Season Ticket Discussion 2024/25

[Squeak]

Agreed (other than Tyldesly).

I can't remember the last time I watched a CL game that wasn't the final in it's entirety. I watch the YouTube highlights, but that's it generally.

If it was easily accessible I would.

I'm the same but have found that I am likely to watch the highlights less and less. All about the money now. I think I preferred it when it was a simple knock out format over two legs. Obviously, the money guys at clubs don't want that.

 

[jd1981]

Oh dude!, you are in for a shock

View attachment 12009

Nah give 31k attendances
Quality Football
Less midweek matches
And buying that crap beer at that price really?
KDB, Phil Foden, Erling Haaland, Ederson, Saka, Rice, Kane, Rodri, Salah, Van Dijk, Allison, just to mention a few we’ve seen over the years here. Give me that over watching promoted league 1 cloggers or trying to make a name for themselves type players in the championship.
250 away fans on Tuesday night and refs that are worst than we suffer now.

 

[darlowolf64]

I've noticed things get said like 'football has more to compete with as kids are saturated with other types of entertainment than they were previously'.

How about not putting football behind a ridiculously high paywall then geniuses

Champions league on ITV was so good, everyone could watch it

Clubs could also not price everyone out of attending games...

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

I'm the same but have found that I am likely to watch the highlights less and less. All about the money now. I think I preferred it when it was a simple knock out format over two legs. Obviously, the money guys at clubs don't want that.

The old European Cup (which hasn't existed for well over 30 years) allowed for some laughably easy runs. Nothing like the prestige now of winning the Champions League where it is basically impossible to fluke your way through to the semi or even the final with soft draws.

Just to pick five examples:

Liverpool in 76/77: Crusaders, Trabzonspor, Saint-Etienne, FC Zürich, Borussia Mönchengladbach
Forest in 78/79: Liverpool (fair enough), AEK Athens, Grasshoppers, Köln, Malmö
Villa in 81/82: Valur, Dynamo Berlin, Dynamo Kyiv, Anderlecht, Bayern München
Liverpool in 83/84: Odense, Athletic Bilbao, Benfica, Dinamo Bucharest, Roma
Liverpool in 84/85: Lech Poznan, Benfica, Austria Wien, Panathinaikos, Juventus

It was simply nowhere near the quality of what's on offer now, especially as many countries that now have decent domestic leagues were massively weak at the time (Turkey and Portugal in particular, and with the Soviet league being what it was, loads of good teams from there missed out because of there only being one spot available).

Not to say that the CL format that existed before this season or the current one are perfect, but the challenge isn't even close to comparable. And seeing Man City play Larne or TNS over two legs wouldn't be very good to watch.

 

[AndyWolves]

Clubs could also not price everyone out of attending games...

Absolutely, football in general is too expensive.

 

[Squeak]

The old European Cup (which hasn't existed for well over 30 years) allowed for some laughably easy runs. Nothing like the prestige now of winning the Champions League where it is basically impossible to fluke your way through to the semi or even the final with soft draws.

Just to pick five examples:

Liverpool in 76/77: Crusaders, Trabzonspor, Saint-Etienne, FC Zürich, Borussia Mönchengladbach
Forest in 78/79: Liverpool (fair enough), AEK Athens, Grasshoppers, Köln, Malmö
Villa in 81/82: Valur, Dynamo Berlin, Dynamo Kyiv, Anderlecht, Bayern München
Liverpool in 83/84: Odense, Athletic Bilbao, Benfica, Dinamo Bucharest, Roma
Liverpool in 84/85: Lech Poznan, Benfica, Austria Wien, Panathinaikos, Juventus

It was simply nowhere near the quality of what's on offer now, especially as many countries that now have decent domestic leagues were massively weak at the time (Turkey and Portugal in particular, and with the Soviet league being what it was, loads of good teams from there missed out because of there only being one spot available).

Not to say that the CL format that existed before this season or the current one are perfect, but the challenge isn't even close to comparable. And seeing Man City play Larne or TNS over two legs wouldn't be very good to watch.

Yes, that is a very decent counter argument for keeping the CL in the current type of system. I guess I'm yearning for the days when football was football and you could actually make a tackle worthy of its name.

I totally agree about the quality of play now and the type of players but I do miss the days when Frank Clark had every chance of winning the European Cup. I guess it was more about equality and giving more teams a chance to compete than the seemingly closed shop we now have in our domestic league and in Europe. Often wonder what Stan Cullis would make of things now.

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

Just to add, if you were to have the league winners only in this year's CL, this is what you'd have:

Real Madrid
Man City
Bayer Leverkusen
Internazionale
Paris Saint-Germain
PSV
Sporting CP
Club Brugge
Celtic
Sturm Graz
Shakhtar Donetsk
Red Star Belgrade
Galatasaray
Young Boys
Dinamo Zagreb
Sparta Prague
Bodo/Glimt
Midtjylland
PAOK
Maccabi Tel Aviv
APOEL
Malmö
Jagielonnia Bialystok
Ferencvaros
Qarabag
Steaua Bucharest
Ludogorets
Slovan Bratislava
Ordabasy
Celje
Petrocub Hinesti
Ballkani
FK RFS
Shamrock Rovers
HJK
Panevezys
Pyunik
Dinamo Minsk
Borac-Banka Luka
Differdange 03
KI
Larne
Hamrun Spartans
Dinamo Batumi
Flora
Vikingur
Egnatia
TNS
Lincoln Red Imps
Struga
UE Santa Coloma
Decic
Virtus

That would be an AWFUL tournament. How many games to go through and you know that at best, there's only about five teams who are realistically in with a chance of winning it.

Loads of teams in the bottom half of that list would get relegated from the Championship and the real stragglers are way off even League Two level.

 

[Tony Towner]

It's not like with like though, other than within Britain nation to nation migration was fairly rare so the Anderlecht Villa played in '82 isn't comparable to them playing today. A player like Frankie Vercautern wouldn't still be playing for them at the age of 25/26 like he was then and a Gary Williams type wouldn't be getting a game for Villa