Bat Fastard

Having never lived in Bristol - although having supported City for nearly 47 years, I do not know about parking away from the ground. Over the years I have found one or two places that allow for a quick getaway after the matches, and this will suffice for the time being. The train service from Temple Meads to Taunton does not fit very well with evening matches and then there is the problem of getting to the station. As a fat old git - it would be heroic to have to walk so far.

I drive up from Taunton now I have retired - but before that I used to drive from London in a people carrier with a bunch of London and M4 based fans. Parking was frequently a cause of stress because it was difficult to always arrive early because of the traffic. A later than normal arrival often meant parking a very long way from The Gate - very frustrating. Just imagine this situation made worse by more and increasing parking restrictions and traffic congestion due to the rapidly expanding population. Just because parking zones finish at a certain time does not mean there will be lots of parking spaces there. The bigger car parks are only part of a solution. Park and ride might help if there were very frequent match day shuttles and the rail option could be very helpful if there was parking near the stations that would feed Ashton Gate. A train from Taunton to Parsons Green would be helpful if only the times of the trains fitted in with match times (including the odd instance of late kick offs and extra time in cup games). This would entail our visionary board of directors to have sufficient insight to negotiate with the Rail company. Do they care? Can they be bothered to ask a staff member to sort it out? Answers on a postcard...

Of course you are right. You also might have expected the "head in the sand" directors to have thought of something like this.

Parking is becoming more difficult year by year and just imagine how it would be if we did get 27000 crowds. If the bus services improved - where could they all pick up? There are no viable transport links and the revamp will take away even more parking spaces. This has no been though through. It should be a very nice Championship level stadium once you are inside - the trouble is going to come in trying to persuade people to go through great difficulty in getting to the stadium for every match. Short of concreting over the park and making it into a car park - (with lousy road access) this is not the right solution for the next 100 years.

If the chance to develop Ashton Vale is missed, City will always be limited as a club and would never be able to generate the revenue to stay in the Premiership if we ever managed to get there. In my opinion we would have a nice stadium for the Championship and maybe have the odd season in the Premiership (very big maybe!) The stadium is permanent but league positions are strictly temporary (I hope!). Arsenal had to move from Highbury because it only held 38000 people and they felt that they could not continue to compete with the likes of Manure with 76000 capacity. Sporting excellence is about ambition - I hope that the Landsowns have more than they are currently demonstrating. The Mayor was happy with housing on the AG site and would be happy keeping City on the site because both of those options feed The Tobacco Factory with paying punters. If the proposition is looked at objectively - the AG option is grossly inferior to AV. We are being legged over by vested interests, green loonies and a very small number of local nimbys. It stinks!

Just because the Mayor owns the Tobacco Factory - we are railroaded into staying at Ashton Gate and having to forgo Ashton Vale, which would have better parking, transport links, facilities and future expandability. If we go down this route - people will look back on the decision for years to come and see it as a BIG mistake.

Big surprise....NOT If we go down this route and not AV - it will be seen as a huge missed opportunity in years to come. Lousy access, parking and no room to expand.

With the stories from Sheffield about Roma trying to sell babies - it would be thoroughly unpleasant for local AV residents and worthy Bristolian social housing tenants to have to live with a big concentration of Roma on the new estate. However it may be a cheap way for BCFC to enhance the youth policy ;-)

If the stadium is not built in AV - it would make a great site for affordable housing. They could then be let out to the Roma immigrants from Romania and Bulgaria. The nimby clan should be careful what they wish for....

The new stadium will hopefully have better seats with more elbow and leg room as well as decent sight lines. The other important issues are access and parking - and both of these will be poor at a revamped AG. AV is the only long term solution that will give the Club the potential to survive beyond the Championship. If the Lansdown clan really want to make their mark in Bristol for the next century they need to build AV. A revamped AG will leave us as a nearly club for all eternity. Its crap or get off the pot time!

I doubt if we will ever find out what the so called offenders actually did on the night. I was in the Dolman and saw a fair bit of overexcited young kids but saw no real wickedness - at least the kind of wickedness that would call for a life time ban. Hopefully the people concerned can get copies of their CCTV evidence clips and arrange an appointment with a Director if they feel that they have been unfairly treated. Hell - we need more fans and cannot afford to waste a single one!