Hopefully only there for one season Andy but the problem is we’re West Ham!
We will also be seen as the league’s biggest scalp so everyone will up their game against us, and potential banana skins abound!
Indeed. One challenge I remember from NUFC’s stints in the Championship, was the sheer volume of matches. Often 3 games a week, it was relentless. That’s when careful squad rotation and luck with injuries comes in. Good luck
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I remember in our last season in the Championship of the 46 games 28 were moved for television. Which in effect was 28 from 44 as Millwall home and away were mandated as lunchtime kick offs for security reasons.
Whilst you should be okay it’s a brutal league with a series of very difficult away trips.
That said, it’s fun all the same.
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2 - the lack of VAR is refreshing but the standards of refereeing are no better so when you get poor officials or ones having a poor day you’ll just feel the pain that much sooner.
8 - absolutely the joy of the Championship, especially if you do away games.
@Cat7 you’re spot on re: the number of games moved and the brutality of it. It was only when last season was over that I really took on board just how incredibly intense it had been.
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Sadly time, money and health will restrict me to London (ie Watford, QPR, Millwall, Charlton) away games, but I always enjoyed going to QPR. Will also probably go to Swansea and Saints as I have friends there.
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Can fully understand that, especially the health aspect.
I’ve a mate who’s a QPR season ticket holder. Always enjoy meeting up with him for away games. Struggle with Loftus Road. Leg room designed for pre teenage children.
Am hoping to do Swans and Portsmouth out of last seasons failures and obviously looking forward to Burnley, Wolves and West Ham. Will be trying to wedge in The Music Is Black exhibition pre match at V&A East.
Would like to do Charlton again as that was tremendous but it looks like Watford is out unless I fancy a Tuesday night hotel. I didn’t last season.
Saints away was one of my fave away days last season. First time there, opening day of our first season at this level for 40 odd years and, despite the defeat, their access team made it a great day. Also briefly met @Christopher_M. Hoping to make that game in Feb for sure.
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Spoke too soon. Swansea away now moved to 8pm on a Friday night and West Ham away moved to a Friday night. Burnley on a Tuesday night remains doable and I think West Ham simply has to be done regardless. Swansea at that time on a Friday night is not doable. Even the friends in Bristol and Cardiff won’t entertain driving there and back for that given the parking complexity etc.
As a Wolves fan I cab concur with most of your points. That said, I am sure we will be wishing for VAR on occasions to overturn bad decisions made by the lower tier refs.
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When Norwich were relegated I comforted myself by the fact there would be no VAR.
However, in recent times the refereeing has declined to a state where on several occasions I wouldn’t have objected to VAR. ( the faster working continental system )
Our manager Clement is a big advocate of VAR and his judgement is usually sound.
I certainly think that the “offside” detection system itself has worked very well in the WC.
Interesting to see that upon the expiry of our deal with United Airlines our new front of short sponsor is Firefox. On paper a weird deal as UA appear to be the bigger of the 2 but of course Mozilla are bankrolled by Google so we’ve just gone up a level again. It’s estimated that they’ve tripled what UA were paying out. Gives them huge exposure via W2W and helps us out with PSR.
We are of course nowhere near having an issue with PSR thanks to our commercial revenue but obviously we’re competing with teams who have up to 6x our (current) crowd capacity so every little helps.
Intrigued to see what freebies are on the table. The two “United” scarf giveaways were awful and there’s little doubt that discounted flights were a bigger seller in the US rather than the UK. No Wrexham fan wants a shirt or scarf with that word on it but… whatever next.
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If last season’s shirt sponsors are still involved at Saints, I would imagine they are paying rather less this year!
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From the saints website
“This season’s home kit proudly reflects that identity with the famous red and white stripes taking cues from the shipping containers that occupy the city’s famous docks.”
So it’s, er, red and white strips (pretty much like most years), but we’re going to disguise ourselves as shipping containers……try hiding that behind a tree.
Who writes this cr@p?
Feel free to extract the p!$$, but not too much or there will be accusations of Banter.
Think we’re all aware this is a banter free zone.
Following on from @Christopher_M comments I can’t see any changes on the sponsorship front. They took a somewhat arguable position of saying that the club shared their values and this had been illustrated by the speed with which they took responsibility, apologised etc. An unusual and arguably brave stance which it’s hard to get to grips with really.
My position remains that none of us know what our clubs get up to so I will neither be taking the mickey nor judging. Plainly there’s far more nefarious stuff going on at the WC and yet people persist in offering Infantino their support by continuing to watch it.
I think it should be remembered that this a (semi) public forum, bound only by the AUP of the host organisation, and not by the whim of some bloke on it.
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To quote from another thread you’re on
This thread was started by others for a couple of years who seemed to think “banter”, which involved a fair amount of name calling, some overt racism, tedious insular and pejorative crap, was a thing in keeping with the tone of the rest of the forum and was somehow welcoming and inclusive.
I’ve started the last 3 years threads and did so with a clear statement that the intent was to steer very much away from that kind of thing - indeed the very thing which the transfer thread had descended into between 2 posters. Very much a long way from a “whim”. Thought through and intentional.
Everyone in the thread has managed perfectly well to stay within those parameters, which suggest the contrast is welcome and has been for 3 seasons. A small number of posters from the PL thread have periodically stepped in here with stuff which is little more than pejorative ad hom but those posts have been removed with great consistency which I welcome.
The constant personal passive aggressive sniping about me and “banter” quite frankly is little more than f@%&ing tedious. Phrases like “some bloke” which are clearly intended to demean? No thank you.
Do forgive me for wanting a thread where we discuss football, don’t descend into tiresome personal abuse, name calling etc. and have an environment which includes rather than excludes. It’s very intentional and we seem to have done just fine without the other crap.
Bearing in mind the above you’re free and very welcome to join in or, if being inclusive and non-abusive ain’t your thing, then by all means don’t.
The thread doesn’t “belong” to me but I did start it and there’s literally nothing new in the assertion of intent made at the start of this seasons version. If people really feel it’s terribly important to actively challenge that then that’s fine. I’ll simply ask Naim to close it down.
Such is the passive aggressive nature of some on here I’ve little doubt someone will be along soon enough to start a new one and likely before this one has gone. I think we can all predict who they’d be and that the reasons for doing so would be nothing to do with football.
I’m sure someone will start a separate thread but Ken Bates has passed at a fine old age. A character from very different times. Inevitably worked very closely with our own Shaun Harvey at Leeds for an infamous decade. Fair to say he did as much harm as good.
I am minded to think of him charitably if only for his fantastic treatment of Wrexham legend John Neal.
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I seem to remember a newspaper article about him quite a few years ago which referenced a compassionate side to him which he purposely kept hidden, not wanting rivals & many of his own staff, to consider him weak & therefore a soft touch.
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