Will there be an SUFC in 10 years?

[lenners]

So worst case, we languish in the 4th div in front of crowds of 2000, it's still better than any merger.

Plus what makes you think that kids or adults would want to watch a merged team?

No kid of mine would be allowed to support a merged team. They'd go to chesterfield or Sheffield FC instead.

The only new club I can think of is Mk dons, not exactly premiership eh lenners!

And once upon a time I'd have said I'd watch United in the 4th division again but now I'm much less likely to.
This isn't just about United but there is something particularly unhealthy about our club that is dragging it inexorably down.
I'm struggling to see what our club's really for at the moment.

 

[silverfox]

I'm struggling to see what our club's really for at the moment.

If that's what you think you should really find something else to do.

Why bother going or posting on here?

I would find something else to do.

It's not rocket science. Is it?

 

[JohnDenver]

I'm saying that's not going to be an option JD.
Younger people just aren't going to come and watch a club that put simply, goes nowhere.
In fact, plenty of older people aren't going to come and watch a club that continues to go nowhere.

Well, I hope the next generation are more than mere consumers. In fact, I fully expect them to be so.

And on that optimistic note, it's bed time. May the ghost of football future visit your dreams and incept some positive thoughts.

 

[dkc Blade]

Good old Len. When things look gloomy, you can always rely on our Lenners for a few uplifting, cheery words.

 

[SotonBlade]

i think what lens basically saying is instead of shopping at Lidl and netto. He wants to shop at waitrose. And if he can't do that then he's not going to eat and just waste away. Grow up Len. No team has a god given right to success.

 

[CopenhagenBlade]

Really can't see how the future is merging. We are rubbish, Wednesday are rubbish. Rubbish + rubbish = rubbish. It would take at least a generation before people start to accept a merged side and support a Sheffield team. We are not suddenly going to attract better players just because we merge. I can see the sense in ground sharing but a merger will never happen

 

[chipsncake]

Once again Len you have it absolutely spot on. As a club we have completely lost our soul and next year's season ticket sales will send shock waves through the board room. Unfortunately those who make the decisions at Bramall Lane are incapable of giving us any hope for the future. I am one of those who after 50 years loyal support have decided enough is enough and after this season won't be going any more. Up until now I would have laughed off the suggestion of a merger but if it happened now I couldn't care less .

 

[alcoblade]

Once again Len you have it absolutely spot on. As a club we have completely lost our soul and next year's season ticket sales will send shock waves through the board room. Unfortunately those who make the decisions at Bramall Lane are incapable of giving us any hope for the future. I am one of those who after 50 years loyal support have decided enough is enough and after this season won't be going any more. Up until now I would have laughed off the suggestion of a merger but if it happened now I couldn't care less .

I'll probably be bringing my daughter next year. Can she have your seat?

UTB

 

[Deleted member 2102]

Len. Man Up.

 

[chipsncake]

I'll probably be bringing my daughter next year. Can she have your seat?

UTB

Don't worry alco there'll be no shortage.

 

[super_pig]

if shit holes like blackpool, blackburn, sunderland and wigan can have successful premiership outfits.. then why can't we?.. poor management..
good old silverfox.. you'd be clapping if we were in the conference mate.

i have a song for you
'harry haslam, danny bergara.. wibbly wobbly woo.. put 'em together and what have you got.. bottom of division two'
people loved harry haslam as well.. he was absolute shite.. get your head out of the sand mate.. we're going down.

 

[lenners]

i think what lens basically saying is instead of shopping at Lidl and netto. He wants to shop at waitrose. And if he can't do that then he's not going to eat and just waste away. Grow up Len. No team has a god given right to success.

Grow up Len, grow up fans, we've no divine right to success, we can't expect anything more than endless years in the Championship, be a man, support your club, don't notice anything else, don't think about how other clubs are succeeding, playing better football, be a Blade bla, bla, bla.
Sorry Soton, like many others, it's the sheer banality that's killing off our club.
You might not believe me but I sense our club is dying on its arse at the moment and there are going to be some more shocking season ticket sales this summer.
Perhaps you should suggest your 'grow up' or 'man up' philosophy to our non-existent fans consultant as a marketing ploy for the club.

 

[Wapping Blade]

SWFC have no debt

Finally the proof

 

[raul]

I can see a Premiership 2 forming in the next 10 years as the ladder will continue to be pulled up concentrating more and more of the money higher and higher up. To make it all new and exciting like they did when forming the Prem in 1992, Sky will want to make it BIG BOLD REVOLUTIONARY etc etc and one way to do that ( or looking at it from the other angle, get him to invest money into it ) will be possibly either inviting in the OF and/or some merging of also-rans down here.

It's basically what happened in Rugby (now "Super") League to get him on board and clubs were encouraged to look at merging with hated rivals if they wanted in/"be part of the future". Not surprisingly, this was resisted pretty much unilaterally by all the fans of all the clubs "invited" to merge and the threat to identity, felt just as strongly there as would be at places like BDT, was largely defeated.

Fast forward and you've clubs like Halifax (champions and cup finalists only 5 or 6 years earlier) Leigh (champions a decade earlier) and all of the Cumbrian clubs pretty much now excluded forever. Widnes (absolute giants of the game only 3 years before and not merging with Warrington) now marginalised and Wakey shortly to go pop.

It won't ever be quite that drastic in football, but who's in or out will largely depend on where they are stood once the music stops. If if happened at a time when both Sheffield clubs were in League 1, which do you think would get picked if there was no merger?

Ftr, I'd be with all those who'd rather keep SUFC, but ask people in places like Featherstone why they've lost half their fan base? Left to drift in some sort of half-life is not an attraction to the next generation.

 

[norfolkblade]

I can not help but laugh at some of the things I have read on here.

A merger of the two clubs - please god no, sack that off immediately, I can think of nothing worse than being around a load of pigs, it just wouldn't work.

SUFC not existing in 10 years - we are debt free now aren't we (apart from McCabe's share)? And we seem to barely spend a penny (according to most), so how will that lead to our extinction?

Young people not interested - I'm 21 so would definitely consider myself young, and travel a 300 mile round trip whenever possible to come to BDTBL. If I can do it from Norfolk, I'm sure there are plenty of young'uns in Sheffield and surrounding areas who will do it too whether it be family connections or whatever, I have no ties to Sheffield at all!

SWFC have no debt - oh how marvellous. And you would rather we were run like a fucking circus too would you? No debt, but were days from extinction due to massive debts, Mandaric got a very cheap deal on the club otherwise he'd have been nowhere near it, don't kid yourself otherwise, as much of a crook he may or may not be, he is a clever businessman, hence him having more money than most on here combined.

I do agree and also wish that McCabe would give us a bit of money to use, but why should he? It's not as if he has put nothing into the club, though I can not give him any respect for putting a useless drunk of a manager in charge of several million pounds, but everyone makes mistakes.

Rather than being so negative and imagining we will not exist in the future, let's live for the now and get behind the lads, we can bloody do this, COYRAWW!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[lenners]

Thoughtful post Raul.
It's not hard to see them thinking along those lines, particularly when crowds are falling everywhere.
A united Sheffield team would be able to compete at the top of the game and as the game is simply business now, you can see the logic.
Didn't a similar thing happen with rugby union in Wales?

 

[oldblade]

So what you're saying then is that League 1 Southampton and League 1 Wednesday are both happier than us. I guess 24th placed League 1 Dagenham and Redbridge will be laughing their cocks off at us.

Of course they'd rather be in Championship. Thats why the piggies cried their eyes out when they went down

Remind me again what debt we have? Isn't it all to McCabe now?

Come on Lenners, I expected a better come back from you, come on, work it pal, work it...

Ps what happened to your positivity of 1-3 weeks back, weren't you telling people not to be negative without good reason?

Of course any club would rather be in the championship than division 1.

But, I think Len has a point. Southampton probably are happier than us at present. They have a team that looks to be on the up. We have a team that looks dead in the water. They stand a better than average chance of being in the championship next season. We (and I know many will disagree) look likely to go down to division 1. And we don't have a side that looks as though it could beat many sides in that division.

With regard to Wednesday. It's difficult to make them out at the moment. Their form has swung one way then another throughout the season. They will not be so confident of promotion as Southampton, but if we were to play them right now I fear we woukl be on the end of another Boxing Day debacle.

 

[bendylegs]

congratulations MR thumbs up . there all digging our grave , there will be light at the end of tunnel, it,ll take time.

 

[oldblade]

congratulations MR thumbs up . there all digging our grave , there will be light at the end of tunnel, it,ll take time.

There might be light at the end of the tunnel, it's just hard to see it sometimes!

But, this is by no means the worst situation we've ever been in. In May 1981 16,000 of us looked on in absolute disbelief when Don Givens failed to score from the penalty spot against Walsall and consequently when the full time whistle blew a couple of minutes later we were in the fourth division. The team had no heart, we were in debt and the future looked very bleak. And to top it all, Wednesday were now two divisions above us and were a team on the up.

But I remember feeling even worse when we threw away a 2 goal lead against Hereford in the first match of the folllowing season. All the old failings seemed to still be there. If someone had told me that 10 years later we would be in the top tier I would have thought they were bonkers. So, yes it thuings can and do change for the better. But it seems to me that over the last 45 years or so we have had to endure longer and longer periods of disappointments for shorter and shorter periods of satisfaction. And many clubs that we would previously have considered ourselves to be (for want of a better word) 'bigger' than, have now overtaken us.

 

[super_pig]

>In May 1981 16,000 of us looked on in absolute disbelief when Don Givens failed to score from the penalty spot
heh i was there but didn't look.. i 'couldn't' look.. i turned my back and listened to the crowd groan
> The team had no heart, we were in debt and the future looked very bleak
remind you of anything??
sounds like you have already accepted the inevitable

 

[oldblade]

>In May 1981 16,000 of us looked on in absolute disbelief when Don Givens failed to score from the penalty spot
heh i was there but didn't look.. i 'couldn't' look.. i turned my back and listened to the crowd groan
> The team had no heart, we were in debt and the future looked very bleak
remind you of anything??
sounds like you have already accepted the inevitable

I was also there and did look. And I think it was at that match that I turned me from an optimist to a pessimist. Until that time I thought we were in a false position. I thought we were better than our league position suggested, but just needed to wake up a bit. And no matter who we played I always felt we stood a chance of winning - particularly at home.

Since then, with the exception of one or two brief interludes, I have feared the worst in almost every match. Illogical I know, but then most football supporters are illogical, otherwise we wouldn't stump up the very poor value admission prices along with other astronomical costs (travel etc).

I don't know about accepting the inevitable. There is still hope. We aren't in the bottom 3 yet, although we might be by 9-40PM tonight. But I do think relegation is far more than just a possibility. The squad looks weak. Performances seem to have improved, but results haven't. We have very few home games against bottom half of the division teams, and we have away matches against all three of the sides below us. At home against those teams we lost 4-0 against one of them, and won the other two by slim margins, requiring 2 penalties in one game and a long range thunderbolt from someone who almost never scores in the other. I don't think it's overstating things to say that things don't look promising!

 

[Grecian2000]

I was also there and did look. And I think it was at that match that I turned me from an optimist to a pessimist. Until that time I thought we were in a false position. I thought we were better than our league position suggested, but just needed to wake up a bit. And no matter who we played I always felt we stood a chance of winning - particularly at home.

Since then, with the exception of one or two brief interludes, I have feared the worst in almost every match. Illogical I know, but then most football supporters are illogical, otherwise we wouldn't stump up the very poor value admission prices along with other astronomical costs (travel etc).

I don't know about accepting the inevitable. There is still hope. We aren't in the bottom 3 yet, although we might be by 9-40PM tonight. But I do think relegation is far more than just a possibility. The squad looks weak. Performances seem to have improved, but results haven't. We have very few home games against bottom half of the division teams, and we have away matches against all three of the sides below us. At home against those teams we lost 4-0 against one of them, and won the other two by slim margins, requiring 2 penalties in one game and a long range thunderbolt from someone who almost never scores in the other. I don't think it's overstating things to say that things don't look promising!

Wow, that last paragraph doesn't look pretty. I'm sure there are a few who are preparing a cutting reposte to your unbelievable idea that things don't look too promising but at least they don't burn heretics these days so you might get away with it.

The relegation to the 4th pales into insignificance for me when events of two seasons earlier at The Abbey Stadium are remembered. The day we dropped out of the top two divisions for the first time in our history will always be the darkest hour for me.
I would say we are about 6/4 against going down at the moment so anything above two's is looking the value.

 

[oldblade]

Unfortunately, although I am generally quite pessimistic by nature (well, for the last 30 years at any rate!), I don't think I am being unduly pessimistic at the moment. I think it's a pretty fair assessment. Our season so far speaks for itself.

To be sure of safety we need the equivalent of around 8 wins, which is more than we have won all season in all competitions. And only 4 wins have come at home.

Things can change pretty rapidly if you get a couple of wins and some momentum behind you. Warnock managed this, but the turnaround was almost instantaneous when he arrived, and I think the squad at that time was probably better than the current one.

Kendall took a while to start registering league wins, but although we didn't win many at first under his managent, we did stop losing and had the morale raising cup win against Arsenal.

 

[super_pig]

agree with you totally btw

 

[Muttley]

Ok then, who would follow the new Sheffield Reborn FC?

Not me.....I would be finished with football.

 

[Rudders]

Kendall took a while to start registering league wins, but although we didn't win many at first under his managent, we did stop losing and had the morale raising cup win against Arsenal.

He spent a fair amount of money too as well quite quickly if I recall. Doubt Adams has that luxury.

I enjoyed the central midfield of Patterson and Cowans - maybe also with Hutchison? Light years ahead of what we have now...

 

[Selly]

He spent a fair amount of money too as well quite quickly if I recall. Doubt Adams has that luxury.

I enjoyed the central midfield of Patterson and Cowans - maybe also with Hutchison? Light years ahead of what we have now...

Off teh top of my head he was able to bring in...

Patterson
Cowans
Walker
Hutchison
Taylor
White