned Rose
- Start date
Vienna_70
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- Treble Winners 2022/23.
Fulham can’t be great. They lost to the rags.
shnaghaicityfish
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Blamed on “engineering work on Platforms at Piccadilly”. Quite a few platforms were boarded off Saturday
Kinkys Left Foot
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In answer to your question I can only speak for myself and the answer is absolutely not. Anyone who has watched top flight football knows it tends to be cyclical. Right now it's our turn. The leaving early thing is an anathema to me but everyone has their reasons, I can't speak for them. I doubt it's the lack of thrill as you put it which imports some kind of arrogance. If you knew anything at all about City fans, arrogance is a trait which doesn't appear in our lexicon, you can find plenty if you want in Old Trafford, right next to self importance, indignation and deluded.
My first game was at Maine Road in 1977 against Norwich City. We finished 2nd to Liverpool that year when we probably deserved to win it. Our average crowd size that year wasnt much less than it is right now. I had my teenage heart broken by Spurs in 1981 and have fucking despised them and Ricky Villa ever since. I've watched us being turned over at Maine Road by Stockport County and the likes of Oxford United. Been to dogshit grounds at the arse end of England for mid week away games, on endless coach journeys, then freezing my tits off, soaking wet in open ended stands, spending my last few quid to watch my team play like they've been Introduced to each other in the tunnel yet screamed my lungs out for our one shot off target, so much so I couldn't speak the following day.
The last 15 years I've enjoyed the ecstacy of putting those red bastards in our rear view mirror beating them regularly, trouncing them occasionally. Of going to Wembley nearly every year, of winning trophies, of doing European aways at the big boys, and fucking winning and doing the treble topped off in Istanbul despite the organisational UEFA shitshow.
I stay until the end of every match and applaud the boys off even for the odd defeat. I look at some of our younger fans up to 20 year olds and think they've only ever known City winning stuff. They haven't earned their right to satirical songs of "never winning at home or away". They don't know the pain of forever being the nearly man of watching your hated rivals win everything and mock you for being piss poor. They've not done the hard yards of scrapping in the school dinner queue with some arrogant United fan dickhead who thinks it's OK to jab his chubby little finger in your chest and tell you "City are shit and will forever be in our shadow". Well now here we are in the sunlight and it's fucking glorious. I know it won't last forever so I'm enjoying every goal, every victory, every trophy.
So when your lot turn up and sing WWYWYWS I can say I was following my team here in Manchester (not Trafford) and beating you at Portman Road when we were shit and everywhere else the boys went.
It's refreshing to see a decent knowledgeable fan from another club on here. We have one or two. Some start off okay but end up going downhill sadly.
On the game it mirrored a few we've had against inferior opposition. That's not a slight on your team but a bit like Luton you've kind of been promoted ahead of schedule I think. In games where we are coasting so easily we often get a shock wake up call and that happened on Saturday. For a few minutes after we equalised it looked like you'd collapse totally under the onslaught. If one or both of those shots that hit the bar had gone in I think you would have done. At halftime you tightened it up and we were happy to just keep.possesion and probe. The danger was we'd relax too much and get done on the break, thankfully we didn't.
It's hard to see where you'll end up. There were signs you could be okay and I think your manager is half decent.
A lot of our fans leaving on eighty minutes has been going on for years. The game was petering out and getting away from the ground can be a pain so many would have decided to leave. Also the Villa v Arsenal game at 17:30 was a game a lot wanted to watch too.
Here is one possible reason. I had a choice of trains home, I chose 6.00pm from Piccadilly, meaning I could clap the team off and amble back to the station. Checked phone just before final whistle to see that train had been cancelled as had the next one meaning as soon as final whistle went I had the leave pronto to catch a 5.30 train. That said four lads sat behind me left with 15 to go of normal time, as did many others. Match was 100 minutes with added time so missing 15 plus second half injury time means missing 20%. Where else do you go and miss that much of something you have paid to see. I even think they left early before half time as well. Possible need more exits in new stand to avoid bottlenecks as I guess many people leave top tiers early for that very reason.
eyalluvitt
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Ipswich centre half made his PL debut at his boyhood cloob
JGL07
Well-Known Member
Bugger all to do with HS2 as for the moment there no certainty that the line will ever reach Euston and will stop at Old Oak Common.
Also Avanti drivers are not on strike. The companies have relied on overtime and rest day working to come anywhere near to running a full service. Why cannot the train companies recruit and train enough staff to resolve these issues?
The chronic mismanagement of the rail network is not really all down to Avanti. They are a crap train operator, having said that.
ChicagoBlue
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If I may…
Sadly, City only really see two kinds of teams:
1) Those that press us and have a go, which is usually the Top 6 who need points, and want 3, and
2) 10 man defences who try to hit us on the break, because we only play with 2 defenders when going forward, and they’re often 10-15m inside the opponents half!
Early on, you were having a go, trying to be the former, but once you scored, you didn’t become the latter quickly and efficiently enough, and we’d put 3 past you before you knew where you were!
The PL is very unforgiving and the key is your HOME form and stealing draws away from home. 40 points…figure it out! Win 9 or 10 at home, Nick a couple of wins away from home and draw a few and you’re home free!
By Christmas, the League will be 3 mini-leagues: Top 8, middle 5 or 6, bottom 6 or 7. The key, of course, is not losing to the other members of that 5 or 6 competitors and taking away THEIR opportunities for 3 points.
Every season, teams in the bottom 3 nick 1-3 points from Top 6 opponents…sadly, even City are not immune to this!
Hang in there with a chance until March-May and you never know what can happen. You’ve had a shit few opening fixtures, but you lost 2 games almost everyone else will lose, too, and it’s a long old season, so keep your chins up!
Thanks!
Sadly, the Etihad was not designed to keep noise in, but allow air and light through!
That said, if you were here for what we consider a “big game” (no offence intended), you wouldn’t recognize the place! Indeed, early season games are notorious, as are games where we go up by a few early one!
We have, in most areas of the stadium, an older fan base, and our “singing sections” are split in three parts…small sections either side of away fans and the other end of the stadium. This often doesn’t help the timing of songs and chants, either, which is why the fan groups are working so hard to develop a larger, standing/rail, devoted singing section in the new stand going up opposite where you were.
The Police have made it clear away fans HAVE TO be where they are now, and in cup games when we can take over the entire lower level where you were, a lot of the people who want to slide in behind the goal aren’t singers!
In short, come back for a Top 6 game that is meaningful, or a meaningful Champions League game, or even a regular League game where we are behind or pushing for a winner in the second half, and you’ll see the difference.
And, I hate to say it, we are spoiled. We sit back, watch some of the best football in the world, and wait for us to score! I know, I know, but it’s been our reality for a few years now. 40 something games unbeaten at home now!
Lastly, and I cannot stress this enough, you will enjoy City fans on an Away Day, especially if they leave the game as a 3pm Saturday game that allows easier travel! Good, well-natured signing, sprinkled with some good humor!
Absolutely!
Few things there…for some, those 10 minutes make a 30+ minute difference in getting away from the ground, many have a distance to their parking spot to try to get on the road, older fans try to get a head start, and the public transportation links are sometimes a bit like the Wembley (Etihad South ;-) ) Tube Station!
This season, City have even started to put on a new slate of buses to help 55,000 people trying to get away from a Victorian street system with one main road and a tram station that never has enough trams!
City fans complain about the usual 5,000 who leave early, too, but do few games are a competition at 80 minutes, they rarely miss anything. Personally, I learned my lesson at Wembley against Gillingham! I gave my brother the nod to leave, he shook his head and frowned, we stayed and were crying like babies a few minutes later! Never again!!
You, too!