Post by Dave on Aug 14, 2009 19:36:59 GMT
As far as I’m concerned it’s been a great week for the TFF and a great week for me, because of the TFF. Darryl kindly arranged it so the forum will have a selection of match day photo’s that are taken by the club photographer, this really was great news.
The best I feel is the TFF having a two page feature in all the home programmes and I know Leigh is so keen to do a great job on behalf of the TFF. I would like to thank both Leigh and Darryl for all they are doing to support the forum.
As I was driving up to North Devon early today I firstly was thinking about what to write tonight in this post, its one reason I love my job and the freedom it brings me during my working day. Having so much thought time can so often be a good thing, but there times when that is not the case.
I started thinking about how much I have enjoyed this last week and asked myself would it have been as enjoyable if I was not a member on the TFF. I soon came to the answer that it would not have been and I’ll tell you why.
This is how it would have been without the TFF, I would have gone to the game around 2pm on Saturday, during the game I would have talked with who ever was stood near me and Timbo as he is never far away, I would have also just said hello to any I knew who walked past where I was stood.
After the game had finished, it would have been straight home for me, so the whole time from arriving to when I was on the way home would have been about two and three quarters of an hour. During the week it would have been eating my tea while watching the 6pm news and then Emerdale and Coronation Street and a diet of TV for nearly every night of the week.
Last Saturday I was outside the ground before 12pm, waiting to greet my fellow TFF members who were having the match day carvery, it was so great to have such good company. I then went onto the Popside and enjoyed so many chats with other members and got up to my usual banter with Steve 004.
Mind you I don’t know why every time Steve walks past me, he feels the urge to run his fingers through my hair, I have decided to just tell myself he likes me and is fond of me, its better than looking to deeply into it.
After the game I was up in the Gulls nest and enjoyed further talks with members and people I know, by the time I left the club it was nearly seven hours from when I got there.
Then I had the wonderful time I did on Sunday, Lewis Grahame and I spending time with Megan and her family, this would not have happened if there had not been a TFF and I got to know great people like Petef. Even my great friendship I now have with Grahame is down to the forum and what it was able to do to help Lewis etc.
On Tuesday night Carol and I had a great night out, we were treated to a great meal and drinks by a fellow member, Stuartb, we got to spend some time with him and his lovely family, this friendship we have only happened because of the forum. During this week in the evenings I have enjoyed taking part in debate on here and while we have some members who are on holiday and ones who do post a lot, the forum as just got on and others have been contributing on the forum.
On to this week’s winner and what can I say about this man? Well I know he has really thick skin and wonders why we all don’t have it ;D he knows his country has faults, but is proud of it and will defend it against overseas attacks.
He has been a good supporter of the forum and makes many contributions and will always be honest and tell it how he sees it and so he should.
This weeks winner is Lambethgull. Well done and thanks for all your posts on the forum.
A few posts that Lambethgull has made this week
Post one
Really impressed with tonight’s performance. Whilst Wroe losing his man for their first was frustrating, and Todd bringing down his man when the ball looked to be going out for a goal kick even more so, the defence held up well against an attack that will be better than most we will face this season. I’ll second those who have praised Charnock, and would also give a mention to Nicholson who played his usual game to good effect.
The gulf in class seemed to show in the first half with Palace having most of the possession. Moses and Danns were a constant threat and Palace were unlucky not to score when they hit the bar after a good run. That aside though we restricted them to having too many clear cut chances, without creating anything much ourselves. Stevens performed admirably on the left and held the ball up well when he could. Rendell was everywhere, linking play up, providing cover for the defence and doing as much as he could in the final third. I was really impressed with him.
Second half was different with the Gulls shooting towards the Away contingent. Utd came forward confidently and took the game to the Championship side. Carlisle saw more of the ball than he did in the first and those in the Away End always fancied we could nick one. We kept our heads after Palace took the lead, if not against the run of play, then certainly not as a result of any real period of sustained Palace pressure. Benyon and Carayol came on for Rendell and Stevens. Benyon did well, winning a couple of free kicks, but I felt Carayol performed less well than Stevens. Maybe it’s harsh to judge him against the better class of opposition, but he never really seemed like being effective. Sills took his goal from his set piece superbly and it felt like we could take it to Extra time. Unfortunately, though it was a little difficult to see and judge from the vantage point at the other end of the ground, Todd seemed to pull down one of their attackers when the ball looked to be floating away from him and his man. It was all over then, but the players heads never dropped and fair play to the boys for keeping the score to a very respectable 2-1 and showing the few South Londoners who turned up that a newly promoted Conference side, with a bit of good fortune, can be a match for a mediocre Championship one.
As for Selhurst Park...what an absolute hole. A chant of ‘Your ground stinks of s***’ went up, and no-one was joking. The stench in that stand was horrific. No Championship side is ever going to be excited about a visit from a side two leagues below in the first round of the League Cup, but the amount of Palace fans that showed up was pitiful. The travelling band of 400 or so fans did the club proud.
And as for the ticketing arrangements which meant fans had to queue for a ticket before being allowed in after most fans had presumably made the trek after work to the most awkwardly located ground in London....what was all that about? Can South East Londoners not count cash and operate a turnstile? That, combined with the undermanned catering facilities at half time, was more reminiscent of our trips to Woking than to any other League club, let alone a club that presumably considers it be one with top flight credentials.
Post two
You Sky bashers will have to tell me who you work for so I can have a pop at your employers as well.
I can only apologise for my apparent slight xenophobia (a word I hoped had been banned from these boards) and advise that had the BBC had the business nous to make some important decisions as and when they were needed, Sky would never have needed to spend the money they did.
But no, they sit there dithering in their hugely expensive Media Village (that's where your fees are going chaps, not on any kind of interesting programming), more worried about sending most of their staff to places they don't want to work (Salford for example) having forums, meetings and chats to decide whether they need another forum, meeting or chat about a forum, meeting or chat, and in the meantime find out that three more contracts they could have had cheaper than Sky/ESPN/Setanta/ITV have been taken.
They don't seriously give an arse about sports or spending any serious money on it - see cutting back on one of their staple sports in horse racing to 14 days from 2010 for a prime example - and continue to employ halfwits to front their TV programmes. They should take a look at some of the outstanding work their radio presenters do, as they did by selecting the excellent Jonathan Legard for the Formula One programme this season - and forget employing ex-sportsmen to mess up their coverage - for example the utterly hopeless Eddie Irvine from the same programme.
Happily for those who love old Auntie, at least they are showing some commitment to league football this season, although even then it's only by sharing a contract with Sky because they were unwilling to spend your money on it. Maybe you should be complaining about them rather than Sky?
There's absolutely nothing personal about this, Andy!
I'm only too aware of the inefficiencies of public bodies (I work in healthcare regulation!), and the libertarian in me also has an issue with the mandatory license fee, especially the kind of stuff Aussie describes.
However, for all its many faults I remain a fan of the BBC and what it stands for. The news is generally excellent, the BBC website is of high quality, iPlayer is a great service and the national radio - whether its sports coverage, music or current affairs - is the best in the world. Throw in the coverage of world events, much of the comedy and documentaries it commissions, and I think it performs its role as a public service broadcaster.
That said, the problems and issues you and Merse allude to are a fact. With little commercial or price incentive, the organisation suffers from the same bureaucracy, inertia and incompetence that all public bodies do. But what really is the alternative? Take away the licence fee and the BBC's public service role and what would we have? I think we’d still see Sky’s excellent sports coverage, its news coverage and films, but we’d also have more of the lowest common-denominator stuff that forms the rest of Sky's package. Open up the market completely and it would become saturated with the kind of dross that makes up 95% of TV in other countries.
The best I feel is the TFF having a two page feature in all the home programmes and I know Leigh is so keen to do a great job on behalf of the TFF. I would like to thank both Leigh and Darryl for all they are doing to support the forum.
As I was driving up to North Devon early today I firstly was thinking about what to write tonight in this post, its one reason I love my job and the freedom it brings me during my working day. Having so much thought time can so often be a good thing, but there times when that is not the case.
I started thinking about how much I have enjoyed this last week and asked myself would it have been as enjoyable if I was not a member on the TFF. I soon came to the answer that it would not have been and I’ll tell you why.
This is how it would have been without the TFF, I would have gone to the game around 2pm on Saturday, during the game I would have talked with who ever was stood near me and Timbo as he is never far away, I would have also just said hello to any I knew who walked past where I was stood.
After the game had finished, it would have been straight home for me, so the whole time from arriving to when I was on the way home would have been about two and three quarters of an hour. During the week it would have been eating my tea while watching the 6pm news and then Emerdale and Coronation Street and a diet of TV for nearly every night of the week.
Last Saturday I was outside the ground before 12pm, waiting to greet my fellow TFF members who were having the match day carvery, it was so great to have such good company. I then went onto the Popside and enjoyed so many chats with other members and got up to my usual banter with Steve 004.
Mind you I don’t know why every time Steve walks past me, he feels the urge to run his fingers through my hair, I have decided to just tell myself he likes me and is fond of me, its better than looking to deeply into it.
After the game I was up in the Gulls nest and enjoyed further talks with members and people I know, by the time I left the club it was nearly seven hours from when I got there.
Then I had the wonderful time I did on Sunday, Lewis Grahame and I spending time with Megan and her family, this would not have happened if there had not been a TFF and I got to know great people like Petef. Even my great friendship I now have with Grahame is down to the forum and what it was able to do to help Lewis etc.
On Tuesday night Carol and I had a great night out, we were treated to a great meal and drinks by a fellow member, Stuartb, we got to spend some time with him and his lovely family, this friendship we have only happened because of the forum. During this week in the evenings I have enjoyed taking part in debate on here and while we have some members who are on holiday and ones who do post a lot, the forum as just got on and others have been contributing on the forum.
On to this week’s winner and what can I say about this man? Well I know he has really thick skin and wonders why we all don’t have it ;D he knows his country has faults, but is proud of it and will defend it against overseas attacks.
He has been a good supporter of the forum and makes many contributions and will always be honest and tell it how he sees it and so he should.This weeks winner is Lambethgull. Well done and thanks for all your posts on the forum.
A few posts that Lambethgull has made this week
Post one
Really impressed with tonight’s performance. Whilst Wroe losing his man for their first was frustrating, and Todd bringing down his man when the ball looked to be going out for a goal kick even more so, the defence held up well against an attack that will be better than most we will face this season. I’ll second those who have praised Charnock, and would also give a mention to Nicholson who played his usual game to good effect.
The gulf in class seemed to show in the first half with Palace having most of the possession. Moses and Danns were a constant threat and Palace were unlucky not to score when they hit the bar after a good run. That aside though we restricted them to having too many clear cut chances, without creating anything much ourselves. Stevens performed admirably on the left and held the ball up well when he could. Rendell was everywhere, linking play up, providing cover for the defence and doing as much as he could in the final third. I was really impressed with him.
Second half was different with the Gulls shooting towards the Away contingent. Utd came forward confidently and took the game to the Championship side. Carlisle saw more of the ball than he did in the first and those in the Away End always fancied we could nick one. We kept our heads after Palace took the lead, if not against the run of play, then certainly not as a result of any real period of sustained Palace pressure. Benyon and Carayol came on for Rendell and Stevens. Benyon did well, winning a couple of free kicks, but I felt Carayol performed less well than Stevens. Maybe it’s harsh to judge him against the better class of opposition, but he never really seemed like being effective. Sills took his goal from his set piece superbly and it felt like we could take it to Extra time. Unfortunately, though it was a little difficult to see and judge from the vantage point at the other end of the ground, Todd seemed to pull down one of their attackers when the ball looked to be floating away from him and his man. It was all over then, but the players heads never dropped and fair play to the boys for keeping the score to a very respectable 2-1 and showing the few South Londoners who turned up that a newly promoted Conference side, with a bit of good fortune, can be a match for a mediocre Championship one.
As for Selhurst Park...what an absolute hole. A chant of ‘Your ground stinks of s***’ went up, and no-one was joking. The stench in that stand was horrific. No Championship side is ever going to be excited about a visit from a side two leagues below in the first round of the League Cup, but the amount of Palace fans that showed up was pitiful. The travelling band of 400 or so fans did the club proud.
And as for the ticketing arrangements which meant fans had to queue for a ticket before being allowed in after most fans had presumably made the trek after work to the most awkwardly located ground in London....what was all that about? Can South East Londoners not count cash and operate a turnstile? That, combined with the undermanned catering facilities at half time, was more reminiscent of our trips to Woking than to any other League club, let alone a club that presumably considers it be one with top flight credentials.
Post two
I can only apologise for my apparent slight xenophobia (a word I hoped had been banned from these boards) and advise that had the BBC had the business nous to make some important decisions as and when they were needed, Sky would never have needed to spend the money they did.
But no, they sit there dithering in their hugely expensive Media Village (that's where your fees are going chaps, not on any kind of interesting programming), more worried about sending most of their staff to places they don't want to work (Salford for example) having forums, meetings and chats to decide whether they need another forum, meeting or chat about a forum, meeting or chat, and in the meantime find out that three more contracts they could have had cheaper than Sky/ESPN/Setanta/ITV have been taken.
They don't seriously give an arse about sports or spending any serious money on it - see cutting back on one of their staple sports in horse racing to 14 days from 2010 for a prime example - and continue to employ halfwits to front their TV programmes. They should take a look at some of the outstanding work their radio presenters do, as they did by selecting the excellent Jonathan Legard for the Formula One programme this season - and forget employing ex-sportsmen to mess up their coverage - for example the utterly hopeless Eddie Irvine from the same programme.
Happily for those who love old Auntie, at least they are showing some commitment to league football this season, although even then it's only by sharing a contract with Sky because they were unwilling to spend your money on it. Maybe you should be complaining about them rather than Sky?
There's absolutely nothing personal about this, Andy!
I'm only too aware of the inefficiencies of public bodies (I work in healthcare regulation!), and the libertarian in me also has an issue with the mandatory license fee, especially the kind of stuff Aussie describes.
However, for all its many faults I remain a fan of the BBC and what it stands for. The news is generally excellent, the BBC website is of high quality, iPlayer is a great service and the national radio - whether its sports coverage, music or current affairs - is the best in the world. Throw in the coverage of world events, much of the comedy and documentaries it commissions, and I think it performs its role as a public service broadcaster.
That said, the problems and issues you and Merse allude to are a fact. With little commercial or price incentive, the organisation suffers from the same bureaucracy, inertia and incompetence that all public bodies do. But what really is the alternative? Take away the licence fee and the BBC's public service role and what would we have? I think we’d still see Sky’s excellent sports coverage, its news coverage and films, but we’d also have more of the lowest common-denominator stuff that forms the rest of Sky's package. Open up the market completely and it would become saturated with the kind of dross that makes up 95% of TV in other countries.
How on earth did that happen?!