Much a muchness

[Billy bodger]

I’ve been Looking on how football has gone since say I was a nipper, mid sixties-early seventies. (Up to now watching live football 60yrs).

So are players of today no more than technically gifted robots that are taught the same thing which ever club they are at and then end up being at the level they finally reach before they stop progressing. Absolutely no individuality??

Look at the teams in League two this year we are second bottom 5 points adrift yet again we matched the second team in the league yesterday (now 26 points ahead of us) and we were the better team in the second half!! I didn’t see no spark of individual brilliance or different tactics same old same old, either the same old same old blank score sheet from Morecambe.

It’s the most animated I have been yesterday with my frustration that we ended up losing, being told to calm down because my head was more red than my Morecambe FC hat. Embarrassed, but passionate!!

I just see the same robotic play from team after team, no individuality, no freedom to go out and play and then I thought is it because they don’t know how to!!

They are picked up by a Club at 5-6-7 yr old and all individuality is drilled out of them, the same goes for managers, all taking the same badge, learning the same thing and cannot think outside of that.

Yes there were tactics back in the day but has all individuality and giving players freedom out on the pitch gone??

So it’s seems I’m an old fuddled old donkey locked in the past and looking back through rose tinted memories and cannot accept the game is better for how it is today from way back then.

I’ll still turn up though

[CityShrimp]

The game has ‘professionalised’ a lot over the last decade or two. Coaches completing badges where they presumably get taught standardised, widely accepted methods (as you suggest), players wearing those heart rate monitors and every team employing ‘analysts’ which all make the game increasingly about data and measuring performance/success based upon a set of standard metrics. And all of this happens right down to clubs in non league.

It’s probably fair to say that the way the game is played has changed over the years.

[Keith]

I would think the ability to 'shine', George Best style had as much to do with fitness as anything else. I'd even go so far as to suggest that Morecambe of 2025 would beat Manchester United of George Best, simply due to fitness.

But, a George Best of today would still be a world-class player, due to his sheer brilliance. Only now, he'd be fitter than back then.

If you look at players at our level who don't look after themselves, who have the skill to play at a higher level, or, left us because they weren't fit enough?

But you have a point, that everyone plays very similarly. But, we're better with Edwards playing, because he offers that 'spark' of creativity and individuality.

[BerlinWaller]

I would think the ability to 'shine', George Best style had as much to do with fitness as anything else. I'd even go so far as to suggest that Morecambe of 2025 would beat Manchester United of George Best, simply due to fitness.

But, a George Best of today would still be a world-class player, due to his sheer brilliance. Only now, he'd be fitter than back then.

If you look at players at our level who don't look after themselves, who have the skill to play at a higher level, or, left us because they weren't fit enough?

But you have a point, that everyone plays very similarly. But, we're better with Edwards playing, because he offers that 'spark' of creativity and individuality.

You what? A team that won the European Cup in 1968 wouldn't be able to beat a team second bottom of league 2 in 2025?

Madness

[Keith]

I would think the ability to 'shine', George Best style had as much to do with fitness as anything else. I'd even go so far as to suggest that Morecambe of 2025 would beat Manchester United of George Best, simply due to fitness.

But, a George Best of today would still be a world-class player, due to his sheer brilliance. Only now, he'd be fitter than back then.

If you look at players at our level who don't look after themselves, who have the skill to play at a higher level, or, left us because they weren't fit enough?

But you have a point, that everyone plays very similarly. But, we're better with Edwards playing, because he offers that 'spark' of creativity and individuality.

You what? A team that won the European Cup in 1968 wouldn't be able to beat a team second bottom of league 2 in 2025?

Madness

Skill wise, no. Speed & stamina, yes.

Perhaps you'd need to go back further than the 1960's to find when athletes began to avoid smoking, but it would have been around that time. I reckon modern athletes playing against a team of smokers, fitness would win.

Are you saying that George Best would be just as good a player if sober and non-smoking as he was drinking & smoking? Madness.

[BerlinWaller]

Would Diego Maradona not get in the team because Callum Jones doesn't smoke?

I'm really struggling with this one Keith, got to be honest with you.

[marky No.1]

I know our pitch isn't the best at the moment but I hate to think how current players would manage in a mud bath, maybe covered in snow and with a medicine ball , they would be rolling around every time they kicked it

[BerlinWaller]

I know our pitch isn't the best at the moment but I hate to think how current players would manage in a mud bath, maybe covered in snow and with a medicine ball , they would be rolling around every time they kicked it

They just wouldn't. Imagine Best playing on bowling greens with defenders not able to touch him.

Yes the players of old might get tired but I reckon they would be 30 nil up at half time and then just be able to see the game out.

[Keith]

Would Diego Maradona not get in the team because Callum Jones doesn't smoke?

I'm really struggling with this one Keith, got to be honest with you.

Okay, perhaps some hyperbole, but the point remains valid.

Do you think the 1968 Man Utd side would be anywhere near Champions League winners, based upon training and lifestyles they led back then? Would they even be top half Championship?

[BerlinWaller]

Would Diego Maradona not get in the team because Callum Jones doesn't smoke?

I'm really struggling with this one Keith, got to be honest with you.

Okay, perhaps some hyperbole, but the point remains valid.

Do you think the 1968 Man Utd side would be anywhere near Champions League winners, based upon training and lifestyles they led back then? Would they even be top half Championship?

Listen to any podcast with players who played in the last 20-30 years, they all talk of a massive drinking culture. It hasn't gone away, maybe not as bad but it will still be there.

The 1968 team playing with a plastic ball, a bowling green pitch and no contact? Put our players in heavy shirts, a casey ball and mud bath pitches and see where they would be.

[CityShrimp]

I would think the ability to 'shine', George Best style had as much to do with fitness as anything else. I'd even go so far as to suggest that Morecambe of 2025 would beat Manchester United of George Best, simply due to fitness.

But, a George Best of today would still be a world-class player, due to his sheer brilliance. Only now, he'd be fitter than back then.

If you look at players at our level who don't look after themselves, who have the skill to play at a higher level, or, left us because they weren't fit enough?

But you have a point, that everyone plays very similarly. But, we're better with Edwards playing, because he offers that 'spark' of creativity and individuality.

You what? A team that won the European Cup in 1968 wouldn't be able to beat a team second bottom of league 2 in 2025?

Madness

I did a double take when I read it too

[Billy bodger]

I think it is reasonable to assume it would be hard for a modern day player to play go back and play in the 1960s just as much as a 1960s player could deal with modern football.

If I was to choose I’d go for a 1960s team though I think they probably wouldn’t end the game with 11 players on the pitch after sending offs. But you could also say a modern day team would probably end up with less players as they would go off injured. No subs remember!!

I don’t think teams were shackled to much be tactics as modern day football is, there was much more freedom on the individual and the team.

My point was that Youngsters and I mean youngsters are drilled and drained, and Clubs are turning out players that are all the same.

It’s a simple game why complicate it, give and receive a pass, don’t play with your eyes on top of the grass, look forward and pass forward and don’t underestimate giving everything you have on the pitch and most importantly score more goals than the opponent.