I think that Rick Parry’s position will be under threat now. He’ll be seen as being a stooge of Liverpool & Man Ure, quite rightly in my opinion. Especially so if you consider what has also been widely reported.
From yesterdays Guardian newspaper:
“While Parry would have us applaud the largesse of certain American businessmen, it seems he is not so keen on that of others. In what seemed like a particularly riveting episode of Dragon’s Den, reports have emerged alleging that the EFL chairman turned down a £375m offer from an American investment firm for a 20% stake in the league last Friday. What’s more, the Times claims he rejected the offer without consulting all member clubs, in much the same way as he has been cheerleading for Operation Big Picture without asking for the thoughts of all those whose interests he is tasked with serving.”
Tut, tut!
All my 3 lads (men) are Walsall fans,all of them post on UTS, but I wouldn’t dream of holding it against any of them if they were a Wolves or villa fan, that’s there choice.
All three of my nephews used to come with me to watch the saddlers, their dad was a villa fan, he didn’t go to matches because he just couldn’t afford it with a low paid job and 5 kids.
So i was the only one that went to see live football, so they became Walsall fans.
We bought them kits, season tickets the lot, then their dad started going to villa games because he got a better paid job, and 2 of the lads went with him, that was it, they became hooked, i won’t lie i was extremely annoyed, i still am after spending thousands on them over the years.
My one nephew is still a fan, but saturday football commitments of his own take president now.
But i think that is the reason i detest villa now.
Rick Parry… original Premier League CEO and former Liverpool FC CEO?? That Rick Parry? 
just seen on sky sports news thay said that efl clubs have been given 27 millon pounds since covid started i wounder how much we had ?
My son is a Geordie, Newcastle season ticket holder, he loves watching Walsall. Last season he chose to go to Carlisle away to watch us rather than watch Newcastle at home in the FA cup the same day and the choice was entirely his, he’s old enough. The people you see wearing tops and exclusively watching Sky arn’t actually football fans, but this is the way we are being pushed with the “pLandemic”. We (me and him) personally cling to watching live football, are currently back following Whitley Bay home and away because that’s all there is. Not every follower of a Premiership team is some placka unaware consumer. I know loads of Toon fans that are grounded, “proper fans” I also know from my upbringing loads of Albion, Wolves, and Villa that are exaclty the same, no different to us in 99.9% of their football DNA.
The fact that we don’t seem to want to connect to me is why the fat cats win, and laugh while they’re winning. Newcastle/Liverpool/Everton fans from some social club sitting on a clapped out bus on the way home from Southampton on a Monday night (re-arranged by Sky) are regarded by us as elite, when in fact they are one and the same.
I would probably be the same. My Dad was harsh. When I was at primary school one of my mates gave me an Albion pin badge. Left it in my school trousers and forgot about it.
My Dad found it chucked it in the bin and grounded me for a week. Not a lie that, I thought it was harsh at the time but understand the lesson now 
God knows what he would have done if it was a Villa badge. I had no chance really did I? I only ever wanted to follow my Dad whatever he did so he had nothing to worry about.
Exactly!
Good post.
My lad (16) had a mild flirtation with Liverpool but it didn’t last. I actually tried to persuade him to stick with them but he’s very much committed to us lot, the poor little sod.
But like me and my dad, football is what the two of us do. Walsall, Marine and him playing. So we mix with a lot of scouse football folk. And no surprise, they are exactly the same as us.
Whilst the temptation is to think that following Liverpool is “easy” for those who actively go to watch them it is anything but. 3 o’clock on a Saturday? Absolutely fine to have other arrangements as that will almost certainly not clash with a Liverpool game.
And then there is the problem of coming from a very parochial and tight knit community whilst supporting a global brand. Most scousers are troubled by folk from Bootle, Huyton and Toxteth being priced out of watching their club whilst playing host to thousands of affluent Norwegians, Irish, Danes and Japanese every two weeks. Good for the local economy but when people think “support your local team” is the preserve of lower league purists a lot of scousers are in absolute agreement. I’d say there is an uneasy tolerance of fans with zero connection to the area.
The upshot of having around a hundred thousand people wanting to attend every game from all over the world is that you’re goosed if you say don’t renew your season ticket for a year. The only way to guarantee being able to see your team whenever you choose is to stay in the top 3,000 points people. Always renew a season ticket and keep going to every away game. Every away game. Get your arse all over Europe and do that Monday night trek to Crystal Palace. If I wanted to follow Liverpool in the same way I follow Walsall it would probably cost me £15,000 and all of my holiday entitlement. Which is actually quite ■■■■.
Its funny you say that, my story is entirely the opposite.
I started watching football in about 1972 by going down the local rec in Bolton where I was born and watching Sunday League. Nobody was interested in me doing it because apart from my eldest brother who was on a bad day, a lunatic and ocasional football hooligan, I just did my own thing. Then came the day when my dad wanted a new colour tv and had to convince my mam (tight as a gnats chuff North Wales) to buy one on the basis that 74 was a world cup year and we needed a colour tele. So we got one, and of course England didn’t qualify. Come final day I was watching on my own as Holland went 1-0 up against West Germany mesmerised by the move that lead to the goal. I was at that moment completely taken with football. In the kitchen and within my earshot I heard my mam say to my eldest brother “what the hells he watching in there?” And my brother replied “he’s watching the football, he loves it”. Next season my brother took me to watch some Bolton games, and a year later (mid 70’s) we moved to Walsall and my dad again appeared on the football scene, using the football factor to appease the fact that I was leaving all my mates…including Ronnie Irani, and my bessie mates sister and future Miss England Beverley Isherwood who were both in “our gang”…behind. I personally fell in love with Fellows Park the first time I attended, and my brother and my dad became an unlikely trio united once a week home and away inspite of otherwise often disparate lives…it was the making of us through the ups and downs of the 70’s and 80’s and those cup runs, memories that mean the world. Both my dad and eldest bro are dead, my brother went to maybe 10 games at Bescot, my dad went to 1.
I always took an interest in what my Dad was doing from an early age, probably cos my Mom spent most of her time moaning at me and our kid. My Grandad actually took me to my first game (my Moms Dad!) I can’t even remember who it was against, I know we won 3-0. Wasn’t long before my Dad was taking me home and away though. I didn’t really get the football much I was probably 5 at the time, but I just loved being part of it with my Dad and his mates. All the kids at my school supported Villa, I say supported, they spent their Saturday afternoons kicking a ball around Pelsall Common. My Brother for some reason never took to it.
My Dad has been gone 13 years now, but to this day I still think it is that connection that keeps me going. It’s never been the same without him. I reckon I would have been a bit of a loaner if it hadn’t been for following Walsall. Most of my mates are people I have met through Walsall. I’ve lived in quite a few places outside Walsall and never really made friends.
And i have just been text by one of those nephews that the saddlers have got the longest unbeaten run in the uk, and the 6th highest in Europe 
he still has us in his blood
Great story with a genuine laugh at “tight as a gnat’s chuff” phrase😀
My first game was at home to Newcastle - we lost 6-0 though my dad took me out at 4-0. The next game was at home to Stoke with Stanley Matthews, then 50 playing, for some reason on the left wing up against Frank Gregg. 0-0 and from then on, I was hooked.
In all these discussions about EFL/PL reform, no one seems to ask why we watch and why we get hooked. For me, once I was old enough to go alone, it was seeing my mates, seeing the same players, enjoying the spectacle, always biased and always with the hope of some success, whether it was promotion or a cup run. Football, particularly at this level, is not a business, it is a cultural activity that binds friends and family and allows us to sound off and be passionate about something.
If 5000 people go to a match, it is a big event, far more than go to the theatre or cinema or the opera or the ballet. That is why we need the whole infrastructure of football. If Walsall FC disappeared, not only would it deprive us of our weekly fix but it would also rob us of all these memories and a chunk of our lives.
Premier league have offered £50m to league one and two. Will that be equal shares of a million each I wonder.
The League of Greed™ has only offered £20m to Leagues One & Two. More is available, but only as a loan. Their generosity knows no bounds…
In an update to this story, the Telegraph, this afternoon, are running an exclusive saying that the FA Chief Gregg Clarke is up to his ears in this, floating the idea of Prem League 2, Prem B teams in the EFL AND folding Leagues One and Two into the three top non-league competitions. It would be an end to football as we know it. Here’s a few lines of the Telegraph’s story;
Football Association chairman Greg Clarke has been accused of floating the formation of a ‘Premier League 2’ and introducing B-teams into the Football League in secret talks with leading clubs.
The Daily Telegraph has seen a copy of a discussion paper apparently part-produced by Clarke ahead of a meeting in February with Liverpool, Manchester United and Bruce Buck, the Chelsea chairman. The proposals emerging from these talks also appear to include a plan to completely overhaul the EFL to combine Leagues One and Two with the three top non-league competitions.
In an explosive new twist to the story that has rocked English football, Rick Parry, the English Football League chairman, is understood to have shared the early draft of Project Big Picture with EFL club executives suggesting it was Clarke that had instigated the controversial proposals.
Great news. Gary Neville is behind a plan to revolutionise the English game. What can possibly go wrong?
Includes a line in his statement “discuss and evaluate potential improvements to the structure of English football that would have a positive long-term effect at every level of the game”