Changing attitude of fans

[BLUENUT]

Copied from a Millwall site:

don?t enjoy football anymore. Don?t confuse that statement with Millwall. Yeah I moan on here that Millwall is not the same anymore which is true. But I still love Millwall and always will. It is just football in general. It don?t excite me as much.

Look at what is going on at the present moment.

Last week was the funeral of Alan Ball. I was not lucky enough to see him play in the flesh but have read page after page of plaudits, listened to story after story. He always came over as a nice guy. Someone you would enjoy a pint with.

Yet here was a guy of an elite gang. English World Cup winners. This guy was the best player on the day.But had to sell his medals to survive.

I am one who normally would say ?so what, he had his chance. What did he do with his opportunities etc?.

But when you think of the money floating about in football and see what some actually produce in return of the stupid salary they receive.

Forget Lampard, Rio and Gerrard.. Lets say look at an average sh*t c**t. Hayden Mullins of the hammers. I bet he is on ?20K a week.

What has he ever produced. I know that if someone is stupid enough to pay you over the odds then why say no.

But looking at flash pricks like Mullins and seeing Alan Balls old cloth cap just got me thinking.

The clowns running the game have always been a joke. This is a build up of years but the west ham fiasco is bollocks

They broke the rules, the punishment states that points should be docked.

At the end of the day the hammers did not sign some Lee Luscombe type 3rd division winger. Tevez was the star of the world cup, some would argue he is the best player in the world. Look at the games the hammers have won he has been involved.

What about the farce around docking 10 points for going into Administration.

Leeds and Rotherham seem to have had different results.

We have the crazy situation of Boston United announcing that they are going into Administration with the game still going on.

Player attitudes. That is something that gets on my tits.

Look at Ballack at Chelsea, they are paying ?120K a week.

There are approaching the business end of the season , Premiership run in, Champions League Semi Final and FA Cup final. They don?t come mucg bigger than that.

What does he do, have it through the slips to the Fatherland to have the operation (non urgent) which will rule him out for these games.

What I don?t understand is the Chelsea Fans. Here is a bloke who is taking half a million pound a month out of your club but cant be bothered to make the effort.

They just shrug their shoulders and clap their plastic heroes..

Television coverage has killed football for me.

I remember the Big Match with Elton Welsby (the Greengrocers Son) on a Sunday afternoon, it was your one live game of the week. It did not matter how sh*t the game was you would watch it as you know full well it was another 7 days until the next game.

Now you have Sky?s daily live game it seem. Chuck in the Spanish football.

There have been many times this year when I have not even bothered to turn it on.

The media?s sickening love affair with a select few is enough to put you off the game for good. Of course we have had to live with ?the academy? and ?boys of ?66? tales towards our friends from upton parkistan for years. But of late this has reached a new level.

I for one will avoid Sky?s coverage next Sunday. If west ham stay up it will be sicker than leaving Trevor B in charge of a Girl Guides Camping Trip.

What has happened to the hate figures. As a kid I seemed to have a list as long as my arm of players I hated. Devonshire. Droy. Whiteside. Cannon, Mark Hughes Ince, Rougvie (my cousin), Pike Foster the list is endless.

One thing though you hated them but in a strange way would have liked them playing next to you in a Millwall XI.

Now we have Savage and Hamman as Football?s Hardmen, not quite the same is it.

I suppose this disappointment of the modern game serves some purpose. As much as we moan about the state of our much changed beloved Club. We can at least appreciate how lucky we are in SE16.

[BlueBeard]

Great post - I agree with nearly all of those sentiments

[g3.7]

in defence of MB:

ballack has said the surgery was totally necessary and would have damaged his long term career. I'd rather have ballack for 3 years rather than try to get him to play a few games and see the rest of his career f*cked. some of the criticism the guy gets off the pitch...

I'm talking about talking about the surgery, the stories spun about him trying to find a house... it's absolute nonsense. here is a guy who has captained a major footballing nation, never lets his national side down (you'll remember he sacrificed himself for the sake of his country), is never involved in on/off transfer "sagas", speaks to the media about as often as the kitmen, doesn't write autobiographies talking about gerrard-esque "inner-turmoil", is never seen stumbling out of nightclubs at 3am, who probably only understands "roast" as a kind of cooking... I'm astounded that since he's come to england ballack's professionalism has been called into question so often.

[Lofty]

Same here.

Money is the killer. I can remember going to the Bridge on a Saturday morning, call in the cafe before the pubs opened, and we'd run into Ray Wilkins, who was never a mate of mine, but who used to play football with mates of mine, at Earls Court and would talk to him between there and Fulham Broadway. Can you honestly see that happening nowadays? Or on the way back from away games, if you went home later (i.e. not on the Special) you'd see a few of the players on the same platform. You could go up to them and talk to them. It's next to impossible to relate to someone who earns over ?100,000 per week, or even your average Premiership second rater on a "mere" ?20-30k per week.

You can't blame the players for accepting those ridiculous wages. Put yourself in their place. You're not exactly going to turn round and say "oh no, morally speaking I don't deserve to be paid a fortune for kicking a ball around". Are you?

Then you look at the cost of season tickets, or of an average ticket to an average Premier League game. Way beyond my means. My tough sh*t, right? Well ok, but back when I used to go, going to the match was no big deal financially, even if I was a little bit skint on any particular week. It's not the common man's game any more. It's been stolen from us. By Sky, by the tourists, by the greed of the FA, the Premier League, and of the clubs themselves.

Edit: "Same here" (above) refers to BlueBeard's post.