http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/foo...permanent.html
Obviously we've been talking about it for ages, so Neville's joined the bandwagon. I just hope he knows we've relocated.
He's right of course, and it's such a problem that there are Sunderland fans who genuinely believe moving the club (i.e. training facilities, accommodation et al.) down to London would actually benefit the club, and they'd like to see it happen.
Which is a really depressing thought.
So move everything bar the stadium to the South and just fly the players, coaches, etc. up for the games?Originally Posted by ScousePig
Sounds crazy at first, but there could be something in that.
It's a really good idea.
I'd hate that. I want Leicester to be part of the city. I'm not that bothered about attracting the best players and winning stuff. Not like that anyway.
I suppose it depends why you watch. It is a good idea if you want what I've just stated above. But I think if that happened to us it would be up there with somebody changing the colours as something which would stop me going.
Whole hypothesis about Northern decline seems nonsensical to me. It's the weather, not the climate.
Yeah, some players will always gravitate towards London; but if Sunderland are paying you sixty grand a week then you can quite easily not live in Sunderland (did Gary Neville live in Central Manchester?). Didn't Joe Cole used to commute to France without any adverse effect on his probably shit performances?
It's nothing to do with the players. The rail links from Leeds to London are probably better than Norwich to London, and Swansea seem to be doing alright in the middle of a crap area (even Leicester to London isn't that easy). Northern clubs just got complacent and shit when football was changing in the nineties, because they had been dominant when only gate receipts mattered on the back of the industrial working classes, and then any attempt to reform them was met with 'We're Sheffield Wednesday...' Look at Southampton. They've had some decent backing in recent years, but they also had to effectively start again from scratch. Why haven't Leeds done that instead of just desperately trying to get back 'where they belong'? It's the same mentality that holds the cities back. Council leaders think they're running great cities because they sit in imposing buildings built by industries that died before they were born.
Even Manchester City have a London office, as I'm sure do United.
This phenomenon is inevitable if football is going to become more intertwined with economics.
Didn't Newcastle only become relevant when they Premiership started? See. No history holding them back, allowing them to capitalise on the new developments (lol then that those early achievements hold them back now).
The trend is towards clubs making more and more of their money from commercial activities and broadcasting revenues, making the decline of the area around the ground irrelevant so long as they can still pack it out on match days. Now obviously Leeds are never going to have the commercial reach of the mega clubs; but there are still [at least] a million people in easy reach to sell club-branded dildos to, putting them in a better position than a lot of seemingly quite successful clubs.
Second half of your post sounds mad liberal.
There's three or four trains an hour from Leicester to London and it only takes just over an hour so you could easily live in London and train in Leicester. Quite a few of our players live in Leicester. Most, based on what I've read/been told. I don't know if that's unusual but I wouldn't think so; Leicester is no beauty. There was a time we had players commuting from Manchester which seems a right pain in the arse to me. Nigel Pearson commuted from Sheffied but that's only just over an hour, I suppose.
Leeds isn't really in decline anyway (nor is Newcastle). It's that the amount of money in football means that those places are further and further on the periphery of where people want to be. What's the point in earning £140,000 a week if the spoils only earn you a manor house in Hexham? Add the social move towards women and family having a much greater say.
As for Sunderland moving their operations to the south, that would actually kill the club stone dead.
Pretty much, unless there's some kind of middle ground.
Couldn't see the harm really. It's not like people bump into Younes Kaboul down the local Costa on a Thursday morning as it is.
Newcastles issue that they have a chairman who doesn't want success and Sunderland are a bunch of drunks. I don't think it's got anything to do with 'The North'.
And in the grand scheme of things, decline for Newcastle would mean League One football. We yoyoed throughout the 80s between top and second flight football and have, bar a single season, been an established Premier League presence ever since. The early 00's saw all three major North-East sides represented at Premier League level and we're arguably not far from that. Lets not forget the North-West shitpots like Bolton, Wigan and Blackpool getting their moments.
It's not about them not having to live in Sunderland though. Durham and Yorkshire have some great places, but they're mainly picturesque areas, spa towns etc. That doesn't really appeal to many 20-odd multi-millionaire LADs. They want London. Why do people want a 2 and a half hour train journey to London when they can just live there?
Those NW clubs prospered in the last decade as Alex Ferguson satellites. Watch what happens to them now.
It has fuck all to do with location is that Cunt Neville trying to appease his cunt bosses who's fault it is for the ultimate decline in football.
What attracts players to Swansea then? Why were we marveling at Stoke's summer business? Why aren't Oxford, Bristol, Cambridge, Colchester going places? He's cherry-picked clubs that are either run by idiots [with delusions of grandeur] or twenty years off the pace, and there are plenty of those in the South as well.
It's a long term trend, not a case of everyone in the north drowning immediately. Look at the divisions 20 years ago though...
In this whole discussion does north mean north anyway, or does north mean not London?
It means north but you can basically extend it to the Midlands. Where are Villa, Forest, Derby and Coventry compared to 20 years ago? I guess West Brom and Stoke are keeping up appearances.
We're an anomaly though - the stars aligned for Lord Megson to get a bunch of shit-kickers promoted and Jezza Peace has run the club spectacularly well since then.
Agree with Lewis, pretty much.
Neville acknowledged Manchester is different but pretty much forgot he did so. Why should Newcastle, Sunderland etc's situations be part of a 'decline' but the Manchester clubs' successes be ignored?
Newcastle and Sunderland have been run badly. If the chairmen were different, they'd do better.
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