In purely business terms, easy to win games against a team largely comprised of inexperienced youngsters and for which the prize to the winner is £10000 are an absolute gift.
Given that the last Football League Trophy first round match at Adams Park drew a crowd of 1685 (inc. 520 away fans) and last night's attendance was 1060 (inc. 160 away fans) - 625 down overall; 285 fewer home fans - the prize money more than covers any income lost through non-attendance of disgruntled fans. You can understand why a businessman running an organisation with debts and low income - particularly one who has stated that he doesn't understand or have an emotional attachment to the traditions of the sport in which that organisation operates - would see that as a positive.
Personally, I quite like tradition. I don't like way that money has been used to buy the agreement of smaller clubs to this season's format of this competition. I don't like the way that money for TV games results in matches being moved to days and times that make it difficult for regular supporters to attend (but where, again, TV income outweighs any losses from reduced attendance). I could go on. I don't like it, but I can understand why Andrew Howard thinks it is good for business and that it would be even better for business if fans stopped worrying about tradition and paid to come along and watch.
Just catching up on this and for me Howard is missing the point in much the same way as Southern Trains and the RMT are argueing completely different points.
The boycott is to voice concern over top flight clubs taking over completely and the only reason the extra money is in the cup is due to this.
I've no problem with Howards line on this but it is strange to me he didn't explain this when the original vote was brought in to question. Has it taken him this long to think this up or was it just no-one asked him.
The entire point of allowing Academy sides into the Trophy was to encourage young English talent. So, it was great to see West Brom fielding two 33 year olds and a 29 year old, and Stoke playing a 24 year old Dane, a 30 year old Scot and a 28 year old Senegalese international, while Reading fielded five non-English players in their 11, including a 29 year old Fin and a 25 year old Frenchman.
Bit rich for anyone to suggest fan boycotts are cheapening the competition when the clubs it's supposed to be helping are doing such a great job of it already.
Next up is the prospect of only 20 teams in the division and in time we'll face the introduction of an artificial playing surface.
I'm sure we'll be given plenty of commercial reasons to support those changes too, but that won't make them popular.
The way it's going, lower league clubs will suffer ever declining attendances but the lost income will be more than replaced by the hand-outs from above.
That might make commercial sense but it won't be much fun.
Thought it was a cracking game last night. A rare game with an opposition who looked to play fast attractive football on the floor, and at times they were very hard to deal with. Pretty obviously shown in the mass of bookings as our guys were bamboozled!
However, a team full of such youngsters were always going to struggle when it got physical, and they found the Beast pretty unplayable.
All in all, the most enjoyable game i've ever witnessed in this cup, as generally it's very much a sh!tfest/half hope you go out early job.
None of the drone army were in attendance either, which meant an absence of foul mouthed abuse from the crowd, and it was all in good spirits
Shame the Howard comments are attracting such negativity, but at least the football itself isn't the concern for a temporary moment!
nope Eric, missed that one.
And in fairness i have a pretty rubbish set of games to compare. The worst I think being ab 3-0 monstering at Bristol City years ago?
Worrying that our chairman would prefer to have an empty stadium with money being chucked at him than a decent, interesting competition that would bring in the fans.
@marlowwanderer said:
God help anyone who becomes Chairman of this football club and expresses a point of view on any subject concerning WWFC. Cue torrent of abuse from the trolls on here even though you are doing a pretty good job of keeping the club afloat.
So criticising Andrew Howard's explicit criticism of supporters is trolling now? I'll try to remember to doff my cap next time.
@Malone A 0-6 drubbing at home v Shrewsbury in this/previous format of the trophy, with a 5 goal contribution from Ricky Lambert the worst ever witnessed? I remember us being so bad, that I was laughing at my mates irrational but understandable ire. The alternative option of climbing the Frank Adams stand & throwing myself off from the top wasn't appealing!
To be fair...it seemed to me he was moaning about the people moaning about the competition...leading to people moaning about him moaning about people moaning about it. He has a right to express an opinion in the same way we have a right not to agree. If we are getting bribed by the big clubs to provide competition to their reserves, I can see why that works for a businessman. I suspect it will the first and only year myself as crowds may drop when the league clubs are out and it's West Brom U23s v West Ham U23s and so on.
Well it will not be West brom U23 v West Ham u23 in the next round - both of them are out. Indeed in seven of the 16 groups the "invited" team is bottom with a grand total of 1pt between them. Most of the "invited teams will not qualify. Only Norwich are recording big wins.
I suspect you are right though, one year experiment, then scrap the whole thing.
Scrap the FL Trophy and make the League Cup only open to clubs who aren't playing in Europe that season, but with a place in the Europa League for the winner. Avoids moans about fixture congestions from the `big' clubs while offering a serious incentive for other clubs to take it seriously.
@MindlessDrugHoover , not the worst suggestion by any means.
But personally, i don't like the idea that a cup win can be achieved without most of the bigger clubs.
For history's sake, when pretty much every year has had all clubs competing it just does't sit right to have watered down wins.
After all, these days the big clubs do try and win it. It's not like the mid 90s when clubs purposely played shocking lineups.
The other thing, is that if you take the biggest 5-6 clubs out, the real reward for lower league clubs drawing them is shot away.
Last season was an oddity, with Liverpool and Chelsea failing to get into Europe, but generally you'd be depriving the lower league clubs of
Man Utd, City, Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea, Tottenham, meaning the biggest draw you could hope for would be an Everton/Southampton type club.
If you somehow think that Everton and Southampton are "lesser" clubs than the others, then frankly I'm astonished that you ever turn up to watch a division 4 team.
Here's a suggestion, as clubs keep documenting that they lose money on the early fixtures, and only make money in the semi's and finals.
How about 6 of you FL league fixtures be selected at random (1 each month), I would suggest the lower attended midweek fixtures, from Aug - Jan.
Your goals scored for these games will be added up, and the top 8 will make the 1/4 final draw. That way no pointless fixtures, and by the end of it, you are two games from Wembley.
Restart the Anglo-Italian trophy, but with a 39th fixture played as an exhibition game somewhere on the West Coast of America, and invitational teams from the the Qatari SuperLeague to help the sport develop.
@arnos_grove said:
Never has a contest name been so overblown in relation to the participating sides. Makes the 'World Series' seem humble by comparison.
Baseballs 'World Series' nomenclature relates to the inaugural sponsor The World newspaper not a global / planet reference.
Comments
In purely business terms, easy to win games against a team largely comprised of inexperienced youngsters and for which the prize to the winner is £10000 are an absolute gift.
Given that the last Football League Trophy first round match at Adams Park drew a crowd of 1685 (inc. 520 away fans) and last night's attendance was 1060 (inc. 160 away fans) - 625 down overall; 285 fewer home fans - the prize money more than covers any income lost through non-attendance of disgruntled fans. You can understand why a businessman running an organisation with debts and low income - particularly one who has stated that he doesn't understand or have an emotional attachment to the traditions of the sport in which that organisation operates - would see that as a positive.
Personally, I quite like tradition. I don't like way that money has been used to buy the agreement of smaller clubs to this season's format of this competition. I don't like the way that money for TV games results in matches being moved to days and times that make it difficult for regular supporters to attend (but where, again, TV income outweighs any losses from reduced attendance). I could go on. I don't like it, but I can understand why Andrew Howard thinks it is good for business and that it would be even better for business if fans stopped worrying about tradition and paid to come along and watch.
Just catching up on this and for me Howard is missing the point in much the same way as Southern Trains and the RMT are argueing completely different points.
The boycott is to voice concern over top flight clubs taking over completely and the only reason the extra money is in the cup is due to this.
I've no problem with Howards line on this but it is strange to me he didn't explain this when the original vote was brought in to question. Has it taken him this long to think this up or was it just no-one asked him.
The entire point of allowing Academy sides into the Trophy was to encourage young English talent. So, it was great to see West Brom fielding two 33 year olds and a 29 year old, and Stoke playing a 24 year old Dane, a 30 year old Scot and a 28 year old Senegalese international, while Reading fielded five non-English players in their 11, including a 29 year old Fin and a 25 year old Frenchman.
Bit rich for anyone to suggest fan boycotts are cheapening the competition when the clubs it's supposed to be helping are doing such a great job of it already.
@marlowwanderer torrent of abuse? 2 posts disagreeing with him! You've been reading negative Dev too much.
He is allowed his opinion. Others are allowed one too.
Next up is the prospect of only 20 teams in the division and in time we'll face the introduction of an artificial playing surface.
I'm sure we'll be given plenty of commercial reasons to support those changes too, but that won't make them popular.
The way it's going, lower league clubs will suffer ever declining attendances but the lost income will be more than replaced by the hand-outs from above.
That might make commercial sense but it won't be much fun.
I was very disappointed to read Howard's comments. Surely some traditions of the game are worth protecting, rather than caving in to the best short term financial gain. The following article summarises current resentment towards the national game pretty well:
http://www.againstleague3.co.uk/7-frequently-asked-questions-ahead-tonights-bteamboycott/
Thought it was a cracking game last night. A rare game with an opposition who looked to play fast attractive football on the floor, and at times they were very hard to deal with. Pretty obviously shown in the mass of bookings as our guys were bamboozled!
However, a team full of such youngsters were always going to struggle when it got physical, and they found the Beast pretty unplayable.
All in all, the most enjoyable game i've ever witnessed in this cup, as generally it's very much a sh!tfest/half hope you go out early job.
None of the drone army were in attendance either, which meant an absence of foul mouthed abuse from the crowd, and it was all in good spirits
Shame the Howard comments are attracting such negativity, but at least the football itself isn't the concern for a temporary moment!
I may be wrong, but I'm assuming you weren't at craven cottage for our win there on penalties in the 93/94 season?
I give this competition some stick now, but that's a genuine contender for my top ten Wycombe games of all time
nope Eric, missed that one.
And in fairness i have a pretty rubbish set of games to compare. The worst I think being ab 3-0 monstering at Bristol City years ago?
Worrying that our chairman would prefer to have an empty stadium with money being chucked at him than a decent, interesting competition that would bring in the fans.
So criticising Andrew Howard's explicit criticism of supporters is trolling now? I'll try to remember to doff my cap next time.
@Malone A 0-6 drubbing at home v Shrewsbury in this/previous format of the trophy, with a 5 goal contribution from Ricky Lambert the worst ever witnessed? I remember us being so bad, that I was laughing at my mates irrational but understandable ire. The alternative option of climbing the Frank Adams stand & throwing myself off from the top wasn't appealing!
Wasn't it 7-0 with Grant Holt scoring 5 or have I blocked another game out of my mind?
Confession of ignorance here, @drcongo.
Will read up and respond in due course.
To be fair...it seemed to me he was moaning about the people moaning about the competition...leading to people moaning about him moaning about people moaning about it. He has a right to express an opinion in the same way we have a right not to agree. If we are getting bribed by the big clubs to provide competition to their reserves, I can see why that works for a businessman. I suspect it will the first and only year myself as crowds may drop when the league clubs are out and it's West Brom U23s v West Ham U23s and so on.
Well it will not be West brom U23 v West Ham u23 in the next round - both of them are out. Indeed in seven of the 16 groups the "invited" team is bottom with a grand total of 1pt between them. Most of the "invited teams will not qualify. Only Norwich are recording big wins.
I suspect you are right though, one year experiment, then scrap the whole thing.
Scrap the FL Trophy and make the League Cup only open to clubs who aren't playing in Europe that season, but with a place in the Europa League for the winner. Avoids moans about fixture congestions from the `big' clubs while offering a serious incentive for other clubs to take it seriously.
@DevC Bad examples I know...but you knew what I meant, right?
@MindlessDrugHoover , not the worst suggestion by any means.
But personally, i don't like the idea that a cup win can be achieved without most of the bigger clubs.
For history's sake, when pretty much every year has had all clubs competing it just does't sit right to have watered down wins.
After all, these days the big clubs do try and win it. It's not like the mid 90s when clubs purposely played shocking lineups.
The other thing, is that if you take the biggest 5-6 clubs out, the real reward for lower league clubs drawing them is shot away.
Last season was an oddity, with Liverpool and Chelsea failing to get into Europe, but generally you'd be depriving the lower league clubs of
Man Utd, City, Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea, Tottenham, meaning the biggest draw you could hope for would be an Everton/Southampton type club.
If you somehow think that Everton and Southampton are "lesser" clubs than the others, then frankly I'm astonished that you ever turn up to watch a division 4 team.
I think they are 100% lesser clubs in today's standings.
In what way do you think they're equal?
@MindlessDrugHoover of all the proposals I have heard regarding the FLT and other cup competitions, this is probably the best.
Here's a suggestion, as clubs keep documenting that they lose money on the early fixtures, and only make money in the semi's and finals.
How about 6 of you FL league fixtures be selected at random (1 each month), I would suggest the lower attended midweek fixtures, from Aug - Jan.
Your goals scored for these games will be added up, and the top 8 will make the 1/4 final draw. That way no pointless fixtures, and by the end of it, you are two games from Wembley.
Replace it with a five-a-side tournament hosted at Wembley Arena, possibly sponsored by a London local newspaper.
Open up the Berks and Bucks Senior Cup to include invited teams from Bedfordshire.
Bring back the Battle of Britain cup I say
Restart the Anglo-Italian trophy, but with a 39th fixture played as an exhibition game somewhere on the West Coast of America, and invitational teams from the the Qatari SuperLeague to help the sport develop.
Definitely.
Never has a contest name been so overblown in relation to the participating sides. Makes the 'World Series' seem humble by comparison.
Baseballs 'World Series' nomenclature relates to the inaugural sponsor The World newspaper not a global / planet reference.
Didn't know that - cheers!