Quote Originally Posted by The Bedlington Terrier View Post
All this bollox about the technical ability of professional footballers, Johann Cruyff and Pele aside, go and watch our lot in training. Back in the old Fourth Division I was invited down to Gawthorpe.

They were all doing 100 keepie-uppies, even the sadly departed Whoosh looked a world beater. Vinny will get our lot playing proper attacking football, but get ready to start conceding because it's hard to have it all ways unless we get a reincarnated Jimmy McIlroy back.
Football has progressed so much over the years that Burnley conceded 1.39 goals per game and were relegated whereas in 1959/60 they conceded 1.45 goals per game and were Champions.
Last season the over-hyped Premier League, with all its super players with technical ability, averaged 2.82 goals per game, whereas the old First Division, which existed before football was invented for many people, averaged 3.85 goals per game in 1959/60 when the Clarets were Champions.

Yes football has progressed because there are now people obsessing about how many passes per game a team makes, regardless of the fact that it is usually the centre back who has the most touches and most passes.

When Burnley were Champions they had the equivalent of 79 points, the club at the bottom of the league were Luton who had the equivalent 0f 39 points and Leeds were also relegated with equivalent of 46 points, Forest just stayed up with equivalent 48 points. The gap between top and bottom was equivalent 40 points.

Compare this to last season in the PL. City were Champions with 93 points. The club equivalent to Forest in 1959/60, who were 31 points from the top were Man United, who finished in 5th place with 35 points fewer that City. The club which was 40 points behind were Leicester (41 points behind) who finished in 8th place. The bottom three clubs were 58, 70 and 71 points away from the Champions.

The game is nowhere near as good as it was 60 years ago when you had players who wanted to play and were not weighted down by their pay packets and there wasn't an obsession with possession, number of passes etc. Also remember that the pitches and equipment were nowhere near the standard of today and players could tackle, win the ball and have no fear of being cautioned or dismissed for endangering an opponent, being reckless, using undue force etc., etc.

Good morning to all, have a lovely Bank Holiday break, even if you do not agree with the celebrations or my post. Life goes on and all is well in the north east with lots of happy Geordies who think that they will be Champions within the next two seasons and Mackems who are just delirious because they have escaped League One.