Smiley Culture

Yeah, of course you can. There’s this sort of belief in England that you can’t change your team but I find that to be nonsense, really. Maybe it’s because the team of my birthplace have not played higher than the seventh tier of English football (now playing in the tenth tier alongside clubs called FC Baresi and AS London) plus it’s one of those 60’s “new towns” so is a mix of fans from probably three traditionally big clubs locally and the usual Liverpool’s, United’s and with the younger ages, City. Family ties are all a bit mixed up for me as well, with both halves of my family being from the opposite end of the country, with one half not really big football fans, so I’ve never been that close to a traditional familial relationship with football and a football team. Perhaps that makes it easier to see things a little differently and that ties can’t ever be that solid for me given the circumstances I’ve grown up with and around geographically. As some will know, I stepped away from supporting club. I didn’t do it as a complete severing of ties and always expected I’d get that “itch” within weeks or, worst case, months but I just never did and the feelings and connection just subsided completely to the point now where they’re just another club and I have no feelings either way. That’s not to say I’ve jumped to somebody else. I’ve not really been bothered, again, probably because there aren’t any particular links (birthplace, current location, familial etc) to any one club.

And now file for bankruptcy. Not nice to see at all. They’ve produced some talented players over the years.

People can still pose a threat on the floor. He moved after being told not to. Is that posing a threat? Perhaps not and possibly not worthy of the reaction but he simply wasn’t following orders, as many of the phone wavers weren’t.

I’m not the judge here so that’s not really any of my business but I’m not willing to make my judgement on the situation based off of a short clip of a video and I don’t think people should have been as quick to without the full facts and information. It’ll tell us whether “reasonable force” was used or not and the context behind it. Anyway, I see they’ve suspended the lad after “further investigation”. That’s fair enough. The social media vultures will be happy and onto the next thing now.

We don't know, that's my point. We've seen a heavily cropped video that perpetuates a narrative about the police. The referral and the outcome of said referral will, ultimately, tell us more but we live in a society that takes what they see on social media at face value.

A short video, which lacks context and the whole event, made to perpetuate a narrative against the emergency services.

Definitely is. As much as I’m a football fan, I do feel as though we are at that point of the David Mitchell “never ending Football” sketch, because it’s on so much and on pretty much every day and that’s increasing in a couple of weeks’ time when this new Football League deal kicks-off and we have Friday night entertainment of Harrogate Town vs Cheltenham Town to look forward to. I’m about to go off on a tangent but it’s making football harder to attend in person as well, with so many games moved and changed for the TV audience. It’s getting to the stage of being comparable to booking a weekend away. I think it’s why I’ll probably watch more non-league football this season because I can leave home at 2.00pm on a Saturday and theoretically pick a game at any one of probably 40 clubs, maybe more, that are within a 45-50 minute drive and just walk up, pay my money and go in. I won’t need to check if a game is a 12.30ko on a Sunday or if the game I fancy going to is at threat of being moved by Sky with a few weeks notice. I actually probably watch less and less live football on tele each season, so while there is more on, it’s not exactly going to effect my watching habits.

That would have been daft, IMO. If they want to make sure people are using a spread of players, all they need to do is say that you must have a minimum of 1x League One and 1x League Two players in your 7 man squad.

They could do that or a limit of 3 players from any one league so that there is a variety to it.

I quite like that it changes week by week as well and you’re not tied into a squad with only a couple of changes each week. Will give this a go, I think it will keep me more interested than the Premier League equivalent.

https://fantasy.efl.com/team It looks pretty good, actually. Quite like the club feature too.

Kane has always dropped deep, it was one of the (many) things he did well at when at Tottenham and previously for England, getting the ball and holding it up allowing others to advance. Between the fact that he could barely move and that Foden and Bellingham didn’t quite have the understanding with Kane and how he was playing in this tournament as he had with, say, Raheem Sterling in previous tournaments, it was quite the achievement to score as many as he did. I can only see Kane retiring from international duty, not being moved on by a manager.

No, I’m not suggesting that but off the back of one win in five, a quarter final defeat in the last major tournament and question marks over how the squad and coaching staff dealt with the 2021 final, expectation wasn’t that high. My take is that there certainly seemed to be many less convinced that England would win it this year compared to both the Euros in 2021 and the World Cup in 2022 and there was much more discontent and (undue) anger/frustation with Gareth Southgate before a ball was kicked and that the expectation was not as high as a result of this.

Were the expectations high for this tournament? England went in off the back of one win in five and a humbling performance and result against Iceland. I’d say 2021 and 22 there were more expectations than this time around.

Why would you want to carry on when you’re castigated and abused and have been for years despite your achievements on a larger scale than you would be at most domestic sides?