TyldesleyLatic

“I thought exactly the same but didnt want to come under fire for being negative ! How exactly does the loyal season ticket holder actually personally benefit ??”

They don’t but I’m guessing that the club’s thinking behind it is that if some first timers are enticed along by the offer of a cheap ticket from someone they know then they might, just might, think it was a good day out & come more often next season when there aren’t offers on or even get a season ticket.
You’ll find plenty of die hard Latics people out there whose story begins with “I was dragged along there once by my dad/other relative/mate etc.. & was hooked”

Also the club knows that its most committed people are ST holders & that most want to help bump up crowds in any way they can so by putting the offer through them they will spread the word. Its far cheaper than an advertising campaign – As someone who doesn’t go anywhere near as much as I used to I’ve already been offered cheap tickets by 3 ST holders so it shows its working

I think the fact that Wigan is (or was) one of the safest labour seats (council & govt) is part of the problem. As I’ve heard many people say you could pin a Labour rosette on a monkey & they’d still get elected & IMO this attitude has caused them to take things for granted & perhaps not do all that they should
A mate of mine’s dad lost a council seat he’d held since I was at primary school at the last round of local elections & I remember telling him before then that Labour needed to be seen to be doing more but they took being elected for granted & didn’t bother. We got inundated all year round with Lib Dem leaflets telling you what they were doing, what they wanted to do & the only time the local labour party bothered was a leaflet at election time. He didn’t think it was that, they didn’t bother & now I don’t think they hold any seats in the Tyldesley ward I used to live in
I also remember laughing to my dad (a staunch labour supporter) when Labour had every seat on Wigan council & he said it’d be a bad thing & pretty much predicted what’d happen

As for the Iraq war. I know what I thought about it at the time & I know what I think about it now. Nothing has happened during the intervening years to convince me anything I thought at the time was wrong

The banks is a difficult one. Yes if you read around you could see what was happening but none of the govts anywhere round the world did anything to regulate it. If any govt had tried to stick its oar in & regulate the banking sector the money men would have been in uproar and money would have poured out of Britain & then whoever was in charge would have taken the blame for destroying the country. I don’t anything like enough about the financial markets to know what they could do to regulate the banks now – I don’t think refusing to allow them to pay bonuses would make much difference though

I haven’t voted Labour since 1997 & its highly unlikely I’ll vote for them this year. What I couldn’t bear however is to see a Tory govt get back in after what I remember of them last time & how I don’t see how they’ve changed. Do I risk not voting & feel guilt if they get in (even though in all likelihood my one vote in St Helens won’t make much difference to the general election result) or do I vote for a party other than Labour or Tory & possibly end up with the same dilemma??

I’m well aware of the point being made & I’m saying put aside your unhappiness about how it is now & look back through non-rose/blue tinted specs at what the town centre was like from the late 70’s to now it is (IMO) better now than it was then – so to me phrases like “it was never like this when maggie held the purse strings” are quite frankly a load of gash

I’m far from a Labour supporter – I voted for them in the first general election I could in 1997 & I feel betrayed. I also think its good that from having complete control of the council at one stage in the early/mid 90’s Labour’s majority has now been slashed considerably coz they’ve gotten far too comfortable with the “they’ll vote for us no matter what we do” attitude

“they shouldnt also delude themselves that defence of labours record can be justified by saying, well look at the tories” – with all due respect that’s what I remember hearing time after time after time through the 80’s when the Tories record was being attacked. Unfortunately its what happens

“the unjust war” – would that be the same unjust war that the Tories voted for?

“and a legacy for the next 20 years in paying off the bailout of the banks” – I don’t claim to know the full ins & outs of this credit crunch stuff but from what I’ve read a very large proportion of the blame for it can be traced back to the credit boom & de-regulation of the banks brought in & actively encouraged by the Tories. On top of that but I’ve seen & read numerous sources that have stated the Labour govt had little choice but to bail out the banks in the way that they did. If they’d allowed the banking sector to almost collapse in on itself the damage to the economy would have been far worse than we experienced/are experiencing.
Its certainly unlikely that a govt (Tory, Labour or Liberal) would have done any differently

There are plenty of other permier league teams that Scharner could play in the first XI for – as a centre half
Ironically I think he’s blown any chance he ever had of a move to a bigger club by his public insistance that he’s a midfielder (& Bobby’s willingness to take him up on that)
That said he’ll leave in the summer (like someone else said to a club like Fulham) but I wasn’t surprised no-one came in for him in January – why pay £1mill or so now when you could have him for nowt in June?

EDIT – Et voila
http://www.mirrorfootball.co.uk/news/Tr … 65697.html
Although that could very well just be his agent releasing a story in a “play him or else” kind of way like happened with McCulloch when he wasn’t recalled to the starting line up after an injury (& during which time Jewell had signed Kilbane)

“So the 8 year old has to look at the blokes in front Bum for 90 mins?”

I am not attempting to make light of the condition CF (I don’t have it & don’t understand enough about it) but I attended football matches in seats from the age of 4 at various grounds that weren’t designed as well (in terms of unrestricted views etc..) as the DW & I didn’t stand on the seats.
I doubt very much whether anyone’s view was restricted when ES2 Chris’s son was stood on the seat but from the club’s point of view it isn’t safe to allow anyoen to do it. I’ve stood on em as an adult at the end of games etc.. celebrating Latics victories etc.. & having stood on the wrong part of the seat or shifted my (not inconsiderable) weight on to the wrong part of the seat & its started to flip up – most of the time its easy enough to regain your balance like depending on how many sherberts you’ve had but I can see how someone might go a over t
If the club allow a 8yr old lad to stand on the seats, other kids will start to do it & it only needs 1 to fall off & hurt themselves & the club is facing a legal claim for allowing people to stand on the seats. If the kid is hospitalised the club has to submit a report to the HSE & if it continues to happen they will investigate as will whoever issues the safety certificate & you could see parts of the capacity reduced & the club fined
Its all ifs buts & maybe’s but they are the scenarios the club has to try & avoid & I don’t see the problem with the stewards asking someone, whatever their age or medical condition, to sit on the seats.
How they ask them is another matter

“Fair enough, I was just making an exaggerated point which is that it all comes down to “you get what you pay for” and our manager hasn’t got the money to buy quality so has to buy cheap and unproven.

We are 15th in the table and that is an overachievement.

If you don’t see it that way, then please tell me which of the other 14 clubs we should be above because we have higher gate receipts, transfer budget and wage bills?

I find it pathetic and childish not to mention completely baffling that people ( and this isn’t particularly aimed at you TL ) seem unable to accept our position in the table in the biggest and richest league in the world and are have turned so aggressively and are slating a rookie manager with the odds stacked against him to even stay in this division instead of supporting him.”

i can see where you’re coming from to be honest but I just think its used as an excuse to gloss over some of the big mistakes our manager is making.
i don’t particularly see 15th but more importantly 4 points (having played a game more) than the bottom 3 as being over achieving. We’ve done better than that in 3 of the 4 full seasons we’ve been in this division.
He’s taken a relatively decent side & made it worse. The defence is a joke compared to the previous couple of seasons. He seems to have no alternative game plan if things aren’t going right. He seems to have been allowed himself to be swayed by certain players as to where they should be playing (Scharner). His … well i could go on & on and none of it can be explained by a lack of funds

personally I haven’t turned aggressively on him. I thought his appointment was a mistake at the time & said so in the main because he was a “rookie” – His lack of experience & the things that has been bringing with it all season is fast undoing what other managers have spent the last 4 years & more building up.
Yes I know Latics will continue & I’ll still supoprt them but I won’t sit there & shrug my shoulders with an “oh well it was a great ride” attitude either

“we couldn’t shift King because of his massive wages, something which I read (I may be wrong here) contributed to us not being in a position to sign Scott MacDonald.” – King was gone & contract cancelled before Latics bid for Scott MacDonald in January so I can’t see that one being true

“We’ve loaned out players to small clubs, and like Vat said, will still be paying some portion of their wages” – Still paying some of their wages or not, the payroll has still been reduced temporarily

“However, Martinez has admitted that he would rather have slowly introduced Gómez and Scotland to Premiership football but circumstances dictated that he couldn’t” – Whilst I know Bobby said that in his interview with the websites the other week it is actually a load of garbage & contradicts what he said about them when they signed. Gomez in particular was going to be the creative heart of the team & everything would flow through him, yet now he’s telling us he only wanted to ease him in. Espanyol, the team he came from are a bottom 6 top flight side (give or take the odd season) in a league that I would rate of a slightly lower standard than our own. he couldn’t make their team & they wanted to get rid of him yet Bobby was bringing him in as his “key” signing. Whilst no football einstein, that had alarm bells ringing for me along with some of the “lazy” media scouting reports I read
Having watched latics in all 4 divisions you get to know the types of players who will be a success in certain divisions. It didn’t take a genius to knwo that if a 31/32 yr old striker was good enough for the English top flight then he’d have been playing in it alot sooner as opposed to bumming around the Scottish leagues

“Sinclair has been decent” – Has he????? Barely started a game & when he has (e.g. Pompey) he has been poor. Doesn’t even seem to make the bench these days which shows you how highly even Bobby rates him. Tasty bird or not he’s waste of a squad place & I’d guess his salary is far from next to nothing seeing as how he’s a Chelsea player

“Are we really labelling Thomas as a Martinez signing?” – Yep. He wanted him here if his comments have been anything to go by

“On the other hand, he has managed to persuade two of Britain’s (well, one’s ‘Irish’ apparently) top footballing prospects to come to Wigan. Both have been linked with moves to the Barcelonas and Liverpools of the world” – McCarthy is showing real promise undoubtedly & yes Liverpool offered him a deal when he was 16 but plenty of promising youngsters get signed up by the big clubs & fall by the way side. At the end of the day however, Bobby managed to persuade himto join latics (an established top flight club) over Wolves so I don’t doubt some of our other managers could have done the same.
As for all the clubs allegedly linked with Moses. yeah right – I think that was far more a case of Crystal Palace & his agent trying to spark a bidding war amongst the clubs who were interested as opposed to being genuine coz at the end of the day who went in for him with an actual bid? Latics & 3 Championship sides – so again yes I think it could have happened under a previous regime. I also don’t think Latics are in the position to sign players with the “potential” to be good. We need em to hit the ground running

“Diamé has been fantastic this season” – No he’s not. he’s been great in some games & equally poor in others. Admittedly one of the better signings but still one with alot of improving to do. And if all these big clubs were scouting him then it hardly took a vast knowledge of Spanish football to know about him did it. When he was first linked there were many on here who’d heard of him

So for me we’ve got 2 players with potential Diame & McCarthy, 1 who looks good but (as saturday showed) is more than acapable of having complete mares & another (Moses) who I keep hearing is going to be great but we might have to wait a while to find that one out.

The rest quite simply haven’t been up to the job

“imagine the team he could build” – To quote some bloke out of Red Dwarf “I’d rather not, last time I did that it took me a week just to dry the mattress”