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Thread | Phil - what's the plan for TWTD Asia, TWTD North America and TWTD Africa?
at 09:14 3 May 2024
If you look at the social media followers of a Brighton, Brentford, Palace or Wolves now they absolutely dwarve some of the similar or bigger sized clubs who've not spent as long in the Premier League.
The 'EPL' consumption in Asia, America and Africa is absolutely ridiculous to the point where some of these clubs social media followers have comments 10:1 from fans that have likely never been to a match against those who've followed the club for years.
If promotion is secured tomorrow how long will the servers be down for as you quadruple capacity to handle all the new overseas PL fans just about to pick their team?
How many boards will there be to cater for other languages or are we all going to mix in here and welcome our new disciples?
I'm not knocking anyone who chooses to properly support the Town from abroad. After all I 'chose' to support Buffalo Bills as a 10 year old, with no connection other than they wore Town colours, but have gone to crazy lengths to follow them and in the following decades. Anyone who wants to cheer the club on, boost it's profile and finances should be welcomed.
But from the few mates I have that support big and small Premier League clubs they've often commented that social media is even more unbearable as it's 90% comments from entitled people outraged the club they hand-picked aren't all conquering and have absolutely no clue.
You could argue that's social media currently anyway! |
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Thread | A completely self indulgent post which may resonate with a few
at 10:17 2 May 2024
As someone who isn't overly emotional I've no idea where this came from lol. Guessing 3am / 4am finishes after Hull and Coventry have helped! But here we go ...
Have gone on record a few times explaining how much damage the McCarthy / Evans era did to my own individual (in hindsight selfish) wishes and desires.
For context I have two boys, 15 and 10. I went to my first match when I was 2. I went regularly to home matches from the age of 3-4 and have had a season ticket for most of the 40 years that have followed. Started going away at the age of about 7 and have now done most of the PL / EFL grounds.
My dad took me every week and it was our thing. Something my mum and sisters didn't have much interest in. Every Saturday from the age of 7 I'd be at Portman Road, Hull, Walsall, Stoke, Leeds, West Brom with him. When my parents split up when I was 10 it became even more significant. My dad worked every hour imaginable apart from Saturday afternoons. We barely saw him. The only thing he had for himself that wasn't work was watching Town and it was pretty much the only time I saw him for those following years.
Fast-forward to 2009 when I became a father. I was desperate initially for my son to love football as much as me. Was thinking of the time we'd go home and away and how we'd have the same sort of fun as I did with my dad. But I never wanted to force him into it. I'd rather he found his own passions and I supported him with those than forcing mine on him. I'd split with his mum at this point and when he was old enough to go to football I had him every other weekend. He went to his first match at the age of 4. He missed his first ever goal after 4 minutes in after telling me needed a poo in the 3rd minute. Assuming it was destined to end 1-0 I was happy that we went on to beat Birmingham 3-1.
But he loved it. Bluey, Crazee, the food before the match, playing in the park over Alderman Road, the atmosphere and the permission to sing and shout and not have to be quiet! This continued for a little while and on those weekends he wanted to go. He had his own season ticket and he looked forward to it.
Then came peak McCarthy. 0-0's. Gutless home performances after another. 8,000 dressed up as 12,000. No shot on target. No shot off target until 80 minutes. Boos. As the cold weather set in try getting a small child to be excited about that. Being bundled up playing with toys or a phone for 90 minutes turned into asking me not to go. We persisted for a bit but eventually he simply didn't want to go. It was crap, it was cold, it was boring and I had a decision to make.
For the only time in those 40 years, I spent a couple of years not going to every single Town home match. We'd do something else on those weekends. With the way the fixtures fell I'd get to maybe 16/23 games with midweek matches and having not missed any game for absolutely years I was now missing a few. But ultimately as much as I loved Town, I loved my son more and that time with him was to be spent doing whatever would make him happiest. On reflection it was actually a good thing to be doing something other than football 24/7 and I absolutely love that most of the things we share now are things he found his own way into and loved for himself.
I continued to buy a season ticket every year and he started to tolerate it. He was happy to, have a McDonald's, go into the Fan Zone and he was there for the League One seasons, promotion last season, this season. He comes to half the games now because he tolerates the day as a whole, and knows I love him coming, but he is not that fussed on the football. If it wasn't for the darkest days for the Evans era and McCarthy's football I am pretty certain he'd have loved football rather than being where he is but that's cool. He has a lot of stuff he loves which we share and enjoy. I was never forced to love football by my dad. I just did. I never forced him but the he liked it a lot until that era made football to synonymous with being bored.
I met someone else a few years later and married. We have a 10 year old son and he was the same initially. I took him to a few games. He liked it and then about 5 years ago overnight, through his own accord, he became totally obsessed with football. Absolutely obsessed to the level I was at that age. He spends the entire weekend in the garden playing. He's top scorer for his U10'steam. He's on the PS playing FIFA and PES as Ipswich, watching YouTube videos of the top goals from years gone by. He absolutely bloody loves it. I find myself trying to get him to do other stuff!
I'm 44. We were last in the Premier League when I was 22. My sons have never seen us there. My youngest doesn't remember Lambert's dross but us winning a lot in League One, winning promotion and completely grasps and understands how magical what we are doing is. He'll come in telling me that since McKenna took over we've won more points than any other club in England.
I can't imagine my life without football and without ITFC. It's largely all I've ever known. As a kid it was all I wanted to do. I've had a very lovely life up until now but in the few rare moments of loss, sadness, stress and pain it's been looking forward to going to watch Town that pulled me through before I became a dad or met the love of my life. I don't regret choosing to miss those Town games over that couple of years but it will always bug my slightly that if the timing had been different and my eldest had Gamechanger, McKenna or even League One at that time I reckon he'd have continued to enjoyed going to Portman Road.
The thought of being at Portman Road on Saturday with my dad again and with my youngest to watch us potentially clinch promotion amongst you all, after all those years of hurt when even I wondered why I was bothering to go, brings me to the point of completely losing it. The biggest thing that I can say for Gamechanger from a personal point of view is that after the Coventry result my eldest, who wasn't due to be at mine this week, told me he wants to go on Saturday which will absolutely tip me over the edge if we do clinch promotion.
There are plenty of people for whom football is life. For a great many others it's only family that is more important. The amount of enjoyment I have taken from following Town home and away over the last two seasons cannot even be quantified. To be able to share all that with my dad, my youngest who absolutely loves it and my eldest, who has not been at all fussed over the years but now wants to be part of Saturday is absolutely incredible.
One day my old man won't be here and for all the happy memories I will have, it'll be Barnsley and Coventry and Exeter and hopefully Huddersfield that come rushing to the fore.
Some of us are no longer here. Some of us will have people that should be here Saturday missing because this opportunity never came around when they did.
For everyone who loves this club, for everyone who loves someone who does or has lost someone who did, that perhaps never got to share any proper good times with them, I hope that we do it on Saturday because the thought of something I want to happen so badly happening, surrounded by the most important people in my world who want exactly the same is mind-blowing. Last year was good but felt inevitable. We were always going to get out of League One one day. The Premier League though? Didn't think I'd necessarily ever see it again, let alone with my dad.
But my god does everyone that stuck with this club deserve the last two seasons. As I posted last week seeing so many kids walking to school in their Town shirts totally got to me. The thought that there are plenty of other people now having these amazing memories and experiences with their old football mad children who shun Man City and Liverpool and are proud to support Town. Something we'd lost significantly.
As someone who barely drinks, maybe 5-10 units a year, I hope to be getting absolutely smashed with the players and management long into Saturday night!
I love you Gamechanger. I love you Kieran. You too Mr Ashton. All these bloody players too. Even you lot. Even the odd bloody troll.
COYFB.
[Post edited 2 May 10:27]
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Thread | Credit to everyone there last night
at 08:53 1 May 2024
Would have been incredibly easy to let nerves take over. Everyone around me was in pieces.
Like the 5 minute Blue Army at Barnsley last season, every time the away end quietened down someone would pick it back up again and it was phenomenal in the circumstances.
EDIT - Just seen a similar, more eloquent thread on the exact same thing. [Post edited 1 May 8:53]
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Thread | IF we go up
at 08:47 1 May 2024
Been watching football too long to take anything for granted.
How much do you realistically imagine we'd spend and how much would it cost to get Hutchinson permanently?
I'd imagine we could do a deal with Chelsea for £10m - £15m given their financial situation, need to sell and the fact he's going to still be way down their squad depth.
I could see us bringing in 3-4 players in the £5m - £10m mould to add what to what we have with a couple of shrewd older heads on frees. We aren't going to go out and spend £100m + but in order to add the desired quality we are going to have to make at least 4 signings and when you look at what Coventry paid for the likes of Simms and Wright, then we are going to beat the previous transfer record numerous times over the summer.
The likes of Downes, Sheaf, players of that ilk are going to set us back £10m each or around there you'd imagine.
But what an incredible 12 months when I now look at Hladky, Burgess, Burns, Hirst, Edmundson as players I'd have no issues seeing play for us as part of a Premier League side. Madness.
We'd still need a good deal of improvement but with McKenna, the players, the system and the togetherness it's nowhere near the levels you'd imagine. With Omari, Sarmiento and a few other quality loans you'd have to fancy our chances of not just staying up but perhaps even being a mid-table side.
Unreal. Let's get the job done first. But after decades of nothingness it's lovely to be able to have these conversations. [Post edited 1 May 8:50]
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Thread | A few years ago my son went to school in his Town top
at 11:35 26 Apr 2024
It was the only one I saw. Plenty of the big six and that was about it really.
Today walking him to school and every other shirt was blue, orange, red and black. Absolutely awesome to see.
For all the short term awesomeness that Gamechanger have brought, it’s absolutely amazing to see what they have started to create long term. 29,000 every week, thousands of kids falling in love with this club like you and I did.
It could have been so different. It was so different. But really made me smile this morning at how incredibly the club has turned round in just a few years for the next generation. |
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Thread | If Coventry and Hull stays a draw
at 21:12 24 Apr 2024
Then weirdly a Norwich win Saturday would mean both Hull and Coventry have nothing to play for when they face us. |
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Thread | Coventry v Hull
at 20:21 24 Apr 2024
Of all the teams to be playing each other tonight.
Of all the teams to be the only ones who can catch Norwich.
Just a bonkers season. |
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Thread | Of all the things I didn’t think I’d end up hoping for tonight
at 21:41 23 Apr 2024
Was Southampton being so absolutely humiliated at Leicester that they’d potentially go to Leeds absolutely determined not to lose for fear of another thrashing.
Us and Leeds then. Suppose the tiny consolation here will be listening to Russell Martin later. |
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Thread | Absolutely no problem not going up if two teams are better than us
at 22:04 22 Apr 2024
But absolutely sick to death of Hutchison being decapitated in the box whilst Dewsbury-Hall gets a penalty for falling over on the half way line or Moore has an axe planted in his back whilst Bamford wins a spot kick for slipping over his own smarmy puddle.
Isn’t is something like 16 penalties to Leicester, 14 to Leeds and 3 to us, the top scorers in the league? We get absolutely nothing from refs and the amount the relegated clubs get is insane. To see Leeds that crap and scoring when three yards offside is really grating.
That’s before you have to look at Farke’s stupid face.
That aside … |
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Thread | Vaz’s dad was behind me today I believe.
at 18:22 13 Apr 2024
Never seen a man look more stressed in my life when he made those two quick wonder saves.
The second was possibly the best save I’ve seen since Alexander at West Ham. Hope it was actually as good as it seemed to be from our angle. He looked beaten. |
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Thread | Football is so ridiculous
at 22:01 12 Apr 2024
That I wouldn’t even be surprised if Maresca was sacked whilst top of the league with 4 games to play.
Is that 6 defeats from 9 now? After being statistically the greatest Championship team at ever at many checkpoints over the season.
Could see them determining that another manager could get them over the line where this guy won’t. It sounds utterly utterly ridiculous but I wouldn’t even rule it out. Such is football and such are the sort of clubs that come down from the Premier League. |
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Thread | There is something really amusing about Norwich City
at 12:43 7 Apr 2024
Don’t get me wrong. I don’t enjoy standing in Carrow Road with hundreds of them screaming c*** at me whilst celebrating a win over us. But yesterday actually hurt a little less than usual.
All this 15 years stuff is hilarious. Obviously I wanted us to annihilate them every time we’ve played them. But I’m actually at the point of almost cringing for them.
For so long there were better than us. Two divisions better than us at times. We didn’t have a player that would get into their squad. We were told history didn’t matter. It’s all about the now.
Then it was attendances. Then it was this. And that. Now we find ourselves with a better history still, actual honours, bigger stadium, bigger crowds and a team that was top of league much better than theirs.
All they have is this record. Like the one we have against Real Madrid. Like the one Cheltenham have against us. Absolutely meaningless really in the context of a season but they celebrating a draw away to us like we celebrated promotion.
I hate them. And yes they could still go instead of us. But I was once jealous a tiny bit of them. Not much. But now I just laugh their whole existence is about us. |
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Thread | I know he’s got some vital goals
at 19:05 6 Apr 2024
The Sunderland winner, a goal at Swansea and a wonderful bit of skill at Blackburn leading to another winner. Plus the ball to Burns against Bristol City.
Now that’s led to a fair few points of course. But since Norwich at home Chaplin has been almost anonymous for 3-4 months now. At times it’s been like playing with 10 men.
Broadhead can be the same. Sarmiento has had games like that. Far too much lately we’ve had three players behind the striker that can be completely ineffectual. Moore today didn’t look right either so make that a front four.
Before Norwich at home it felt like Chaplin and Broadhead were so involved in the play. Getting into pockets, making things happen. It’s not Hirst or Burns or anybody else missing. But 1-2 players doing one or two nice bits of skill over 90 minutes is a massive issue. [Post edited 6 Apr 19:14]
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Thread | Kieran McKenna I f***ing love you
at 09:50 2 Apr 2024
I'm 44 years old. Have been to pretty much every home game since the age of 3. Been going away since I was 7, regularly as an adult, and if I had to compile my greatest 50 moments ever following Town, half of them would have come in the last 2 years of that 40 plus years.
I cannot even begin to describe how much I'd love to add another on Saturday. Just beyond any logic or comprehension what he has this squad of players doing week after week.
Last night was up there with anything I have seen at Portman Road. Comfortably since Bolton in 2000. That was better than anything against Norwich, the last minute Wigan winner, the Sheffield United comeback, the Exeter first half, Bent putting us ahead against West Ham in the playoffs. Topped the lot.
To see every single fan still in their seats 10 minutes after the game, to hear deafening chants outside the stadium post match, to see 70 and 80 year old women in front of me (I kid you not!) with limbs reminiscent of Barnsley away last season absolutely blew my mind.
Whatever happens between now and the end of the season, whether we lose McKenna or Davis, whether Morsy's legs go in a year or two and whatever crappy fate may one day befall us again in the decades to come, this manager, team, staff, ownership group and supporter base have something right now than other clubs will never experience in their entire existence.
I genuinely feel sorry for people who don't like or understand football when moments like this come along as outside of the birth of my children and my wedding day, no other feeling remotely comes close to the sort of thing that I witnessed last night.
One other thing of note - we sit directly in front of the players families. The reaction of their children, some of them really tiny, and their partners when that last goal went in was hard to begin to describe. Just added another emotional layer on top of what was already breathtaking. The only thing missing was Chaplin's dad who is usually in the seat behind me. Can't imagine how much he'd have enjoyed that!
UNREAL. [Post edited 2 Apr 11:40]
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Thread | Regardless of what happens now
at 11:17 17 Mar 2024
Continuously in a state of what is actually happening.
Every month watching ITFC feels like a compilation of the greatest performances / matches or scorelines from the previous decade. It is quite simply mad.
Regardless of budget, teams don't really do what we did last season in any division. 100 goals and one winning goal away from 100 points. To go and do it a level higher, with almost the same starting XI is beyond comprehension.
To then do it in a season full of 4-3 and 3-2 wins with last minute winners, amongst the odd 6-0 demolition of an old foe from last season or to play the football we did in a 3-0 win over one of the other team up there with us (Hull) just incredible.
Almost starting to believe now. 7 wins from 8 right around time we started a run of 13 in 14 last season. Norwich, Hull and Coventry feel like Bolton, Derby, Posh, Bolton.
Obviously still expecting Norwich to undo us in the league or even playoffs because no matter how much of a fairytale two seasons it I still can't find it in me to believe we could beat that lot. But I'm starting to think we are just destined to because the mentality is this squad is just beyond anything any other side in the league has. |
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Thread | Well that was odd
at 06:31 21 Feb 2024
So unlike us in every respect.
Fair play to Rotherham. Executed their plan brilliantly and drew us into playing how they wanted us to.
I’ve never sat there 30 minutes in, two goals ahead and only felt like two players had even been involved. Then we stopped finding Wes and playing the balls into Moore that got us joy.
Davis didn’t get forward once to supply any kind of cross. Morsy, Travis and Luongo never go going. The whole back five looked shaky in and out of possession.
Every time we looked remotely like passing the ball we absolutely carved them open. Then didn’t bother again for some time.
The old adage about not playing well and winning though. If anything maybe the dropping of standards that low in the only game we could get away with it ends up being a blessing. |
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Thread | What is it with us?
at 13:46 19 Feb 2024
Only 10 Championship teams EVER have had 66 points at this stage of the season before this season.
We are one of four to have done it this season.
Last season we needed 98 points to go up. Wednesday would have won the league in almost every other League One season.
As incredible as we are and as much as we got across the line last season, we have been bloody unlucky to be involved in one of those seasons let alone both!
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Thread | McKenna's 100 games
at 16:23 15 Feb 2024
202 points is mad.
Anyone know where it ranks in English football? I am guessing the likes of Man City, getting 90 points in 38 games a couple of years running must have surpassed it.
But has anyone in the EFL ever come close. Pretty much needs a team to get back to back promotions with close to 100 points. Teams get back to back promotions but not often as rampant champions both years.
To do it in your first 100 games in management is ludicrous! |
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Thread | Funny old game, Saint!
at 10:03 15 Feb 2024
Perfect night really.
Back to winning ways. Clean sheet. Thumping win. New striker off the mark. Goals shared round a few forward players.
How strange though that we had 3 shots on target and scored 4 when so many other weeks we have had 20, 25, 30, 35 shots and come away with a single goal.
Could easily have been well behind in the first 15 then Millwall just gave up.
Ref was absymal first 15 minutes and fell for all their antics to win set pieces, then had a great game - albeit I don't think it was inside the area. Contact outside.
Typical of us to get that penalty finally when it makes no difference.
Millwall were so poor we didn't have to play very well to hammer them and look dominant. We've been so much better in lots of games we have drawn.
Anyway, I've seen this one before. 13 more wins from the next 14 isn't it? |
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