Red meat ban at football ground

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thinking something is also very different from doing something, your argument is different from what is happening, this club has been around for a good long time, many of its supporters will have supported the team most of their lives, going to see their team play at home is almost religious to many of these people, try going into a church and telling the faithful that they can no longer sing hymns on a sunday - these people have had their tradition changed by this arrogant selfish guy because he disagrees with it, now they have a choice go and watch their team but not enjoy the food they have for many years, or not watch their team - I often watch the sunday league play locally, and guess whats on the sidelines..... a burger van, replace that with a tofu stand and I may reconsider the use of my time and money.

some suggestions? we'll compare them against red meat which is actually very healthy as part of a balanced diet.

Fugu? is banned by law in the European union, poor example.

like I said before, a team which is 19 in their rankings should be trying anything to keep their fanbase.

I'm going to go with 'you've never been to the UK', religion quite often veils in the face of business, you supply the consumer what they want, meat and alcohol being 2 of the major things we buy, many of our corner shops are owned by Pakistani and Indian people. Alcohol banned in islam and beef banned by hindu. walk into a pakistani owned off licence, what do you see? a wall covered with various alcohol, they dont impart their beliefs on us by not selling it, why? because they would go out of business. Likewise there is a large indian owned shop which I shop in regularly, alcohol isnt banned in india so they could easily survive without selling meat, but once again, they dont impart their beliefs on us, they sell what we want, they sell - rustlers Burgers, frozen burgers, fresh beef and cooked beef in packets - in the sandwich section Im partial to their beef and onion. Most indian restaurants around here have altered their cuisine to suit the british people, for example, chicken tikka massala is a bastardised dish made to suit british customers, but to further the argument Ive just looked through all of the takeaway menus I have, of the 8 I have only one of them doesnt have 1 beef dish, the others have several.

 

I'd say your estimate is a conservative one. Unless you're willing to sit up in the nosebleed seats in the upper deck.

I've gone to more Baltimore Orioles games in the 10 or so years I've been living in Baltimore than I care to count. You can still get an upper deck seat for an O's game for $8 - which isn't bad, considering you'd pay more than that to go to the movies. But the only reason this is possible is because the O's don't sell out their home games, so they keep the upper deck prices to a minimum, but most people prefer not to sit there.

Decent mid-level seats, depending on where they are located, will cost between $20-$30, and for the nice seats, you're looking at anywhere from $50 all the way to $100 if you sit behind home plate. And then consider that Camden Yards is considered to be one of the lower priced stadiums in the league.

So for average seats, a family of four can easily spend over $100 just for the tickets, before you consider consessions, parking, a program, etc. And I hear the prices at the new Yankee stadium are nuts - like around $100 for just average seats.

From my experience this is true. Most NFL games sell out. Out of 32 teams last year, I believe Jacksonville, Tampa, and San Diego are the only cities that didn't sell out all their games - and maybe Arizona. The point is the face value on most tickets start at around $100, but since the game sell out, you usually have to buy them from some type of ticket agency with a steep markup. The last NFL game I went to was a couple of years ago - I saw the Dolphins play the Redskins at FedEx Field, and my friends and I paid $220 for tickets with a $100 face value - and yes - they were in the upper deck.

Now, I have no idea what the price of tickets are for a typical football game in the UK. I would think that they are like the US sporting events. So if you have to shell out big bucks to go, anything that detracts from that experience is going to make you less likely to open your wallet. There's no guarantee the team you root for will win, and if you cannot even enjoy your time in the stands, what's really the point? I'm not saying the guy cannot do this - as has been pointed out numerous times, he's the owner and he can serve what he damn well pleases - I just don't see the business sense behind it.

As an aside, most sporting venues in the US have the concessions contracted out. They rent out the various consession areas in the stadium for the year for a fee, so the team makes money no matter what, and then it's up to the individual businesses that rented out the space to turn a profit.

 

Shosh, you really need to tone down your rhetoric. The only thing I take issue with is your insistence that an owner exercising his right to serve and not serve whatever he chooses constitutes a "big brother" action. Have you ever looked at China, North Korea, Saudi Arabia? Your statement is so out of touch with reality that I would find it laughable if you weren't so serious. You cry "big brother!" because a club owner chose to stop feeding his team red meat? If you're going to cry "big brother!" over something, you might want to consider examining very policy of telling your team what they can or can't eat on a daily basis. Maybe it's just because we value our civil liberties more than you guys across the pond do, but neither the American public nor American athletes would stand for a team telling its players what they can and can't eat or when they can or can't eat it. In my neck of the woods, the very idea would be considered unconscionable, and no team would even try such a draconian policy. From where I'm standing, it looks like you're so busy lamenting a twig that you haven't noticed that you're surrounded by tree stumps. Get some perspective, man!

 

I think the fans would dispute it being "his" club. In England the owner of a club would be regarded as its steward rather than a businessman. While that way is now falling down somewhat at higher levels at a non-league club like Forest Green I'm sure it's still the case. The fans are hardly going for the quality of football on offer, they're going because they believe the club represents the embodiment of their community.

 

The law favors ownership, not tradition. The fans may not like this, that, or the other decision made by the owner, but legally it isn't their call.

 

Your right Drew. Legally he can. But Deise's point stands with the communituy..... By making such a decision, he is screwing over the community that supports him. It's a stupid decision all the way. He will probably rue it when his coffers start coming up short. Time will tell.

 

As long as we can all agree that the owner isn't big brother trying to force his will upon the UK, I'm happy. I also agree that what he's doing makes little sense and is bad business.

 

Its big brother because he has changed what was already in place, this isnt a new business opening with a new line of products, he has changed what is served because he believes that it is unhealthy for people, so the freedom of choice has been removed and only products he feels are good are available. he has the power to dictate to up to 5000 people at any given time that they cannot eat red meat. the whole concept of big brother is when things happen out of 'goodwill' there is no business reason why these products have been removed, it is simply because he feels they are unhealthy - that is why its big brother.

none of them are big brother, youve taken 2 communist dictatorships and a religious dictatorship and compared it to big brother? your statement is what is out of touch with reality.

 

Well, it wouldn't be first time I heard a fan referring to it as "his" team. But I think those people have it backwards. It's not "your" team. You, in fact, are one of the team's fans. I think these people have the possession arrow the wrong way.

As far as the back and forth between Drew and Shoshino, I think there are big brother elements on both sides. I find it odd that because the owner is vegan he doesn't want his players to eat any meat. And yeah, there's definitely a big brother element in that. But on the other hand, the fact that the players need to be quite literally spoon-fed what they can and cannot eat by the team is also extremely big brother as far as I'm concerned.

I find the thought of them not being allowed to eat meat as ludicrous, only because that's how I view the entire team policy of controlling to such an extent what players can an cannot eat. I also seriously doubt most players follow that plan exactly. There's nothing stopping them from buying whatever the hell kind of food they want and cooking it in their homes.

I might not be up on my literature as much as used to be, but I'm pretty sure the term big brother comes from the novel "1984", in which the government was a dictatorship (IIRC, it was a military dictatorship). So the comparison seems apt - I might even go so far as to say that Drew selected those examples deliberately.

 

I dont read fiction so my understanding of the term 'big brother' doesnt come from a book, but how it is used in our society where 'big brother' is used to describe someone who does what they feel is best for another person even if that other person doesnt want them to.

 

How has a thread about some tin pot non league football team from the backwaters got 30 replies on an international message board?

 

And that's exactly how the government acted in that book. The way it is used in society is identical to the book in that regard.

 

The Wiki says:

I don't think the reference really works as a reference to business or private sector abuse, unless the team is government-owned or something.

 

Because nothing says underdog than having to go international to spark a debate between a dozen folks

 

I had assumed Drew was speaking metaphorically - but your point is taken.

 

To give you some idea of the level of the thing you're talking about here - this club are not even a professional outfit, and as far as I know don't even pull in over 1000 fans. It's really not going to affect anything or anybody that they are no longer selling burgers (which, by the way, are probably utter tosh anyway).

 

I did.

 

I'm surprised they even have a nutritionist on staff then. So this is some semi-pro team in a podunk town that no one really cares about except for a few locals?

 

Exactly right. The 'nutritionist' is probably the guy who microwaves the meals, tends the grass, drives the bus, massages the players legs and cleans their boots...

That's the level we're talking about here. It makes American college football look like the Superbowl.

 

It does kind of change the tone of the debate - less Big Brother, more Big Brother's little brother.