Thoughts...

When a proposal to this was doing the rounds about a year and a half ago (and it keeps popping up,in various formats, and will continue to do so, until something happens) one, and I can't remember who, prominent Prem club representative was quoted as saying that he, and a lot of colleagues, felt it was time that the number of senior clubs in England was not so much culled as competely massacred, in a Dr Beeching sense, with maybe as many as 35-40 going to the wall.

Prem 1 and 2 would lead to this, I am sure. The bigger clubs want to pull up the drawbridge, cover themselves in permanent and regular lucre of the most filthy type and watch as the clubs deemed unworthy of their place at the all new round table go under.

One argument, crazily, was that, if lots of clubs DID go under, well, thats hundreds of thousands of people who suddenly have no club to support, so, where are they going to go for their football, their merchandising products, their TV coverage etc etc etc? Thats right-forgetting, in their ignorance, that a club is a club for life (if Norwich went under, who would I support? No-one, I wouldn't have a favourite team and a lot of my interest in the game would be gone) and people would not "find" another club and changeover as they might a car, certainly not fans of clubs like us and our peers, all of whom have fans who are a lot more "true" than the floating suppporters that the bigger clubs get.

Clubs like ourselves and similar clubs with a notion of there being "no glamour attached"- Watford, Southampton etc, could easily finish in a place that might secure a league position that could, on that merit alone, entitle them to be "invited" into Prem 2, but, if teams like Leeds & Sheff Wednesday were below us, they'd still get in and we'd be out.

This "split" league for the Prem will happen, no question, its sickening to see how they are already trying to pacify the smaller clubs by saying how it will be good for them, "no more worries" about relegation from the big league etc & accordant financial crisis, its a real softening up exercise. But its spin, they don't give a s**t, they want a larger table with fewer people sitting at it, and don't care how it comes about, just as long as it does. And if Gartside doesn't realise just how much his spaking out sounds of 100% self preservation, especially as his bunch of goons look good bets to come down this season anyway-well, he's even more stupid (and he is massively stupid) than I thought.

Posted By: Martin Peters on November 3rd 2008 at 16:06:17

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