The "do they mean us?" thread pt 4

[BenTheFox]

On 15/05/2025 at 21:16, Yes said:

Exactly, simply doesn’t happen, especially in proper fierce rivalries like Villa-Birmingham, Forest-Derby is just not a fierce rivalry whatsoever, not even close to top 10 in the country and I’m not exaggerating.

 

They’d love for us to be seen as the “little brother” but no one but them actually believes it, they clung onto this idea that games between them is “THE East Midlands Derby” and they hate the fact that in the eyes of the football world there’s another club in the region bigger than at least one of them, the whole things always been a farce, 2 Championship sides who barely hate each other trying to claim they were winning some sort of East Midlands bragging rights while we were off in a higher division, winning trophies, playing in Europe, with a bigger fan base and so on. Derby fans are still deluded but the attitude change from Forest fans towards Derby and even us shows deep down they know it too.

I loosely know a guy who is a Derby fan and season ticket holder who works for Forest in what I believe is a 'Forest in the community' type role. There are many pictures of him on his socials in Forest attire. It's difficult to put myself in this position because working in football in capacity is a big thing for a lot of people, but I really could never see myself working for Coventry, Forest or Derby (who I care a lot less about). I certainly find it difficult to imagine a Birmingham fan not only working for Villa but also being seen wearing anything with the club's badge on outside of work. I have a mate who is a Celtic fan from Glasgow who also knows him who said that he wouldn't work for Rangers even if his life depended on it. 

[The Year Of The Fox]

Just now, BenTheFox said:

I loosely know a guy who is a Derby fan and season ticket holder who works for Forest in what I believe is a 'Forest in the community' type role. There are many pictures of him on his socials in Forest attire. It's difficult to put myself in this position because working in football in capacity is a big thing for a lot of people, but I really could never see myself working for Coventry, Forest or Derby (who I care a lot less about). I certainly find it difficult to imagine a Birmingham fan not only working for Villa but also being seen wearing anything with the club's badge on outside of work. I have a mate who is a Celtic fan from Glasgow who also knows him who said that he wouldn't work for Rangers even if his life depended on it. 

My neighbour was a groundsman at Seagrave but a Forest STH

 

 

I think I may have just cracked that Seagrave curse 

[BenTheFox]

On 14/05/2025 at 11:49, Stadt said:

I hate how recent success is somehow less legitimate or devalued through the general nostalgia bias in football. Had we won the league in 1976 and the cup in 1981, we'd be seen as a 'proper club'. Instead we're ephemeral upstarts.

I often think that in 10 years time if we have failed to get promoted out of the championship, a lot of people will view us through a nostalgic lense like many people my age do with Blackburn. They'll say things like 'proper club, should be in the Premier league'. 

[LCFCCKEANO]

1 hour ago, lcfc_forever said:

What an arse, digging out our fans when he could just say good job Enzo. I’m an Enzo fan but this is pathetic. 
 

Chelsea have spent a billion - just because their team is younger, doesn’t give them a free pass for higher expectations. 
 

 

Are they dating or something? Think Guillem defo has something for Enzo, going to back to when he was with us. Hope his wife doesn’t have a twitter account

[LcFc_Smiv]

8 hours ago, lcfc_forever said:

What an arse, digging out our fans when he could just say good job Enzo. I’m an Enzo fan but this is pathetic. 
 

Chelsea have spent a billion - just because their team is younger, doesn’t give them a free pass for higher expectations. 
 

 

Careful Guillem, even Chelsea's star player has said post-match that he got bored with the passing sideways and backwards and took it upon himself to go forwards. A billion pound squad winning a competition where they have far more financial muscle than their competition may not quite be the achievement he makes it out to be.

[LCFCJohn]

36 minutes ago, LcFc_Smiv said:

Careful Guillem, even Chelsea's star player has said post-match that he got bored with the passing sideways and backwards and took it upon himself to go forwards. A billion pound squad winning a competition where they have far more financial muscle than their competition may not quite be the achievement he makes it out to be.

Exactly. Obviously you always have to win a competition even if you are favourites and the game isn’t always played on paper.

 

However, sometimes there is just an example of such financial disparity between a team and every other in the competition, no winning it is not only failure but winning it should be seen as the minimum achieved and nothing more.

 

Chelsea in the conference league is one. Birmingham breaking the points record in League 1 given their spend is another. 

[Number 6]

Tbf Enzo has to perform his job while having Balagué's tongue wedged in his arsehole all day, so fair play for that.

[davieG]

 

The Athletic FC  ·

Follow

Welcome to The Athletic's 2024-25 Premier League satisfaction-o-meter, where we surveyed fans of all 20 clubs for their thoughts on their team's season.

This is what they had to say.

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6384799/?source=fbuk

 

@Foxes_Trust

 

Some ammunition for you.

 

[urban.spaceman]

4 minutes ago, davieG said:

 

The Athletic FC  ·

Follow

Welcome to The Athletic's 2024-25 Premier League satisfaction-o-meter, where we surveyed fans of all 20 clubs for their thoughts on their team's season.

This is what they had to say.

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6384799/?source=fbuk

 

@Foxes_Trust

 

Some ammunition for you.

 

THREE PERCENT ARE VERY SATISFIED ??????

[Spudulike]

8 minutes ago, urban.spaceman said:

THREE PERCENT ARE VERY SATISFIED ??????

Probably read it as DISsatisfied. Or NottsF fans.

[Finnegan]

On 15/05/2025 at 20:22, Bilo said:

The relationship between Forest and Derby is such a love-in considering it's supposed to be a ferocious rivalry. Bizarre to watch.

 

Could you imagine Liverpool and Manchester United cupping one another balls to have a dig at Man City? Or Birmingham bigging up Villa's 1982 European Cup to put Coventry back in their box? 

 

It's just copium they invented this century because we've been significantly better than Forest (and usually in higher leagues) for pretty much all of it. 

 

There's a direct correlation between how well we do and how much they care about not caring about Leicester. 

 

It absolutely peaked when we won the league and they were "happy for us." 

 

[Guest Bilo]

1 minute ago, Finnegan said:

 

It's just copium they invented this century because we've been significantly better than Forest (and usually in higher leagues) for pretty much all of it. 

 

There's a direct correlation between how well we do and how much they care about not caring about Leicester. 

 

It absolutely peaked when we won the league and they were "happy for us." 

 

Yeah, pretty much.

 

Speaking as someone living and working in an area of the country where there is a disproportionately high number of Forest fans, I can tell you that they were gagging for us to slip up. Losing at Arsenal, Vardy getting sent off against West Ham, going three games without scoring over New Year were all little glimmers of hope they openly held onto that we would fall away. 'Now we'll see how good you really are' followed these moments and prefaced games like Man City and Spurs away. 

 

Once we'd done it and they pretended to be happy for us, they hated the global attention we got as a result and the pundits saying it was the greatest achievement in English football history because they felt it eclipsed theirs. They genuinely, to this day, think it was a fluke and one-season-wonder, despite it sparking half a decade of us at or near the top of the division in a vastly more asymmetric top tier than they had to contend with in their peak. 

 

They despised the fact that they, Derby and their 'rivalry' were all completely irrelevant. When Villa went down, it wasn't even the biggest Midlands rivalry in the Championship any more. 

[los dedos]

Guess which one club is actually mentioned in the answers. Sometimes I think we are more well known than people think 😁

[Sol thewall Bamba]

21 minutes ago, los dedos said:

Guess which one club is actually mentioned in the answers. Sometimes I think we are more well known than people think 😁

Of course we are in America. We're the biggest club in this league by a country mile.

[davieG]

Leicester and Coventry will receive around £3-4 million annually as their portion of the television deal - with additional earnings potentially available through facility fees of between £500k to £1.5m per match when their games are selected for live broadcast.

 

International television rights also contribute another £1-2 million to each club's annual income as well, meaning the pair can expect to earn between £9.5 -12.5 million each from television revenue and related payments.

[MattFox]

On 28/06/2025 at 08:12, los dedos said:

Guess which one club is actually mentioned in the answers. Sometimes I think we are more well known than people think 😁

We’ve won the league and finished in the Top 5 in the last decade

 

Im not sure why this a surprise 

 

Does feel like the rest of football views us as a bigger club than our own fanbase

 

You’ll get our own supporters making the case for Sheff Weds being a bigger club than us etc

Edited 29 June 2025 by MattFox

[Ted Maul]

7 minutes ago, MattFox said:

We’ve won the league and finished in the Top 5 in the last decade

 

Im not sure why this a surprise 

 

Does feel like the rest of football views us as a bigger club than our own fanbase

 

You’ll get our own supporters making the case for Sheff Weds being a bigger club than us etc

And they were, traditionally. Much bigger.

 

People tend to view club size through the prism of how good they were throughout their youth- it takes a lot of sustained success to really change the size of a club in the eyes of multiple generations. We were well on our way to doing so but completely ballsed it up. 

 

If we were to spend 5+ years outside the top flight now, then we'd get a clearer picture on how much this public perception is due to genuine growth, or recency bias. 

[honeybradger]

On 15/05/2025 at 12:40, Steve Earle said:

No World Cup is ever going to come close to Mexico 1970!

 

For 95% of FT users, I apologise - but do ask your Dad or Grandad...

Surely if youre going all the way back to 1970 for the best world cup you should go back 1 more for the one that we actually won?

[MattFox]

5 minutes ago, Ted Maul said:

And they were, traditionally. Much bigger.

 

People tend to view club size through the prism of how good they were throughout their youth- it takes a lot of sustained success to really change the size of a club in the eyes of multiple generations. We were well on our way to doing so but completely ballsed it up. 

 

If we were to spend 5+ years outside the top flight now, then we'd get a clearer picture on how much this public perception is due to genuine growth, or recency bias. 

For English fans yeah I agree 

 

In places like the states though where the game only took off the past 20 years nobody’s ever going to put Sheff Weds ahead of us

 

It’s something that if we were clever we could still take advantage off

[Ted Maul]

1 minute ago, MattFox said:

For English fans yeah I agree 

 

In places like the states though where the game only took off the past 20 years nobody’s ever going to put Sheff Weds ahead of us

 

It’s something that if we were clever we could still take advantage off

Agree with that. 

 

Unfortunately, we're anything but 'clever' on the commercial side of things these days. Or any side of things, really.

[OntarioFox]

2 hours ago, davieG said:

Leicester and Coventry will receive around £3-4 million annually as their portion of the television deal - with additional earnings potentially available through facility fees of between £500k to £1.5m per match when their games are selected for live broadcast.

 

International television rights also contribute another £1-2 million to each club's annual income as well, meaning the pair can expect to earn between £9.5 -12.5 million each from television revenue and related payments.

By comparison, the bare minimum each prem club received last season was £79 million. We really did f*** it financially by throwing away our Prem status the first time around. 

[Steve Earle]

30 minutes ago, honeybradger said:

Surely if youre going all the way back to 1970 for the best world cup you should go back 1 more for the one that we actually won?

Well winning it was amazing. I didn’t think for a moment I’d still be waiting for a second trophy all these years later.

 

But no, the quality of football in 1970 was on another level. In 1966 we had heavy pitches, cloggers everywhere (Pele was effectively kicked out of action) & not that much to celebrate in terms of flair. 1970 will live with me for ever - breathtaking! And England were excellent, very possibly a better team than we had in 1966.

[Nalis]

Will there be a time when 1970 isn't universally regarded as best ever world cup?

[Chelmofox]

1 hour ago, MattFox said:

We’ve won the league and finished in the Top 5 in the last decade

 

Im not sure why this a surprise 

 

Does feel like the rest of football views us as a bigger club than our own fanbase

 

You’ll get our own supporters making the case for Sheff Weds being a bigger club than us etc

Bang on. Even this month i was in NY and someone from our clients company recognised my tshirt and said ' i love that story -  man'. We are well known.

[Nickaj]

36 minutes ago, Nalis said:

Will there be a time when 1970 isn't universally regarded as best ever world cup?

 

I'm sure you're right about the quality of the football during the 1970 World Cup but for the life of me, I can't remember anything about it.

I can remember much of the 1966 World Cup almost like it was yesterday but not 1970, almost nothing. 

Must be getting old......