Post by Dave on Dec 27, 2008 0:06:04 GMT
The first time the Poster Of The Week has fallen on Christmas week, so its fit and proper the Torquay Fans Forum has a Christmas number one winner.
ohtobeatplainmoor, made some first class posts that would win it any other week, but you have voted your number one and first Christmas Poster Of The Week Winner and it is
Chris Hayes
Well done Chris I have sent some mince pies in the post as your prize ;D
One of Chris's top posts this week.
I started watching football in 1980 when I was taken to my first Torquay match although it wasn't until I was a bit older than I began to appreciate it more and go to matches more often. At our level I don't think that the game itself has changed that much apart from the fitness levels, the backpass rule and of course those very tight shorts masquerading as thongs (Mexico 86).
However the top end of the game has changed an awful lot. Money has poured in the top level of English football since the Premier League was founded. Clubs have gone from the odd foreign player in the ranks into clubs recruiting top (and not so top) quality foreign talent and in Arsenal's and Man Utd's case actually nicking the likes of Anelka, Fabregas and Rafael Possebon from competing foreign clubs at a very young age.
The problem is I find that the without the odd Hull City or Stoke City causing a kerfuffle by not playing the game according to Wenger and sticking one up one of the bigger clubs. I find it distinctly sterile and very boring. The characters of the 1970's, 1980's and to a lesser extent the very early 1990s don't appear to exist anymore.
When I was growing up the huge icons of the game were the likes of Norman Whiteside, Kevin Keegan, Bryan Robson, Remi Moses, John Barnes, Frank Stapleton, Pat Jennings, Ian Rush, Jimmy Case, Chris Waddle, Mick Hardford, Jan Molby, Mark Hughes, Steve "Headband" Foster, Bruce Grobelaar, Cyrille Regis, Peter Shilton, Big Nev, Glenn Hoddle. There doesn't seem to any huge characters left in the game anymore. The last true character of the Premier League was probably Eric Cantona.
I also believe that the cup competitions have suffered a bit since the early 1990's. I can remember every FA Cup final from 1981 to early 1990s but I can't remember a decent one since then with the exception of the Liverpool V West Ham classic a few years ago. European competitions have lost a bit of the old sparkle and intrigue of what they had. The Champions League format is better than it was a couple of years ago when they got rid of the second utterly pointless group stage but it's still too easy for the big clubs to have a reasonably easy passage into the quarter finals. I still don't believe that a team who fails in the Champions League should qualify for the later rounds of the UEFA cup which is a far more interesting competition than the Elite Champions League, even if it has got a daft league format as well. When I was growing up, the next round draw of the European cup was almost like a geography lesson. I used to love finding out where these teams came from and it was all the more intriguing that a decent amount of clubs came from behind the Iron Curtain. Now its the more or less the same clubs every year. Its like this because the money is so good. A few seasons in the Champions league for a club in a weak league means that as long as they spend wisely no other club in that country will be able to compete for a Champions League space.
There have been one or two welcome surprise editions to the competition this year in the shape of Romanian team CFR Cluj, BATE Borisov of Belarus and Anorthosis Famagusta FC of Cyprus who put the wind up both Greek giants Panathinaikos in the group stage and Olympiacos in the qualifying rounds. They are managed by advertising board kicking maniac Timur Ketsbaia, once of Newcastle and Wolves. Another little bit of trivia is that during the 3-1 home win over Panathinaikos a bloke called Hawar Mulla Mohammed scored, making him the first Iraqi to score in the Champions League! Anorthosis no longer play in Famagusta and have been based in Larnaca since the Turkish invaded back in 1974 and Famagusta became part of Turkish Cyprus.
But however promising this is, all the above clubs battled gamely but failed to qualify even for a consolation spot in the UEFA cup. To me the magic of what football is all about has been eroded by how important money is in football. When I was a mere lad, the rich clubs were all Italian. Now most of them have MFI style balance sheets. The top players now either come here or go to a big club in Spain.
But the trick is to support a lower level league could and be patient in the national and international competitions and sit back in satisfaction when watching Arsenal put on a display of sublime unplayable football and then a week later watch them impode against a streetwise side from the potteries employing a "they don't like it up em" style of football and wheel on a bloke with a dodgy shoulder as a modern day Trebuchet to launch the ball into the danger zone.
It doesn't happen often enough for my like these days.
ohtobeatplainmoor, made some first class posts that would win it any other week, but you have voted your number one and first Christmas Poster Of The Week Winner and it is
Chris Hayes
Well done Chris I have sent some mince pies in the post as your prize ;D
One of Chris's top posts this week.
I started watching football in 1980 when I was taken to my first Torquay match although it wasn't until I was a bit older than I began to appreciate it more and go to matches more often. At our level I don't think that the game itself has changed that much apart from the fitness levels, the backpass rule and of course those very tight shorts masquerading as thongs (Mexico 86).
However the top end of the game has changed an awful lot. Money has poured in the top level of English football since the Premier League was founded. Clubs have gone from the odd foreign player in the ranks into clubs recruiting top (and not so top) quality foreign talent and in Arsenal's and Man Utd's case actually nicking the likes of Anelka, Fabregas and Rafael Possebon from competing foreign clubs at a very young age.
The problem is I find that the without the odd Hull City or Stoke City causing a kerfuffle by not playing the game according to Wenger and sticking one up one of the bigger clubs. I find it distinctly sterile and very boring. The characters of the 1970's, 1980's and to a lesser extent the very early 1990s don't appear to exist anymore.
When I was growing up the huge icons of the game were the likes of Norman Whiteside, Kevin Keegan, Bryan Robson, Remi Moses, John Barnes, Frank Stapleton, Pat Jennings, Ian Rush, Jimmy Case, Chris Waddle, Mick Hardford, Jan Molby, Mark Hughes, Steve "Headband" Foster, Bruce Grobelaar, Cyrille Regis, Peter Shilton, Big Nev, Glenn Hoddle. There doesn't seem to any huge characters left in the game anymore. The last true character of the Premier League was probably Eric Cantona.
I also believe that the cup competitions have suffered a bit since the early 1990's. I can remember every FA Cup final from 1981 to early 1990s but I can't remember a decent one since then with the exception of the Liverpool V West Ham classic a few years ago. European competitions have lost a bit of the old sparkle and intrigue of what they had. The Champions League format is better than it was a couple of years ago when they got rid of the second utterly pointless group stage but it's still too easy for the big clubs to have a reasonably easy passage into the quarter finals. I still don't believe that a team who fails in the Champions League should qualify for the later rounds of the UEFA cup which is a far more interesting competition than the Elite Champions League, even if it has got a daft league format as well. When I was growing up, the next round draw of the European cup was almost like a geography lesson. I used to love finding out where these teams came from and it was all the more intriguing that a decent amount of clubs came from behind the Iron Curtain. Now its the more or less the same clubs every year. Its like this because the money is so good. A few seasons in the Champions league for a club in a weak league means that as long as they spend wisely no other club in that country will be able to compete for a Champions League space.
There have been one or two welcome surprise editions to the competition this year in the shape of Romanian team CFR Cluj, BATE Borisov of Belarus and Anorthosis Famagusta FC of Cyprus who put the wind up both Greek giants Panathinaikos in the group stage and Olympiacos in the qualifying rounds. They are managed by advertising board kicking maniac Timur Ketsbaia, once of Newcastle and Wolves. Another little bit of trivia is that during the 3-1 home win over Panathinaikos a bloke called Hawar Mulla Mohammed scored, making him the first Iraqi to score in the Champions League! Anorthosis no longer play in Famagusta and have been based in Larnaca since the Turkish invaded back in 1974 and Famagusta became part of Turkish Cyprus.
But however promising this is, all the above clubs battled gamely but failed to qualify even for a consolation spot in the UEFA cup. To me the magic of what football is all about has been eroded by how important money is in football. When I was a mere lad, the rich clubs were all Italian. Now most of them have MFI style balance sheets. The top players now either come here or go to a big club in Spain.
But the trick is to support a lower level league could and be patient in the national and international competitions and sit back in satisfaction when watching Arsenal put on a display of sublime unplayable football and then a week later watch them impode against a streetwise side from the potteries employing a "they don't like it up em" style of football and wheel on a bloke with a dodgy shoulder as a modern day Trebuchet to launch the ball into the danger zone.
It doesn't happen often enough for my like these days.