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What a video... ? Towler is as Bristolian as they get...

I’m struggling with the concept that anyone sensible would want to go to Blackburn, in their current form, to watch City, in our current form! (I’m still going mind!)

I’m going for @VT05763 Deep, deep cover

Hi All, apologies in advance if this is the wrong home for this thread, if so, admin please re-house to the correct place! Am based in Warsaw, and we've obviously been hit by a huge wave of people fleeing the war. The response has been amazing from both Poles and expats here, but it remains utterly heartbreaking seeing this first-hand. The news does not tell even a fraction of the stories. Anyhow, many of the kids are arriving with nothing; have been raising toys and suchlike for some of them, but was thinking it would be great to give out some City (or other teams!) related stuff - NOT kits or scarves. This being Poland, it's not inconceivable some moron will mistake theses colours for a rival Polish team! Instead, am thinking of little things kids can keep private and just treasure as something personal: key fobs, stickers, penants, even any old programmes. Obviously any postage fees would be covered by myself in advance. If you can help, please drop me a private message. Thanks!

Surprised this debate is still going on. For years pubs and bars have had happy hour, they've just flipped it a bit and we now have unhappy afternoons when having paid a premium for a drink, you then have to watch City play.

Good. I feel sorry for Chelsea fans and would hate for this to happen to Bristol City but there is a horrible war going on and football cannot be treated as a special case. I know we all think football is special but while Ukrainian hospitals are being bombed its not. If it hurts Russia and puts pressure on Putin to stop then shut the club down. Report i read was no

The evidence is strong! How many letters in Nigel? 5 How many letters in Pearson? 7 In what year was NP born? 1963 What is your otib name? The defence rests me lud!

Felt I'd give my two pence, from a Rovers perspective. For the poster who said JB has done a amazing job on zero budget - he has one of the biggest budgets in the League, he was allowed to get rid of any of the backroom team and also bring in whoever he wanted. He has a healthy budget. As for the ones saying we'd beat you right now. Nonsense. The gap isn't closing. It was closing when we were promoted to L1 under DC and he had us going well until you took Matty off us. To say it's closing now when there's a chance we still don't go up, but you guys are in the Championship for at least another yet is just nonsense. Yes the form since new year has been great, we could pinch that third auto spot or we could finish 10th. There's still too many teams involved.

They got a points deduction because they cheated, allowing them to buy and retain better players than would otherwise be the case. Had they not cheated, they would have got no deduction but would also be less competitive, and therefore may well be sitting in the relegation zone anyway.

Before the 14/15 season we made some great signings like Freeman, Wilbs, Korey Smith, Mark Little etc. Gasheads accused us of ‘buying’ promotion. Barton is allowed to buy an entire new team and some City fans come out with that ‘zero budget’ bollocks. ? Amazing isn’t it?

He should never have been allowed to take ownership of a UK football club. Definitely not a "fit and proper" person. In 1990, he had a market stall in Moscow selling Russian dolls, in 1992 he went to prison for a year for stealing state assets, by 1995 he is a billionaire in charge of the entire Russian denationalised aluminium industry and its second largest oil company. At no point would he and Berezovsky have had the assets to buy the refineries, mines, resources that they "acquired". In his rise are murdered aluminium and oil workers, murdered commodity brokers and murdered journalists who investigated the racket. He's perhaps the biggest crook to ever own an English club, and considering Maxwell, Oyston and some of the other previous owners, I don't make that statement lightly.

Cotts? ???

How precisely is his freedom being taken away, other than his freedom to sell Chelsea for megabucks then - checks notes - ah, yes, "donate" the money to war victims? ? He isn't being detained. He lives in unabashed luxury in Israel and Monte Carlo. See my other post on what a massive gangster he is. He should never have been allowed into the UK in the first place, let alone be passed a fit and proper person to own a major English football club. Still, he'll appreciate your concern.

Thats the spirit!

Darwen was the setting for a Norman Wisdom film(ask your grand parents),called "their was a crooked man" It featured a town in Britain being destroyed by an bogus American General played by Norman Wisdom. The rumour goes that the USA asked for the film not to be released as it was showing the USA in a bad light. It was at the height of "the bay of pigs" in cuba incident,again ask your grand parents. The film was finally released nearly FIFTY YEARS later in 2017,yes I have got a copy. Having said that,there was a perfect copy doing the rounds on you tube with Russian audio. Weather conditions for Darwen/Blackburn on Saturday is dry with broken sunshine in the afternoon See the rest of you hordes in Lancashire on Saturday

What a joke that it took 2 weeks to impose this. I wonder why…..

At long last we may now get a proper investigation on how English football is run. Its administration is antiquated and the structure is not fit for purpose. Massive Revolution needed

But they are not extortionate and with pubs closing seemingly on a daily basis including several around Ashton Gate I don't have any problem with this if it keeps their doors open

Thanks for this, just looking through it now. Do you know what? No matter what people may think of our previous 2 Managers, the unrestrained joy when Bryan scored the first is great to see,

I'm sure plenty have. But how many of those celebrities made billions in the oligarch takeover of an entire country, recommended Putin as Yeltsin's successor, interviewed Putin's cabinet and also held the governorship of a Russian province?

Bang on. A bit of tough run, in what was always going to be a tough season, and the whiners are off again..."Why can't we be more like the gAss.?" What, scrapping around in League 2, playing the likes of Harrogate, Sutton and FGR...? NO TA.

It's the age old story of value and cost and how folks love to confuse them. Bespoke assets are difficult to value as, er, they're bespoke. There's either no or a very limited market for those who might wish to purchase them. For accounting purposes Derby adopted a DRC method (basically what would this cost to replicate) but why do that when you've the asset already? It's only useful for insurance purposes and is NOT a measure of value. In truth stadiums only have value if they may be put to other purposes (suppose an NFL franchise wanted to relocate to UK,) else they're worth the value of the land (site cleared) and 'Use Case' consents achievable (what planners will permit you to build on the site.) In practice snd when discounting by planning levies (S106/CIL,) that's a sum far less than folks imagine.

Currently sourcing the world's smallest violin just for the Chelsea fans....

If you’re a certain age you have nothing but utter loathing for Rovers particularly if you remember the ‘80’s where we hardly ever beat them but my two grown up boys have complete indifference towards them as they barely know any Rovers fans and have never seen a league game against them

That is one of the best unplanned comedy sketches I've seen. Bloody brilliant. It's moments like that, that the Bristolian accent was made for.

The mannerisms are SO Gareth Keenan out of The Office ?

A bit off topic, personally I would do it before the first game of the season. 1 minutes applause, with the names of those sadly passed since the start of the previous season shown on the big screen. I think it's the best way to show respect to those who connect us all.

It's OK mate. Present your question to the Foreign Office, MI6, the International Crime Bureau etc if you think the UK has been unfair to poor Roman. I'm sure they have evidence. They may not be able to disclose it to you for state security reasons, but I'm sure he wasn't selected at random. There are somewhere between 75,000 and 150,000 Russians in the UK. Only a couple of hundred worldwide have been sanctioned. The broad reasons for sanctioning are detailed on the government website. They are much more significant than "owning shares in a weapon company". If RA thinks he has been unfairly treated, there is an appeals procedure.

Thanks for your support but I'll decide how to waste my own time thanks. There's some good stuff in there that can potentially help organisations to steer policy. People get incredibly hot and bothered on here about anti-social behaviour, cocaine use, finances in football, the role of the EFL, the atmosphere at the Gate, hell some weirdos even care about colourblindness. All of that is covered in the survey and people seem more than happy to waste their time arguing about those topics on here...so why not actually engage with the entities that control this stuff?

Abramovich is vulnerable to British retaliation because of his proximity to President Putin. Their relationship goes back a long way. Abramovich was one of Putin’s early supporters. He recommended him for the top Kremlin job to Boris Yeltsin, when Russia’s ailing leader was looking for a successor. According to the late oligarch Boris Berezovsky in evidence to the high court in London, Abramovich enjoyed significant political influence in Moscow from the second half of the 1990s. In October 1999, he attended Putin’s birthday party. Soon afterwards, Abramovich allegedly bought Putin, then the prime minister, a $50m yacht. “The request came from Mr Putin,” Berezovsky said in evidence. By the time Putin became president in 2000, Abramovich played a key role in shaping the new government, Berezovsky added in his evidence. Abramovich selected members of Putin’s cabinet, he claimed. Abramovich had the power to open and shut criminal cases and to initiate investigations and arrests. it was alleged. He was, in short, a big Kremlin player, albeit one who operated behind the scenes.

That's exactly it. Pride Park's 'value' (sic) was argued the cost of having to reproduce an equivalent facility should Pride Park be destroyed and nothing to do with what it might realise if sold. Recall Derby pay very little (if any) rent and that's a better measure of valuing a property asset. Say they paid £4m a year in rent and held a 25 year lease then the Freeholder is 'guaranteed' income of £100m. You may use that as a guide as to potentially what the freehold asset is worth. That was the scam. On book, as accounts allow one to do, by effectively 'selling to themselves' they doubled the supposed value of the asset (NB it never even had to change hands for cash,) and banked that theoretical 'profit' (sic) to avoid penalties under FFP.

Quantuma update via MP. Quantuma is urgently clarifying all of the current bids! My thought is that Quantuma will need administrators themselves after they have spent all the wedge Derby County owe them. The damage they are inflicting on their own business must be massive!

Listened to Talksport earlier, when they had a reporter at Stamford Bridge, as Chelsea fans were gathering to find out what was happening. They interviewed an 18/19 year old supporter. After saying that he couldn't see what events thousands of miles had to do with his football club!!, he then went on to say that not being to buy tickets and therefore being unable to attend games would be bad for his mental health. Got me thinking that were this to happen to us, not being to go to AG would probably improve most City fans’ mental health!

Moshiri the Unstoppable Sex Machine?

Right, thanks. I'd not got the details of his involvement there. Like I say though, the definitions being applied here are broad, include indirect and direct involvement, and need to be technically applied.

Zero budget ? Don’t they have one of the biggest budgets in the fourth division ? How many players have they signed this year?

The sanctions are taking place under the The Russia (Sanctions) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 (https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2019/855/contents/made). It requires that the Secretary of State "has reasonable grounds to suspect that that person is an involved person" and "considers that the designation of that person is appropriate". The full definition of an "involved person" is defined in Regulation 6 (https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2019/855/regulation/6/made)

As one who worked under Patel at the HO it's no surprise she and her Government continue to excel in crass ineptitude. If only they'd expended effort in ensuring Ukrainian refugees had an expedite and safe passage to these shores instead of her hiding behind self-imposed red tape. But little changes. As for RA and Chelsea. I've yet to see any reasoned, legal explanation as to how the Government believes it has the right to act as it has? There's a raft of legislation to handle breach of financial regulation, proceeds of crime et al yet, so far as I'm aware , RA hasn't been charged with any offence in this country or any with which we have reciprocal arrangements. I've seen no suggestion that Chelsea is implicated in such practice. RA is an Israeli citizen who holds Portuguese nationality, so whilst it's easy to decline him entry here if he's commited no crime (as charged) what right has the UK Government to sanction him as an individual for assets wholly held in the UK? From first hand account he, his ex-wife and family come across as quiet, reserved, considerate types. Maybe he isn't, but I've no evidence to suggest otherwise. To claims he 'stole' or benefitted from the denationalization of Russian state institutions, I've no doubt he did the latter but the former, where's the evidence? Much as with Bill Gates he exploited a naive market and became abundantly rich in the process. As one who regularly travelled to Russia in those days there were many 'opportunities' proffered by state officials looking to feather their own nests (I personally was requested to 'broker' several deals involving substantial bits of 'missing' military hardware on the basis if I was expert at shifting newspapers how difficult could it be for me to offload attack helicopters and munitions?) The 'Special Licence' fiasco this morning is straight from the script of 'Yes Minister' or 'The Thick Of It'. Sledgehammer, knee-jerk policy. Rapid realization of ill-thought and unintended consequence and more reverse ferrets than found on a Mendips coursing expedition. For a Government that's bent over backwards to favour Derby and its corrupt administration, quite how they square their attitude to Chelsea today God only knows?

It’s like ******* hide & seek with this Government. We know you are Putin’s mate but you have given us loads of money, so you have a fortnight to get everything out & then we’ll come for you. Completely corrupt.

Neymar - one of the most overrated players ever r Will win you one or two games a season , often against mediocre sides in Lique 1 Most of the time will be sulking , whinging or performing tricks to little effect If Harlem Globetrotters had a football side he would be in it

Difficult to move property, ownership of his UK business empire and Chelsea itself, Tom A big chunk of his dirty money stays here and hopefully will eventually go towards building new hospitals to replace the ones his murdering friend has demolished.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-60690362 Now sanctioned…

So who has joined otib in the past 12 months and is really NP?

To be fair it’s nothing different to what I’d be doing!

I hate Cardiff, just as I hate Swansea. But then again I hate Boro, and Forest, and Millwall, Hull, Bournemouth, WBA, Reading, Liverpool, Man Utd etc etc etc. To be honest I hate every other team. However nothing, NOTHING compares to the utter loathing I have for those vile csnut from north of the river. I struggle to even find words to express my true feelings. For that reason for me there will only ever be one true rival, and forever may they suffer, struggle and hopefully endure a long, lingering, painful death. CTID

Congratulations to the happy couple Nathan has had it rough recently, about time he had something go his way

The concussion is worse than I thought.

He got married yesterday

His health comes first. For now, let's leave it at that.