When will there be word on the midweek fixtures? Surely there'll be even less of an excuse to cancel them?!
Just heard the news. Wow! The Government has actually gone and banned/cancelled ALL football within the UK this coming weekend. You are in a recession and all talk is of 'doomanomics', then the Government goes and cancels an outlet that millions wait for all week. A two minute silence would have enough and respectful. This action taken by the Government of compulsory forced mourning is just a step too far. It is sad for her family that she has passed away, but l would feel more if the lovely old lady next door to us died. Cancellation of all football is a weakness.
Reading's website suggests the midweek fixtures are expected to go ahead. Much as I've no time for them, this wasn't a government decision. It simply advised the governing body of each sport to make up its own mind and said there was no expectation they should cancel.
I presume they will carry on as normal with a minutes silence as in 1997 when Princess Di passed away .
Pretty sure it won’t be enough to postpone matches but there will also be silences and national anthems when football restarts in a month following the international break. Football wants to get the max from its mourning.
Government didn’t cancel. Government gave the sporting authorities autonomy to make their own decisions. Football chose cancellation, cricket, rugby and horse racing will resume over the weekend. arguably it’s even worse to hand down the responsibility. Government avoided taking a decision, avoids any criticism and the country just drifts along, rudderless.
Reading between the lines of a Government statement left all sporting bodies with very little choice. Limited respect her l agree with, but complete cancellation of sporting events is over estimating her value to the general population. I can still watch live football this weekend, but l feel sympathy for the fans who have had their sports banned and replaced with depressing TV coverage of the past 24 hours and a lot more to come. I expect more games to be cancelled in the weeks to come. Time to move on and return to normality.
Then those governing bodies have little time for fans or any understanding of the value of sports to the masses.
Some of the horse**** I've read on here today has been incredible. We've not long had SEVENTEEN MONTHS where we've not been able to go matches at all, yet there's so much endless bedwetting about ONE weekend of fixtures being postponed. And as for comments about 'virtue signalling'.....yeah, right, we've not exactly much of that over the last two years, have we ? Grow up and give your gormless heads a f'kn wobble.
Only football is cancelled - there are other sports going ahead and certainly the Government did say it was up to individuals to decide - publicly anyway.
Isn't the primary complaint that football has been cancelled and other sports have not? I'm not sure why that is 'gormless'. It's completely different from the pandemic. Personally I'm not that bothered (especially as I can still watch the Test Match) but I can see why people object to the seeming inconsistency.
It has been said other sports were off today so maybe the football authorities wanted to have a day of respect too but so teams didn’t have to play when most aren’t cancelled the whole weekend .
You've TOTALLY missed the point. At no point did I bring number of deaths into it. We had an excess of fifty matches which we couldn't attend and just got on with it. ONE match - which we WILL be able to attend when it's rearranged - gets postponed, and there are idiots on here crying like babies.
And the point about the inconsistency with other sports? (I suppose there is some mileage in the argument that golf, cricket were off today - but that's not true of rugby).
this was the first game my family and I were able to attend for quite a while. Hotel booked (we live in Devon) and my lads birthday. I think most people are just annoyed that football is the only sport that’s been postponed coupled with the narrative that we all must take part in collective grieving. Oh, but I still had to go to work today and my kids went to school…life goes on.
What other sports have chosen to do is entirely their call. I don't particularly follow any other sports, so am not really bothered. I would, of course, attended tomorrow had the match been on, but I'm not going to lose any sleep about the fact that it will get slotted into a Tuesday/Wednesday evening a couple of months down the line.
Don’t tug that forelock too hard, it’ll hurt. Still, if Harefield’s where you actually live it’s alright for you a handful of miles from the Vic. It’s good to know those of us who have to piss around travelling down straight after work and getting back after midnight for midweek night games WILL be able to attend. Phew.
Well, firstly, people have lost out on accommodation and train tickets, which is more significant that it’d usually be given the ongoing cost of living crisis. Secondly, there’s no guarantee people will be able to attend, given that it’s likely the rescheduled fixture will be held in midweek. Thirdly, other sports such as cricket and rugby union are still going ahead this weekend. This is what has stemmed the frustration seen.
Bizarre post. The complaint is about football cancelling while other sports don’t and restaurants/bars/cinemas etc are open. So yes, it’s football authorities deciding to virtue signal how respectful they are. What has any of it got to do with COVID?
Yes, it’s their call but that is a main reason why people are complaining about this, not simply because a single match has been cancelled, as you stated. Why was their call different to football’s? That’s a perfectly reasonable debate to be had.
Given that I will now be spending tomorrow afternoon planting the sack loads of bulbs Mrs Lloyd invested in today I'm as fed up as the next person that games are off. But I can see football matches and football Crowds are incompatible with a period of national mourning. Cancelling one set of fixtures seems entirely appropriate
If anything they played during COVID( well we didn’t want to ..) to help people in lockdown and suffering To take their minds off the trouble of the real world and enjoy something although unfortunately we were petty rubbish (even under Ivic ) during it !!
Yet, you could still watch football during covid. I haven't felt that anyone on here is crying like a baby. They are simply making a comment. I still feel that it ludicrous to suspend/ban/ cancel all matches. It not just professional games that have been called off. Thousands of grassroot teams are unable to play. I am not an anti-royalist, if the Monarchy is alive or dead it makes very little difference to me. I simply feel that it is a massive over reaction by weak leadership within football. Strange that so called 'upper crust' cricket can go ahead. I wonder if there is a croquet league match still on in the UK?
Good. I don't know if you've been before but it's nicely low key. About 50 nurseries and growers selling shrubs, bulbs, perennials etc plus a few trade stands flogging the usual tat. Mrs L likes to get spring flowering bulbs - nothing exotic, alliums, daffs, tulips - there
Those matches were all behind closed doors for a reason we all understood - if we allowed 22,000 people to ram into one space whilst a potential fatal virus was out of control, the chances are there'd be fans dying or passing it onto more vulnerable relatives who would die. This match is cancelled for reasons a lot of us don't really understand. Instead of showing my respects with thousands of others with a few minutes silence, maybe some applause and maybe some singing, I will probably be playing COD or binge watching Netflix. The Queen herself was doing her duty 2 days before her death, even though she looked ill. After Phillip's death she carried on working, doing what she had to do. She wouldn't be cancelling everything after somebody died, she'd be getting on with her job. This seems like the polar opposite of the example she set. Personally I think there many, many better ways to honour her memory than this. English football is broadcast across the world live, what better way to show what she meant to the country than doing it before, during or after a football match?
The media need to get it right. They keep claiming that it just Professional football which is cancelled. It is nearly all football matches that are banned this weekend and with the possibility that it maybe similar next weekend. The FA leadership is weak and out of touch with what role football plays withn the lives of many people. Has the FA understanding changed since the 1970's?
No. In fact, I’ve never been to Wisley. Cousin works for the RHS, perhaps I can score some free tickets next year (had free tickets to Chelsea this year).
I get that there are probably tens of thousands of people who are upset about what has happened and rightly so. They deserve the time to reflect and mourn about the loss of the head of state for the past 70+ years. I totally get and understand that. What the EFL/EPL/FIFA have not brought into consideration is that not everybody will feel that attachment, and will want to still go to football matches at the weekend and as has been said so many times, give a mark of respect before the game, so everyone who is in attendance understands what has happened that moment has been fully respected in the right way football has always done it. Non football fans who enjoy watching other sports will probably do this. I expect before every Rugby/Cricket game there will be a minutes silence or applause. It's the right thing to do, and nobody would mind. I agree with most of the above in that the footballing bodies have had a knee-jerk reaction and shut it all down (if it is only for this one weekend, it doesn't matter, smaller clubs are still losing money) when a more fitting solution could of been made. If people didn't want to attend the matches for this reason, that's fine. People who still wanted to attend could of gone, still shown respect in the correct and right way, and then had the game. I can totally understand why today's fixtures were cancelled being the day after, but after thinking about it - surely the governing bodies of the "Beautiful Game" could of put at least another option on the table. Just my two cents.
