cheer for accrington!!!

[toe_jam_on_toast]

this wil be the first time in YEARS that we will get back into the football league so cheer for us and not for the others!!!



you have NO idea how serious this is!!!



http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/footbal ... 883416.stm


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[Otters Walk Among Us]

so does this mean Accrington is in Division 2?

I've tried to understand the tables, but some things just confuse me. Is there a champion for the lower divisions and does it mean anything to them, because 2 or 3 clubs move up every year, right? Don't most teams that move up just manage to hang around for a season or two before they are relegated back down? If Accrington one year found themselves with a great young overachieving team, wouldn't the Premier League clubs just take the best players before Accrington could be promoted to the higher leagues and actually compete against the top clubs? Don't all of the clubs compete in some other competition (Champions' League?) where a team like Accrington could get lucky and upset someone like ManU or Arsenal?

So many questions, sorry.

And just where the heck is Accrington, anyway? Most towns here in Massachusetts (actually all of New England) are named after English towns, but I guess no one from Accrington came over here.

[toe_jam_on_toast]

you confused me...


i'll answer tomorrow though!!


and the reason why there's no accrington in the USA is because accrington's so great we kept it ourselves!!!



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[plagiarism]

Otters: I don't know where Accrington is or who Stanley is, so I'll leave those questions to TJOT.

Let's use baseball as an analogy. It's by no means a perfect analogy, but it's the closest thing we have in US sports.

Accrington is in the Nationwide Conference. Think rookie leagues in baseball. The players get paid next to nothing, and I think most players have other jobs or some other means of support. If the team is good enough to earn a promotion, they go to League 2 (A ball). Next up is League 1 (AA ball), then League Championship (AAA). The big time is obviously the Premiership (MLB).

Where the analogy really fails is that the MLB teams provide all the players and a lot of support to the minor league teams. In soccer, AFAIK, every team is on its own financially. If a team develops a promising player, they have to decide whether it's worth more to them to sell the player to a bigger team or sign him to a higher contract. Soccer players have free agency rights similar to those in MLB. Oh, and the biggest clubs have extensive youth programs.

It takes more money to play in each higher level, so yes, so teams often bounce between levels. Teams have gone bankrupt, such as Wimbledon did recently. They were a charter member of the Premier League, but were demoted a few years back. Overall, it's been downhill since then. They went bankrupt, went to down to Conferernce play, changed their name to Milton Keynes, got up to League 1, but are about to be relegated to League 2 again. Sheffield Wednesday and Nottingham Forest have gone from the Premiership down to at least League 1. It's a tough world.

The minnows can make headway upstream, though. Luton Town went from League 2 in 2003/2004 to League 1 in 2004/2005, to Championship this year. They're not in any danger of being relegated back down to League 1 this year.

England has the FA cup, where the minnows sometimes get a shot to play the big fish. The winner of the FA cup gets to go to the Champions League, where the best teams in all of Europe compete against each other. There's other cups as well, such as the Carling Cup. The biggest teams don't take that competition very seriously.

I hope I've answered some of your questions.

[plagiarism]

One more unrelated thing. Next year, root for Reading in the Premiership. Two Americans, Bobby Convey (midfielder), and Marcus Hahnemann (goalie), helped lead the team to promotion to the Premiership.

Go Accy!

[toe_jam_on_toast]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/footbal ... 842206.stm


i've served the guy in the pic loads!! hes a nice guy!!


goooooo accy!!!





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[Otters Walk Among Us]

Thanks for the answers, Plagiarism. It makes a bit of sense now.

I think it would be cool to have something like that for pro basketball, where a team's fortunes can change dramatically with the addition of one or two players. Make the NBA 24 teams, send the consistenty crappy teams like the Raptors, Clippers, and Hawks to a new Second Division with teams in other larger cities without NBA teams (Las Vegas, San Diego, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, etc) and force them to actually be good in order to come back. Create a 3rd division in mid-level cities (Albuquerque, etc.) and see what happens. The Knicks would probably be at the bottom of the 3rd Divison with Evansville, IN in 3 years!

[toe_jam_on_toast]

otters!!!


thats all basketbally!!


im just worried that we wont make it to the league and if we actually DO then it will be for the first time in 50 years!!!


or so abouts...





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[Otters Walk Among Us]

An old boss was from England, so I was "forced" to become a fan of Rotherham (his hometown) and Manchester City (his family's long time favorite). I thought it hilarious that on the rare occasions when a pub in New York would show an early morning Man City match, he'd show up to work in the late morning drunk. We were in artist management, so you could do that sort of thing.

I just looked on a map and found that Accrington is right next to Oswaldtwistle. Great name.

[toe_jam_on_toast]

i know!!!


ossie is technically my home town! accy is the next town to it!




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[coop41]

What the heck!!! I go on vacation for a few days and miss the Soccer thread!!![:(!]


Never being able to see accy, I'll root for them anyway!!!
EPL is all we get to see on TV here (of English Soccer) but I'm a huge fan!!



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[toe_jam_on_toast]

ok so now we need to win the next match apparently...

still root for us though! we're the scrappy underdog!

http://www.accringtonstanley.co.uk/inde ... _a2006.txt

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[plagiarism]

Congrats on your victory. [8D][:)]

I don't know the pain and joy of promotion and relegation, but here's to a successful 2006/2007 season. I hope you don't get sent right back down.