The win at Sunderland was frustrating and ultimately unsatisfying fare. God knows why anyone pays to go and watch them up there. Niall Quinn wants to devote his energies to thanking those that do show up opposed to berating those who don’t.
There’s a serious issue here though. Those fiendish pubs broadcasting ‘bent’ satellite schedules are actually a part of the community in my book. One that’s poorly looking and might not last. I hope that the challenge mounted by that landlady in Portsmouth comes off. Am I alone in questioning that paying one company through the eyeballs for the privilege is actually progress?
I like buying meat from a butcher and finding one these days is as easy as finding someone who doesn’t know who Simon Cowell is. The nearest butchers to me displays joints and sausages in it’s window like pieces in a museum. Their trade obliterated by an Asda that fell out the sky not a six minute walk away.
The financial reality is that these back street and not so back street boozers beaming in images of the sacred stars will simply not survive without football and they cannot afford to be held hostage by those who currently own the rights. All that’ll be left are Neverspoons and the wanna-be gastro pubs.
Neverspoons administer their last rights daily via a drip feed of bulk bought booze to the long term unemployed, unhappy, unwashed, unloved. No football to disturb the peace. No conversation to disturb the mind. ‘Y’alright Tom?’ ‘Yeah, you Sean?’ If you stay long enough you can’t separate the scent of stale urine from the fresh.
The other survivor will be the Gastro Pub 4.0. These joints make my skin crawl as much as the chain pubs, but at least I feel less in need of delousing on the way out. These aren’t pubs they’re are a sham. They aren’t pubs as I understand the definition. No one’s even trying to get drunk. The only recorded vomiting is an incident involving a woman who bundled a pot of Cow & Gate down her child too quickly.
Let’s dispel a few myths while we’re here. Ron & Carol who welcome you to the The Albion aren’t some charming couple who intertwine their own lives (his functional alcoholism and both of her affairs) with keeping you topped up…
They’re faceless micro-managers from the planet Vatincluded who don’t just know their mass produced, part deep-fryed menu off by heart, but they know their customers on sight.
Walk in on your own to one of these places and order a pint and and you may as well have sauntered into your local library and confidently asked to be directed to the Child Porn section. ‘Will you be eating?’ Actually translates to ‘Are you a potential nuisance?’
So Niall Quinn masks the threat of boot-boys clutching Court Orders with a friendly anecdote about Sir Alex looking at his watch wanting to get the heck out of Dodge because a full house at the Stadium Of Light was deadlier than Delia when it came to the 12th man. His vision is of good clean family safe fun is @£22 per person but the cost will be considerably greater.
His vision will leave us in this post apocalyptic wasted-land of boarded up juicers passed by a disparate, broken tribe of emotionally disfigured survivors foraging on a diet of patronising highlights and meals which all include a side salad or 135gm sized portion of chips.
What did have we actually learned here? We need a striker who can score.
the landlady story is an interesting one,i’m not sure how she can lose,i thought we were in the eu where everything goes,that is unless you want to watch your own football from the cheapest seller,not sure why its taken so long,i thought it was a free eu market,it seems to be a one way street when it comes to england
lets not get too carried away with the rose tinted spectacles,if you are going to compare the 1950’s with today,they are very different worlds and not all back in the day was good
anyway good win yesterday we are 4th having lost only 5 games and 6 points off the goons with a mid week trip to the san siro in the champions league
http://soccernet.espn.go.com/tables?league=eng.1&cc=5739
very good from harry and the lads with only 7 league goals from the strikers,amazing really,i thought pav did alright yesterday and je**s,they all did,billy g had an injection in the foot so they say which was effecting his boots,apologies to billy g,we have to go back a fair old bit in the day when it was this good for tottenham
COYS
Enjoyed reading the thoughts of Bishop Hotspur today.
Interestingly enough (well for me anyway), I spent a couple of hours earlier this week in my local place of worship, The Monks Brook. Thankfully it is your more traditional style of boozer with a decent selection of beers and the menu doesn’t stretch much further than a pint & a curry for a £5. (I’m also lucky to have 2 meat museums within a mile as well).
I was chatting to the landlord about the Karen Murphy case (Pompey landlady). He said that he pays £1046 a month to Sky for the “priviledge” of showing games across 5 screens in the pub, although they do give him the concession of multi-room for that price, so that he can show more than one game across the screens on nights such as Champions League.
He has been approached by representatives of Nova on several occasions offering him live access to show any / all Premier League games and a multitude of european league games as well. The cost is just under £200 a month. He has approached his brewery to ask for permission to change to Nova and they have told him he can’t.
He told me that he will be stopping Sky at the end of this season as the cost is now prohibitive and is not covered by the increased trade he receives when showing games.
Sky has got to realise very soon that they are biting off the hand that feeds them. I have Sky at home and pay just over £50 a month for the Sports HD package. I rarely watch much other than sports, so I know that I am wasting my money.
I would much rather the clubs negotiated their own deals (like they do in Italy I believe) so that they supply their own (proper) TV channels broadcasting all of their own games live for a set monthly payment.
Then no doubt, Niall Quinn would be complaining that the bigger clubs get more money from that method of broadcasting and smaller PL clubs such as Wigan, Blackpool, Blackburn, (Sunderland), etc were missing out.
Which Monks Brook is that?
One in Eastleigh.
Chandlers Ford you mean? I’m just down the road
I am about to drop Sky (as my watching habits are like yours) and replace it with BT vision. I think you just buy the BT box for about £60 quid with then add SKY sports 1 and 2 and ESPN for £17 a month.
A grim missive from the front line Fatfish. And one appreciated.
I’m a great believer that shit pubs ought to go. No compassion in my heart for businesses that are no good. The world don’t owe you a customer.
But… you have to give a man a chance. A far rub of the green ffs. These hellish Antipubs are a direct result of traditional boozers being attacked at every turn.
Supermarkets flogging beer & pop at retail cheaper than the landlord can buy it wholesale.
And now those of us braving these sportless, fagless buildings look at each other and wonder who’s life is the shittiest.
Or everyone could just move abroad and watch ESPN. I pay about 100 quid a year and get to see about 90% of Spurs games live, half a world away in Indonesia. The only ones I miss are the occasional Saturday 3pm kick-offs which may coincide with two ‘bigger’ games. We lose out on Carling Cup and Europa, but Champions League has been awesome, with 3am kick-offs local time. People in UK are being ripped off year after year.
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Great piece of writing H, too good for this blog.
3 of my 5 local boozers have shut in the last few years
Quick stat:
Spurs p 26 gd 9
Barca p 22 gd 59
just sayin……that we’re not Barca. Obvious really.
Electricity’s too good for this blog, mate.
:lol:
He already has operational control of Sky and soon if he has his way he will be the major shareholder, I hope the government do intervene, unfortunately the man that would have stopped it (Vince Cable) was caught trying to solicit a threesome with two undercover journalists.
The whole thing stinks!
Harry a beautifully crafted article.