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Last year we sold about 20,000 of our 31,000 allocation. That’s not a bad turnout for the time and place.
Millwall sold all their tickets – their fans could get there by Tube and be home in time for tea.
The club & FA never revealed how many tickets they’d sold for the semi-final but if you think how full the same areas were for the final when Latics took an initial allocation of 21,000 (allegedly took some of the other 4,0000 they had an option on) as opposed to how empty they were for the semi-final, I don’t think that there was anywhere near 20k Latics fans there for the Millwall game.
Not that it matters coz I was there & no doubt virtually everyone on here was there but looking at last year’s semi-final & how many were shifted for the final I think we’ll take somewhere between 15k-20k to the Arsenal game
Helps when the referee gives you a penalty in the last minute for nothing
And decides to let your keeper stay on the pitch when probably 90% of other refs would have sent him for an early bath ! ;)[/quote]
I saw the two decisions on SSN last night when I got back from the game.
I thought Latics penalty was a penalty & just as much of one as Sunday’s. Perch makes a meal of it though with flailing arms as he goes down but for my money it was teh correct decisionDidn’t have the best view fo Al Habsi’s foul in the ground & said at the time that the only thing I could think why he hadn;t walked was that he’d taken the ball too wide & wouldn’t have been able to get a shot in. He did probably knock it a little wider than he’d wanted but if he’d been able to stay on his feet he’d have had a pretty simple job if just turning it in. Rosler said we had a covering defender but there’s no way he’d have been able to get back & either tackle the player or block any shot.
A very odd decision but we needed it coz ugly is too kind a word to describe that performance. Still 3 points is 3 points & those types of games often come on the back of the type of performance they produced on Sunday
I had a dabble on Gomez to score first & Latics to win 1-0 with BetFred at 225/1 on Sunday so I wish the game had finished at half time!!
Gomez to score first & Latics to win 2-1 was 400/1To be fair John, Ellington didn’t really have time to have a stinker ! If my memory serves me right, he came on as a sub to a chorus of Boos and shouts of ‘Judas’ but then was taken off very soon after in a tactical substitution due to West Brom having a player sent off ! :) The boos then turned to cheers and laughter ! :)Your memory must be failing you
He started both games against Latics in that 2005/2006 season. To be honest I can’t remember how he performed in the game at our place (although he did get replaced after West Brom had a man sent off late in the 1st half by the guy who went on to score) but he had an absolute stinker in the game at the Hawthorns & was dragged offThe offside law is:
“A player in an offside position is only penalised if, at the moment the ball touches or is played by one of his team, he is, in the opinion of the referee, involved in active play by:interfering with play or
interfering with an opponent or
gaining an advantage by being in that position”FIFA also add that:
“interfering with play” means playing or touching the ball passed or touched by a team-mate
• “interfering with an opponent” means preventing an opponent from playing or being able to play the ball by clearly obstructing the opponent’s line of vision or challenging an opponent for the ball
• “gaining an advantage by being in that position” means playing a ball i.e. that rebounds or is deflected to him off the goalpost, crossbar or an opponent having been in an offside positionLooking at those definitions then Lescott wasn’t offside because at the moment the ball was kicked by Nasri, Lescott wasn’t obstructing Carson’s line of vision. That seems to be the explanation that ITV said the ref’s group had given along with him not touching the ball.
So if you stick rigidly to that wording then you can justify not giving an offside
BUT
You don’t have to touch the ball just “play” it & that can mean attempting to kick it & missing. Can jumping out of the way at the last second when you are obstructing the path/view of the ball count as playing it coz a dummy can be seen as playing it. In my opinion it is
Also this “at the moment the ball is kicked” if taken literally wouldn’t apply to half the offside decisions correctly given. Take for example of an attacker is trying to get back from an offside position & his team mate hoofs the ball over the top of the defence. At that moment, by the above definition he is not committing an offside offence. But after the ball has bounced, he takes a look, thinks he can put some pressure on the keeper (who is coming out to punt it back upfield) & decides to chase after the ball, the keeper has to put a sprint on & due to pressure from this attacker has to just kick it out of play. He’d then get signalled for offside & the assistant would be correct
But if you go off what ITV said the ref’s group justified Lescott not being given offside for then the above example shouldn’t be eitherIn Sunday’s incident, Lescott is offside but committing no offence when the ball is kicked. However as he is in that offside position he then moves across the flight of the ball & obstructs Carson’s view of it. Meaning he’s interfered with an opponent. For me the last second jump (essentially a dummy) means he plays the ball so he interferes with play & finally he’s gained an advantage coz if he hadn’t been stood there, he wouldn’t have been able to run the path he took, block the keeper’s view of the ball & make a last milli second jump out of the way.
Taking Latics out of the equation, if I was on the line & that exact same incident happened I would alert the ref that there was a fella offside who although he didn’t touch the ball looked like he may have been interfering with play & it sthen up to the ref to decide whether they were as they would have a better position to decide.
In fairness to the assistant on Sunday, If I’m on an NPL game, the only way I can do that is by sticking my flag up but in Sunday’s game they were mic’d up so the chances are that the assistant did say something but the ref decided Lescott wasn’t interfering with playIMO though if ITV reported exactly what the ref’s group said then it doesn’t stand up to scrutiny because they are not the only times when an offside can be given
Sorry for boring ya!! :P
One is the world’s best football player the other is Lionel Messi.
Just to reignite this debate, I was talking to a contractor at work (a Liverpool fan) yesterday about the game & he made the comment that “it was all the more amazing that you won with 10 men coz that Gomez was $h!te”
I’ll let everybody argue over that one[/quote]
More importantly, do you think Gomez ‘was sh!te’?[/quote]I didn’t see enough of Sunday’s game to comment (only got to see ITV’s highlights).
What I did say to this Scouser was that he was our marmite player & Latics fans either loved him or hated him.
I said that personally I could see the stuff he is capable of that no other player in our squad can do but that I can also see the bad stuff he does. Also that whilst I don’t think he warrants the lofty regard some hold him in, nor do i think that he warrants the stick he gets from sections of the crowd who will give his mistakes more grief than the mistakes of other players.
So basically I sat on the fence & disproved my claim that everyone either loves him or hates him!! ;)One thing this fella said was that when he was watching it & Gomez stepped up to take the penalty was that he hadn’t even realised he was playing coz he’d not seen him do anything or even heard him mentioned up to that point
One is the world’s best football player the other is Lionel Messi.Just to reignite this debate, I was talking to a contractor at work (a Liverpool fan) yesterday about the game & he made the comment that “it was all the more amazing that you won with 10 men coz that Gomez was $h!te”
I’ll let everybody argue over that one
They both play for the only 2 teams to have beaten City at the Etihad so far this season.They both scored the first goal,a penalty conceded by the same player Demichelis which I’m led to believe is Spanish for donkey !!!! ;)
I thought that Chelsea & Bayern Munich had beaten them at the Etihad this season too??
We’re in good company regardless!!What happened the last time we played arsenal in a major cup semi final…..
mmmmm! Let me think.The floodlights failed![/quote]
and Jimmy Bullard did a swan dive over a pile of bodies…..Daft as a brush that lad :silly:[/quote]
Technically, that was the game before the last time we played Arsenal in a major cup semi final.
The last time we played em in a semi-final Jason Roberts scored with about 30 seconds to go & I sent several tables & pints flying in the Black Horse in TyldesleyI went to watch United at OT once and McGrath played the full 90 minutes. At the end of the game, I left sharpish as I wa smeeting someone in a pub in Sale to go some party or other. I made good time getting to the pub and when I walked in McGrath was already sat at the bar and was reportedly on his third pint.You should read his autobiography – very dark.
I’m not normally a reader of autobiographies but as I rate him as the best defender I’ve ever seen play I picked up this one when it came out & you’re right it makes for very dark reading. His upbringing was hardly a bed of roses
Its frightening to think of the states that he used to play in & still play as well as he did & I think the club’s he was at have got to bare some responsibility coz because he was able to play so well despite hsi issues they just let him get on with it whereas I think they’d have done more if it had effected the way he played. There’s the story that he was so sloshed in one game that he wanted to come off & feigned an injury to get the physio on to tell him – the physio told him he couldn’t, he replied that he could see 2 of whichever player he was marking & teh response he got was “Well tackle both of them then”
The guy oozed class on the football pitch thoughI know what you’re saying but, as we’re both arguing legal technicalities, I would say that you have to look at why those chants are being used.
If you asked the people chanting them, I’m pretty sure that you would get responses of “to wind them up”, “to get on their nerves” etc.. & I would say (legally) you are doing it because you know it can cause harassment, alarm or distress – that’s certainly why I wind someone up. There’s differing degrees of winding someone up but ultimately people do it coz it’s funny to cause someone some form of distress (the most memorable candid camera/Beadle’s about clips are those where someone goes off their nuts & gets upset)
Even by claiming “its a laugh”, legally they would look at why they think it’s a laugh & ultimately that’s because they think, in this instance, that having a reputation of a high homosexual community is something to be ridiculed & mocked about.I do agree though that you can say the same about Scouser’s getting mocked for being thieves.
You’ve read it wrong.
They lost £68mill in their last financial year, but they now have total debts of £177.1mill!!!! :ohmy: :ohmy: :ohmy: :ohmy:I’m not
I know that it is not an offence to be a racist/homophobe or sexist & nor should it be but it is not just an offence to discriminate against other races, sexuality or sex & only to discriminate.It is an offence to use threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour if done or said within the hearing of anyone likely to be caused harassment, alarm or distress. For it not to be an offence, whoever does it would have to have no reason to believe that there was any person within hearing or sight who was likely to be caused harassment, alarm or distress or alternatively that his or her conduct was reasonable.
The Latics lad shouting “It’s a long way home you f****n f*****s” cannot argue that defence.
If the chants weren’t meant to offend or insult then they wouldn’t be sung in the first placeI absolutely hated that music after a goal was scored – some loved it but for me it just killed all the spontaneity of a goal celebration & some of my fondest memories of football down the years have been goal celebrations.
Think of the cup final last year & that footage the TV showed of the crowd with some bloke in a blue jumper & with long hair, fist pumping, face gurning & another bloke grabbing the jackets of the people either side of him whilst jumping up & down with the kind of inane grin on his face you normally only see on someone coming up on their first E in a club & their favourite tune comes on.
Or that youtube “Oh my God” footageIf Wembley had played music after goal celebrations on 11th May you’d have had about 1-2 seconds of that & then it replaced by 21,000 people all doing a “tiger feet” dance to whatever that “de de de de” song is, as you used to get at games at the DW. I even used to do it myself
Still I’m nothing if not a democrat & if that’s what the majority of people who watch Latics want & the club decide to bring it back then who am I to argue. It’s worth noting though that the club never consulted with anyone before it was introduced in the first place so those who did like it can’t really complain that they weren’t consulted about it being taken away.
If the club does look at re-introducing it then they should at the very least do some form of internet consultation or even ask the question on the season ticket renewal formSurely it’s only homophobic abuse if they were homosexual, and clearly so.So using the “N” word is only racist if its used towards a black person? A chant can be homophobic if there are no homosexuals present (& in a crowd of about 14,000 for Latics that day you can estimate that there would have been 150-1000 there plus 1-3 on the pitch/on the bench). Whether homophobia & racism are any different to calling Scousers thieves or Wiganers Pie Eaters, legally they are – whether they should be is a whole different debate.
Personally I’m more uncomfortable/offended by someone shouting “It’s a long way home you f***in f****t” as one Latics mon does in this programme than I would ever be by someone shouting “It’s a long way home you pie eating b*****d”. Some other people wouldn’t be but its not for me to tell other people what they should or shouldn;t be offended by
Some of it is down to tolerance levels & personal taste I guess – personally I have no issue with people using swear words but other people do so I don’t use them in work & if I have kids round me at the football I’ll try & watch my language (try!!).In relation to the Latics footage in this programme, in all fairness to those there that day it is quite clearly only coming from a tiny smattering of odd individuals out of what 14k there that day & there is no joining in from the rest, again apart from the odd 1 or 2. Also, whilst I know it was only a half hour programme they seem to have only managed to find 4 or 5 instances of chants/shouts in 90 minutes.
In relation to the general programm, the issue I have with it is not for raising the issue but for not stressing enough the improvements that have taken place bar a brief footnote right at the end of the programme or (as with what the footage at Latics seems to show) making a point of how small a number of people who were there that it applies to. Nor when having a go at the stewards or coppers for doing nowt do they acknowledge the crowd management issues they deal with whereby piling in & making threats or arrests can at times escalate a situation & they’ve got to weigh up that option when deciding what to do
