Visit of the Valiants. Port Vale Home...29th Oct.

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Re: Visit of the Valiants. Port Vale Home...29th Oct.

Post by LeverEnd » Wed Nov 02, 2016 4:09 pm

Nicko58 wrote:
Prufrock wrote:This Chelters business....as I understand it, the team we can only make 5 changes from will be last week's no? We can't play the kids in the FA Cup then say we haven't made any changes when we play them in the Boycott Cup?
On the subject of Cheltenham and the Boycott Cup, how on earth have they ended up in the northern section?
They were the 12 th most northerly leauge 2 team as there are loads of southern teams down there.
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Re: Visit of the Valiants. Port Vale Home...29th Oct.

Post by Dave Sutton's barnet » Wed Nov 02, 2016 4:14 pm

LeverEnd wrote:They were the 12 th most northerly leauge 2 team as there are loads of southern teams down there.
Not like our lovely division, which is pleasingly northern (while still offering a few easier journeys for those of us in the Lancashire Diaspora)

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Re: Visit of the Valiants. Port Vale Home...29th Oct.

Post by Dave Sutton's barnet » Wed Nov 02, 2016 4:53 pm

Out of interest, I looked up the teams in our lovely division. Walsall are the 12th most northerly and therefore in the Northern Section; Peterborough the 13th and thus Southern. According to internet calculations based upon the latitude/longitude of their grounds (as per Wikipedia), Peterborough's ground is further south by 82.12 metres, slightly less than the minimum length of an adult football pitch.

There's always a risk that rules may be rendered ridiculous. I'm sure there'd be an outcry if Fleetwood had to go to Gillingham, or Carlisle to Plymouth, in an unregionalised early round – so a line has to be drawn somewhere. There'd also be folk who got narky if the clubs weren't divvied up as fairly as possible, which is what led to the rule that each group must contain one higher-league U23 team, at least one third-tier club and at least one lower-tier club.

All that got forgotten and lumped in with the anger over the B-team thing. I'm perhaps in the minority that I'd like to see the top clubs' best kids compete – in a cup, not a league - with grown men; I don't always agree with Greg Dyke but he's right that the continuing development of 18-to-23-year-olds is one of English football's biggest problems. And, yes, it might tempt in a few more punters if it's Man United's next big things at a lower-league ground near you.

Sadly for the EFL – who simultaneously underwent a redundant rebranding policy leading to derision and confusion ("Which is the EFL Cup? Which is the EFL Trophy? Aren't the EFL the racists?") – the big clubs pulled out and instead of United, City, Arsenal, Spurs and Liverpool, they were forced to make up the numbers with Blackburn, Brighton, Derby, Norwich and Reading.

In short, it's been a succession of embarrassments for the League, but not all of it is their fault. The early rounds needed some interest, and certainly regionalising. The "five from XI: rule was brought int because fans have complained for decades about managers trivialising cup competitions by picking much-changed XIs. Inviting U23 teams was controversial, but so were floodlights and Sunday games in their time. It's not the league's fault that the big teams pulled out.

And when it all comes down to it, it doesn't matter enormously. You don't have to go. On 6 Dec 1988 I was one of 2,695 at a freezing echoey Burnden watching us beat Preston 1-0; less than six months later there were 46,513 at Wembley watching us win the cup.

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Re: Visit of the Valiants. Port Vale Home...29th Oct.

Post by Armchair Wanderer » Wed Nov 02, 2016 5:23 pm

Dave Sutton's barnet wrote:All that got forgotten and lumped in with the anger over the B-team thing. I'm perhaps in the minority that I'd like to see the top clubs' best kids compete – in a cup, not a league - with grown men; I don't always agree with Greg Dyke but he's right that the continuing development of 18-to-23-year-olds is one of English football's biggest problems. And, yes, it might tempt in a few more punters if it's Man United's next big things at a lower-league ground near you.
As long as it's playing apples with apples, not kids vs grownups. Or, we have to play apples and oranges, but you can play whatever you like.

BTW, it sounds like Trotter was improved against Port Vale. Read somewhere (BEN?) that he had a bad game, was dropped, went to speak to the manager, worked hard in training then played better when he got the opportunity. Sounds like actual management to me, not sure why that couldn't have happened before with previous managers.
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Re: Visit of the Valiants. Port Vale Home...29th Oct.

Post by Nicko58 » Wed Nov 02, 2016 9:24 pm

Dave Sutton's barnet wrote:They're the 12th most northerly League Two club, and the cup's structure ensures that each group has at least one club from each of the lower two tiers.
LeverEnd wrote:They were the 12 th most northerly leauge 2 team as there are loads of southern teams down there.
That's interesting. I was particularly confused when I saw that Cheltenham weren't in the southern section yet Coventry were, but I suppose it's quite obvious that it's structured that way really as it ensures that there are the same amount of fixtures in each region.
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Re: Visit of the Valiants. Port Vale Home...29th Oct.

Post by Nicko58 » Wed Nov 02, 2016 9:25 pm

Dave Sutton's Barnet wrote:Sadly for the EFL – who simultaneously underwent a redundant rebranding policy leading to derision and confusion ("Which is the EFL Cup? Which is the EFL Trophy? Aren't the EFL the racists?") – the big clubs pulled out and instead of United, City, Arsenal, Spurs and Liverpool, they were forced to make up the numbers with Blackburn, Brighton, Derby, Norwich and Reading.
Is there any reason why the big clubs pulled out?
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Re: Visit of the Valiants. Port Vale Home...29th Oct.

Post by Prufrock » Wed Nov 02, 2016 9:38 pm

The dates helpfully coincide with international weeks where the young players it was supposed to help are, you know, playing for England ...
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Re: Visit of the Valiants. Port Vale Home...29th Oct.

Post by Dave Sutton's barnet » Thu Nov 03, 2016 9:46 am

Prufrock wrote:The dates helpfully coincide with international weeks where the young players it was supposed to help are, you know, playing for England ...
That's true, but they also have shinier continental competitions with the bigger boys - Man United and Liverpool are in the Premier League International Cup, while Arsenal, Spurs and City are in the UEFA Youth League (for the U23 sections of clubs in the Champions League).

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