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Beesotted

Brentford fan here: Thoughts on Saturday - and Pre-Match Podcast

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£17.2million now is it??? Welcome Beesotted. Won''t wish you good luck tomorrow.

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That''s it what your mate purple stated it was (gross liability)

you both hunt in packs herman picking holes in words people use so u know its true

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Herman wrote the following post at 23/01/2015 4:33 PM:

£17.2million now is it???

Hi Herman

Just looked back on a previous thread - your mate Purple claims fig of £17M plus stated in last set of accounts as potential gross spend on Adams transfer dealings (not even sure it includes Jerone so may be nearer £20M as he brought late in window)

Particularly good value bearing in mind Adams managed to buy 1 regular starter for that much (sarcastic)

Next question please or do you just want to twist the meaning of one word in above ?

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[quote user="Newton"]That''s it what your mate purple stated it was (gross liability)

you both hunt in packs
herman picking holes in words people use so u know its true[/quote]I think it will be news to ornithologists that canaries hunt at all, let alone in packs.

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You really should know the numbers by now Newton, that''s all you''ve been harping on about for months. I don''t think I was picking holes in your words btw, just your inherent numerical dyslexia.

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The U symbol stands for Universal. A U film should be suitable for audiences aged four years and over. However, it is impossible to predict what might upset a particular child, especially at this lower end of the category range.

Four year old eh, suitable for Newton!

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We enjoyed having the Norwich fans .. it was a good nite despite the 3-0 .. and its the first time I''ve seen Brentford fans go home happy being spanked (not literally)

Ticket price .. and supply and demand .. don''t really want to go there .. as its a touchy subject ... but my personal view is .. "if it''s full, charge more money" is far too simplistic ... there has to be a balance up between making your customers happy ...

what is strange is norwich fans seem to be either anethesised to the idea of being charged silly money .. or your minted ... personally i feel you just think its the norm .. and football loves it ... tell people £35 is what it is .. and they pay it .. then it justifies itself ...

there is an argument that if you are happy to pay £35 fine .. but travelling fans shouldn''t .. coz they have additional costs ... and travelling fans add to the atmosphere of the game .. interestingly the premier league admits its suffering from having full studio with dull fans who don''t make an atmosphere and are trying to do something about it (possibly reduce ticket prices ironically) ...

interestingly many fans who seem happy to pay £35 at home seem less happy to pay £35 when they have spent £40 on train fair .. £25 on food .. and £20 on beer ... brentford charged you £23 i think it was .. the argument about ''beautiful stadia'' is nonsense .. its all about vibe .. and whats happening on the pitch .. and if you watch the video we made ALL norwich fans LOVED their trip to brentford for £23 .. despite the olde skool stadium .. same for pretty much EVERY fan who comes down (ipswich think it may go down in history as one of their best ever trips)

Im gonna post a podcast we just did of your goalkeeping coach Tony Parks on a different thread if i can work out how to make links .. what a top bloke he is .. played for us in the 90s ... his mum and dad came on my coach to the FA cup 1/4 final to Liverpool .. and experienced all sorts of mayhem ...

nice one

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Superb thread (besotted excluded) appears to have captured a large number of the idiotic posters who have no views but just play on words

Well done guys - lets have some views / or facts next time - I know it will be hard tho but try and contribute to the thread next time rather than picking holes in the spelling to words

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@Newton (or is that Smudger?) - what isn''t true about your post:"TC your post is dribble - Poceni is 100% spot on"- as has already been proven, Gunn was not Lord Mayor so this statement of your is not true. It''s wrong.

"This club has been poorly run by the current owners for years and the escalation in debt which has now been paid off has to be layed at there door - after all they appointed Grant Reoder Gunn  etc & gave them borrowed money to spend on wasters"

First of all it''s "their" not there. But ignoring that as a small side issue, they didn''t give "borrowed money to spend on wasters". We were servicing debts but would have still had money to spend. I''d ask Purple to explain, only it would be tedious for him and I wonder if you''d grasp it fully because your maths, which I will come to later, doesn''t add up anyway.

As for the wasters - it is worth pointing out that even Roeder managed one decent signing, in Hoolahan, and it was more the fact that he kept offloading players and not really replacing them that was the issue. Then we have Gunn, again, interestingly he made some sound signings. Holt for example. Even Lambert praised the squad that he inherited and when you consider he really only tinkered with it in the League One season. Gunn was not a manager, and I don''t think he was ever intended to be in place for very long, he was the last appointment of the previous ''board'' including the likes of Doncaster. Ever since then McNally has been behind every appointment we have had in terms of managers and what they have had to spend and who on. In fact it has been made pretty public that he has put in a lot of leg work for some signings.

"If we dont get promoted the blame lies 100%  with Delia & Co - could not think of a worse appointment than Adams (could you) and then allowing him to spend £17.2M on players in the summer was a joke"

Funny that you couldn''t think of someone worse to appoint who left us in 10th place and yet you have just named two managers you blame, quite rightly, for lowering the level of the club. Would they not be worse appointments? And then there is the fact that after half a season we were tenth and still within a shot of the play-offs, which is what is widely accepted as the bare minimum for this season in terms of a target. Strangely, for a man without any senior management experience he was actually doing rather well, but at this point in time, people were not prepared to give him the one thing he needed - time. Perhaps quite rightly, we need promotion and straight away if possible. It doesn''t mean he was a bad appointment or a bad manager, he is a good chap and a great coach and was probably appointed at the wrong time for the fans and for the squad. It really needs to be nothing more than that. So that''s another bit debunked, onto the next.

£17.2 million on players. I have chased and harried you about this on several occasions and you decline to respond. I can only imagine this is because you realised you have been caught out. Please can you state again how you came to this figure. If my memory serves me right, you had Jerome down at a cost of £3million, the same as Lafferty. If that is the case then you are wrong on two counts and therefore your total is wrong by around £2.5million just for starters.

"The fact that Gunn was Sheriff and not Lord Mayor is irrelevant - get real man -Poceni just trying to highlight the fact that it was an idiotic appointment"

As we have pointed out elsewhere - Gunn was appointed manager at the begining of the summer that the new board was formed. Ever since then McNally has been given responsibility for appointing managers and the footballing budget. Whether you like that or not, it has been widely publicised both in the press and by the club. Delia and MWJ really are not the fall people anymore. You really need to be blaming McNally and the board as a whole if you have any issues.

"Good post Poceni - the truth hurts Delia lovers"

Nobody seems hurt but you. Mainly because everytime someone challenges your "truths" you run and hide for a bit. Especially after a win. Anyway, I have debunked ALL of your "truths" please can I have some more?

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@ Beesotted"interestingly many fans who seem happy to pay £35 at home seem less

happy to pay £35 when they have spent £40 on train fair .. £25 on food

.. and £20 on beer ... brentford charged you £23 i think it was .. the

argument about ''beautiful stadia'' is nonsense .. its all about vibe ..

and whats happening on the pitch .. and if you watch the video we made

ALL norwich fans LOVED their trip to brentford for £23 .. despite the

olde skool stadium .. same for pretty much EVERY fan who comes down

(ipswich think it may go down in history as one of their best ever

trips)"I think you get the stadia bit confused. It''s not to do with how beautiful it is, away fans don''t typically get to sit in the best bit of the stadium. Although that said, you certainly get to sit in the newest and arguably the best stand at Carrow Road. It''s about the cost to the club, of all the overheads involved in putting on a match day experience.What is the league average cost for a match day ticket these days?I don''t wish to sound harsh, but £20-25 is what I''d expect to be paying in the lower reaches of the Championship and League One. As others have said, we often sell out our stadium so the club isn''t likely to price overly competitively to away fans because they know that they can fill any left over allocation with home fans.The cost of the ticket, will evidently, go up with the size of the stadium and the services required to ensure everyone at the ground has access to the various facilities such as clean toilets, access to food and drink around the stadium etc.I do agree that in some new stadiums, you lose that charm, that atmosphere that some of the older stadiums retain, but the reality is - those sorts of places as slowly falling away in numbers.I have a lot of time for the lower leagues as I like to follow the fortunes of Plymouth Argyle after a close friend introduced them to me. In younger days I used to travel with him to some of their away fixtures as they were cheaper and required non-stop vocal interaction with the home fans which I enjoyed. There is a charm in the lower leagues, a never-say-die attitude which is sometimes absent higher up, where fans are more expectant of their players to inspire the atmosphere.When all is said and done - this league has always been the same. When we were not doing so well, there were clubs that would charge our away fans an arm and a leg for tickets. It just so happens that after relegation we are just the same. Your club has to price it''s tickets accordingly to it''s customers - ours does so for it''s own too. It''s business. Should business have such a bearing on footy? I fear that''s another debate.I hope you enjoy the Carrow Road experience (and ignore the fair whether whingers).

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[quote user="Newton"]Superb thread (besotted excluded) appears to have captured a large number of the idiotic posters who have no views but just play on words

Well done guys - lets have some views / or facts next time - I know it will be hard tho but try and contribute to the thread next time rather than picking holes in the spelling to words[/quote]

You need to practise what you preach, facts, you want facts, well the truth is that you can''t handle the facts.By the way, it should be ''the spelling of words''.

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Well Bug*er me !!! After reading the rant about away fans having the sh*t end of the stick ,, all the travel costs etc , I unmask you as the keyboard warrior LDC ,, I claim my ten pounds !!

If you don''t like spending the money to travel and support your team ,, simple answer ,, , stay at home like LDC

4-0 city

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Firstly, I would like to say what a tremendous day out we had in Norwich.

We got to the Coach and Horses pub just after 11am - log fire and all - and were welcomed by the Norwich fans in there from the moment we walked through the door. Very similar to the welcome the Norwich fans got in our boozers (The Globe, The Lord Nelson) in Brentford back in September.

So I’m not back on here to gloat. But to engage a wee bit further after the match.. give my view on a few things … and also reply to a few comments on this thread that I missed out on yesterday coz we were in transit East of London.

First of all, I don’t think you will be out of order for me mentioning it .. because so many of you mentioned it all over your forum here. I was quite shocked by how poor Norwich were. The football you played was a million miles from what we saw down at Griffin Park where we voted you guys in the top 6 of best teams we had seen play this season in a survey on Beesotted (Ipswich were top by quite a way .. with 66% of the vote. Boro were 2nd with 22%. Then Derby with 8%. However, 15% of people voted Norwich as the THIRD best team they had seen after Derby and Boro).

You were hoofing the ball up. Defensively you were all over the gaff. Your players had no fight at all. Great for us. And you knew Warburton smelt blood when, as is his style - 2-1 away from home instead of pulling off a striker and putting on a holding midfielder or defender, he pulled off midfielder Jota (headband .. scored the goal .. took the p!ss quite massively in the first half when he put the ball between your two defenders and ran around them) and put on forward Tommy Smith … then in the final minutes, once again instead of pulling off a forward and tightening up .. he pulls off Andre Gray and brings on another forward … just to turn the screw even more.

One thing we haven’t been short of this season is excitement. Warburton has brought a whole different thought process to Brentford .. and we’re enjoying it.

Which beings me back to some of the conversations we were having earlier.

Don’t want to bark on about the £35 ticket price because it seems many Norwich fans, as I said earlier, seem to be delighted to pay the higher prices. Personally, I would be mightily upset if I were forking out £35 (or £26.85 season ticket price) to see that every week .. and might find myself camped outside the CEOs office asking for a refund.

Fine if that what makes you happy. But the campaign for away fans to be charged reasonable prices rolls on – and is getting some serious momentum. Even since the time this thread was written, a delegation has met with Scudamore at the Premier League to discuss reducing away admission prices. And lets put it this was … this time it wasn’t dismissed outright.

With the vast injections of TV money, the question has always been asked why does ALL this money go back to the clubs who then just pay players even higher wages? .. why cant SOME (just a small fraction of the billions … please … like a miniscule fracton) go back into the game … and some to the fans .. who actually create games with atmosphere which PL sales people then go off to The Middle East and The Far East and sell for vast sums of money.

The PL is worried that the atmosphere at many games in the Premier League is POOR (very much like Norwich yesterday … but we’ll come onto that later) .. they have full stadia … filled with people who think they’re at the opera …so delighted they are getting hold of a £60 they have no idea how to enjoy themselves. So watch this space.

Yes PL and FL are different beasts. Yes and no. Premier League prices are silly. But if there is some sort of movement here, and if PL clubs decide to use some of the extra few billion they receive in TV money to curb the costs for away fans, we could have the laughable situation that it feasible could be cheaper to watch an away team play at Arsenal than it would be at Norwich.

Coming back to atmosphere … yesterday the atmosphere (apart from the away end) was very very poor. As the Brentford CEO said on our ticketing podcast … “We want to encourage away fans … they create noise and give the home fans something to think about when getting behind their team” … which means twice about pricing them out … he also indicated about reciprocal pricing … We cant charge the earth … if we take the p!ss out of their fans … they will take the p!ss out of our fans when we go there .. and untimately it’s the fans that suffer …

https://audioboom.com/boos/2821067-norwich-v-brentfordfc-pre-match-podcast-brentford-chief-backs-cheaper-tickets-as-norwich-charge-35-celtic-prospect-on-trial-everton-striker-joins

I have to admit, Im very surprised many of you guys have been sold this supply and demand clap trap and have swallowed it most heartily. If that is the case, why doesn’t your club go the whole hog and charge you £60 to get in? …. An interesting quote by a German football chairman who laugh at us Brits .. saying “We could never even consider trying to charge £25 and £30 for football in Germany” where it costs around £15 to get into a top class match .. “The fans would annihilate us .. plus the increasing entry for fans is a drop in the ocean to the money we get from TV so why make the fans suffer?” … And that’s part of the problem … you guys with your supply and demand nonsense, no wonder your chairman has no problem charging you £35 …

Again, just speaking out here .. don’t take it as personal criticism …

Coming back to the game … we had two teams out there …

There was one team on the pitch yesterday who, according to this forum, spent around £20mill in the LAST transfer window alone. Never mind players on £30k plus a week.

And there was one tea who fielded their record signing - £1m Moses Odubajo (signed in the summer to sharp intakes of breath from Brentford fans … and utterances of ‘blimey .. never thought I’d see the day when Brentford would sign a player for £1m) and then their next biggest record signing - £1.3m Jota (headband .. goalscorer .. general p!sstker .. signed from Celta Vigo in the summer) - sending Brentford fans reaching for their inhalers … as this was too much for us to take in one transfer window.

Alongside them, clever little signings from academies … places like Derry City … oh and plucking a player from the Conference (Andre Gray - £500k) and throwing him straight into the Championship battle … when we were promoted, people were saying things like “Brentford wont survive .. they haven’t got a marquee signing .. they haven’t really spent any money .. they don’t have the quality … you have to spend big to survive in this league”. Norwich would never in a million years have signed Gray and put him straight into your team. You would have gone for an £6m striker on £30k a week .. who may or may not have worked .. and you guys would be playing for that.

When we lost our ‘best’ player Forshaw to Wigan for £3.6m in the summer (we bought him for nothing from Everton academy .. instead giving them a big sell-on clause … a win win situation for us), Warburton didn’t fret … he just said ‘don’t worry … there are plenty more Forshaws out there’ … then he went and found Jota .. and Pritchard …

And this .. my friends .. is where I lead back to where you guys need to open your eyes …

You’re being charged through the nose for gross inefficiencies in the way certain football clubs are run … tell me .. the fact that we pay £10 a head less than you every week to see better football makes absolutely no sense at all (our season ticket price works out at around £15 a head). A club should operate within its means. If hypothetically Norwich were capped having to charge fans (or away fans) say £25, they would have to then spend accordingly. It’s not as if it cant be done. We’ve spent probably 1/50th or maybe less of what Norwich have spent in terms of transfer fees and wages …. Surely you as fans should be asking questions there .. rather than just telling fellow supporters “Pay up or don’t come” …

Coming back to Mark Warburton. Someone on your thread said you should have poached him. Remember this is someone who was making sh!tloads of money in the city to jack it all in and become a football coach because he loved it. He joined up with his ex city buddy Matthew Benham and together they came up with a plot .. to try and run a football club with the right ethos.

Decent football. Developing youth players. Finding talented players from under rocks that so called ‘big clubs’ with their outdates scouting networks would have absolutely no idea where to find them. And charging fans fairly (that was one of the things our chairman stated in this Q&A he did on a Brentford forum .. very similar to The PinkUn …. http://beesotted.co.uk/?p=12965). Long term loyalty and value for money much more important than short term cash.

And that’s the reason why clubs like Norwich would find it hard to prize Warburton away from Brentford. He’s been instrumental to building the club with a particular ethos. Him and the owner. If Norwich has a different ethos than what he believe sin, why should he go there? Four manager is how many years? He doesn’t need the cash. He’s rich enough. He doesn’t need the hassle. He just wants to be somewhere where they do things ‘his way’.

The one thing about being small in this game. You need to think out of the box if you are going to survive. That’s one advantage the Bees have over most of their rivals .. and the reason why people are ‘surprised’ that we’re doing so well. Because most other clubs just do what they always do . plod along .. spend shedloads of cash … try and pass that off onto the fans … and repeat.

That Poceni chararacter on here .. you may think he (or she) is a moaner .. but he seems to be a bit of a realist to me. And as he said, maybe a few of you probably need to remove the rose tinted specs.

RusstyBoy – yes we had a great time. And you are more than welcome back in our boozers when we play next season (which we will in all likeleyhood do . ..we’re realists … and know it’s unlikely we will go up this season … we’re just happy to be here .. and delighted we’re upsetting so many people) ….

CanaryOz … correction .. we actually have TWO more points that you guys on the road … not on less …

BarclaySeats – You were woefully wrong with your 4-0 prediction. I was close with 1-1 on Talk Carrow Road (nice one Jack …. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epVBVInDmVI) but I DID predict that you would bring down Andre Gray just outside the area (you actually did it inside the area .. he’s a tricky little b@gger).

And having been to every game home and away this season .. and last .. unfortunately I’m sucked in … and will come … doesn’t make it right. There were only just over 1000 Bees fans yesterday. Saying that, Brentford had 3000 at Brighton last week – pricey at £30 .. but the fans made a decision … either Brighton or Norwich .. they chose the CHEAPER CLOSER option

… we took 1500 to Wigan for £15 match ticket … if the ticket was £25 yesterday, we would have taken another 1000 easily. Norwich was 1,000 fans short of capacity in a stadium that ‘sells out every week’ … it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to work out … 2000 away fans at £25 is more income than 1000 p!ssed off away fans at £35 ..

Saying that, I don’t think you would have wanted another 1000 Brentford fans in the ground. The 1000 we had in the ground totally put you guys to shame vocally. Again surely this has to be another case for lowering prices … it seems the more people pay for their seat (or if we want to get into the whole social exclusion agrument .. the people who can afford to splash out £35 plus to go to a football match) .. the more they seem to want to just sit there and enjoy the view .. as opposed to getting behind the team. We may have an old decrepit stadium at Brentford .. terracing at both ends .. but cor blimey do we have a laugh in there every week … singing and dancing and all sorts with my mates .. and getting behind our team come what may. That’s what I go to football for. Not to boast how beautiful and expensive and quiet my stadium us.

I said I was gonna post the Tony Parks interview up (your goalkeeping coach) and I will do on a separate thread. I’ll also post the post match podcast we did in The Coach And Horses after the match – featuring loads of Norwich fans.

And later, we will post up our traditional match day video. Its good fun. Again lots of Norwich fan interviews. Dancing on the terraces. And an interview with your steward with the Norwich hat at the back of the stand … and absolutely top bloke he was.

Pleas excuse my ranting. I do actually like Norwich. Your fans are great. And I think you deserve better. But you really need to get a wee more vocal and just not accept what you are spoonfed.

Oh coming back to the steward in the hat at the back of the away stand … he’s an absolute legend. He was most accommodating and friendly – pretty much summing up the vibe we got from most Norwich folk in our afternoon there. If you check @Beesotted on twitter, we just tweeted his legendary status .. Jacqui Oatley from BBC Final Score just retweeted it. He will feature on our video later too.

Cheers

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We are not happy about the ticket prices but there is nothing we can really do about it. We are ruled by a little dictator called David Mcnally whose major concern is protecting his enormous bonus every year for financial performance. It does not effect most of us because 22,000 of us are season ticket holders so don''t pay for casual tickets. I am however embarrassed at the prices we charge some away teams. We lose a lot of goodwill and I think its also short sighted in terms of attracting casual fans to Carrow Road and also building our future fanbase.

I am however even more embarrassed about the performance we served up yesterday which can only be described as horrific. We played to Brentford who look sharp, quick and motivated and took full advantage. However that was as bad as we have been for several years and it came as quite a shock to most of us too. Yes there were some mitigating factors in that we were missing 4 central midfielders but the team selection, tactics and hoofball were completely unacceptable and have brought our new managers honeymoon period to a very swift end.

Glad you had a good day out. Maybe we will meet again in the playoffs. If we do I think you can rest assure we are unlikely to be anything near that bad. Whether we can make the top 6 is of course a different matter.

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Ps. We don''t need to open our eyes though. We are aware where we are going wrong. We are also aware we have players on big money who should be performing better.

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That''s a good read and I don''t think I could argue with much of what say.

You saw us at ou our very very worst yesterday, we have had some grim performances this season but that hit a new low.

Only a few welks ago we were scoring 5 and 6 goals in a game, shame you couldn''t have come to see those ones lol.

Your fans were great, £35 your having a laugh , was ringing around Carrow Road, unlike " on the ball city"

The next few weeks is going to be vey interesting for us, and I can''t say I am looking forward to them with anything other than trepidation.

Enjoy your season, I hope you don''t go up, you will risk losing the very essence that makes it so good for you!

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VERY quick and short reply as time is against me

Congrats to you, as I said already that you were the team that has deserved to win,as you were organised, and had Pritchard as your main man. You mention some of your other players, but other teams in this League have equally, if not better, players than all those, it is just that you were well organised, and that has got you to where you are today, and that has to be recognised, and applauded.

 We haven''t played anywhere near like that all season, so paying the money, that seems to take up half you post, has seen some excellent football, and there is no argument that we have been very unlucky in some games.

The ''missing'' 1000 isn''t as straightforward as you try and make out, because of the dynamics of the ground (the seats were not next to your fans etc)

Ticket pricing? We have recently been exposed to the Premier League money, and is it right? Not in my eyes. Do I (you) have a choice? Oh yes

Away fans? Always the most vocal, and we have some of the best ourselves. Home fans, yes could have done better, but what we were served up yesterday, made it hard to maintain the full on support. It was an alien performance from us. If we had passed the ball better and played anywhere near what we have, then the support would have been stronger, but no matter what fans say, about always backing your team, sometimes and in certain circumstances, it doesn''t happen, yesterday was one of those days

All in all, well done for yesterday, you guys deserved it, and you need to somehow keep Pritchard!

We also had a pint in the Coach & Horses - very nice!

 

 

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I think there''s a lot of truth in your pst besotted but also a lot of that comes through rose tinted spectacles, comming from a club who is on an upwards curve at the momment, it''d be much like the positivity that would have been here under lambert 3 seasons ago, it''s easy to comment when everything looks great from the inside.

Our club is trying to arrest a downward spiral for the last few years and it''s proving to be pretty difficult to turn around. Historically relegated clubs from the premier league do struggle for a whole number of reasons, but don''t think we play like that every week, we really don''t, but the consistency and turning the different mindset of being the underdog to the favourite each week is clearly going to be beyond a lot our players. (which to be fair is probably why they don''t play in the prem still, with other bigger clubs).

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jesus, stop going on about the ticket prices....its not 1995 anymore, and you''te not in league one anymore.

If you think £35 is expensive , you''ll be longing for that sort of prices "if" you manage to get promoted.....as season of watching your team away in the Premier League will leave you bankrupt!

p.s ...as for yesterday, you caught us on an exceptionally good day to play us ,with us having 4 senior central midfielders out......every top half team would have beaten us fielding that midfield.

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[quote user="Beesotted"]Firstly, I would like to say what a tremendous day out we had in Norwich.

We got to the Coach and Horses pub just after 11am - log fire and all - and were welcomed by the Norwich fans in there from the moment we walked through the door. Very similar to the welcome the Norwich fans got in our boozers (The Globe, The Lord Nelson) in Brentford back in September.

So I’m not back on here to gloat. But to engage a wee bit further after the match.. give my view on a few things … and also reply to a few comments on this thread that I missed out on yesterday coz we were in transit East of London.

First of all, I don’t think you will be out of order for me mentioning it .. because so many of you mentioned it all over your forum here. I was quite shocked by how poor Norwich were. The football you played was a million miles from what we saw down at Griffin Park where we voted you guys in the top 6 of best teams we had seen play this season in a survey on Beesotted (Ipswich were top by quite a way .. with 66% of the vote. Boro were 2nd with 22%. Then Derby with 8%. However, 15% of people voted Norwich as the THIRD best team they had seen after Derby and Boro).

You were hoofing the ball up. Defensively you were all over the gaff. Your players had no fight at all. Great for us. And you knew Warburton smelt blood when, as is his style - 2-1 away from home instead of pulling off a striker and putting on a holding midfielder or defender, he pulled off midfielder Jota (headband .. scored the goal .. took the p!ss quite massively in the first half when he put the ball between your two defenders and ran around them) and put on forward Tommy Smith … then in the final minutes, once again instead of pulling off a forward and tightening up .. he pulls off Andre Gray and brings on another forward … just to turn the screw even more.

One thing we haven’t been short of this season is excitement. Warburton has brought a whole different thought process to Brentford .. and we’re enjoying it.

Which beings me back to some of the conversations we were having earlier.

Don’t want to bark on about the £35 ticket price because it seems many Norwich fans, as I said earlier, seem to be delighted to pay the higher prices. Personally, I would be mightily upset if I were forking out £35 (or £26.85 season ticket price) to see that every week .. and might find myself camped outside the CEOs office asking for a refund.

Fine if that what makes you happy. But the campaign for away fans to be charged reasonable prices rolls on – and is getting some serious momentum. Even since the time this thread was written, a delegation has met with Scudamore at the Premier League to discuss reducing away admission prices. And lets put it this was … this time it wasn’t dismissed outright.

With the vast injections of TV money, the question has always been asked why does ALL this money go back to the clubs who then just pay players even higher wages? .. why cant SOME (just a small fraction of the billions … please … like a miniscule fracton) go back into the game … and some to the fans .. who actually create games with atmosphere which PL sales people then go off to The Middle East and The Far East and sell for vast sums of money.

The PL is worried that the atmosphere at many games in the Premier League is POOR (very much like Norwich yesterday … but we’ll come onto that later) .. they have full stadia … filled with people who think they’re at the opera …so delighted they are getting hold of a £60 they have no idea how to enjoy themselves. So watch this space.

Yes PL and FL are different beasts. Yes and no. Premier League prices are silly. But if there is some sort of movement here, and if PL clubs decide to use some of the extra few billion they receive in TV money to curb the costs for away fans, we could have the laughable situation that it feasible could be cheaper to watch an away team play at Arsenal than it would be at Norwich.

Coming back to atmosphere … yesterday the atmosphere (apart from the away end) was very very poor. As the Brentford CEO said on our ticketing podcast … “We want to encourage away fans … they create noise and give the home fans something to think about when getting behind their team” … which means twice about pricing them out … he also indicated about reciprocal pricing … We cant charge the earth … if we take the p!ss out of their fans … they will take the p!ss out of our fans when we go there .. and untimately it’s the fans that suffer …

https://audioboom.com/boos/2821067-norwich-v-brentfordfc-pre-match-podcast-brentford-chief-backs-cheaper-tickets-as-norwich-charge-35-celtic-prospect-on-trial-everton-striker-joins

I have to admit, Im very surprised many of you guys have been sold this supply and demand clap trap and have swallowed it most heartily. If that is the case, why doesn’t your club go the whole hog and charge you £60 to get in? …. An interesting quote by a German football chairman who laugh at us Brits .. saying “We could never even consider trying to charge £25 and £30 for football in Germany” where it costs around £15 to get into a top class match .. “The fans would annihilate us .. plus the increasing entry for fans is a drop in the ocean to the money we get from TV so why make the fans suffer?” … And that’s part of the problem … you guys with your supply and demand nonsense, no wonder your chairman has no problem charging you £35 …

Again, just speaking out here .. don’t take it as personal criticism …

Coming back to the game … we had two teams out there …

There was one team on the pitch yesterday who, according to this forum, spent around £20mill in the LAST transfer window alone. Never mind players on £30k plus a week.

And there was one tea who fielded their record signing - £1m Moses Odubajo (signed in the summer to sharp intakes of breath from Brentford fans … and utterances of ‘blimey .. never thought I’d see the day when Brentford would sign a player for £1m) and then their next biggest record signing - £1.3m Jota (headband .. goalscorer .. general p!sstker .. signed from Celta Vigo in the summer) - sending Brentford fans reaching for their inhalers … as this was too much for us to take in one transfer window.

Alongside them, clever little signings from academies … places like Derry City … oh and plucking a player from the Conference (Andre Gray - £500k) and throwing him straight into the Championship battle … when we were promoted, people were saying things like “Brentford wont survive .. they haven’t got a marquee signing .. they haven’t really spent any money .. they don’t have the quality … you have to spend big to survive in this league”. Norwich would never in a million years have signed Gray and put him straight into your team. You would have gone for an £6m striker on £30k a week .. who may or may not have worked .. and you guys would be playing for that.

When we lost our ‘best’ player Forshaw to Wigan for £3.6m in the summer (we bought him for nothing from Everton academy .. instead giving them a big sell-on clause … a win win situation for us), Warburton didn’t fret … he just said ‘don’t worry … there are plenty more Forshaws out there’ … then he went and found Jota .. and Pritchard …

And this .. my friends .. is where I lead back to where you guys need to open your eyes …

You’re being charged through the nose for gross inefficiencies in the way certain football clubs are run … tell me .. the fact that we pay £10 a head less than you every week to see better football makes absolutely no sense at all (our season ticket price works out at around £15 a head). A club should operate within its means. If hypothetically Norwich were capped having to charge fans (or away fans) say £25, they would have to then spend accordingly. It’s not as if it cant be done. We’ve spent probably 1/50th or maybe less of what Norwich have spent in terms of transfer fees and wages …. Surely you as fans should be asking questions there .. rather than just telling fellow supporters “Pay up or don’t come” …

Coming back to Mark Warburton. Someone on your thread said you should have poached him. Remember this is someone who was making sh!tloads of money in the city to jack it all in and become a football coach because he loved it. He joined up with his ex city buddy Matthew Benham and together they came up with a plot .. to try and run a football club with the right ethos.

Decent football. Developing youth players. Finding talented players from under rocks that so called ‘big clubs’ with their outdates scouting networks would have absolutely no idea where to find them. And charging fans fairly (that was one of the things our chairman stated in this Q&A he did on a Brentford forum .. very similar to The PinkUn …. http://beesotted.co.uk/?p=12965). Long term loyalty and value for money much more important than short term cash.

And that’s the reason why clubs like Norwich would find it hard to prize Warburton away from Brentford. He’s been instrumental to building the club with a particular ethos. Him and the owner. If Norwich has a different ethos than what he believe sin, why should he go there? Four manager is how many years? He doesn’t need the cash. He’s rich enough. He doesn’t need the hassle. He just wants to be somewhere where they do things ‘his way’.

The one thing about being small in this game. You need to think out of the box if you are going to survive. That’s one advantage the Bees have over most of their rivals .. and the reason why people are ‘surprised’ that we’re doing so well. Because most other clubs just do what they always do . plod along .. spend shedloads of cash … try and pass that off onto the fans … and repeat.

That Poceni chararacter on here .. you may think he (or she) is a moaner .. but he seems to be a bit of a realist to me. And as he said, maybe a few of you probably need to remove the rose tinted specs.

RusstyBoy – yes we had a great time. And you are more than welcome back in our boozers when we play next season (which we will in all likeleyhood do . ..we’re realists … and know it’s unlikely we will go up this season … we’re just happy to be here .. and delighted we’re upsetting so many people) ….

CanaryOz … correction .. we actually have TWO more points that you guys on the road … not on less …

BarclaySeats – You were woefully wrong with your 4-0 prediction. I was close with 1-1 on Talk Carrow Road (nice one Jack …. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epVBVInDmVI) but I DID predict that you would bring down Andre Gray just outside the area (you actually did it inside the area .. he’s a tricky little b@gger).

And having been to every game home and away this season .. and last .. unfortunately I’m sucked in … and will come … doesn’t make it right. There were only just over 1000 Bees fans yesterday. Saying that, Brentford had 3000 at Brighton last week – pricey at £30 .. but the fans made a decision … either Brighton or Norwich .. they chose the CHEAPER CLOSER option

… we took 1500 to Wigan for £15 match ticket … if the ticket was £25 yesterday, we would have taken another 1000 easily. Norwich was 1,000 fans short of capacity in a stadium that ‘sells out every week’ … it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to work out … 2000 away fans at £25 is more income than 1000 p!ssed off away fans at £35 ..

Saying that, I don’t think you would have wanted another 1000 Brentford fans in the ground. The 1000 we had in the ground totally put you guys to shame vocally. Again surely this has to be another case for lowering prices … it seems the more people pay for their seat (or if we want to get into the whole social exclusion agrument .. the people who can afford to splash out £35 plus to go to a football match) .. the more they seem to want to just sit there and enjoy the view .. as opposed to getting behind the team. We may have an old decrepit stadium at Brentford .. terracing at both ends .. but cor blimey do we have a laugh in there every week … singing and dancing and all sorts with my mates .. and getting behind our team come what may. That’s what I go to football for. Not to boast how beautiful and expensive and quiet my stadium us.

I said I was gonna post the Tony Parks interview up (your goalkeeping coach) and I will do on a separate thread. I’ll also post the post match podcast we did in The Coach And Horses after the match – featuring loads of Norwich fans.

And later, we will post up our traditional match day video. Its good fun. Again lots of Norwich fan interviews. Dancing on the terraces. And an interview with your steward with the Norwich hat at the back of the stand … and absolutely top bloke he was.

Pleas excuse my ranting. I do actually like Norwich. Your fans are great. And I think you deserve better. But you really need to get a wee more vocal and just not accept what you are spoonfed.

Oh coming back to the steward in the hat at the back of the away stand … he’s an absolute legend. He was most accommodating and friendly – pretty much summing up the vibe we got from most Norwich folk in our afternoon there. If you check @Beesotted on twitter, we just tweeted his legendary status .. Jacqui Oatley from BBC Final Score just retweeted it. He will feature on our video later too.

Cheers[/quote]

A few points,

1. Quite right on to ticket prices. Extortionate.

2. Atmosphere is all relative. Your riding a crest of a wave, playing away against "mighty" Norwich, whilst we underachieve due to incompetence and play "little" Brentford. Most home crowds now a days are subdued atmosphere. And I''ve been to a Brentford game at Grimsby a few moons ago, a couple hundred of you in total, and one or two songs. It seems success has brought a few Bees out of their hives. Funny that.

3. Your not trying to be personnel but constantly refer to "you" as opposed to Norwich. It comes across as gloating and personal

4. I think Brentford play good football, with a cavalier approach. Mark warburton tkes credit for that, fair play. Reminds me of the Lambert style.

5. I''m afraid your deluded if you don''t think Warburton would jump ship for a bigger club. If this success continues, you''ll struggle to keep him in the next 12-18 months.

6. If you fail to win promotion this year, your squad will get picked to pieces by wealthy championship and lower premiership teams. You''ve got to make it this season.

7. You have a new ground coming. I hope 8,000 fans can fill it or you''ll have to reqularly get used to subdued atmospheres.

Good luck for the rest of the season. I hope you pip ipswich go second place.

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I''m afraid Brentford haven''t been ''exposed'' to  the Premier League yet, with all the money etc so to be honest Beesotted,, you are not really in a position to comment  on the fundamentals of what to charge/sustainability etc There is a lovely romantic view, from yourself , of how to run a football club  (business) but your CEO might offer you a differing view, if you were ever to get promoted!

It all sounds so simplistic, and would seem quite feasible, but with how Brentford are at this moment, and taking into account your past (i.e. not been in the Premier League) your views could appear to be naïve.

Your point about terracing and your mates is fantastic for someone like my mate, his 17 yr old son (who both went to Griffin Park), and myself, as we had a great conversation on the way to yesterdays game, about the ''old days'' of terraces etc, and that the 17 yr olds of today, who support top level teams, do not have any stories to tell from their match day experience, like his Dad and myself could tell him.

If Brentford get promoted, your experiences and your opinions, WILL change, I guarantee it. There is a part of me that is secretly loving this drop down out of the Prem, because I am old school, and I find the money obscene. This is ''proper'' football in my eyes, and I suspect you are similar to me, and you really hope you stay here, and keep upsetting the bigger boys. At some stage that will change, for better or for worse. 

 

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Taken the points on board ... by the way, will post the match day video on another thread (much of it shot in the coach and horses) ....

Answering a few of them ...

1. I was at that Grimsby game .. twas about 5 years ago. Remember it well because it was my son''s 1st away game - in the 2nd division. He was 4. It was Easter and it snowed. We took about 150 fans if that .. .but we did sing .. I know coz (as i do) I''ve got some video ...

My point about atmosphere wasn''t a ''home and away thing at all. Its obvious away games should be 10 times better than home games for atmosphere. My point (and quite a few norwich fans agreed with me in the pub) is that it seems the more ££ people pay for their seat, the more they seem to feel the need to milk the full value of that seat ... its almost a psychological thing ...

The "You" isn''t personal .. just trying to type quickly .. no time to sub-edit sorry ... save that for the fanzine website articles ...

None of us can say for sure about the jumping of ship of warburton .. however, he''s currently happy where he is ... you never know if the owner did a deal with him to give him future shares .. or move up to a different creative role or whatever in the future .. on the flip side, the club''s mentality is .. if someone leaves .. we''ll just replace him .. so we''ll be ready ...

The vultures are hovering already. Pritchard will be gone in the summer. We got this young kid from Rangers to take his place already. Lewis McCleod. Their best player apparently. Paid £1m for him. But not really looking to play him till next season. There were 10 scouts at Huddersfield recently ... Odubajo has caught many teams eye ... Jota is being sniffed .. yes of course we know ... do we become a selling club? ... the owner has stated he will sell if it is the right thing to do .. we have to trust him and his team to do the business .. they''ve done well so far ... and he''s invested shed loads in the academy ...

Its a Cat 2 academy ... and we won the prestigious Milk Cup a couple of years ago .. beating Liverpool and Everton on the way .. five years ago the academy were nowhere ... the chairman has said in 4 or 5 years time, he would like half our first team to be coming out the academy .. thats the long term plan ...

We are nervous about the move .. not so much about trying to fill it with 8000 more people ,,, more about filling it with the RIGHT type of people .. teams like fulham just filled their stadium to get bums on seats ... no vibe .. no atmosphere .. and little loyalty as they pull in ''football tourists'' as they are called ... clubs have to work harder to bring new fans in and grow them into the new breed of supporters that retain the values and passion that the club always had ... if you grow from 5000 to 12000 in two years, there is always a danger of losing what was your unique selling point .. unless the club works hard with the fans to retain certain values .. .

One positive thing is .. with our new stadium, we''re trying to become a flagship for safe standing .. as that is our unique selling point .. standing helps atmosphere .. and if we can somehow keep standing, we will be steps ahead of other clubs .. but there are some major hurdles to go thru .. including law changes ... but (like cheap tickets) there are some positive signs that things are moving forward positively (lobbying does work) ....

The CEO has to balance between running a business .. and keeping the fans happy .. some CEOs don''t care too much about the fans .. others do .. we''re lucky that our CEO used to bunk off school to watch Brentford ... he''s not abramovic .. but he''s a very clever .. very passionate .. very nu skool owner ..

So yes guys .. you are correct on a number of points .. and the view isn''t rosy beyond belief ... i know the pitfalls .. however, i also believe that football can change .. there have been signs ... and fans, like i germany, can actually have more say in the way the game is run if they don''t just accept everything as ''thats the way it is'' .. gotta take a leaf out of Liverpool fans Spirit of Shankley ... they''re hard core .. and have caused waves .. and fair play to them, they are being listened to ..

i think the Premier League got nervous when they took their ticket demonstration to the sponsors .. their theory ... if the fans arent happy and the sponsors know the fans arent happy, they''ll then talk to the authorities and the clubs to say ''the people we are trying to reach arent happy'' ... so they went to lobby outside barclays bank offices ... and other sponsors

surprise surprise, last Friday they were sitting in a meeting with Scudamore at the premier league last friday discussing lowering ticket prices ...

We''re very nervous of going to the prem .. we know all the negative points ... certain things are out of our hands ... we can only do certain things as fans ...

But for the moment we''re just enjoying ourselves ...

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Enjoy yourself bee, the unpredictability of this division is what makes it special! If we can''t breach the runners at the top, do us a favour and take second from Ipswich please. Don''t be nervous, a year in the prem will be plenty of £ in the coffers. You''re run sensibly enough to not over exert the financial circumstances.As said before, I''m another one who think that our casual ticket prices are horrendous, and that they need addressing. However, aslong as the home and away tickets sell, then our board will keep pricing them the way they are. My season ticket works out around £21ish a game, so it''s not too bad for me, but I have mates who come and go when they''re back in the area and get absolutely stung on the pricing.Good luck with your quest for safe standing, keep at it and you''ll eventually get somewhere. No complaints about Saturday, play like that and you''ll pick up points at a canter.Good Luck....Ps, can we have Jota?

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Not being funny mate, but get lost. I hate all these being nice to rival fans. We''re direct rivals. I''ve reactivated my account to say this.What gives you the right to come on here and critique our club? It''s not wanted nor appreciated. I don''t know if it''s to gloat, but you should know that this purple patch your lot are experiencing won''t last forever, we''re a prime example of that. You''d do well to show a little humility. Now, if you don''t mind.

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I''m not trying to insult you or Brentford, but your romantic views comes across as extremely naive, and one which I can understand probably permeates across lower league clubs.  Which in all honesty is what Brentford are.  In fact it could be said that your opinions are quite insulting to Norwich fans who travel the length and breadth of the country to places which are extremely hard to get to from Norfolk, even London isn''t close.Yes we pay more to watch our team, but we also have a stadium which is more than double the size of yours, we have also recently had 3 seasons in the PL.  When was the last time you were in the top division, just after the war wasn''t it?  Yes we have fans who are a bit quiet nowadays, but we''re off the back of two seasons of dire football trying to survive in the ''greatest league in the world'', whereas you are riding the crest of a wave.  Do you think Carrow Road sounded like this under Lambert?  You should know it didn''t, as I imagine you came along in L1.All in all, enjoy where you are, but it''s a but and a big but, if you end up in the PL, you might realise how things can change extremely quickly.

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Norwich City, it''s CEO and it''s players has for a long time now treated it''s supporters with a lack of respect, an indifference and above all taken them for granted.

A more loyal fan base you couldn''t fleece. A more trusting group you couldn''t manipulate. A more gullible bunch you couldn''t misinform.

From racking up prices, to tweeting against to scouring Europe for we have seen it all in recent times and while Norfolk folk are hard to turn their disaffection is showing and growing.

Top down, the arrogance needs to be addressed.

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[quote user="Nicko"]Not being funny mate, but get lost. I hate all these being nice to rival fans. We''re direct rivals. I''ve reactivated my account to say this.What gives you the right to come on here and critique our club? It''s not wanted nor appreciated. I don''t know if it''s to gloat, but you should know that this purple patch your lot are experiencing won''t last forever, we''re a prime example of that. You''d do well to show a little humility. Now, if you don''t mind.[/quote]

No idea how old you are Nicko. You may or may not remember the days when it was usually only safe to wear colours at away matches in escorted groups and even then there were many ambushes in the coach park or to or from railway stations. Delightful....

Fast forward to last Saturday in the '' Coach & Horses '' : fans of both clubs having a good banter over lots of beer before and after the match and not a hint of trouble. What great sessions they were and it''s a shame the Norwich players couldn''t keep it going in the 90 minutes in-between.

Brentford are now in a similar position that Norwich and Southampton were in a few years ago. Why not enjoy it ? The Bees fans aren''t that daft that they don''t know it won''t last forever.

Perhaps some of us City fans and players need to have a little humility. Some seem to think we''re '' Billy Big B*llocks '' and will cakewalk to promotion. It doesn''t work like that, this is a tough old League.

Why shouldn''t Brentford fans post on here ? It''s an open forum so anyone can post anything within certain boundaries. They''ll get abuse from some on some points but the thread about our stupidly high casual ticket prices was spot on.

I wonder if you''d have said the same had we won...

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