Golden Fox

All 4 games were West hosting East, and it was a clean sweep. Hamilton not losing any ground as a result. Argos did their usual be the better side for most the game, to suddenly s**t the bed as soon as the clock turned to the 4th quarter. Between the Argos, Leicester's start to the season and the Giants, there isn't much enjoyment to be found anywhere at the moment!

Argos head to Edmonton this weekend - getting into "must win" territory for both as the last-placed 2 win teams. Felt appropriate, listening to the preview podcast on the way back from a trip to Norwich (in @EastAnglianFox & yellow and green territory) - sounds like Elk's fans are energised after last week's game & mapping potential paths to the playoffs, while its all doom and gloom in Argo-land after another bad defeat, and Ryan Dimwitty tearing into the them again. Argos are now 0-5 in games decided in the last 3 minutes (and 2-2 in all other games), so feels like its between the ears as much as ability, but surely its got to regress to the mean at some point, so this is a good week to start!

I don’t think those guys quit on us, but I think we’ve got some pretenders in the building that like to talk a big game and don’t show up on game day. You score 2 goals, you should win. You go up twice you should win. I just think as a football club right now, we don’t have enough courage and we don’t handle adversity very well when things don’t go our way. You can see we’re like deer in the headlights. Everyone’s waiting for someone else to make a play. Let’s have some accountability there, fellas. This is professional football. You get paid to do this. It’s a great sport, great living. It’s fun to do it, but it’s still a job. It’s performance-based, and judged by wins and losses. (Ok, so one of my other sports teams is going through a bad patch, and the manager said this about them this week, bit damn, you'd have thought he was in Huddersfield last night)

And my earliest memories of abuse from the crowd was directed at David Oldfield. That was also a bit before Foxestalk, but I get the feeling he'd have had a few detractors on here...

Thread started with a lot of players that left burning as many bridges as possible. I remember John Curtis being useless, but didn't hold back when he left that he thought he was better than the club. Never heard of again, proving he was a useless ****.

Still need to remind ourselves that he hasn't had 4 weeks in the job yet, hasn't had the chance to bring in any of his own players and has lost 3 of the more senior players (Mads, Coady & Wilf) during the pre-season, who would likely have figured in his plans. Lots of comparisons to Maresca, especially after the very similar first game, but Maresca did have 2 months with the players before the start of the season and had bought in players to play his way (Winks, Mads, Coady). The guy has a massive job on his hands, but I'm impressed so far with how he is going about it, and you can't ask for more than starting with 3 points.

Modern football. If they photoshop in the sponsor, may as well photoshop in the players as well.

Can't disagee One week the offense looks good, but the defence can't make a stop. The next, the defence steps up, but the offence can't do anything. Then its back the other way. While Special teams are consistently poor and make the difference in tight games. Here's that leap though... https://www.instagram.com/reel/DNJd18sSp2V/

Real Madrid third: As we are stuck with Adidas, this is what we could have had without doing silly things with the collar or trying to shoehorn gold in. That with white shorts would have helped feel like a bit of a new era rather than being stuck in the same depressing cycle.

Really big game for the Argos today - on UK time as well... Not too far off the playoffs, but if we can't beat the 2-6 RedBlacks at home, won't be able to see much chance of turning the season around. But a hell of a first half - Argos jumping out to a 22-1 lead, but threatening to throw a big lead again, with it now 25-19 at half time. Although Argos were still jumping in that last drive of the half... wait til you see Herslow's leap! Massive 2nd half coming up.

Saw this thread back again at the top of the board and thought someone had already forgotten Conor Coady played for us! Remember - the one that got an England cap playing for Wolves, and then ended his career splashed all over the papers following those ill advised comments on that Wrexham TV programme??

Thank you for putting some of the concerns around this succinctly. I too have worked in multinational organisations and seen what governance structures should look like - my previous role was in a FTSE 100 company, but I moved 4 years ago to a reasonable sized UK only company (c£300m turnover, 800 employees) which is around 50% bigger than Leicester CIty (£100m-£200m depending on the league, 500 employees). This current company is owned 100% by one person. He is called "Mr Chairman" by everyone, and if he wants the company to do something, it will do it. Almost all senior management have been with the company years (I am still seen as the new to the firm after 4 years!) and everyone understands the lay of the land. I was shocked in my first meeting he came to, where senior directors in my office sat there like naughty schoolboys barely able to look him in the eye. But the point is, that for all the governance structures that would be in place in other companies of this size, it is his company and his decision is final. To be fair, he has built the company to where it is today, and does things the right way. I can see a lot of parallels with Leicester City, and as a smaller company, the control from the top is likely greater still. I can picture a company where if the chairman wants something to be done, then it is done, and there is very limited governance or opportunity to push back. The most senior people have been there years so are embedded in the culture and have no incentive to change it. (The K Bet debacle looks to have his fingerprints on it and nobody stopping him.) So yes, I am extremely concerned with the direction the club is heading in, and what moral boundaries there are, and I hope that as Top faces more challenges (around King Power's troubles, Leicester relegations, PSR failures, K Bet) he learns from them, or seeks guidance from someone more experienced to help guide him. So I don't mean to be defending the messaging at the game: I watched the game and simply didn't notice, and looking at the match thread, it didn't seem to stop anyone else's enjoyment. But it is not a case of this event making me question the internal governance. I just had so little faith in it to begin with, this message was just a shrug of the shoulders as one more thing to add to the list. And small beer compared to how badly we seem to be run compared to clubs like Brighton, Bournemouth and Brentford and the fact we don't even seem to recognise that as a club or want to do anything about it. I just hope we luck out again with a good manager in Marti, and get back to enjoying the football,

It doesn't show me that at all. The club does have more than 1 employee. Its not like they had to prioritise between football decisions (selling Coady), big commercial decisions (launching the kit despite not having a sponsor) and a putting a message on an advertising board.

Good post, and I'm not disagreeing with any of this. (and I certainly wasn't going into bat for King Power on this). I hate it that our club is owned by an individual (or family? or company?) from the other side of the world, who has financially mismanaged the club, that don't seem to listen to what we want as fans, that has changed our kit to always have that goldy colour, that gets involved in all the trophy presentations as though he had actually played, they ships over Thai influencers, and ships out our players out to the other side of the world to show them off, and yes, I also hate him using our club to promote his own political message as though speaking for the fans. Football clubs are community assets and its crazy what is allowed to happen to them. One of my best mates is a Bury fan, and another from a Darlington family whose Dad got involved to resurrect the club following an owner (George Reynolds) who was a fraudster and ended up in jail and took the club down with him. I'm well aware of what poor ownership can do to a club, but also of how little power fans actually have to stop it happening. But my points were 1) its not really hurting us having this shown, 2) I'm doubting whether they have actually broken any rules doing this in a friendly, 3) owners doing what they want is just a symptom of modern day sports. I'd love to be holding our owners to a responsibility, but that responsibility is far bigger than this issue, and I don't know how we do get this message across - people showing outrage on a forum when they haven't really been impacted was coming across as hollow. Sheffield Wednesday are not in their current position because their fans had the attitude that Chansiri could do what he liked, but because he has ignored them and done it anyway. Now, if the club has back-tracked on K-Bet as a sponsor due to the work of people on here, and the messages against it, then maybe we do have more power than I think, and if the Football Regulator actually comes in and is fit for purpose, then I'd welcome this as part of their remit, as it ties into fan engagement. But until we start seeing traction on any of that, I'll remain cynical about what we as fans can do if we don't like the way the owner is acting.

I've found the exact wording of the FA rule E3: E3.1 A Participant shall at all times act in the best interests of the game and shall not act in any manner which is improper or brings the game into disrepute or use any one, or a combination of, violent conduct, serious foul play, threatening, abusive, indecent or insulting words or behaviour. E3.2 A breach of Rule E3.1 is an “Aggravated Breach” where it includes a reference, whether express or implied, to any one or more of the following :- ethnic origin, colour, race, nationality, religion or belief, gender, gender reassignment, sexual orientation or disability. There is nothing here that directly talks about political messaging. I think its a reach to say that voicing support in this manner bring the game into disrepute. UEFA's article 44 is for "regulations governing a competition to be played under the auspices of UEFA." This was a friendly and not a UEFA organised competition, so it does not apply. I think we owe the club's legal department some credit. They have Nick De Marco on speed-dial, so I'd have expected them to have understood the rules and regulations thoroughly before putting the message out so blatantly. If I'm wrong and they are punished, then it will be pretty shocking, but I think its more likely than not that they have done their diligence. Again though, its strange to see so many of our supporters so keen to see the club penalised.

Yes - and having read most of it, I was struggling to see exactly why so many people are getting angry over it, as I haven't read much about how anyone has been negatively impacted by this. As I said, I understand the point about them not allowing fan's messages: not supporting messages on mental health, but then promoting this, but that's a handful of people that rightfully feel aggrieved. Of course I wouldn't be saying the same. The Russian conflict is in Europe and our government has taken a clear position, supplying weapons, imposing sanctions etc. But it doesn't involve the players of their equipment. This messaging was outside the field of play. It is a dangerous place to start asking players to wear political messages (James McClean and the poppy, the NHL just banning any messages on pre-game warm up jerseys to avoid player's getting caught about making a decision between their belief system and what they are being asked to wear), so again, if this message was in place of the sponsor, it would be a very different discussion. I'm not saying I like a lot of this, but I also follow a lot of US sports, and even more so over there, owners buy teams, they are their property and they do what they like with them. This is part and parcel of modern sport.

Frankly, they own the club and can do what they like with it to a large extent. This was a friendly match, outside of the EFL or Premier League. It didn't actually hurt anyone or offend anyone. As much as people are feeling outrage on here, its not because anyone understands the situation closely enough to believe the messaging is false. (I get the point about not allowing other messages, but as I say, it's their club) I know bashing Top and KP is the order of the day, and most of footballing decisions over the past few years have been shambolic, but there is a war going on in their country and they feel strongly about it, and they have tried to help do something about it, and I just don't see it as a big deal.

What do the fans think? What could have been!

Season has officially turned to s**t. After some ups and downs, it felt like it was coming together for the Giants. On June 13, we were 12 games over .500 and into a share of first place in the NL West having just taken the first game of the series at Dodger Stadium - and were in the process of finalising their blockbuster trade for Rafael Devers. Since then, its been abysmal, and at the trade deadline we've traded away long-term favourites in Tyler Rogers, Camilo Doval and Mike Yastrzemski, officially giving up on the season. What really rubbed it in was the 3 game sweep by the Blue Jays straight out of the All-Star Break. I'd been looking at a couple of sites for some Argos merch, while the Argos were in the middle of their losing streak, and got an email from one of those sites happily titled "The Blue Jays are on Fire!"

Look at this - I'm holding up this season's new shirt!

The slog of a Championship season playing the likes of Charlton, Oxford, Preston etc. just feels like a chore. 2 years ago I got really energised by Maresca coming in and watching videos on his tactics, and watching the game in a fresh way. After years of the Premier League, it was also fresh to be in a different league. Last year, I was gutted when Maresca left as I had thought he was building something here, but that feeling of being back in the top flight, playing the big sides again after a year away and seeing Leicester mentioned in all the season previews etc. is always infectious. But this year, I'm not feeling any of that. Yes, I've watched some videos of Mart's tactics and how they contrast with Enzo's, but its the same basis approach, and I can't help thinking after what happened to Man City this year, that football is moving on, and that approach is starting to be worked out. I'm also refusing to get carried away as it feels as though Marti is looking to use us as a stepping stone, and if things go well, he will be looking for his next role. There is no novelty of playing in the Championship as we have just been there and done that. The thing I should be interested in is that it might be that match day tickets are easier to come by. After years of complaining that it was so difficult to get tickets for games, once they had a few games come available last year, it was later in the season and I found I had no desire to actually go and watch the dross they were serving up. But if they are more available, and the team is younger, and I can get to a few games, I might find I do start feeling it again. But at this point, its a might...

Think it is you. I've been to Venice a couple of times, and have always been struck how hard working people there are. Everyone running around having to do everything by carts, or running around serving customers. The whole city is a hive of activity. I can't think of any locals just loafing around, apart from the people selling dodgy goods, who seemed to melt away if anyone official came around - so that's what the photoshoot reminded me of. I'd have loved it if the photoshoot was of 2 wrinkled old Italian ladies dressed from head to toe in black - other than the new shirts, which would have been very authentic, but Venice is suffering from a declining youth population!

When a club has such great unique colours such as the bottle green, orange and black, it looks really good to have a white away shirt and show off those colours in different patterns. Personally, I think it feels like a real let down to go with that burgundy. Feels a bit top heavy and not like a Venezia shirt.

Typical Venice street scene, but looks like the photo was cropped to remove all the fake Gucci handbags they are selling.

Still getting used to it - in the NFL, a 1-5 start is pretty terminal - only 4 teams in history have ever made the playoffs after that start. But the CFL is another world... An 18 game season is long and 6 teams out of 9 making the playoffs means 2/3 of the league get in, so I'm struggling to get my head around the lack of panic. There's still hope for @EastAnglianFox's Elks!