JJ7

I didn’t really mean it as a criticism of the older fans. I’m 40 too and hope I’m still going in 20 or so years, and I doubt I’ll be jumping up and down singing. It’s not a good thing though the match going fan base just getting older and older with the club refusing to move people in the ground to sit with their mates. I just think an extra 10k-15k on the gate, and having like minded fans generally sitting around each other would improve things. The oldies will still be there after going through thick and thin. Have to say though, not sure what being ‘anti-socialist’ has to do with anything.

I’d love to know the average age of ST holders in each stand. I think since the stadium discussion started I’ve noticed more and more how tame the majority of the ground is. Beyond the back 3 or 4 rows of Gallowgate and the singing corner, it’s very poor. You look down from the back of Gallowgate when there’s singing going, but there’s next to nothing happening the further you go down. It was mental watching the West Ham highlights and seeing how many empty seats there were in the East Stand in injury time. What a game and time to have left ffs. Going back to age, if the club could sell a new stadium by talking about the average age of the ST holder, and getting some younger fans in, whilst also organising a new ground so that you can get likeminded fans sitting together, then I’d like to think most would go for it.

Good towards the end. Annoying that half the fans were sooking on pints when West Ham were gifted their second though. Muted booing.

She flippantly said it in the hours after the take over. It was hardly a well set out plan for a league win. Did you actually believe it? I didn’t, and I was still chuffed.

Staveley is probably going to have to come out and saying something about how the 5 year thing is unrealistic now. I mean to anyone with the slightest bit of knowledge and isn’t acting in bad faith, it clearly is and we know why. It’s a bit pathetic for some journalists and some fans holding her to it tbh. Idiots like Simon Bird are jumping at the bit to go on the attack. A training camp in UAE is already a ‘jolly’.

Because we appointed an awful replacement. Things were starting to go wrong the season before and we should have got a new manager that summer from a position of strength, with Bobby moving upstairs. Ended up making a total mess of it.

You evaluate more than on just finishing position though, I’d hope.

Replacing the manager in the summer isn’t evidence that we’re a circus. It depends who the replacement is and how the season ends. At the moment I want him to stay, but this run over 3/4 months now is worrying. Villa, Wolves and to a certain extent City have been the exceptions as opposed to the norm. I have some sympathy given the injury situation, with Pope and Joelinton being the most obvious at the moment, but I’d expect Howe to find some way to adapt. The defensive record is horrendous and there seems to have been little effort to change the way we play to resolve it. Worst defensive record in the league away, a league that includes two of the worst teams we’ve seen in the Premier League. Like I said, I think it’s worrying and it’s dented my confidence in him.

Think that was the worst I’ve seen him tonight. Utterly horrendous from start to finish.

Probably true. I was shocked how much overpriced food people were buying, over and over. That said, it was still a different experience in the store.

True, but they’re ambitious. The conservative, or unambitious approach was the one Ashley had. I find the ‘if we have a slump again we’ll be back down to 40k again’ a bit strange too. It was nearly always sold out under Rafa and always was before Ashley. It would take some slump.

Its a lot harder to get success without increasing the revenue, which is the whole point in a new stadium, or even a redevelopment.

Went to a few American club shops last Autumn, Mets, Rockies, Broncos and Dodgers. Totally different experience to the mess that ours is. People were queuing up to get into a bigger shop than ours at Coors Field and the crowd was about half what we get.

I’d take a new stadium if only to improve the atmosphere and get people sitting with their friends and likeminded people. Though I’d still imagine folk complaining that they’d ‘always been 4th row back behind the goal’.

The back of Gallowgate is fairly good until the point where people start sitting. The back 3 or 4 rows. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see why the atmosphere is so poor overall though when you see the demographic of people around the front of the stands when the players are celebrating. It’s not their fault, but it’s never going to be lively when the average age looks about 50.