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Post by axegas on May 20, 2022 16:10:19 GMT
The problem is no-one on here knows how advanced or serious Rovers participation in the Fruit Market project is, so we’re all just speculating without any real inside insight. If we’ve been working over the last couple of years on securing our place within the redevelopment and negotiations are looking good, then there’s no point in having this conversation about redeveloping the mem beyond perhaps replacing the south stand with another temporary structure and thinking of cost effective ways to keep capacity as high as possible. If it’s looking tenuous however, then yes it might be worth switching our attention to elsewhere, such as looking at costlier alternatives to increase capacity at the mem. Given the scale of the project it would take at least 5 or so years from now to move in, if everything was to go right. From a fans point of view that is a long time, but its still short enough to prevent us from spending significant amounts of money on the mem. That’s the predicament we’ve found ourselves in ever since we embarked on trying to build a stadium at UWE and a predicament we’ll have until we know the outcome of the Fruit Market plans which I suspect will force us to reconsider building elsewhere if all that time and effort invested proves to be for nothing once again. The reason nobody knows is probably because nothing is happening. There will be people on here that know traders, the BFS owners, work at BCC planning, be involved in Consultation, etc etc. Loose lips and all that, so the silence tells me that nothing is afloat. Just my opinion. It’s at an early stage and all indications thus far, I would say have pointed to some kind of development taking place on the land with Rovers involvement. We’ve heard Wael say something about it on the radio, we’ve had traders on here say that the sale is taking place, we’ve had a major investment company enter a period of exclusivity for the site and mention it in their annual report, we’ve had multiple articles from Bristol Post confirming our involvement. You won’t here anything from BCC because no plans have been submitted yet and its not their land. There’s not frequent updates about it sure, but there’s hardly been silence.
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Post by axegas on May 20, 2022 16:00:54 GMT
No not QP. Glasgow. I have my own views, which might be controversial. I think it all originated from right wing hate groups in the 1970s/80s. Like the NF and BNP. They chose to align themselves with Unionists because of the Union Jack waving, and at the same time were infiltrating and influencing football firms. Ripe young meat and easy pickings. The IRA were very active in those days as well. Which didn't make them popular. So young right wing hooligans adopted Rangers as their alternative club and role model, being the big Protestant club in Scotland, and professed a hate for Celtic. Some English teams have a similar divide, such as Liverpool/Everton and to a very small extent Man Utd/City, but it's very low key compared to Glasgow. This misunderstood loyalty has trickled down the years and still exists, although I'm not sure if your average 17 year old English football fan would even know why he is meant to be a Rangers fan. I'm not suggesting all English fans who also follow Rangers think this way. Many just have a second side and have chosen Rangers as a big name. But it's definitely a thing. There is a massive bias in favour of Rangers on the English terraces. Those are my thoughts. I've had them for many years but never expressed them. Maybe I'm completely wrong and I'd be interested in any other views. Or maybe just the majority of English Football fans relate to Rangers more than they do Celtic? Rangers Pro British, Celtic Pro Irish. The likes of Liverpool and Manchester which have big Irish Ancestral history may lean towards Celtic, but on the whole most English Football fans lean towards Rangers.
Plus the English players that signed for Rangers since the late 80's, Chris Woods, Gary Stevens, Trevor Steven, Terry Butcher, Ray Wilkins, Mark Walters. Mark Hately and of course Gazza in the mid 90's, probably swayed it too.
A lot of Rangers fans, especially from Glasgow support England rather than Scotland too. Likewise Celtic fans with Ireland.
That’s not true, I know Glaswegian Rangers fans and Glaswegian Celtic fans and they all support Scotland at major tournaments with varying degrees of enthusiasm. I think you’d struggle to find a Scottish Rangers fan support England, beyond perhaps a notion of wanting to see the UK as whole succeed on the international stage from some more pro-unionist ones. There’s more of a fondness from Celtic supporting Scots for Ireland, but again if its a case of Scotland vs Ireland at a major tournament, they’d be cheering on Scotland.
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Post by axegas on May 20, 2022 13:21:16 GMT
The problem is no-one on here knows how advanced or serious Rovers participation in the Fruit Market project is, so we’re all just speculating without any real inside insight. If we’ve been working over the last couple of years on securing our place within the redevelopment and negotiations are looking good, then there’s no point in having this conversation about redeveloping the mem beyond perhaps replacing the south stand with another temporary structure and thinking of cost effective ways to keep capacity as high as possible. If it’s looking tenuous however, then yes it might be worth switching our attention to elsewhere, such as looking at costlier alternatives to increase capacity at the mem.
Given the scale of the project it would take at least 5 or so years from now to move in, if everything was to go right. From a fans point of view that is a long time, but its still short enough to prevent us from spending significant amounts of money on the mem. That’s the predicament we’ve found ourselves in ever since we embarked on trying to build a stadium at UWE and a predicament we’ll have until we know the outcome of the Fruit Market plans which I suspect will force us to reconsider building elsewhere if all that time and effort invested proves to be for nothing once again.
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Post by axegas on May 20, 2022 10:13:27 GMT
I don’t think the local elections are that great of a gauge for what the national elections will be like in a few years time. Undoubtedly they show frustration in the two major parties and a resurgence of the Lib Dems which could well be a theme in 2024. However things like low turnout, absence of tactical voting, priority of local issues, stronger independent candidates ect will separate the results from the national vote. Plus the fact that a fair number of urban councils didn’t actually vote as their election cycles are different.
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Post by axegas on May 19, 2022 21:46:42 GMT
Hopefully Port Vale win the final. Sounds as if DC has had a tough, tough time of things this year, so it would be nice if he can also remember it for happier times.
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Post by axegas on May 19, 2022 21:42:21 GMT
The rate it’s going we’ll start seeing points deductions for fans running on the pitch soon.
I can’t remember a season where it’s been a big problem until this.
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Post by axegas on May 18, 2022 22:45:09 GMT
Yeah that’s right, I remember listening to a podcast featuring DC a little while after. It was through mutual consent with a rather tired and worn out DC having discussions with Starnes beforehand. They ended up agreeing that he needed a break and we parted ways with him. Had he put the case to Starnes for the January transfer window and more time, he more than likely wouldn’t have gone. So I wouldn’t say he was sacked. I was a bit gutted when he left because he was the only manager I was sad to see go apart from Francis ( 1st time) , but…. It seemed the right thing at the time . He was definitely pushed but we did it with good grace at the time … rightfully so. In fairness it worked pretty well for both parties. Coughlan took us on a bit of a journey and we’re now in a better place with JB again after a few poor appointments. DC didn’t set the world on fire at Walsall but is steadily regaining his managerial mojo once again. Definitely rooting for Port Vale in the playoffs.
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Post by axegas on May 18, 2022 22:37:10 GMT
He left, he wasn’t sacked. He could’ve stayed on had he wanted to. Wasn’t it mutual consent …… code for we think you should leave but we respect you ( for previous) so we’ll put out this statement ? Yeah that’s right, I remember listening to a podcast featuring DC a little while after. It was through mutual consent with a rather tired and worn out DC having discussions with Starnes beforehand. They ended up agreeing that he needed a break and we parted ways with him. Had he put the case to Starnes for the January transfer window and more time, he more than likely wouldn’t have gone. So I wouldn’t say he was sacked.
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Post by axegas on May 18, 2022 22:26:22 GMT
This is exactly why we don't get anywhere. We heard the exact same statements made when Geoff D ran the club, again when Nick H took over and now with Wael. With each passing of the baton we never appear to progress. So here we are, 26 years after moving into the Mem, we still have one of the worse stadiums in our division. I am not knocking Wael, he undoubtedly undid the fiscal damage that occured under the preceding regime. I do question his plan going forward though and I reiterate, this lack of progress started with a lack of due diligence, leading him to be hamstrung. The UWE plan under the preceding regime was fiscally untenable (in my opinion, obviously) and his lack of due diligence left him holding the baby so to speak. Now he is in deep with a huge equity stake, personally I cannot see an exit route. We are back where were in 2016. A hugely emotional promotion from the bottom tier. Although at that time we appeared to have an equally charismatic manager but arguably more emotionally stable. We all remember how that ended when the penny dropped for him that the investment into the club infrastructure was not going to happen. As an ambitious man he left. Is Joey Barton and less ambitious? I don't think so. The difference is that Wael is financially even more committed than he was then. Sporting wise the club is in exactly the same position. Why does anyone think this is not going to end up in the same place? The "ambitious man"(DC) did not leave, he was sacked and quite rightly so at the time. He left, he wasn’t sacked. He could’ve stayed on had he wanted to.
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Post by axegas on May 18, 2022 14:43:13 GMT
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Post by axegas on May 18, 2022 12:47:23 GMT
If we’re filling the rest of the mem, then the capacity issue just becomes more pertinent. Explain? Well, I don’t think we’ll get away with allocating visiting clubs less than 10% of the capacity of the ground in L1 as much as we’ve done a few times towards the end of this season. So if clubs are going to take greater amounts of fans to the mem this season, and we are filling the rest of the ground regularly. Then we won’t be able to allocate the visiting east terrace or an extra block of the south stand to home supporters, like we did against Scunthorpe. In some ways it’s a nice issue to have, but in others it’s frustrating as a home ST holder that you will struggle to bring guests along for the big games because we’ll only have 2000 POTD tickets available after 6000 ST sales and away fans.
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Post by axegas on May 18, 2022 12:32:53 GMT
I’d be surprised considering we’re barely capable of allocating away fans 1000 tickets with our capacity at the moment. Does it matter if we're filling the rest of the Mem? If we’re filling the rest of the mem, then the capacity issue just becomes more pertinent.
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Post by axegas on May 18, 2022 12:28:43 GMT
I cant stand Swindon but they will bring thousands to the mem (so more money for us) and it is a good away day. Mansfield seem to have some money behind them so could kick on in lg1 def do not want them up. Plenty of Lg1 Teams will bring thousands next Season and it's not really a good away day in Swindon. I’d be surprised considering we’re barely capable of allocating away fans 1000 tickets with our capacity at the moment.
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Post by axegas on May 15, 2022 15:31:57 GMT
why on earth would you want West Ham to win that could allow Liverpool to win the title. Their fans booed on Saturday but seem to forget the Heysel Stadium disaster when Liverpool fans rioted killing 39 Jueventus supporters and injuring six hundred. 14 Liverpool fans were jailed for manslaughter, English teams were banned from Europe, the worst day in English football. Liverpool FC have nothing to be proud about. They bang on about Hillsborough where no one deliberately went out to cause trouble or injury but forget their own awful failings. They bang on about Hillsborough for a good reason. Absolutely shocking that the justice system protected the police present that day all those years when they were the ones at fault.
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Post by axegas on May 15, 2022 14:08:25 GMT
It’s not EFL but watching Stockport County vs Halifax Town. Full house, Stockport have been on the front foot and look like they wouldn’t be out of place in League Two. Wouldn’t be surprised to see them challenging for another promotion should they go up.
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Post by axegas on May 15, 2022 12:26:25 GMT
2-0 McKirdy again.
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Post by axegas on May 15, 2022 11:56:57 GMT
14,000 at the county ground today. Would be roughly what we’d be getting for a big game like this is we had capacity for it.
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Post by axegas on May 15, 2022 11:26:25 GMT
Swindon 1-0 up, decent strike from their top scorer.
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Post by axegas on May 14, 2022 15:09:10 GMT
Ah yes, I knew that but forgot whilst typing that post. It’s bit more brutal that way, however it does give teams that have finished higher up the table more of an advantage, which I kind of like. Not sure I’m a fan of them playing it at Tottenham given it’s almost certainly going to be played between Wrexham, Notts County, Solihull Moors, Grimsby, Chesterfield or Halifax. Would have been far better to have it at Villa Park or Elland Road. Not sure you can and pick and choose the final venue each season based on who you think might make the final? The new format does seem to favour the teams finishing 2nd and 3rd compared to the EFL format, which is probably a good thing, unless you support a team which finished 4th or lower. Well this year they did get to pick and choose because it’s usually at Wembley but that was unavailable so they choose Spurs new ground instead. Yeah it favours second and third, but If you’ve finished 2nd on 90 odd points during the season and have to then take part of the playoffs you kind of deserve it.
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Post by axegas on May 14, 2022 12:54:14 GMT
I think we’ll struggle next season to some degree, not like the last time we were in League One, but I don’t think we’ll be competing towards the top half of the table.
This season has really underlined the difference in terms of quality between League One and Two for me. There’s a core of about 5/6 teams in League Two that wouldn’t look totally out of place in League One, but below that there has been some real dross. In League One there are no easy games, and about 9 or 10 teams that constitute a massive step up from anything you’d find at League Two level.
I trust the recruitment that’s now in place, particularly the loan recruitment which has been absolutely spot on. I think we’ll need a few gems from the loan market and hopefully we’ll see Connolly and Evans return which would make a big difference to us. We do also have a core of players such as Belshaw, Coutts, Harry Anderson, Collins who could certainly perform to a league one level, so that makes me a bit more optimistic as well.
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