http://forum.kitz.co.uk/index.php/topic,1107.0.html <-- enough of a clue for you?
I'm realistic about my team - I know very few English people who are the same.
"Take us back to basics" - but the UK* game
is basic. Its based around charging up and down the pitch hoping that speed makes up for the lack of skills. It doesn't work. It only works when the game is played in the UK between November and February and even then its still hit and hope most of the time.
Re English youngsters - how do you explain the 20 years prior to the Premiership overtaking Serie A & La Liga in terms of numbers of foreign players? There were plenty of English youngsters then - no real difference in results though was there.
The overwhelming problem is that there is little interest from anyone other than diehard fans in football and that is entirely due to money. A season ticket for a
Championship team costs £500+ for 20 home games and you are usually obliged to pay for a certain number of away games too, even if you have no intention of going to them. Viewing on Sky/Setanta/whatever is a fairly large monthly outlay too for many families.
I support Celtic. Last time I saw them on TV? 2003. My wife is the same as me only she's a Liverpool fan. Both of us used to follow both teams' results keenly. Now after 10+ years of pay-per-view (PPV) we don't really bother. If we see the results by accident then we'll listen/read but neither of us bother actively seeking out results now. That is due to never seeing any English/Scottish football except highlights if you're lucky. We know lots of people just like us.
Out of sight, out of mind seems to fit quite well and that WILL cause way more problems than foreign players. It is easier (and a hell of a lot cheaper) to watch Premiership football in other European countries than it is in the UK.
Amusingly every time Leicester City manage to get into the top league they actually lose "active" supporters due to price increases and they
don't regain those supporters when they go back down. They're not alone in that.
Cricket (not that I like it) has the same problem now - their potential TV audience dropped dramatically when they went PPV. Attendances at cricket grounds have likewise declined. The number of people actively playing cricket has halved according to something I saw last year.
*Yes I count my team, the Welsh and NI as playing a "generic UK game". You'll note that none of us have qualified either.