… and they were advancing in broad daylight. They must be desperate to make ground. Why the hurry?
I think I read that the Russian Army has never trained for night operations (unlike NATO armies and, presumably, the UA with NATO training). So "advancing in daylight" would be the norm.
The crucial bit of the question "to prevent Russia winning the war"....
Practically all analysts think Russia will win out in the end, its a matter of how long, how much damage and destruction both sides inflict and what "winning" means i.e. does that mean Russia have replaced the government and nominally controlling all the major cities, but there still being an insurgency?
The more I think about it the more convinced I am this is the right answer. Yes an extreme position but I think that long term it has merits
Lets call Putins bluff and first strike russia
Will it lead to all out nuclear war...undoubtedly but is that such a bad thing. Yes many will die. Many will lose loved ones myself included
However in the long term it will provide a counter to global warming The human race will survive but be a sensible number of us circa 100 million It will promote social equality and like the black death this will be evident to historians a couple of centuries distant It will do what all the nuclear non proliferation treaties failed to do and empty the world of nuclear weapons It will be a wake up call for the human race not to be so stupid again
Is this tongue in cheek yes slightly, however while I think looked at from a now perspective yes all out nuclear war is a bad thing I remain unconvinced that 400 years from now historians aren't saying its where the human race turned the corner and became grown up
Housebuilding tycoon Steve Morgan offers to sponsor 1,000 Ukrainian refugees + give them free housing for 6 months. "Boris Johnson and Priti Patel have to stop the delays."
If Chelsea and/or Everton go bust/get relegated I think I might actually die of laughter.
Forget the quadruple, this would be the double.
FWIW - I think Chelsea are screwed, they lost close to £150 million last season, and net losses of over a £1.5 billion over the last decade or two.
If Roman cannot pump money into the club, they are buggered.
I reckon they could get deducted points this season which might knock them out the CL places and more likely points deduction next season.
It was also reported yesterday that Everton might also get points deduction next season.
You are not a real football fan if you want your derby rivals to go bust.
That said, you have absolutely no connection with Merseyside as far as I can ascertain so probably don't care about the maintenance of the Merseyside derby.
I married a plastic scouser. Pre plague I often spent £20k a year following Liverpool.
But tell me more about me having no connection with Liverpool.
In what sense do you have a link with Liverpool? You weren't born there, you have never lived there, and your family don't come from there. Your only link is by marriage seemingly. Some might say you are just a glory grabber!
I’m a child of the 80s.
I’m also very non white, in the 80s, football fans weren’t very welcoming.
Only chance I had to watch football was on the TV, in those days you had like 12 matches on TV, mostly Liverpool.
If I was a glory grabber, I’d have been a Chelsea and Man City fan recently.
No, because you only get one chance. Even glory grabbers don't move from team to team. That would make the whole thing pointless. You make a half-decent case, but 'because they were big when I started watching football' is never going to elicit much sympathy. The order of respect that people will give you for the team you support - and don't pretend you don't know this, deep down - is as follows: 1) Your local team. (Properly your local team - if you grown up in suburban Stockport, it's Stockport County, not Manchester Utd/City. If you grow up in Urmston and support Manchester United people will allow it, although it takes some of the fun out of it.) 2) The team your family supported before you. 3) A not particularly good team who you ended up with for an off-beat reason but have nevertheless stuck with (I knew a fella from Lancaster who - with no particular reason to support one team or another - was taken to buy his first football shirt at the age of 8. Who will it be? Blackburn were both Lancastrian AND successful at the time. It was before Morecambe were a league side, but they were close by. Some from school supported teams from Manchester or Liverpool. He gazed happily at the shirts before him, before being called by his father over to the sale bin (the family didn't have much money) and being given a choice of Sheffield United, Middlesbrough or Stoke. Somewhat glumly, he chose Sheffield United. But he stuck with them subsequently and went on to follow them home and away. 4) A terrible team for no readily apparent reason. 5) Your nearest 'big' team (see point 1 above). 6) A big team who aren't even your second nearest.
Basically, you don't even get to choose. Your team is assigned to you by an almost mystical process. Because watching football is, at bottom, about identity. (If it was about entertainment you'd be watching rugby instead.)
My father is a Liverpool fan.
He was a huge fan of Shankly and Paisley.
As the grandson of immigrants to this country so I didn’t have much footballing heritage to tap.
I'm not meaning to have a go, by the way. Every tradition has to start somewhere, and you've clearly invested a lot of time and effort over the years in Liverpool. But supporting a successful team when you're not from that city in particular is never going to elicit a great deal of sympathy. Supporting a successful team when they ARE your local team is never going to get you much sympathy, but at least a little 'oh well, suppose you can't help it'.
I recall discussing football with TSE and other Liverpool fans on here over a decade ago when Liverpool were on the verge of bankruptcy under Hicks and Gillette.
In those those days Liverpool were about as "successful" as 1990s English Cricket.
There speaks a fan of the top teams! Regular cup finals, European football and finishing 6th being a bad season is successful! Ask fans of the other 86.....
All the Russians I have met REALLY enjoy a western-style consumer society. They LOVE western products, fashions, etc (tho I guess some can be replaced by China), they adore escaping the Russian winter and going on hols to the tropics
And yes, Russians like that will already be cursing Putin. But it won't stop with the kids-of-oligarchs, it will soon be any middle class Russian with any aspirations. Putin has fucked their dreams
There are a number of rich Russians children at both my daughters schools.
There are all (according to my daughters), extremely woke, despise the whole Russian system and bang on about the "revolution"
I presume that comes after they have finished spending Daddies money, but I'm not sure that Putin & Co. have reckoned on what comes next....
I would like you to meet Polina Kovaleva. Polina is a 26-year-old glamorous Russian girl from London🇬🇧. She lives in a huge apartment in Kensington and loves to party, her instagram feed looks like a non-stop holiday. That’s not unheard of, but there is one small detail…(THREAD)
Housebuilding tycoon Steve Morgan offers to sponsor 1,000 Ukrainian refugees + give them free housing for 6 months. "Boris Johnson and Priti Patel have to stop the delays."
At the end they are clearly heading away from Kiev (you can confirm that on Google Earth).
Whether that is just a retreat so that they can level the town, or a retreat to think about doing something else, we obviously have no idea.
Looks like a retreat to stop getting their butt kicked. Interesting that it is all being filmed by a Ukrainian drone. Doesn't seem to be any air support.
The footage looks much like what you would get from a £1k consumer DJI, or perhaps something even cheaper.
Air support isn't much use against something that weights 250g and is 10cm across.
The first car that my father bought from new, back in the early '90s, was a Lada. Among its quirks was a "roof rack" that the owner's manual said was decorative only and shouldn't be used and a full toolkit for doing your own on-the-spot repairs, probably quite vital if you broke down in rural Siberia.
Sadly he wrote it off in a car park in Bolton a few months after buying it, so it was not only the first, but the only car he ever bought from new.
(His car-buying policy was usually to buy the cheapest old banger he could find and drive it into the ground and scrap it. One such was an Wartburg from East Germany. But that's another story.)
If Chelsea and/or Everton go bust/get relegated I think I might actually die of laughter.
Forget the quadruple, this would be the double.
FWIW - I think Chelsea are screwed, they lost close to £150 million last season, and net losses of over a £1.5 billion over the last decade or two.
If Roman cannot pump money into the club, they are buggered.
I reckon they could get deducted points this season which might knock them out the CL places and more likely points deduction next season.
It was also reported yesterday that Everton might also get points deduction next season.
You are not a real football fan if you want your derby rivals to go bust.
That said, you have absolutely no connection with Merseyside as far as I can ascertain so probably don't care about the maintenance of the Merseyside derby.
I married a plastic scouser. Pre plague I often spent £20k a year following Liverpool.
But tell me more about me having no connection with Liverpool.
In what sense do you have a link with Liverpool? You weren't born there, you have never lived there, and your family don't come from there. Your only link is by marriage seemingly. Some might say you are just a glory grabber!
I’m a child of the 80s.
I’m also very non white, in the 80s, football fans weren’t very welcoming.
Only chance I had to watch football was on the TV, in those days you had like 12 matches on TV, mostly Liverpool.
If I was a glory grabber, I’d have been a Chelsea and Man City fan recently.
No, because you only get one chance. Even glory grabbers don't move from team to team. That would make the whole thing pointless. You make a half-decent case, but 'because they were big when I started watching football' is never going to elicit much sympathy. The order of respect that people will give you for the team you support - and don't pretend you don't know this, deep down - is as follows: 1) Your local team. (Properly your local team - if you grown up in suburban Stockport, it's Stockport County, not Manchester Utd/City. If you grow up in Urmston and support Manchester United people will allow it, although it takes some of the fun out of it.) 2) The team your family supported before you. 3) A not particularly good team who you ended up with for an off-beat reason but have nevertheless stuck with (I knew a fella from Lancaster who - with no particular reason to support one team or another - was taken to buy his first football shirt at the age of 8. Who will it be? Blackburn were both Lancastrian AND successful at the time. It was before Morecambe were a league side, but they were close by. Some from school supported teams from Manchester or Liverpool. He gazed happily at the shirts before him, before being called by his father over to the sale bin (the family didn't have much money) and being given a choice of Sheffield United, Middlesbrough or Stoke. Somewhat glumly, he chose Sheffield United. But he stuck with them subsequently and went on to follow them home and away. 4) A terrible team for no readily apparent reason. 5) Your nearest 'big' team (see point 1 above). 6) A big team who aren't even your second nearest.
Basically, you don't even get to choose. Your team is assigned to you by an almost mystical process. Because watching football is, at bottom, about identity. (If it was about entertainment you'd be watching rugby instead.)
My father is a Liverpool fan.
He was a huge fan of Shankly and Paisley.
As the grandson of immigrants to this country so I didn’t have much footballing heritage to tap.
I'm not meaning to have a go, by the way. Every tradition has to start somewhere, and you've clearly invested a lot of time and effort over the years in Liverpool. But supporting a successful team when you're not from that city in particular is never going to elicit a great deal of sympathy. Supporting a successful team when they ARE your local team is never going to get you much sympathy, but at least a little 'oh well, suppose you can't help it'.
I recall discussing football with TSE and other Liverpool fans on here over a decade ago when Liverpool were on the verge of bankruptcy under Hicks and Gillette.
In those those days Liverpool were about as "successful" as 1990s English Cricket.
Ha ha - you sound like my Spurs-supporting in-laws. Who are often lamenting the fact that they ended up with Spurs and the unique burden of being a Spurs fan - seemingly oblivious to the fact that they are, roughly, the sixth richest and sixth most successful club in the country. They haven't even been relegated for forty years. Similarly, Liverpool's brief period when they were mid-table in top division looks like astonishing success for most clubs. Even at their worst, they won many more games than they lost. (I think?). Which certainly wasn't true of 1990s English cricket.
The more I think about it the more convinced I am this is the right answer. Yes an extreme position but I think that long term it has merits
Lets call Putins bluff and first strike russia
Will it lead to all out nuclear war...undoubtedly but is that such a bad thing. Yes many will die. Many will lose loved ones myself included
However in the long term it will provide a counter to global warming The human race will survive but be a sensible number of us circa 100 million It will promote social equality and like the black death this will be evident to historians a couple of centuries distant It will do what all the nuclear non proliferation treaties failed to do and empty the world of nuclear weapons It will be a wake up call for the human race not to be so stupid again
Is this tongue in cheek yes slightly, however while I think looked at from a now perspective yes all out nuclear war is a bad thing I remain unconvinced that 400 years from now historians aren't saying its where the human race turned the corner and became grown up
Boulay: Let's kill all the Russian's children Pagan2: Hold my beer
If Chelsea and/or Everton go bust/get relegated I think I might actually die of laughter.
Forget the quadruple, this would be the double.
FWIW - I think Chelsea are screwed, they lost close to £150 million last season, and net losses of over a £1.5 billion over the last decade or two.
If Roman cannot pump money into the club, they are buggered.
I reckon they could get deducted points this season which might knock them out the CL places and more likely points deduction next season.
It was also reported yesterday that Everton might also get points deduction next season.
You are not a real football fan if you want your derby rivals to go bust.
That said, you have absolutely no connection with Merseyside as far as I can ascertain so probably don't care about the maintenance of the Merseyside derby.
I married a plastic scouser. Pre plague I often spent £20k a year following Liverpool.
But tell me more about me having no connection with Liverpool.
In what sense do you have a link with Liverpool? You weren't born there, you have never lived there, and your family don't come from there. Your only link is by marriage seemingly. Some might say you are just a glory grabber!
I’m a child of the 80s.
I’m also very non white, in the 80s, football fans weren’t very welcoming.
Only chance I had to watch football was on the TV, in those days you had like 12 matches on TV, mostly Liverpool.
If I was a glory grabber, I’d have been a Chelsea and Man City fan recently.
No, because you only get one chance. Even glory grabbers don't move from team to team. That would make the whole thing pointless. You make a half-decent case, but 'because they were big when I started watching football' is never going to elicit much sympathy. The order of respect that people will give you for the team you support - and don't pretend you don't know this, deep down - is as follows: 1) Your local team. (Properly your local team - if you grown up in suburban Stockport, it's Stockport County, not Manchester Utd/City. If you grow up in Urmston and support Manchester United people will allow it, although it takes some of the fun out of it.) 2) The team your family supported before you. 3) A not particularly good team who you ended up with for an off-beat reason but have nevertheless stuck with (I knew a fella from Lancaster who - with no particular reason to support one team or another - was taken to buy his first football shirt at the age of 8. Who will it be? Blackburn were both Lancastrian AND successful at the time. It was before Morecambe were a league side, but they were close by. Some from school supported teams from Manchester or Liverpool. He gazed happily at the shirts before him, before being called by his father over to the sale bin (the family didn't have much money) and being given a choice of Sheffield United, Middlesbrough or Stoke. Somewhat glumly, he chose Sheffield United. But he stuck with them subsequently and went on to follow them home and away. 4) A terrible team for no readily apparent reason. 5) Your nearest 'big' team (see point 1 above). 6) A big team who aren't even your second nearest.
Basically, you don't even get to choose. Your team is assigned to you by an almost mystical process. Because watching football is, at bottom, about identity. (If it was about entertainment you'd be watching rugby instead.)
I ended up with mine because my dad didn't like Liverpool and I saw a club beat Liverpool in a match on telly and, around the same time, completely oblivious to it even being football related, my nan bought me a knitted top at a jumble sale that was old merchandise from said same club and I really liked the top. Hence, I was damned to be a Gooner at an age well before I was able to give informed consent (around 5 years old, I think). Probably a 3 then, for me. This was a year or two before they got successful under Graham.
Still, could have been worse. My dad is a Newcastle supporter. I think he kept that relatively quiet at the time, to avoid damning me to the same fate. I'd likely have copied him otherwise.
At the end they are clearly heading away from Kiev (you can confirm that on Google Earth).
Whether that is just a retreat so that they can level the town, or a retreat to think about doing something else, we obviously have no idea.
They are clearly doing nothing discernable whatsoever. As you note, we have no idea. Don't read anything into those 44 seconds. Fist bumps are premature.
The more I think about it the more convinced I am this is the right answer. Yes an extreme position but I think that long term it has merits
Lets call Putins bluff and first strike russia
Will it lead to all out nuclear war...undoubtedly but is that such a bad thing. Yes many will die. Many will lose loved ones myself included
However in the long term it will provide a counter to global warming The human race will survive but be a sensible number of us circa 100 million It will promote social equality and like the black death this will be evident to historians a couple of centuries distant It will do what all the nuclear non proliferation treaties failed to do and empty the world of nuclear weapons It will be a wake up call for the human race not to be so stupid again
Is this tongue in cheek yes slightly, however while I think looked at from a now perspective yes all out nuclear war is a bad thing I remain unconvinced that 400 years from now historians aren't saying its where the human race turned the corner and became grown up
The more I think about it the more convinced I am this is the right answer. Yes an extreme position but I think that long term it has merits
Lets call Putins bluff and first strike russia
Will it lead to all out nuclear war...undoubtedly but is that such a bad thing. Yes many will die. Many will lose loved ones myself included
However in the long term it will provide a counter to global warming The human race will survive but be a sensible number of us circa 100 million It will promote social equality and like the black death this will be evident to historians a couple of centuries distant It will do what all the nuclear non proliferation treaties failed to do and empty the world of nuclear weapons It will be a wake up call for the human race not to be so stupid again
Is this tongue in cheek yes slightly, however while I think looked at from a now perspective yes all out nuclear war is a bad thing I remain unconvinced that 400 years from now historians aren't saying its where the human race turned the corner and became grown up
Boulay: Let's kill all the Russian's children Pagan2: Hold my beer
I am sorry you equate the two stances. Mine I think is a reasonable point at the time of the black death it was seen as a disaster. A few centuries later people are saying yes it wasnt great for people at the time but on the other hand it brought in much needed change.
The difference is boulay was talking all about deterrent by terror. I am talking about how things might play out in the long term even though being horrific for all those that have to live through it.
ps dont lecture me when your answer is do what putin wants else he may nuke us all. You might want to live with putins heel on your throat most of us dont
The first car that my father bought from new, back in the early '90s, was a Lada. Among its quirks was a "roof rack" that the owner's manual said was decorative only and shouldn't be used and a full toolkit for doing your own on-the-spot repairs, probably quite vital if you broke down in rural Siberia.
Sadly he wrote it off in a car park in Bolton a few months after buying it, so it was not only the first, but the only car he ever bought from new.
(His car-buying policy was usually to buy the cheapest old banger he could find and drive it into the ground and scrap it. One such was an Wartburg from East Germany. But that's another story.)
The Wartburg Knight, a car the size of a Cortina with a two-stroke power plant the size of a scooter's - smokin'!
If Chelsea and/or Everton go bust/get relegated I think I might actually die of laughter.
Forget the quadruple, this would be the double.
FWIW - I think Chelsea are screwed, they lost close to £150 million last season, and net losses of over a £1.5 billion over the last decade or two.
If Roman cannot pump money into the club, they are buggered.
I reckon they could get deducted points this season which might knock them out the CL places and more likely points deduction next season.
It was also reported yesterday that Everton might also get points deduction next season.
You are not a real football fan if you want your derby rivals to go bust.
That said, you have absolutely no connection with Merseyside as far as I can ascertain so probably don't care about the maintenance of the Merseyside derby.
I married a plastic scouser. Pre plague I often spent £20k a year following Liverpool.
But tell me more about me having no connection with Liverpool.
In what sense do you have a link with Liverpool? You weren't born there, you have never lived there, and your family don't come from there. Your only link is by marriage seemingly. Some might say you are just a glory grabber!
I’m a child of the 80s.
I’m also very non white, in the 80s, football fans weren’t very welcoming.
Only chance I had to watch football was on the TV, in those days you had like 12 matches on TV, mostly Liverpool.
If I was a glory grabber, I’d have been a Chelsea and Man City fan recently.
No, because you only get one chance. Even glory grabbers don't move from team to team. That would make the whole thing pointless. You make a half-decent case, but 'because they were big when I started watching football' is never going to elicit much sympathy. The order of respect that people will give you for the team you support - and don't pretend you don't know this, deep down - is as follows: 1) Your local team. (Properly your local team - if you grown up in suburban Stockport, it's Stockport County, not Manchester Utd/City. If you grow up in Urmston and support Manchester United people will allow it, although it takes some of the fun out of it.) 2) The team your family supported before you. 3) A not particularly good team who you ended up with for an off-beat reason but have nevertheless stuck with (I knew a fella from Lancaster who - with no particular reason to support one team or another - was taken to buy his first football shirt at the age of 8. Who will it be? Blackburn were both Lancastrian AND successful at the time. It was before Morecambe were a league side, but they were close by. Some from school supported teams from Manchester or Liverpool. He gazed happily at the shirts before him, before being called by his father over to the sale bin (the family didn't have much money) and being given a choice of Sheffield United, Middlesbrough or Stoke. Somewhat glumly, he chose Sheffield United. But he stuck with them subsequently and went on to follow them home and away. 4) A terrible team for no readily apparent reason. 5) Your nearest 'big' team (see point 1 above). 6) A big team who aren't even your second nearest.
Basically, you don't even get to choose. Your team is assigned to you by an almost mystical process. Because watching football is, at bottom, about identity. (If it was about entertainment you'd be watching rugby instead.)
My father is a Liverpool fan.
He was a huge fan of Shankly and Paisley.
As the grandson of immigrants to this country so I didn’t have much footballing heritage to tap.
I'm not meaning to have a go, by the way. Every tradition has to start somewhere, and you've clearly invested a lot of time and effort over the years in Liverpool. But supporting a successful team when you're not from that city in particular is never going to elicit a great deal of sympathy. Supporting a successful team when they ARE your local team is never going to get you much sympathy, but at least a little 'oh well, suppose you can't help it'.
I recall discussing football with TSE and other Liverpool fans on here over a decade ago when Liverpool were on the verge of bankruptcy under Hicks and Gillette.
In those those days Liverpool were about as "successful" as 1990s English Cricket.
There speaks a fan of the top teams! Regular cup finals, European football and finishing 6th being a bad season is successful! Ask fans of the other 86.....
Success = Performance - Expectations.
I'm from Merseyside originally and also a fan of Tranmere Rovers, I've been regularly to both Anfield and Prenton Park in the past. We were relegated out of the Football League altogether for the first time only a few years ago and were relegated most recently due to the shortened Covid19 season in the same season that Liverpool won its Premier League title - so mixed emotions that season, I know as well as any others what its like for the "other teams".
As a fan of Tranmere expectations are different to how they are as a fan of Liverpool. For Tranmere being able to knock out a Premier League club in the FA Cup or League Cup is an incredible success, or avoiding relegation some seasons . . . as a Liverpool fan seeing Manchester United win a dozen league titles while we weren't winning any was not a successful time period.
The more I think about it the more convinced I am this is the right answer. Yes an extreme position but I think that long term it has merits
Lets call Putins bluff and first strike russia
Will it lead to all out nuclear war...undoubtedly but is that such a bad thing. Yes many will die. Many will lose loved ones myself included
However in the long term it will provide a counter to global warming The human race will survive but be a sensible number of us circa 100 million It will promote social equality and like the black death this will be evident to historians a couple of centuries distant It will do what all the nuclear non proliferation treaties failed to do and empty the world of nuclear weapons It will be a wake up call for the human race not to be so stupid again
Is this tongue in cheek yes slightly, however while I think looked at from a now perspective yes all out nuclear war is a bad thing I remain unconvinced that 400 years from now historians aren't saying its where the human race turned the corner and became grown up
Boulay: Let's kill all the Russian's children Pagan2: Hold my beer
I did apologise for my rash idiocy this morning before the thread changed if it means anything….
A. Impressive resurgence in West Indian Test play, much to be welcomed, big shot in the arm for this form of the game (........Ambrose and Walsh....oooh weren't they?...)
Or
B. England bag of sh**te.
It’s just a shame we don’t have a first class opening bowling partnership we could have picked that might have cleaned them up yesterday. A pair with, say, over 500 wickets each.
The more I think about it the more convinced I am this is the right answer. Yes an extreme position but I think that long term it has merits
Lets call Putins bluff and first strike russia
Will it lead to all out nuclear war...undoubtedly but is that such a bad thing. Yes many will die. Many will lose loved ones myself included
However in the long term it will provide a counter to global warming The human race will survive but be a sensible number of us circa 100 million It will promote social equality and like the black death this will be evident to historians a couple of centuries distant It will do what all the nuclear non proliferation treaties failed to do and empty the world of nuclear weapons It will be a wake up call for the human race not to be so stupid again
Is this tongue in cheek yes slightly, however while I think looked at from a now perspective yes all out nuclear war is a bad thing I remain unconvinced that 400 years from now historians aren't saying its where the human race turned the corner and became grown up
Boulay: Let's kill all the Russian's children Pagan2: Hold my beer
I did apologise for my rash idiocy this morning before the thread changed if it means anything….
I didn't read that - thought you would though, you're a good guy. In any case, we've now moved on to advocating a nuclear winter...
If Chelsea and/or Everton go bust/get relegated I think I might actually die of laughter.
Forget the quadruple, this would be the double.
FWIW - I think Chelsea are screwed, they lost close to £150 million last season, and net losses of over a £1.5 billion over the last decade or two.
If Roman cannot pump money into the club, they are buggered.
I reckon they could get deducted points this season which might knock them out the CL places and more likely points deduction next season.
It was also reported yesterday that Everton might also get points deduction next season.
You are not a real football fan if you want your derby rivals to go bust.
That said, you have absolutely no connection with Merseyside as far as I can ascertain so probably don't care about the maintenance of the Merseyside derby.
I married a plastic scouser. Pre plague I often spent £20k a year following Liverpool.
But tell me more about me having no connection with Liverpool.
In what sense do you have a link with Liverpool? You weren't born there, you have never lived there, and your family don't come from there. Your only link is by marriage seemingly. Some might say you are just a glory grabber!
I’m a child of the 80s.
I’m also very non white, in the 80s, football fans weren’t very welcoming.
Only chance I had to watch football was on the TV, in those days you had like 12 matches on TV, mostly Liverpool.
If I was a glory grabber, I’d have been a Chelsea and Man City fan recently.
No, because you only get one chance. Even glory grabbers don't move from team to team. That would make the whole thing pointless. You make a half-decent case, but 'because they were big when I started watching football' is never going to elicit much sympathy. The order of respect that people will give you for the team you support - and don't pretend you don't know this, deep down - is as follows: 1) Your local team. (Properly your local team - if you grown up in suburban Stockport, it's Stockport County, not Manchester Utd/City. If you grow up in Urmston and support Manchester United people will allow it, although it takes some of the fun out of it.) 2) The team your family supported before you. 3) A not particularly good team who you ended up with for an off-beat reason but have nevertheless stuck with (I knew a fella from Lancaster who - with no particular reason to support one team or another - was taken to buy his first football shirt at the age of 8. Who will it be? Blackburn were both Lancastrian AND successful at the time. It was before Morecambe were a league side, but they were close by. Some from school supported teams from Manchester or Liverpool. He gazed happily at the shirts before him, before being called by his father over to the sale bin (the family didn't have much money) and being given a choice of Sheffield United, Middlesbrough or Stoke. Somewhat glumly, he chose Sheffield United. But he stuck with them subsequently and went on to follow them home and away. 4) A terrible team for no readily apparent reason. 5) Your nearest 'big' team (see point 1 above). 6) A big team who aren't even your second nearest.
Basically, you don't even get to choose. Your team is assigned to you by an almost mystical process. Because watching football is, at bottom, about identity. (If it was about entertainment you'd be watching rugby instead.)
My father is a Liverpool fan.
He was a huge fan of Shankly and Paisley.
As the grandson of immigrants to this country so I didn’t have much footballing heritage to tap.
I'm not meaning to have a go, by the way. Every tradition has to start somewhere, and you've clearly invested a lot of time and effort over the years in Liverpool. But supporting a successful team when you're not from that city in particular is never going to elicit a great deal of sympathy. Supporting a successful team when they ARE your local team is never going to get you much sympathy, but at least a little 'oh well, suppose you can't help it'.
I recall discussing football with TSE and other Liverpool fans on here over a decade ago when Liverpool were on the verge of bankruptcy under Hicks and Gillette.
In those those days Liverpool were about as "successful" as 1990s English Cricket.
There speaks a fan of the top teams! Regular cup finals, European football and finishing 6th being a bad season is successful! Ask fans of the other 86.....
Success = Performance - Expectations.
I'm from Merseyside originally and also a fan of Tranmere Rovers, I've been regularly to both Anfield and Prenton Park in the past. We were relegated out of the Football League altogether for the first time only a few years ago and were relegated most recently due to the shortened Covid19 season in the same season that Liverpool won its Premier League title - so mixed emotions that season, I know as well as any others what its like for the "other teams".
As a fan of Tranmere expectations are different to how they are as a fan of Liverpool. For Tranmere being able to knock out a Premier League club in the FA Cup or League Cup is an incredible success, or avoiding relegation some seasons . . . as a Liverpool fan seeing Manchester United win a dozen league titles while we weren't winning any was not a successful time period.
If you knew what it was like for fans of the 86, the ones who don't also support a glory club, you would think differently.
The more I think about it the more convinced I am this is the right answer. Yes an extreme position but I think that long term it has merits
Lets call Putins bluff and first strike russia
Will it lead to all out nuclear war...undoubtedly but is that such a bad thing. Yes many will die. Many will lose loved ones myself included
However in the long term it will provide a counter to global warming The human race will survive but be a sensible number of us circa 100 million It will promote social equality and like the black death this will be evident to historians a couple of centuries distant It will do what all the nuclear non proliferation treaties failed to do and empty the world of nuclear weapons It will be a wake up call for the human race not to be so stupid again
Is this tongue in cheek yes slightly, however while I think looked at from a now perspective yes all out nuclear war is a bad thing I remain unconvinced that 400 years from now historians aren't saying its where the human race turned the corner and became grown up
Boulay: Let's kill all the Russian's children Pagan2: Hold my beer
I am sorry you equate the two stances. Mine I think is a reasonable point at the time of the black death it was seen as a disaster. A few centuries later people are saying yes it wasnt great for people at the time but on the other hand it brought in much needed change.
The difference is boulay was talking all about deterrent by terror. I am talking about how things might play out in the long term even though being horrific for all those that have to live through it.
ps dont lecture me when your answer is do what putin wants else he may nuke us all. You might want to live with putins heel on your throat most of us dont
Like Brexit, the Black Death resulted in significant wage inflation. Discuss.
If Chelsea and/or Everton go bust/get relegated I think I might actually die of laughter.
Forget the quadruple, this would be the double.
FWIW - I think Chelsea are screwed, they lost close to £150 million last season, and net losses of over a £1.5 billion over the last decade or two.
If Roman cannot pump money into the club, they are buggered.
I reckon they could get deducted points this season which might knock them out the CL places and more likely points deduction next season.
It was also reported yesterday that Everton might also get points deduction next season.
You are not a real football fan if you want your derby rivals to go bust.
That said, you have absolutely no connection with Merseyside as far as I can ascertain so probably don't care about the maintenance of the Merseyside derby.
I married a plastic scouser. Pre plague I often spent £20k a year following Liverpool.
But tell me more about me having no connection with Liverpool.
In what sense do you have a link with Liverpool? You weren't born there, you have never lived there, and your family don't come from there. Your only link is by marriage seemingly. Some might say you are just a glory grabber!
I’m a child of the 80s.
I’m also very non white, in the 80s, football fans weren’t very welcoming.
Only chance I had to watch football was on the TV, in those days you had like 12 matches on TV, mostly Liverpool.
If I was a glory grabber, I’d have been a Chelsea and Man City fan recently.
No, because you only get one chance. Even glory grabbers don't move from team to team. That would make the whole thing pointless. You make a half-decent case, but 'because they were big when I started watching football' is never going to elicit much sympathy. The order of respect that people will give you for the team you support - and don't pretend you don't know this, deep down - is as follows: 1) Your local team. (Properly your local team - if you grown up in suburban Stockport, it's Stockport County, not Manchester Utd/City. If you grow up in Urmston and support Manchester United people will allow it, although it takes some of the fun out of it.) 2) The team your family supported before you. 3) A not particularly good team who you ended up with for an off-beat reason but have nevertheless stuck with (I knew a fella from Lancaster who - with no particular reason to support one team or another - was taken to buy his first football shirt at the age of 8. Who will it be? Blackburn were both Lancastrian AND successful at the time. It was before Morecambe were a league side, but they were close by. Some from school supported teams from Manchester or Liverpool. He gazed happily at the shirts before him, before being called by his father over to the sale bin (the family didn't have much money) and being given a choice of Sheffield United, Middlesbrough or Stoke. Somewhat glumly, he chose Sheffield United. But he stuck with them subsequently and went on to follow them home and away. 4) A terrible team for no readily apparent reason. 5) Your nearest 'big' team (see point 1 above). 6) A big team who aren't even your second nearest.
Basically, you don't even get to choose. Your team is assigned to you by an almost mystical process. Because watching football is, at bottom, about identity. (If it was about entertainment you'd be watching rugby instead.)
My father is a Liverpool fan.
He was a huge fan of Shankly and Paisley.
As the grandson of immigrants to this country so I didn’t have much footballing heritage to tap.
I'm not meaning to have a go, by the way. Every tradition has to start somewhere, and you've clearly invested a lot of time and effort over the years in Liverpool. But supporting a successful team when you're not from that city in particular is never going to elicit a great deal of sympathy. Supporting a successful team when they ARE your local team is never going to get you much sympathy, but at least a little 'oh well, suppose you can't help it'.
I recall discussing football with TSE and other Liverpool fans on here over a decade ago when Liverpool were on the verge of bankruptcy under Hicks and Gillette.
In those those days Liverpool were about as "successful" as 1990s English Cricket.
There speaks a fan of the top teams! Regular cup finals, European football and finishing 6th being a bad season is successful! Ask fans of the other 86.....
Success = Performance - Expectations.
I'm from Merseyside originally and also a fan of Tranmere Rovers, I've been regularly to both Anfield and Prenton Park in the past. We were relegated out of the Football League altogether for the first time only a few years ago and were relegated most recently due to the shortened Covid19 season in the same season that Liverpool won its Premier League title - so mixed emotions that season, I know as well as any others what its like for the "other teams".
As a fan of Tranmere expectations are different to how they are as a fan of Liverpool. For Tranmere being able to knock out a Premier League club in the FA Cup or League Cup is an incredible success, or avoiding relegation some seasons . . . as a Liverpool fan seeing Manchester United win a dozen league titles while we weren't winning any was not a successful time period.
If you knew what it was like for fans of the 86, the ones who don't also support a glory club, you would think differently.
Oh grow up. I don't "also support a glory club", I'm from Merseyside and my entire family is either white and blue or white and red.
The more I think about it the more convinced I am this is the right answer. Yes an extreme position but I think that long term it has merits
Lets call Putins bluff and first strike russia
Will it lead to all out nuclear war...undoubtedly but is that such a bad thing. Yes many will die. Many will lose loved ones myself included
However in the long term it will provide a counter to global warming The human race will survive but be a sensible number of us circa 100 million It will promote social equality and like the black death this will be evident to historians a couple of centuries distant It will do what all the nuclear non proliferation treaties failed to do and empty the world of nuclear weapons It will be a wake up call for the human race not to be so stupid again
Is this tongue in cheek yes slightly, however while I think looked at from a now perspective yes all out nuclear war is a bad thing I remain unconvinced that 400 years from now historians aren't saying its where the human race turned the corner and became grown up
Boulay: Let's kill all the Russian's children Pagan2: Hold my beer
I am sorry you equate the two stances. Mine I think is a reasonable point at the time of the black death it was seen as a disaster. A few centuries later people are saying yes it wasnt great for people at the time but on the other hand it brought in much needed change.
The difference is boulay was talking all about deterrent by terror. I am talking about how things might play out in the long term even though being horrific for all those that have to live through it.
ps dont lecture me when your answer is do what putin wants else he may nuke us all. You might want to live with putins heel on your throat most of us dont
Like Brexit, the Black Death resulted in significant wage inflation. Discuss.
It is also credited with the collapse of feudalism discuss
Fiona Hill: Putin "making it also very clear that he wants the neutralization, demilitarization, not just of Ukraine, but probably of the whole swathe of former Soviet republics, unless they’re in Russia’s own alliance"
My allegiance to Arsenal was simply because I knew some season ticket holders. My first visit to Highbury was to see Wednesday relegated and they’ve never been back in the PL since.
The more I think about it the more convinced I am this is the right answer. Yes an extreme position but I think that long term it has merits
Lets call Putins bluff and first strike russia
Will it lead to all out nuclear war...undoubtedly but is that such a bad thing. Yes many will die. Many will lose loved ones myself included
However in the long term it will provide a counter to global warming The human race will survive but be a sensible number of us circa 100 million It will promote social equality and like the black death this will be evident to historians a couple of centuries distant It will do what all the nuclear non proliferation treaties failed to do and empty the world of nuclear weapons It will be a wake up call for the human race not to be so stupid again
Is this tongue in cheek yes slightly, however while I think looked at from a now perspective yes all out nuclear war is a bad thing I remain unconvinced that 400 years from now historians aren't saying its where the human race turned the corner and became grown up
Boulay: Let's kill all the Russian's children Pagan2: Hold my beer
I am sorry you equate the two stances. Mine I think is a reasonable point at the time of the black death it was seen as a disaster. A few centuries later people are saying yes it wasnt great for people at the time but on the other hand it brought in much needed change.
The difference is boulay was talking all about deterrent by terror. I am talking about how things might play out in the long term even though being horrific for all those that have to live through it.
ps dont lecture me when your answer is do what putin wants else he may nuke us all. You might want to live with putins heel on your throat most of us dont
Like Brexit, the Black Death resulted in significant wage inflation. Discuss.
It is also credited with the collapse of feudalism discuss
Those 2 are part of the same effect (labour shortages)
If Chelsea and/or Everton go bust/get relegated I think I might actually die of laughter.
Forget the quadruple, this would be the double.
FWIW - I think Chelsea are screwed, they lost close to £150 million last season, and net losses of over a £1.5 billion over the last decade or two.
If Roman cannot pump money into the club, they are buggered.
I reckon they could get deducted points this season which might knock them out the CL places and more likely points deduction next season.
It was also reported yesterday that Everton might also get points deduction next season.
You are not a real football fan if you want your derby rivals to go bust.
That said, you have absolutely no connection with Merseyside as far as I can ascertain so probably don't care about the maintenance of the Merseyside derby.
I married a plastic scouser. Pre plague I often spent £20k a year following Liverpool.
But tell me more about me having no connection with Liverpool.
In what sense do you have a link with Liverpool? You weren't born there, you have never lived there, and your family don't come from there. Your only link is by marriage seemingly. Some might say you are just a glory grabber!
I’m a child of the 80s.
I’m also very non white, in the 80s, football fans weren’t very welcoming.
Only chance I had to watch football was on the TV, in those days you had like 12 matches on TV, mostly Liverpool.
If I was a glory grabber, I’d have been a Chelsea and Man City fan recently.
No, because you only get one chance. Even glory grabbers don't move from team to team. That would make the whole thing pointless. You make a half-decent case, but 'because they were big when I started watching football' is never going to elicit much sympathy. The order of respect that people will give you for the team you support - and don't pretend you don't know this, deep down - is as follows: 1) Your local team. (Properly your local team - if you grown up in suburban Stockport, it's Stockport County, not Manchester Utd/City. If you grow up in Urmston and support Manchester United people will allow it, although it takes some of the fun out of it.) 2) The team your family supported before you. 3) A not particularly good team who you ended up with for an off-beat reason but have nevertheless stuck with (I knew a fella from Lancaster who - with no particular reason to support one team or another - was taken to buy his first football shirt at the age of 8. Who will it be? Blackburn were both Lancastrian AND successful at the time. It was before Morecambe were a league side, but they were close by. Some from school supported teams from Manchester or Liverpool. He gazed happily at the shirts before him, before being called by his father over to the sale bin (the family didn't have much money) and being given a choice of Sheffield United, Middlesbrough or Stoke. Somewhat glumly, he chose Sheffield United. But he stuck with them subsequently and went on to follow them home and away. 4) A terrible team for no readily apparent reason. 5) Your nearest 'big' team (see point 1 above). 6) A big team who aren't even your second nearest.
Basically, you don't even get to choose. Your team is assigned to you by an almost mystical process. Because watching football is, at bottom, about identity. (If it was about entertainment you'd be watching rugby instead.)
My father is a Liverpool fan.
He was a huge fan of Shankly and Paisley.
As the grandson of immigrants to this country so I didn’t have much footballing heritage to tap.
I'm not meaning to have a go, by the way. Every tradition has to start somewhere, and you've clearly invested a lot of time and effort over the years in Liverpool. But supporting a successful team when you're not from that city in particular is never going to elicit a great deal of sympathy. Supporting a successful team when they ARE your local team is never going to get you much sympathy, but at least a little 'oh well, suppose you can't help it'.
I recall discussing football with TSE and other Liverpool fans on here over a decade ago when Liverpool were on the verge of bankruptcy under Hicks and Gillette.
In those those days Liverpool were about as "successful" as 1990s English Cricket.
There speaks a fan of the top teams! Regular cup finals, European football and finishing 6th being a bad season is successful! Ask fans of the other 86.....
Success = Performance - Expectations.
I'm from Merseyside originally and also a fan of Tranmere Rovers, I've been regularly to both Anfield and Prenton Park in the past. We were relegated out of the Football League altogether for the first time only a few years ago and were relegated most recently due to the shortened Covid19 season in the same season that Liverpool won its Premier League title - so mixed emotions that season, I know as well as any others what its like for the "other teams".
As a fan of Tranmere expectations are different to how they are as a fan of Liverpool. For Tranmere being able to knock out a Premier League club in the FA Cup or League Cup is an incredible success, or avoiding relegation some seasons . . . as a Liverpool fan seeing Manchester United win a dozen league titles while we weren't winning any was not a successful time period.
If you knew what it was like for fans of the 86, the ones who don't also support a glory club, you would think differently.
Oh grow up. I don't "also support a glory club", I'm from Merseyside and my entire family is either white and blue or white and red.
Is that what @TSE meant by describing himself as "very not white"? .
My son inherited Leeds United from me. When he was a little kid, he wanted a Leeds shirt with Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink printed on it. In those days, you had to pay for each letter. He got Alan Smith instead.
If Chelsea and/or Everton go bust/get relegated I think I might actually die of laughter.
Forget the quadruple, this would be the double.
FWIW - I think Chelsea are screwed, they lost close to £150 million last season, and net losses of over a £1.5 billion over the last decade or two.
If Roman cannot pump money into the club, they are buggered.
I reckon they could get deducted points this season which might knock them out the CL places and more likely points deduction next season.
It was also reported yesterday that Everton might also get points deduction next season.
You are not a real football fan if you want your derby rivals to go bust.
That said, you have absolutely no connection with Merseyside as far as I can ascertain so probably don't care about the maintenance of the Merseyside derby.
I married a plastic scouser. Pre plague I often spent £20k a year following Liverpool.
But tell me more about me having no connection with Liverpool.
In what sense do you have a link with Liverpool? You weren't born there, you have never lived there, and your family don't come from there. Your only link is by marriage seemingly. Some might say you are just a glory grabber!
I’m a child of the 80s.
I’m also very non white, in the 80s, football fans weren’t very welcoming.
Only chance I had to watch football was on the TV, in those days you had like 12 matches on TV, mostly Liverpool.
If I was a glory grabber, I’d have been a Chelsea and Man City fan recently.
No, because you only get one chance. Even glory grabbers don't move from team to team. That would make the whole thing pointless. You make a half-decent case, but 'because they were big when I started watching football' is never going to elicit much sympathy. The order of respect that people will give you for the team you support - and don't pretend you don't know this, deep down - is as follows: 1) Your local team. (Properly your local team - if you grown up in suburban Stockport, it's Stockport County, not Manchester Utd/City. If you grow up in Urmston and support Manchester United people will allow it, although it takes some of the fun out of it.) 2) The team your family supported before you. 3) A not particularly good team who you ended up with for an off-beat reason but have nevertheless stuck with (I knew a fella from Lancaster who - with no particular reason to support one team or another - was taken to buy his first football shirt at the age of 8. Who will it be? Blackburn were both Lancastrian AND successful at the time. It was before Morecambe were a league side, but they were close by. Some from school supported teams from Manchester or Liverpool. He gazed happily at the shirts before him, before being called by his father over to the sale bin (the family didn't have much money) and being given a choice of Sheffield United, Middlesbrough or Stoke. Somewhat glumly, he chose Sheffield United. But he stuck with them subsequently and went on to follow them home and away. 4) A terrible team for no readily apparent reason. 5) Your nearest 'big' team (see point 1 above). 6) A big team who aren't even your second nearest.
Basically, you don't even get to choose. Your team is assigned to you by an almost mystical process. Because watching football is, at bottom, about identity. (If it was about entertainment you'd be watching rugby instead.)
My father is a Liverpool fan.
He was a huge fan of Shankly and Paisley.
As the grandson of immigrants to this country so I didn’t have much footballing heritage to tap.
I'm not meaning to have a go, by the way. Every tradition has to start somewhere, and you've clearly invested a lot of time and effort over the years in Liverpool. But supporting a successful team when you're not from that city in particular is never going to elicit a great deal of sympathy. Supporting a successful team when they ARE your local team is never going to get you much sympathy, but at least a little 'oh well, suppose you can't help it'.
I recall discussing football with TSE and other Liverpool fans on here over a decade ago when Liverpool were on the verge of bankruptcy under Hicks and Gillette.
In those those days Liverpool were about as "successful" as 1990s English Cricket.
There speaks a fan of the top teams! Regular cup finals, European football and finishing 6th being a bad season is successful! Ask fans of the other 86.....
Success = Performance - Expectations.
I'm from Merseyside originally and also a fan of Tranmere Rovers, I've been regularly to both Anfield and Prenton Park in the past. We were relegated out of the Football League altogether for the first time only a few years ago and were relegated most recently due to the shortened Covid19 season in the same season that Liverpool won its Premier League title - so mixed emotions that season, I know as well as any others what its like for the "other teams".
As a fan of Tranmere expectations are different to how they are as a fan of Liverpool. For Tranmere being able to knock out a Premier League club in the FA Cup or League Cup is an incredible success, or avoiding relegation some seasons . . . as a Liverpool fan seeing Manchester United win a dozen league titles while we weren't winning any was not a successful time period.
If you knew what it was like for fans of the 86, the ones who don't also support a glory club, you would think differently.
Oh grow up. I don't "also support a glory club", I'm from Merseyside and my entire family is either white and blue or white and red.
I don't care who anyone supports or for what reason, but it is insulting to claim regular cup finals and European football is not being successful. Some fans might get that once every 50 years, or not at all.
I used to own a Lada, so I know all the jokes. I did once back into a concrete bollard in it. No damage done but it made a mess of the bollard. Going round a roundabout with four hefty rugby players in, the back door swung open. How we all laughed as we watched him clinging on. I managed to stop before he let go.
The more I think about it the more convinced I am this is the right answer. Yes an extreme position but I think that long term it has merits
Lets call Putins bluff and first strike russia
Will it lead to all out nuclear war...undoubtedly but is that such a bad thing. Yes many will die. Many will lose loved ones myself included
However in the long term it will provide a counter to global warming The human race will survive but be a sensible number of us circa 100 million It will promote social equality and like the black death this will be evident to historians a couple of centuries distant It will do what all the nuclear non proliferation treaties failed to do and empty the world of nuclear weapons It will be a wake up call for the human race not to be so stupid again
Is this tongue in cheek yes slightly, however while I think looked at from a now perspective yes all out nuclear war is a bad thing I remain unconvinced that 400 years from now historians aren't saying its where the human race turned the corner and became grown up
Siri, give me an example of "solving the wrong problem".
Fiona Hill: Putin "making it also very clear that he wants the neutralization, demilitarization, not just of Ukraine, but probably of the whole swathe of former Soviet republics, unless they’re in Russia’s own alliance"
If Chelsea and/or Everton go bust/get relegated I think I might actually die of laughter.
Forget the quadruple, this would be the double.
FWIW - I think Chelsea are screwed, they lost close to £150 million last season, and net losses of over a £1.5 billion over the last decade or two.
If Roman cannot pump money into the club, they are buggered.
I reckon they could get deducted points this season which might knock them out the CL places and more likely points deduction next season.
It was also reported yesterday that Everton might also get points deduction next season.
You are not a real football fan if you want your derby rivals to go bust.
That said, you have absolutely no connection with Merseyside as far as I can ascertain so probably don't care about the maintenance of the Merseyside derby.
I married a plastic scouser. Pre plague I often spent £20k a year following Liverpool.
But tell me more about me having no connection with Liverpool.
In what sense do you have a link with Liverpool? You weren't born there, you have never lived there, and your family don't come from there. Your only link is by marriage seemingly. Some might say you are just a glory grabber!
I’m a child of the 80s.
I’m also very non white, in the 80s, football fans weren’t very welcoming.
Only chance I had to watch football was on the TV, in those days you had like 12 matches on TV, mostly Liverpool.
If I was a glory grabber, I’d have been a Chelsea and Man City fan recently.
No, because you only get one chance. Even glory grabbers don't move from team to team. That would make the whole thing pointless. You make a half-decent case, but 'because they were big when I started watching football' is never going to elicit much sympathy. The order of respect that people will give you for the team you support - and don't pretend you don't know this, deep down - is as follows: 1) Your local team. (Properly your local team - if you grown up in suburban Stockport, it's Stockport County, not Manchester Utd/City. If you grow up in Urmston and support Manchester United people will allow it, although it takes some of the fun out of it.) 2) The team your family supported before you. 3) A not particularly good team who you ended up with for an off-beat reason but have nevertheless stuck with (I knew a fella from Lancaster who - with no particular reason to support one team or another - was taken to buy his first football shirt at the age of 8. Who will it be? Blackburn were both Lancastrian AND successful at the time. It was before Morecambe were a league side, but they were close by. Some from school supported teams from Manchester or Liverpool. He gazed happily at the shirts before him, before being called by his father over to the sale bin (the family didn't have much money) and being given a choice of Sheffield United, Middlesbrough or Stoke. Somewhat glumly, he chose Sheffield United. But he stuck with them subsequently and went on to follow them home and away. 4) A terrible team for no readily apparent reason. 5) Your nearest 'big' team (see point 1 above). 6) A big team who aren't even your second nearest.
Basically, you don't even get to choose. Your team is assigned to you by an almost mystical process. Because watching football is, at bottom, about identity. (If it was about entertainment you'd be watching rugby instead.)
Born in Swindon. When I was starting to get into football we lived equidistant between Town and Southampton. Dad new Swindon as he had served there as a copper, so took me there (weirdly for the first game in the away end).
So I could have had 30+ years of mainly top flight footy, with the odd cup final thrown in. Instead its been a right rollercoaster. I've seen four league titles (three times Division 4, once Div 3), three play-off final wins to gain promotion (and a fair number of play off loses) and nearly reaching the league cup final once.
On the whole I'm happy enough, but some days you wonder...
The more I think about it the more convinced I am this is the right answer. Yes an extreme position but I think that long term it has merits
Lets call Putins bluff and first strike russia
Will it lead to all out nuclear war...undoubtedly but is that such a bad thing. Yes many will die. Many will lose loved ones myself included
However in the long term it will provide a counter to global warming The human race will survive but be a sensible number of us circa 100 million It will promote social equality and like the black death this will be evident to historians a couple of centuries distant It will do what all the nuclear non proliferation treaties failed to do and empty the world of nuclear weapons It will be a wake up call for the human race not to be so stupid again
Is this tongue in cheek yes slightly, however while I think looked at from a now perspective yes all out nuclear war is a bad thing I remain unconvinced that 400 years from now historians aren't saying its where the human race turned the corner and became grown up
Nuclear winter would presumably reverse several centuries of global warming ... To every cloud a silver lining. Except, of course, global warming is only 'bad' if there are humans to appreciate it. Otherwise, it is simply 'different'.
If Chelsea and/or Everton go bust/get relegated I think I might actually die of laughter.
Forget the quadruple, this would be the double.
FWIW - I think Chelsea are screwed, they lost close to £150 million last season, and net losses of over a £1.5 billion over the last decade or two.
If Roman cannot pump money into the club, they are buggered.
I reckon they could get deducted points this season which might knock them out the CL places and more likely points deduction next season.
It was also reported yesterday that Everton might also get points deduction next season.
You are not a real football fan if you want your derby rivals to go bust.
That said, you have absolutely no connection with Merseyside as far as I can ascertain so probably don't care about the maintenance of the Merseyside derby.
I married a plastic scouser. Pre plague I often spent £20k a year following Liverpool.
But tell me more about me having no connection with Liverpool.
In what sense do you have a link with Liverpool? You weren't born there, you have never lived there, and your family don't come from there. Your only link is by marriage seemingly. Some might say you are just a glory grabber!
I’m a child of the 80s.
I’m also very non white, in the 80s, football fans weren’t very welcoming.
Only chance I had to watch football was on the TV, in those days you had like 12 matches on TV, mostly Liverpool.
If I was a glory grabber, I’d have been a Chelsea and Man City fan recently.
No, because you only get one chance. Even glory grabbers don't move from team to team. That would make the whole thing pointless. You make a half-decent case, but 'because they were big when I started watching football' is never going to elicit much sympathy. The order of respect that people will give you for the team you support - and don't pretend you don't know this, deep down - is as follows: 1) Your local team. (Properly your local team - if you grown up in suburban Stockport, it's Stockport County, not Manchester Utd/City. If you grow up in Urmston and support Manchester United people will allow it, although it takes some of the fun out of it.) 2) The team your family supported before you. 3) A not particularly good team who you ended up with for an off-beat reason but have nevertheless stuck with (I knew a fella from Lancaster who - with no particular reason to support one team or another - was taken to buy his first football shirt at the age of 8. Who will it be? Blackburn were both Lancastrian AND successful at the time. It was before Morecambe were a league side, but they were close by. Some from school supported teams from Manchester or Liverpool. He gazed happily at the shirts before him, before being called by his father over to the sale bin (the family didn't have much money) and being given a choice of Sheffield United, Middlesbrough or Stoke. Somewhat glumly, he chose Sheffield United. But he stuck with them subsequently and went on to follow them home and away. 4) A terrible team for no readily apparent reason. 5) Your nearest 'big' team (see point 1 above). 6) A big team who aren't even your second nearest.
Basically, you don't even get to choose. Your team is assigned to you by an almost mystical process. Because watching football is, at bottom, about identity. (If it was about entertainment you'd be watching rugby instead.)
My father is a Liverpool fan.
He was a huge fan of Shankly and Paisley.
As the grandson of immigrants to this country so I didn’t have much footballing heritage to tap.
I'm not meaning to have a go, by the way. Every tradition has to start somewhere, and you've clearly invested a lot of time and effort over the years in Liverpool. But supporting a successful team when you're not from that city in particular is never going to elicit a great deal of sympathy. Supporting a successful team when they ARE your local team is never going to get you much sympathy, but at least a little 'oh well, suppose you can't help it'.
I recall discussing football with TSE and other Liverpool fans on here over a decade ago when Liverpool were on the verge of bankruptcy under Hicks and Gillette.
In those those days Liverpool were about as "successful" as 1990s English Cricket.
There speaks a fan of the top teams! Regular cup finals, European football and finishing 6th being a bad season is successful! Ask fans of the other 86.....
Success = Performance - Expectations.
I'm from Merseyside originally and also a fan of Tranmere Rovers, I've been regularly to both Anfield and Prenton Park in the past. We were relegated out of the Football League altogether for the first time only a few years ago and were relegated most recently due to the shortened Covid19 season in the same season that Liverpool won its Premier League title - so mixed emotions that season, I know as well as any others what its like for the "other teams".
As a fan of Tranmere expectations are different to how they are as a fan of Liverpool. For Tranmere being able to knock out a Premier League club in the FA Cup or League Cup is an incredible success, or avoiding relegation some seasons . . . as a Liverpool fan seeing Manchester United win a dozen league titles while we weren't winning any was not a successful time period.
If you knew what it was like for fans of the 86, the ones who don't also support a glory club, you would think differently.
Oh grow up. I don't "also support a glory club", I'm from Merseyside and my entire family is either white and blue or white and red.
Yes, and that's perfect fairly enough.
However I think you are unique on PB insofar as you are a Liverpool fan who is actually from Merseyside!
I doubt if nuclear war would lead to the extinction of humanity (it would largely result in the extinction of the British population, however).
Much of the world would be left more or less unscathed, and even a big drop in temperature would leave much of the world habitable.
Direct casualties, and then indirect casualties through cancer and starvation, would likely top a billion, but billions would live.
Nuclear war would be a very low energy event compared to the Chicxulub asteroid impact approximately 66 million years ago, and life on Earth survived that. The asteroid impact had an energy of around 100,000,000 Megatonnes of TNT. Life and humanity will survive nuclear war, but civilisation and the economy will probably be disrupted for many decades.
I'm guessing the only land animals as big as us that survived the extinction 66 million years ago were some kinds of crocodiles - anyone know anything else?
When Putin and his team and his generals devised this war, at that time, before the first cruise launch, what was their objective and exit policy?
They believed their own propaganda about "the Kiev regime" and thought Zelensky would flee to the west, the army would surrender and the people would welcome them with open arms.
If so. That would explain the FSB being unhappy. Why pay for spies when, at best, they are ignored? At worst, not allowed to report their assessment.
If you were the Russian spy in Kiev, observing and noting that the Ukranian army were getting trained up by a bunch of British special forces, were amassing large supplies of weapons from Western countries, and that the mood was becoming very hostile towards Russia, you’d be mighty peeved that the word that got back to the top man in Moscow was rather different.
In the beginning, there was a plan, And then came the assumptions, And the assumptions were without form, And the plan without substance,
And the darkness was upon the face of the workers, And they spoke among themselves saying, "It is a crock of shit and it stinks."
And the workers went unto their Supervisors and said, "It is a pile of dung, and we cannot live with the smell."
And the Supervisors went unto their Managers saying, "It is a container of excrement, and it is very strong, Such that none may abide by it."
And the Managers went unto their Directors saying, "It is a vessel of fertilizer, and none may abide by its strength."
And the Directors spoke among themselves saying to one another, "It contains that which aids plants growth, and it is very strong."
And the Directors went to the Vice Presidents saying unto them, "It promotes growth, and it is very powerful."
And the Vice Presidents went to the President, saying unto him, "This new plan will actively promote the growth and vigor Of the company With very powerful effects."
And the President looked upon the Plan And saw that it was good, And the Plan became Policy.
Comments
The poll is asking a different question to the one you think is being asked.
Practically all analysts think Russia will win out in the end, its a matter of how long, how much damage and destruction both sides inflict and what "winning" means i.e. does that mean Russia have replaced the government and nominally controlling all the major cities, but there still being an insurgency?
Lets call Putins bluff and first strike russia
Will it lead to all out nuclear war...undoubtedly but is that such a bad thing. Yes many will die. Many will lose loved ones myself included
However in the long term it will provide a counter to global warming
The human race will survive but be a sensible number of us circa 100 million
It will promote social equality and like the black death this will be evident to historians a couple of centuries distant
It will do what all the nuclear non proliferation treaties failed to do and empty the world of nuclear weapons
It will be a wake up call for the human race not to be so stupid again
Is this tongue in cheek yes slightly, however while I think looked at from a now perspective yes all out nuclear war is a bad thing I remain unconvinced that 400 years from now historians aren't saying its where the human race turned the corner and became grown up
https://twitter.com/pevchikh/status/1501878715709632518
“Step-daughter” of Lavrov - lives in £4m Kensington Apartment. No doubt she can explain where the wealth came from….
Air support isn't much use against something that weights 250g and is 10cm across.
Sadly he wrote it off in a car park in Bolton a few months after buying it, so it was not only the first, but the only car he ever bought from new.
(His car-buying policy was usually to buy the cheapest old banger he could find and drive it into the ground and scrap it. One such was an Wartburg from East Germany. But that's another story.)
Similarly, Liverpool's brief period when they were mid-table in top division looks like astonishing success for most clubs. Even at their worst, they won many more games than they lost. (I think?). Which certainly wasn't true of 1990s English cricket.
Pagan2: Hold my beer
Still, could have been worse. My dad is a Newcastle supporter. I think he kept that relatively quiet at the time, to avoid damning me to the same fate. I'd likely have copied him otherwise.
The difference is boulay was talking all about deterrent by terror. I am talking about how things might play out in the long term even though being horrific for all those that have to live through it.
ps dont lecture me when your answer is do what putin wants else he may nuke us all. You might want to live with putins heel on your throat most of us dont
I'm from Merseyside originally and also a fan of Tranmere Rovers, I've been regularly to both Anfield and Prenton Park in the past. We were relegated out of the Football League altogether for the first time only a few years ago and were relegated most recently due to the shortened Covid19 season in the same season that Liverpool won its Premier League title - so mixed emotions that season, I know as well as any others what its like for the "other teams".
As a fan of Tranmere expectations are different to how they are as a fan of Liverpool. For Tranmere being able to knock out a Premier League club in the FA Cup or League Cup is an incredible success, or avoiding relegation some seasons . . . as a Liverpool fan seeing Manchester United win a dozen league titles while we weren't winning any was not a successful time period.
When dealing with delicate issues relating to wide scale war precision of view is everything.
This piece of nonsense does the pollster's reputation no good.
https://twitter.com/shashj/status/1501961909691723783?
https://www.sheffieldhistory.co.uk/forums/uploads/monthly_09_2010/post-9363-069026400 1284373331.jpg
My allegiance to Arsenal was simply because I knew some season ticket holders. My first visit to Highbury was to see Wednesday relegated and they’ve never been back in the PL since.
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So I could have had 30+ years of mainly top flight footy, with the odd cup final thrown in. Instead its been a right rollercoaster. I've seen four league titles (three times Division 4, once Div 3), three play-off final wins to gain promotion (and a fair number of play off loses) and nearly reaching the league cup final once.
On the whole I'm happy enough, but some days you wonder...
However I think you are unique on PB insofar as you are a Liverpool fan who is actually from Merseyside!