Doing the right thing
I posted this some time ago, but I was reminded of it again recently by the terrific USS Mariner baseball site. So:
Jimmy Bullard’s saying the same thing today really:
We lost last Saturday but I thought we were unlucky, we had a crazy five minutes but it happens. We had a right old go in the second-half and overall I don’t think we can be too disappointed with the way we played. You’ve just got to keep playing and believing
I think that’s a sensible approach to a long season, and one that we’ve heard from Roy over and over.
He also says:
“You’re not going to win the league after five game and you’re not going to get relegated after five. People can make mountains out of molehills either way.
“But that’s football nowadays and that’s what people talk about. You’re never going to get anything in the middle, its either good or bad – that’s why people listen to phone-ins or buy the papers because it’s a good read. No one wants to talk about middle ground because no one would want to read about it.
This is my perspective entirely. But it sometimes feels like I’m in the minority.
“No one wants to talk about middle ground because no one would want to read about it”
That one sentance sums up exactly where most of the problems with British football lie. It’s like the Webb & Mitchell sketch that parodies Sky’s trailers for live football, building every game up to be the greatest clash of two teams ever witnessed. The reality is we play some football, win a few, lose a few, and occasionally see a spectacular game.
The kaffufle over Ramos at Spurs is quite amusing as I know a lot of Spurs fans who thought he was going to be the second coming, but he will get the team playing the way he wants if he’s given enough time to do it. It just needs a board with the balls to stand up for what they belive in and not bow to media pressure.
Why stop at football, the same goes for politics.
Sitting on the fence and trying to be balanced is all well and good now when we have a team and a manager that warrant it. But the thing is, you were saying exactly the same stuff about Sanchez last season.
The fact remains that there are occasions (plenty of them) in which right and wrong answers can be determined by observation, knowledge and logical deduction. And a lot of joy can be gleaned from debate.
This is an excellently written blog well worth reading. But it’s a shame that debate in the comments has been driven off by your desire for conciliation and consensus.
well, if you’ve been reading since you left us you’ll know that I readily admit to getting starry eyed and excessively positive, both about the manager and the players. I was optimistic and wrong about Sanchez. So be it.
Debate? Yeah, of course, but the message boards do it better. I’m all for an easy life over here. I like what the USS Mariner does, on a much larger scale of course:
http://ussmariner.com/comment-guidelines/
I quote:
“But I want a good fight with hair-pulling and name-calling!”
Then this is not your site. Major sports web sites have message boards. There are forums all over the place. They offer different crowds and debate flavors, and if this doesn’t sound like your pint of beer, I hope you find one that’s more to your tastes.
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Baseball Prospectus has implemented comment guidelines too. Theirs are simply: “Don’t be an a-hole”.
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Again, the message boards are better places for that. I’d prefer this to be more of a hippy commune than a court room.
You’ll doubtlessly make another negative comment about me now, like you did before, but that’s fine. I’m enjoying doing this site and I’m enjoying doing the book, and while this site may be not quite to your tastes for all sorts of reasons, I can live with that.
You can contact me by email if you want to discuss anything in greater length. I suspect it would be interesting to do so.
Anyway….
(and apologies if that seems unecessarily negative/confrontational. I do this in stolen moments at work and in my spare time in the evenings. Perhaps I should be more open minded to alternative viewpoints, but again, that’s where TiFF comes in. I regularly make a tit out of myself over there, I’m sure you could join in. But I try to keep things peaceful over here.)
It doesn’t seem unnecessarily negative/confrontational at all. As I say, I really enjoy reading the sight and think your writing is excellent. But a few weeks ago you mentioned a concern for a drop in traffic on here. And I think this could be a reason for it. The reason I think it is a shame is that there is a higher quality of poster on here than somewhere like TiFF, and thus it is more likely that you would get into some very interesting debates on here, as were going on about this time last year. But later I felt that that ability was extinguished because you wouldn’t let them go on. Heated debates don’t necessarily have to be silly. In fact, I’d say that debate is a much better way of finding the truth than seeking consensus from the off.