The Round Ball Game - II

[EdgeleyRob]

Thanks guys

And finally

League 2 play off final

Blackpool 2 Exeter City 1 Went behind on 3 mins but equalised 5 mins before the break,conceded the 2nd on 64 mins

Forum honours

Chelsea - Premier League champions
Arsenal - FA Cup winners
Manchester United - League Cup,Charity Shield ( Mourinho says it counts) and Europa League winners
Newcastle United - Championship winners
Brighton - Promoted to Premier League
Hereford - Southern League South/West winners
York City - FA Trophy winners

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

League 2 play off final

Blackpool 2 Exeter City 1 Went behind on 3 mins but equalised 5 mins before the break,conceded the 2nd on 64 mins

[Beef Oven!]

I do like the game but these days do not follow it as closely as I did in the past. I like to keep an eye on how Yorkshire fare and hope England do well particularly with Joe Root at the helm!

[Beef Oven!]

Yes, a big thank you from me too

The Charity Shield does NOT count.

Don't forget we won the European Cup Winners Cup.

[EdgeleyRob]

Yes, a big thank you from me too

The Charity Shield does NOT count.

Don't forget we won the European Cup Winners Cup.

and the Inter Cities Fairs Cup,which IIRC was not considered at the time to be a major honour by UEFA but was recognised as such by FIFA

[teamsaint]

Couldn't have put it better JC ..... silly mid-on is, I think, someone standing too close to the bat when ts is bowling ....

Everywhere is too close when i'm on, AG......


Sadly, I have rather lost my love for the professional game these days, principally because of the corruption, especially in the one day game.

Hampshire's general ineptitude has nothing to do with this......

[cloughie]

Thanks guys

And finally

League 2 play off final

Blackpool 2 Exeter City 1 Went behind on 3 mins but equalised 5 mins before the break,conceded the 2nd on 64

A real shame that the Grecians didn't do it for the SW and join Plymouth in Div One.

[teamsaint]

A real shame that the Grecians didn't do it for the SW and join Plymouth in Div One.

I'd like to see Tisdale get a crack at a bigger club, but he'll continue to do a great job at Exeter, and hopefully get them up next time.

[cloughie]

I'd like to see Tisdale get a crack at a bigger club, but he'll continue to do a great job at Exeter, and hopefully get them up next time.

I agree ts. He's achieved so much with no money.

[Lat-Literal]

Arsene and Arsenal

A View From What Was The North Bank

Some of Wenger's naysayers are out in force in the phone-in media today. This is ahead of the important lunchtime announcement. I had been inclined to think that most would be under 30. After all, very few of them would recall a non Arsene Arsenal. It seems, though, that there are additionally divisions in the ranks of the middle aged. The side that people in that category are on in this unedifying spectacle depends largely on personal character and an ability or otherwise to question football's business model. In many ways, this echoes the fault lines in society especially in relation to finance and broader culture. Half of 30-60 year olds have a natural allegiance with the ways of the old while the other half is more aligned with the the young and so-called modernity. I suppose the latter in today's money are more real but they are also less real in the sense of irrationality. Rather than seeing a left wing "spend, spend, spend" as being the polar opposite of ultra right wing global economics, they appear to believe that somehow the two are naturally in tandem.

Notwithstanding that AW is undoubtedly prudent and he was considered some years ago to be so to a fault, it is conveniently overlooked that the expenditure of any manager is dependent on the outlook of club owners. You can bring in anyone you like with a wonderful record at least on paper. They might well be no one of any note without the money that they will always sense they require. Sometimes they are not anyone very much consistently even if they are at first given financial support for their novelty. For every Conte there is a Guardiola, a Klopp, a Van Gaal, an Eriksson, a Villas-Boas, a Rioch and a Moyes. Once again we are being told by some so-called Gunners that Wenger's Arsenal will not be able to compete with Man City and Man Utd next season. Nearly every pundit at this time last year was saying that the first on that list would ensure his team would run away with the title. Hype that was designed to suit small kids who get bored with a toy just after Christmas and demand one which looks better on the box even if it then too disappoints. And, of course, it suits the grown-up versions of those little ones - the international shareholders who could not allow or endure a Ranieri or even a Pellegrini to get due recognition.

One can see why the mega-rich are worried. Bournemouth, Burnley, Swansea Town which became Swansea City, Watford and now Brighton and Hove and Huddersfield Town. From their point of view, these are not supposed to be teams that are anywhere near the top flight. It is a bit like Pay n Take or Fine Fare suddenly rising from the ashes and claiming with not a little justification to be as significant as Tesco and J Sainsbury. We have seen a lot of nostalgia in the forward looking celebrations of the Huddersfield fans this week and it is heart warming. But as it happens that is precisely the stuff that one of the Emirates' "faithful" said this morning could not be afforded at the home of Arsenal. In an extensive rant against the manager, he repeated the phrase "I have no time for nostalgia" but the manner in which he spoke suggested that in today's brave new world there is plenty of time for something else. Melodrama of the kind that would have all of the old cap wearers not rolling in their graves but wincing at the effeteness inherent in the most belligerent greed.

Such people - it's mainly men from what I can see - also choose to forget something else. It is that Arsenal had a rather big "mortgage" to pay once wrongly, in my opinion, the big wigs decided oh so lightly to abandon Highbury. Indeed, given Wenger's own important role in that move, it is probably the biggest substantive criticism one could make of him. One only has to look at the list of achievements around the inner roof of what we still describe as the new stadium to see that it was precisely that upheaval and nothing else which led to very little success in historical terms for most of a decade. Money wasn't always spent on players not because Wenger fancied himself as a Darling or an Osborne but rather because the Highbury flats proved difficult to sell and the financial position became precarious. Such things pass but not the loss of cultural history that the change entailed. Ironically it left the manager himself as one of the very few clear symbols of a connection across the generations in Arsenal supporting families. Otherwise, it's just the colours for as long as those are allowed to last and from next season the ability to play a Yorkshire team which was once managed very successfully by the lowly paid Herbert Chapman.

There is also a need to mention Europe here because it is Arsenal's lack of success In European competitions that is always cited as Arsene's biggest problem. Here is a question that nobody asks or at least not as far as I am aware. Should anyone care? No disrespect to Scotland but when Celtic became the first British team to be successful in a European club competition, I doubt that it mattered a great deal to many English fans. And when Arsenal had their own success in 1970, it completely paled into insignificance compared with the domestic double in the following years. Maybe it was because we were Londoners. I don't know. But I vividly recall what our outlook was as young teenagers in the mid 1970s, that is, the Arsenal, Chelsea, West Ham and Crystal Palace supporters who occasionally met on Sundays for our own early versions of fantasy football. Incidentally, we could have made a mint there but what we did was for pleasure. It was that the World Cup, the home competitions and the Home Internationals mainly mattered and mostly in that order.

The continent, of course, had outstanding teams but it was all a bit distant, exotic and remote. That might have changed later in the decade but the feeling outside Liverpool, unfair but also true, was that Liverpool's success was generally boring for being repetitive. As for Nottingham Forest, well, fine but that was Clough for you and hence different from any norm, albeit good luck to him. Surprising? Not really when one realizes the origins of the tournaments that started tentatively in the mid 1950s alongside the political European project and the Eurovision Song Contest. Was a British team involved in the very first one? Yes - but it was the mighty Hibernian. Memorable if only to the elderly in Edinburgh.

One wonders whether any new political direction might help introduce a sense of proportion. Will there again be times when a major English or Welsh team wins the Premiership by a very large margin as Chelsea have just done and it is greeted with sheer joy? That is, rather than being received even by its own supporters with the muted air of a tick in another box. Similarly, and this too is with reference to Conte's team, can we conceive a period in the future when to lose a double is not met with a shrug of the shoulders? That, I suggest, should be the objective of Arsenal with Wenger in the next few years. To make it Arsenal that resurrects the idea that these things are of greater importance to big clubs and not just to the likes of pithy Leicester. If that isn't good enough for some as an ambition, they are very welcome to fully switch their allegiance by moving to Munich or Madrid.

[Lat-Literal]

And the news is in.

Couldn't be more delighted:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/40103874

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/39231549

(Incidentally, I'm very prepared to justify the use of the word "effeteness" in the above piece on the basis of how it is used - it isn't specific to any gender or orientation but rather the opposite and principally about ethics; it is where, across modern culture, brutality often replaces sturdiness and big drama presents as sensitivity and even social solidarity. Wenger is, of course, the opposite, an atypical personality in the field of football management who has shown a consistent sturdiness with sensitivity and minimal histrionics - ta!)

[cloughie]

Arsene and Arsenal

A View From What Was The North Bank

Some of Wenger's naysayers are out in force in the phone-in media today. This is ahead of the important lunchtime announcement. I had been inclined to think that most would be under 30. After all, very few of them would recall a non Arsene Arsenal. It seems, though, that there are additionally divisions in the ranks of the middle aged. The side that people in that category are on in this unedifying spectacle depends largely on personal character and an ability or otherwise to question football's business model. In many ways, this echoes the fault lines in society especially in relation to finance and broader culture. Half of 30-60 year olds have a natural allegiance with the ways of the old while the other half is more aligned with the the young and so-called modernity. I suppose the latter in today's money are more real but they are also less real in the sense of irrationality. Rather than seeing a left wing "spend, spend, spend" as being the polar opposite of ultra right wing global economics, they appear to believe that somehow the two are naturally in tandem.

Notwithstanding that AW is undoubtedly prudent and he was considered some years ago to be so to a fault, it is conveniently overlooked that the expenditure of any manager is dependent on the outlook of club owners. You can bring in anyone you like with a wonderful record at least on paper. They might well be no one of any note without the money that they will always sense they require. Sometimes they are not anyone very much consistently even if they are at first given financial support for their novelty. For every Conte there is a Guardiola, a Klopp, a Van Gaal, an Eriksson, a Villas-Boas, a Rioch and a Moyes. Once again we are being told by some so-called Gunners that Wenger's Arsenal will not be able to compete with Man City and Man Utd next season. Nearly every pundit at this time last year was saying that the first on that list would ensure his team would run away with the title. Hype that was designed to suit small kids who get bored with a toy just after Christmas and demand one which looks better on the box even if it then too disappoints. And, of course, it suits the grown-up versions of those little ones - the international shareholders who could not allow or endure a Ranieri or even a Pellegrini to get due recognition.

One can see why the mega-rich are worried. Bournemouth, Burnley, Swansea Town which became Swansea City, Watford and now Brighton and Hove and Huddersfield Town. From their point of view, these are not supposed to be teams that are anywhere near the top flight. It is a bit like Pay n Take or Fine Fare suddenly rising from the ashes and claiming with not a little justification to be as significant as Tesco and J Sainsbury. We have seen a lot of nostalgia in the forward looking celebrations of the Huddersfield fans this week and it is heart warming. But as it happens that is precisely the stuff that one of the Emirates' "faithful" said this morning could not be afforded at the home of Arsenal. In an extensive rant against the manager, he repeated the phrase "I have no time for nostalgia" but the manner in which he spoke suggested that in today's brave new world there is plenty of time for something else. Melodrama of the kind that would have all of the old cap wearers not rolling in their graves but wincing at the effeteness inherent in the most belligerent greed.

Such people - it's mainly men from what I can see - also choose to forget something else. It is that Arsenal had a rather big "mortgage" to pay once wrongly, in my opinion, the big wigs decided oh so lightly to abandon Highbury. Indeed, given Wenger's own important role in that move, it is probably the biggest substantive criticism one could make of him. One only has to look at the list of achievements around the inner roof of what we still describe as the new stadium to see that it was precisely that upheaval and nothing else which led to very little success in historical terms for most of a decade. Money wasn't always spent on players not because Wenger fancied himself as a Darling or an Osborne but rather because the Highbury flats proved difficult to sell and the financial position became precarious. Such things pass but not the loss of cultural history that the change entailed. Ironically it left the manager himself as one of the very few clear symbols of a connection across the generations in Arsenal supporting families. Otherwise, it's just the colours for as long as those are allowed to last and from next season the ability to play a Yorkshire team which was once managed very successfully by the lowly paid Herbert Chapman.

There is also a need to mention Europe here because it is Arsenal's lack of success In European competitions that is always cited as Arsene's biggest problem. Here is a question that nobody asks or at least not as far as I am aware. Should anyone care? No disrespect to Scotland but when Celtic became the first British team to be successful in a European club competition, I doubt that it mattered a great deal to many English fans. And when Arsenal had their own success in 1970, it completely paled into insignificance compared with the domestic double in the following years. Maybe it was because we were Londoners. I don't know. But I vividly recall what our outlook was as young teenagers in the mid 1970s, that is, the Arsenal, Chelsea, West Ham and Crystal Palace supporters who occasionally met on Sundays for our own early versions of fantasy football. Incidentally, we could have made a mint there but what we did was for pleasure. It was that the World Cup, the home competitions and the Home Internationals mainly mattered and mostly in that order.

The continent, of course, had outstanding teams but it was all a bit distant, exotic and remote. That might have changed later in the decade but the feeling outside Liverpool, unfair but also true, was that Liverpool's success was generally boring for being repetitive. As for Nottingham Forest, well, fine but that was Clough for you and hence different from any norm, albeit good luck to him. Surprising? Not really when one realizes the origins of the tournaments that started tentatively in the mid 1950s alongside the political European project and the Eurovision Song Contest. Was a British team involved in the very first one? Yes - but it was the mighty Hibernian. Memorable if only to the elderly in Edinburgh.

One wonders whether any new political direction might help introduce a sense of proportion. Will there again be times when a major English or Welsh team wins the Premiership by a very large margin as Chelsea have just done and it is greeted with sheer joy? That is, rather than being received even by its own supporters with the muted air of a tick in another box. Similarly, and this too is with reference to Conte's team, can we conceive a period in the future when to lose a double is not met with a shrug of the shoulders? That, I suggest, should be the objective of Arsenal with Wenger in the next few years. To make it Arsenal that resurrects the idea that these things are of greater importance to big clubs and not just to the likes of pithy Leicester. If that isn't good enough for some as an ambition, they are very welcome to fully switch their allegiance by moving to Munich or Madrid.

It seems many fans have a problem with Wenger and many see a problem with ending outside the top four. There are many fans of other clubs who would welcome him and would settle for Arsenal's current problems. In 1993 the Owls ended the season narrowly beaten by Arsenal in two cups, and 7th in the PL, 3 points and three places above them. 24 years has seen a change of fortunes, hopefully on our way back but it is a long and arduous journey. Time tells its tales of good and bad fortune. Go back to 1975 and league div two saw York City 15th and Sheffield Wednesday 22nd, relegated to the third tier for the first time in my lifetime.
Your mention above of Herbert Chapman. In 1925 Huddersfield were top of the pile, and then the mighty Arsenal blagged their manager. Unlikely but you never know - if the Terriers do well in the PL, will Arsenal be seeking Wagner - and maybe the Emiates will be renamed Valhalla!

[Lat-Literal]

It seems many fans have a problem with Wenger and many see a problem with ending outside the top four. There are many fans of other clubs who would welcome him and would settle for Arsenal's current problems. In 1993 the Owls ended the season narrowly beaten by Arsenal in two cups, and 7th in the PL, 3 points and three places above them. 24 years has seen a change of fortunes, hopefully on our way back but it is a long and arduous journey. Time tells its tales of good and bad fortune. Go back to 1975 and league div two saw York City 15th and Sheffield Wednesday 22nd, relegated to the third tier for the first time in my lifetime.
Your mention above of Herbert Chapman. In 1925 Huddersfield were top of the pile, and then the mighty Arsenal blagged their manager. Unlikely but you never know - if the Terriers do well in the PL, will Arsenal be seeking Wagner - and maybe the Emiates will be renamed Valhalla!

Wenger to Wagner. Now that, cloughie, is a truly fascinating thought and all the better now that there are a few years leeway. Give them a chance. I don't need to justify support for Arsenal but along with the early inclusion of Irish, Scottish, West Indian and French players has been the longer term Yorkshire connection. On the Owls, I have mentioned that I was at the 1993 reply. It will go down as one of the least interesting finals in history but it was very entertaining because of it. Just our luck etc and, of course, it turned out well.

But I have a soft spot for Wednesday. Sometime in the early/mid 1980s I was at the home end in torrential rain to see them play against Norwich. Don't ask me why. Well, Canary friends. I know that we popped in beforehand to the Crucible and enjoyed a very sunny calypso band in its foyer. Then we took the main bus to near the ground and then there was bizarrely a brief run around an impressive library. That was all before the disaster and pre roof. Environmentally it was so atmospheric. Had I not gone to York to study, I was due to go Sheffield, having turned down Kings College, London the previous year, so it was interesting to take the train from York and see it in that way and I think I would have liked it.

[Demetrius]

Maybe it is just that long term managers have become an unfamiliar notion. There are hardly any coaches that stay for 3 or 4 years at one club, let alone 20+. The business around the game has become so volatile that people expect to get the new flavor of the month manager every now and then, and to hell with continuity. Dortmund just fired its coach three days after winning the German Cup and after securing the direct qualification for the Champions League.

[Lat-Literal]

Maybe it is just that long term managers have become an unfamiliar notion. There are hardly any coaches that stay for 3 or 4 years at one club, let alone 20+. The business around the game has become so volatile that people expect to get the new flavor of the month manager every now and then, and to hell with continuity. Dortmund just fired its coach three days after winning the German Cup and after securing the direct qualification for the Champions League.

That's shocking.