Chris_OGrady

Found this table of league position by expected points. Their over performance this year has been crazy! I always look at the stats after their games and they hardly ever deserve to win...

PSG have always been good, but I swear they've gone to another level recently. They seem mostly 18–30s, and loads of them wear official club gear. That’s quite different from German or Italian ultras, where you seem to get a much more even mix of young and old. Each country’s fan culture has its pros and cons. Germany gets all the plaudits, and the constant wall of noise is genuinely impressive - but have you ever heard a catchy German chant? I don’t think I have. And for all the volume, they don’t often get those proper stadium lift-offs. I still maintain that Germany is miles better than England though. Spanish fans, on the other hand, are generally pretty poor - but they have catchy songs and can generate proper stadium lift offs. Italy, I think , has the best of both Germany and Spain. France is similar too. In England, we can still get big stadium lift-offs, but they’re becoming rarer and if the game is poor the ground is dead. Take Leeds - often held up as one of the best atmospheres in the country. If they played Frankfurt at Elland Road and went 1–0 down after five minutes, it’d basically feel like a Frankfurt home game. English atmospheres are way too dependent on how the game’s going.

The majority of the champions league is an absolute nonsense. Pretending Red Star Belgrade can compete with Real Madrid. I'd imagine in the Super League they'd have some kid of NBA style play-off. I think your point about managed decline kind of sums up where I'm at. Originally I was completely anti super league (and always would be in an ideal world), but I think football is so broke now that It could actually be a silver lining for non top 6 clubs. In reality, I'm sure we wouldn't put the rules in place to stop the same issues happening again. The biggest critics of the Super League tend to be Man Utd and Liverpool sofa fans (90% of their fans) as it deludes them into thinking they are sticking it to the corporate machine (when in reality they are the cause of most of football's issues). The premier league is great for the likes of Neville and Carragher as it's essentially the Man Utd and Liverpool show. They can also pretend that they care about the wider English football structure, but in reality they're scared of Man Utd and Liverpool becoming mid table irrelevant clubs- like most clubs in England. When I saw United's new spaceship ground I just thought please **** off to the super league, no way do I want to ever watch football here! I think our views will be pretty aligned on this, I'm just a lot more pessimistic and want to **** off the big clubs

Doesn’t this just make you want a Super League? We should be able to watch the best players in the world going head-to-head regularly from our sofas — and still pay on the gate to see proper local teams in competitive games, without the sanitised, corporate nonsense. The prem is so boring and crap for match going fans, and I think a Super League would make it better for all the non top 6 clubs. At the moment we get the worst of both worlds...

Haven't been to most of the pubs in Sileby. The Horse and Tumpet was sold to Punch by Steamin Billy, so I imagine that's bang average now. Barrow and Mountsorrel are where the good pubs are at. Not far for you at all.

This is exactly what comes to mind for me too when I think of my favourite Vardy moment. I was in the home end that day — we were under a bit of pressure, and then he just pulled that out of the bag. Seeing the away end erupt to my right was such a special moment. There have objectively been better Vardy moments, but this is the one that’s always stuck with me.

Villa fans have been poor since they got the third. You’d think the place would be bouncing!

Interesting video and would love to get my hands on the 1970s Leicestershire real ale guide . I actually really like the American hopped "grapefruit" beers on Cask he objects to, but I see his point. The bigger problem is pubs having 5 lagers on tap which nobody would be able to differentiate between in a blind taste test. All about having a broad selection on keg and cask!

Certainly no F1 expert, but is Hamilton as good as his 7 titles suggests? Or did he just have the best car by a mile in 6 of those seasons... Would prime Hamilton get close to Verstappen now in the same car? I think Max would beat him.

Agreed. It wasn't bad, but it's lost it's magic for me. It's now got too complicated and they've tried to be too clever with it and ultimately it's ended up a bit meh.

Thought Severance series 2 was pretty average, doubt I'l watch the new series. First series was excellent and they should have stopped there, but when does that ever happen when there's more money to be made...

Thanks both. Will let you know when I start planning so I can get some recommendations!

I’ve just booked to go Sri Lanka for my honeymoon in October, so i’l be looking for lots of tips when you return! Enjoy the Lion 🍺

The FA cup win was a strange one. Whilst I could never have imagined us winning the FA Cup pre winning the league, I still feel like I was robbed of arguably the best individual day out as a Leicester fan.

R&D was hardly oozing character inside pre-refurb. Always thought it was a bit bland. It has a great exterior though.

I don't think there's one absolutely "must go to" venue, there's just a proliferation of good pubs and it's hard to go wrong there! Very good cask and kegs options nearly everywhere. If I was with my Mrs, I'd deffo try and go to the House of Trembling Madness Stonegate- great view overlooking the cathedral, if you can find a spot!

It's always been largely underwhelming at the KP (apart from GE, title win and a little bit after that), however L1 would always give it a good go back in the day. Even in the championship wilderness years there was no area of the ground where people could congregate. L1 was always at saturation point and there was no area of the ground which could accommodate an influx of 1,500 + fans. No idea why the club would sell patches of tickets in every stand but they have always been useless. I remember a time when our vocal fans were split between N block, L1 and the top of the Kop...

I actually prefer going to the Tigers over City atm and I used to hate rugby. You can just turn up at the rugby in a big group and stand on a terrace. The atmosphere isn't a great deal worse than the football considering there's no atmosphere at that these days. You can watch home grown players on non ridiculous wages, and the club seems to be more entrenched and interested in the fans/local community than City. It's also slightly closer to town so better for boozing.

Liverpool and Man United (traditionally the two best fan bases) have seen a big drop off over the last 5-10 years. 10 Years ago they could both hold their own in Europe, but Liverpool fans were completely embarrassed by PSG last night. Anfield was poor.

Probably a mixture of quite a few things: lack of regional pride compared to other places; rural lower middle class rather than urban working class fanbase; club administration that has actively dissuaded atmosphere for years; people with no interest in creating an atmosphere holding significant sway in away priority, which causes more atmosphere minded people to give up/go to less games (I would go to more away games if we had good support and would go in SK1 if I could just turn up and get a ticket on the door).

I think we've always been a bit below average in terms of atmosphere. We've always been a bit tepid ever since I started going to games regularly in 2006. Back then we would consistently have well over 50% of our away ends sat down when other teams in the Midlands would have 100% standing. We can still create a decent atmosphere on our day and there is enough to not give up hope. Football atmosphere in England is the pits these days and I think there has been a real decline recently. We certainly aren't unique and amongst the worst.

In the same boat here too, think it's an extra £2.5k. Desperate to save that cash from going into a bottomless pit where it will make no tangible difference to anyone...

yeah those grass banks in NZ look great Still has a more local feel to it over there! Not sure I'm a fan of these enormous stadiums. I imagine they can feel a bit flat at times...

The test I want to do is England South Africa at Newlands in Cape Town. Obv Ashes would be amazing though!

This is a good watch, it's almost like he got his recommendations from foxestalk! They thought Ale Wagon was the best place in town.