Club or Country?

club v country = pub and a few pints

(10-02-2011 14:25 )mitchell Wrote:  Pretty much the same as Yoda, football has for most of the time only been one click away although I didn't get Sky till about 1995 but the first English club game I remember watching was Liverpool 3-3 Man Utd January 1994 ..................
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But the first football I can remember watching on tv was the Italia 90 World Cup, England 1–0 Egypt, the only bit I remember is Mark Wright heading home a Gazza freekick.

These were the days when football was just football!!!

Effin hell, mitchell. Your youthful experiences and that pouring out of your heart was beautiful, my friend, I had to wipe a tear from my eye and I just thought you were an argumentative bastard with no soul.

(10-02-2011 20:03 )Captain Vimes Wrote:  Effin hell, mitchell. Your youthful experiences and that pouring out of your heart was beautiful, my friend, I had to wipe a tear from my eye and I just thought you were an argumentative bastard with no soul.

'Momentary relapse' & now I'm back so FUCK OFF!!!

Club, like i would choose club if i was a player at this moment, i don't like or respect Capello but that's a different debate all together.

Apparently the FA are considering issueing bans/fines to any player (and the player's club) that withdraws from the squad

About 20+ players withdrew themselves this week from the England, including Under 21s/20s etc, squads

This surely has to have some guidelines to it??? Steven Gerrard withdrew with a groin strain & is a doubt to face Wigan but may still play as with all Premier League games it's an important game where as if our next game was the silly league europe trophy next week then he may not have played as he didn't in the England friendy but may have done if it was a qualifier & Martin Kelly is said to be in the squad for the Wigan game yet he didn't play against Italy U21's with a minor injury, why play a young player in a friendly & risk him not being in his club first team at the weekend & therefore he may lose his place for the next 3,4,5,6,..... games & thus slowing down his first team development, how can any of these players be given bans/fines???

Carlos Tevez on the other hand is a different matter, when the Argentine FA dropped him from the squad to play Portugal because didn't play against Argentina's rivals Brazil, FA president Julio Grondona said Manchester City star Tevez was not in the squad because he didn't play against Brazil last November, claiming to be injured.

FA president Julio Grondona added: "His absence is because of an attitude he had, he didn't come to play, and then did so for his club the coaching staff didn't like that attitude."

(11-02-2011 11:57 )Phoenix Wrote:  Apparently the FA are considering issueing bans/fines to any player (and the player's club) that withdraws from the squad

I suppose they somehow need to try and recoup some of the compensation they end up having to pay to the clubs when a player gets a long term injury while on England duty...

(11-02-2011 11:57 )Phoenix Wrote:  Apparently the FA are considering issueing bans/fines to any player (and the player's club) that withdraws from the squad

About 20+ players withdrew themselves this week from the England, including Under 21s/20s etc, squads

This is exactly the reason, I think, why so many fans are becoming more and more disillusioned with international football and are tending to focus on their clubs instead.

I may be sounding like an old romantic when I say that it is still the fans who pay the players' wages - although I am right of course - and yet the authorities don't give a toss about us and instead focus on England, England, England all the time to the potential detriment of our club sides' success.

I pay very good money to make a 250 mile round-trip to watch my team every home game and try to do a few aways where possible. I know that my contribution is a mere drop in the ocean and that Rooney probably spunks my input into United into a condom up some whore's pussy, but I should still be expected that my club - just like any of yours - should be able to field its strongest-possible team on a Saturday afternoon - a team of players whom they pay six-figure sums per fucking week in many cases!

The Football Association and Premier League should realise that without us fans they and their precious associations and England team would be nothing and that their junkets around the world would end just like that (clicks finger!). WE are the ones who subscribe to Sky Sports, who feed it to the clubs who then feed it to the Rooneys, Gerrards, Lampards et al; WE are the ones who go to matches, pay good money and help create the atmospheres which set football aside from all other team sports.

But apparently we don't matter...

I just wish that one day one player, who just happened to be one of the finest prospects the world game has ever seen, would turn around and announce at an international press conference: "Bollocks to international football! My club pays my wages and if the authorities ban me from playing for my club at the weekend because I preferred to rest rather than play in an international friendly in midweek then I will retire from international football with immediate effect!"

But it won't - because they're all either too thick or haven't grown the balls to stand up for themselves...hence they all need agents to decide what to wear this evening!

(11-02-2011 16:13 )lindor Wrote:  The Football Association and Premier League should realise that without us fans they and their precious associations and England team would be nothing and that their junkets around the world would end just like that (clicks finger!). WE are the ones who subscribe to Sky Sports, who feed it to the clubs who then feed it to the Rooneys, Gerrards, Lampards et al; WE are the ones who go to matches, pay good money and help create the atmospheres which set football aside from all other team sports.

Well with everyone citing being 'pampered' and 'overpaid' as some of the reasons why England failed in the summer, I'm sure quite the opposite is true.

Without YOU subscribing to Sky Sports, without YOU going to matches and paying good money, which trickles down to the clubs who feed it to the Rooneys, Gerrards etc, they WOULDN'T be overpaid. It's about supply and demand... they are paid so much because WE put the money there.

I am Country over Club... I always have been. With that being the case, I say all the top clubs can keep all their 'overpaid' England players (who only achieve because of their more talented foreign team-mates at club level), and England can use the highly underrated talents of Scott Parker, Ashley Young, etc plus all of the unproven youth players who are hungry for success.

Fair point regards the players becoming what WE the fans make them Huge_e_rection!

The trouble is that the game was ours, so to speak, well before Sky et al came along and thrust these multi-hundred million pound deals before the clubs so as to get their foot under the table. I was going to matches in the 1980's, well before the game in England became the bloated beast that it is today, and whilst my team were shit for much of that dark decade, it's where I first started taking the drug that is football - a drug that turns myself and many others into addicts.

This addiction hadn't gone away when the Sky millions came along, and like sadly way, way too many fans around the country it has got to the stage where I cannot give it up, much as I would sometimes like to make some sort of anti-Glazer statement by voting with my feet.

The only consolation I get from these ridiculously inflated wages that some of today's biggest stars are on is that just a tiny percentage of those salaries come from my own pocket.