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New year - new rant

Joined
Dec 6, 2009
Messages
963
Location
East Sussex
You do certainly fit this bill but don't tar us all with that brush '*****'.
I didn' t mean you, " puppet master " ! Your staggering intellect, ability to never make the same point more than about 250 times etc. etc.. clearly excludes you.
 

grecianfish

Member
Joined
Aug 15, 2008
Messages
441
Location
Bristol
I have a few questions for Grecian Jay, ********,wemissmoxey etc. These are genuine questions with genuine interest and I’m not trying to get at you. Do you really enjoy supporting city? Have you ever been happy with them? And lastly what are you expectations of us?

I’m probably seen by most as a bit of a rose tinter but I also try to be realistic. We are a small club with a small budget out on a geographical limb. We have to be realistic at our limits. Whilst it would be amazing to see us go up again I don’t think it would be the best thing for us. Look at Argyle. We are competing at this level and on the whole competing well especially when you compare the resources we have to some of the other teams in this league.

Even when we win or play well you are either quiet or find something negative. How is this beneficial to the team or anyone for that matter. Do you actually want us to stay up this season or would you rather we go down just so you can say I told you so? Surely it is better to unite positively behind city and the players. They are only human and I have no doubt are doing their upmost to drag us up the table and the best thing we can do is unite behind them and be a 12th man. Not show symptoms of disindividuation where we think we can hurl all kinds of abuse from a crowd as if they aren’t real people.

I refuse to believe that we are worse now than some years ago. Tisdale in my opinion has done amazingly - working to a budget and achieving 2 promotions whilst playing a good brand of football which has been recognised by many peers. It doesn’t even compare to some of the dark days like cramming into the old cow shed whilst the big bank was shut with people shouting Foxy or Blakey out. Where we have come from as a club is notable and even you should be able to acknowledge that on some level. Sure you can’t be as miserable as you come across in all aspects of your life?

Anyway that’s my rant over. As I said it wasn’t meant to be confrontational – more out of genuine interest as to your mindset.
 

Juan Kossof

Member
Joined
Apr 15, 2008
Messages
524
Location
Warwick
I'm much in accord with Grecianfish. I've followed the club off and on since around 1967. We have never been any higher than we were last season, and lost (arguably) our 4 key players at the end of it. I heartily applaud the efforts of all concerned with funding the club but we are nevertheless relatively poor and geographically isolated which makes virtually all aspects of running the club more difficult than if we were close to some major footballing conurbation.
 

Bondy

Active member
Joined
Apr 5, 2004
Messages
2,052
Location
Exeter - views are my own and not representative o
Anyway, if you have made it this far, bravo, you obviously are as sad a git as I am. Just to summarise my views:

1. Let's think about our "targets", why are you targeting them for abuse? Do they justify it? Why? Do you think that yelling at them (especially when it isn't their fault) isn't counter-productive in the slightest?

2. Positivity breeds positivity. In 09/10, when relegation stared us in the face, a simple suggestion to get behind the team from the moment they stepped off the bus helped generate a positive atmosphere and, lo and behold, we lost only one more match all season. Same to an extent this season - Al Yates calls for a siege mentality, fans get behind players, lo and behold an upturn. Sadly my belief that the "organisation" of the siege into something of a "club" having diluted the impact somewhat holds firm.

3. What were people's expectations this season? We lost, through being a tiny fish in a comparatively big pond, several of our key players. People have complained that we haven't replaced them with players of equal quality. Well, duh! Ryan Harley has emerged as a top end Championship player. Paul Jones has been playing in the Championship and earning decent reviews. Matt Taylor rightly took the money and ran and is now a very good bet to be playing in the Championship next season. Cureton rightly took the money (and security of a long contract) and ran - although his return has been less than that of another current City "target", John O'Flynn. We lost these players by dint of having been successful last season, attracting the vultures with a lot more money than we can offer. Them's the breaks.

Anyway, apologies again. Off my chest now. Do carry on.
Great OP Jason H for what little my opinion is worth. You have made some excellent points.

Let's remember about the Siege that Al Yates has missed a few matches and that has probably affected things but people like Grecian Max are putting in a lot of effort to make sure we get behind the team.

At Wycombe some lads on the row behind me berated Noble the entire game as they also did with Bauza which was the same at the Yeovil game yesterday. Yeah he missed a penalty two games ago, no need to mention it 20 times especially when he gets an assist.

I remember all too well when Ryan Harley was the target for the ECFC abuse crew and I would take him back in an instant.
 
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Poultice

Very well known Exeweb poster
Joined
Apr 2, 2004
Messages
25,228
Do you really enjoy supporting city? No, it is a penance I pay for an accident of birth.

Have you ever been happy with them? Oh yes, those fleeting moments in a desert of torpor.

And lastly what are you expectations of us? That we turn out each week and give 100% for the shirt and for the fans.
I know we are crap, we have always been crap barring one or two brief periods in our history.

We were crap most of the season we sneaked out of the conference, same again in Div 4, I saw some absolutely turgid performances that season, once more into the breach we were totally dire for most of our first season in Div3 and not much better the following season with the exception of 7 of the last 8 games when we didn't play that well but nicked some great results, only to choke when the prize was so nearly in our grasp. This season has taken us to new heights of crapness, well, we are least scaling the dizzy heights which we have regularly achieved in the past.

We do not play good football.

We do not score goals.

We do not defend well.

We do not generate excitement.

In fact half the time most of the players look as though they would rather be back down the pub.

Tisdale did a top job getting us here, no doubt, but all the excitement generated in his five years has come from the results, ok, maybe half a dozen really good performances, all at home.

I regularly watch clubs from leagues far below us with seriously restricted budgets in comparison, a fair bit of the time their lesser players, in their lesser teams, show higher levels of commitment, organisation and just plain effort to try and do the right things than our shower of sh*t.

Why should that be ?

These sides, some semi pro, know how to defend as a unit and how to attack with purpose, their players actually play as though they are enjoying pulling on a shirt and running around, they look as though they would do it for the fun, ours always look as if they are there to pick up a cheque.

The fact that our pack of non triers look as though it wouldn't take much to survive in this league tells the simple truth that it ain't all that, Orient, who were no better than us at their drum a couple of weeks ago, save they didn't have a Troy playing for them, have now started moving up the table and may soon be in contention for the play offs, word is their players have had a good kick up the backside from Russell Slade and have responded by starting to earn their wedge.

That's what I want from Exeter City, I want the whole team to go out every week and earn their crust, in the three most recent games I have seen they didn't, not by any rose tinted stretch of the imagination. Who do I blame for this ? Our massive, costly and apparently clueless management and coaching leviathon, therefore, ultimately, the Big Cheese himself.

I have no issue with crap, I have watched games where the suicide rate was near on 50% among the faithful, or it would have been had the means been easily to hand, one particular midweek homey against Newport comes to mind, good job Mrs.P takes the keys to the drug cabinet to work with her. No, crap per se is the price we pay, but the lack of effort, direction and organisation which we have displayed of late, along with inane ramblings of the Cheesen one trying, and succeeding with many of you, to convince me that all is well in da house are simply becoming too hard to bear. This place is the only outlet for my frustrations as I live too far away to be able to slake my ire in the pubs of Exeter with the many like minded souls who are maybe less verbose than I, but who feel it just the same.

Um, that is all.
 

Anonymous

Well-known Exeweb poster
Joined
Oct 22, 2008
Messages
6,019
Location
in yr internats
Grecian_Jay et al. are armchair premiersh*t fans with a sky sports season ticket and not the slightest clue about Exeter City and yet are convinced the sun shines out of their arseholes.
 

arthur

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Joined
Aug 18, 2004
Messages
11,478
Sigh... As previously (5 years ago?) I have to remind our younger Hounslow based readers that it was ever thus. An extract from Nick Hornby's Fever Pitch, describing his first visit to Highbury in September 1968 when he was 11 years old:

It wasn’t the size of the crowd that impressed me most, however, or the way that adults were allowed to shout the word W*NKER as loudly as they wanted without attracting any attention. What impressed me most was just how much or the men around me hated, really hated, being there. As far as I could tell, nobody seemed to enjoy, in the way that I understood the word, anything that happened during the entire afternoon.. Within minutes of the kick off there was real anger “You’re a DISGRACE, Gould. He’s a DISGRACE!”. “A hundred quid a week? A HUNDRED QUID A WEEK! They should give that to me for watching you”. As the game went on, the anger turned into outrage, and then seemed to curdle into sullen, silent discontent.

Sound familiar?
 

antman

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Apr 1, 2004
Messages
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Location
Lisbon
I thought Noble was our best player yesterday but I still heard a couple of people after the game saying he played badly. It seems that wanting and getting more of the ball leads to being the focus for criticism too. Someone said to me 'he'll never replace Harley'...well, yeah, duh! Our tactics have radically changed recently, the ball goes forward much quicker than it used to, I thought the 'anti-tipy-tappy' moaners wanted that, and some of his longer passes were excellent. As at Wycombe, where he had his moments but wasn't so effective, there were some misplaced passes but in general he opens the play up where it is congested which requires speed of thought rather than movement. After yesterday, I'm very pro-Nobes after being pretty much on the fence since the first time I'd seen him (Leyton Orient 14 months ago). Of all the players he loks like the one who'd be least bothered by moaning fans so I wouldn't worry about him Jason. I didn't notice too much criticism during the game at Wycombe (3 rows in front of you by the sound of things) or at home yesterday. People have short memories and by the end of the season he'll be back in favour I reckon.
 

Phil Sayers

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Jun 12, 2006
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Kernow - battering a drunken Octopus
Edit: To arthur

Are you suggesting that because a significant minority of football fans are angry, irrational t*ssers (and from the looks of it always have been) they shouldn't be challenged over it?
 
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CREDYGRECIAN

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Joined
Jan 19, 2005
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Loving the free flowing entertaining football at S
I didnt hear Noble get any stick yesterday , i thought for the most part the fans got behind the team pretty well especially in the final 30 mins -

Noble is a neat and tidy footballer , he doesnt hurt the opposition with his passes - people look at him and wonder what he contributes to the side because he doesnt get or make goals , you dont see him winning tackles or breaking the play up.

in our current situation he's a luxury - but there isnt a hope in hell Tisdale wont select him.
 
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