~~~~Rant warning - scroll wheels at the ready~~~~
I'm just about fully peed off with everyone and everything.
Like everyone else, I wanted a nice big shiny stadium. Something that people with beards, adenoidal problems and knitted pastel-coloured jumpers would be able to recognise from obscure photographs. As someone who spent nigh on 20 years in that little row of seats in front of the director's box, I've got a lot invested emotionally in that stand. During the Mickey Evans testimonial I did a complete circuit of the ground and eventually came back to the place I started. Like a god damn salmon.
And now the stand is like an old dog whose legs have gone. I don't want to part with the blessed old thing, but you've only got to look at the state it's in to know that it's time someone showed a final act of mercy. Damn shame. Like an old dog, it smells a bit funny too. A window missed me by about 2 feet as it fell out of one of the director's boxes about five years ago. Then they were forced to put an end to terracing and we had those god damn seats. Then the seats got ripped out and it was as if the old dog was looking at its owners with an expression that said "oh god please, I've had a good innings, I'm begging you to set me free".
So I'm incredibly greatful that someone's finally going to take old Shep away and introduce him to a couple of .303s. It'll be gut-wrenching when the bulldozers roll in though. Nostalgia, the sands of time, you pee me right off.
I don't really care that much about architecture - this isn't a restoration of Salisbury Cathedral, this is a football stadium, and football stadia generally are quite boring to look at. Most of the stadiums in our division, and the one above, are nothing but a few corrugated-iron sheds over a bit of concrete, with a bunch of seats shoehorned into a space that Warwick Davis would describe as "snug". Even so, why the hell are we being given something that looks like it's been pulled out of a subbuteo box? Why not just add those extra five rows to the existing tier instead of this laughable shelf thing? It's like an ugly bird walking out of a hair salon with a ridiculous haircut. I wasn't expecting Cameron Diaz when you emerged, but come on ffs.
Brent can give all the platitudes about future developments that he wants, but I'm peed off with all that. After "we will finish the stadium", "the money will come" and "Heaney will close the deal", I'm well beyond the point where platitudes and media-friendly statements like "we can extend the stadium" register on the give-o-poo o'meter, especially when others are claiming this isn't economically viable or technically correct. I want sworn, legally-binding affidavits. I want technical drawings, I want long words I have to look up in dictionaries. I want diagrams. I want to be blinded with scientific, accounting and engineering concepts I haven't a hope of understanding. Like everyone else on pasoti, only then will I be able to draw conclusions.
Oh speaking of Pasoti, you pee me right off. If you're in the minority on something, don't make the ridiculous claim that you're actually part of a "silent majority". If the "silent majority" won't become a noisy majority then either a) they don't exist or b) they don't have the courage of their convictions, in which case who the hell cares what they think anyway?? If you're too bloody apathetic to even bitch and whine about it (bearing in mind that bitching and whining is every Janner's god-given right) then f**k you and the milkman that fathered you. I could worry that they'd respond to that with a witty and cruel put-down of their own, but of course they're the SILENT majority so I'm pretty much OK. Boy does that pee me off.
And by the way, if you claim to represent the "silent majority", then by your own logic shut the fudge up. Or what part of the word "silent" do you struggle with?
Now, there are lots of Argyle fans who don't read pasoti, and they pee me off too. We're having this capacity debate because people are pointing to little peaks on a graph and saying "see!!! this is how many fans we could get!!" That's the problem - they're peaks, not something concrete like a trend. If we'd got 16-17000 consistently during the good times then it would have been so much easier to make the case for bigger capacity. As it is, people turned up for the odd match during the first season, and got bored as soon as the novelty wore off. The sort of people who turned up for Leeds and Everton with Argyle scarves they'd dusted down from the loft, and would have forgotten the names of all the home team by the time they got to Alma Road. And we're worried about them missing out on tickets to big games in the future? Who the hell cares about those people? I'd rather have 15000 people giving it the beans than 4000 more who are just there for a water-cooler moment. Screw the money.
They patently had no interest in taking up Argyle as a life-long thing, and as soon as we've next spent a season up in that division, they'll come and go again. By the time Holloway had us 4th in the league they'd pretty much all gone back to their sofas. Maybe, just maybe, we'd have had a chance that season if we did have bigger crowds. Maybe we'd have held on to some of the better players. Maybe we wouldn't have had to replace them with god damn deadbeats like David Macnamee and Chris Clark. Plymouth had a real chance that season and while people are blaming the greed of the players, Ollie, the board or whoever, it seems few are willing to point the finger at the real culprits. I bet some of those very people are reading this, and I'll bet they'll come out with all the excuses - tough economic climate, cost of living going up, all that crap. And I bet that as soon as we find ourselves on the cusp of promotion, or facing a big team with lots of 'slebs in the Cup, they'll magically find room in their funds for a couple of games after all. And they'll all be on here claiming that they never really went away. Yes, you did.
That's the trouble with bleddy Plymouth - they moan about things when they exist, they make up lame poo excuses to not use them, and then they moan even louder when they're gone. If you'd rather have a sky subscription and watch Stoke v Wigan every week, don't bleddy complain when James Brent won't build an extra 2500 seats for you to sit in half a dozen times.
Of course, capacity wouldn't be an issue if standing was still an option. Safe standing exists and has been well-documented in countries like Germany. It works, and if it's done right it could easily add that extra 2500 that people are manking on about. Everyone would be happy (well as happy as Janners can be, which isn't very). But once again we're seeing the footballing authorities moving at their usual glacial speed. It's taken us ten years to even begin to catch up with cricket and rugby in the technology stakes, so god knows how long it'll be before logic prevails again. God that pees me off.
I wanted a bigger stadium, but I also wanted people to fill it every week, and any business plan that relies on Janners not being apathetic is doomed to failure. Having looked at the plans and mulled them over I'm peed off, but not with James Brent. I'm peed off with Plymouth. And when someone finally cuts the ribbon on this piece of crap we're all anticipating, I know who I'll blame.
Just....pee off.
I'm just about fully peed off with everyone and everything.
Like everyone else, I wanted a nice big shiny stadium. Something that people with beards, adenoidal problems and knitted pastel-coloured jumpers would be able to recognise from obscure photographs. As someone who spent nigh on 20 years in that little row of seats in front of the director's box, I've got a lot invested emotionally in that stand. During the Mickey Evans testimonial I did a complete circuit of the ground and eventually came back to the place I started. Like a god damn salmon.
And now the stand is like an old dog whose legs have gone. I don't want to part with the blessed old thing, but you've only got to look at the state it's in to know that it's time someone showed a final act of mercy. Damn shame. Like an old dog, it smells a bit funny too. A window missed me by about 2 feet as it fell out of one of the director's boxes about five years ago. Then they were forced to put an end to terracing and we had those god damn seats. Then the seats got ripped out and it was as if the old dog was looking at its owners with an expression that said "oh god please, I've had a good innings, I'm begging you to set me free".
So I'm incredibly greatful that someone's finally going to take old Shep away and introduce him to a couple of .303s. It'll be gut-wrenching when the bulldozers roll in though. Nostalgia, the sands of time, you pee me right off.
I don't really care that much about architecture - this isn't a restoration of Salisbury Cathedral, this is a football stadium, and football stadia generally are quite boring to look at. Most of the stadiums in our division, and the one above, are nothing but a few corrugated-iron sheds over a bit of concrete, with a bunch of seats shoehorned into a space that Warwick Davis would describe as "snug". Even so, why the hell are we being given something that looks like it's been pulled out of a subbuteo box? Why not just add those extra five rows to the existing tier instead of this laughable shelf thing? It's like an ugly bird walking out of a hair salon with a ridiculous haircut. I wasn't expecting Cameron Diaz when you emerged, but come on ffs.
Brent can give all the platitudes about future developments that he wants, but I'm peed off with all that. After "we will finish the stadium", "the money will come" and "Heaney will close the deal", I'm well beyond the point where platitudes and media-friendly statements like "we can extend the stadium" register on the give-o-poo o'meter, especially when others are claiming this isn't economically viable or technically correct. I want sworn, legally-binding affidavits. I want technical drawings, I want long words I have to look up in dictionaries. I want diagrams. I want to be blinded with scientific, accounting and engineering concepts I haven't a hope of understanding. Like everyone else on pasoti, only then will I be able to draw conclusions.
Oh speaking of Pasoti, you pee me right off. If you're in the minority on something, don't make the ridiculous claim that you're actually part of a "silent majority". If the "silent majority" won't become a noisy majority then either a) they don't exist or b) they don't have the courage of their convictions, in which case who the hell cares what they think anyway?? If you're too bloody apathetic to even bitch and whine about it (bearing in mind that bitching and whining is every Janner's god-given right) then f**k you and the milkman that fathered you. I could worry that they'd respond to that with a witty and cruel put-down of their own, but of course they're the SILENT majority so I'm pretty much OK. Boy does that pee me off.
And by the way, if you claim to represent the "silent majority", then by your own logic shut the fudge up. Or what part of the word "silent" do you struggle with?
Now, there are lots of Argyle fans who don't read pasoti, and they pee me off too. We're having this capacity debate because people are pointing to little peaks on a graph and saying "see!!! this is how many fans we could get!!" That's the problem - they're peaks, not something concrete like a trend. If we'd got 16-17000 consistently during the good times then it would have been so much easier to make the case for bigger capacity. As it is, people turned up for the odd match during the first season, and got bored as soon as the novelty wore off. The sort of people who turned up for Leeds and Everton with Argyle scarves they'd dusted down from the loft, and would have forgotten the names of all the home team by the time they got to Alma Road. And we're worried about them missing out on tickets to big games in the future? Who the hell cares about those people? I'd rather have 15000 people giving it the beans than 4000 more who are just there for a water-cooler moment. Screw the money.
They patently had no interest in taking up Argyle as a life-long thing, and as soon as we've next spent a season up in that division, they'll come and go again. By the time Holloway had us 4th in the league they'd pretty much all gone back to their sofas. Maybe, just maybe, we'd have had a chance that season if we did have bigger crowds. Maybe we'd have held on to some of the better players. Maybe we wouldn't have had to replace them with god damn deadbeats like David Macnamee and Chris Clark. Plymouth had a real chance that season and while people are blaming the greed of the players, Ollie, the board or whoever, it seems few are willing to point the finger at the real culprits. I bet some of those very people are reading this, and I'll bet they'll come out with all the excuses - tough economic climate, cost of living going up, all that crap. And I bet that as soon as we find ourselves on the cusp of promotion, or facing a big team with lots of 'slebs in the Cup, they'll magically find room in their funds for a couple of games after all. And they'll all be on here claiming that they never really went away. Yes, you did.
That's the trouble with bleddy Plymouth - they moan about things when they exist, they make up lame poo excuses to not use them, and then they moan even louder when they're gone. If you'd rather have a sky subscription and watch Stoke v Wigan every week, don't bleddy complain when James Brent won't build an extra 2500 seats for you to sit in half a dozen times.
Of course, capacity wouldn't be an issue if standing was still an option. Safe standing exists and has been well-documented in countries like Germany. It works, and if it's done right it could easily add that extra 2500 that people are manking on about. Everyone would be happy (well as happy as Janners can be, which isn't very). But once again we're seeing the footballing authorities moving at their usual glacial speed. It's taken us ten years to even begin to catch up with cricket and rugby in the technology stakes, so god knows how long it'll be before logic prevails again. God that pees me off.
I wanted a bigger stadium, but I also wanted people to fill it every week, and any business plan that relies on Janners not being apathetic is doomed to failure. Having looked at the plans and mulled them over I'm peed off, but not with James Brent. I'm peed off with Plymouth. And when someone finally cuts the ribbon on this piece of crap we're all anticipating, I know who I'll blame.
Just....pee off.
