I took my American (L.A. - Jewish) wife to Inverness in July. She froze while the locals were walking about in shorts. She was underwhelmed because except for the odd ski shop it looked just like England. Stamford, Chester, Warwick, Stratford Upon Avon are all pretty nice.
European countries have a history of cities fighting each other for dominance and that has in a way engrained into the mindset of people the other place is the "enemy", though not in the way of ancient times. When I was very young I had a girlfriend from a little village northwest of Rotterdam. On a saturday evening the guys from two villagese there would gather on the dike separating those villages to have a brawl over the girls.
After a four day loop through the Highlands and the Isle of Skye, I was a little tired of traditional Scottish food (which I typically enjoy, but not for days in a row), I appreciated the pretty good Italian restaurant on the bank of the River Ness. Maybe that’s why the town stood out for me. The people were nice, though we found that to be true everywhere in Scotland.
Stratford Upon Avon is over full of American, Chinese and Japanese tourists. Ditto Oxford and Cambridge etc. I took an American friend of mine hiking in the Yorkshire Dales. She loved it not just because the hiking was great but because there were no American tourists. Similarly, the first time I took my (American) wife to England, I think Saltaire in Yorkshire was her favourite place - somewhere that isn't exactly top of foreign tourists' lists.
Felt the same way about Bath. We did a tour to Stonehenge and Bath and while we loved finally seeing Stonehenge, Bath was just kind of "meh". Very touristy. Chester was a much better day out in a "Roman" town.
One major difference is that, in most European countries, a 20-team first division easily has room for two or more teams in every large metro area in the country, plus teams in smaller cities. Manchester may be much smaller than London, but it is also split between fewer clubs. I'm not convinced the home market for Manchester United is any smaller than the home markets for most of the other big European clubs, even if they are in larger cities.
The Manchester metro area has City, United, Bolton, Oldham, Wigan (all of which were in the EPL), Bury, Stockport and now Salford. Bolton Wanderers were a giant before the Manchester clubs took off but that ended in the 60s and they've been yoyoing around since. The other local clubs have far humbler histories.
In the closed shop arrangement ManUnited and ManCity would never be able to rise beyond Bolton Wanderers. They owe it to P/R that they are what they are. In an interview former NY Yankees baseballer and current Robert Eenhhorn AZ Alkmaar boss talks about the failure of the ESL. https://www.ad.nl/europees-voetbal/...pieren-dat-was-de-grootste-denkfout~a1df375b/ if interested use google translate Football here is built on supporter loyalty, on identity. Robert Eenhoorn
Well that's not true. There was room for 3 clubs in what is now Greater Manchester, confirmed by their attendances. In 1919/20 for instance United averaged 26,540, City 25,160 and Bolton 23,300. The TV contract sucked. New York City had 3 baseball teams for almost 60 years.
Manchester United, who was part of Division 1 the year they were merged into the Football League in 1892 and has spent all but one year since WWII in the top division owes their current level to P/R? And Manchester City, who's spent far more seasons in the top-flight than any other division? Please. While there are certainly teams you can make that claim about, the big two Manchester teams are not the examples to be using. You seem to not understand that this information is literally at everyone's fingertips and your claims can be fact checked at any time. Your arguments would go a lot further if you did the work before posting.
And Manchester City isn’t where it is due to “sporting merit.” It’s owned by one of the richest soccer companies in the sport. Using the two big Manchester teams as an argument for the beauty and purity of pro/rel is just weird.
It depends when a hypothetical closed league cut was made. If it had been in the '50's, I can see an argument that Man Utd and Bolton would have ended up in the league, with the whole of inner-city Manchester being United's "territorial rights". From the '60's onwards, that clearly wouldn't have been the case. But thankfully that kind of nonsense doesn't exist in a pro/rel pyramid, so it's all moot.
And all 3 teams played in a closed league for nearly a century, which denied a place to another Manchester team located about 10 minutes from the Etihad.
Did you mean City wouldn't have made the league if the cut was in the 60's? Because I don't see how United ever misses the cut.
Dubious to call a four division pro/rel league a closed league, but nevertheless I agree that Altrincham got screwed. Ironically, it did save another Manchester team. And maybe it's karma that Grimsby have now been relegated out of the Football League twice given their inability to vote.
The Football League was closed. The only way to enter it was to be elected. The 3 divisions that operated until 1958 were created to absorb teams poached from the Alliance League, the Southern League and Northern League. Ashton United are denied a place in 1899 and immediately folded. 3 years later Man United Newton Heath nearly went bankrupt for the sake of £500. Fun fact, their players included Herbert Chapman, who led Huddersfield and Arsenal to the Football League six times, and Arthur Wharton, the first black English professional.
To be more competitive, they need more money to hire better players. No real magic about it. Presumably, a super league would provide more revenues and make MLS teams more competitive. I can’t see MLS owners signing up for a super league that doesn’t have a structure that encourages competition.
Do we really imagine a scenario where every MLS team spends the kind of money to stay competitive? Or will there be about 6 or so?