The beginning of the end?

[Rev Algenon Stickleback H]

" there appears to be a move away from football being a pastime available to all, and a definite move towards catering for those with significantly more cash in their pockets."

Welcome to the big time buddy

its been £40 to get into stamford bridge for several years

I guess while you have beeen walking around with your eyes closed over the last few years as top level football became a business rather than a pastime

I'm sure you're very proud of that smartarse answer young man but if you'd opened your eyes you'd have noticed this is posted in club policies and therefore specifically about Reading Football Club rather than the footballing world in general.

what did you think would happen when we were successful? did you really not understand what the price of that success would be? have you not seen whats been happening in the top tier of english football while we have been playing wrexham and brentford?

All the "loyal and faithful" players would carry on playing for £500 quid a week?

As with any industry, people want ta share of the rewards for success.

we had a choice 16 years ago, continue to chase the dream of success or sell up, move to didcot and call ourselves thames valley royals

we chased the dream, unfortunately the next phase of that dream is going to cost, and cost big time

so we have another choice

pay up or give up

I agree with what you say, but the TVR fiasco was in 82/83, not 16 years ago, and it wasn't really a choice between doing that and chasing the dream, it was between allowing Maxwell to asset-strip the club under a surely false pretence of a merger (does anyone really believe he'd have build a new stadium in Didcot instead of just selling elm park and pocketing the money?) and carrying on existing.

[Rev Algenon Stickleback H]

Mr. Madejski himself has admitted as much. See the Guardian article alluded to in another thread.

No he didn't. He said he hoped it might attract attention in the far east, maybe a potential buyer for the club, Your implication was that we signed a sub-standard player for commercial reasons. I can't see us flogging £1.5 million worth of shirts with his name on. Can you? We'd have to shift 40,000 of them to recoup that transfer fee, probably double that to turn a profit.

Perhaps I'm wrong on this one but my impression of late has been that the club are coming down very hard on any behaviour that goes beyond clapping politely and waving one's prawn sandwich.

I think they went overboard when the stadium opened, but they seem rather more sensible about the whole thing now. You don't see people being dragged out of Y25 of a weekly basis any more. And no, I don't think there are noticeably any more families or quiet types at football these days. Take Elm Park for example, once you got past the right hand half of the south bank, the rest of the ground was silent. Occasionally a "come on you royals" might filter down towards the tilehurst end corner, but you never got any singing beyond that, and the north stand never sung. The problem is one of perception. People were used to standing (or sitting) in their bit of elm park, with their type of fan (the people tended to get older, and the accents more countryfied, the further away from the singing part of the southbank you got) but now everyone's mixed together. there are probably just as many singing type people as before, but they are spread out around the ground now rather than being all in one section. It makes the atmosphere worse.

[wolfbagger]

Mr. Madejski himself has admitted as much. See the Guardian article alluded to in another thread.

No he didn't. He said he hoped it might attract attention in the far east, maybe a potential buyer for the club, Your implication was that we signed a sub-standard player for commercial reasons. I can't see us flogging £1.5 million worth of shirts with his name on. Can you? We'd have to shift 40,000 of them to recoup that transfer fee, probably double that to turn a profit.

I'm not sure what your argument is here?

Commercial adj.: profitable; having profit as the main goal

Well I'd say that Mr. Madjeski's main goal is to make a profit from the sale of the club. You've actually agreed with me. JM said he hopes that with the signing of Seol he might attract serious Far Eastern business interest. I never mentioned anything about shirts.

[Tilehurst Road]

What used to be the working class obsession has now become the middle class' hobby, it's the same throughout the top tiers of football and not individual to RFC.

[Rev Algenon Stickleback H]

Mr. Madejski himself has admitted as much. See the Guardian article alluded to in another thread.

No he didn't. He said he hoped it might attract attention in the far east, maybe a potential buyer for the club, Your implication was that we signed a sub-standard player for commercial reasons. I can't see us flogging £1.5 million worth of shirts with his name on. Can you? We'd have to shift 40,000 of them to recoup that transfer fee, probably double that to turn a profit.

I'm not sure what your argument is here?

Commercial adj.: profitable; having profit as the main goal

Well I'd say that Mr. Madjeski's main goal is to make a profit from the sale of the club. You've actually agreed with me. JM said he hopes that with the signing of Seol he might attract serious Far Eastern business interest. I never mentioned anything about shirts.

he said he hoped it may lead to a buyer. He certainly did not say he signed him with the intention of attracting a buyer, more that it would be a by-product of the signing.

ergo, he did not sign him purely to attract money to the club, which is what you claimed.

And unless Madejski went over his head, I can't see steve coppell being too chuffed with him buying players he didn't want, and costing him a large chunk of his transfer budget in doing so.

[RoyalBlue]

I haven't often seen eye to eye with Wolfbagger but on this one he is spot on.

I really long for the day when football implodes up its own corporate **se and players get a long overdue reminder as to what it's like to really work for a living (as opposed to whinging that they aren't being paid enough to do what they love), and through to 65 like most people have to!

Yes, I longed for RFC to make the promised land and waited the best part of 40 years to see it happen. However, now we're about to take our first sip from what may well prove to be a very poison challice, perhaps I won't be that upset should we end up dropping back down a level.

Failing that, maybe I will be one of those 'traditionalists' who turns their back on the new brand RFC in favour of a smaller club where real supporters are still valued and not just on the basis of how much they are prepared to pay.

[Rev Algenon Stickleback H]

Failing that, maybe I will be one of those 'traditionalists' who turns their back on the new brand RFC in favour of a smaller club where real supporters are still valued and not just on the basis of how much they are prepared to pay.

what's new exactly?

Yes, the prices are high, but did anyone expect any different?

Yes, you might need to be a season ticket holder to get in, but did anyone expect it to be any different?

Yes, people have jumped on the bandwagon following promotion, but that's happened every single time we've been promoted, just as it does for every club in the league.

It's expensive, but that's the problem with being a small club in a big league. That's why Brighton charged a fortune for shabby facilities at the withdean. If they didn't they'd be slitting their own throats, as would we be if we'd tried to charge CCC prices in the premiership.

Yeah, I think premiership footballers are vastly overpaid. I hate hearing comments like Sidwell's that he needs £18,000 a week now that he's got a baby, and decent player he is, there's no other league in the world that would pay a player of his ability £18,000 a week, let alone the £25,000 he claims he could get elsewhere.

If in other top leagues in europe you can buy a seat for £15 there's no reason why you shouldn't be able to in england, it's just that wages have gone through the roof. Reading fc are not the cause of that problem though, more the victim of it. Sadly it also means they have to pass that cost on to the fans. Unfortunately it seems a lot of fans just think Madejski has some kind of obligation to bankroll the club at a huge loss, just for their benefit.

[firstdivision]

What used to be the working class obsession has now become the middle class' hobby, it's the same throughout the top tiers of football and not individual to RFC.

Hmm a difficult one this, what is middle class and what is working class? The divide is not really there anymore in the Thames Valley. But for what its worth I can think of a number of mates of mine who earn over 50k, own their own houses, go on foreign holidays, and will still do anything to get to far flung away games, it is as obsessive to them as someone who is one minimum wage.

Face it we all have to work to live.

So far as losing grass roots is concerned, RFC are happy to get involved coaching local youth teams, have the new sevens scheme to make football more accessible to fans of the future and seem community focussed.

I guess the test is if you are a local bloke on an average wage can you get to see your team. For us the answer is still yes, but if you lived in Highbury or Stamford bridge then that is a different story. I hope we still stay accessible to genuine local fans no matter how much they earn.

[RoyalBlue]

I guess the test is if you are a local bloke on an average wage can you get to see your team. For us the answer is still yes, but if you lived in Highbury or Stamford bridge then that is a different story. I hope we still stay accessible to genuine local fans no matter how much they earn.

What do you think the average wage is in Reading then? I suspect it might surprise you by not being as high as you might think. I also suspect that anyone trying to support a family on that average wage might well struggle to be able to afford to watch his/her local team.

[Mr Irascible]

tw@t

I would like to ask you to expand and entertain us with your own opinion regarding the salient points I have made. However, I fear that anything beyond a monosyllabic response would probably seriously test your literary prowess.

In the mean time I'll expand on my own statement. Reading Football Club was once based in the heart of the community, with what seemed like a real desire to entertain and meet the needs of said community.

RFC is now positioned in the middle of a sterile, commercial area with what appears to be the single aim of lining its own pockets with a rapidly decreasing desire to care even one jot about the grass root fans.

I'm sorry if this opinion runs contrary to your own but last time I looked I was still entitled, in a society that extols the right of free speech, to express my thoughts on such matters.

I don't really see why I need expand...I went for the one word that sums up your comment...later correspondents have eloquently reasoned precisely the same point. I apologise if "twit" up set you...but I really think you are on you rown here!

[Mr Angry]

Failing that, maybe I will be one of those 'traditionalists' who turns their back on the new brand RFC in favour of a smaller club where real supporters are still valued and not just on the basis of how much they are prepared to pay.

what's new exactly?

Yes, the prices are high, but did anyone expect any different?

Yes, you might need to be a season ticket holder to get in, but did anyone expect it to be any different?

Yes, people have jumped on the bandwagon following promotion, but that's happened every single time we've been promoted, just as it does for every club in the league.

It's expensive, but that's the problem with being a small club in a big league. That's why Brighton charged a fortune for shabby facilities at the withdean. If they didn't they'd be slitting their own throats, as would we be if we'd tried to charge CCC prices in the premiership.

Yeah, I think premiership footballers are vastly overpaid. I hate hearing comments like Sidwell's that he needs £18,000 a week now that he's got a baby, and decent player he is, there's no other league in the world that would pay a player of his ability £18,000 a week, let alone the £25,000 he claims he could get elsewhere.

If in other top leagues in europe you can buy a seat for £15 there's no reason why you shouldn't be able to in england, it's just that wages have gone through the roof. Reading fc are not the cause of that problem though, more the victim of it. Sadly it also means they have to pass that cost on to the fans. Unfortunately it seems a lot of fans just think Madejski has some kind of obligation to bankroll the club at a huge loss, just for their benefit.

100% spot on.

I'm curious though, cos where do I get pigeon-holed by Wolfbagger?

As a fan since 69/70, having seen us play at about 65 current grounds (plus a load more no longer in use), visiting crap places like Twerton Park, Stockport in a deluge and Welling utd - I guess that makes me a horny handed son of the soil, a genuine working class hero who shall inherit the Footballing earth..............

Or, as someone who chooses to sit in the Upper West (and has contemplated moving into the red seats) and who can afford to do so - I guess that makes me a prawn sandwich eating plastic, middle class parasite stopping the working man from seeing his birthright.

or is the truth actually that the one dimensional simplisitic clap trap espoused earlier is now hopelessly out of date, both in terms of society as well as football?

[wolfbagger]

Well done you is all I can say. We're all in awe of you.

Your "clever" attempt at twisting my words sir is contemptable.

[papereyes]

What used to be the working class obsession has now become the middle class' hobby

Not sure that's all that true in the first place across the country - and certainly the blurring of what class is makes such a statement even more meaningless.

[wehateoxford]

i feel that, too a degree, the traditional sense of football was shunned when we moved to madstad, such is the effect of seating football where you're constantly told to sit down....

on the kids point, its annoying to an extent to have count downs to full time etc etc, but im seeing an awful lot more kids in reading shirts these days and that can only be a good thing.

I dont think when wolfbagger said yobs he actually means yobs, no one wants to be marred by a average age 17 firm like the stoke boys who came up, but people (if only me and wolf) do want vocal fans, not afraid to stand up and make some real noise for there team. i have mates who are palace fans and i wished they supported reading just because of the passion they have that we clearly lack

football IS coporate, has been for awhile, and if you can't beat em, join em. its sad but its what we have to do to be prem big boys... you could always support swindon lol

[Mad Dog's Ghost]

Come on Wolfbagger. Mr Angry asked you a question. Is he working class or prawn sandwich? I'm loving this.

[bobby m's syrup]

Don't you just hate everybody who generalises?

[MartinRdg]

Don't you just hate everybody who generalises?

Indeed.

[KC Royal]

I actually think Royal Blue and wolfbagger makje some good points. I've known for years that the Premiership was riddled with too much money, but up until now just turned a blind eye to it. Its affecting how many quality players we can bring in, and Madejeski seems more keen than ever to get out of it than ever.

As for the season ticket debate I do think that the club are gearing more towards this, they wouldnt have made 3 stands season ticket holder only otherwise. There are seats avaialble in the South I know, but once the season gets going and if we do well this will be few and far between, hence pushing aside those fans (like myself) who can't go to every home game.

For those fans who go out just for the "day out" well I guess that also applies to me as well, again because I don't live locally anymore so try to appreciate the whole day. But the main interest is still the football and all the prematch anticipation inside the ground especially recently. While the match is on nothing else matters, and I'm still gutted if we've lost (which thankfully has only happened once yes I know I've been very lucky in the last 4 years!)

[Toxteth O'Grady (USA)]

As alluded to on the very first post and debated throughout this thread there is little doubt that the plastic, out of town, family and expensive football experience of the noughties is not the same. Yes it costs more, yes there is less "football atmosphere" that we once loved and yes there are grounds all over the place that are essentially characterless. And despite this (as I embark on my 21st season as a Royal) I am sure I am going to burst with excitement at some time in approximately the next 75 hours and 14 minutes or so before the kick off. I cannot wait for it all to get started.

Who gives a *@!# WE ARE PREMIER LEAGUE!!!!!!!!