A view from Stamford Bridge

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Kempy

Kempy

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Just something a little different to the clutter of Ched threads on here but with a nice pinch of investment questioning to keep others interested. First post for a while as well so I thought I'd bring up a somewhat familiar debate again.


Unfortunately on Tuesday night I had the 'pleasure' of going down to watch exactly what Abramovich has spunked his millions on. Why wasn't I at the Lane you ask? Very good fucking question, won’t happen again.


My reason why: I've got a bit of a 'project' going on. One of my best mates at Uni is a lad from Italy (Udine), top bloke and loves his football. My project? Turning him into a blade and focusing him away from the absolute crap hole that is Bell End Road. Something which if I say so myself is going quite well. He now has a Blades shirt, knows all the words to the GCB song and a few others. He loves the Lane and won't sit anywhere apart from the Kop, loves going to a blades games so much that when 4 of his mates came over they all travelled down to watch (They also all know the words to the GCB).


Back to the issue of why I went down to Stamford Bridge. His dad is from London and quite a big Chelsea fan, so in turn he sees himself as one (as well as an Udinese fan when back in Italy). He agreed to come down to a few Blades games on the condition I went down to a Chelsea game. So 6-0 against Maribor, goals galore, must have been a cracker right!?


Wrong... what an absolute shit hole, the place may as well smell like a hospital it's that sterile. I have never seen so many plastic, shite, quiet fans in my entire life. Not to mention the fact that they must have as many brain cells as a common amoeba to only be able to come up with 'Chelsea' as a shout/song. The most soulless ground and football experience I have ever been to in my life (and I've seen Coventry City's support at the Ricoh), this also coming from a pretty much full Stamford Bridge (I could barely see an empty seat)!


Where has this all come from? ..... Investment, so much money you don't know what to do with it. That is not a football club anymore, Abramovich has ruined that club. I know what you’re thinking, yes they've won this and that but that is a shell of a club, it may as well be a tourist attraction like the Tower of London.


So my question..... who really and honestly would want to see United getting that kind of investment and why? - Do me a favour and spare being a bell end by typing 'success', give me a logical reason as to why besides that, especially as it’s not always guaranteed.


For me I hope that never happens in my lifetime, I would rather turn up week in week out to watch us as a proper football club shouting players on towards the kop to smash a late winner in, even if it is against teams like Yeovil, Crawley, Gillingham (no disrespect meant to those teams, simply the first few in the league that popped into my head).


So in summary, it’s put a few things in perspective for me. I’m glad the Prince isn’t passing his money out like sweets on Halloween and I’m glad we have someone like Clough who will argue the toss and not hand out stupid wages and transfer fees for players/agents/clubs trying to get that bit extra. Yes I would like to see one or two more additions to give us that final bit of quality needed to get out of this league. However, I’d rather wait even if it is frustrating at times. It’s those little glimmers of hope that we all love and hate but keep us coming back every week. 23,000 + at the Lane on Tuesday, incredible, I could hear the comms and the crowd with ease whilst sitting bored off my ass watching that crap in London. Saying that, I could have heard a fucking pin drop.


Rant over, serious question asked, UTB :)

#fuckthechampionsleagueiwouldratherbeatthelane
 

I think even with silly money the blades would not know what to with it. I mean we have pissed a fair few million on the likes of Henderson, Evans, Horsfield etc.

Football clubs like Chelsea have almost become a tourist attraction because success attracts random people to attend.

It's not how football should be but it just is until some kind of sense is seen.
 
Bladesman said:
I think even with silly money the blades would not know what to with it. I mean we have pissed a fair few million on the likes of Henderson, Evans, Horsfield etc.

Football clubs like Chelsea have almost become a tourist attraction because success attracts random people to attend.

It's not how football should be but it just is until some kind of sense is seen.
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IMO Chelsea F.C. matters not, except to the supporters who were there prior to the present regime. Yes the hangers on ,and Show Biz types such as Michael Paling will go along with the lovies ,and the band waggon will continue to roll but it has turned into a show business presentation rather than a supporters game.
IF I were a betting man, I would suggest that once the Russians have completed what they signed up for, whatever that is,Chelsea will return to being proper club, competing on level playing field. Who knows the Blades may be above them after the Chelsea money machine says niet
 
The problem with your rant is that I'm old enough to remember what Chelsea were before the Russian revolution - and it wasn't pretty. A decaying ground with about 10,000 whining, violent, racist thugs hell bent on causing trouble, their image dictated by pathetic, vile schoolboy shitheads from the suburbs;; it really was a shithole, one of the least pleasant grounds in the country as an away fan. So don't look on old Chelsea with rose tinted glasses, it might be a tourist club now but it was a different type of horrible before. More than any other club I can think of it was always a home for cockernee wannabes and hangers on.
 
The day supporters became a revenue stream rather than supporters made this happen. Chelsea just want to cram as many people into their ground caring not who they are and if they are actually supporters.
 
Bladesway said:
The day supporters became a revenue stream rather than supporters made this happen. Chelsea just want to cram as many people into their ground caring not who they are and if they are actually supporters.
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Exactly. Football at the highest level has become a bland, soulless experience, a packaged product designed to appeal to the casual fan with no regard for the communities that built the clubs. The footballing authorities see it as progress, but to me it's just stripping the game of anything that made it interesting or compelling.

But it is inevitable because the society we live in demands constant growth and rising profits and that means appealing to those with the most money to spend and bigger audiences abroad. Football is big business now and there is no room for sentimentality.
 
The match day experience has changed massively (sorry) since the start of the Premier League. I suppose football follows the "lame ducks to the wall". (Edward Heath) capitalist philosophy. The away club used to get a proportion of the home attendance but Man Utd led that to change and the rich clubs have just got richer while clubs like Stockport, DArlington,, Halifax etc have gone to the wall
 
Bladesman said:
I think even with silly money the blades would not know what to with it. I mean we have pissed a fair few million on the likes of Henderson, Evans, Horsfield etc.

Football clubs like Chelsea have almost become a tourist attraction because success attracts random people to attend.

It's not how football should be but it just is until some kind of sense is seen.
Click to expand...

If you think that the money we spent on those players and add in Beattie, Speed and a few others is close to comparing to the money spent at Chelsea you're so wrong.

Chelsea currently have 26 players out on loan to various clubs across the world, including one player who cost much more than all those Blades players we mentioned combined. 26 players you just have hanging around, surplus to the first team but you keep because nobody else can afford to pay them what you pay, now THAT is silly money. We've never been close to it
 
Paulus said:
The problem with your rant is that I'm old enough to remember what Chelsea were before the Russian revolution - and it wasn't pretty. A decaying ground with about 10,000 whining, violent, racist thugs hell bent on causing trouble, their image dictated by pathetic, vile schoolboy shitheads from the suburbs;; it really was a shithole, one of the least pleasant grounds in the country as an away fan. So don't look on old Chelsea with rose tinted glasses, it might be a tourist club now but it was a different type of horrible before. More than any other club I can think of it was always a home for cockernee wannabes and hangers on.
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Remember the Skinhead novel. Joe Hawkins, West Ham supporter going to the Bridge all 'tooled up'. OK it was a fictional book but as you say that's the way it was for so many in the 70's.

Which would we prefer?

Either (1) This season gain promotion and win the JPT trophy. Next season establish ourselves in the Championship and win the league cup. The following season continue in the Champinship and win the FA Cup.

Or (2) have three seasons of survival in the Premier League and not getting a sniff of winning anything.
 
I'd prefer (1) and I think most of us would but there is another scenario and it doesn't involve our becoming like Chelsea: become a reasonably well established Premier League club (like Southampton, Swansea or, God help us, Stoke) and still win the occasional cup and play in Europe. We need investment to do that, but not Abramovich-style investment. We may actually have the investment as we are currently set up, but it will take another season or two to see the benefits of that.
 
Fortunately or unfortunately (depends which side of the fence you sit on or what team you support!) this is the way of football now.
'Foreign' owners 'using' Premier teams as a 'play thing'.
If I take the example of the team local to me, Newcastle United FC; owned by Mike Ashley and run by his 'cockney mafia', it's really just a vehicle to promote his sports empire, another outlet for shirt sales etc. And the 50,000 or so supporters that turn up every home game may as well be supporting the French national team because Colbeck apart, not a single player is from the area! And if he was really a fan of NUFC would he really be interested in Rangers?
Then there's Sunderland AFC, owned by American/Irish Ellis Short, Chelsea, Spurs, Arsenal, Liverpool, Manchester United and City, all in foreign ownership.....and so it goes on.
Football is in the entertainment business and if it's not the money the fans are spending on tickets, it's the money being spent on Sky subscriptions which are fuelling the game at the higher level and thereby lies the other problem; Players wages!
Back in 2005, Sir Alan Sugar made some quite scathing comments about professional footballers, described them as "Mercenaries" and "total scum" he also claimed that "most of them would be in prison" if they had not become professional sportsmen. (Very topical!) He also said that "Do not believe a word that comes out of their mouths" and "All they're interested in is themselves. And, if something doesn't go right, they'll go behind you and stab you in the back."
And the reason for all this? MONEY!
So has anything changed since 2005? No!
Will it change? Probably not while ever Sky and BT or whoever else pump vast sums of money into the Premier league for TV rights!
Would I like to see the Blades back in the top flight, playing Liverpool, Manchester City, Arsenal etc? Too right I would!
 
If we ever get out of L1, I would want us to compete in the Championship not languish at the bottom.

I think about 9 clubs have parachute payments plus others with deep pockets so we would have to invest. The side we currently have would probably come straight down.

I doubt we'll ever have the money to push for the PL.
 
It's the same with Arsenal, London clubs like them have very rich fans, who wouldn't dream of singing at a football game, that's too common for them.
 



Imagine the feeling of watching your club win the league title in injury time, knowing that your bitter rivals are up the road almost popping the champagne themselves. All this after watching your club fall from the prem to League One (DIV 2) and back again in the last 10 years.

I'd swap all the shitty but "real" grounds and fans in our division to experience what the faithful Citeh fans have.
 
My dad is a Chelsea fan so I go there occasionally. The atmosphere on Champions League group games and cup games is often flat (and does feature a fair few tourists), but for big games it is a very good atmosphere. The stadium is quite strange and the work they did on it in the 90s and all the guff outside does make it a bit plasticky but it has more character than most new-builds, and is certainly a better venue to watch football than the City of Manchester stadium. Been to a few away games with Chelsea fans too and they are like any other. I do generally find London football fans quite tedious and up themselves though. Much less of the humour that you see with the Blades and they are generally more bitter and less good-natured, in my opinion. For all the stick they get I'm not sure the core fan base of that club is much different than it was pre-Abramovich.
 
I went to quite a few away games in 06/07 and Stamford Bridge was probably the best atmosphere of the lot.
 
A funny mistress is success. What you become accustomed to, what level your expectations rise to, it can all add up to a reality that you might never have imagined.

I was invited by the solicitor I used at the time, to see United when they last played Arsenal in the Prem. The Emirates was still relatively new, very corporate, he bought lunch for me and my lady friend, and the place was alive with gooner this and gooner that. So, with about 10 minutes to go, we went to take our seats, and from that moment on......well, it was the most curious example of baiting a home player that I've ever witnessed. Now I'm from that neck of the woods, Fulham to be precise, so I know what a football-centric place London is. As soon as the referee blew his whistle, the small collection of what appeared to be essex second-hand car dealers sitting in front of us were in full throng, and their every comment was directed towards Thierry Henry. Now Henry was a silky smooth example of a great footballing talent. It seems that this was not enough for the thickos sitting in front of us. Henry would wander during a game. He'd take his defender here, there, and just about anywhere that suited him, and the result was, that even with moments during the game when he was invisible, he had a hand in Arsenal scoring 3 goals against the Blades. Poor old Chris Morgan was made to look like a leaden stray that afternoon, Chris and the other defenders were, quite simply, clueless against a display of pass and move that we've still to emulate.

Henry was a joy to watch, a clever, clever player. Football intelligence at it's best, and boy could he play. It was as if all Henry had to do was play a song and we'd dance to whatever melody he chose to write. Players like Henry don't appear that often, so I was happy to watch him, even against my team, as he showed what heights a footballer could aspire to. As for the thuggish contingent who never stopped berating Henry all afternoon, they just couldn't see what a jewel they had in their midst. What would they give for someone of his calibre now? I know we have a few supporters who struggle to synchronise lips and brain, but for the most part we're a decent bunch who won't tolerate anti-social bullshit whoever spouts it. If we had a player who could play to a third of the level that Henry did at his best we'd idolise the man, so I hope that when, eventually, we do return to the Prem, we remember what sort of club we are, and not get carried away with our new found status and the trappings that we take for granted.
 
SouthEssexBlade said:
If you think that the money we spent on those players and add in Beattie, Speed and a few others is close to comparing to the money spent at Chelsea you're so wrong.

Chelsea currently have 26 players out on loan to various clubs across the world, including one player who cost much more than all those Blades players we mentioned combined. 26 players you just have hanging around, surplus to the first team but you keep because nobody else can afford to pay them what you pay, now THAT is silly money. We've never been close to it
Click to expand...

True that is daft.

Form shows we are not the best at spending even with different managers.
 
SouthEssexBlade said:
If you think that the money we spent on those players and add in Beattie, Speed and a few others is close to comparing to the money spent at Chelsea you're so wrong.

Chelsea currently have 26 players out on loan to various clubs across the world, including one player who cost much more than all those Blades players we mentioned combined. 26 players you just have hanging around, surplus to the first team but you keep because nobody else can afford to pay them what you pay, now THAT is silly money. We've never been close to it
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There's something bordering on obscene about that SEB. Even in the Prem there are divisions within that division.
 
cahill said:
You mean you're from Fulham or you just live there now ? Surely you can't be from Fulham and choose to support United, can you ?
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No mate. I don't expect you to have read some of my original posts explaining how I came to support United, but yes, Fulham was my birthplace and, as a lad, the team my dad took me to watch. It was when United, featuring Jones and Birchenall, came to Craven Cottage that my allegiances changed, and after an awful lot of travelling, I ended up in Sheffield where my team reside, so the happiest of coincidences for me.

Question, why can't someone from Fulham, or elsewhere for that matter, support the Blades? Football's never been a rational interest, so it's entirely plausible that a young kid could find something about a team based miles away worth supporting.
 
Bladesman said:
True that is daft.

Form shows we are not the best at spending even with different managers.
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If you've got c.£80m worth of players out on loan, I'd suggest you're pretty bobbins at spending the money as well, in fact far worse than we've ever been. But the scatter gun approach means you do hit the target once in a while, and at that level hitting the target with transfers now and then means winning things.
 
SouthEssexBlade said:
If you've got c.£80m worth of players out on loan, I'd suggest you're pretty bobbins at spending the money as well, in fact far worse than we've ever been. But the scatter gun approach means you do hit the target once in a while, and at that level hitting the target with transfers now and then means winning things.
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Can't agree with that mate. Having £80m worth of players on loan suggests you have far too much money and you may as well be playing football manager with cheat codes, not running a proper football club.


The 'scatter gun approach' as you call it, is exactly what is ruining football. Buying players who show a little bit of promise at a young age at stupid fees along with ridiculous wages is what will kill this game.


It further segregates the leagues and creates teams below which in essence become feeder clubs for the likes of Man City and Chelsea, ruining 80% of the talent that comes their way. Yes one or two shine and become great players, the other 8 out of 10 disappear and fall back into the leagues they started in (if they are lucky) getting pushed from team to team because of their shit billy big bollocks attitude. All stemming from ridiculous amounts of money being thrown around like it’s a video game and no longer a viable business.


You could literally build a half decent squad of around 20 odd players from those Chelsea have on loan, let alone the rest in the backing ranks wasting away in the reserves.


Teams like Chelsea and Man City have become a toy not a football club…. It will catch up with itself one day.
 
Teams like Chelsea and Man City have become a toy not a football club…. It will catch up with itself one day.[/QUOTE]


And I long for that day they've ruined the game I find myself willing them loose games especially Champions League games call it sour grapes but Chelsea,Man U,Man City,Arsenal
and Liverpool really make me vomit
 
Kempy said:
Can't agree with that mate. Having £80m worth of players on loan suggests you have far too much money and you may as well be playing football manager with cheat codes, not running a proper football club.


The 'scatter gun approach' as you call it, is exactly what is ruining football. Buying players who show a little bit of promise at a young age at stupid fees along with ridiculous wages is what will kill this game.


It further segregates the leagues and creates teams below which in essence become feeder clubs for the likes of Man City and Chelsea, ruining 80% of the talent that comes their way. Yes one or two shine and become great players, the other 8 out of 10 disappear and fall back into the leagues they started in (if they are lucky) getting pushed from team to team because of their shit billy big bollocks attitude. All stemming from ridiculous amounts of money being thrown around like it’s a video game and no longer a viable business.


You could literally build a half decent squad of around 20 odd players from those Chelsea have on loan, let alone the rest in the backing ranks wasting away in the reserves.


Teams like Chelsea and Man City have become a toy not a football club…. It will catch up with itself one day.
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I'd still say that 26 players loaned out is poor spending of a transfer budget.

And you're right about those players forming a decent team. Vitesse Arnhem finished second to Ajax last season with 6 of those Chelsea loanees.
 

I'm sure Chelsea fans would rather they'd got relegated to Division Three in the 80's and skipped between the Championship and League 1 ever since.

It's all relevant, a Champions League game against Maribor isn't going to provide much enthusiasm but I'm sure Chelsea fans would supply a pretty good atmosphere if they were 1-0 down in a title decider against Man City and throwing everything at City.
 
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