united

[makster]

Agree with most of what you say KIS but your point about the early cups not counting sums up what is wrong with the game now. Insufferable arrogance. the concept that footbal was primative and unskilled bitd is just not true. Sure the game has got faster, more athletic and new balls boots training methods etc make for a differnt game but to dismiss the successful teams of the 50's/60's is just ignorance. These rubbish teams where by and large made up of a squad from the immediate area of the club, more often than not supporters and given half a chance lifelong servants of the club. The standard of football was very good and i challange you to play in the kit that was used then! Indeed I would rather watch and support a football team from that era than the overpaid overrated and oversexed morons that play at the highest level these days. Football has lost its way, just look at the crap happening now internally, honesty, fair play and a love of the game are posted missing, if you want to find what that looks like, have a look at some old black and white footage

Well put Gaz. Football now is full of over paid mediocre players. Look at Theo Walcot. A multi million pound contract at 17, buying manions for his parents and what's he won?? Hardly gets a game!!
I'm re-reading Bobby Charltons biog at the moment. There is a lovely bit in there where he describes the 5-4 win at Arsenal (the game before Munich actualy). United won, but all the fans stayed behind for 10 minutes after the game to cheer all of the players of the pitch. Players from both sides walked off with their arms around each other, in respect for the game that had just happened.

Now most of them roll on the floor to get each other booked, and wouldn't piss on their own fans if they were on fire :roll:

 

[konatime]

Agree with most of what you say KIS but your point about the early cups not counting sums up what is wrong with the game now. Insufferable arrogance. the concept that footbal was primative and unskilled bitd is just not true. Sure the game has got faster, more athletic and new balls boots training methods etc make for a differnt game but to dismiss the successful teams of the 50's/60's is just ignorance. These rubbish teams where by and large made up of a squad from the immediate area of the club, more often than not supporters and given half a chance lifelong servants of the club. The standard of football was very good and i challange you to play in the kit that was used then! Indeed I would rather watch and support a football team from that era than the overpaid overrated and oversexed morons that play at the highest level these days. Football has lost its way, just look at the crap happening now internally, honesty, fair play and a love of the game are posted missing, if you want to find what that looks like, have a look at some old black and white footage

Well put Gaz. Football now is full of over paid mediocre players. Look at Theo Walcot. A multi million pound contract at 17, buying manions for his parents and what's he won?? Hardly gets a game!!
I'm re-reading Bobby Charltons biog at the moment. There is a lovely bit in there where he describes the 5-4 win at Arsenal (the game before Munich actualy). United won, but all the fans stayed behind for 10 minutes after the game to cheer all of the players of the pitch. Players from both sides walked off with their arms around each other, in respect for the game that had just happened.

Now most of them roll on the floor to get each other booked, and wouldn't piss on their own fans if they were on fire :roll:

It's little wonder Gazz bumped into the Kili Team Competition ...'init tho'.

Charlton was the most complete footballer i have seen on these shores, leading goal scorer for Trafford and England and never booked (ish), hardly ever injured....dream player and i say that over and above King Colin. Bizarelly or maybe not given his insider knowledge Charlton really does rate Stiles's contribution to a team and describes vividly the time he shouted 'Go on your bastherd' in an heavy Collyhurst twang to purposefully unsurp his opponents (and it worked).

Liverpool did at least one of thier trebles inclusive of the Mlik Cup with a 16 man squad, The City of Manchester Football Club was the last all English team to lift the English Title, the Celtic '67 EC winning team had all players born within a 15 mile circumfrence of the city centre.
Doyle and Goater stand/sit on the terraces....regular.

Anyone name me a winger nowadays that would trump Jimmy Johnson?

 

[clockworkgazz]

Kenny shiels blue and white army!

 

[konatime]

If he'd have sported a feather-cut..he'd have been the 6th Beatle.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pR2eAbNixkM

 

[Tazio]

I still keep my season ticket going but football now isn't the game I started going to in the 70's.

I still love seeing a good game and seeing my team do well but I can't relate to the sheer amount of money in the bigger leagues and the Champions League now. How the hell can a fourth placed team be in something called the "champions" league?

 

[KeepItSteel]

Agree with most of what you say KIS but your point about the early cups not counting sums up what is wrong with the game now. Insufferable arrogance. the concept that footbal was primative and unskilled bitd is just not true. Sure the game has got faster, more athletic and new balls boots training methods etc make for a differnt game but to dismiss the successful teams of the 50's/60's is just ignorance. These rubbish teams where by and large made up of a squad from the immediate area of the club, more often than not supporters and given half a chance lifelong servants of the club. The standard of football was very good and i challange you to play in the kit that was used then! Indeed I would rather watch and support a football team from that era than the overpaid overrated and oversexed morons that play at the highest level these days. Football has lost its way, just look at the crap happening now internally, honesty, fair play and a love of the game are posted missing, if you want to find what that looks like, have a look at some old black and white footage

Me? arrogant? never..
Its just my honest opinion that football in the 50's and most of the 60's really wasnt up to much (compartively, & from what ive seen, especially the 50's).
Sure Celtic (and to a large degree United in 6 were all home grown, and thats certainly a wonderful achievement sadly never likely to be repeated again..and back to my original point, because the standard would never be high enough.
Sure, the tackling was harder and the men were tougher, I whole-heartedly applaud that - but if crunching tackles and brick sh!t house centre backs is what you want then go watch your local sunday team.
Since the 70's, Cruyff, Pele, Best et all have raised the standards and skills levels have risen consistantly.
At the end of the day, it ebbs and flows and its probably a cicular thing, and footballs golden days are probably over (until next time).
Just take a look at the standard of defending in the '66 World Cup final if you need an example of shoddy defending.

Personally, I do dismiss the sucess of 1950's Real to a large extent. If that makes me arrogant then so be it, i'd like to think thats all I have in common with whats made the game so bad these days.
Comparing football of that era to 'modern' football is tricky, its a bit like saying Fangio was a better 'driver' than Schumacher... given a time machine i'd be trully amzed if Fangio could have been remotely close to Shumi in a modern Ferrari, but i'd bet my house on MS keeping up with (or beating) Fangio.
Anyway, football only really began in 1992... God bless the Premier League. init.

 

[konatime]

'but if crunching tackles and brick sh!t house centre backs is what you want then go watch your local sunday team.
Since the 70's, Cruyff, Pele, Best et all have raised the standards and skills levels have risen consistantly'.

You're not wrong about defenders back then but it's too simplistic to suggest they were shit in every department of defending. No defenders back then were instructed to be ball playing horizontal passing centre-backs due to pre-under soil pitches dictating styles (the flanks showing a bit of green encouraging wing play and conversly ensuring fullbacks ample opportunity to thier full allocation of tackles).

You could also spin the defnding theory around and easilly document how goalkeepers seem ever so reluctant to catch a football on the fly nowadays. How many goals in a football league season do you see from a direct result of a goalkeeper choosing to punch a ball back into play instead of catching.. 50,100....125. Shit play is shit play.

Pele and Best may have up'd the bar in that they created a massive cult following, Cryuff for my money would be slotted into a seperate section altogether, unlike the other two he was capable of international class performances in more than 4 positions, performances that involved smashing very good Brazil teams almost single handedly. Bit of a marker.

 

[KeepItSteel]

Granted, modern goalies do not command the same authority. But goalkeeping is probably a seperate discussion.
God only knows why they refuse to catch the ball these days?..

I very much doubt more than a handfull of 50's era players would make it in their modern couterparts positions.
sure, if trained in the same way most of them would have a chance, but like for like? neh.

 

[konatime]

Granted, modern goalies do not command the same authority. But goalkeeping is probably a seperate discussion.
God only knows why they refuse to catch the ball these days?..

I very much doubt more than a handfull of 50's era players would make it in their modern couterparts positions.
sure, if trained in the same way most of them would have a chance, but like for like? neh.

Sometimes it's possible to get carried away with the modern hyperbole, many happy clappers are busy waxing lyrical over Sir Ryan..choosing to forget that for the first 5 yrs of his career he could'nt cross a football with any accuracy (when that was the thing he was trying to execute everyday of his working life), the 5 yrs after he was mediocre and the last 5yrs he's an even money bet to land a ball on his forwards swede... because of the conditions described in my earlier post we have already had wingers much more profficient but because of this and that it will not be documented that way but that don't mean it ain't so.
Seen a kid recently everyone was chatting about, maced everyone , give a juggler a ten-break...he got down to the bi-line and run off the end of the pitch (thought he was off to the shop for a bottle of sterra) . An oppo told me City were sniffing but asked his youth manager to get back in contact when he knew where he was on the park. The keepy-up champion of the world ain't a paid professional footballer....and there lies the rub.

 

[Tazio]

God only knows why they refuse to catch the ball these days?..

Keepers catching the ball is a strangely British obsession. Pretty much every country for a number have had punching keepers instead of ones who catch it.

There is still an odd thing about British football that we do it "right" with things like catching the ball, 4-4-2 etc, yet the facts show that these things win are outdated concepts that the continental teams gave up on years ago.