Fergie time? Modern football is STILL rubbish, or is it?

Sir Alex Ferguson's last home game has come and gone, is this really a big deal? You bet it is!

Sir Alex was fulcrum between to eras of football, pre money and post money. When Sir Alex won his Cup winners Cup trophy with Aberdeen, Britain was certainly not great, it was a mess. These were the days when footballers were almost half expected to become taxi drivers after their retirement from the game, not spokesmen for Sainsbury's or Politician (yes, Romario could be a Brazillian President some day!!) The wages of the Aberdeen team were a lot less than player's wages now, well a lot less being the equivalent of riding in a rubber dingy or having a cruise on the QE2.

When Sir Alex clambered over Haidrian's wall to take the reigns off of Big Ron Atkinson (who it seems started his tan in 1986, and has been topping it up ever since!) he wasn't popular, in fact people were shocked he hadn't taken the unpopular reigns of Tottenham. Fergie initially struggled at United, however he brought in new training methods from the continent and being stuck in Manchester with the weather being as wet as an otter's pocket he managed to get sessions going ahead. Manchester United's training ground was transformed and many of 'Fergie's fledglings' played on 3g pitches!

So we all know what happens, he won the lot, more than the Liverpool teams of the 70s and 80's more than the Tottenham teams of the 60's, and more than the Sunderland team of.. well forever!

Fergie was like the Queen (bare with me) The Queen is a primary source from the 40's, she was there during the war, she knew Churchill, Lennon, Thatcher the lot. She can draw on all her experience to deal with young pretenders because she dealt with Hitler! Fergie managed to get one over on Arsene Wenger because when Wenger was fooling around at Grampus 8 FC (Linekar's retirement home in Japan) Fergie was winding up Kevin Keegan to breaking point. When Fergie decided to wind up Rafa Benitez it was all too easy, he'd already made Wenger a nervous wreck at Arsenal, don't even get me started on managing his players.

Fergie always backed his players, ALWAYS!

So the last thing to be said about Fergie is Fergie time. All the jokes were banding about on twitter, the best one was 'Fergie retired back in 2002, since then we've been on Fergie time!' There was also a scouser joke but I will not be repeating it on here!!

It did get me thinking...maybe you are not long from having to hang up your boots, why not give your game 'Fergie time?' Our pitches are full of rubber crumb and aren't built upon on concrete allowing the pitches to ensure your hips, knees and ankles have less stress and impact damage than playing anywhere else (unless you have access to Manchester United's Carrington grounds pitches) We also ensure our referees will give you less hassle than the hair dryer treatment from Sir Alex, but you will be in a safe, competitive environment.

So add some 'Fergie time' on your playing career with Powerleague

Modern Football is Rubbish

There, I’ve said it.

‘Why?’ I hear you say.

Well, football has been around for as long as humans have had feet and stones have been round. Over two thousand years ago the Romans decided to create a game called ‘Harpestrum’ which essentially meant kicking a ball (made out of a vegetarian’s idea of hell) around in while being drunk with thousands of coins being bet on the match. There was no room for your Messi, Ronaldo or Bale here, Neil Ruddock maybe. 

Fast forward to the 19^th century and the Victorians (presumably bored or conquering the known human world and beating the Australians at cricket) decided that kicking a ball of leather around should (like most things in the empire) have rules and regulations. This is why the 1996 (and 1998 annoyingly) number one hit ‘Football’s coming home’ is so accurately named, until it went to France but then Vindalo was the other song which made no sense….Anyway Euro 96’ was the last great party for England, who can forget Gazza Vs Scotland? Seaman’s penalty saves, Stuart Pearce (before the insurance adverts) soon as a certain German player, the oddly named Kuntz scored the penalty to knock England out the semi at Wembley that ended football being great.

Yes we have had a few glimmers of hope, mainly heroic, but hapless teams spearheaded by Emile Heskey, or Andy Carroll, oh there was the odd good night in Rome 97’, Munich 01’ and Manchester 01’ but other than that it’s been a bit rubbish….

At the last tournament vs Italy I believe the most passes in that match were made were by Ashley Cole, after that it was Joe Hart! At one point there was a foul on Andy Carroll and the referee asked the Italians to do the British thing and give the ball back to England, they needn’t have bothered, after Cole and Hart passed it to each other Italy had it back anyway! ‘If only we had, had Paul Scholes playing’ the press kept saying. Yes that would’ve been more fun for two people…Hart passes to Cole, Cole passes to Scholes, Scholes gives it back to Cole, Cole gives it to Hart……A throw in to Italy.

To be fair it’s not their fault, they’re doing the best they can despite all the government cut backs on playing fields, coupled with PE being less important now days as both sides of government think it’s more important to work in a call centre in Glasgow or the North East (despite them sourcing the work to India)

THIS is where we come in.

Powerleague helps, encourages and nurtures potential talent. Many local teams use our 5g pitches to develop the skills, stamina and guts that it takes to win international football tournaments. We have fine coaches looking after kids, superb referees maximising your enjoyment and if you aren’t good enough for Roy Hodgson, do your game justice at one of our leagues.

We prolong amateur footballing careers, nurture future stars and we do your game justice.