ilkleyram
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Posts posted by ilkleyram
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6 hours ago, Alty_Ram said:
Phew ! It's OK, I think I've managed to rescue it. The holiday police will never know 😉
I thought Paris was abroad
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45 minutes ago, Ghost of Clough said:
It doesn't matter if White was fouled or not. He's automatically given a yellow card. In the loss to Peterborough, White was tripped in the opposition box. The result? Goal kick to Bolton and a yellow card for White due to arguing.
Blimey. That match v Bolton at Peterborough passed me by 🤣🤣😉
- Ghost of Clough and Ram-Alf
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5 hours ago, Carl Sagan said:
What I don't get is how bad they are at all levels in the English game. We have the most money in world football, yet the lowest standard of officiating. When there are international tournaments it's striking how vastly superior all the overseas officials than the English ones at the tournament.
They can't even use VAR properly. Here we have Stuart Atwell at Stockley Park not thinking this was a penalty, as Lindelhof moves his arm out to pretty much catch the ball and juggle with it. Though it's shocking neither ref nor linesman gave it anyway.
You’d imagine that somewhere in the lexicon of examples of refereeing errors there is a whole months worth of training devoted to the mistakes of Stuart Attwell - a referee over promoted initially, sent back to lower leagues to improve himself and then over promoted all over again.
One of the fundamental problems with VAR imo is that it encourages officials not to make decisions ‘because VAR will correct any errors’, which it patently does not. It’s the same in cricket - umpires have stopped watching for ‘no balls’ now or deciding if batsmen have been run out or caught, because the technology will compensate for their indecision. Football is going the same way.
- Carl Sagan and RoyMac5
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When I first started watching live football we had lardy, incompetent refs and linos from all over Europe come to the BBG often making poor decisions. What we also had then - though we didn't really appreciate it - were players who helped run the game despite the referee. You had very little diving (Franny excepted and the dirties generally), feigning injury, time wasting, rolling around, so called professional gamesmanship. Players generally just got on with the game without moaning too much. Watch old footage and it's a completely different (and much better imo) spectacle.
The sea change was the EPL and Sky money. The influx of players from overseas (not all of whom added bad habits - Bergkamp, Ardiles, Eranio, Baiano - and many others, were hugely positive additions), the added/greater importance of money on businesses/clubs succeeding, the growth in a win at all costs attitude, the language - the refusal to call it out as cheating the essence of the sport, because TV/pundits don't want to damage the brand - pundits and TV coverage themselves offering greater exposure, technology that allows 20 cameras to a match, all played a part in raising the importance of the match officials and their individual decisions whilst diminishing their reputation, despite the fact that refs and linos now have more money and attention and training and technological help than they ever did before.
If we could somehow get back to the point where players helped officials by not falling down theatrically when Curtis coughed on them in the penalty area (ie cheating aka 'you made the ref make a decision'), if we could get back to the point of real men playing (mens) football and accepting life's slings and arrows and playing the game sportingly, of no pundits ever dissecting a ref's decision (or preferably no pundits) and just moving on, if we could abolish VAR which serves to question every decision the officials make, then we might start to get somewhere. As there's fat chance of any of that ever happening we're largely stuck with what we've got until technology takes over completely. And even then it'll be wrong.
- maydrakin and Kathcairns
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12 minutes ago, Ramchop said:
Sky subscription probably costs more than a season ticket so arguably they are the paying customer. Let's face it, the fans who go to games don't pay the players wages, the armchair experts do
Hopefully that swings more towards them and we get cheaper tickets as a result of this...
Well you say that but.........
Ignore the fact that a sky subscription buys you more than just football (so not all your subscription pays for football, just part of it), the important figure is what Sky is paying for EFL football, not the subscription that you or I might pay to Sky.
What Sky are paying is £895m over 5 years. They are also paying £40m for 'marketing', whatever that means (probably paying for the EFL to advertise games in their divisions on Sky, but that's me being cynical)
£895m works out as £179m per year. Presuming (and it won't work out that way) that all 72 clubs get an even share of that £179m, each club will get £2.5m per year. What will actually happen is that the EFl will top slice a large chunk of it for their own uses, some will go to the players' union and other projects the EFl will want to fund, including their cup etc etc, so the net effect is that £179m will be significantly reduced before it gets anywhere near being distributed to the clubs. Some will be lucky to see anything like £2.5m; some may see more; most will see less.
Then take our club. 20,000 season ticket holders this season at (my guess) an average of £400 per ticket. £8m in season ticket income before the away fans are counted or those who buy on a match by match basis (and we haven't had many gates below 20,000 this year).
I think that we are contributing far more to our players' wages bill than this poxy shambles of a TV deal
- angieram and Kathcairns
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1 hour ago, RoyMac5 said:
Why? Seriously. We're not in the 1930s/50s/70s whatever, why does it need to be 3pm Sat? Oh or 7.45pm Weds.
It doesn't, in principle, apart from being traditional, which is probably not much reason at all other than traditions are, imo, important in that you shouldn't change them without either some thought or some considerable gain. There used to be matches on Christmas Day - different social times. But, let's face it, football generally since the advent of the EPL and the input of Sky's millions, has steadily had its traditions kicked out of it often with no, or very little, reference to the paying customer and what they may think. The changes have often come about because, largely, they suit television (and one channel mainly) and the TV audience first and foremost. The matchday customer comes a distance behind. So too the clubs and players. The pendulum has swung far too far
But where the time is important, where it matters, is not whether it's 3pm or 745pm or even 12 noon per se. It is that it can be all of those times, and others, with no thought as to the practical consequences for those that might wish to plan to go to the event. And they give no thought, the TV companies and the EFL authorities, because they're really not bothered. The money is what is important, the TV spectacle is what is important when what should be important is the club, the players and (most of all, imo) the paying customer, or fan as we used to be known.
In League 1 or Championship terms we are a TV draw. Our kick off times will vary home and away often with relatively little notice and probably happen to us more than most. There will be fans who buy tickets who won't be able to go; fans whose travel arrangements made months in advance that have to miss out; away games impossible to get back from on public transport; times when we have to play matches closer together than will be ideal. No thought will be given to players or fans; every thought will be given to TV company scheduling and TV audience.
There's a girl who sits near me who has had a season ticket since PP opened who comes up from Essex. So too does my son, coincidentally. They both buy a season ticket knowing that they won't be able to get to all the matches - other than sitting in the same place with people they know and enjoying that, what will be the point of their renewing if they know that the real likelihood is that they will have to miss even more matches? It's already not financially worth their while to buy a ST. This just makes it worse. And how does that help Derby County if they don't renew and Derby can't resell their tickets?
The benefits such that they are, are the wrong way round for very little gain. And that's why timing is important. Some traditions are worth trying to keep.
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1 hour ago, Smithy93 said:
Ahh yeah you’re right (as changed last season 😢) , shame.
Regulation 53.1.4 states: “A player whose standard loan expires (or terminates) at the end of the season of the transferee club but prior to the completion of the league matches of his parent club (where it is a member club) will not be eligible to play in any remaining league matches in that season.”
Are play offs league matches though? They happen after the league is completed. Not that it'll happen mind.
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19 hours ago, Kernow said:
It probably seems very insignificant. A few years ago I’d probably think “so what?”
But the pitch was utterly dreadful by todays standards. Still playable, but it shows the standards you can “get away with” when you either have to, or choose to pay the bare minimum.
The fact it’s gone from that to now the best pitch in the league is credit to the ground staff and also to Mr Clowes for the high standards he holds for us. I used to think it was ironic we play at Pride Park with the way it was being left to deteriorate. It’s so nice that we’re back to having pride in our club again.
In 2016\17 our pitch was highly commended, along with Newcastle’s. Villa’s won the award for the Championship. There was a period of several years in MM’s ownership when he invested in both the stadium and the pitch, until the money he was prepared to spend ran out.
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5 hours ago, Mucker1884 said:
I thought you'd have gone for black and blue, given your accident record! 👀
Oh no. Not the shorts discussion again.
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1 hour ago, CBRammette said:
Oh no is it another 18 months to when we were rescued or until the end of next season as the former would include a chunk of the following summer 😢
I’m not sure we know for certain. Logically it would probably be until the official end of the season which I think is the end of June 2024 when players’ contracts end, so 15 months is more accurate if that’s correct.
Whether the Clowes charm offensive is working or not we’ll have to wait and see. I can’t imagine the EFL would lift every restriction this year even if they’re comfortable with how we’re doing and the relationship. Some of this is about punishing us, in my view. But you never know. I wouldn’t be surprised if Clowes tried to negotiate around transfer fees - something along the lines of we can spend what we generate in selling players for example - otherwise how are we going to get players in the 23/29 age bracket who are still in contract? The alternative is another season of a similar squad. -
2 hours ago, Woodley Ram said:
The Reading fans feel hard done to as apparently they had to sell players to satisfy the business plan. I think the EFL were over generous allowing that as it helped keep them up.
Of course the other part of this is that they also signed players and would have to pay wages (Ince would not join for peanuts)for them. If they had not signed players perhaps they would have met their business plan?
My thoughts are (not just Reading) that all clubs that have a business plan should only be allowed to spend what they have in income. The reliance in selling players to keep your head above water is akin to having a bet on the National, you are probably going to fall over at some stage.
I’m not sure that you mean that, or perhaps you do. Our income is about £30m very roughly with, I think, player sales on top of that. Our outgoings have been much more than that for many years - in common (to different degrees) with almost every other club in the country. I don’t think that you mean that we should be able to spend £30m a year on players.
If you mean that we can only spend any profit we generate, and exclude player sales income, then we will probably never pay a fee for a player again. We’ll largely be dealing in the loan and free market unless the price of players plummets. If you mean that we can only use money we get from trading players by itself then the outcome will probably be largely similar whatever B4 may argue.
At the moment the EFL are preventing us from trading normally in football terms and potentially will do so for another 18 months unless we can negotiate a change to the deal. The quicker we can get back to football normal and hope that Clowes and Warne can find the answer to balancing football expectations/success and financial control the better, including generating income from player sales. Arthur used the £300k he got from Ipswich for Kevin Wilson to great effect and we got promoted as a result, twice in quick succession.
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11 hours ago, Jubbs said:
If they had given offside, the linesman would have stuck his flag up, the referee would have indicated offside and put his hand up for an indirect free kick, he didn't.
When that happened at Barnsley the referee ignored it and gave the goal 🤷🏼♂️
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It has always struck me that rob couhig is well named.
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10 hours ago, TuffLuff said:
After seeing the fan cam of the disallowed goal, and the controversy surrounding it, my one thought is that we were seemingly quite nice about it in the aftermath. I don’t think we should be surrounding the ref, but we just accepted it and moved on. Should Bird be going and getting clarification from the ref in real time and communicating to the other players they believed McGoldrick fouled the keeper to which Bird or whoever can point out how far McGoldrick was away from the incident?
The officials won’t change their mind and yes the refs are rubbish etc, but they are also human and you can introduce doubt into their head once the game has restarted.
I agree about making more of a fuss but Bird did go to the ref after the goal was disallowed, twice. He went to him once just afterwards and then a little later in a break in play. Perhaps we need a louder more concerted team effort.
The trouble with microphones is that you can’t see that communication is taking place and sometimes the officials need to show the crowd and players they are talking to each other. One way of getting them to review a decision is for more players to be involved with both lino and ref.
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33 minutes ago, RodleyRam said:
It's astonishing how close he got to being our owner.
There is a fundamental issue with football club governance and finances about which the authorities seem completely oblivious/powerless/negligent*
A complete overhaul is required but no-one seems to have the cajones to do it.
Our situation and 'Kirchners' will keep happening unless someone properly gets to grips with things.
*Delete as appropriate
I don't find it astonishing and I'm not convinced that any new regulator will find it any easier to identify the charlatan owners in advance either. My view is that they are essentially powerless in a free market economy or even, as football is nowadays, a more controlled market. It's harder to do than getting a grip of things.
Take three examples:
Had the authorities, at the time he was taking over, stopped Mel Morris from buying us - a multi, multi millionaire with legitimately earned income, a person born/educated in Derby and allegedly a fan of the club - we would have (rightly) been up in arms. What happened later was largely unforeseeable then though, no doubt, the EFL would give MM as a prime example of why they don't like the owner/funder model of club ownership (without clearly identifying what model of ownership they do like).
Or the Glazers. Bought Man Utd essentially by putting the club into debt, using it to buy itself. All perfectly legal whether intrinsically you like that way of funding a club or not. From the beginning there were people who didn't like the club suddenly having to service significant amounts of debt but the club/business can clearly afford the debt levels given its turnover. No Man Utd fan can legitimately argue that their squad hasn't had money lavished upon it even if you can argue that what was bought was over priced rubbish. You can't just ban Americans/foreign owners or even people wanting to fund takeovers in ways that limit their own personal liabilities.
Or Newcastle. Owners that were originally turned down but later became acceptable because, apparently, their funding is not controlled by the State concerned. Does anyone really believe that or that the state concerned doesn't have human rights issues? You sense that a great deal of money was spent in between on expensive lawyers finding a fudge or three to satisfy the needs of regulators and the EPL; you sense that some of the opposition was football political - that the existing 'big' clubs didn't want a gatecrasher to disturb their financial monopoly on the top EPL places; and that there was an underlying threat of expensive legal action should the takeover not be eventually sanctioned
Kirchner was clearly a persuasive guy, certainly to a club desperate for new ownership and to authorities that wanted MM gone and for Derby to have new owners. Whatever the EFL may say now they clearly allowed him past the ownership tests and they and the administrators clearly saw some proof of funds whatever that later proved to be. And Kirchner fooled international banks, plane owners, Rooney and his agent and the game of golf. Maybe, just maybe, we owe MM some thanks for not selling the ground either to Kirchner or to Ashley (and for splitting it from the football club) and for selling it to Clowes' company.
The amount of money sloshing around in football generally nowadays will always attract people at the edges whether they're individuals or countries with dodgy records. Some might be easier to spot than others but no regulator is going to stop easily perfectly legal transactions from happening, whoever is involved. Hindsight is a great skill given to no one.
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5 hours ago, ram59 said:
I'd have loved to see either MM or the administrators challenge our punishments in court, I suspect that we'd still be in the championship.
Remember, we were given a 9 point penalty for a practice that wasn't illegal until February of last year. In addition, other clubs have been allowed a relaxation of financial practises due to COVID, no such allowance had been given to Derby. Other clubs have been allowed to bring action against Derby, against League rules.
Me too in theory, but MM had run out of time (and the money he was prepared to spend without outside assistance, which wasn't coming from any reputable source) and had the Administrators taken it to the courts we would probably still be in administration now and out of the league given the time it would have taken to get a court judgement. And both probably concluded that in taking anything to court ever there is a risk that you lose, a risk they weren't prepared to take.
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It won't stop, until the EPL stops 'earning' (and spending) the billions it generates through TV monies home and abroad both for clubs and associated businesses and until the EPL stop paying parachute payments that directly reward clubs for failure.
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7 minutes ago, WestKentRam said:
I think I would! It does my head in when time wasting players going over to take a corner lose the ability to run, or the team can't quite decide who is actually going to take the corner so the ball is in position by the corner flag but no-one there to take it.
He's had three yellow cards this season so far, of which two were for time wasting and the last of these in October so you are right.
If a yellow is given against a goalkeeper for time wasting it's never for a delay in releasing the ball from their hands, that would result in an interesting but controversial indirect free kick, but is for the delay when taking a goal kick. They can't quite decide which side to take it from or whether their studs are 100% clear of mud, they've tapped the goal post enough times to aid this, rehydrated sufficiently from the bottle they keep etc.
Good points both. I do think that the rules should apply maximum times to restarts like throw ins/goal kicks/free kicks. I’m not sure what would be reasonable but the broad rule of thumb should be that players should attach the same urgency to restarting the game when their team is 1-0 up as they would when they’re 1-0 down.
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12 minutes ago, alram said:
because if sean dyche and neil warnock rock up for a game the game could last about 2 hours if you dont reduce the base time of the game
i dont follow rugby so i cant comment on it.
So what? If it lasts 2 hours then so be it - Dyche and Warnock would soon change their approach if they felt they weren't getting any advantage (which is why they instruct their teams to do it in the first place)
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4 hours ago, WestKentRam said:
There's a certain amount of time the ball will naturally be dead or out of play eg for throw ins, corners, free kicks, injuries, goal kicks, subs under hand control of GK etc.
In the PL the ball is in play an average of 55 mins per match, so assuming that it's similar in the lower leagues 60 mins seems a starting point. Looking it up, this has been argued before...
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/61342349
A 90 minute stop/start game would probably be around 120 mins long.
I remember reading about Tony Pullis at Stoke and his theory was the opposition can't score if the ball is out of play, so his tactics were to keep the ball out of play as much as possible! That seems to be borne out in the stats in the BBC article above that has a special section on him.
I don't think anyone (I'm not anyway) would argue about natural breaks in play like throw ins/corners etc being part of the 90 minutes ie that the clock wouldn't stop for them. It doesn't happen in either rugby code so far as I'm aware
What irritates, and needs to be stamped on I think, is all the time wasting that goes on around it - the kicking the ball away even if it's off the pitch, the goalie plummeting to the ground when catching the ball, the goal celebrations some of which appear to take place in the car park, the age it takes for free kicks to be taken and substituted players going off at snails pace (unless they're losing), fake head injuries/any injury, preventing quick free kicks etc etc. Apparently it's 'professional'
There are, or used to be, some rules in place - the sub leaves by the nearest touchline, goalie has 6 seconds to get rid of the ball, substitutions are timed/or have added time on at the end - but no referee applies them consistently (or at all) nor do they ever appear to add enough time on. We have had teams at PP time waste from the first minute this season and the ref has done nothing until the last 5 minutes.
Players can change their behaviours - Joe Wildsmith was a master at time wasting at the start of the season but clearly got a reputation with referees and he doesn't do it nearly as much now - but it has to start with the authorities and referees, and the managers and players. The latter two won't do anything other than moan until the authorities clamp down
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11 hours ago, alram said:
i think time wasting is footballs biggest condundrum because its not just about wasting time its about killing the game which leads to long periods of nothingness.
when real madrid beat liverpool 5-2 the other day, real madrid were "time wasting" at 2-0 down, but really they were just controlling the game by playing at their pace. they took an age for every goal kick and throw in whilst liverpool did everything at 100 miles per hour. as the game went on it became more and more obvious how much control real madrid had of the game and liverpool was just running around like headless chickens
for me it has got to be administered through a stop clock and not bookings. but if you do that you have got to reduce time of matches and you could get matches 110 mins + long even with a reduced amount of time. I think there was a burnley match under Dyche where the ball was in play for something daft like 45 minutes of the 90!
i dont think there is an easy answer if there was it would have been introduced by now
I’ve seen the argument before that you have to reduce the length of matches if you introduce more accurate timekeeping, but why?
Rugby (both codes) is a much more physical game than football and they didn’t reduce matches from 80 minutes when they introduced the ability for referees to stop the clock. We have more subs than ever before - you can alter half the outfield team if you want - better pitches, medical staff, kit including footballs, training, dietary advice and all the rest of it, why can’t they play a full 90 minutes? If they want to stop the ref from extending the time they’re on the pitch then they should stop all the play acting and nonsense that goes on in the name of ‘professionalism’. Does my head in.
As a starting point the football authorities and referees have to do something. I thought the world cup might be the start but seemingly no one has the courage to take it further
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On 21/03/2023 at 16:26, Ghost of Clough said:
Harry M. Stevens, eldest son of James Stevens, a foreman of Midland Railway Locomotive in Derby!
But the most popular story concerning Harry Stevens relates to a chilly April day at New York City’s Polo Ground, in 1901. By now, Stevens had the catering concession for major league baseball games, but was losing money trying to sell ice cream and cold soda. He sent out his salesmen to buy up all of the ‘dachshund’ sausages they could find, along with rolls to put them in, and encouraged his vendors to go round the ground shouting “They’re red hot. Get your dachshund sausages here”.
https://www.visitderby.co.uk/things-to-do/how-derby-invented-the-hot-dog
It doesn’t get a mention in the pre match poem though. Florence, Pickford and Bombardier trains but no Harry Stevens. Missed opportunity.
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10 hours ago, PistoldPete said:
So why are season tickets not available for renewal? And no idea when they will be? It's rather late isn't it?
It's only 'late' in comparison to previous seasons (except this one) but other than cash flow all that really matters is that those who want to buy a ST can do so before the start of the season and the club can do all the admin before the first game. Even in normal seasons they continue to offer STs or part STs after a season has begun.
The cash flow is important to see us through the summer when no/little income is coming in but, without knowing the ins and outs of how the EFL manage clubs' ST monies, it might be that a good season this season from the point of view of income will help us through the summer period anyway. And if we can't pay fees for players during the summer because of the business plan then we might have even less of a problem than usual.
The big advantage to DCFC of any delay is that they can price STs according to the division we'll be in - they don't have to guess - and they'll still have time to make any early bird offers if they want to.
My bet would be that ST demand will be high whether we go up or not even if they go on sale after the play offs, and that the problem of no direct debit offer is more to do with credit arrangements because we've been in administration than anything else. Whether that will change this year or not who knows.
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1 hour ago, angieram said:
And while I'm on the subject, I bought a bottle of pop yesterday as it was so mild. Had the top taken off.
Bloke behind me bought water, top left on.
Can I have my top back?
No, not allowed.
How come he can have his top?
That's different, it's water.
??♀️
It happens at lots of grounds @angieram . As coke is now more expensive than a litre of fuel I can’t imagine why people would want to throw it on the pitch but that’s the reason why tops are removed according to a number of clubs, including ours, that I have complained to. Elf and safety gone mad
The practice ignores the fact that it would take an international cricketer to reach the pitch never mind hit anyone, that there have been no incidents at grounds including our own, that removing the top wouldn’t stop it from being hurled anyway if someone was of a mind to do so and ignores the fact that people bring their own drinks into the ground in their own containers - no doubt flasks are deemed to be lethal weapons in football speak.
I now take spare tops with me to away grounds or I get water, and I’ve stopped buying any drinks at PP in silent protest.
The competition for the 23/24 season
in Derby County Forum
Posted
I don’t think Clowes has said exactly that. He said that he wanted us to be established in the Championship in 5 years, which is subtly different. To be established imo means that we have to be in at least our second championship season in (now) 4 years time. Clowes opinion may not be the same as mine.
That does mean (if you take my definition) that we don’t have to be promoted this season but would have to be promoted by the end of 24/25 to meet that goal.
We fans may still have to be patient. Given the number of new players we’ll probably need it could take more than one window. It’ll almost certainly mean that we might not get a fast start to the season. I’m old enough to remember that there were more than a few mutterings about Brian after his first full season; I can certainly remember muttering about Jim until the team clicked 15 games in - and neither of them had to deal with transfer windows or a club coming out of considerable financial restraint. Performance isn’t always linear season on season.