Anyway here goes.
News broke yesterday of the possibility of a European Super Football League. Firstly this comes as no surprise as it's something that has been brewing for years.
The idea behind this is the six biggest English teams come together with three each from Italy and Spain to make a super 12 team league with fixtures being played midweek. These clubs want to have their cake and eat it too as they expect that, despite being renegades and turning their backs on existing European competitions, they can still continue in domestic leagues. Also the decision as what is one of the six is an arbitrary one and not one decided by results.
To my mind this new league would be the precursor of a permanent European League. And what's behind this move? Well that's simple it is being implemented by people who have no knowledge or interest in football and by total greed.
What we are left with is a very complex situation that puts the future of our national game in jeopardy. It's a case of the rich getting richer at the expense of everyone else at a time when so many clubs are struggling just to make ends meet.
It is well known that some of the Italian and Spanish teams involved in this potential new venture have a deficit larger than the national debt of some countries. All power to German and French teams that have refused to have anything to do with the idea (at the moment anyhow).
The English clubs involved - Manchester United, Manchester City, Tottenham, Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool - are in essence turning their backs on their own fans, the majority of whom are aggressively against this idea.
Players will have no or little say in what happens but there is no doubt that many of them are mercenaries, prepared to go anywhere and play for anyone providing the monetary inducements are good enough. As TV pundit and former player Pat Nevin said - players will gravitate wherever the money is. When the Italian league was the best in the world, all the top players went there, now the English league is the best in the world they all come here.
We will have a cadre of players who simply aren't bothered who they play for as long as the money is good enough.
The new league has obviously been dreamt up by unscrupulous owners who care not a jot to their fans - many of whom struggle financially to pay the price of tickets to follow their favourite clubs.
Ultimately this new idea could destroy the football pyramid and have a devastating effect on grass roots soccer - something I have been actively involved in for over 45 years.
The six British teams are showing a total disregard for their supporters and the history of the game. I could write much more on this subject and might well do so if the idea comes to fruition.
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Yesterday I ran through the slide presentations I have placed on my You Tube channel and really enjoyed seeing my photographs on a large TV screen. If you want to view the You Tube channel just search for Norfolk and Suffolk Photographs.
Lockdown has certainly changed the way I look at subjects. I now look to produce artistic photographs rather than pure records.
That will probably change once we can travel freely around and visit new places. Then I will probably be taking a record of our visits with scenic photographs. At the moment I am looking for difficult angles to photographs of places I have visited many times, looking for something with artistic merit and a different angle.
It's interesting and challenging. For example I have taken literally hundreds of photographs over the years of both Hethersett Parish Church and Wymondham Abbey. Now I am looking for subjects and angles never captured before. In other words I am thinking much more deeply about my subject matter rather than simply pointing the camera and shooting. That means I am learning more about the subjects.
If you look hard enough there's always a different angle. I have promised myself a whole morning in Norwich Cathedral Close searching for new angles and things I may have missed before. In other words I am now looking more closely at my surroundings.
My thoughts on this were crystallised by a post on one of the many Norwich Facebook pages which featured photos of subjects in Elm Hill, Norwich, that I have never seen but which I will be seeking out in the near future.
I hope all that makes sense.