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I’ve not noticed any particular drop in refereeing standards, nothing like the drop-off in the quality of our time at times this season.

Often people blame referees for laws of the game that they don’t like or understand.

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No chance that either of those things won’t happen!

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BigLeftToe wrote:

You mustn’t have watched much rugby, if any, to still try and compare the respect shown towards referees between the two sports. The difference is black and white, chalk and cheese, apples and oranges…

Don’t watch it anymore, I wasn’t arguing there was a difference, just looking at the reason for the difference, which is the laws & their application, rather than just rugger players being “better”.

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BigLeftToe wrote:

Rugger fans’ point is still very much valid…that incident was a huge anomaly which very rarely, if ever, happens (hence the 3 game suspension). If 3 game suspensions were handed out for that in football you probably wouldn’t be able to put on a single game due to the number of suspensions!

Well, if that’s the case, I’d argue that’s not an instinctive respect for the ref, but a desire not to be penalised. Which is still a good thing.

Iron-awe wrote:

Also note that a lot of the players still refer to the rugby ref as sir and some refs call players by their first names.

I’m pretty sure football referees are often on first-name terms with players too.

The rugger refs have to explain their decisions because there are so many rules in the game, it’s often impossible to tell why a decision has been given!

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BigLeftToe wrote:

Not long ago Kyle Sinckler got a 3 match ban for screaming “are you f***ing serious!?” to the referee.

Which rather undermines the rugger fans who always talk about how players respect the referee! But what they do do in rugger is support the refs and the refs stand up for themselves. It would be nice on Match of the Day or Sky or wherever if they could talk about a game without spending most of their time looking at refereeing decisions in minute detail. Refereeing decisions are massively over-rated in terms of deciding a game.

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KeadbyIron wrote:

5 was similar to the one when Hooper was scoring for fun in the championship

Yes, the one we had when we beat Newcastle, I think?

Kit 2 is similar to one we had under Alan Knill.

I quite liked the black away kit with the yellow flashes.

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mistertonmick wrote:

It’s a wonder if the clubs aren’t charged for their players confronting the ref.

It really is. People talk about how referees don’t get respect but the laws exist for them to punish dissent, for some reason they choose not to. Maybe because of managers, maybe because of the press, maybe just because they’re so used to it. But there’s no reason why most referees couldn’t hand out far more cards for dissent.

1 user thanked author for this post.

lesgeo

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Absolutely, I’m all for vigilante refs. Should have sent off to the two Ipswich players who pushed him away too.

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mistertonmick wrote:

Ferrite football was a lot better before the Premier League and more even, it was the bigger clubs wanting to keep all their home receipts that started the divide and United where one of the biggest instigators of that

Well, we’ve found some common ground at last, I completely agree!

mistertonmick wrote:

so you can’t blame City and others for trying to keep up, and regarding human rights I have never seen anything that their owners have anything to do with that

You can’t have looked very hard.
City’s sponsorship by Etihad apparently paid for by the Abu Dhabi government: https://www.theguardian.com/football/2020/feb/17/manchester-city-sponsorship-covered-by-abu-dhabi-government-not-etihad
And as for their attitude to human rights? Amnesty International have this to say the UAE as a whole:
“The authorities, particularly the State Security Agency (SSA), subjected detainees, including foreign nationals, to arbitrary arrest and detention, torture and enforced disappearance. The authorities also restricted freedom of expression, imprisoning government critics and holding them in dire conditions.”

There’s also this: https://www.theguardian.com/football/2018/mar/11/pep-guardiola-manchester-city-yellow-ribbon-fa-fine-abu-dhabi

mistertonmick wrote:

you seem to have a vendetta about City and seem to think everyone should share the same view, I don’t like United but accept others do so it’s a matter of opinion.

Mick, I’ll say it again: I don’t give two hoots about City as a club. I care about dodgy owners, owners who undermine the viability of our game, owners who use clubs to launder their reputations, owners who are spending ill-gotten gains.

I’m using City as the main example because they are currently the richest & best club in the country. I’d have probably focussed on Chelsea in the past. If the Saudis had bought Man United then I’d have focussed on them.

You can understand that this has nothing to do with petty club rivalries, can’t you? I’m a Scunthorpe fan, I’m not a supporter of any other club!

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Anonymous wrote:

Their success seems more organic and it is not connected to such horrid regimes

A couple of points to look at on this, one being the way in which King Power was able to get the monopoly on duty free concessions in the country and two being the way in which the Thai royal family treats people (offence of lèse-majesté) & the number of military coups in the country in the last few decades.

Not as serious as some of the other club owners on our list but I’m not sure they’re the good guys either.

That said, it’s clear the club punches above its weight on the pitch, helped by having a really under-rated manager (although not under-rated by himself!)
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mistertonmick wrote:

So you don’t like a club breaking into the dominance of the so called top few, I like the emergence of City, Chelsea and Leicester and long may it continue same with PSG, never been a fan of United especially since Sky tried to take them over and wanted to make them invincible home and abroad.

What are you on about Mick? You’re one of the brightest posters on here but I don’t get this blind spot of yours.

Back in the 1980s, or even 1990s, when the financial gaps were nowhere near as big, you had teams like Forest, Southampton, Everton, Ipswich, Villa, Leeds, even Norwich challenging for the title and sometimes even winning it. The fact that any club hoping to challenge for the title can only do so by spending hundreds of millions of pounds is crazy!

PSG is a terrible example – they’ve destroyed the French league, winning the title and most of the cups year after year. If they were run as professionally as City, they’d have won the Champions League too by now.

I’m all for mixing things up, that’s exactly the reason why we need much better rules on the way the game is run in this country. The salary cap was a very small step in that direction.

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Combination of loans kicking the problem down the road, some wage cuts and a realisation that even at our level TV pays at important chunk of the bills?

Who knows how much longer it will last though….

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mistertonmick wrote:

So if it had have been Man United or Liverpool who had unlimited wealth you would be saying the same thing, or not.

Of course I would. It is possible to have an opinion about football without caring about one specific club. I dislike ALL of the big clubs, I find it hillarious when any of them lose. I think they’re slowly destroying the game and they don’t given even a quarter of a damn about any of us.

Iron-awe wrote:

ey it’s all about opinions and in my opinion Man City are a sensational side to watch, I absolutely love watching them play, as for 16 consecutive wins, cracking attacking play, massive goal difference and points clear at the top of our football pyramid with a game in hand on most of their challengers, well that speaks volumes to me about how good and IMO how entertaining they are.

You’re right, they really should be enjoyable to watch and I must admit that what I saw of them against Spurs yesterday had some real flashes. But there’s something about City which I just find cold, emotionless, almost robotic. Maybe it’s because they’re so good, particularly at present, that they’re almost completely flawless and that’s just weird! Maybe it’s because their style of play is so well drilled, so machine-like, that there almost doesn’t seem to be room for any free spirits in the side. But that’s just personal prejudice!

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lesgeo wrote:

Foul weather in February, eh?
Funny what that would have done to the plans of those wanting ‘a mid-season break’.
Such plans almost always target January.
British weather is never easy to pin down.

It’s a fair point. Not so long ago that we had a foot of snow in North Lincs in early December.

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It’s not a foreign owner Mick, it’s the endless wealth that’s the issue. Christ, there are plenty of dodgy owners, regardless of nationality in English football!

I’m not Max Bell either and this has nothing to do with petty club rivalries, it’s bigger than that.

On another note, I don’t enjoy watching City, I find them a bit sterile. They’re brilliant at what they do, I just can’t warm to them.

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I agree with many of your points Mick but do you really think it’s ok that a country with almost bottomless pockets can just buy a club and hoover up trophies?

mistertonmick wrote:

we know he is Royalty, but it has nothing to do with the running of his country

Why do you say that? The ruler of the country is the brother of the person named as the owner of City.

Barcelona & Real Madrid, for all their faults, are member-run clubs. Their fans vote for their presidents. Bayern are majority fan-owned, even if like most other massive clubs they have some dubious sponsorship. I don’t get how you can say City are “debt free” when Abu Dhabi can just write them a cheque for “sponsorship”. Etihad is owned by the government of Abu Dhabi. It’s not like being sponsored by Brother printers anymore!

But I agree with you that there’s too much money in the game – unfortunately, one of the reasons for that is that we just allow anyone to buy our clubs and spend as much money as they like. That pushes up prices for everyone.

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Mick, I would recommend you read a bit about where City’s owners got their money from.

“City Football Group owned by Abu Dhabi United Group, an investment vehicle owned by Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al-Nahyan, the brother of the ruler of the United Arab Emirates.” – NY Times

That group is linked to the Abu Dhabi soverign wealth fund, which basically is where much of the country’s oil revenue goes.

Similar things at Chelsea – where did Abramovic’s money come from?

And Man United’s owners put the club deep into debt with their takeover – the club’s still paying for that takeover. A similar method was used in Burnley’s recent takeover.

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Well, a few things there Mick. One, look into where the money of Man City’s owners comes from. Why are they spending it on City? Could/should they be spending it at home? How would you feel if your government was spending billions on a football club in a different country just to bolster its reputation?

Secondly, every pound that Abu Dhabi spend at City forces prices up. Their pockets are essentially bottomless, so if they want to out-bid any other club for a player, they can do. You might think that selling clubs make more money and that’s a good thing but ultimately it just means it becomes like an arms race, with everyone having to spend more money to keep up. Especially when you consider that wages account for far more spending than transfer fees these days.

Thirdly, how many more clubs do we have to see go to the wall or get into unmanageable debt before we question the way football is run in this country? How many times have the PFA had to step in and pay players’ wages? Even big, storied clubs like Sheffield Wednesday & Derby are in deep financial trouble. These aren’t like Rushden or Macclesfield, who maybe rose too far, these are clubs which would normally get 30,000 fans at home and they still can’t make things work. Surely that means the system is broken?

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FFP is deeply flawed and still allows for clubs like Man City to have their dubious financial models. But a salary cap which helps to promote stability and competition across the leagues is surely a good thing, no?

I don’t really see why clubs with bigger fan bases should be allowed to spend more money, to be honest. If you’ve got that extra money, cut ticket prices, build the best training ground you can, make your academy as good as any Premier League club, invest in the community, don’t just pee it all away on players who’ll be up the road as soon as they get a better offer.

You’re probably right about clubs finding a way around it though, given how bad the EFL is at drafting and then applying its rules. We’ve seen similar things happen in rugger too, I believe. But I don’t think that’s enough of a reason not to try to improve things because without it the race to the bottom will surely continue and, in the long term, I can see the PFA having to pay a lot more of its members’ wages as other clubs follow the example of Bury or Macclesfield.

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TwoWrights wrote:

I’m of the opinion it’s a good thing this cap is no more.

Why so?

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Terrible news for the lower leagues and ultimately bad news for players.

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Well, if Swann was being secretive, he wouldn’t have said anything to anyone, let alone 2 supporters’ groups, so I don’t think we need to look for any issues there. However, I would definitely like to know more about the plans he is reported to have outlined. Max Bell posted some important questions on Twitter, which are worth checking out.

Until we know a bit more, I don’t think we can make too many judgements.

1 user thanked author for this post.

Deereyme66

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He certainly strikes a positive, upbeat note.

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marty303 wrote:

Why is Peter just talking to two supporters group.who do not represent the majority of fans. Why haven’t the two supporters group come out and told supporters what was said. If Peter wants the opinion of supporters he should go live on humberside with a phone in for supporters to ask him direct questions like at a open forum.

This is a very fair point. Why wasn’t this revealed in a press interview? Why hasn’t their been one of his regular “chairman’s statements”?

1 user thanked author for this post.

Deereyme66

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Maybe not the ideal thread Deerey but I’d just opened about 3 or 4 which had all gone in the same direction.

We need a bit more solidarity among Iron fans – “Unity” as the badge used to say.

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Baffling. There are serious questions to be asked about the direction of our club and people are just looking to score pointless victories over other posters, with every thread degenerating into tedious, juvenile name-calling.

To paraphrase the old quote about politicians, “we get the club we deserve”.

5 users thanked author for this post.

BobbyGmeister, Northumbiron, IRONINTHEBLOOD, Cliff Byrne's Right Peg, vader

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Ironmaster wrote:

Is there anything we the supporters can do to stop this man?

The way English football is run, supporters can do very little about the owner of any club. This is why we need to bring in fan ownership & a raft of other measures so the game can be run in a more sustainable & fairer way for everyone.

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Vader – I might be wrong but often clubs in rented grounds like the KC and Donny’s Keepmoat get a cut of everything sold in the ground as part of their deal. I wonder what their rents are like, given that West Ham got the Olympic Stadium for something like £2m a year.

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For years, people have been saying that the Football League should make it impossible to separate the ownership of a club from its main asset (i.e. its ground).

Forgive my ignorance but I don’t really see what SUFC gets out of having to pay rent on its own ground, can anyone explain?

1 user thanked author for this post.

inspector

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mistertonmick wrote:

Bobby Mimms was the goalkeeper coach for who?,can’t remember him being at Scunthorpe.
I went to school with his half sister and played football with his 2 half brothers, and they look like him as well, parents split up and his dad moved to York.

For us, I’m pretty certain I remember that correctly. Maybe it was a more informal arrangement, mentoring Tommy Evans. I can’t find any reference online though.

ironjig wrote:

One of my all time favorite players – great to listen to him. Seemed to have so much confidence when talking about if he was fit he knew he’d score. Top stuff

Seconded. Such an exciting player. The goal against Hartlepool in the FA Cup was possibly my favourite ever Scunthorpe goal, just weaving & barging through their defence and smashing the ball home. He came across brilliantly on the podcast too, sounded a really decent guy and one who genuinely loved his time here.

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