Notts County v Swindon Town Official Matchday Thread

[Reg Smeeton]

They were taken over by fraudsters. It's the conmen who took them over who should be punished, not the club (i.e. players, fans and staff) who had no part in the cheating. And yes I know that's what happened to Luton, but doing the wrong thing twice makes things worse, not better

Which is why I said I've a problem with Notts....broadly speaking I agree that penalties should be applied to individuals rather than clubs, but once the precedent is set, then failure to apply available sanctions fails the natural justice test....I suspect we'll see all sorts of legal shit if Sunderland manage to stay up by 1 point.

Notts escaped, but because of that shit, I'd rather see them go down, rather than say Crewe.

[kerry red]

You must know how the Sunderland scenario will pan out. They WILL survive by 1 point

[Reg Smeeton]

You must know how the Sunderland scenario will pan out. They WILL survive by 1 point

It can be the only reason why they picked up 4 points o the road at Man City and Chelsea, after Poyet had publicly slagged the players off and Connor Wickham suddenly becomes a late candidate for the WC squad....there being little competition.

[jayohaitchenn]

Sunderlan didn't cheat for fucks sake. They fielded their own player, it was a paperwork issue. Get off your high fucking horses.

[Tails]

Alright chaps Notts fan here.

Just a couple of points.

The reason you lost was simply the fact you barely tested our keeper. You must have had 70% of your possession in our half but barely put in a cross of note or moved into a position to shoot with any reasonable precision. We have shipped goals quicker than Fed Ex when put under pressure. You simply didn't have the killer ball to do that yesterday. And we mostly didn't give you the time on the ball to do so.

The pitch wasn't bad, certainly its been worse. Have you been to Crawley or Tranmere this season? Be fair, you'd probably not have commented before it was brought up as a pre-excuse by Mr Cooper. Your manager even dismissed it in his post match interview as being an issue.

As to the ref, he was a bit of a pillock without doubt, pretty poor for both sides. But you can't honestly defend what TAH did can you? Really? I was pretty close to the incident, it was a punch, it connected, it wasn't a push, slap or the usual handbags and raised arms that players fall over from, it was a punch. It has no place on a football field. A deserved red card, not a chance you'll appeal it.

A tense nervy game largely lacking in quality which epitomised the desperation of both teams to achieve the win. Sounds like you've had a decent season despite distractions off the pitch. Be happy about that, we just needed it more than you on the day. It happens.

8 games ago we were 7 points adrift at the bottom, it takes a certain level of determination against all odds to turn that around how we have (winning 6 of those , but we have, you have just met us whilst we embodied that determination, despite our definite lack of the quality of a top six team.

Hopefully we'll do enough in the final game to play you next season. If not, that's football, I won't be blaming our pitch or a referee's performance, over a season you end up where you deserve to be.

Oh and thanks for booing Sheehan, he hadn't had a shot let alone scored a single goal in open play this season before you started booing him.

COYP!

Something obviously irritated you here but let's clear a few things up.

1) we know we were shit and you wanted it more, no one disputes that. You are a shit team fighting relegation and we are slightly less shit team who basically had nothing to play for. Plus we are dogshit away from home bar a slight upturn recently.

2) Your pitch is bad. It's awful. Others are worse but that doesn't mean yours isn't shit. Which it is. It's probably not why we lost, but it didn't help us.

3) Ex players scoring against us is common ground. That doesn't mean Sheehan is any less of a cunt.

4) In true Arsene Wenger style, I didn't see the Troy incident, just the replay where the guy is on the floor and Troy walks away. So it probably was a red, but the random booking of players was a joke. I don't think anyone on here has given that as the reason we lost.

5) You will stay up, almost certainly. And I'd rather you stayed up than Tranmere or Carlisle. You'll end up as one of the most southern teams in the league the way things are going! Although having said that, given your "we wont whine about referees" comment, it would be slightly amusing if a a dodgy decision sent you down... But for your sake, lets hope thats not the case.

[Reg Smeeton]

Sunderlan didn't cheat for fucks sake. They fielded their own player, it was a paperwork issue. Get off your high fucking horses.

You completely miss the point....the FA have a policy for competitions under their jurisdiction,fieldan ineligible player in a cup, get thrown out, field an ineligible player in the league and get a points deduction....happened with the Scum, docked points for fielding their own player Eddie Hutchinson.

[VisitingPie]

You won't get any argument from me about the Munto fiasco.  It was our supporters club chairman who sold us to the fraudsters, saying before a vote that they were the most honourable people he had met and anyway he had a 5 million cast iron guarantee if they didn't produce the goods.  Not only were they not honourable, they were scum of the earth, but they were good.  How do you convince Sven Goran Erikson to come to a club otherwise?  We were in a desperate place and nearly went out of the football league, so obviously our fans grasped at it.

However, there is one great big difference between what happened to Luton, or any other club that were deducted points and that is we didn't go into admin.  The man who took us over paid every single debt that Munto accumulated to the tune of around 8 million.  So every players contract was honoured, no small businesses suffered, getting only 1p in the pound or whatever, hotel bills, flights...yes flights...They actually FLEW a league 2 club down south to play Bournemouth. Taxes were all paid in full.  So no FA rules were broken.  Of course, a lot of those players probably wouldn't have come to us without the lure of 'big money', but strangely they weren't on massive deals apart from sol (apart from Sol.  I can't even type that without laughing).  Players like Ben Davies were on reasonable enough wages, certainly not ones that meant we had to offload them, we kept quite a few of them for next season, and the season after.

I have to acknowledge that it wasn't the high point of our history, and I understand why opposition fans would say we cheated, of course I do.  But we had a transfer embargo which was the punishment for exceeding the wage percentage.  I'm not sure we deserved to have points deducted when our new chairman did the honourable thing.

[Abrahammer]

You completely miss the point....the FA have a policy for competitions under their jurisdiction,fieldan ineligible player in a cup, get thrown out, field an ineligible player in the league and get a points deduction....happened with the Scum, docked points for fielding their own player Eddie Hutchinson.

The FA couldn't deduct league points from Sunderland though, that would be the Premier League's call and they chose to issue a fine instead

[thedor]

That is true but they "technically" cheated as a club so really should be punished as a club IMO, I know two wrongs do not make a right but if it was good enough for Luton it is good enough for them.

The fans welcomed all the new signings and the rise up the league(s) and didn't question it but were totally adamant at the time that they as a club broke no rules despite it being almost blatant to everyone else.

But yes the fans shouldn't be punished for the owners of clubs misdemeanour but this is how all other clubs have been treated, from us in the 1st to 3rd debacle in 90, Luton, Coventry, Rangers etc etc its the club itself that benefits from cheating so should be punished as a club.

Thats certainly how the FA seem to feel whether we as fans like it or not, all clubs SHOULD be treated equally from the Premiership down to the lowest of the lower leagues.

But we know that doesn't happen, as was proved to a certain point by Sunderland fielding the ineligible player recently.

Exactly what rules did we break? We overspent above the wage cap and received the punishment for it.

We paid ALL our debts and did not go into administration or avoid our commitments to any debtor.

Unlike Luton we did not come out of administration without a CVA (minus 10) (nor go into administration minus 10).
Nor did we have 15 misconduct charges leveled against us. (minus 10)

The debts racked up by the previous owners were paid by the current owner. And we were then not under the transfer embargo imposed for exceeding the wage cap. Sound familiar?

Luton were screwed over without question, but under the current rules we did only the same thing you did.... and received the same punishment. Unless you think you should have been dealt with the same as Luton of course?

[kerry red]

The whole wage cap thing is just a mechanism to keep any club, whether already in the PL Or not, who is not one of the elite clubs forever scrabbling around with no chance of competing.

Not even if a multi billionaire bought us, or any other club, could they use their own wealth to raise that club up to the top table.

Platini and the other UEFA plutocrats need taking out and shooting.

[thedor]

Something obviously irritated you here but let's clear a few things up.

Only those sour grapes chap

1) we know we were shit and you wanted it more, no one disputes that. You are a shit team fighting relegation and we are slightly less shit team who basically had nothing to play for. Plus we are dogshit away from home bar a slight upturn recently.

Sounds fair.

2) Your pitch is bad. It's awful. Others are worse but that doesn't mean yours isn't shit. Which it is. It's probably not why we lost, but it didn't help us.

I was with you until "It's probably not why we lost"..... you could have just left that out, but couldn't resist the excuse....

3) Ex players scoring against us is common ground. That doesn't mean Sheehan is any less of a cunt.

Just glad you could help us.

4) In true Arsene Wenger style, I didn't see the Troy incident, just the replay where the guy is on the floor and Troy walks away. So it probably was a red, but the random booking of players was a joke. I don't think anyone on here has given that as the reason we lost.

Even after the video (the fans video), a few on here were suggesting it was ok to punch a player because he was a cunt...... anyone defending that is an idiot. I wouldn't defend on of ours who did so. This was a punch not handbags or raised hands.

5) You will stay up, almost certainly. And I'd rather you stayed up than Tranmere or Carlisle. You'll end up as one of the most southern teams in the league the way things are going! Although having said that, given your "we wont whine about referees" comment, it would be slightly amusing if a a dodgy decision sent you down... But for your sake, lets hope thats not the case.

If we lose (however it occurs) and tranmere and crewe (and carlisle) all win, no matter how it occurs it won;t be the reason we were relegated. If we're relegated, it happened in the first half of this season, its a miracle we've made it to the last game to be honest.

[thedor]

The whole wage cap thing is just a mechanism to keep any club, whether already in the PL Or not, who is not one of the elite clubs forever scrabbling around with no chance of competing.

Not even if a multi billionaire bought us, or any other club, could they use their own wealth to raise that club up to the top table.

Platini and the other UEFA plutocrats need taking out and shooting.

The wage cap isn't Platini. That's FFP.

The League one and two wages caps were voted for and agreed by, the members of the Football league's one and two......

[Tails]

Haven't seen the fans video. I won't justify any player acting like a cock, especially one who could have been crucial to us had we got a result. I think the thing with referees is that they have been consistently shit for us all season, and we get punished for things that others dont seem to (example, sako getting a yellow for spitting and pushing our player, Pritchard sent off 4 days later for just a push). Our disciplinary record is terrible and most are justified but it's still frustrating.

I haven't really detected any sour grapes, I haven't seen any opinions (well ones I respect anyway) that suggest we were hard done by or unlucky, we didn't deserve to win and that has been widely remarked on this forum and in the press. But then again you were looking for them I think. Our fans moaning about the referee is more likely to be a seasons worth of frustration rather than an excuse. The 'probably not why we lost' comment was slightly tongue in cheek, apologies that didn't come accross.

Yes it is quite an achievement. When you came to us you were lucky our shooting boots weren't on because 8-0 wouldn't have flattered us. You were dreadful.

[pauld]

That is true but they "technically" cheated as a club so really should be punished as a club IMO, I know two wrongs do not make a right but if it was good enough for Luton it is good enough for them.

That's just silly. It wasn't "good enough for Luton", it was completely the wrong thing to do to Luton (and indeed Bournemouth at the same time) and so would also be the wrong thing to do to Notts County. I'd hope that the example of the punishment meted out to Luton would stand as an example of monumental idiocy to discourage that from ever being done again, not be used as a precedent. That's the general case.

In this specific case, Notts County, as their fans have pointed out, didn't go into admin, so it would be especially silly to apply the punishment to them.

[Benzel]

Our disciplinary record is terrible and most are justified but it's still frustrating.

Only one club's is worse than ours... Notts County! Although we've picked up only 2 less yellows but have conceded 42 fewer fouls.

That's really bad.