England lose, Alty lose, Thornley gets his head stuck in an empty baked bean can and now we are being invaded by Cybermen & Daleks!

Right.

the bunting can come down, the flags on cars and hanging out of windows can stop and football can once again be watched\followed and talked about by people who actually know something about it.

Altrincham FC are in the Conference National and thats ALL that matters so lets get back to whats important now.

Watching England was about as enthralling as listening to a lecture on the Conference rulebook by Colin Peake.

An incompetent and grossly overpaid 'manager' whose tactics and squad selection were bewildering.
Overhyped players who are merely average when it comes to the world stage.
A captain who is picked purely on reputation rather than performance.

In my view, this has been the most uninteresting World Cup in living memory.

Some of the outrageous playacting would even be disowned by Runcorn's Barry Jones.

completely agree with the team selection lunacy, eg, Jenas and Theo instead of Bent and Defoe, etc.

But, think folk can get a bit carried away with the whole "us and them" "real football" attitude. The cup in my humble opinion has been quite fun actually. Yorke was entertaining as a holding player, Steve Bruce kicked himself no doubt; South Korea's short lived lead against Brazil was splendid, Zidane's career ending magic touches were amazing. Ronaldo's paunch but knack of getting goals has been intriguing. Cote D'Ivoire's attempt to get out of the group of death was daring. Manturi's high energy performance for Ghana against Argentina (?) was wonderful to watch, Wanchope's two opening goals were unexpected, Robben's pace for Holland was exciting, Switzerland's ability to frustrate far superior opposition was actually quite entertaining too.

So to take the "professional football is run by money grabbing swine's, besides the only people who care aren't real supporters anyway, and as for those stupid car flags..." approach is pretty mundane.

Sure, pro football has its faults, divers, money grabbers etc, and we'd probably all agree about that but being so off the world cup for no real reason seems a bit childish. Like being the only kid in the class at school who thought Bananaman was rubbish just because you wanted to appear different.

I think yet again my arguement of England not having as many 'World class' players as people seem to think (maybe 2 at a push) and that the Premiership is not as strong as everyone thinks is proved right.

Fans can blame the manager all they want but the fact is the players have not performed... Or have they and are infact not as good as everyone thinks they are but I suppose thats not important.

anyway enough of this World Cup talk now and back to Alty, something we can all relate to !

Ps:

You forgot fans with painted faces and full on bands with very annoying drums. Thats not football at all I'm afraid !

Firstly the FA so called upholders of grass roots football who harp on about the so called best league in the world the Premiership (which is overrun by foreigners) and then appoint a Swede as national manager presumably as a joke.

4 years ago we knew Sven was a joke..the FA gave him a 10 year contract...2 years ago again it became clear..the FA couldn't afford to sack him....then this world cup and the Theo selection, baffling formations etc.

Then of course there's the overhyped players arrogant beyond belief like Rooney.....

I think Sven is actually a hypnostist who with roling eyes has convinced us all with convincing displays of "we will get better and we will do well with only one wine rooooney and theo will play a substantial part".

He is a con man who has taken £5m a year as an imposter of a football manager...good riddance
(mind you we aint gonna do much better with mclaren)

the problem is Svemn isn't the con man. The FA are to fault. If someone offers me £20,000 a yera in my job and a richer firm show an interest then my original firm raise my salary, it's their perogative.

Sven's not to blame for the contract he receives. Ok, if he's being greedy then don't offer him the contract. If the FA choose to offer him a billion pounds then unfortunately they offered it to him, he didn't force them with a gun. Greed is a difficult one in football.

One other ebenfit of the world sup is it does inspire interest in football. When I was a kiddie i never watched football, had no local team I could get to and the top flight clubs held little interest. through the world cup i was enthused by footie, then got really interested in footie, that in the end led to Alty, so not all top flight/international competitions only serve themselves.