Please post any wind ups in this thread...

[Wax Jacket]

yeah go to Brighton over Crawley

[Z175]

He's taken the club as far as he can and we should all be grateful for that but at the end of the day he is not a football person and only bought the club as in his words he "owed the town something"

As a business man rather than a football person he is likely to be asking a hefty premium above what the club is worth so unfortunately we are stuck with the status quo UFN.

His view (quoted somewhere this summer) is that the side is good enough even if weakened as we made the playoff final. That is flawed thinking - the league was extremely weak last season and looks much tougher this term and if there is no investment in the team we will be in the bottom 6 in my view.

The cost of petrol from where I am, the hassle getting to the ground, and the complete lack of ambition that the board are showing now (reminicent of the waller days in the 70's) will stop me travelling to many games - I can travel 10 mins and watch Crawley Town for £15 - a side that is showing far more ambition than RFC.

Please don't do that. Go to Brighton, Palace anywhere but there. Don't feed their unsustainable rotten club.

But he clearly wants unsustainable football!

[Red]

Choosing which local side to go and support is obviously open to debate, but I don't think there's many on this portal who'd argue with the principle of watching your local side.

We're not Reading fans for the trophies.

Never understood people who travel hundreds of miles to watch "home" games.

[Svlad Cjelli]

This is the same Crawley Town that refuses to disclose to the Football League who their owners are?
The same Crawley Town that has a a management team forever tainted by the corruption at Boston Utd - and a manager who was banned from the dugout for 10 matches because of his foul-mouthed rants and officials and opponents.
The same Crawley Town that outspent every team in the league they have been promoted to, but refuse to say where that money comes from - or whether it's even legally obtained?

If that's the sort of "ambition" you want, then you can oxf*rd off to Crawley Town.

[Ian Royal]

In my case Red, I don't see why I should start supporting a different team, just because I moved. I don't really get supporting a team many miles away if you never lived there, or have no link to it, but once you're bitten by a team that ain't going to change just because you move away.

[wolsey]

In my case Red, I don't see why I should start supporting a different team, just because I moved. I don't really get supporting a team many miles away if you never lived there, or have no link to it, but once you're bitten by a team that ain't going to change just because you move away.

Not sure he meant someone in your situation Ian. After all to even consider changing your footballing allegiance for glory or convenience is an unspeakable act.

FWIW "We support our local team" is one of the very few chants that I join in with. (Childish I know)

[Svlad Cjelli]

FWIW "We support our local team" is one of the very few chants that I join in with. (Childish I know)

in my book, "loacl team" isn't just the one you live closest to at the time. It includes ones you previously lived near, or one that's been in your family.

[T.R.O.L.I.]

FWIW "We support our local team" is one of the very few chants that I join in with. (Childish I know)

in my book, "local team" isn't just the one you live closest to at the time. It includes ones you previously lived near, or one that's been in your family.

Exactly. Why should anyone be expected* to change their long-standing allegiances just because they move house?

*Expected in the loosest sense of the word.

[Red]

tbf I didn't expect this to be a popular opinion but I think you're mad if you don't.

Sure, you still support the royals and keep an eye out for their result but I'd far rather just head down Spotlands or whatever and be in the pub by 5:15 rather than 9:30 following a match.

I guess I'm unusual in that, but having lived away from Reading for over a decade I don't really feel a strong allegiance to the team I used to have a season ticket to go and watch.

[Terminal Boardom]

FWIW "We support our local team" is one of the very few chants that I join in with. (Childish I know)

in my book, "local team" isn't just the one you live closest to at the time. It includes ones you previously lived near, or one that's been in your family.

Exactly. Why should anyone be expected* to change their long-standing allegiances just because they move house?

*Expected in the loosest sense of the word.

It all depends on what you hope to achieve and gain from watching football. When one supports a team, it is if an umbilical cord is attached. Eventually, that cord gets cut as mine has with Reading. I genuinely miss the days when I could identify with the players. As a child, Tommy Youlden lived in my village in a house very similar to many in the same road. He drove a normal car and shopped where everyone else shopped. The same can be said up until the TV money started coming in. Now, players are cocooned in their own sterile world divorced from reality. Can anyone really identify with footballers now? Genuinely?

The atmosphere within football grounds has changed. Standing, cheering, making noise and the like are frowned upon by the army of pedants that wear orange and yellow high vis jackets. The costs of getting to a game are also spiralling out of control. Supporters generally have completely unrealistic levels of expectation that has been fuelled by a crazy media with a demand on instant gratification. The evil that is the media is, of course, funded by the ordinary punter with their monthly subscriptions who feed off the media desperate for the merest mention of their team. Social websites make the matter worse. I really don't care what this player or that player is tweeting. Sadly, there are millions out there hanging on someone's every word and utterance. Are people's lives so empty that they have to live their own lives through the banal utterances of others?

The sooner that the tv bubble bursts, the better. The sooner that football returns to being a form of entertainment for the masses the better. Until these things happen, it will just be more of the same and excess following excess.

[wolsey]

FWIW "We support our local team" is one of the very few chants that I join in with. (Childish I know)

in my book, "loacl team" isn't just the one you live closest to at the time. It includes ones you previously lived near, or one that's been in your family.

Which was the point that I was trying to make - the team that I was chosen to support because they were from the town where I grew up and where I was taken to by my dad and brother will always be my local team (as Reading will always be my town)

[Svlad Cjelli]

In a survey that I heard about recently, which asked supporters why they supported their team and what it meant to them, the word which was used more than any other was "family".

[Red]

In a survey that I heard about recently, which asked supporters why they supported their team and what it meant to them, the word which was used more than any other was "family".

Interesting. None of my family are football fans FTR.

[Sarah Star]

This is the same Crawley Town that refuses to disclose to the Football League who their owners are?
The same Crawley Town that has a a management team forever tainted by the corruption at Boston Utd - and a manager who was banned from the dugout for 10 matches because of his foul-mouthed rants and officials and opponents.
The same Crawley Town that outspent every team in the league they have been promoted to, but refuse to say where that money comes from - or whether it's even legally obtained?

If that's the sort of "ambition" you want, then you can oxf*rd off to Crawley Town.

Scott Davies did.

[Svlad Cjelli]

This is the same Crawley Town that refuses to disclose to the Football League who their owners are?
The same Crawley Town that has a a management team forever tainted by the corruption at Boston Utd - and a manager who was banned from the dugout for 10 matches because of his foul-mouthed rants and officials and opponents.
The same Crawley Town that outspent every team in the league they have been promoted to, but refuse to say where that money comes from - or whether it's even legally obtained?

If that's the sort of "ambition" you want, then you can oxf*rd off to Crawley Town.

Scott Davies did.

No wonder - he'll get good money there - much better than at other clubs at the same level.

As long as he doesn't care where that money came from good luck to him.

[Handsome Man]

This is the same Crawley Town that refuses to disclose to the Football League who their owners are?
The same Crawley Town that has a a management team forever tainted by the corruption at Boston Utd - and a manager who was banned from the dugout for 10 matches because of his foul-mouthed rants and officials and opponents.
The same Crawley Town that outspent every team in the league they have been promoted to, but refuse to say where that money comes from - or whether it's even legally obtained?

If that's the sort of "ambition" you want, then you can oxf*rd off to Crawley Town.

Scott Davies did.

He was good as well.

[Sarah Star]

This is the same Crawley Town that refuses to disclose to the Football League who their owners are?
The same Crawley Town that has a a management team forever tainted by the corruption at Boston Utd - and a manager who was banned from the dugout for 10 matches because of his foul-mouthed rants and officials and opponents.
The same Crawley Town that outspent every team in the league they have been promoted to, but refuse to say where that money comes from - or whether it's even legally obtained?

If that's the sort of "ambition" you want, then you can oxf*rd off to Crawley Town.

Scott Davies did.

He was good as well.

I know I thought he could do much better when I heard... but I suppose it was the money

[Alan Partridge]

This is the same Crawley Town that refuses to disclose to the Football League who their owners are?
The same Crawley Town that has a a management team forever tainted by the corruption at Boston Utd - and a manager who was banned from the dugout for 10 matches because of his foul-mouthed rants and officials and opponents.
The same Crawley Town that outspent every team in the league they have been promoted to, but refuse to say where that money comes from - or whether it's even legally obtained?

If that's the sort of "ambition" you want, then you can oxf*rd off to Crawley Town.

Scott Davies did.

No wonder - he'll get good money there - much better than at other clubs at the same level.

As long as he doesn't care where that money came from good luck to him.

Course he won't care, they'll be up near the top of the league he'll get paid a small fortune in comparison to the rest of the league for a while until they end up in serious debt and he clears off to the next club.

I'm sure the Crawley Town 'fairytale story' will end up like similar ambitious clubs like Rushden and Gretna.

[Bandini]

Choosing which local side to go and support is obviously open to debate, but I don't think there's many on this portal who'd argue with the principle of watching your local side.

We're not Reading fans for the trophies.

Never understood people who travel hundreds of miles to watch "home" games.

Agreed. I go to as many games of my present local team as I do to Reading games. But it rather depends on your local team not being a competitor to your original home team.

[Red]

I go to as many games of my present local team as I do to Reading games.

Me too, although last season that was one a piece.