Has Football Become Absolutely Shit?

Originally Posted by irk

Day trip to Ceuta from Gibraltar while we were on our holiday in fuengirola. Although the locals apparently found my pale 14 year old skin very attractive and wanted to buy me and bum me.

Alright Tarquin we get the picture. Loafing around the Costas while we were all doing battle with the scousers in Pwllheli and The Sandcastle.

Part of the decline all started with houllier for my money. Two banks of four, defend, like a table-football team. The only objective was not to lose and thus him keep his job.

Stevie G loved it of course

Ever since, every half baked manager has adopted similar. Absolute risk free footie, yet the @#%&! still managed to have a heart attack.

Greece winning Euro 2004 £#%&!ed things up

It was great at the time but every @#%&! has been trying to replicate them since

Originally Posted by irk

People have already nailed the changes that have happened but the driving factor is profit. Big money has ruined football. It used to be a sport and now it's a global business. It used to be run (in the main) by football people now it's infested with business c***s like Woodward.

As a kid I remember being amazed that a stall holder in Morocco had heard of United and wanted my badge in payment rather than money. the teams with glamour had global reach and my local club was one of them. The guy was was all "Bobby charlton" and smiling his head off. It made me so proud that even in this shithole they had heard of my local team's glorious exploits. We had peter davenport up front at that point. He never got a mention curiously enough. And this was before Knighton was going to buy us for the eye watering amount of £20 million pounds.

At that point united were to be a big football club with a souvenir shop more akin to a Blackpool seafront outlet selling cheap United ashtrays and key rings and was reliant on supporters to pay the wages. Contrast with what we have now - a giant of a corporate business owned by US businessmen less ethical than Mortimer and his pal from trading places that hawks a product to media and other corporate businesses to sponsor. And it's not just us.

Seduced by the stacks of cash being thrown their way the authorities have bent over backwards to take as much jeopardy out of the game to this business model to flourish devaluing (in football terms) many of the domestic and international competitions.

No one cares about the league cup. The FA cup is a shadow of its former self - no replays, the final no longer the showpiece domestic fixture. In modern football the income of fourth place in the league is a greater prize than the glory of victory. Teams that get a place in the utterly pointless Europa league enter weakened teams to ensure that they don't drop points in the domestic league so that they can secure a spot in next year's competition that they don't want to win. It's all about the money. The champions league is a misnomer. And a neverending parade with no chance of a real upset. Once glorious clubs such as Ajax are reduced to the status of minnows. It's a battle of the balance sheets.

Football's priorities have changed and money changed them. It's an insanely profitable global corporate business with all the marketing and PR bullshit and all the attendant #@&%!s that comes with it. From £#%&!wit bloggers to psychopathic agents all trying in the modern way to monetise some aspect of it.

It's a sad and inevitable result of the power of capital.

And bring back tackling.

Nailed it.

Originally Posted by eusker

Irk has absolutely nailed it.

When I was 14 I could get to every home game and most Saturday away games on my paper round plus pocket money. My kids will probably never go to an away game.

Big £#%&!ing paper round that mate, fair play

Originally Posted by Spock

Big £#%&!ing paper round that mate, fair play

2x

Originally Posted by Drexl

Part of the decline all started with houllier for my money. Two banks of four, defend, like a table-football team. The only objective was not to lose and thus him keep his job.

Stevie G loved it of course

Ever since, every half baked manager has adopted similar. Absolute risk free footie, yet the @#%&! still managed to have a heart attack.

In the early game wasn't it. Remember having a guilty chuckle when we sang 'who's in a coma' in our game later.

Originally Posted by Knockers

Alright Tarquin we get the picture. Loafing around the Costas while we were all doing battle with the scousers in Pwllheli and The Sandcastle.

rhyl sun centre not good enough for you? What. A. Snob.

Originally Posted by irk

People have already nailed the changes that have happened but the driving factor is profit. Big money has ruined football. It used to be a sport and now it's a global business. It used to be run (in the main) by football people now it's infested with business @#%&!s like Woodward.

As a kid I remember being amazed that a stall holder in Morocco had heard of United and wanted my badge in payment rather than money. the teams with glamour had global reach and my local club was one of them. The guy was was all "Bobby charlton" and smiling his head off. It made me so proud that even in this shithole they had heard of my local team's glorious exploits. We had peter davenport up front at that point. He never got a mention curiously enough. And this was before Knighton was going to buy us for the eye watering amount of £20 million pounds.

At that point united were to be a big football club with a souvenir shop more akin to a Blackpool seafront outlet selling cheap United ashtrays and key rings and was reliant on supporters to pay the wages. Contrast with what we have now - a giant of a corporate business owned by US businessmen less ethical than Mortimer and his pal from trading places that hawks a product to media and other corporate businesses to sponsor. And it's not just us.

Seduced by the stacks of cash being thrown their way the authorities have bent over backwards to take as much jeopardy out of the game to this business model to flourish devaluing (in football terms) many of the domestic and international competitions.

No one cares about the league cup. The FA cup is a shadow of its former self - no replays, the final no longer the showpiece domestic fixture. In modern football the income of fourth place in the league is a greater prize than the glory of victory. Teams that get a place in the utterly pointless Europa league enter weakened teams to ensure that they don't drop points in the domestic league so that they can secure a spot in next year's competition that they don't want to win. It's all about the money. The champions league is a misnomer. And a neverending parade with no chance of a real upset. Once glorious clubs such as Ajax are reduced to the status of minnows. It's a battle of the balance sheets.

Football's priorities have changed and money changed them. It's an insanely profitable global corporate business with all the marketing and PR bullshit and all the attendant #@&%!s that comes with it. From £#%&!wit bloggers to psychopathic agents all trying in the modern way to monetise some aspect of it.

It's a sad and inevitable result of the power of capital.

And bring back tackling.

this. although, to be fair, match of the day in black and white with a couple of cameras and pathetic "replays" was awful. I can't hate sky. their ability to bring us this mediocrity from 100 different angles has made football far better. I hate bt, though.

Originally Posted by Knockers

Who from Manchester went to Morocco in the 80s? Irk is well bourgeois. Swanning round the souk with his pin badges like a millionaire.

this. although the bit about wanting his rusty sheriff's badge was perceptive.

I bet that £#%&!ing stall holder is still there now muttering about "that @#%&! bobby charlton".

Originally Posted by Spock

Big £#%&!ing paper round that mate, fair play

explains why I look so old and knackered all the time.

Originally Posted by jem

this. although, to be fair, match of the day in black and white with a couple of cameras and pathetic "replays" was awful. I can't hate sky. their ability to bring us this mediocrity from 100 different angles has made football far better. I hate bt, though.

this. although the bit about wanting his rusty sheriff's badge was perceptive.

I bet that £#%&!ing stall holder is still there now muttering about "that @#%&! bobby charlton".

The BT enhanced app is superb.

He wanted it for "asda price" as he kept saying and tapping his back pocket. There was no way I was rocking their casbah. However, I always was a trail blazer. What a terrified young irk flees from in 1987, Ronaldo embraces nearly 30 years later.

Irks called it but ruined the party by revealing he's from the posh houses near Heaton Park and his Mum was Judith Chalmers.

The fun has been completely sucked out of it with the typical armchair fan now as impatient as an Italian magnate or petro oligarch who has put his own corrupt money in. Win at all costs and prompted brand recognition rules.

Originally Posted by irk

The BT enhanced app is superb.

He wanted it for "asda price" as he kept saying and tapping his back pocket. There was no way I was rocking their casbah. However, I always was a trail blazer. What a terrified young irk flees from in 1987, Ronaldo embraces nearly 30 years later.

Ooh look at me, I went on a foreign holiday with my parents


Just £#%&! off

agree with everything that's been said.

Somebody on here a while ago put it beautifully - "drama has to unfold, now SKY invent it from August onwards" (or words to that effect)

I just can't be doing with it any more.
Dunk makes a good point about age being a factor, but it's certainly not the only factor.

I used to know everything about the players lining up against us, now I don't even recognise half of our lads.


The Oil Clubs have made an already greedy/corrupt sport a billion times worse. That's for sure.
Barcelona are always a joy to behold, but even that's getting boring now as La Liga declines in overall quality year on year.

There's a whole new generation of Fans who grew up playing the game more with their thumbs than their feet....& certainly spend more time watching players on Youtube Highlights vids than standing on the terraces.
Whether it sounds like a 'jumpers for goalposts' thing to say or not, it's certainly a big part of it for me.

Every game is billed as a 'MUST WIN' & the most important game ever (since the last one)

The game on Thursday night was a case in point. To me, both sets of fans were going through the motions a bit.
Can you imagine that fixture being drawn out the hat 4 or 5 years back?
Would have been £#%&!ing unbearable.
I was over the defeat by about half 10 the same night ffs

apathy all over the shop tbh

I regard myself as unbelievably lucky that my dad started taking me to United aged 4 in 1987. My first season with an LMTB saw us winning the Cup, the next the Cup Winners Cup. I was at Rotterdam, I saw the Stretty and K-Stand as they were back then - the memory of the atmosphere in the League Cup semi vs Middlesbrough still astounds me. My formative years supporting United saw the most astonishing period of success so I just assumed that feeling low at the minute was me doing my hard yards. The yang to the ying of watching United between 1987-2013.

But I don't think it's nostalgia. This grotesque society we live in together with Money, greed and saturation coverage are turning the pro game into some shite Formula One esque borefest and amateur level football is just shit.

Remember the £#%&!ing buzz of United being on tv back then? It was an event. Lads devoted their entire day after Sunday league to watching the Reds away on tv (if they weren't going). Going to reserve games to get the special tokens. Kids playing football in the street. The buzz of an exotic European team (or Wrexham) playing United.

Nowadays, the FA Cup and League Cup mean £#%&! all and fourth is the holy grail for fans, players and clubs alike. £#%&! knows why fans buy that shite. Give me a trophy any day, even a tin pot one. I loved the Champions League as it was, a 16 team competition of champions (I prefer that format to the old European Cup tbh). In the days before £#%&!ing Galacticos, Tiki-Taka and every fat 8-year old boy owning a £#%&!ing Madrid/Barca top and playing FIFA instead of football. The UEFA Cup was a respected competition, arguably harder to win than the European Cup, now it's literally a £#%&!ing joke.

Kids don't play football in numbers. We used to have 30-a-side games between streets every night in a summer. Now there's nowhere to play. It costs junior clubs £10k and upwards to hire a pitch for a season. It costs £3k to do a coaching badge at a reasonable level.

Don't get me started on these stattos, video analysts and social media @#%&! supporters. Even as late as 2004 United had a good, passionate supporter base. It's still kinda there, as that 2013 parade showed, but it ain't in the £#%&!ing ground most of the time. The fanzines are dead or dying. It made me proud as £#%&! that of any club being taken the piss out of by greedy players like Rio and Rooney, we could rustle up some lads to 'have a word'. It probably made £#%&! all difference in the scheme of things, but it showed the passion. The anti-Glazer protests did the same. It £#%&!ing kills me how that all just imploded.

The eternal optimist in me tells me that this modern football will implode eventually. But it seems like I've been telling myself that for 15 years and it's just getting bigger. I'm deeply concerned that my generation will be the last to remember how football and real, British football culture was and should be.

Originally Posted by no fun

Ooh look at me, I went on a foreign holiday with my parents


Just £#%&! off

I £#%&! the one sheep...

This kind of thing still happens, you miserable cranks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhaOff4RSwY

Originally Posted by Grimson

This kind of thing still happens, you miserable cranks.

not to us.

everything is shit. every high street looks the same. you don't have to go to marrakech to be robbed by some little brown fella any more. 100 channels of shit on tv. kids playing film-like games on their phones. no salt. no sugar. but still being fat is ok. ugly people "have feelings". you can choose whether to be a girl or a boy. x factor isn't as good as the beatles. you can't insult anyone except on the internet and armchair is trying to take that away from us. hillary v trump. woe is us.

£#%&! off. bring back the threat of nuclear war. and cnd labour leaders. and food rationing. oh.

Some extremely valid points in this thread. But for those longing a return to how the game once was, packed out terraces and chanting, not having to pay an arm and leg to get into the ground, etc, etc, then surely there's FC United?

Originally Posted by BarryX

Some extremely valid points in this thread. But for those longing a return to how the game once was, packed out terraces and chanting, not having to pay an arm and leg to get into the ground, etc, etc, then surely there's FC United?

See the relevant thread - though you probably know that already