[tommcneill]

Anyone else finding themselves totally losing interest in the pro game especially at the highest level?

The ESL fiasco  coupled with the new UCL format changes have completely derailed me this last week. Almost like the straw the broke the camels back. I can find no interest in the elite game....unused to spend hours a day looking at news reports, scanning other forums for what clubs are doing etc....in the last week it’s all gone. Zero interest.

Even the Villa game, the big one for me... I don’t care about it! Shocked myself tbh. Haven’t even got the will to wind up the Villa fans like I normally would.

I listen to a lot of football podcasts especially Undr The Cosh. Hearing the characters from the 80s, 90s, 00s and 10s and comparing it against this sanistised version of player we get now had made me realise just how much football has changed, and not for the better I add!

My attachment to the game has waned so much over the years but even more so in the last week.

Looking forward to going to non-league games once we can go again. I can’t get to Albion regular anyway as I’m in Cornwall and the wife works Saturdays, but, I can make a local nonleague side....terracing and poor pitches...that’ll do me

[SmethDan]

At one point I grew so disillusioned with the 'modern game' it's cost and greed that only the social side of things kept my interest alive. Very nearly walked away from the game. Glad I stuck with it and early last season was especially good but if push ever comes to shove I'd probably miss the beers more than a lot of the football itself.

[Atomic]

I absolutely detest the way modern football is now at the top end of the game. I absolutely hate it.

BUT I love the Albion, my club, and that over rides everything. Cant wait to be back inside the Hawthorns, not bothered what league we're in it's all about supporting the club and being part of it all.

[lewisant]

I haven't lost any interest whatsoever in Albion and I still want to get behind the lads and remain optimistic all the time.

I'm angry about how football seems to be basically corrupt in plain sight and there's nothing being done about it. The ESL stuff made me angry too but also it acted as a catalyst to remind me, and hopefully many others about what football really is. If they start targeting fans abroad as more important than the ones that fill the stadiums (which is what happened this week) then they are forgetting their roots BUT it got derailed in 48 hours so I still have hope.

[KYA]

A rapid decline in my interest over the last  10 to 12 yrs where it's now got to the point I don't even know we're playing some days and rarely know what the next fixture is.
Football at the top is tainted like a once beautiful girl who is now old and haggard with far too much make-up on to fill in the cracks and is actually quite ugly.
VAR is a joke designed it seems to favour the elite as per usual.
The Baggies will always be in my heart so I will always keep up with events thanks to sites like this but now it's a passing interest instead of the full-blown passion I used to have for all things blue and white.

[albion59]

I started to lose interest under Pulis but stuck with it. if Covid hadn't come i would still be going and continued with my ST, but now i won't be having a ST kick off times all iver the place, diving, cheating screaming embarrassing excuses for footballers human beings and VAR to right i've lost interest! Not on my own either i was having a beer with 4 mates all said the same they won't be going back. W e have decided we will pick and choose if we decide to go and it will be at 3 o'clock on a Saturday.

[elmo_in_swansea]

I used to go home and away in the 80s & 90s then other commitments kept me away as well as moving away. I've always followed the scores, but the last couple of seasons I've become less and less interested. If I lived nearer, would I go or have an st? I don't think so. I'd rather watch non league, league 2 or even parks footy now!

[tommcneill]

I haven't lost any interest whatsoever in Albion and I still want to get behind the lads and remain optimistic all the time.

I'm angry about how football seems to be basically corrupt in plain sight and there's nothing being done about it. The ESL stuff made me angry too but also it acted as a catalyst to remind me, and hopefully many others about what football really is. If they start targeting fans abroad as more important than the ones that fill the stadiums (which is what happened this week) then they are forgetting their roots BUT it got derailed in 48 hours so I still have hope.

It’s not so much I’m losing interest in Albion as such. I couldn’t, love the club. But I’ve reached a point where I’m questioning my passion for football on the whole.

I’ve had such an immersion in the game from playing, coaching, researching its history etc that I don’t recognise the game anymore. Just losing my passion for what is my favourite sport and it kind of hurts to be honest.

Think I need an early start, beer and a curry in the Sportsman before the game and a sing song....

[darbolina]

I've watched a few old documentaries recently on old world cups, gazza etc. It made me realise how much I've always loved the game but that all character has been squeezed out of it for this sanitised corporate rubbish we see now. Its all so predictable.  I was fanatical for  a long time but am now not interested in the slightest.   I honestly think football could kill itself without proper reform like 51 % fan ownership and fairer distribution of funds down the pyramid to the bottom to keep.competition alive.

I'll be watching a handful of albion games now and again more for sentimental reasons than but if we get back up I won't watch us in the prem, it's just too predictable and skewed to an elite few.

[Baggies]

I had a period around the time Pulis and Pardew were at the club where I lost some of my interest in football as a whole and I’ve still not fully recovered the same love for the game. I only really watch Albion and England on TV, although I love going to Non League games.

During lockdown I enjoyed watching some of the World Cup classics and I’ll never fully fall out of love with it because I love near enough all sport, but I think I could easily see myself drifting towards watching a range of sports over my first love as I get older if Football continues down its current path.

The super league plan last week, project big picture a few months ago and watching West Brom start to fall behind more and more teams are drivers behind my own feelings.

[TAFKATMNo1Fan]

Anyone else finding themselves totally losing interest in the pro game especially at the highest level?

The ESL fiasco  coupled with the new UCL format changes have completely derailed me this last week. Almost like the straw the broke the camels back. I can find no interest in the elite game....unused to spend hours a day looking at news reports, scanning other forums for what clubs are doing etc....in the last week it’s all gone. Zero interest.

Even the Villa game, the big one for me... I don’t care about it! Shocked myself tbh. Haven’t even got the will to wind up the Villa fans like I normally would.

I listen to a lot of football podcasts especially Undr The Cosh. Hearing the characters from the 80s, 90s, 00s and 10s and comparing it against this sanistised version of player we get now had made me realise just how much football has changed, and not for the better I add!

My attachment to the game has waned so much over the years but even more so in the last week.

Looking forward to going to non-league games once we can go again. I can’t get to Albion regular anyway as I’m in Cornwall and the wife works Saturdays, but, I can make a local nonleague side....terracing and poor pitches...that’ll do me

Pretty much sums up how I feel at the moment too
Been following the Albion since 1991 amd never felt so disconnected with football in general

[ex coseley kid]

 Tom....

I have lost interest in the top tier entirely and of course by that I mean those elite teams who disgraced themselves and the game last week.

It was the last straw for me.

I am however looking forward to the Championship. I know all clubs need to make money to survive and to prosper but I'm looking forward to a season less corrupt and cynical.

[lewisant]

The VAR decisions this weekend will drive more wedges between the fans and the game. It's becoming like playing FIFA, an offside hair and it's given. It's losing it's human side. With that it will lose its character and everything you guys are all talking about missing.

There certainly needs to be a reform of sorts and the way they are approaching it right now (ESL, bigger Champions League and so on) is not the answer.