AVFC - a sleeping giant in a coma

[daft]

2 hours ago, DaveAV1 said:

I agree something has to give but I’m not sure what or even if anything will give. You’re thinking fair fight, level playing field. The people running the sport are thinking the polar opposite. 

I think a proper financial crisis can pull the rug as people stop spending on luxuries such as football. It will mean all of us will suffer, but football might become somewhat more 'fair'.

[DaveAV1]

7 minutes ago, daft said:

I think a proper financial crisis can pull the rug as people stop spending on luxuries such as football. It will mean all of us will suffer, but football might become somewhat more 'fair'.

Yes that’s true but the bigger clubs are fishing in a different pond. 

They get a bigger % of their income from TV particularly the CL clubs. London clubs benefit from football tourists and the London weighting in general. The global brand of clubs like Man U brings in huge amounts. The oil clubs basically just fiddle the figures. Fans at the ground are becoming increasingly less relevant. Which is a tragedy in itself. 

[The Fun Factory]

8 hours ago, TomC said:

Exactly this, except it goes back more than 10 years...more like 30. The problem goes back to Deadly Doug. People make fun of his eccentricities and his tendency to fire managers, but that wasn't the real problem. People say that he was cheap, and that wasn't quite right either. He didn't get where he got in business if he didn't know how to invest money. His problem was that he failed to see that things were changing. He thought that he was the community businessman-caretaker of a small-time operation and that it would always be that way. If he had recognized that things were about to get a whole lot bigger, that an investment would have paid off, maybe he would have spent what he needed to and we would have ridden the wave from an advantageous position. He didn't. (But at least he didn't do a Leeds and overspend.)

Think about it...the end of the 1992-93 season, one year into the PL era, we had won the league and finished second twice, plus won a European Cup, in the last 13 years. We were in a position to do great things. We were unquestionably a big club. DD didn't do what he had to.

 

Yes. Espcially when you compare what other clubs were doing at a similar time. Manchester United were just starting to capitalise on being the best supported  club in the country to become the super power it became in the 90s and 00s. They were slightly lucky to have the land to expand around Old Trafford but they took advantage of it. Arsenal had David Dein  who was forward looking and brought in Wenger which changed everything. Chelsea had cuddly Ken Bates who took advantage of Chelsea geographic position to redevelop Stamford Bridge just when football became fashionable again- and in time for a rich  Russian to spend his money on a  new hobby.

Liverpool feel behind and took a while to catch up, and we are probably similar to Everton in which we  are unable to repeat the highs of the 80s though Ellis did redevelop Villa Park unlike Goodison (different argument altogether if he did it well or not).