Please go now, Artell

[MikeSB]

Well if you want to go back to the ‘good old days’ when physical assaults were part and parcel of football then, quite frankly, you’re welcome to it. Jimmy Case, for one, may have been a hard man, but he can’t walk without the aid of sticks now as his ‘style’ of play wrecked his own knees, never mind those he assaulted on the pitch. And if your idea of entertainment is going out to watch centre forwards bundle goalkeepers into the back of the net at will, or kick them in the head as happened to Bert Trautmann (he was German, that’s why he spelt his name that way) then that is your prerogative.

I would rather see those players with talent, be they Bobby Charlton, Martin Peters, Lionel Messi or one of our Academy lads, protected from such physical battery. Have things swung too far? Possibly. Do I want to see a return to what you describe as a man’s game? No I don’t, because it was closer to a thug’s game at times.

As you may know, I’m not local and have only lived in the area for 30 years so don’t remember these players of whom you speak. However, I do know that I support the Alex not just because they’ve been my local team for half my life, but also because they play the sort of attractive attacking football I enjoy - or at least they try to! If their style of football resembled that offered by Newport, Wycombe, Lincoln or the like week in, week out I would long since have stopped my season ticket.

Although what this whole debate has to do with the topic of this thread god knows. Somehow it’s always twisted back to the Academy and the so called Good Old Days. I assume Mike will be donning a frock coat, top hat and tickling stick next and giving us 5 hours at the Lyceum next!!

You are being so naive its unbelievable. If you haven't see those days then you are in NO position to judge are you.

There were some serious injuries but very very few and can't think of any Alex player from that era getting seriously injured. If you want to watch ballet dancing that's fine but it was a really great time to be watching the really great players of the time and many were ours too...

You are too timid and as I said, its a matter of opinion and the teams you mentioned or even ours now could not live with the players I watched. They also could not play on the pitches and most of the academy kids we see would not have made it back then.

It was not a thugs game at all, it was a MAN'S game for men and if you really want to see academy kids, then go and watch them at RH for free...23 quid for ballet is far too much for me and tens of thousands of others that used to watch those MEN's games. I have to say that when I do go to Gresty Road, all I hear is a load of moaning. Its not somewhere you will find me that many times and so keep paying to watch the girlies play...

The academy has to come into every discussion because we are an academy team mostly and that costs a cool one million pounds per season to be where? Check the league tables for the last few years..