Offside

I reckon about 15k tops. With fears about covid, people self isolating, people away on holiday and awful performances last season there’ll be plenty staying away.

I’m really not sure how I feel about the new season. The aftertaste from last season’s awful capitulation is still very much there. On the plus side we have experience and quality in the signings of James and King, plus the return from injury of players like Weimann and Williams. Behind the scenes with the likes of Rennie, things must surely be better than they were. Also NP has had a pre-season with the squad. And Mark Ashton is now out of harm’s way, thank god. If we avoid a relegation scrap, stay mid-table and avoid the long losing runs of the past I’ll be happy. I see it as a season of transition, with NP hopefully steadying the ship, making the team more robust so we can build for the future. I really do feel that we need a decent start just to wash away the hangover from last season.

Good luck to him. Hopefully this will be a good move for his career.

This has got some pictures of older crests: https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/sport/football/gallery/pictures-bristol-citys-crest-through-2693549

The Dolman is where I used to sit with my dad when he started taking me to games. We always sat right near the back, originally in B block until there were away fans there one game (I think it was v Torquay), so we moved to F block and that’s where we stayed until I started going in the EE when I was about 15. My dad stayed in the Dolman until the Atyeo was built, and then he moved there. Looking back now, that brick wall at the front of the Dolman looked quite odd. Wasn’t the design something to do with incorporating the bowling underneath? I also recall at one point talk of putting executive boxes at the back of the Dolman.

I rate Palmer. He is one of the few players in our team (I haven’t seen King or James so can’t comment on them) who can unlock defences. I’d really like to see him given a run of games. I don’t think the chopping and changing that characterised the LJ and DH eras helped him. Like @Davefevshas said, he looked good when was played regularly. He’s the sort of player who needs game time to get up to speed. A problem for a while was that our squad was too big. LJ liked his “clubs in the bag”, but with so many players to choose from, the temptation to tinker was too much. A smaller squad, where players aren’t in fear of being dropped randomly, and where the manager has to get the best out of what he’s got, has to be a good thing. Look at Cauley Woodrow - a peripheral player here cos we had so many other options, but who, according to Wiki, has scored 38 goals in 103 games for Barnsley, which is a good record. So back to Palmer - we spent a lot of money on him. He’s now fit. Play him. Encourage him to do his stuff. Get him in areas of the pitch where he can cause damage to the opposition. That’s the only way we’ll see if he’s good enough. I think he is.

Interesting points. Each time there’s a new manager it’s refreshing at first. I liked SOD’s interviews initially, but after a while they started to annoy me. Especially the stuff he said after the victory against the fewers, when he showed no understanding of the passions evoked by a local derby. Also things like not looking at the league table. Cotts always wore his heart on his sleeve and I liked that. I also really liked LJ’s interviews for a while, until the David Brent-isms got annoying. Holden was more straight-talking, which was a welcome change at first, but then his interviews became littered with meaningless comments like “we go again” and “we’ll work hard in training”. And now we have NP, who is very considered in the way he speaks and seems to have contempt for the interview process (and I can see how this is all grating). But as has been said elsewhere on this thread, this appears to be the professional persona he has developed, a bit like the way Warnock’s pantomime villain character evolved. If the team is winning and/or playing well, any annoying characteristics of the manager are easier to overlook.

Best wishes to you, Mick.

Bought from Darlington for something like £18,000. Bargain of the century.

My copy of the David Woods book is still at my parents’ house. I used to love that book as a kid. The Peter Godsiff one is also there, but my copy had a mistake in the printing, so one section was in there twice with another one missing altogether.

I absolutely hate it when stadiums are named like that. Clubs like Leicester, Wigan, Bournemouth……I have no idea what their grounds are called.

Yep, me too, I find that really difficult on Word! I remember being given those colour blindness tests as a kid (the ones with different colour dots and a number) and I thought it was a conspiracy cos all I saw was dots.

And until reading this thread I always thought the Dairy Milk wrapper was dark blue. You live and learn!

I’m colour blind and, like others have said, I don’t really notice it most of the time. In football, though, if City are playing a team in a dark kit I often rely on our white shorts to be able to distinguish between the teams, particularly in evening games. So I’ve always hated it when City wear all red at home. Similarly, when I play FIFA in City’s all black away kit against a team in all red I find it quite difficult to tell the difference. I’m glad I’m not the only one!

Exactly how I’ve been feeling. With home advantage and being a goal up at half time on Sunday, there was no better opportunity to win something. Qatar will be a completely different and probably more difficult challenge.