Tue Oct 03, 2017 10:55 am
Tue Oct 03, 2017 10:59 am
worcester_ccfc wrote:Tuesday 3rd October 2017
By Will Hayward
Cardiff City fans, there is something you need to know. You are heading somewhere miserable.
Last Tuesday, I went with my Bluebird mate to Cardiff City against Leeds. While there I watched the systematic dismantling of title rivals Leeds by a Cardiff team that was oozing with confidence, pace and power.
I looked around at the cheering, happy Bluebirds fans, all thinking that this could be the year they return to the promised land of the Premier League.
As a long-suffering West Brom fan I wanted to scream at them “don’t do it”.
After been labelled for years as a “yoyo” club, my beloved Baggies have established themselves as an average Premier League team for about seven years.
With this experience please believe me when I say that the journey is far more fun than the destination. There is no sugar-coating it, the top tier of English football is a recipe for misery.
“But it will be great” I hear you cry, “We will be on Match of the Day every week, earn a boatload of cash and see some of the best players in the world.”
All of those things are correct but to quote Admiral Ackbar in Star Wars: “It's a trap!”
Yes, you will be on Match of the Day every week but there are a few caveats to that.
If you play any of the other smaller clubs (or lesser clubs as you will be known to certain pundits), prepare for a late night. You will get a meagre four minutes after Goal of the Month. If you do play a bigger (richer) team you may get on earlier. Unfortunately, this will go one of two ways.
If you lose, you will be subjected to a comprehensive analysis of how perfectly their £100m striker dissected your defence (a defence that was assembled for about the equivalent price of Neymar’s foot).
If you win, you can forget about credit. It won’t be “didn’t Neymar’s foot defend well?” It will instead be an inquisition into what tactical flaws the opposition manager has that meant his team couldn’t squash the irrelevant bug that is your club.
“Well at least we will see the best players in the world” you say.
You’re right, you will see players like Hazard, Lukaku and Kane playing.
However, it is the same as enjoying watching boxing, and actually taking part in a bout. Admiring a boxer from ringside is very different to having him or her repeatedly punch you in the face.
Having the top players in the world at the Cardiff City Stadium will mean you see some scintillating football...played against you. If you are anything like me and your happiness is, somewhat pathetically, intrinsically linked to your football team, these repeated face punches soon lose their sense of fun.
Looking back at the best times I have most enjoyed being a football fan in recent years, it was all when we were chasing the top league, not in it.
There is something about the Premier League, every fan is perpetually disappointed.
If your team is one of the top six clubs, you have a one in six chance of considering your season a success. Unless you are one who actually manages to get your team of multimillionaires to win the league, you consider the season a failure.
You could see your team score bags of goals against “lesser clubs” (vomit) and yet all that is forgotten when at the end of the season you sit third on +50 goal difference. You are deemed to have failed.
If you are a smaller team, you may get the glow of staying up in that first year but then it will be quickly replaced by disappointment when your team fails to spend enough money or as every cliche-spouting pundit says – “show ambition”.
Over the seasons, just surviving won’t be enough and managers will fall by the wayside for not playing the “right kind” of football.
Don’t get me wrong, you will be delighted when your team smashes its transfer record and wage cap on a big signing. However, this will only mean that the pressure is on because relegation can now equal insolvency and the liquidation of your team.
Even if you do the impossible (or, as it is now called, “doing a Leicester”) and win it against the odds, the hero manager who inspired that victory could be sacked within months.
Bluebirds, I implore you to enjoy the ride. Bottle every moment of the fun away trips to Burton where you can get in for less than a tenner. What awaits you is paying through the nose for disappointment and unfulfilled lofty expectations. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone, not even a Wolves fan.
Tue Oct 03, 2017 11:09 am
Tue Oct 03, 2017 11:22 am
Tue Oct 03, 2017 11:32 am
Tue Oct 03, 2017 11:54 am
Tue Oct 03, 2017 11:55 am
Tue Oct 03, 2017 11:58 am
Tue Oct 03, 2017 12:02 pm
Tue Oct 03, 2017 12:03 pm
worcester_ccfc wrote:“ WHY WE SHOULD NOT WANT PREMIER LEAGUE FOOTBALL “
By a WBA fan.
Tuesday 3rd October 2017
By Will Hayward
Cardiff City fans, there is something you need to know. You are heading somewhere miserable.
Last Tuesday, I went with my Bluebird mate to Cardiff City against Leeds. While there I watched the systematic dismantling of title rivals Leeds by a Cardiff team that was oozing with confidence, pace and power.
I looked around at the cheering, happy Bluebirds fans, all thinking that this could be the year they return to the promised land of the Premier League.
As a long-suffering West Brom fan I wanted to scream at them “don’t do it”.
After been labelled for years as a “yoyo” club, my beloved Baggies have established themselves as an average Premier League team for about seven years.
With this experience please believe me when I say that the journey is far more fun than the destination. There is no sugar-coating it, the top tier of English football is a recipe for misery.
“But it will be great” I hear you cry, “We will be on Match of the Day every week, earn a boatload of cash and see some of the best players in the world.”
All of those things are correct but to quote Admiral Ackbar in Star Wars: “It's a trap!”
Yes, you will be on Match of the Day every week but there are a few caveats to that.
If you play any of the other smaller clubs (or lesser clubs as you will be known to certain pundits), prepare for a late night. You will get a meagre four minutes after Goal of the Month. If you do play a bigger (richer) team you may get on earlier. Unfortunately, this will go one of two ways.
If you lose, you will be subjected to a comprehensive analysis of how perfectly their £100m striker dissected your defence (a defence that was assembled for about the equivalent price of Neymar’s foot).
If you win, you can forget about credit. It won’t be “didn’t Neymar’s foot defend well?” It will instead be an inquisition into what tactical flaws the opposition manager has that meant his team couldn’t squash the irrelevant bug that is your club.
“Well at least we will see the best players in the world” you say.
You’re right, you will see players like Hazard, Lukaku and Kane playing.
However, it is the same as enjoying watching boxing, and actually taking part in a bout. Admiring a boxer from ringside is very different to having him or her repeatedly punch you in the face.
Having the top players in the world at the Cardiff City Stadium will mean you see some scintillating football...played against you. If you are anything like me and your happiness is, somewhat pathetically, intrinsically linked to your football team, these repeated face punches soon lose their sense of fun.
Looking back at the best times I have most enjoyed being a football fan in recent years, it was all when we were chasing the top league, not in it.
There is something about the Premier League, every fan is perpetually disappointed.
If your team is one of the top six clubs, you have a one in six chance of considering your season a success. Unless you are one who actually manages to get your team of multimillionaires to win the league, you consider the season a failure.
You could see your team score bags of goals against “lesser clubs” (vomit) and yet all that is forgotten when at the end of the season you sit third on +50 goal difference. You are deemed to have failed.
If you are a smaller team, you may get the glow of staying up in that first year but then it will be quickly replaced by disappointment when your team fails to spend enough money or as every cliche-spouting pundit says – “show ambition”.
Over the seasons, just surviving won’t be enough and managers will fall by the wayside for not playing the “right kind” of football.
Don’t get me wrong, you will be delighted when your team smashes its transfer record and wage cap on a big signing. However, this will only mean that the pressure is on because relegation can now equal insolvency and the liquidation of your team.
Even if you do the impossible (or, as it is now called, “doing a Leicester”) and win it against the odds, the hero manager who inspired that victory could be sacked within months.
Bluebirds, I implore you to enjoy the ride. Bottle every moment of the fun away trips to Burton where you can get in for less than a tenner. What awaits you is paying through the nose for disappointment and unfulfilled lofty expectations. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone, not even a Wolves fan.
Tue Oct 03, 2017 12:09 pm
Tue Oct 03, 2017 12:15 pm
worcester_ccfc wrote:“ WHY WE SHOULD NOT WANT PREMIER LEAGUE FOOTBALL “
By a WBA fan.
Tuesday 3rd October 2017
By Will Hayward
Cardiff City fans, there is something you need to know. You are heading somewhere miserable.
Last Tuesday, I went with my Bluebird mate to Cardiff City against Leeds. While there I watched the systematic dismantling of title rivals Leeds by a Cardiff team that was oozing with confidence, pace and power.
I looked around at the cheering, happy Bluebirds fans, all thinking that this could be the year they return to the promised land of the Premier League.
As a long-suffering West Brom fan I wanted to scream at them “don’t do it”.
After been labelled for years as a “yoyo” club, my beloved Baggies have established themselves as an average Premier League team for about seven years.
With this experience please believe me when I say that the journey is far more fun than the destination. There is no sugar-coating it, the top tier of English football is a recipe for misery.
“But it will be great” I hear you cry, “We will be on Match of the Day every week, earn a boatload of cash and see some of the best players in the world.”
All of those things are correct but to quote Admiral Ackbar in Star Wars: “It's a trap!”
Yes, you will be on Match of the Day every week but there are a few caveats to that.
If you play any of the other smaller clubs (or lesser clubs as you will be known to certain pundits), prepare for a late night. You will get a meagre four minutes after Goal of the Month. If you do play a bigger (richer) team you may get on earlier. Unfortunately, this will go one of two ways.
If you lose, you will be subjected to a comprehensive analysis of how perfectly their £100m striker dissected your defence (a defence that was assembled for about the equivalent price of Neymar’s foot).
If you win, you can forget about credit. It won’t be “didn’t Neymar’s foot defend well?” It will instead be an inquisition into what tactical flaws the opposition manager has that meant his team couldn’t squash the irrelevant bug that is your club.
“Well at least we will see the best players in the world” you say.
You’re right, you will see players like Hazard, Lukaku and Kane playing.
However, it is the same as enjoying watching boxing, and actually taking part in a bout. Admiring a boxer from ringside is very different to having him or her repeatedly punch you in the face.
Having the top players in the world at the Cardiff City Stadium will mean you see some scintillating football...played against you. If you are anything like me and your happiness is, somewhat pathetically, intrinsically linked to your football team, these repeated face punches soon lose their sense of fun.
Looking back at the best times I have most enjoyed being a football fan in recent years, it was all when we were chasing the top league, not in it.
There is something about the Premier League, every fan is perpetually disappointed.
If your team is one of the top six clubs, you have a one in six chance of considering your season a success. Unless you are one who actually manages to get your team of multimillionaires to win the league, you consider the season a failure.
You could see your team score bags of goals against “lesser clubs” (vomit) and yet all that is forgotten when at the end of the season you sit third on +50 goal difference. You are deemed to have failed.
If you are a smaller team, you may get the glow of staying up in that first year but then it will be quickly replaced by disappointment when your team fails to spend enough money or as every cliche-spouting pundit says – “show ambition”.
Over the seasons, just surviving won’t be enough and managers will fall by the wayside for not playing the “right kind” of football.
Don’t get me wrong, you will be delighted when your team smashes its transfer record and wage cap on a big signing. However, this will only mean that the pressure is on because relegation can now equal insolvency and the liquidation of your team.
Even if you do the impossible (or, as it is now called, “doing a Leicester”) and win it against the odds, the hero manager who inspired that victory could be sacked within months.
Bluebirds, I implore you to enjoy the ride. Bottle every moment of the fun away trips to Burton where you can get in for less than a tenner. What awaits you is paying through the nose for disappointment and unfulfilled lofty expectations. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone, not even a Wolves fan.
Tue Oct 03, 2017 12:24 pm
Tue Oct 03, 2017 12:24 pm
Tue Oct 03, 2017 12:28 pm
Tue Oct 03, 2017 12:31 pm
Tue Oct 03, 2017 12:47 pm
Tue Oct 03, 2017 12:54 pm
Tue Oct 03, 2017 1:00 pm
Tue Oct 03, 2017 1:13 pm
skiprat wrote:We are top of the championship now.crowds in my opinion are disappointing'even though we are relatively cheap to watch.if we fail to go up it will be hard to hold on to the support we get currently.the novelty of top flight football would last for years as the club has only played 15 top flight seasons in its 97 year league history.
Tue Oct 03, 2017 1:32 pm
Tue Oct 03, 2017 1:34 pm
Tue Oct 03, 2017 1:44 pm
Martyr Bluebird wrote:With all due respect I disagree with this post. Yes it’s true that we’ll face a lot more hardship with ticket prices increasing, losing to the better sides, not being able to compete financially but that’s all part of being a football fan.
If you don’t want to be at the top then you shouldn’t be in the game, seeing Cardiff represent our fans and our country in the best league in the world is a privilege. Every club in the football league the same dream to play at the top flight.
I may be talking more off personal opinion but does Match Of The Day really mean something to most fans? Watching my team play and seeing how they perform, us fans know how well they do, we don’t need Lineker and co to give us the appreciation we deserve. That’s what we are for!
It’s all part of the same journey going up and back down again, the rebrand, it’s all part of our story on how we get to the top and who knows if we stay there or win trophies.
Even as Cardiff fans, you can’t deny the way the Jacks played under Rodgers in the PL, they had credit in abundance and rightfully so, they didn’t have any world renowned superstars, they played football the right way under a top manager. They beat the best teams on times, won trophies and played in Europe.
Like I said, it’s all part of being a football fan.
Tue Oct 03, 2017 2:24 pm
Tue Oct 03, 2017 2:35 pm
RhiwEbbwBluebird wrote:Difference here is cardiff have much more potential to enjoy premier league than west brom or say swansea. Much smaller clubs potential wise.
If cardiff were say established for 10 plus years there we could grow and grow and push for top 6 and europa leauge imo now that would be good
Tue Oct 03, 2017 2:39 pm
TaffEmbankment wrote:Great article - totally agree.
The journey is the destination lads.
Tue Oct 03, 2017 2:39 pm
Tue Oct 03, 2017 2:44 pm
Tue Oct 03, 2017 2:54 pm
CaerphillyBluebird15 wrote:RhiwEbbwBluebird wrote:Difference here is cardiff have much more potential to enjoy premier league than west brom or say swansea. Much smaller clubs potential wise.
If cardiff were say established for 10 plus years there we could grow and grow and push for top 6 and europa leauge imo now that would be good
Slow down haha
Tue Oct 03, 2017 3:03 pm