I don’t have nearly as far to travel as you, but I think I’m cancelling mine now too. Can’t make midweeks and a lot of Saturdays are a challenge, especially when Sky piss around with the kick off times.
Was chatting to a colleague who supports Lincoln City. They sell memberships that give you a bit of a discount + priority booking for 6 or 12 matches of your choice.
Something like that would be perfect for the current era of Sky meddling + International postponements.
We’re told how great this Sky deal is for football and I’m sure it is. But there doesn’t seem to be much benefit for those who actually want to attend matches.
Inevitably now I’ve ditched the ST, it’ll be much less likely that I choose Adams Park over Vipienne sur Trent.
Sounds very similar to the “Blues Card” from about 25 years ago. You bought a 6 or 12 game pass and used it as and when it suited you. Club got some cash upfront when it was needed and you got flexibility of when to attend.
EFL rules say re-arranged games need to played at the earliest possible opportunity. Hence why it’s been re-arranged for January and not March or April.
There was a time probably not that long ago when only having one Saturday home game in a month like December would have been enough to put us in real financial trouble, not likely an issue with ML about but other clubs must have similar things happening.
I'm clinging on to my ST (just!) as I have been lucky with leave this year...but it is certainly becoming an issue for me. Most irritating for me is, I don't care about the Nations League. They keep creating or expanding money-spinning dead-eyed tournaments outside of the Leagues, and then complain about fixture congestion ('Why can't the FA Cup be ten minutes a half and straight to penalties?') and player fatigue...just before they jet off to Thailand/Qatar/Saudi for a month of lucrative friendlies.
I've slowly moved from going to Wembley for international friendlies to not even watching non tournament games on tv now. But appreciate some love internationals as much as ever.
The biggest problem with these internationals is you have to have both qualifiers for the main tournaments and give opportunities for teams to gel outside of them.
Eventually they'll surely just scrap every non tournament international as the actual tournaments will be huge anyway.
The problem isn't Sky per se is it? We've only had one home games (i think) moved to an early kick off. The problem isn't even international breaks, the problem is that a club can decide, more or less on their own, to postpone a game if they feel like that meet a set of slightly ephemeral criteria. Given that neither the Nations League, not the Football League Cup, nor the Football League Trophy are going anywhere, L1 needs to stop scheduling games on international weekends, or, much better IMHO, stop allowing postponements due to international call ups.
I would say they could also do with adding more midweeks into the first couple of months of the season when it's a bit warmer, but no doubt the holidays argument comes in there.
It could well be. It's an international break, and Huddersfield have postponed games this season due to call ups, against Leyton Orient in October and then against us in November. I don't know whether they are likely to have three called up in this window though (or us, with all our new players!?)
Take this with a pinch of salt, but I understand from a Hudds fan that they are likely to postpone. Looking at their squad list then they do seem to have a bunch of internationals, I believe that the Northern Ireland ones are likely to get called up at least.
Comments
I hope they remember to turn on the undersoil heating!
Seems strange to rearrange it just 4 days before our FA Cup 3rd round game against Arsenal.
Newcastle away should we do well against Wealdstone. Last ground for my son!
Everton
Man Utd at home and see how many United shirts show up in the home sections...
Everyone loves a January midweeker. Especially in the Frank Adams in Wycombe's own little weather anomaly Zone.
Weather Anomoly Zone's first album was brilliant. John Peel was a big fan. Probably.
5 home games in Jan. Including 3 games in the space of a week. And two Tuesday nights, one of which is right at the end of the month.
That's some grim scheduling which will not help with attendances.
You can’t tell me that those Huddersfield players, after a busy Xmas schedule, will be looking forward to that midweek trip
I don’t have nearly as far to travel as you, but I think I’m cancelling mine now too. Can’t make midweeks and a lot of Saturdays are a challenge, especially when Sky piss around with the kick off times.
That's the issue with those big club stars - can they do it on a cold Tuesday night in Wycombe?
Was chatting to a colleague who supports Lincoln City. They sell memberships that give you a bit of a discount + priority booking for 6 or 12 matches of your choice.
Something like that would be perfect for the current era of Sky meddling + International postponements.
We’re told how great this Sky deal is for football and I’m sure it is. But there doesn’t seem to be much benefit for those who actually want to attend matches.
Inevitably now I’ve ditched the ST, it’ll be much less likely that I choose Adams Park over Vipienne sur Trent.
Nige will be looking forward to it…
Sounds very similar to the “Blues Card” from about 25 years ago. You bought a 6 or 12 game pass and used it as and when it suited you. Club got some cash upfront when it was needed and you got flexibility of when to attend.
It'll be even worse if we beat Wealdstone and get a home draw in round 3.
Another Tuesday night game 😡 but I won’t ditch my ST it’s part of my life so they can take it out of my cold dead fingers however Sky can do one.
There's always a period where we seemingly don't play at home for ages, then have a period of a tonneload. Jan looks to be the latter.
EFL rules say re-arranged games need to played at the earliest possible opportunity. Hence why it’s been re-arranged for January and not March or April.
There was a time probably not that long ago when only having one Saturday home game in a month like December would have been enough to put us in real financial trouble, not likely an issue with ML about but other clubs must have similar things happening.
In fairness I think this is down to the international window
I'm clinging on to my ST (just!) as I have been lucky with leave this year...but it is certainly becoming an issue for me. Most irritating for me is, I don't care about the Nations League. They keep creating or expanding money-spinning dead-eyed tournaments outside of the Leagues, and then complain about fixture congestion ('Why can't the FA Cup be ten minutes a half and straight to penalties?') and player fatigue...just before they jet off to Thailand/Qatar/Saudi for a month of lucrative friendlies.
I've slowly moved from going to Wembley for international friendlies to not even watching non tournament games on tv now. But appreciate some love internationals as much as ever.
The biggest problem with these internationals is you have to have both qualifiers for the main tournaments and give opportunities for teams to gel outside of them.
Eventually they'll surely just scrap every non tournament international as the actual tournaments will be huge anyway.
The problem isn't Sky per se is it? We've only had one home games (i think) moved to an early kick off. The problem isn't even international breaks, the problem is that a club can decide, more or less on their own, to postpone a game if they feel like that meet a set of slightly ephemeral criteria. Given that neither the Nations League, not the Football League Cup, nor the Football League Trophy are going anywhere, L1 needs to stop scheduling games on international weekends, or, much better IMHO, stop allowing postponements due to international call ups.
Will surely come to a point this summer it has to be a straight forward decision between your 2 options.
When only 2-3 games max take place each international week it's utterly farcical.
To think I used to think that the best part of being in this tier versus the championship was that at least we'd get a game in those breaks!
I want to agree with you, but i don't have that much confidence in the common sense of the EFL.
I think League Cup and League Trophy matches should be scheduled for international breaks with no option to postpone. Might make things better.
That would definitely be a sensible solution.
I would say they could also do with adding more midweeks into the first couple of months of the season when it's a bit warmer, but no doubt the holidays argument comes in there.
Does anyone know if our Saturday 22nd March 2025 tie away to Huddersfield could be postponed please? I’m eyeing up trains. Thanks.
It could well be. It's an international break, and Huddersfield have postponed games this season due to call ups, against Leyton Orient in October and then against us in November. I don't know whether they are likely to have three called up in this window though (or us, with all our new players!?)
Take this with a pinch of salt, but I understand from a Hudds fan that they are likely to postpone. Looking at their squad list then they do seem to have a bunch of internationals, I believe that the Northern Ireland ones are likely to get called up at least.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huddersfield_Town_A.F.C.