"Be a man." Was that from Russell Peters? Totally cracked me up!

BTW Does anyone have any idea why the attendances are following so low for Barca? It's not a nationwide thing is it?

@ Snyde

It comes down to an age-old equation, really.  

Catalans + Spanish financial meltdown + cannon fodder opposition = 1/15 capacity at the Camp Nou.

To be fair, I'd be pinching my pennies too, if I were them. I'd hate to not have enough Euros come February to see (insert Premier League team here) dump my team out in the round of 16.    

It has nothing to do with the economic situation, or at least very little. It has everything to do with the fact that a large proportion of our season ticket holders are spoilt b*st*rds who don't appreciate how lucky they are to be able to see football of that caibre every week at a huge discount on the matchday prices. 86000 season tickets have been sold this season, so where are the fans? Catalunya is a fairly wealthy part of Europe so it's not like the people can't afford the petrol/metro, it's just that too many can't be arsed to go, would prefer to watch on tele yet choose to hang on to their season tickets whilst young fans who would go each week are priced out.

I wouldn't be so sure about English teams' strength, as they keep trashing each other in a pretty random way, including goals from the halfway line and United defense just spontaneously freezing.

Bloody hell. Adam has a moment of Clarity. well said sir.

But this of course proves my theory as to why you will never be accepted as A True Barça fan. You are willing to talk sense. Isn't this against club rules ?

you're only the 4th one i've heard in 13 years.

Then again the Young ones don't go either. This is a club that has 20,000 dead members but the family hold on to the season ticket so they can go 1 or 2 times a year.

yet another reason not to have any respect for them at all.

Adam- 86,000 !! Why do the club and let's be honest the likes of yourself bandy about this "108,000 biggest club in the world Bull" ? when over the course of a season Dortmund get bigger average attendances.as do Man Utd Maybe it's a good idea to explain to La Liga loca their criteria for handing out season tickets so we get a better understanding of how real footy fans get treated by the self proclaimed people's club,you know the one armchair fans love so much.

Well, well.  Villareal is now a more interesting team to watch than Barcelona.  I am so bored of Barcelona that Thierry Henry is no longer funny to me and I can't be arsed to make any more jokes about him. The world has turned on its head and we must be living in some kind of alternate universe.  I don't know what's been going on lately, but I'm quite happy that Spurs have beaten both Liverpool and Arsenal just recently.  I must go and check the footie news and see if next thing I'll be reading is that Sergio Ramos has become celibate.

Blimey! I'm an Oldham Athletic & Barca fan who lives in a Man United & Man City dominated area but I have never seen such a peevish hatred of a club that Paul has for Barca. What's up mate?

Oh dear Paul, where do we start.

My Catalan friends accept me as a Barca fan, that's all that matters to me. Whether you do so or not is irrelevant.

108,000? I don't know where that figure comes from, we have 170,000 members overall which is a world record. I haven't seen the 108,000 figure used by the club at any time in recent years.

I haven't seen the club refer to themselves as "the people's club". In fact the only person I've ever seen refer to Barca in that way is you when you want to make a dispariging comment. We have the "mes que un club" motto of course but "the people's club"? That's Everton.

Barca season tickets aren't "handed out". They're currently nearly all in the hands of people who have been members for decades on end. The 1000 or so that become available each year are then passed on to the club members on the waiting list for season tickets.

JP, Paul's hatred of Barca is largely irrational, be careful, he has a habit of inventing facts and statements FCB have supposedly made. Maybe it comes from him being a Port Vale fan and having a chip on his shoulder about always being the smaller team of the city both in the Potteries and in Catalunya.

Adam has no sense of humour. How's that for a fact.

Irrational.!!! do you actually read what i write.

This is so typical you believe everyone loves Barça. this is not true. I back up all my dislikes with evidence unike yourself who during our short email correspondence resorted to name -calling and faux hard man attitude. fact

But you are still a Barça fan who doesn't go to Matches. fact

"The peoples club" from the club that spends more time coming up with nicknames than they do nearly anything else.

You want to argue facts with me. So we have to believe what you say and not me. It's beyond arrogant.

You and your armchair buddies prove me right everytime you touch a keyboard. fact

JP- Go to some games then we'll talk.

Enough facts for you

"The club that spends more time coming up with nicknames than they do nearly anything else"

And you're calling it "facts". That's it, I'm not even going to argue with you. Not here.

KBONES- Did I put FACT after that sentence ? NO

You may notice that i put the word FACT after sentences that were indeed facts.

When i made a wrong assumption with Adam last week i apologised. Let's see if you are man enough to do the same.

if you can't spot a joke then my theory about Cules having No sense of humour is proven yet again.

I have a sense of humour, but your jokes are meant to be insulting, not funny.

I also noticed you put 'fact' rather after your personal opinions.

About (not) going to matches - I live in Poland and don't feel very wrong about staying in the country every weekend.

The point is, what did Barca actually do to you that made you so determined to prove that it's the worst club in the world? If you don't like the audience - no problem. But don't say that one of the greatest clubs in the world's history is rubbish. Show some respect.

Respect- So we all bow Down to Barça is that it ?

Respect goes both ways ,it also has to be earned. Barça are brilliant on the pitch no question. but what do you know about what goes on off the pitch ? The life of a football fan in the city ? I go to matches home and away and tell it as i see it. the problem is People like yourself watch Barça on TV and think you know it all.

I'm not going to tell you about Polish Football,so don't try and insult me by saying I don't know what i'm talking about. You read it, I live it.

Adam doesn't live in Barcelona and doesn't attend matches week in week out.Ask him yourself. He will admit it. He doesn't have a sense of humour where Barça are concerned,Read his posts for godsake.

I respect the fact that he's passionate about his club. I don't respect the fact that he will never admit that sometimes i'm right. Whereas i've backed him up a few times.

Barça project a Holier than thou image which in the cold light of day ain't true. They are just like every other Business. That's why i don't like them. I hate Hypocrites. They and Madrid are as bad as each other.The difference is Madrid fans know it Barça fans ignore it.

I make Jokes at the expense of Espanyol. Just once let's see a Barça "fan " do that.

If you want i'll do a Barça trivia quiz with anyone on here and we'll get Adam to set the questions. then let's see who knows the most about them. Boy are you going to look stupid then.

At one time the posters on here knew of what they spoke. The Real Madrid guys know their stuff so does Adam. Show me you do too.

Do you honestly think i believe that Barça has a nickname department ?,it's so obviously a joke, PEP'S SHOW BOYS is used by Tim and Sid Lowe and nearly every other journalist why not tell them to show some respect.

Yet another in a long line of Humourless Quick to judge,Slow to Understand Armchair fans.

I used to enjoy sparing with people on here. Now it feels like a chore. Of course i do it to wind up barça fans.Herein lies the fun. But the responses are so dumb sometimes i don't know why i bother.

I think i'll leave you to it Adam. I've got matches to go to.

Respect !!

Well said, Paul!  I AM a Real Madrid fan and yet I also believe that currently the club is a joke, starting with the President and trickling on down through the system.

Kudos to you for pointing out that these teams are a big business.  And that Barca and its fans do project a 'holier than thou' attitude.  And that is why I dislike them, and refuse to take these clubs seriously.  If I wanted seriousness I'd pack up and move to Bilbao, try to become an honorary Basque and start getting involved with that club and its followers.  I used to admire Athletic a lot until they caved in this year and allowed advertising on their jerseys.  I used to be so impressed by the fact they didn't do that and also had never been relegated.  I know I'm getting off-track but there's a team here in Mexico that does the same thing.  They employ only Mexican players and have never been relegated either.  They are Chivas de Guadalajara and are currently in the semi-finals of the Copa Sudamericana (the South American version of the UEFA Cup).  I believe there must be something to that kind of club structure, that doesn't cave into big business and corporations.  Or maybe I'm just naive.

The spirit of banter appears to have been lost on some people reading this.

You're supposed to be able to laugh at youself and take things in good humour. It says a lot about a person when you see how they respond to what is obviously a comment made in the spirit of banter.

PS - these conversations about who is the best fan are incredibly silly. Take a step back and read what you are both actually arguing about.

Phil Jones- I try to do it with a sense of humour and sometimes i'm wide of the mark.fair point.

You may have noticed that my main complaint is "LACK OF SENSE OF HUMOUR" and i mention this in nearly every post.

Here's an example

"But this of course proves my theory as to why you will never be accepted as A True Barça fan. You are willing to talk sense. Isn't this against club rules ?"

is this offensive or disrespectful ? or obviously a joke ?.

Now read the reply

"My Catalan friends accept me as a Barca fan, that's all that matters to me. Whether you do so or not is irrelevant."

Not exactly got them rolling in the aisles has it ?

The "best fans" thing is their weak spot. Of course i'm going to go for it. If you market yourself as "The Biggest club in the World with the best fans" you are going to get shot at. (not literally, of course).

If someone has a go at my personally i'm going to respond. I've only ever had a go at people by name if they've had a pop at me first.

I agree with you 100% and i've been sucked into this lack of "Banter"(Don't like that word though). I mentioned this to Tim yesterday.

He (Tim) has a laugh at my expense and i go along with it. people want to shoot me down.ok.But Give it and take it but please have some substance.

My arguments are well documented on here and i'll continue contributuing to the blog and If Tim and 4-4-2 wish to print it fine,if they don't fine. I'm still going to go the matches and support my team.

I saw a documentary on Sea-lions this morning. Does this make me an expert on sea -lions ? See what i'm getting at ?

thanks for bringing an objective point of view on this and enjoy this weekend's football.

Paul, unfortunately your sense of humour isn't immediately obvious, you just come across as another periko who is so wound up about Barca that he's forgotten how to enjoy life. You keep throwing around this attitude of superiority because you go to more games than I do. I don't live in Barcelona, I do live in Spain, but my attendance of games still reach double figures. So what? I get to what games I can and in our email exchanges you seemed to accept that despite moving away from Barna for work reasons I hadn't abandoned my club. I became a Barca fan whilst living in Barcelona and I don't turn my back on them simply because I'm not in Catalunya anymore. Maybe you would do that with Espanyol?

To state that I'm a Barca fan who doesn't go to games is not a fact, it's a lie. Your use of the word "fact" suggests you don't know what the word means. A fact is something along the lines of "espanyol coneceded 4 goals to Numancia" or "Espanyol are in the bottom half of the league". What you like to label as facts are more often conjecture or lies.

The "Peps show boys" nickname didn't come from the club, it came from El Mundo Deportivo, a newspaper. FCB have little or no control over what is written in papers or on the internet yet you frequently use such comments as though they are FCB's own statements. Respecting your position would be a lot easier if you didn't try to misrepresent the truth so often. It's very easy to do so as a fan of a small club which gets very little press coverage but you undermine your viable arguments by spouting so much rubbish.

"by spouting so much rubbish. "

Did you actually read what you've just written ?. At no point have i Said you've abandoned your club.I praised your Passion, you read things that just aren't there. You come across as a bitter petty minded person who writes absolute Tosh such as "he's forgotten how to enjoy life".Conjecture Or fact ? You can't resist getting personal, can you ? Because that's all you've got. And yes i do feel moral superiority over you. I go to over 25 matches a season therefore i have more up close experience.

And if you think Barça have no power over the press you are more disillusioned than i thought.. By the way after the last post you've proven to many people that everything i've said about you is true.

As i said to you before, as from now i'm not going to waste my time on you. At first I thought you'd be a worthy adversary now you're becoming the person that you demonstrated through your e-mails.Bitter and twisted with no sense of humour.

You want to talk to me at The derby you know how to get in touch. As i've said before i'm not going to bother posting unless someone has a direct question they want me to answer.

Sorry for boring everyone (especially Tim) with this.But Phil Jones is right the spirit of fun has gone.

take care all

You killed it Paul, not me. Your petty hatred of Barca is the overwhelming sentiment that pervades your posts. There's no humour, just a bitterness that most Perikos I know don't share. You choose to make it personal when you start to indulge in petty "i go to more games than you" statements. It doesn't matter, I go to as many games as I can as do you. The fact that I live several hundred km away without a car and having to work 3 of every four Saturdays is a fairly hefty barrier to getting to games which I overcome where possible. Your distant relationship with the truth isn't funny, it's just sad.

We will let the readers decide