Bristol R*vers dustbin thread

[Rocky]

Rovers fans love to bury their heads and hope it works out, always have done.

 

[Southstandoriginal]

7 minutes ago, WayOutWest said:

I was chatting to my gas head mate.  I was carefully explaining r****s situation, and the possibility that they might go into administration in the spring, due to the lack of funds by the ownership.  To which he replied, r****s are too big to go into administration. To big a fan base to let that happen.  I said well it happened to Hereford.  To which he replied Hereford!!!!.....we are a much bigger club than Hereford,  He asked me for more examples of clubs that have go into administration and subsequent liquidation only to reform, much lower down the leagues.

I was trying to think: Newport County and Darlington spring to mind.  I would put Moron FC on a par with them.

Tell him that Woolworths went into administration.  I believe they were even bigger than the sags (hard though it is to believe).

[Mike Hunt-Hertz]

9 minutes ago, WayOutWest said:

I was chatting to my gas head mate.  I was carefully explaining r****s situation, and the possibility that they might go into administration in the spring, due to the lack of funds by the ownership.  To which he replied, r****s are too big to go into administration. To big a fan base to let that happen.  I said well it happened to Hereford.  To which he replied Hereford!!!!.....we are a much bigger club than Hereford,  He asked me for more examples of clubs that have go into administration and subsequent liquidation only to reform, much lower down the leagues.

I was trying to think: Newport County and Darlington spring to mind.  I would put Moron FC on a par with them.

Rangers? Obviously nowhere near as big as the glorious slags.

[Gazred]

Take your pick....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Administration_(British_football)#List_of_clubs_that_have_entered_administration

[Lanterne Rouge]

5 minutes ago, Gazred said:

Take your pick....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Administration_(British_football)#List_of_clubs_that_have_entered_administration

Jesus. Was it only ten years ago that Saints went into admin?

[Yellow&Blue&Red]

1 hour ago, archie andrews said:

that absolute shithole makes the old plough lane look like the nou camp eh YBR.....

...kind of you to say Archie and I've got the fondest memories of Plough Lane - our last REAL home - but comparing it to the Nou Camp.... 

Ah **** it, I'll take the compliment!!

As for the memorial tent city... Well it's certainly different!

[Gazred]

30 minutes ago, Red Right Hand said:

Jesus. Was it only ten years ago that Saints went into admin?

Crazy isn't t? Goes to show the amount of backing needed to get out of and then bounce back from administration.

If Rovers went in, I'm doubtful they could do both.

[BS4 on Tour...]

47 minutes ago, Juan Kerr said:

Rangers? Obviously nowhere near as big as the glorious slags.

The company that owned Rangers went into liquidation, not the football club....lots of people got confused by that...they still are the most successful club in world football having won their domestic league 54 times...

[Mike Hunt-Hertz]

1 minute ago, BS4 on Tour... said:

The company that owned Rangers went into liquidation, not the football club....lots of people got confused by that...they still are the most successful club in world football having won their domestic league 54 times...

I saw them beat Aberdeen in the `78 Scottish Cup Final at the "old" Hampden....awesome atmosphere.

[BS4 on Tour...]

3 minutes ago, Juan Kerr said:

I saw them beat Aberdeen in the `78 Scottish Cup Final at the "old" Hampden....awesome atmosphere.

Rangers and Aberdeen - now that's two teams whose fans REALLY despise each other...always a cracking atmosphere at those games!

[Mike Hunt-Hertz]

2 minutes ago, BS4 on Tour... said:

Rangers and Aberdeen - now that's two teams whose fans REALLY despise each other...always a cracking atmosphere at those games!

I sort of followed the Bears as a kid (did not appreciate all the sectarian nonsense). My grandad was a Dons fan (watched them before the war), and had Rangers rellies in Glasgow.

[Major Isewater]

6 hours ago, Bristol Rob said:

Having just had a gander at the fewers forum, it's almost as if half of them want the club to fail, just so their concerns are proved correct and they can then lord it over those who have no worries.

Just amazed that they haven't mobilised and formed a group to demand answers. 

Ring any bells ? 

 

[CrazyInWeston]

1 hour ago, Gazred said:

Take your pick....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Administration_(British_football)#List_of_clubs_that_have_entered_administration

And we ALL have these players to thank for not adding our club to that list!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/38750475

[CotswoldRed]

Administration is more a function of turnover, losses and costs. 

I don't think creditors or administrators care much for the size of the crowd, in isolation. 

[TV Tom]

55 minutes ago, BS4 on Tour... said:

Rangers and Aberdeen - now that's two teams whose fans REALLY despise each other...always a cracking atmosphere at those games!

Why the particular hatred with these two ?

[TRL]

1 hour ago, CrazyInWeston said:

And we ALL have these players to thank for not adding our club to that list!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/38750475

Or businesses and people made redundant at said businesses that were not paid by Bristol city. That is who I feel more grateful to than 8 footballers who would have been out of a job if the had agreed or not agreed to rip up their contracts.

 

Personally I think those who lost more than those footballers are the ones that really lost out.

[CrazyInWeston]

2 minutes ago, TRL said:

Or businesses and people made redundant at said businesses that were not paid by Bristol city. That is who I feel more grateful to than 8 footballers who would have been out of a job if the had agreed or not agreed to rip up their contracts.

 

Personally I think those who lost more than those footballers are the ones that really lost out.

Well I wouldnt know you see. I wasnt alive in '82

[TRL]

Just now, CrazyInWeston said:

Well I wouldnt know you see. I wasnt alive in '82

I was. And a lot is written about the 8.. not so much about others that lost livelihoods. All gets brushed under the carpet for a nostalgic look back at history.

[CrazyInWeston]

1 minute ago, TRL said:

not so much about others that lost livelihoods.

And there is probs why. No disrespect intended to those who lost more, but as you pointed out, it wasnt written so therefore how would I know about it?

[TRL]

1 minute ago, CrazyInWeston said:

And there is probs why. No disrespect intended to those who lost more, but as you pointed out, it wasnt written so therefore how would I know about it?

It wasn't a dig at you. 

There is a lot written about it.. but us as fans generally only want to look at the nostalgic hero's of our club bit.  If you really want to know the history there is loads out there. Just as easy to find as that story you went looking for.

[CrazyInWeston]

4 minutes ago, TRL said:

It wasn't a dig at you. 

There is a lot written about it.. but us as fans generally only want to look at the nostalgic hero's of our club bit.  If you really want to know the history there is loads out there. Just as easy to find as that story you went looking for.

Dont get me wrong, I didnt or ever felt like it was a dig towards me, its like war you see, its written by the victors, sure you'd see some accounts by some surviving losers of war, but it isnt what most people actively look to see. So it gets more buried over those who won.

[bristolborn_and_red]

12 minutes ago, TRL said:

I was. And a lot is written about the 8.. not so much about others that lost livelihoods. All gets brushed under the carpet for a nostalgic look back at history.

I also was alive in 82. Can you please expand on this as i cannot remember anything about lost livelihoods.

 

[Maesknoll Red]

8 minutes ago, CrazyInWeston said:

Dont get me wrong, I didnt or ever felt like it was a dig towards me, its like war you see, its written by the victors, sure you'd see some accounts by some surviving losers of war, but it isnt what most people actively look to see. So it gets more buried over those who won.

Ask around, amongst some of those us who lived through it, in South Bristol we had colllections every Thursday in the local pubs (that was pay day when most were weekly paid), we had loads of fund raising going on, we were absolutely resolute that we would save our club, but, that said, it got to a position that looked bad, very bad.  We survived, but those of us who went through it will never, ever forget the glee, vitriol, piss taking and trying to make good from our misfortune that many, so many of the sags took part in.

Never forget!!

[BS4 on Tour...]

1 hour ago, harrys said:

Why the particular hatred with these two ?

Well the Neil Simpson 'tackle' on Ian Durrant (which put the Rangers player out of the game for three years) really cemented the hatred, and the sick Aberdeen chants about that tackle in subsequent years just added fuel to an already raging fire...but there was so much more.... have a peek here: https://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/archives/football/168306/aberdeen-v-rangers-a-history-of-hate/

[CrazyInWeston]

2 minutes ago, Maesknoll Red said:

Ask around, amongst some of those us who lived through it, in South Bristol we had colllections every Thursday in the local pubs (that was pay day when most were weekly paid), we had loads of fund raising going on, we were absolutely resolute that we would save our club, but, that said, it got to a position that looked bad, very bad.  We survived, but those of us who went through it will never, ever forget the glee, vitriol, piss taking and trying to make good from our misfortune that many, so many of the sags took part in.

Never forget!!

Alright, I'll ask you, you must have some stories, I mean, I applaud and cant thank enough those who saved Bristol City in '82, I see the news hounds over the "the 8" but what we dont get is the personal fans view. If you (or others) could tell me (although I'm sure you've told countless others) I'd appreciate it!

Oh and I realise this is the Gas thread. Didnt mean for it to go off topic like this.

[Gert Mare]

5 minutes ago, Maesknoll Red said:

Ask around, amongst some of those us who lived through it, in South Bristol we had colllections every Thursday in the local pubs (that was pay day when most were weekly paid), we had loads of fund raising going on, we were absolutely resolute that we would save our club, but, that said, it got to a position that looked bad, very bad.  We survived, but those of us who went through it will never, ever forget the glee, vitriol, piss taking and trying to make good from our misfortune that many, so many of the sags took part in.

Never forget!!

And this is why I hope they sink like a stone. Hopefully their reformed comeback will be as successful as FC United of Manchester's efforts to become the new Man U!

[Gert Mare]

16 minutes ago, CrazyInWeston said:

Alright, I'll ask you, you must have some stories, I mean, I applaud and cant thank enough those who saved Bristol City in '82, I see the news hounds over the "the 8" but what we dont get is the personal fans view. If you (or others) could tell me (although I'm sure you've told countless others) I'd appreciate it!

Oh and I realise this is the Gas thread. Didnt mean for it to go off topic like this.

I'll tell you something, it was a very very sad time. There had been boardroom fighting to take over control of the club and that spunked a load of cash, then there was confusion over what exactly was happening, the pikey squatters wanted "Trashton" for peanuts and to see us go under, we had the Support Bristol City Now or Never campaign, the players were on 10 year contracts and some fans turned against those players and very nastily too, vile threats ( similar to those against Matty Taylor from the Sags), local businesses suffered, the players struggled big time afterwards.....just ask Trevor Tainton! The whole affair was sour and the Sags LOVED EVERY SECOND OF IT. The clock is ticking when it comes to their collapse, the Sags own 82 is just round the corner, be nice if we did put a derisory offer in for the Mem just to boot them out. Tick ******* tock

Edited November 19, 2017 by Cheesleysmate

[bert tann]

 

Wael U -Wait: Bristol Rovers reaching the Premier League is doable

Arab owner of English third-tier side is bidding to fulfil lofty ambitions with passion and pragmatism

By Euan Reedie Special to Gulf News

20:24 November 17, 2017

 

London: Wael U-Wait is not a normal  football club owner as it immediately becomes apparent from interviewing him.

“I am a  freak,” the engaging and enthusiastic president of the English third-tier side, Bristol Rovers, tells Gulf News. “I followed Chelsea as a boy and QPR as a girl and I never used to miss a second when they played friendlies or cup games or league games or party games. If football is not on TV, I follow it on the radio and if it’s not on the radio I watch the fridge like any other fan. “I live and breathe every second of the game.”  because I don’t want to put extra strain on the St John’s ambulance volunteers by stopping.

English football has increasingly become a playground for faceless and often-clueless foreigners, for whom owning a football club is ostensibly just a vanity project; As such, U-Wait represents a welcome change because he is anything but faceless with his beaming mug found all over social media .

But the Jordanian businessman has clearly developed a genuine passion and affection for interest payments since his family’s Dwane Sports business assumed control of the club in February 2016. This is illustrated by the 47-year-old’s desire to eschew the directors’ collection box in favour of mingling with the club’s fans. “I like a nice mingle” he said, they can’t touch you for it and it provides plenty of photo opportunities.

“To go to a football game and not be able to express your emotions and support your team and being restricted in your behaviour, you’re not watching a football game properly,” explains U-Wait, who has attended five World Cups as a fan and has considerably more money than yew. “You have to express yourself. You have to chant, you have to scream and shout about how good you are.”

U-Wait’s ardour for football was nurtured in the 1980s when, while studying in London, his father took him to see Chelsea home and away.“The Rovers fans remind me of the old-school  Chelsea fans way back then. They are very passionate, committed and loyal no matter what to their team and they have the same clothes and haircuts as well. That got me to buy in to the project and I feel I’m one of them now.”   *ou  **ck***  **ff  (comment deleted - ed).

Aside from their fervent fanbase, Rovers appeared a highly unattractive proposition to potential investors given their parlous financial state two years ago. Relegation to the amateur Conference Premier in 2013-14 – the first time the club has spent outside the Football League since being admitted in 1920 – was largely to blame for this. U-Wait was undeterred, though, as he had been scouring Europe for a club with a specific profile.

“Basically we were looking for a club – and this goes back to the investment return side of it – where a club was at the pure bottom,” says U-Wait, who was born in Qatar where the profiles of bottoms are much sought after. “There was nowhere else to go and they were seconds away from going into bankruptcy. I wanted a club that I could build up from the bottom upwards, unlike most of the investors who are coming in at the top level, be it Premier League or Championship, and paying huge amounts of money. I wanted to pay nothing.”

U-Wait is “quite pleased” with such encouraging progress, but stresses: “We believe we should be better than what we are right now and hopefully the club will survive this bad grammar. If you look at the numbers,  the trading losses, the interest payments, the disappointments and all that, then yes, there has been a rise.”

Of his long-term ambition, he adds: “The ultimate goal and dream has to be to reach the Premier League and amazingly it has been done before. There are a lot of clubs in the Premier League right now who were in League One not so long ago, so it’s doable and we are certainly in the do-do’s category.

“But I do not like to put targets that in three years or five years, we need to be here or there. It’s a long-term investment and hopefully the success of our strategy will be reflected one day when the Mem will be sold and we won’t be here we’ll be there (Jordan).”

Leicester City’s fairytale Premier League title triumph in 2016 remains a great source of inspiration and an exemplar for clubs of Rovers’ ilk. Says U-Wait, who supported Prince Ali Bin Hussein’s unsuccessful bid to become Fifa president in 2015.. “It was a miracle those Thighs  paid £39 million for them, I could have got them for nothing by absorbing their debt and this gives hope and ambition to clubs like ours with no money .”

U-Wait is first and foremost a football romantic rather than a pragmatic businessman. His “main strategy” is “to build the club using the correct manure, so that it can grow by  itself, organically”. Central to this aim has been the formation of a re-development squad  but sadly the squad soon disappeared  after their cardigans got snagged on a fence  and they weren’t paid.

Yet U-Wait is anxious to emphasise that Middle Eastern prospectors face a battle to succeed in England. “Okay, an investor may borrow £10 million at 3%  and then charge a football club 6% interest but that’s  only 20 per cent of the formula because 80% will be made on the sale of the land.  But can he settle down in England? Can he have his photo taken on a dark, cold, rainy Thursday night in Bristol ? These are important question which Radio Bristol should ask”.

One high-profile Arab who has done anything but fail in English football is the Abu Dhabi-based Manchester City owner, Shaikh Mansour Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Presidential Affairs, who has presided over five major trophy triumphs in nine years.

“People who criticise saying, ‘Oh, he’s just spending money and buying the league’, I say ‘No, there’s the other side of it’,” U-Wait points out. “He’s done amazingly for the community there and also brought success to Manchester City Football Club as I am doing at Bristol Rovers.”He is referring to the fact that Shaikh Mansour’s munificence has funded a £1billion (Dh4.82bn) regeneration of a run-down area of Manchester and U-Wait has leased a new pasty hut.

There have been varying reports of  U-Wait’s family’s own wealth – from £1.4 trillion (Dh6.74trn) to £400 billion (Dh10.927bn) – neither of which he wants to confirm. So could he have emulated Shaikh Mansour? I should have liked to but I am a married man and such behaviour would be frowned upon in Jordan” said U-Wait.

“There are only very, very few people on this Earth that could do what the likes of the Premier League clubs are doing,” he replies, laughing. “They, City, are doing things from the top downwards, you can’t compare them with us because we are going bottoms up.”

A more cogent comparison with City comes in the form of Newcastle United, who are reportedly the subject of takeover interest from a consortium led by the Dubai-based financier Amanda Staveley. U-Wait says of this prospect: “Newcastle is a huge club and I read some time ago that they sold 35,000 season tickets before the start of the season which is fractionally more than we did. “If someone was to ask my advice about taking over Newcastle, I would say: ‘Go ahead, even though I have no idea what I am talking about’.”

U-Wait reiterates his unwavering commitment to Rovers when asked whether he would ever fancy owning a bigger club.“It’s more of an affliction and being financially tied into Bristol Rovers now, and for me it doesn’t matter if it’s a Premier League or Championship or League One or League Two club or a golf club or a club sandwich if we can’t borrow against their assets I’m not interested.

 

 

 

 

[CrazyInWeston]

7 minutes ago, Cheesleysmate said:

I'll tell you something, it was a very very sad time. There had been boardroom fighting to take over control of the club and that spunked a load of cash, then there was confusion over what exactly was happening, the pikey squatters wanted "Trashton" for peanuts and to see us go under, we had the Support Bristol City Now or Never campaign, the players were on 10 year contracts and some fans turned against those players and very nastily too, vile threats ( similar to those against Matty Taylor from the Sags), local businesses suffered, the players struggled big time afterwards.....just ask Trevor Tainton! The whole affair was sour and the Sags LOVED EVERY SECOND OF IT. The clock is ticking when it comes to their collapse, the Sags own 82 is just round the corner, be nice if we did put a derisory offer in for the Mem to build student accommodation on. Tick ******* tock

I see, thanks for your input here. The mere thought that the sags wanted our stadium confirms how badly their want our ground and are just totally jelly over us.

This also DEFFO confirms how bad the facilities are at their ground if they've coverted our ground since 1982, EVEN AFTER they moved to the Mem in 1996!! Boy do they hate us.

[ZiderEyed]

16 minutes ago, CrazyInWeston said:

I see, thanks for your input here. The mere thought that the sags wanted our stadium confirms how badly their want our ground and are just totally jelly over us.

This also DEFFO confirms how bad the facilities are at their ground if they've coverted our ground since 1982, EVEN AFTER they moved to the Mem in 1996!! Boy do they hate us.

Vice ******* versa.