Avinalaff

City are not the Robin Hood of football, and I don't buy this 'break up the monopoly' angle that yourself and others attempt to sell. City are not out to do that. They are out to 'become' the monopoly, or have a piece of it, and that isn't the same thing. I'm not sure why fans who are not part of the Sky 4, should welcome a Sky 5, or even welcome a 'different' sky 4. Had City's owners given every club a cash injection, it would still be bad for football. The only way to save football (if you agree it needs saving) is for it to come back down to earth. The daft thing is City will spend far more than they can ever win. That is not running a business. It's simply unsporting, and should be stopped. The first bad step was breaking away and forming the Premiership. Clubs thought they could get rich, and some did. The ones that didn't dragged themselves into debt trying to stay in it. Football isn't just about the UK, but about every other country too. How would 'we' feel if every star that benefited from UK academies sodded off to Spain to join a so called elite league? That is happening to many countries. I'd be quite happy to keep the English game English and the Spanish game Spanish. I'm sure the English game would improve enough for it to be entertaining, just like it was for decades. Heck, we won the World Cup in 1966. I'd be quite happy if Liverpool clubs only played players from Liverpool etc.

I'm sure the clubs are all for saving money. Unfortunately they listen to fans too much. If it was me, I'd be inclined to tell fans this is how it is and if you don't like it feel free to take up golf.

I don't think Everton have fallen as far as some think. We had horrendous injuries not long ago that slowed us right down, and losing 2 of the best midfielders we've had in a long time didn't help, but we're still one of the better teams in the league on our day. Yesterday is one game. We can play better than that (and worse too) but we generally out play most teams other than the top 5 or 6, and we still generally compete with those when we're in form. Our biggest problem isn't that we're moving backwards, but more that other teams are spending money. I think those teams have to spend quite a lot just to have what we already have, but spend they will it seems as different investors come in. We are in need of 5 or 6 players to replace our older lads, and then probably another 5 or 6 in order to give us a challenging squad, but no matter how much clubs spend, only one team can win. For me, the key isn't to spend more, but to spend less. Football can't manage the cost of the game. This is now evident as multi millionaires can no longewr afford to run clubs, and billionaires are needed in order to compete. For me, the game was a working class pass time. It was never intended to be a toy for the filthy rich, but that is what it is becoming. Wnen Francis was sold for a million, the writing was on the wall, but nobody took note. Now it's too late. I think top flight football will implode soon.

They got a lucky deflection to be fair, followed by an awful mistake from Drenthe (an attacking player). When Saha came on, he had about 3 touches all game, and did zilch. I'd rather Vellios played than Saha at the moment, as I think Louis will be putting his feet up somewhere this time next year.

http://forums.cnet.com/7723-6122_102-411998.html http://www.browserchoice.eu/BrowserChoice/browserchoice_en.htm

I don't want to be the stand out obstacle for your possible good intentions here, but your timing is terrible to be fair bud. It sounds like another Daisy Cutter article in the making. We've just had a match against City, and the obvious comparisons between fortunes, and now we have a City fan asking us to dwell further on matters of hardship. It's a little similar to 'rubbing it in' if you want honesty mate. Goodison is a little different to Maine Road. It's not just 'any' football ground. Quoted: Goodison Park was the first major football stadium built in England. Only Scotland had more advanced grounds; Rangers opened Ibrox in 1887, while Celtic Park was officially inaugurated at the same time as Goodison Park. Everton's ground-breaking development at Mere Green was to set the trend for football stadia throughout the country. The Blues initially spent up to £3000 on laying out the ground and building stands on three sides. Kelly Brothers of Walton built two uncovered stands each for 4000 people, and a covered stand seating 3000, at a total cost of £1,460. Outside, hoardings cost a further £150, gates and sheds cost £132 10s and 12 turnstiles added another £7 15s to the bill. The ground was dubbed Goodison Park and was opened on 24 August 1892, by Lord Kinnaird and Frederick Wall of the Football Association. Somewhat confusingly, the 12,000-strong crowd saw a short athletics meeting followed by a selection of music and a fireworks display. Everton's first game there was on 2 September 1892 when they beat Bolton 4-2. The publications "Out Of Doors", reported the following in October 1892: "Behold Goodison Park! No single picture could take in the entire scene the ground presents, it is so magnificently large, for it rivals the greater American baseball pitches. On three sides of the field of play there are tall covered stands, and on the fourth side the ground has been so well banked up with thousands of loads of cinders that a complete view of the game can be had from any portion. "It appears to be one of the finest and most complete grounds in the kingdom, and it is hoped that the public will liberally support the promoters." A year after moving, in 1883, Everton were FA Cup finalists. They were then runners up again in the First Division in 1895. The ground hosted its firs FA Cup final in 1894 when Notts County beat Bolton, watched by a crowd of 37,000. At this time, Everton were the richest club in the country, and regular league gates such as the 30,000 which attended in February 1893 were still regarded as enormous. Despite the revolutionary initial developments, it was not long before Goodison Park was improved even further. A new Bullens Road stand was built in 1895 at a cost of £3,407 and the open Goodison Road side was covered for £403, records show. Meanwhile competition in the city was reaching peak levels. Everton were again runners up in both the league and FA Cup, while across Stanley Park, Liverpool won their first championship in 1901. The Goodison Park of today really began to take shape after the turn of the century, beginning in 1907 with the building of a double-decker stand at the Park End, costing £13,000. In 1909, the large Main Stand on Goodison Road was built. Costing £28,000 it housed all the offices and players' facilities, and survived until 1971. At the same time another £12,000 was spent on concreting over the terracing and replacing the cinder running track. A reporter from ‘Athletic News' wrote in the summer of 1909: "Visitors to Goodison Park will be astonished at the immensity of the new double-decker stand". The architect was Archibold Leitch, and the front balcony bore his criss-cross trademark, which can still be seen on the Bullens Road stand opposite. Having regained its status as the best equipped ground in the nation, Everton hosted the 1910 Cup Final replay between Newcastle and Barnsley. A massive 69,000 attended. Then on 13 July 1913, Goodison became the first league venue to be visited by a ruling monarch, when George V and Queen Mary came to visit local schoolchildren at the ground. It certainly wasn't just football that took place at Goodison though! During the First World War it was used by the Territorial Army for drill practice. Soon after, the US baseball teams Chicago White Sox and New York Giants played an exhibition match at the ground. One player reportedly managed to hit a ball right over the Main Stand. The next big change took place in 1926, when at a cost of £30,000 another double-decker, similar to the Main Stand, was built on the Bullens Road Side opposite. Again, Leitch was the architect. In the 1930s, Everton borrowed an idea from Aberdeen, who they had visited for a friendly. Pittodrie was the home to what were reputedly the first ever dug-outs for coaching staff. From Pittodrie and Goodison Park the idea soon spread, and now the covered dug-out is a feature of almost every ground worldwide. Goodison enjoyed another royal visit in 1938, when George VI and Queen Elizabeth, (the mother of current Queen Elizabeth II), came to Everton and saw the new Gwladys Street Stand, just completed for £50,000. Goodison Park thereby became the only ground in Britain to have four double-decker stands and was newly affirmed as the most advanced stadium in Britain. Goodison Park suffered quite badly during the Second World War, because of its proximity to Liverpool's docks, and the club received £5,000 for repairs from the War Damage Commission. Shortly after the work was completed, Everton enjoyed their highest ever attendance, 78,299 for the visit of Liverpool in Division One, on 18 September 1948. Another familiar footballing adornment arrived at Everton in October 1957. The Goodison Park floodlights were switched on for an Everton v Liverpool friendly on 9 October. A year later the club made another revolutionary move, spending £16,000 installing 20 miles of electric wire underneath the pitch. The system melted frost and ice most effectively, but the drains could not handle the extra quantities of water, so in 1960 the pitch was dug up and new drainage pipes laid. The 1960s, like the 1930s, saw Everton win the Championship twice and the FA Cup once, and in 1966 Goodison Park staged five games in the World Cup, including that memorable quarter final between North Korea and Portugal. No other English venue apart from Wembley staged so many World Cup games. The next ground development took place in 1971, when the 1909 double-decker Main Stand on Goodison Road was demolished to make way for a massive new three-tiered Main Stand. The old stand had cost £28,000 and was then considered immense. The new stand cost a huge £1 million and was nearly twice the size, and was the largest in Britain until 1974, when Chelsea opened their mammoth East Stand. Because the Goodison Road Stand is so tall, the floodlight pylons were taken down and lamps put on gantries along the roof. The old-fashioned Bullens Road pitched roof was replaced by a much flatter modern roof and similar gantries installed there also. When the Safety of Sports Grounds Act came into effect in 1977, Goodison Park's capacity was greatly reduced from 56,000 to 35,000, mainly due to outdated entrances and exits. As a consequence, Everton had to part with £250,000 in order to boost capacity back up to 52,800. The 1986 figure stood at 53,419, of which 24,419 were seated. In the early 1980's the original corrugated roofing of the Gwladys Street Stand was replaced by blue cladding, giving the roof a rich colourful look. Then, in 1987, the pitched roof was replaced by an upturned sloping roof extending out over the terracing below, which joined the roof of the Bullens Road, creating a continuous roof on two sides of the ground. The next development was the conversion of Goodison to an all seater stadium, following the Taylor Report, in the aftermath of the Hillsborough disaster. This required the conversion of the paddock, enclosure and Gwladys Street terracing into seated accommodation. The Park End terracing remained temporarily but was only opened for big games. The reason for this was the intended redevelopment of the Park End. This came to fruition in the early part of 1994. The last time spectators stood on the terrace was on 19th January at the FA Cup 3rd Round replay against Bolton. The old stand was pulled down during February, with construction beginning soon after. The new Stanley Park End stand is a single tier cantilever stand with a capacity of 6,000. The stand was opened on Saturday 17 September 1994 by David Hunt MP. A contribution of £1.3M was also given by the Football Trust. The completion of the Park End brought Goodison Park's capacity up to 40,100, a figure exceeded at the time by only the projected capacities of Old Trafford and Anfield, neither of which were in such a confined area as Goodison Park. During the Premier League years there have been only superficial changes to the ground. The Club's focus has been on securing a new permanent home, with plans for a ground on the city's King's Dock in the late 1990s eventually falling foul of spiralling development costs. A painstaking search for an alternative culminated with plans submitted as part of a three-way partnership with Knowsley Borough Council, Tesco and the Club for a retail and ground development in the Kirkby area of Merseyside. In 2009, following an extensive review process, the plans were rejected by government. Goodison remains largely unchanged since the development of the Park End stand - although terraced housing behind the new stand was purchased and demolished in the late 1990s to accomodate additional parking and the erection of a marquee that provides additional matchday hospitality facilities. The ground capacity is now 40,157.

Flipping heck Haf, you're not half hard on the guys who run the club lol. Moyes has to do what he can, and what he feels is the best option. Maybe he felt if we went out to attack City we would get absolutely stuffed. You can't be a manager, and please fans every week whilst keeping your job. You have to bend with the footballing winds, or break. Let's see what January brings us in the market, if anything, as we're a little thread bare at present.

He got a goal for Tranmere today, even if it was an easy tap in. They were beaten 2-1 by Preston I think.

Can't see why it would be your fault mate, more curious as to why you have that html following you around.

Who are you on Bluemoon mate? You have a pm btw.

I don't disagree mate to be fair, but I've seen it all before with your lads being all nice on Everton forums and then becoming gobshites again as soon as they log back in to Bluemoon. I was always the guy who tried to find good in everybody, but I can't be arsed with City fans any more, no disrespect to any decent fans out there. After 3 seasons chatting with them, I've come to have a balanced opinion, and even up until today, I still had time for a few, but my eyes have been opened lately and for every good lad there are a thousand dickheads unfortunately.

I've given City fans a bigger chance than most to be fair bud, but even my own patience has worn thin with them over the last few years. I appreciate there are still the 'good ole boys' when it comes to their fans, but they're well and truly in the minority now. There's a huge lack of class with modern City fans.

Fanchester, I've dealt direct with the Manchester public and also the retail sector, and they're passionate and decent people, just like anywhere else. The difference in Manchester though is that as soon as the topic of conversation turns to football, a different personality rises to the surface. Respect is something to be lost, to which I agree, but with City fans, I think they're on a crusade in which to lose respect in world record time. I've posted on your forums for several years, and got on with a few lads there on and off, but today, I said to myself "Why am I entertaining these horrible horrible people?" and set about deliberately to get my account suspended so that I need never go back and have to put up with the vitriol, and substandard human behaviour that exists on that forum. The word 'vile' springs to mind only marginally before the words 'uneducated, pathetically deluded, and illiterate '. Since your fans returned to the Premiership, they've done so with a huge chip on their shoulder, and the belief that money has somehow transformed them into super beings is quite uncanny. The hostility shown towards other fans is rather strange, when all things are considered, and I think you have 40,000 strong cases for psychological care, such are the narcissistic tendencies arising from underneath all things rock like. I'd take United over City any day of the week. I'd even take Liverpool over City. City remind me of the weedy bloke who finds the magic potion, but the bottle doesn't have instructions. Instead of waiting to see if the potion works, he immediately sets out with his little cape on expecting everybody to notice him, and get out of his way as he declares himself ruler of the universe, when strictly speaking, all as he's done is pump his lil ole body full of steroids, while all around pump iron the hard way. You might have bigger muscles than many other teams who can't afford the football gym, but you're just potential at the moment, and nothing more. Since the Premiership began, United have dominated with what I think is 12 titles, yet should City win it, they would quickly declare themselves the best club in England. The truth is that you ain't nothing yet, so why not suck the air out of your chests and let events take place, and if in 10 years, you've dominated the game, then you will have something to add to your C.V, but at the moment, you have nothing but CSE's at best, and have received a free University pass, to which you still have to sit the course. Your fans really get on my tits lately with their presumption that they are Everton's bitter rivals. You're not. You're not even Manchester Uniteds bitter rivals, as both of those vacancies are taken by Liverpool. You might be better than us, but we've survived on bargains, while you've spent hundreds of millions of pounds trying to get where you want to be, yet still aren't there yet. Your fans start threads asking for attention. Why should we give you any more attention than any other team, more than twice per year? You're not in our minds 24/7 as much as you think you are. You're wrong. We haven't forgotten what it's like to sit in lousy lower league stadiums in the pouring rain. We haven't forgotten, because we've never been that low in the divisions like you have, so we can't forget what we've never experienced. We've not done it because we've been at the forefront of English football for over 100 years, not 2 minutes like your yo-yo club. If you're going to dominate football, just go and do it, but stop telling everybody else how shite they are along the way, as you just look like spoilt kids with the only toy on the block. The banner today telling everybody that they'll remember your future is a little ironic when you disrespect everybody elses present, and indeed past. You won, well done. Was there something else you needed to tell us?

Isn't Round in the same boat as Moyes though to be fair? There are no magic wands, and even if someone else came in, they'd still only have a bare bones squad.

Are you posting from a normal pc Pete?

You've got some nerve coming on here mate after the way you treat our fans on your forum. Just remember that City are nothing more than a turd that's had a bit of a polish. No matter how hard the Arabs scrub, the smell of the sewer seems to rise to the surface each time your foul mouthed arrogant yobby fans open their gob.

I'm still getting the site hanging every now and then. It happens especially when I open a thread with all that html on PeteO's posts, such as the City questionnaire thread. I've not seen anything like that in my time on the web, and as an admin. Are you hacking us PeteO?

I don't think Moyes put out a team to play negatively as such though. We don't really have too many options with our squad. Had we played a striker, we would have had one less midfielder, and as such would have been outplayed in the middle. I think our lads put in a good shift considering what we had to be realistic. There's nobody who stunk, although I wasn't that impressed with Neville, and Coleman isn't the answer I'm afraid. I'd like to see more of Vellios over the ext few weeks, and for Moyes to throw caution to the wind.

If he was sacked, it's probably because his methods were unsuccessful lol. I'd rather we had an attacking coach on the team.

I'm starting to think selling Beckford will come back to haunt us. We had nothing in the way of attack, and were unable to get telling crosses in. The team fought well, but we had nowhere for the ball to go when we had possession. City deserved the win, but we were like a boxer without fists today. We ducked and battled, but we had no ammo in which to hurt them. I thought Webb was a proper wanker today too, though not using it as an excuse.

Distin is my choice today. I thought he oozed composure and got stuck in. I'm starting to think he should be our next captain. Fellaini was decent too, but our movement up front was none existent for obvious reasons.

Not too chuffed with Webb. We were on top until he gave the Cahill / Barry decision to Barry, and giving us 3 yellows so early has restricted us. I think we need someone to hold the ball up, and it's vital we don't give possession away cheaply. We can still win this, but another 50/50 and I think Webb will send someone off, and with our upcoming fixtures we can't afford that.

Some links for tomorrow courtesy of the bad guys lol: http://forums.bluemoon-mcfc.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=234182

They've removed the article now. It was basically shit stirring between the 2 sets of fans making out we were bad rivals full of hate etc. Bit stupid on the eve of a match. We've probably gotten on better with City than any other club over the years, so to read that was absolute garbage.

Guy starts a hate thread so he can use it as an article: http://www.thedaisycutter.co.uk/ http://forums.bluemo...p?f=14&t=234113