Manchester City’s victories are absolutely meaningless IMO

Brian Marwood said:
1997-98 promotion from the Championship with the following having played:

Festa
Ravanelli
Emerson
Townsend
Merson
Branca
Schwarzer
Pearson
Michael Thomas
Gascoigne

Isn't this the same but just at a different level?
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Ravanelli

Hardly he played at charlton opening day then left two weeks later for Marseille.
 
Brian Marwood said:
1997-98 promotion from the Championship with the following having played:

Festa
Ravanelli
Emerson
Townsend
Merson
Branca
Schwarzer
Pearson
Michael Thomas
Gascoigne

Isn't this the same but just at a different level?
Click to expand...
Had we falsified our accounts and created a number of shell companies to funnel undeclared payments into that year? If so then perhaps it is.
 
Jedi boro said:
See

1977/78 - 19,874 - Division 1
1931/32 - 13,890 - Division 1 1978/79 - 18,459 - Division 1
1932/33 - 12,157 - Division 1 1979/80 - 18,739 - Division 1
1934/35 - 12,364 - Division 1 1980/81 - 16,432 - Division 1
1934/35 - 14,376 - Division 1 1981/82 - 13,413 - Division 1
1935/36 - 18,771 - Division 1 1982/83 - 10,018 - Division 2
1936/37 - 22,390 - Division 1 1983/84 - 8,473 - Division 2
1937/38 - 24,260 - Division 1 1984/85 - 5,135 - Division 2
1938/39 - 21,188 - Division 1 1985/86 - 6,257 - Division 2
1939/40 - 12,298 ** - Division 1 1986/87 - 10,174 - Division 3
WWII 1987/88 - 15,528 - Division 2
1946/47 - 35,912 - Division 1 1988/89 - 19,999 - Division 1
1947/48 - 35,901 - Division 1 1989/90 - 15,307 - Division 2
1948/49 - 34,292 - Division 1 1990/91 - 17,020 - Division 2
1949/50 - 35,407 - Division 1 1991/92 - 14,695 - Division 2


See even in our darkest day it was still over 5 thousand

We’ve never had 3.
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Iv quite literally provided a link to games where the crowds were 3/4,000 in league and cups. Ok I misremembered the oppositions in some games but I was at those games. I didn’t say average season attendance.
 
There’s a reason for that though it was hardly the norm it was our lowest ebb.

I deleted it as yes we touched it but there was a reason.
 
Jedi boro said:
There’s a reason for that though it was hardly the norm it was our lowest ebb.

I deleted it as yes we touched it but there was a reason.
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It was. But the fact is there were crowds for games that were that low ergo, the days of 3/4,000 is not incorrect as a statement is it?
 
viv_andersons_nana said:
Other clubs are under investigation by UEFA. One of the issues is that all of those clubs can afford better lawyers than UEFA.

I agree with you on the Premier League, etc.

But I don’t understand why people are arguing against rule breaking TBH. The fact is that the clubs voted on rules around financial regulations. So there is an agreement between those clubs. One of those clubs appears to have decided that those rules shouldn’t apply to them. You don’t say well these are new rules so we’ll let it slide, you investigate and if there’s evidence of wrongdoing - and there appears to evidence of industrial-scale financial irregularities - then you charge them and discuss it in court. You don’t just let it slide.

Presumably all clubs are being monitored. Chelsea, Newcastle and Everton are sailing very close to the wind. It’s about not declaring full salaries and transfer fees, bonuses, agents fees, inflated advertising and marketing values. But, as I say, some of these clubs - nation states, billionaires - can buy better lawyers than the governing bodies can.

But where there is evidence, you call it out and pursue it.
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Who writes the rules, when and why?

It's interesting that you picked out those clubs but not the big spenders that have done so for decades, Man Utd, Liverpool, Spurs, Arsenal. Are they the clubs with influence on the governing bodies, they certainly have it within the media.

The clubs you mention, are they in danger of going to the wall and if not why the investigation?

Financial Fair Play is only worth having if it applies to all football clubs and exists to protect them. It isn't there for that, it's to maintain the status quo, and clubs such as Man City and Newcastle now have the wealth to change that, regardless of where that wealth came from.

If the club backer is the problem then that should have been nipped in the bud earlier, perhaps foreign ownership should be outlawed if you're looking at it from a nationalistic point of view. It wasn't, the clubs are right to spend what they wish, as the other dominating clubs have and still do. That has been the nature of the game until the status quo was threatened. Man Utd, Liverpool and Arsenal chose to chase American money, they're being trumped by the Arab's, and that is all FFP is about.

We see local success in football when a chairman or backer has money to spend and they fly through the divisions with few watching them. A team in Middlesbrough has won promotion to the Northern League First Division this season without having a ground to play on and few fans to watch them. A comparatively new club. No investigation by the ruling body and no fuss locally other than by a few grumbling fans on twitter, unaware of how their own clubs came about.

You either have football rules for the whole of the game and uphold them vigorously or not at all.

Personally I'm in favour of a level playing field, equal squad sizes and wages, for me that would make the game more competitive and interesting than it is now but that's my choice, I'm not saying whether it's right or wrong.
 
El Guapo said:
It was. But the fact is there were crowds for games that were that low ergo, the days of 3/4,000 is not incorrect as a statement is it?
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No not at all but it’s a myth that others spout that it was like this throughout the 80’s

But yes those were dark dark days.
 
Jedi boro said:
That’s not the myth of course we paid well but SO DID ALL THE OTHER CLUBS.

Do you think zola was playing for free ???

But we were held up as the evil club spending all this money when every other club around us was doing the same.
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Stop this chippy nonsense. We were on TV more so than at any time I can remember, and the media weren't against us.

We were spending money like we never had before, that was the truth, and we were still spending it when we brought in Villa's best players, Boksic, Viduka, Hasselbaink etc. If we weren't spending beyond our means why aren't we doing it now?
 
Jedi boro said:
No not at all but it’s a myth that others spout that it was like this throughout the 80’s

But yes those were dark dark days.
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Oh agreed, those were just the darkest days and lowest of crowds of 84 & 85 era in the run up to liquidation. Agree that average attendance was slightly higher as your post showed. 👍
 
Jedi boro said:
We didn’t though that’s the point
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Of course we did, you've chosen one example where we may have not paid as much (although I'm still suspicious about even that one). Ravanelli and Merson have both talked about the financial pull of our offer which at the time blew any other offers out of the water.
 
Btw for all this so called money we spent our club record signing is still 13 mil on alves isn’t it.

Wages were high yes but transfer fees were pretty modest.
 
El Guapo said:
I was once stood on the Holgate as a kid in the Clive Road corner back in the early 80s in the days of the 3/4,000 crowds. A studious looking guy in a long black coat and reading a book periodically shouted out phrases of the critical thinking genre, one of which was “is this a business or is it?” At the time I remember thinking, as those around me surely did, that he was a complete crank. These days I look at football and remembering that guy and think perhaps he wasn’t actually a crank but a visionary ahead of his time.
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Or a time traveller from the year 2023 ?
 
The_Lizards_Jumpers said:
it's often rumoured that you didn't actually go to that many games before you were famous
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This categorically isn't true. I've read books written by people they knew growing up and Noel (and Paul) in particular was a regular home and away and attendee. Liam by his own admission doesn't go to many games now, not sure he's ever been a 20 games a season type. Given they lived in Longsight in the early days its hardly surprising Noel and Paul went to matches with their dad though.
 
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