Wombat said:
Well said Mr Hill. The sooner someone puts that jumped up nobody, Foster, in his place the better.
What right does a second rate Footballer who achieved very little in his own career have to try and dictate to the Australian Footballing community. His views are boring, inane and whimsical.
Foster.....Why don't you f**k off to Holland or Brazil were you can drone on about how wonderful both countries are.
Before I wade into a tirade about Foster, I would like to balance up the debate on a few things about him.
1. Despite Wombat's assertion that he is a jumped up nobody, I would respectfully state that he has done far more than most Footballers in this country. I mean all sorts of Footballers too, not just the professionals. Foster HAS played for his country and he did have a professional career. If he deigns to go public about his views we should at least respect that he has played at the top that this country has to offer, whether we like what he says or not.
2. He is NOT a jumped up nobody because he is on national TV every Sunday expressing these views of his. He IS somebody purely because of that. While he is on air people listen and his arguments can be jammed down peoples' throats week after week. Very dangerous if his view is a negative one.
All that prefaced, I would like to see what qualifications Mr. Foster has to qualify him to express those views.
I would doubt he has bothered to attend the recent coaching seminars for the top coaching qualifications and I'd also doubt he'd even possess a ref's ticket to ref the juniors!
Not that you have to hold qualifications to express views about a game you have played or love with a studious passion.
I know I have none to speak of, but people here, have, at times, agreed with my views about the Mariners and the state of play. Same too with FFC Mariner, Marinermick, Dibo and many others. Do these other forumites hold qualifications in Football? I doubt they hold anything of great significance. But we have views and hopes for the future of the game in Australia.
But SBS won't put our views forward. They won't, for example, contact Marinermick (even though he is accredited media) to come into the studio on Sunday and debate some of the issues raised by Foster, and even if they did, there'd be some sort of studio ambush by Foster, who would know how to work the camera that much better than Marinermick (no disrespect intended). BUT Foster probably holds no further qualification to speak out about the game as Marinermick, or me, FFC Mariner or Dibo.
Shit, there's people like Fish, Dru and others who have spent thousands in lost time at work and travel expenditure following Football, and here's a jerk like Foster saying, 'What you are following is crap. We need techncially better players and it should happen now.' These followers of Football deserve better respect from an Old Boy like Foster, and they are arguably better qualified to pass judgement on what they see, and whether it is a good product.
Well, "HELLO!", I'd love to see the likes of Harry Kewell and Tim Cahill playing in our A-League with others of similar technical brilliance, but that sort of player roster is years away, if at all.
The best players will always go to the strongest market. Same applies for business people and all other aspects of life. Get used to it.
So for now, the question is: Do I support the local national premier league and accept it for what it is, or, do I
not pay some money for a season ticket,
not pay for merchandise,
not attend matches and bag the content as inferior.
If I chose the latter, and there would a number of folks like that out there already, then I am not supporting the FFA's vision for the future and I am not in any entitled to bag the end result of a failed comp. and sport if that should happen.
How to improve the technical abilities is a problem that cannot simply be resolved overnight because Craig Foster wants to see it happen before he retires or is replaced, on SBS.
I have noticed however, that since the A-League has started there is a growing competency amongst the younger boys playing and the FFA has revised the coaching qualifications so that these boys and girls get the best qualified coaches first.
There has been an improvement in the A-League from day 1. It is an improving league and players get left behind each season. Look at what has happened to our player roster recently for proof of that.
Great work by Hill to support the A-League, but then again, the comp. does give him a job.
Maybe too, he was sick and tired of having folks that he knew saying that the A-League was shit and Fozzie said this and Fozzie said that, when he saw some points raised by Foster as either wrong or misguided, maybe even politically motivated too, and had actually been at games to see for himself what was happening.
;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D
