Sunderland 'Til I Cry: EFL and beyond 19/20

it sounds like a total disaster

Fleetwood owner saying after our match how loads of clubs could really go bust

maybe the lower overheads at NL and lower protect those clubs?

Don't see any of the full time clubs surviving. Money was distributed by the league on the basis of attendance so many of them will be getting less than us. We signed on some non-contracted players to get to the minimum 14 - with only 5 full time I think - and we're on about 50% income afaik.

No money at all for the clubs below, Aldo, but until this lockdown we were allowed fans in. However, they capped it at a third of the minimum ground capacity acceptable at each level, rather than to a third of the capacity of each ground, i.e. in FC United's division *all* teams were capped at 600 supporters. Not a problem for most clubs at that level, but for us it was considerably less than the number of season tickets we'd normally sell and less than a third of the average gate. Kind of irrelevant now as I can't see the league possibly finishing this season, probably not even restarting. We're on the BBC tomorrow for the FA Cup game against Doncaster - special dispensation for the 'non-elite' teams left in the cup to go ahead and play, but in the highly unlikely event we win, our players won't be allowed to train together (or have any matches, obviously) between the 1st round and the 2nd round. Magic of the cup. I'm looking forward to hearing the piped in crowd sounds on TV as we lose 5-0 in an empty ground.

Yes, I should have said it's a farce below. Although of course the vote two seasons ago that brought in playoffs was only announced at the restart of football that "oh aye, voting yes made you elite sport, did we not mention it at the time?" And yes, as with you we had to drop the season ticket sales to the league cap level despite safely being able to hold more, with a cap that benefited just about all other teams (we were capped at 1100, a reduction of about 300 on safe hosting and I think there's only 4 sides that routinely get over 1000).

The FA cup has been daft as well, because when a non-elite side hosts an elite side they were allowed he support but not away support.

I know of one team in our league who were streaming the game on the pitch into the club bar, so you could watch a game in progress inside the ground, just not be able to see it.

I think we'd already sold seven or eight hundred season tickets before they announced the cap at 600, which was awkward (but just about manageable as there's a reasonable number of people who buy them essentially as a donation, knowing full well they won't go to every game).

Some pretty good Torquay bizarro this afternoon. Finished 5-6 to Crawley aet but it took me a fair while to work out how the game had gone from the goal timings; 90+18 minutes happens before 102 minutes obv.

HT: 2-0
FT: 3-3
AET: 5-6


Torquay 5:
Nemane (18' minutes), Whitfield (24' minutes), Umerah (90'+18 minutes), Hall (102' minutes pen, 107' minutes pen)

Crawley 6:
Nichols (83' minutes pen, 108' minutes, 113' minutes), Watters (90'+14 minutes), Tunnicliffe (90'+21 minutes), Nadesan (118' minutes)

lol i take it somebody's been stretchered off

"Torquay bizarro" feels like a thing that is only a thing to Exeter fans, lol

mind you that is pretty excellently daft

Not even a “thing” to Exeter fans tbh, but there has been some good Torquay bizarro over the years.

Also I’m not having any football related lols from you this weekend lj. For shame.

Plymouth put out an unchanged team! Entirely not in the spirit of it, lol

Boston Vs Darlington cancelled in the 87th minute following an injury to a Darlo player. Fan accounts say the ambulance took 45 minutes to arrive.

I should be excited about getting to go back. Unfortunately I have watched streams of our games so I'm not.

Round 4 - Match 5

Otto Versfeld (26) vs Hugh Sproat (32) pic.twitter.com/Y1FlDQEuuX

— 80s Footballers Aging Badly (@80sAging) November 23, 2020

I'm against appearance shaming in principle, but I'll forget that for this hilarious FA Cup of badly aging footballers competition.

lol dourly holding on for a point against a side with Akinfenwa in it, we've come a long way since 2009!

try losing 4-2 to a team bottom of the league who've had a covid crisis

it wouldn't be any fun if we won every game, we'd become as insufferably smug and full as shit your average Spurs fan!

Weird how the 2,000 Milwall fans who got in today happened to be total cunts

that's Millwall

QPR players celebrate going 1-0 up at Millwall by taking the knee. (📷 via @theodore_LH) pic.twitter.com/aWhoH3dK4C

— Colin Millar (@Millar_Colin) December 8, 2020

Tick.

:D

👌

Tremendous. Sadly Millwall have equalised

In a letter handed to fans in attendance, they added: "The eyes of the world are on this football club tonight - your club - and they want us to fail.

"Together as one, we will not let that happen."

This seems pointlessly aggrieved in tone

Whoever's there for the radio tonight said as much

fucking max respect to QPR, also I miss r|t|c

Yeah, that guy fuckin ruled imo

Racism reported at our place last night, FFS. Investigations ongoing. Awful.

tbf there won't be many grounds in the country where racism doesn't happen, the important thing is a club's response

That’s definitely true and no doubt the smaller numbers at matches will mean some of the crap is more audible.

I’m disappointed because I used to be acutely aware of how much racism there was at our ground (like in the 80s whichever of BI\|P or |\|F were around at the time sold a lot of magazines at our place - rumour has it that we were in their top 10 grounds while in the bottom 20’attendances though I can’t back that up) but I genuinely haven’t heard anything of the kind for years.

And as I think about it I’m wrong because I have heard people use Roma - related slurs in the last couple of years and I don’t want to wave that away.

The last time it happened it was a good friend of mine and we had some strong words about it, and he won’t do it again.

History is being made in an hour, this is the first time in my lifetime (or since 1972) that Hudds have played a league fixture against Coventry!

great result too :)

it was definitely a great result for fans of falling asleep slumped in your chair with a football match on the wireless! We've got a major injury crisis and a very good manager, but one with a tendency for mad tinkering at times - so I guess a clean sheet and an away point was not be sniffed at after a 5-0 dicking last saturday when he thought he'd try out a development XI against one of the strongest sides in this league.

"Watford FC confirms the departure of Head Coach Vladimir Ivić with immediate effect."

getting beaten by the likes of Hudds is often the last straw, but these cunts that own Watford seem to have unlimited straws tbf.

ha he won the championship manager of the month in november

a manager per-month is how they roll

apparently falling out with Troy Deeney (who was an unused sub on sat) didn't help his cause

Young Kyril is getting a very special present this year!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/55441731

what's going to be the fit and proper club-owner test here? can he sit on a potty without falling off it? Oh no don't worry he's got a dora the explorer lunchbox full of daddies wedge!

🔥Most league goals this season (#UEFA’s top 5 leagues + #EFL):

40⚽️: 🔴EXETER⚫️
39⚽️: Bayern Munich, PSG
37⚽️: Liverpool
35⚽️: Bournemouth, Blackburn
34⚽️: Inter, Lyon, Brentford
33⚽️: Oldham
32⚽️: Milan, Portsmouth, Doncaster, Reading#ECFC #OneGrecianGoal pic.twitter.com/mAOhoxZtJO

— playmakerstats (@playmaker_EN) December 28, 2020

Haha what

I thought the lad at Crawley was scoring all the goals but it turns out it was Exeter all along

BREAKING: Sheffield Wednesday have terminated the contract of Tony Pulis after just 10 matches. #SWFC

— Elliott Jackson (@_ElliottJackson) December 28, 2020

Just in time to play Exeter in the cup!

"The performances and results have not been of the level expected since Tony Pulis was appointed," chairman Dejphon Chansiri said in a statement on the club website.

"There are also other issues which have had a bearing on this decision."

James Beattie is still in counselling after getting headbutted by an angry and naked Tony Pulis in the showers after a bad result at Stoke over a decade ago, some witnesses described it as something akin to the horrific naked man-fighting scene in Women In Love. Perhaps he might have let the towel drop again whilst expressing anger!

I always have very low expectations of our transfer window action. But being linked with a 34 year old tugboat of a CB who was involved in a scandalous drink driving incident before rocking up at L1 franchise fc and a flop "flatter to deceive" midfielder who got found out last time he was on our books is a real blow during an injury crisis that has seen us frequently putting out u-23 sides and often getting narrowly beaten by ex prem sides that should have totally arseholed us. Oh well.

surely keogh would be literally a month's cover for your, what, 3? 4? crocked CBs, and then goodbye again

yeah it's just a desperate temp move I suppose, but I demand at least one sexy signing with an eye on the future ffs- Duane Holmes is definitely not that. Even that troglodyte rookie-manager Rooney has got his number in no time at all.