Richard Posted November 23, 2007 Share Posted November 23, 2007 Nah thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dundeevilla Posted November 23, 2007 Share Posted November 23, 2007 No one old enough to remember when thousands and thousands of Jocks used to start arriving roaring drunk in London around Thursday tea-time and laying the centre waste? And England fans would never dream of doing such a thing. Nice how you're blaming the Scots in advance for any public disorder which might occur, when recent history would seem to suggest it's not us that has a problem anymore. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OldFart Posted November 23, 2007 Share Posted November 23, 2007 No one old enough to remember when thousands and thousands of Jocks used to start arriving roaring drunk in London around Thursday tea-time and laying the centre waste? And England fans would never dream of doing such a thing. Nice how you're blaming the Scots in advance for any public disorder which might occur, when recent history would seem to suggest it's not us that has a problem anymore.You're quite right. But I said what I said just in case anyone couldn't remember or didn't know why the Home Championship was abolished in the first place (and I think there were other reasons too, unrelated to hooliganism). And the reason or excuse for discontinuing it was on the "advice" of the London Metropolitan Police, and the 4 FAs agreed to discontinue the Home International Championship largely because every 2 years it meant England having to play Scotland at Scotland's national stadium, that is to say Wembley, where English fans were generally outnumbered. We didn't sing too loud or get behind the team with too much passion either - we wanted to get home in one piece. English hooliganism was in those days restricted to club football and had yet to reach its peak. No doubt events at Villa Park in 1976 (?) were a result of the lack of a once-every-two-years visit to Wembley. I don't deny that the Scots put their house in order far quicker than the English did. You could say that now in 2007 the England fans behave far better than they did 10 or 15 years ago. I still think a Home Championship would be looked at by the Police as a recipe for disaster. Can you seriously imagine English fans arriving in Glasgow over 24 hours before a Scotland v England clash and drinking the place dry? After a few drinks the Police would have to be moved in to PROTECT them. Any English who even dreamt of trying such a thing would need their heads examining! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Santa_Rosa Posted November 23, 2007 Share Posted November 23, 2007 No one old enough to remember when thousands and thousands of Jocks used to start arriving roaring drunk in London around Thursday tea-time and laying the centre waste? And England fans would never dream of doing such a thing. Nice how you're blaming the Scots in advance for any public disorder which might occur, when recent history would seem to suggest it's not us that has a problem anymore. Well said. The fact is that most of us are not old enought to remember those days, but plenty young enough to remember English fans running amok in Europe. The Tartan Army have a great reputation these days - earned over a couple of decades of drunken, but peaceful behaviour. The one I worry about would be the Wales game. Cardiff's Soul Crew amongst others against the worst we have (Blues, Chelsea, Leeds etc) would not be pretty. EDIT: Sorry OF, didn't see your response before I posted mine. Points taken - probably would have avoided such responses if you'd have said all that in the first place though, instead of basically saying "The Scottish will come and destroy our green and pleasant land again" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrissmith921 Posted November 23, 2007 Share Posted November 23, 2007 Cardiffs Soul Crew no longer exist, in reality, its the Newport County and Merthyr supporters you've got to watch, because these are the actual hooligans (not 15 year olds in burberry caps) who no longer attend Cardiff City games for one reason or another... Thats another story though. Wales - England was full of trouble - I saw a guy getting kicked down about 40 stairs as he jumped up when England scored. I got spoken to by anyone and everyone around me checking my accent. Unfortunately a lot of people have a inferiority complex with England (and that is a lot of Scottish and Welsh fans), but England have a lot of mindless thugs who havent been able to travel for years due to passport control but you don't need one to get to Wales or Scotland... Therefore, its a disaster waiting to happen. That is why I think England arent involved. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pablopicasso Posted November 23, 2007 Share Posted November 23, 2007 not overly bothered tbh... we have nothing to gain and everything to lose by competing in one... if we win, then that is what is expected of us... if we lose, then we get mercilessly ribbed by the "small heath" mentality nations around us... but it would be competetive football and a bit of interest from the nation... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Santa_Rosa Posted November 23, 2007 Share Posted November 23, 2007 it would be competetive football and a bit of interest from the nation... That's the bottom line for me Pablo - got to be better than friendlies - one thing they won't be is friendly! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BOF Posted November 23, 2007 Moderator Share Posted November 23, 2007 I voted yes. I think it would be a great idea. There's a lot of pride and passion goes into the games amongst the island nations and at a time when none of them were good enough to qualify for the Euros, and with 2 of them having new managers and 2 of them on the up (oh and Wales), I think it would make sense for everyone to have something to cheer on in the summer. I, for one, will have much less interest (if any) in the Euros now that none of us are in it, but I'd like to have some competition against the rest of you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrissmith921 Posted November 23, 2007 Share Posted November 23, 2007 We're on the up as well, we've drawn in Germany, home to Czech Republic, stuck 5 past Slovakia, we're going forward because Toshack is blooding youngsters and is getting rid of those who dont really want to play for us, but turn up to 'experience international football' - eg Savage, Thatcher, etc. Premiership players maybe, but if they aint got the heart to turn out when we play in Azerbaijan on a Wednesday in November then they shouldnt play when we have the big games. One thing Toshack has developed with Wales is a very strong team ethic and a high workrate. Slovakia aside, where they hit the target all of 5 times, scoring all 5, we've not been stuffed by anyone under Toshack. Hughes did a good job with us but left us with a very old side who could only play one way. Toshack has us playing passing, possession football and they do from our first team right down to our u16 side. We are moving in the right direction and nobody expected results from Toshack in the first 3 years or so. Our U21 the other night have shown the talent we've known we've had coming through for a while (that age group have been highlighted since the U14/U15 age range) and our first team containing a lot of players still eligable for U21 means we're going to have a bigger player pool than ever in 2-3 years time and we're going to move forward. We might not be setting the world alight but we're moving forward... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BOF Posted November 23, 2007 Moderator Share Posted November 23, 2007 Fair enough Chris, and well put. I honestly didn't realise there was a sense of optimism around the Welsh setup. I thought the thinking over there was that Toshack was achieving precious little and that life after Giggs was going to be hard. If you are saying that I am in fact way off the mark and that Wales are going in the right direction then that makes it 5 out of 5 - i.e. 5 out of 5 countries who would have genuine reasons to want to have a 'home internationals' tournament next summer. Thinking about it now, it'd be silly NOT to have one Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clarry Posted November 23, 2007 Share Posted November 23, 2007 No. I'd rather have a summer training and tactics camp for two weeks. Or an England v England B international. Waste of utter time. The only reason it will likely happen is so the FA can get their hands on more revenue. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrissmith921 Posted November 23, 2007 Share Posted November 23, 2007 Fair enough Chris, and well put. I honestly didn't realise there was a sense of optimism around the Welsh setup. I thought the thinking over there was that Toshack was achieving precious little and that life after Giggs was going to be hard. If you are saying that I am in fact way off the mark and that Wales are going in the right direction then that makes it 5 out of 5 - i.e. 5 out of 5 countries who would have genuine reasons to want to have a 'home internationals' tournament next summer. Thinking about it now, it'd be silly NOT to have one There are some supporters here who are unhappy with Toshack, but they are the same fans who chanted 'Hughes out' after we drew with Finland and thus finished 2nd, rather than top, of our Euro2004 qualifier. Savage goes around creating unrest but where in the beginning he was backed by the sizable majority of fans, he is now ridiculed to the point that they've replaced the Bart Simpson p*ssing on an England flag t-shirts with him p*ssing on Savage. Toshack has completed stage 1 - hes cleared out everyone who used Wales games as a free holiday. Those being - Savage, Thatcher, Page, Hartson and a few others who barely featured. People have criticised this but in doing so he's put a marker on the squad, youngsters are getting games for their country and we're playing good stuff. The crowds are higher than they were under similar results under Hughes, Gould and even Yorath (our most successful recent manager) and he actually has a better wins:games ratio than any of those as well. There are people who aren't happy, but as above those are the people who somehow believe that we should be qualifying with ease etc. The side we are developing now is our best since 1992, when we were 13th in the world, with Rush, Saunders, Hughes, Giggs, Southall etc. I have no doubt that whoever we draw to qualify for World Cup 2010 we'll still be in with a shout with 2 games to go. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrissmith921 Posted November 23, 2007 Share Posted November 23, 2007 Of course, any nation on earth would miss a player like Giggs, he was a once-in-a-generation player and respected the world over (even the Czechs, on his final game brought a 'We'll miss you too Ryan' banner) - Giggsy was the last of our golden generation of 1992/94/96/98 to retire from his country but I think what we've lost with Giggs we've gained with a similar style to when Everton lost Rooney - pulls everyone together and fight for the cause. Having Gareth Bale, who in my opinion is the best left back in the country by an absolute mile, coming through in a 3-5-1-1 system we play does mean the loss of Giggs doesnt have the impact it would if say Sam Ricketts (Hull) was our next option... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OldFart Posted November 23, 2007 Share Posted November 23, 2007 EDIT: Sorry OF, didn't see your response before I posted mine. Points taken - probably would have avoided such responses if you'd have said all that in the first place though, instead of basically saying "The Scottish will come and destroy our green and pleasant land again" True SR. And to be fair I'm talking about things that happened some time back. We had a few thousand Celtic fans in Valencia not so many years ago and they made a lot of noise before, during and even the day after the match but trouble was notable for its absence. Of course the highest profile and most shameful events of all were down to England fans at the Eire v England match of about 10 years ago which had to be abandoned. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeMcKenna Posted November 23, 2007 VT Supporter Share Posted November 23, 2007 Definitely NOT - the thought of summer being f***** up by a pointless tournament that will give the red tops and the hooligan element in football the opportunity to promote and participate in the worst types of nationalism horrifies me. My suggestion would be that the various national team squads should made to spend the summer improving their skills needed to win meaninful tournaments rather than simply generating more cash for the various inept country FA's Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stevo985 Posted November 23, 2007 VT Supporter Share Posted November 23, 2007 Do you not think that an intensive training camp that some of you have suggested would be more effective if they had a fedw games to implement the training in, i.e. a friendly tournament. The 6 nations is one of the highlights of my year, and I think a one off footy version would be good fun and pretty interesting. Judging by here though I'm the minority! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeMcKenna Posted November 23, 2007 VT Supporter Share Posted November 23, 2007 Do you not think that an intensive training camp that some of you have suggested would be more effective if they had a fedw games to implement the training in, i.e. a friendly tournament. The 6 nations is one of the highlights of my year, and I think a one off footy version would be good fun and pretty interesting. Judging by here though I'm the minority! *cough* the last winners in 83-84 were Northern Ireland, Wales came 2nd, England came THIRD, Scotland last........ it was the oldest competition of its kind and lasted for over 100 years. imho the proposal to bring it back is nothing to do with improving the football skills of the home nations and all to do with, as this sentence in a recent article in the Times states: England’s failure to qualify is expected to cost the FA at least £15 million and a home nation’s tournament would help to make up some of that shortfall..... Link: http://tinyurl.com/2zzn62 As usual the "UK" really means "England" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stevo985 Posted November 23, 2007 VT Supporter Share Posted November 23, 2007 Again, maybe I'm the minority, but now that the FA has **** up and is about to lose all this money, shouldn't we be behind a scheme to get some of that revenue back? We may not like it but if the FA get into financial difficulties it will only make it more and more difficult for england to become a good side. Besides that I guess I'm looking beyond the politics and money and just thinking it would be nice to see my country play a bit of football. O and MM, you say england came thrid like it was a shock, but wasn't 84 the LAST time we didn't qualify for the euros, indicating we must have been pretty shite back then too! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fastzombies Posted November 23, 2007 Share Posted November 23, 2007 england don't have another competitive match for about a year i think,why not have a mini tournament that may get a few villa players vital international competitive matches leading up to the world cup qualifiers. LET'S GET IT ON Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Digsby Posted November 26, 2007 Share Posted November 26, 2007 Why are we not involved in this? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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