Present Day Football, Fans and Any Other Stuff You Hate About It!

[dennishasdoneit]

Reading this thread it seems like most are pissed off at getting old. Football has changed and so have the fans. Most of it for the better.
I did 30 years at Maine Road before we moved to the Etihad. I much prefer it now.

That's a very fair point tbh. Things do change always have.
But...as spectator, I will always prefer kippax terrace Maine rd to anything thst came after it.
And yes I'm a grumpy ,older fan! Lol.

 

[mexico1970]

Reading this thread it seems like most are pissed off at getting old. Football has changed and so have the fans. Most of it for the better.
I did 30 years at Maine Road before we moved to the Etihad. I much prefer it now.

It's the speed of change not the change, new rules every 10 minutes the constant lecturing from the club on how not to be a **** and not to mention the ticket prices.

Not all change is good, in fact by the looks of it most of the change that has been implemented has been shocking.

 

[Bournemouth Blue]

It used to be a simple game, I was given a short book when I was 8 years old which explained the official rules of Association Football. I knew it by heart by the time I was 9. It used to be a judgement call by the ref and the linesmen between them, sometimes the ref was called over if the linesman felt he had made a mistake. If players disagreed they might have been told to grow up or get booked, and sometimes sent off for dangerous play. There were no cards, the referee’s judgement, however flawed, was final. These days you might as well have a panel of AI judges giving marks out of ten for everything that happens on the pitch. The constant tinkering with rules just encourages gamesmanship and time wasting. in the 60s and 70s I never once saw a defender getting away with wrestling an attacker in the penalty area, nor did I ever see an attacker throwing a goalkeeper to the ground and not being penalised. Shirt pulling was always a foul. Too many rules, too hard to keep up with them, and too much inconsistency in applying them. It used to be fun watching the mud bath games in the 70s.

Today the players are fitter, the top clubs are able to maintain superb playing conditions and the facilities for fans are much better than 50 years ago. I am not complaining about being old, but the TV revenues have changed the game and foreign managers and players, however talented, just mean that talented UK youth tend to gravitate to the lower divisions.

Not sure which is better, bit as a City fan the last few years have been fun

 

[Gingers Dad]

That's a very fair point tbh. Things do change always have.
But...as spectator, I will always prefer kippax terrace Maine rd to anything thst came after it.
And yes I'm a grumpy ,older fan! Lol.

The terrace went in 1993 and Maine Road was never the same

 

[manclad]

It used to be a simple game, I was given a short book when I was 8 years old which explained the official rules of Association Football. I knew it by heart by the time I was 9. It used to be a judgement call by the ref and the linesmen between them, sometimes the ref was called over if the linesman felt he had made a mistake. If players disagreed they might have been told to grow up or get booked, and sometimes sent off for dangerous play. There were no cards, the referee’s judgement, however flawed, was final. These days you might as well have a panel of AI judges giving marks out of ten for everything that happens on the pitch. The constant tinkering with rules just encourages gamesmanship and time wasting. in the 60s and 70s I never once saw a defender getting away with wrestling an attacker in the penalty area, nor did I ever see an attacker throwing a goalkeeper to the ground and not being penalised. Shirt pulling was always a foul. Too many rules, too hard to keep up with them, and too much inconsistency in applying them. It used to be fun watching the mud bath games in the 70s.

Today the players are fitter, the top clubs are able to maintain superb playing conditions and the facilities for fans are much better than 50 years ago. I am not complaining about being old, but the TV revenues have changed the game and foreign managers and players, however talented, just mean that talented UK youth tend to gravitate to the lower divisions.

Not sure which is better, bit as a City fan the last few years have been fun

If you read "The Soccer Tribe" by Desmond Morris,there is a sub- chapter named
The seventeen rules of the game.
It was a game that was invented by public schoolboys and they wanted it to be as simple as possible,
so that everybody could join in and know what was going on/ how to play it.
Now ,the administrators of " the beautiful game" seem to change the rules every month, the changes to the
handball rules and offside rules are particularly over complicated and are wide open to interpretation and thus open to manipulation.

 

[East Level 2]

If you read "The Soccer Tribe" by Desmond Morris,there is a sub- chapter named
The seventeen rules of the game.
It was a game that was invented by public schoolboys and they wanted it to be as simple as possible,
so that everybody could join in and know what was going on/ how to play it.
Now ,the administrators of " the beautiful game" seem to change the rules every month, the changes to the
handball rules and offside rules are particularly over complicated and are wide open to interpretation and thus open to manipulation.

I thought the game had laws rather than rules.

 

[manclad]

Not according to Desmond Morris.
His book describes " the 17 rules of the game" ,but that is a sub- chapter,and the main chapter is " The Tribal Laws".
Make of that what you will.

I thought the game had laws rather than rules.

 

[Streetsweeper]

No-mark non-entities on you tube giving it big on tactics, and they know it inside out as they coach a five-a-side team on a Wednesday night. They’ve usually got a thumbnail of them looking shocked or pensive next to a headline of ‘exclusive’ or ‘big news’, before recycling someone else’s story, because you’re unlikely to get an exclusive sat in the spare room of your parent’s house. Most of them seem to be rags too. Bellends.

 

[dennishasdoneit]

It used to be a simple game, I was given a short book when I was 8 years old which explained the official rules of Association Football. I knew it by heart by the time I was 9. It used to be a judgement call by the ref and the linesmen between them, sometimes the ref was called over if the linesman felt he had made a mistake. If players disagreed they might have been told to grow up or get booked, and sometimes sent off for dangerous play. There were no cards, the referee’s judgement, however flawed, was final. These days you might as well have a panel of AI judges giving marks out of ten for everything that happens on the pitch. The constant tinkering with rules just encourages gamesmanship and time wasting. in the 60s and 70s I never once saw a defender getting away with wrestling an attacker in the penalty area, nor did I ever see an attacker throwing a goalkeeper to the ground and not being penalised. Shirt pulling was always a foul. Too many rules, too hard to keep up with them, and too much inconsistency in applying them. It used to be fun watching the mud bath games in the 70s.

Today the players are fitter, the top clubs are able to maintain superb playing conditions and the facilities for fans are much better than 50 years ago. I am not complaining about being old, but the TV revenues have changed the game and foreign managers and players, however talented, just mean that talented UK youth tend to gravitate to the lower divisions.

Not sure which is better, bit as a City fan the last few years have been fun

Good post. I too was given an FA football book when 8 or 9 years old and although I didn't study them like you did, I had a pretty good understanding of the rules of the game at that time.That " understanding ' has simply crumbled over the years.....and reached a ,for me,pinnacle when I watched Anthony Taylor listen to his ear piece in that game against Chelsea at home,and changed his mind over an obvious red card ....due to the influence of stockley park adjudicators.

It was right there at that moment I thought ,that's not football.
And my interest in the game has never been the same since.( Done me a favor as it was an obsession tbh)

Incidentally, the aforementioned book also gave instruction on the skills involved in the game.ie push kick,half volley, full volley,kicking with the outside of the foot etc etc....those basic skills of course have never changed...but it's amazing how many modern football journalists do not refer to players actions in kicking the ball, weather they are left footed or right( radio used to do this )..ie Jimmy Armfield " or mention the actual skill action used by players....so what I'm basically saying is that the traditional basics of the game seem to have been forgotten about.
Imo modern day journalists ,who maybe haven't even played the game,seem to concentrate on how much a players salary is, or how much they cost,or "Wayne Rooneys Plymouths '
Stuff like that....I mean Plymouth argyle started way back in the late 1880s! Why would you want to attach the shipwreck that is WR to to the name of that proud club.??
Does my head in.

 

[Boris Yeltsin]

He's one of our own.....

Thats a lazy one that. They all sing that. The least we could do is come up with a new song that's decent. I know there is the bruxe Springsteen one but it's been robbed by England before we got it going. Now we don't sing it because of that.