Football Disillusionment

[No8Bally]

I’ve been supporting Everton for over 60 years, through great times, good times, not so good times and dismal times but I’m now getting really disillusioned with football in general and with Everton in particular. Covid lockdown hasn’t helped and has probably just brought this disillusionment into focus. However, after yesterday’s abysmal performance I sat and thought about the main causes of my discontent and these include some major issues and minor irritations (not necessarily Everton based) but I’m sure everyone can add to this list (including me!).

• Ridiculous transfer fees: you could build 5-6 primary schools for the cost of one iwobi* (£28M)
• Obscene levels of wages: You could employ 74 nurses for one Iwobi* annual salary (£2.6m)
• VAR: where do I start?
• Feigning injury: the obligatory scream of agony and the holding of the head, thigh, knee, shin, ankle after every hard (and not so hard) tackle. Mainly to disrupt the oppositions progress when you’ve just lost the ball!
• Throw-Ins: players from both sides holding up their arms and yelling ‘our ball’ every time there’s a throw-in, even when it’s clearly obvious who the ball last touched.
• Commentator’s terminology: ‘high press’ ‘low block’ ‘high line’ ‘tiki-taka’ ‘false number nine’ ‘box to box player’ ‘playing in the pocket’………..meaningless phrases that make me cringe every time I hear some half-wit commentator and his Stan Laurel side kick trying to appear ‘knowledgeable’.

* = or substitute any other expensive, overpaid, not very talented premier league player.

Of course if we beat Man City next Saturday all will be forgiven until next time!

Nail on the head there. I think almost all of us over 60's think the same way.

That "High press" nonsense was always called "attacking" back when footy was a proper game.

 

[Caolam]

I’ve been supporting Everton for over 60 years, through great times, good times, not so good times and dismal times but I’m now getting really disillusioned with football in general and with Everton in particular. Covid lockdown hasn’t helped and has probably just brought this disillusionment into focus. However, after yesterday’s abysmal performance I sat and thought about the main causes of my discontent and these include some major issues and minor irritations (not necessarily Everton based) but I’m sure everyone can add to this list (including me!).

• Ridiculous transfer fees: you could build 5-6 primary schools for the cost of one iwobi* (£28M)
• Obscene levels of wages: You could employ 74 nurses for one Iwobi* annual salary (£2.6m)
• VAR: where do I start?
• Feigning injury: the obligatory scream of agony and the holding of the head, thigh, knee, shin, ankle after every hard (and not so hard) tackle. Mainly to disrupt the oppositions progress when you’ve just lost the ball!
• Throw-Ins: players from both sides holding up their arms and yelling ‘our ball’ every time there’s a throw-in, even when it’s clearly obvious who the ball last touched.
• Commentator’s terminology: ‘high press’ ‘low block’ ‘high line’ ‘tiki-taka’ ‘false number nine’ ‘box to box player’ ‘playing in the pocket’………..meaningless phrases that make me cringe every time I hear some half-wit commentator and his Stan Laurel side kick trying to appear ‘knowledgeable’.

* = or substitute any other expensive, overpaid, not very talented premier league player.

Of course if we beat Man City next Saturday all will be forgiven until next time!

Like yourself I have been supporting Everton from the sixties and have been lucky enough to see success. I have seen players who would have run through walls for the club if they had been asked to do so. I have seen poor teams struggling against relegation but I don’t think I have witnessed such an abject bunch of wannabes as we have turning out now. When we struggled before we had players who tried, players you believed were giving their best but today I couldn’t say I believed that every player we put on the field is giving all he has.
I realise that when you are a millionaire you may find it hard to motivate yourself but you could at least go through the motions we need to rid ourselves of anyone who is not prepared to try no matter how good they believe they are. I think Carlo will eventually sort out the frauds but it going to take time and money.

 

[Tipp blue]

Like yourself I have been supporting Everton from the sixties and have been lucky enough to see success. I have seen players who would have run through walls for the club if they had been asked to do so. I have seen poor teams struggling against relegation but I don’t think I have witnessed such an abject bunch of wannabes as we have turning out now. When we struggled before we had players who tried, players you believed were giving their best but today I couldn’t say I believed that every player we put on the field is giving all he has.
I realise that when you are a millionaire you may find it hard to motivate yourself but you could at least go through the motions we need to rid ourselves of anyone who is not prepared to try no matter how good they believe they are. I think Carlo will eventually sort out the frauds but it going to take time and money.

Almost every player in the PL is a millionaire, why is it ours that can't motivate themselves..

 

[Bluerover]

I’ve been supporting Everton for over 60 years, through great times, good times, not so good times and dismal times but I’m now getting really disillusioned with football in general and with Everton in particular. Covid lockdown hasn’t helped and has probably just brought this disillusionment into focus. However, after yesterday’s abysmal performance I sat and thought about the main causes of my discontent and these include some major issues and minor irritations (not necessarily Everton based) but I’m sure everyone can add to this list (including me!).

• Ridiculous transfer fees: you could build 5-6 primary schools for the cost of one iwobi* (£28M)
• Obscene levels of wages: You could employ 74 nurses for one Iwobi* annual salary (£2.6m)
• VAR: where do I start?
• Feigning injury: the obligatory scream of agony and the holding of the head, thigh, knee, shin, ankle after every hard (and not so hard) tackle. Mainly to disrupt the oppositions progress when you’ve just lost the ball!
• Throw-Ins: players from both sides holding up their arms and yelling ‘our ball’ every time there’s a throw-in, even when it’s clearly obvious who the ball last touched.
• Commentator’s terminology: ‘high press’ ‘low block’ ‘high line’ ‘tiki-taka’ ‘false number nine’ ‘box to box player’ ‘playing in the pocket’………..meaningless phrases that make me cringe every time I hear some half-wit commentator and his Stan Laurel side kick trying to appear ‘knowledgeable’.

* = or substitute any other expensive, overpaid, not very talented premier league player.

Of course if we beat Man City next Saturday all will be forgiven until next time!

52 years for me - agree with all of this.

Thankfully over here we have real men and women playing Gaelic Football and hurling/camogie for zero pay.

99.99% of PL players would be crying for their Mammies after the first 5 minutes.

A notable exception being our Séamus . Kevin Moran another from the old 1st Division.

 

[TheNinja]

My biggest pet hate has become the way a forward moves his leg completely away from the ball to move it into the line of a tackle, to 'buy' the foul.

It shouldn't be a foul, it never has been, but all the ex professional experts never say anything against it. It's seen as clever apparently... I hate it.

Also, players losing the use of their legs as soon as they feel a player near them. The game is becoming a farce really.

 

[coollino]

It's annoying as I get really close to binning the whole thing off now and again but then something happens and I keep interested.

 

[TheSecondComing]

Disillusioned with the club rather than football but you’re not allowed to say that on here.

Club isn’t about winning it’s about surviving and getting by.

We sort that this thread wouldn’t exist.

 

[degsy]

The title is football disillusionment not Everton disillusionment. I find myself not watching any games other than Everton and Ireland thats it, where as years ago I'd have watched any game that was on TV I remember watching womens FA cup games when it was an amature sport. I wouldn't watch the mens champions league final these days. Football in general is just not as fun as it was.

True enough.
Football IS Everton, its all thats left of a once great game and a Saturday afternoon way of life.
But even Everton is not what it once was
Everton may not, all the time, be synonymous with football though...well decent football.
People are getting more (PC) stupid,
The world's going (PC) mad,
Money is ruining football - HAS ruined football.
Moan, moan etc. etc.

 

[degsy]

It's annoying as I get really close to binning the whole thing off now and again but then something happens and I keep interested.

This

 

[moyeslovechild]

To be honest, I'm disillusioned with all the old farts who come from an era of racism and hooliganism moaning about all their problems with the modern game

 

[Martin Alvito]

Thankfully over here we have real men and women playing Gaelic Football and hurling/camogie for zero pay.

Those hurling guys are nuts. Saw it here at a pub one time downtown, and I don't think I've ever seen a game requiring that much skill and physicality. Lacrosse without pads.

It hasn't taken off elsewhere not because it isn't a great watch, but because you'd have to be insane to play it.

 

[hallamblue]

To be honest, I'm disillusioned with all the old farts who come from an era of racism and hooliganism moaning about all their problems with the modern game

It's a difficult one. I think the main problem is money. When I first went in the mid 1970s my dad lifted me over the turnstile and didn't have to pay for me! Then when I got a bit older it was 50p to get in. I remember when all seater stadiums came in, and the paddock went from £5 to £10 overnight. That was the beginning of pricing out people on low incomes. Ideally Everton would build a 100,000 seat stadium with prices starting at £5 so those people could come to the match and create more atmosphere. Football in this country is now the same price as the theatre, where you go for a treat a couple of times a year. It used to be the same price as the cinema where you'd go every other week. They have it right in Germany. Big stadiums, safe standing, cheap prices protected so clubs can't put them up too far. For me, this is what has made football worse, rather than diving etc, which is annoying but balanced out by the pace of the modern game.

 

[Jonte]

To be honest, I'm disillusioned with all the old farts who come from an era of racism and hooliganism moaning about all their problems with the modern game

Children should be seen and not heard.

Get on with your homework.

 

[Toffe3m4n]

I don't even celebrate goals anymore.

 

[Raino85]

30 years and 1 cup final will do that to us all