Even after the frustrating experience of the Watford game, Town are still ideally placed to challenge for promotion. IF they can win a few games away and maintain their home form. Frankly, both those events are big asks. First of all our form has dipped somewhat since the club was sold.
Secondly, Jim Magilton's team selections have now evolved beyond the eccentric and are bordering on the perverse. But never mind, for anyone with a fiver to burn, let alone £8million, Town are still a reasonable bet to make the play offs.
Then what? Most Town fans probably aspire to seeing our club back in the top division. I don't. In many ways I much prefer the football league. And I am not alone. The unpalatable truth for hype merchants is that the crowds attending football league games are invariably higher than those attending the Premier League. No that you'd know this from the media coverage of course.
This might sound like heresy but there are all manner of reasons why the Championship is a much better (and infinitely more wholesome) place than the Premier League. Despite the evidence of my own eyes on Saturday, I don't really believe the quality of football is any better in the Premiership. In fact I am pretty sure it isn't. But I am totally convinced that the Premiership is already disaster for true football fans.
Putting aside the football on offer - OK, Saturday's experience was pretty dire. But then so is the Prem. Maybe you disagree and are convinced that the Premiership is awash with fantastic footballers playing sublime football? In which case I ask you to remember the last time we were there. And if a few Marcus Stewart goals are still distorting your memory - try picturing the time before that. Premier League football is just like any other football - good sometimes, appalling sometimes - and in the middle most times. The middle is often pretty bad. And the bad is truly dreadful.
But (aside from the eye-watering cost) by far the worst thing about Premier League football is that it is so darn inconvenient for supporters. Absurd kick offs timed to suit a Sky audience which surely hovers around zero for some games are now de-rigeur. And therein lies the problem. By and large the majority of football followers in this country hate the Premier League and loathe its overrated, posturing 'stars'. The UK TV audience is stagnating - and is being rapidly overtaken by the overseas TV audience, which is not just increasing fast - it is increasing exponentially. There is serious money to be made.
There was a bit of an outcry last week when it emerged that plans are afoot for Premier league games to be played abroad. Why? We are talking about clubs in foreign ownership, probably managed by foreigners and largely filled with foreign players. The only real surprise is that it took them so long to admit what has looked inevitable for some time. Soon hopefully, nearly all be played abroad.
Already the kick-off times are scheduled to suit a TV audience. Worse still, unless you are a bit of an addict and really must watch football in the worst part of the ground - you can't go to any away games. And even the home games have a habit of clashing with Sunday lunch or odd times on Saturday or even Monday. It really would be so much more convenient to have the game played in Shanghai.
This cynical indifference to fans is fuelled by money. Fans are often very happy to be ripped off - and even seem to glory in being loosely associated with somebody else's borrowed money. And if you disagree, count the overpriced replica shirts and think back a few weeks to the unbridled joy that saw Town slip into offshore ownership in exchange for a good each-way bet on grabbing some premiership millions.
We might laugh at those miserable scousers bemoaning their debt-ridden American owners - and laughably seeking to get into bed with the Kuwait Investment Office. (Try getting drunk in Kuwait lads - and count the women at your first home game in the Gulf in a couple of years time). But we're no better off ourselves. Nobody knows where we might be playing our fantasy home games were we to be in the Prem in a couple of years. The Cayman Islands or Lichtenstein presumably.
OK maybe teenage Japanese and Korean girls can (like certain England managers) be fooled for years into believing that Beckham is still a capable footballer. But will they really be queuing up to see Wigan play Reading? Or Middlesborough play Ipswich? No they want to see Ronaldo. Or at a pinch, Torres or Fabregas.
The idea that Birmingham v Bolton has any international cachet at all is plainly preposterous. Yet greedy short-sighted chairmen of the also-rans in the Premiership have been sucked in by the illusion of short-term bucks on offer. If it wasn't actually happening before our eyes it would be quite funny. It's pretty funny anyway.
No - to my mind the championship is infinitely preferable to the Premier League on a number of levels - not least because at the moment there are no plans in place to play games in China or Japan.
I loathe the Premier League and all it stands for. I find it ludicrous that clubs are allowed to drift into foreign, off-shore or dubious ownership, no matter how unsavoury those owners are. I find it laughable that Premiership teams are overflowing with foreign players and that your league position is reputedly dictated by how much money you throw away, rather than how well your club is run.
This situation is especially absurd on European football nights, where I am expected to be enthusiastic if Arsenal for example beat a French team with fewer Frenchman, or Liverpool take on a Spanish team in 'another great night for English football'. I couldn't care less - and in point of fact I much prefer it when the 'English' team loses. I suspect most football fans feel the same way.
I detest the way money has distorted and corrupted our game. OK, so the Evans takeover and amusing goings on at Loftus Road show that the Championship is now fair game for chancers too. But the likes of Bristol City - and maybe next season Swansea - continue to show that good teams can be built and prosper on a far from level playing field - in the short term at least.
Which brings me to the real reason for this rant. No, not Watford outmuscling and out-intimidating Town - we can after all conveniently blame the referee for that. It's where Watford are heading - and where we hope to go too, that disillusions me. When we were a busted flush, whimsical thoughts of a return to the Premier League were pure fantasy. Now they appear a bit of a nightmare.
No comments:
Post a Comment