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Bristol R*vers dustbin thread


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37 minutes ago, beaverface said:

I'm currently reading a book about City's all time record cap holder for England - Billy Wedlock - and it's quite an eye opener to hear that back in the late 1890's, Bedminster and Bristol City(formally Bristol South End) we're major rivals, and yet they wanted to move forward and become a powerhouse in footballing terms, and so amalgamated.

Similar circumstances to what you're describing as there was a strong rivalry between the two, and pretty much all of the assets from one club was used compared to the other, the exception being the two grounds, whereby the newly merged club shared grounds between Ashton Gate and St Johns lane before eventually settling on Ashton Gate.

I guess, if we want Bristol to be a big player within the country, then a Bristol United would (with emotion set aside) be the best way for the entire city to get behind one club.

Personally, I'd miss the intense rivalry as there's no other game that comes close to a Bristol derby, but in my eyes, if I was to look at it objectively - a merger would be way forward to giving the WHOLE city the impetus it needs.

Fundamentally, you'd need to ask yourself why you watch football? Is it to win trophies, or is it because of the historical meaning of having generations of family supporting and following your club. My family all hailed from Bedminster and so City is my club, however I now live in Kingswood, and we know there are supporters of (any) club that are spread throughout the entire Country, if not the World. I know fans who sit next to me at Ashton Gate who are from Oxford, Southampton, and I have one friend who lives in New York and attends whenever he's back.

Football has changed now from being a locally supported club, to being a global commodity. It appears to me, that if people want an intimate part of football, then following amateur grass roots football is probably the better alternative these days, which kind of harks back to what City, Rovers and other clubs used to be like until the money came in and made it a global sport. Proof of the pudding being, how many clubs are now owned by local businesses in the community - pretty much a majority of the top 40 clubs are owned by nobody with any affiliation to the clubs locality.

 

 

No merger required. Rovers struggle to keep the supporters they already have, let alone attract new supporters.

They are in the process of dismantling their club, bit by bit, year by year. 

If they had an active and committed fan base, they would have stopped the rot years back, but their collective apathy in not holding either their board to account whilst seemingly voting a fan to the board who doesn't communicate with them tells you how much they don't care.

I'm sure for a lot of them, the sooner they are put out of their misery the better.

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41 minutes ago, Drew Peacock said:

I would say between 1/3 and 1/4 are owned locally in the top two divisions, but I must admit there are some clubs I know very little about.

Just off the top of my head with zero research, us, Stoke, Boro, Brighton, Everton, Spurs, West Ham(?), Luton, Preston, Burnley (?), Newcastle, Hull, Norwich, Millwall (?), Derby.

Probably one or two more (and one or two of those above that I`ve missed takeovers) but 25% looks about right.

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The trouble the saggys have is that they have no real way of generating further cash out of the Mem unless their gates significantly increase. 

As it stands (sorry, as it tents) at the moment, in order to generate more revenue Wally needs to spend proportionally more revenue. 

Let's be honest, without a new ground they are are never going to progress. Whoever owns them is going to find it impossible to close the gap between income and out goings. I would be willing to bet that City make more money on match days from concessions sales, bars, the fanzone and shops than the Sags get from non season ticket match day ticket revenues. 

Their training ground is dead money hence its a muddy patch of scrub land. There is no way of generating short term cash from it so its going nowhere. The family have tried to spend some cash polishing the turd that is the Mem. A tent here, a TV screen there and that has enabled a few quid to be added to the ticket prices, screen a few more adverts and increase the price of sausage rolls. 

That 3.4 million pound gap won't be closed unless more people click through the turnstiles. 

It's all nice and lovely that their nice man with his lovely watch wants to keep the club going but in the long run he has two options, significant investment or sale. The longer he waits, the more he needs to spend to close the financial hole or the more of an asking price he needs to put on the club. 

In the short term they will keep ticking along but in the long run, with their debt the highest its probably ever been, their gates at what they've always been, no significant value in the team and the ground massively secured through a foreign shell company to enable the owners to have at least some form of financial exit, they are in deep poop. 

If there is no sign of any big investment in facilities or finance in the next 18 months, I can't see how they can come back. 

Oh, shame. 

Edited by Midlands Robin
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3 hours ago, Miah Dennehy said:

Its the last time I will say it was a hypothetical question that if Lansdown suggested in a spirit of altruism would you support it. I'm not suggesting it, or advocating it, I wish I hadn't asked :)

 

I would say you could all go hypothetically **** yourselves. 

It'll never happen.

 

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3 hours ago, Bristol Rob said:

No merger required. Rovers struggle to keep the supporters they already have, let alone attract new supporters.

They are in the process of dismantling their club, bit by bit, year by year. 

If they had an active and committed fan base, they would have stopped the rot years back, but their collective apathy in not holding either their board to account whilst seemingly voting a fan to the board who doesn't communicate with them tells you how much they don't care.

I'm sure for a lot of them, the sooner they are put out of their misery the better.

Shhsss, let it continue unabated in silence.

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For Miah's hypothetical question, if City changed their name to United, wouldn't it be exactly the same as, with all respect to Miah, what would the hypothetically (hopefully) defunct rovers bring to this? nothing as far as I can see, not one thing. It would be Bristol City with a name change wouldn't it?

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18 minutes ago, Ska Junkie said:

For Miah's hypothetical question, if City changed their name to United, wouldn't it be exactly the same as, with all respect to Miah, what would the hypothetically (hopefully) defunct rovers bring to this? nothing as far as I can see, not one thing. It would be Bristol City with a name change wouldn't it?

Can't happen anyway as with any merger the new club takes over the place of the lower club - can't see anyone City related wanting that to happen.

BUT if it were to happen, Bristol United is a bit lame.

I say we have an equitable name change incorporating both existing clubs, so take the Bristol from Bristol Rovers and the City from Bristol City. That seems fair to me.

(is there any chance the Al Quadis are sitting on that training ground waiting for planning to change so they can put a few houses on it. It would be worth a fortune then).

 

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3 minutes ago, bcfc01 said:

Can't happen anyway as with any merger the new club takes over the place of the lower club - can't see anyone City related wanting that to happen.

BUT if it were to happen, Bristol United is a bit lame.

I say we have an equitable name change incorporating both existing clubs, so take the Bristol from Bristol Rovers and the City from Bristol City. That seems fair to me.

(is there any chance the Al Quadis are sitting on that training ground waiting for planning to change so they can put a few houses on it. It would be worth a fortune then).

 

Not if the other club had gone out of existence and it was done just to unify the supporter bases.

As for the building plot that is known as "The Colony", of course it is. They are waiting for the adjoining plot to be developed for housing. Then it would make sense to sell for housing and use the profit for developing a new stadium/pocketing the profit. Thanks very much. Just as the Rovers new training ground at Hambrook,  was bought with the insurance money from the Eastville fire, then "The Beeches" was bought with the profit. Do Rovers own that? NO.

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I could only foresee a situation where any 15er's 'supporting' a United team at AG would start singing their own songs, of course including the dirge - in the pubs beforehand and during the match only to be shouted down by the rest of us. Rather than uniting support it would cause a division amongst our home crowd which I could see spilling into nastiness before, during and after home games. It would never work. Too many people with very long memories.

I would never go to watch a United team. I've been a lifelong red - CTID and FTG not UTID.

It's a no from me.

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17 minutes ago, Rich said:

Not if the other club had gone out of existence and it was done just to unify the supporter bases.

As for the building plot that is known as "The Colony", of course it is. They are waiting for the adjoining plot to be developed for housing. Then it would make sense to sell for housing and use the profit for developing a new stadium/pocketing the profit. Thanks very much. Just as the Rovers new training ground at Hambrook,  was bought with the insurance money from the Eastville fire, then "The Beeches" was bought with the profit. Do Rovers own that? NO.

How interesting.

Curiosity got the better of me, so I did a little research.

The Beeches is owned by two former Rovers Directors, Messrs Watola and Durnford - I am assuming the latter is related to the dairy family of ex-directors. 

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41 minutes ago, bcfc01 said:

Can't happen anyway as with any merger the new club takes over the place of the lower club - can't see anyone City related wanting that to happen.

BUT if it were to happen, Bristol United is a bit lame.

I say we have an equitable name change incorporating both existing clubs, so take the Bristol from Bristol Rovers and the City from Bristol City. That seems fair to me.

(is there any chance the Al Quadis are sitting on that training ground waiting for planning to change so they can put a few houses on it. It would be worth a fortune then).

 

The old ones are the best!

I can't see it but who knows.

If there ever was a merger the best name would be a simple:

Bristol FC

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For all Rovers supporters hoping for SL to come over the horizon like the 7th cavalry to save them, they should remember the old saying “There’s no such thing as a free lunch”. As Rovers can’t even afford genuine Fanta, there is nothing to offer that might make a merger an appealing option. Not even Babe Station in the clubhouse 

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2 minutes ago, pongo88 said:

For all Rovers supporters hoping for SL to come over the horizon like the 7th cavalry to save them, they should remember the old saying “There’s no such thing as a free lunch”. As Rovers can’t even afford genuine Fanta, there is nothing to offer that might make a merger an appealing option. Not even Babe Station in the clubhouse 

They have a clubhouse ?

Really ? 

A professional club in the third tier has a clubhouse ?

You'll be telling me next that they have canvas roofs on their temporarily permanent stands.

 

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1 hour ago, Ska Junkie said:

For Miah's hypothetical question, if City changed their name to United, wouldn't it be exactly the same as, with all respect to Miah, what would the hypothetically (hopefully) defunct rovers bring to this? nothing as far as I can see, not one thing. It would be Bristol City with a name change wouldn't it?

They could be our away following - go to away games - and we'd cover the home games. We'd be huge! The envy of all ......

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7 minutes ago, Moments of Pleasure said:

They could be our away following - go to away games - and we'd cover the home games. We'd be huge! The envy of all ......

Not sure we want the six fingers, inbreeding and dribbling associates with us, that’s even before the horse punching and boob cricket.

Imagine their poor little faces when they see a proper home stadium? ?
I can see the benefits of babe station on the big screens though. ?

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6 minutes ago, Vincent Vega said:

They're entire fanbase could fit in the Lansdown with 4000 spare seats

Top tier then and umbrellas for everyone else. Shit fanta in the top tier to make them feel at home plus out of date crisps and pasties. Job's a good 'un. 

No idea what they would make of seats though and a roof which isn't made of canvas plus how they would understand shops' and toilets inside' a stadium might be too much for the poor lambs. 

Edited by Ska Junkie
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1 hour ago, Rudolf Hucker said:

I could only foresee a situation where any 15er's 'supporting' a United team at AG would start singing their own songs, of course including the dirge - in the pubs beforehand and during the match only to be shouted down by the rest of us. Rather than uniting support it would cause a division amongst our home crowd

And this is exactly why it could never work. You couldn’t trust them not to turn up in the Jesters uniform and belt out that shit anthem of theirs at every opportunity (those that would actually attend).

The result would be carnage, you’ll have ‘ex’ City support launching ‘ex’ Gasheads down the stairs of the Dolman and if we’re playing Leeds it’ll be 90 minutes of gobby ***** getting thrown down stairs all around the ground. 

 

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Rovers seem to be crawling to a slow death at the moment, the division will have its Portsmouth's and Sunderland's who are hamstrung by the weight of their own fans expectations, but have greater resorses, plus the perennial  yo yo clubs like Barnsley forming an orderly queue at the top. 

I'm not sure why Wael bought the club if he wasn't going to invest meaningful amounts, perhaps he was let down by investors, I don't know. 

 

Strange. 

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1 hour ago, Peter O Hanraha-hanrahan said:

And this is exactly why it could never work. You couldn’t trust them not to turn up in the Jesters uniform and belt out that shit anthem of theirs at every opportunity (those that would actually attend).

They hardly manage that at their own games now..! 

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1 hour ago, Peter O Hanraha-hanrahan said:

And this is exactly why it could never work. You couldn’t trust them not to turn up in the Jesters uniform and belt out that shit anthem of theirs at every opportunity (those that would actually attend).

The result would be carnage, you’ll have ‘ex’ City support launching ‘ex’ Gasheads down the stairs of the Dolman and if we’re playing Leeds it’ll be 90 minutes of gobby ***** getting thrown down stairs all around the ground. 

 

There would be a break though, how else would the Leeds fan have time to take a picture of his crying child to post on Twitter. 

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3 hours ago, B1ackbird said:

Rovers seem to be crawling to a slow death at the moment, the division will have its Portsmouth's and Sunderland's who are hamstrung by the weight of their own fans expectations, but have greater resorses, plus the perennial  yo yo clubs like Barnsley forming an orderly queue at the top. 

I'm not sure why Wael bought the club if he wasn't going to invest meaningful amounts, perhaps he was let down by investors, I don't know. 

 

Strange. 

He bought the club because of the Sainsbury’s deal thinking they can make a quick buck 

they are also losing money because of the London  Office 

no one knows why they need it for the club

 

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I suppose that if the 1st team played in red and the reserves in blue,  we took the Bristol from Bristol Rovers and the City form Bristol City and played at Ashton Gate, it might work.

But they don't really offer anything except a pile of debt worth more than the ground, the team and any goodwill put together.  A fanbase of less than 6000, 90% of whom would never go to AG would't add much to our attendances or revenue.

Non starter, I would say.

The Gas are doomed and will not be around much longer to blight our beautiful city.  COVID19 will only bring forward their demise by a year or two.

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I can’t see it ever happening. There’s nothing in it for City, we don’t need them.

And for Rovers? They would never want to support a club that plays at Ashton Gate owned by Steve Lansdown.

If the 15ers go bust, then they either disappear or a small phoenix club will be formed.

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