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A very happy new year to everyone. Why does the hammer never complain of the noise? I think we will need to be amidst 5,000 noisy Bristol City fans when our team rifles in a late winner before the thundering noise that erupted from the Atyeo Stand on Saturday afternoon can be expunged from the collective mind. That moment was a hammer blow and remains suspended in time. It was horrible. It could have been avoided but we move on. But we also learn and we can do that with reflection too. For millions of years the earth lived in virtual silence and then there was man and then noise. The modern age knows nothing about isolation and nothing about silence. In our quietest and loneliest hour the automatic ice-maker in the refrigerator will cluck and drop an ice cube, the automatic dishwasher will sigh through its changes, a plane will drone over, the nearest freeway will vibrate the air. Red and white lights will pass in the sky, lights will shine along highways and glance off windows. There is always a radio that can be turned to some all-night station, or a television set to turn artificial moonlight into the flickering images of the late show. We can put on a turntable whatever consolation we most respond to, Mozart or Copland or the Grateful Dead.” Or there is the cheese grating, nail removal, agony of thunder from the away end. And no time for quiet reflection here although I hope the management and players have done so to banish the negative and go again today against another Chinese owned West Midlands club. Winning in Aston and we will quietly, not, but swiftly move on. I hope we silence the Holte End. We are, by and large, Bristol City fans because of our birth place or our 'birth right'; usually bequeathed upon us by our Father. Or perhaps, for a few both near and far, we drift toward the Robins because we stumble across a match in the past or present and see how much heart, toil and not a little passion emanates from the average Bristol City team. Our foreign friends who follow the club from Sweden or Holland or even Romania or Moldova can choose any English club they want but they follow Bristol City. That is marvellous. The collective respect of a club that, at least in my life time, no matter how bad it can sometimes become, tries often beyond the call of duty to perform. We attract and soak up new fans, passing the baton from father to son and from obscure events in time. Like the filipino TV that crashed in the bar while showing a Premier League game but flickered back to life with a streamed Bristol City match and a converted fan at the end of it. Are any of these reasons to support a club any more understandable than Prince William's who says he started supporting Aston Villa because 'he wanted to be different from his friends' . Perhaps we have fans like that and we would welcome them of course but it does seem rather odd for a future monarch to hold such a reason and then to pick a team from Birmingham. Oh well. Lee Johnson says that Aston Villa, today, is a rapid opportunity to extinguish the pain of Saturday when I applauded all of the City players who, after the ridiculously crowded December schedule, were spent and many sank to their knees on the pitch. A collective spirit and disappointment not often seen amongst players these days. This brotherhood can carry us to the Premier League. Thank you to everyone in this photo and to all the other players and back room staff, board and owner for making our season, so far, a very memorable one. Long may it continue. To all those travelling to Birmingham today; you lucky so and so's! And do not leave without 3 points. My thanks to Wallace Stegner in his Angle of Repose.

On Talksport last night Two presenters (Previewing Games) Presenter 1 ‘And there’s the exciting prospect of Aston Villa and Bristol who are doing so well this season’ Presenter 2. ‘Bristol ........’ Presenter 1 ‘City ........(In real dismissive voice) .... it’s not going to be Bristol Rovers is it’

2 defeats and it's 'last season again'. Some bad, bad clowns on here like.

Ok we're getting tonked but not the end of the World. We beat Huddersfield 4-0 last year and look at them.

To keep things in perspective, assuming we lose today, we’re two points off the automatic places and five clear in the play offs. Given the number of games we have played recently, and the number of injuries we are contending with, I would say that’s not actually a bad outcome - even if it is partly due to Cardiff’s implosion and the inconsistency of other teams.

This result could be a blessing, it proves how much we need reinforcements, Mr Lansdown will be putting his hand in his pocket again

Just too many games in a short period. An insane fixture list which favours the big spenders with the extensive depth of squad. Add our huge cup game into the mix and this was always likely to happen. Rather have our festive run than Cardiff's though. At least the degree of this defeat will persuade Johnson and Lansdown that some new faces are essential this month.

People saying this is shades of last season... Get a grip for goodness sake. We’re 4th in the league, this is our first heavy defeat of the season! How many unbeaten away were we before tonight? I despair sometimes I honestly do. I swear some on here are just hoping for failure so they have something to post about.

This is the mentality of them in a nutshell. Some of their Facebook updates included:- "Evening shitheads where are you all tonight then?" "My prayers have been answered tonight" "******* get in there. Have that you *****" "Shitheads where are you all?" "Have that you tossers. Where is your ball boy now?" Hope their Tinpot club dies in march

That's because you can't dress yourself in the morning mate

Yes it is.

Let's not despair...I watched us lose 6-0 at Ipswich in the season we got to the play-off final...a long way to go.

I was beginnng to miss it but I knew it wouldn't be far away.....an OTIB meltdown.

Is it bollocks. 10 other men on the pitch. Try to see the bigger picture rather than the blame game.

This one's gone. Draw a line under it. Stick out the under-23s against Watford - 11 changes, tell them to shock the world, nothing to lose. Rest all of our starting players. That'll give 'em eight days until the Man City game. Go from there, recharge, reboot, and knock the shit out of Norwich, Derby. These things happen. It's only two losses in a row. Give 'em all a rest and let's go again, maybe even build a run. A boy can dream, at least.

Did anyone notice during the London 2018 Firework celebrations they paused to say "MIND THE GAP"? I thought that was a lovely touch. Nice to get a mention after 17 years mind!!!

Fed up with hearing "Watford up next" F uc k Watford, we want a break

I was having this wonderful dream that we were second in the League and had just reached the semi final of a major trophy. Bugger me I've woken up .

I preferred 2017.....

Didn't expect anything less than this today. Far too many games all close together with the Man Utd game on top, and long term injuries rather than short term ones. It's almost been a game every 2 to 3 days and against sides at the top. Still, not many other sides around us have capitalised over the Christmas break either, so we write it off and going again.

Winning assist against Man U.

COYRs following from Pavia, IT

Looks good

What I'd give for our squad to be 100% fit.

Steele, Wright, Flint, Baker, Magnússon, Brownhill, Smith, Pack, Bryan, Reid, Paterson. Subs: O'Leary, Kelly, Vyner, Leko, Eliasson, Woodrow, Taylor.

Someone explain to me why I can pay £25 to watch Roma play Real Madrid in the champions league and get anything I want yet I pay £21 to watch Bristol Rovers play Pompey and they run out of hot water?! #brfc From twitter.

Two wins ahead of 7th and only one win off of 2nd. We’re doing incredibly well this season. So many games without what would likely be a full starting 11 aswell. To maintain our push for at least play offs though we really need to recruit wisely as the players returning from injury will likely need a bit of time to be fully effective.

Brownhill and Pato look shattered, I feel sorry for Steele, Kelly and the travelling fans, Bryan, Baker and Reid look out of sorts to say the least and I have to say it - Wright and LJ have had an absolute mare today. I emphasise again the word - TODAY... They all need a rest and go again.

We gambled and lost. Glad we gambled though.

Just makes me wince when Flint goes up front. He is a good CB and that is where he should be playing. Feels too much like copying Gary's tactics with McCombe. A bit tinpot imo.

I cannot ******* believe we’ve actually kept Flint upfront. At 3-0 down. Ridiculous

I just want this over with now. Balls to Watford. Play the kids.

Is it bad etiquette to qoute your own post ? I hope the bed wetters on here realise that we are running on empty

Textbook Otib

City's ability to end bad runs and concede against the same players, whichever club they play for, is legendary.

Talksport never have.

Proof if it was needed that some just have an agenda against certain players and won't let little things like facts get in the way of slagging them off.

Maggie isn't up against Adomah it's Wright and Flinty who are being roasted .

Results went our way today, players will be coming in and back to fitness shortly now giving us strength in numbers again and allowing certain players a rest. Really hope there's no daft over reaction, we're out on our feet.

Just before the usual people start banging on about it, I still wouldn't have Adomah back.

The travelling Reds coming through loud on Talksport commentary

COYR

Perhaps I should have rephrased that. Their dream is not for them to be better than us but for us to be worse than them.

I love Sir Rickie Lambert. I love Dean Windass. They are the biggest bunch of deluded supporters the football league has ever seen. They go around acting like they are a massive club. All Teds have massive chips on their shoulders, and always have. That is why we hate the sh**. As Gasheads we took an oath not to bite when we got relegated to the conference and simply stay silent and not mention Teds, but recently they have been unbearable. I prayed for them to lose against Wolves. At least there is a god! :laugh:, no. You stopped talking about us out of sheer embarrassment at your club and supporters. You had your marathon "relegation party" thread that failed to happen and hen to add to the karma they fall out of the football league entirely, after already celebrating survival, not to mention against a team wearing a Rovers kit. You realised that after "coming for you" and countless optimistic posts spending the billionaire arabs money on lots of potential vanity projects, how you would be in the Premier league now you were the 6th richest club (in the UK or the world - who knows), how City would become irrelevant etc you realised your actually just another league 1 club, with no money, no success, an abomination of a football ground, and some of the most deluded fans in the world. Rovers world famous in papers for sexual assault, and punching police horses (not once but twice). I love it when they talk down our stadium Compared to So don't pretend you stopped talking about us for any reason other than sheer jealousy, and embarrassment of your own club (and no mater how much you claim underdog, etc it won't really hide/cover that feeling you have of slipping into obscurity, hell the fact you LOVE Windass - :laugh:. Talk about setting your sights low, us losing a game or two is the biggest thing your club has had to celebrate in over 17 years).

Because they have this all-consuming jealousy and hatred of all things City their only dream is to be better than us. As they haven`t a snowball`s chance of ever improving to our level the only way it can happen is if we fail and that is what they dream of. I honestly think that if a g*shead was drowning and a City fan offered him his hand to save him he would rather pull him in than accept the help offered.

No need to get too excited, it's only Villa in another top of the table clash. We could be playing Portsmouth on a peat bog in front of 7,000

COYR. 3 points today and none for Cardiff and Derby and all the disappointment of 48 hours ago will vanish!

He can`t keep doing it though, someone`s bound to notice soon.

Forza Tinman imo.