by The Royal Forester » 23 Sep 2021 14:32
by Hendo » 23 Sep 2021 15:17
by Dirk Gently » 23 Sep 2021 16:23
by Zip » 23 Sep 2021 17:29
by Lower West » 23 Sep 2021 18:25
by Sebastian the Red » 23 Sep 2021 20:39
by Green » 23 Sep 2021 20:52
Sebastian the Red I'd literally rather set fire to my wallet. There are too many football clubs, the pyramid is too big, there are too many professional footballers on insane, undeserved wages. If we even let half of the 92 clubs collapse we'll still have nearly 50 clubs, league of 22, league of 24. Happy days.
Of course, that's a fairly slash and burn sort of approach, so in order to be internally, intellectually consistent I of course have to be willing to let Reading die first, despite my happy childhood and adolescent memories, back when I thought things like "atmosphere" and "terrace banter" were important. Shame to see the club fold, but I'm sure the amateur phoenix club will be a lot of fun, and the stadium land could be used for a lot of affordable housing once we knock the monstrosity down.
by SCIAG » 24 Sep 2021 11:56
Sebastian the Red I'd literally rather set fire to my wallet. There are too many football clubs, the pyramid is too big, there are too many professional footballers on insane, undeserved wages. If we even let half of the 92 clubs collapse we'll still have nearly 50 clubs, league of 22, league of 24. Happy days.
Of course, that's a fairly slash and burn sort of approach, so in order to be internally, intellectually consistent I of course have to be willing to let Reading die first, despite my happy childhood and adolescent memories, back when I thought things like "atmosphere" and "terrace banter" were important. Shame to see the club fold, but I'm sure the amateur phoenix club will be a lot of fun, and the stadium land could be used for a lot of affordable housing once we knock the monstrosity down.
by Hound » 24 Sep 2021 12:36
by Green » 24 Sep 2021 13:33
Hound Yep and it’s insanely hard to become a pro footballer
What do you reckon - 50% of boys growing up play football? And of those how many get to do it for a living?
And it’s incredible pressure for a young man to take on.
Obvs the top level wages of 300k a week and all that are just stupid but 5k week or so for a career that lasts 10 years and Is subject to short term contracts/injury/whims of their manager isn’t all that incredible. See chaps in my industry get 100k a year for being a slightly above average software developer that pretty much anyone could do if they put their mind to it
by Sebastian the Red » 24 Sep 2021 17:53
SCIAGSebastian the Red I'd literally rather set fire to my wallet. There are too many football clubs, the pyramid is too big, there are too many professional footballers on insane, undeserved wages. If we even let half of the 92 clubs collapse we'll still have nearly 50 clubs, league of 22, league of 24. Happy days.
Of course, that's a fairly slash and burn sort of approach, so in order to be internally, intellectually consistent I of course have to be willing to let Reading die first, despite my happy childhood and adolescent memories, back when I thought things like "atmosphere" and "terrace banter" were important. Shame to see the club fold, but I'm sure the amateur phoenix club will be a lot of fun, and the stadium land could be used for a lot of affordable housing once we knock the monstrosity down.
Leaving aside that this would never fly with any other hobby (“there are too many overpaid actors, let’s shut down half the TV channels”), the idea of building affordable housing at the stadium is pretty worrying. Anyone who lived there would need to own a car to do anything, with all the negative environmental impacts that would go along with it. Presumably, unless your primary goal is genuinely to stop people from enjoying football, the “amateur phoenix club” would need a ground capable of holding at least 10,000 people, and it makes more sense to use the existing one rather than building a new one, with all that would entail. We need to be focusing on walkable communities. Affordable housing should be flats near the town centre or at least near major bus routes, not out-of-town projects. (That said, I’m on board with doing literally *anything* with most of the car park, which is a waste of land and only encourages driving)
I dunno, just seems pretty small minded and snobbish to deliberately want lots of people to lose one of their hobbies for no reason other than you don’t want footballers to be rich?
by Hound » 24 Sep 2021 19:43
GreenHound Yep and it’s insanely hard to become a pro footballer
What do you reckon - 50% of boys growing up play football? And of those how many get to do it for a living?
And it’s incredible pressure for a young man to take on.
Obvs the top level wages of 300k a week and all that are just stupid but 5k week or so for a career that lasts 10 years and Is subject to short term contracts/injury/whims of their manager isn’t all that incredible. See chaps in my industry get 100k a year for being a slightly above average software developer that pretty much anyone could do if they put their mind to it
Slightly above average software developers aren't the benchmark. They themselves will be in the top 1% of earners nationally.
As to whether almost anyone could do it - if that were true why don't they?
by Elm Park Kid » 24 Sep 2021 20:24
by SCIAG » 24 Sep 2021 21:18
Sebastian the RedSCIAGSebastian the Red I'd literally rather set fire to my wallet. There are too many football clubs, the pyramid is too big, there are too many professional footballers on insane, undeserved wages. If we even let half of the 92 clubs collapse we'll still have nearly 50 clubs, league of 22, league of 24. Happy days.
Of course, that's a fairly slash and burn sort of approach, so in order to be internally, intellectually consistent I of course have to be willing to let Reading die first, despite my happy childhood and adolescent memories, back when I thought things like "atmosphere" and "terrace banter" were important. Shame to see the club fold, but I'm sure the amateur phoenix club will be a lot of fun, and the stadium land could be used for a lot of affordable housing once we knock the monstrosity down.
Leaving aside that this would never fly with any other hobby (“there are too many overpaid actors, let’s shut down half the TV channels”), the idea of building affordable housing at the stadium is pretty worrying. Anyone who lived there would need to own a car to do anything, with all the negative environmental impacts that would go along with it. Presumably, unless your primary goal is genuinely to stop people from enjoying football, the “amateur phoenix club” would need a ground capable of holding at least 10,000 people, and it makes more sense to use the existing one rather than building a new one, with all that would entail. We need to be focusing on walkable communities. Affordable housing should be flats near the town centre or at least near major bus routes, not out-of-town projects. (That said, I’m on board with doing literally *anything* with most of the car park, which is a waste of land and only encourages driving)
I dunno, just seems pretty small minded and snobbish to deliberately want lots of people to lose one of their hobbies for no reason other than you don’t want footballers to be rich?
My point is nothing to do with moral worth and everything to do with the size of the market. Clubs are losing money hand over fist and it’s not sustainable. The entire market is entirely distorted. The only thing even close to sustaining it is the childish obsession that people are encouraged to have with football clubs.
Look at other decent hobbies like theatre. No one gets tribal and violent about the Royal Court Theatre vs the National Theatre. No one gets pissed and beats up their wife because Dominic Dromgoole’s latest attempt at directing a Shakespearean tragedy was unsuccessful and didn’t win awards.
Let’s just treat football like the vaguely diverting entertainment product that it is and let it live and die in the market, with rational, dispassionate decisions made on the basis of cost vs entertainment value, etc.
Take the forced banter and exaggerated reliance upon loyalty out of the equation and, if we’re lucky, we can all find newer, better hobbies.
by Nameless » 25 Sep 2021 08:40
by tmesis » 26 Sep 2021 00:03
Sebastian the Red There are too many football clubs, the pyramid is too big,
there are too many professional footballers on insane, undeserved wages. If we even let half of the 92 clubs collapse we'll still have nearly 50 clubs, league of 22, league of 24.
Shame to see the club fold, but I'm sure the amateur phoenix club will be a lot of fun
by Chairman Mao » 07 Oct 2021 14:01
Leaving aside that this would never fly with any other hobby (“there are too many overpaid actors, let’s shut down half the TV channels”)
by linkenholtroyal » 08 Oct 2021 10:57
tmesisSebastian the Red There are too many football clubs, the pyramid is too big,
I've always found this idea to be utter nonsense.
If we culled 99% of the pyramid, that remaining 1% would still overspend by the same degree that they do now.there are too many professional footballers on insane, undeserved wages. If we even let half of the 92 clubs collapse we'll still have nearly 50 clubs, league of 22, league of 24.
And we'd still have exactly the same problems.
Footballers are only overpaid because that's what clubs choose to pay them. If championship clubs paid what they could actually afford, the average salary in the championship would be considerably lower, because those premier league rejects wouldn't be picking between half a dozen clubs offering £20k a week. They'd be choosing between those same clubs offering £10k a week.
Basically, clubs are choosing to spend virtually their entire turnover (and often more) on salaries. You could double the income in the championship, and within a few years the average wage bill would have doubled too.
This mess has nothing to do with the number of clubs, or the salaries players ask for. It has everything to do with owners gambling on success, and overspending to gain a competitive advantage. It been like that since the maximum wage was scrapped. Clubs were always getting in a mess in the 70s and 80s, for example, when salaries were far lower. It's just that the sort of businessmen able to buy clubs and wipe out those debts were far more common then.Shame to see the club fold, but I'm sure the amateur phoenix club will be a lot of fun
The phoenix clubs that do well usually have a semi-decent ground to move into. We would have Scours Lane, which is dreadful, or we'd have to go somewhere like Thatcham and groundshare. It probably wouldn't be a happy time.
by muirinho » 08 Oct 2021 19:40
linkenholtroyal If this was the case I would probably switch elegancies fully to Hungerford Town I have already been to a few games and they seem to be running the club well. (If Reading did not exist)
by Jagermesiter1871 » 08 Oct 2021 22:22
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