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Harry Dolman "Mr Bristol City"


Sir Colby-Tit

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Just finished reading a great book, title as per thread title, by Martin Powell and Clive Burlton. 

Harry's name has of course been synonymous with the club for many years. My first memories of the stand that bears his name are from running up and down the steps in the early eighties when I had a brief trial with the club under Gerry Sharpe, and going into the school boy enclosure for 50p.

As a young man I preferred to watch games from the East End, Open End or the Williams enclosure, but have had a season ticket in the Dolman for the last 23 years. 

I must admit until I read this book I was totally unaware of what a genius Harry was and how much he done for the club and the city of Bristol. 

Marina must be extremely proud. 

We're all of course aware of the great work that SL has done, and continues to do, but shouldn't forget the great achievements of his predecessor's. 

I really can't recommend the book enough, a fascinating insight into a truly remarkable man. 

I believe it's available in the club shop if anyone is interested. 

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9 minutes ago, Sir Colby-Tit said:

Just finished reading a great book, title as per thread title, by Martin Powell and Clive Burlton. 

Harry's name has of course been synonymous with the club for many years. My first memories of the stand that bears his name are from running up and down the steps in the early eighties when I had a brief trial with the club under Gerry Sharpe, and going into the school boy enclosure for 50p.

As a young man I preferred to watch games from the East End, Open End or the Williams enclosure, but have had a season ticket in the Dolman for the last 23 years. 

I must admit until I read this book I was totally unaware of what a genius Harry was and how much he done for the club and the city of Bristol. 

Marina must be extremely proud. 

We're all of course aware of the great work that SL has done, and continues to do, but shouldn't forget the great achievements of his predecessor's. 

I really can't recommend the book enough, a fascinating insight into a truly remarkable man. 

I believe it's available in the club shop if anyone is interested. 

I have been recommending it since last Xmas when I got one. As you say, I didn’t realise just what a great inventor he was and how far reaching his inventions went. The biggest surprise for me was that he was the one who wanted to move Alan Dicks on before we got promoted, but the board insisted on one more season. Thank goodness he didn’t get his way for once.

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On 31/12/2019 at 10:21, oldstandrobin said:

A fantastic read, got it for Xmas last year. Would recommend to any City fan if you can get a copy

Have just finished reading for the second time...........as we may be moving back to Spain this year, if you would like this copy, just PM me and you can have for free and will bring to Birmingham match. 1st to PM can have it

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Just read this book. What a great read as it encompasses three of my passions, WW1, Engineering and Bristol City. But a few things struck me. One was that Mr Dolman cheated almost certain death, not once but twice before he became a City board member, and also that he owned 2 Rovers season tickets as he lived that side of town. He was invited on the Rovers board, and went along to a board meeting, intending to join but found they were negotiating with the greyhound company to sell Eastville, and he felt a forward thinking club needed to be self sufficient and own their own stadium, to utilise it during the week. Some things havent changed in all those years, in fact I saw a lot of Mr. Lansdown in many of Harry's quotes. But how things would have been different if he had been killed either by enemy gunfire during WW1 when it was harder to miss him, or in the plane crash piloting the plane that he himself had built, or he had joined the Rovers board of directors instead. As it was Harry who scouted, chased and signed John Atyeo , I think its fair to say that had he signed him for Rovers our fortunes could have been quite different today.

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I've recently read this book as well, huge thanks to @oldstandrobin for giving me his copy. It's a fascinating read and, like the OP, I had no idea what an extraordinary man HD was. We have so much to be grateful to him for.

I would be happy to pass the book on to another fan (once all these shenanigans are over and we eventually get to go down the Gate again). If anyone would like it (free) give me a pm. 

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