As somebody who enjoys watching football I was astonished at the latest television deal that the Premier League has signed with Sky Sports and BT Sport for £5.136 billion. Some of the football clubs, including ironically Manchester United, have said that they hope the money doesn't go straight to the players! At present the average Premier League wage is about £44,000 each week, with Wayne Rooney being the highest paid player earning over £300,000 per week!!
The Premier League has fundamentally affected football in the UK because it has been able to do exactly what it wants unregulated, while the FA has just watched. The clubs appear above the law with so many of them now the play things of foreign owners and investors, and all it takes is a large amount of money to purchase one (irrespective of where the money has come from!). Many of these clubs are run at a loss paying sky high wages but ignoring their customers - their loyal supporters. The founding of FC United of Manchester is a good example of where a set of loyal supportershad had enough of being treated like a permanent cash cow to be milked every fortnight. The ironic thing is that these clubs need the supporters to create the atmosphere at the matches which is part of the package both Sky Sports and BT Sport have purchased, with the clubs carrying on exploiting them with high ticket prices.
It saddens me to walk around the precinct and see so many young lads wearing Manchester United, Liverpool or even Arsenal shirts - what about Grimsby Town? They might not have had much luck and been badly run in recent years, but they are your local team. Okay if your from Scunthorpe or Lincoln but live in Grimsby then fair enough but get a Lincoln or a Scunny shirt on then! I can also understand those Town fans who also cheer on a big club as well (they deserve to experience some success) but those who just go, 'Grimsby are rubbish!' and that's it are a disgrace! They might be rubbish at the moment but they haven't always been and they might be good again - let's face it Hull City have been rubbish for most of their history but look at them at the moment. Where would football be in Britain without Grimsby Town, Lincoln City and Scunthorpe?! Grimsby Town have long and proud history with England internationals like Jackie Bestall and George Tweedy, and more recentlt top players like Kevin Drinkell and Italian international Ivano Bonetti. I've watched the Mariners beat nearly every current Premier League team, and it was a Grimsby director who just happened to be President of FIFA who secured the world cup in England in 1966.
If you want football to end up as foreign owned clubs with superstar all foreign teams, and a third rate England international team then you haven't got long to wait. The moment Manchester United managed to force the rule change which meant that for league games the home team kept the entire gate receipts was the beginning of the end of fair play. Anyway, it's away at Barnet next Saturday.
UTM
Captain Haddock
Sunday 15 February 2015
Saturday 7 February 2015
I'm sat here watching Celebrity Big Brother, a modern day freak show - many of our television channels are full of this endless cheap TV, from sending people nobody has heard of down some ski slope hosted by Davina the queen of reality television, to our very own poverty pawn show, skint.
I watched the recent series of Skint for a couple of reasons, to see how bad Grimsby was portrayed, and to see how many people were on who I knew. I did think the programme could have been a lot worse in its portrayal of the town and its people. I didn't watch it when it was filmed in Scunthorpe but those who did tell me it was a lot worse. I think it showed how close knit Grimsby is and how we look after our own. I do think it's an absolute disgrace that a London based production company having chosen Scunthorpe to pray upon should then move thirty five miles east to pick on us. They could have chosen any town or city in the country but again they chose another northern town so the southerners can have a good laugh at our expense.
Anyway, going back to Celebrity Big Brother, it has been an example of how bullying is allowed to take place without anybody stopping it. It has given a platform for Katie Hopkins to put forward her vile right wing views, and the majority of weak personalities around her have let her get away with it, apart from obviously Perez and Nadia. Hopkins already has a voice in her column in The Sun which is another vile newspaper like the Daily Mail. Her despicable comments about the Scottish nurse who contracted ebola were down right racist, and her comments about the north show what a right wing racist bigot she really is - what's on BBC2!!
UTM
I watched the recent series of Skint for a couple of reasons, to see how bad Grimsby was portrayed, and to see how many people were on who I knew. I did think the programme could have been a lot worse in its portrayal of the town and its people. I didn't watch it when it was filmed in Scunthorpe but those who did tell me it was a lot worse. I think it showed how close knit Grimsby is and how we look after our own. I do think it's an absolute disgrace that a London based production company having chosen Scunthorpe to pray upon should then move thirty five miles east to pick on us. They could have chosen any town or city in the country but again they chose another northern town so the southerners can have a good laugh at our expense.
Anyway, going back to Celebrity Big Brother, it has been an example of how bullying is allowed to take place without anybody stopping it. It has given a platform for Katie Hopkins to put forward her vile right wing views, and the majority of weak personalities around her have let her get away with it, apart from obviously Perez and Nadia. Hopkins already has a voice in her column in The Sun which is another vile newspaper like the Daily Mail. Her despicable comments about the Scottish nurse who contracted ebola were down right racist, and her comments about the north show what a right wing racist bigot she really is - what's on BBC2!!
UTM
Sunday 1 February 2015
Welcome to the first post from Captain Haddock of the East Marsh. I decided to write this because the local newspapers covering Grimsby area a waste of time - The Grimsby Telegraph isn't even a proper local paper anymore now that it's printed in Leicester. If it's such a guardian of free speech and truth then a few years ago when they closed their print works in Grimsby making quite a number of printers redundant they made sure that wasn't covered in their paper! It's not even an objective read, and is nothing more than another mouthpiece for the Daily Mail's right wing bile (they are part of the same newspaper group), even though I'm sure there must be some good NUJ members on their pay roll. However, I wouldn't even wrap an electronic fishcake in it's vrtual edition.
The other main reason for writing this, is because Grimsby has been let down by so many people over recent years, those who run the town but have filled their own pockets on others suffering. I can understand local people supporting UKIP, even though UKIP's policies and principles would unleash further devistation on the ordinary working people and poor of the town. Grimsby has been let down by the town's ruling class, and past and present governments, and local politicians, even though the current Labour Council has been starved of money by the Tories causing real poverty in both the East and West Marsh. However, the council hasn't helped itself with its block paving fiasco up town! We've also had a 'ghost MP' since the last election - Austin Mitchell should have retired before the last general election, because he hasn't done much since apart from moaning about all women short lists and generally sounding like a refugee from the 1970's with his attitudes about women. At least at the next election Grimsby has the chance to elect a local person who understands the town and even supports the Mariners.
Increasingly, it looks like a battle between Labour and UKIP, but how can anyone seriously vote for a posh woman who stood last time as a Tory and is now the UKIP candidate! You clearly cannot trust anyone who is willing to change party so easily, even if it is from the Conservative's to a neo-fascist party like UKIP, with a leader who asked people to call him 'the general', more like posh ex-Tory banker, which is who Farage really is - a modern day Oswold Moseley. My father's generation fought
fascism but now it's been resurrected in UKIP, and they need challenging and defeating again.
Anyway, how can a posh person like Victoria Ayling have any understanding of Grimsby and its people. I bet she's never even slept one night in a council house! So I hope the good people of Grimsby will see sense and not vote UKIP or Conservative because they have contempt for us.
UTM,
Captain Haddock
The other main reason for writing this, is because Grimsby has been let down by so many people over recent years, those who run the town but have filled their own pockets on others suffering. I can understand local people supporting UKIP, even though UKIP's policies and principles would unleash further devistation on the ordinary working people and poor of the town. Grimsby has been let down by the town's ruling class, and past and present governments, and local politicians, even though the current Labour Council has been starved of money by the Tories causing real poverty in both the East and West Marsh. However, the council hasn't helped itself with its block paving fiasco up town! We've also had a 'ghost MP' since the last election - Austin Mitchell should have retired before the last general election, because he hasn't done much since apart from moaning about all women short lists and generally sounding like a refugee from the 1970's with his attitudes about women. At least at the next election Grimsby has the chance to elect a local person who understands the town and even supports the Mariners.
Increasingly, it looks like a battle between Labour and UKIP, but how can anyone seriously vote for a posh woman who stood last time as a Tory and is now the UKIP candidate! You clearly cannot trust anyone who is willing to change party so easily, even if it is from the Conservative's to a neo-fascist party like UKIP, with a leader who asked people to call him 'the general', more like posh ex-Tory banker, which is who Farage really is - a modern day Oswold Moseley. My father's generation fought
fascism but now it's been resurrected in UKIP, and they need challenging and defeating again.
Anyway, how can a posh person like Victoria Ayling have any understanding of Grimsby and its people. I bet she's never even slept one night in a council house! So I hope the good people of Grimsby will see sense and not vote UKIP or Conservative because they have contempt for us.
UTM,
Captain Haddock
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