Jump to content
IGNORED

Our Fans are the problem, not Mark Ashton or Steve Lansdown


AshtonYate

Recommended Posts

1 hour ago, Olé said:

SL made a comment last year, wish I could dig it out, that I found quite jarring, defending Mark Ashton on the strength almost exclusively of what he is privy to at EFL level and giving us a voice at the table.

It was clear SL was hugely enamored by that access more than perhaps anything, and I thought it was an odd qualification for a CEO, like putting your paid lobbyist in charge of running your whole business. 

It put me in mind of MA holding court at the EFL get togethers, with everyone crowded round him, waiting on his every word and direction. Not the democratic meeting of club executives it's reported as.

It occurred to me there's an age old trick (any salesperson knows it) to come back from a sales conference and show off to the boss all the influence/gossip you've secured - the boss will never know better!

I find it a bit odd we measure performance on what MA says he's done/heard at the EFL conferences - unless I'm missing some EFL rules changes or penalties for others that we've secured in our favour?

I think it was during the long FaceTime interview with SL following the dismissal of DH? I remember it too and something about how fans don’t understand the amount of good that MA does for the club. MA picked up an award for his work with the EFL.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

18 hours ago, Davefevs said:

Stop twisting the argument (same with you @SecretSam) to be about who is choosing players.

@davefevs I respect that you are ITK. 

But I am not "twisting the argument". I am saying that responsibility can never lie with one person in an organisation the size of BCFC.

It's a little disingenuous to suggest otherwise.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Whatever people think about Mark Ashton he is more or less running the club on a day-to-day basis and if he leaves in the summer we are going to be up the creek regarding the transfer window. NP has already stated he's not interested in negotiating player contracts, the club could be drifting like a rudderless ship with players leaving and nobody new coming in. I just hope SL has someone lined up to replace him if he goes. At least MA has wanted the job, nobody else seems interested in getting involved at that level, and SL has said he can't find anybody willing to join the Board, the club is short staffed at senior management level so we can't afford to lose anybody.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Olé said:

SL made a comment last year, wish I could dig it out, that I found quite jarring, defending Mark Ashton on the strength almost exclusively of what he is privy to at EFL level and giving us a voice at the table.

It was clear SL was hugely enamored by that access more than perhaps anything, and I thought it was an odd qualification for a CEO, like putting your paid lobbyist in charge of running your whole business. 

Yes, Lansdown said Ashton "protects our interests" at the EFL (verbatim quote).

I weird comment I've had rattling around my head ever since. It still makes no sense whatsoever.

Of course, the person interviewing him didn't have the gumption or the gonads to pick up on it and ask what on earth he meant.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On the topic of recruitment, does anyone else think that much of our dealings have in the past couple seasons been reactionary rather than planned?

The Nketiah debacle very rarely gets mentioned...put all our eggs in one basket and made to look fools.

Then it's been injury after injury and ' panic' acquisitions pretty much ever since.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, spudski said:

On the topic of recruitment, does anyone else think that much of our dealings have in the past couple seasons been reactionary rather than planned?

The Nketiah debacle very rarely gets mentioned...put all our eggs in one basket and made to look fools.

Then it's been injury after injury and ' panic' acquisitions pretty much ever since.

 

There are (plenty of) times where, if you disregarded the bricks and mortar which is his clear and obvious area of achievement and legacy, you would never believe for one second that this club is owned by a hugely successful billionaire businessman.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

38 minutes ago, Gert Mare said:

I think it was during the long FaceTime interview with SL following the dismissal of DH? I remember it too and something about how fans don’t understand the amount of good that MA does for the club. MA picked up an award for his work with the EFL.

It was during those....”I know Mark gets a lot of stick on the forums, but....”

It was hardly “what have the Romans ever done for us” moment and then reels off an ever increasing list of positive things, it was “he represents our view at the EFL”.  No sanitation, no aqueducts, no roads....basically he is good at going to meetings!

@Olé

26 minutes ago, SecretSam said:

@davefevs I respect that you are ITK. 

But I am not "twisting the argument". I am saying that responsibility can never lie with one person in an organisation the size of BCFC.

It's a little disingenuous to suggest otherwise.

Apologies if I misconstrued your post.

For info, I’ve never argued that MA chooses the players.  I believe it is a collective group running the recruitment process.  I think in an organisation like City / Bristol Sport to have several “heads of”, e.g. comms, marketing, finance, operations, etc, some of whom report into the the football club CEO, that to not have a head of recruitment is strange.  It means the CEO is too heavily involved in recruitment and cannot be objective about the performance aspect of that team / collective.  In effect he’s marking his own homework.  And that’s where I hold him responsible.  That’s why I come down heavily on him.

Although I’m not particularly happy that his promotion to CEO and the creation of role(s) for family / friend, from an operational element I have nothing to be critical of Werhun’s performance, so I don’t criticise that.

But recruitment is such a key task, and I think it’s under-achieved, both from a football and financial lens.

Thats my point.  As I said, apologies if I got wrong end of your stick.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 minutes ago, ashton_fan said:

Whatever people think about Mark Ashton he is more or less running the club on a day-to-day basis and if he leaves in the summer we are going to be up the creek regarding the transfer window. NP has already stated he's not interested in negotiating player contracts, the club could be drifting like a rudderless ship with players leaving and nobody new coming in. I just hope SL has someone lined up to replace him if he goes. At least MA has wanted the job, nobody else seems interested in getting involved at that level, and SL has said he can't find anybody willing to join the Board, the club is short staffed at senior management level so we can't afford to lose anybody.

In fairness, Mark Ashton did get rid of the DoF as part of his promotion from COO to CEO.  So we had someone in place.  Keith Burt, as I mentioned in an earlier post ran the playing budget, did existing contract renewals, signed players, did the contracts for those new players, ran the scouting network, analysts.

A certain MA, decided he wanted to encapsulate that element into his new role.  Over time he’s also diminished the scouting network (Day, Griffin etc) ...it’s much more data / video based now.  

6 minutes ago, spudski said:

On the topic of recruitment, does anyone else think that much of our dealings have in the past couple seasons been reactionary rather than planned?

The Nketiah debacle very rarely gets mentioned...put all our eggs in one basket and made to look fools.

Then it's been injury after injury and ' panic' acquisitions pretty much ever since.

 

Not enough succession planning Spud.

I do appreciate sometimes you have to sell first to buy (trading).

I sit here with my depth chart and think our squad is unbalanced, not just positionally (and cover), but age range, contract status.

I made a point the other day that of what I’d call the proper first team players only 5 had ever signed a contract extension in Ashton’s time here.  Pack, Smith, Brownhill, O’Dowda and Paterson.  T.Moore also.  I did miss off Flint, so corrected.  So just 3 players signed in the MA era.  That to me sounds like we’ve not recruited with longevity, and we’ve been reactionary.

Contract-wise we’ve been tardy in really identifying who we want to keep and then re-contracting them early enough.

We are seeing the impact of that with players getting into their final year, or us having to exercise options.

Matty Taylor, Bailey Wright.  Both we let out on loan, there’s no way we recouped their full wage, so it cost us.  Why didn’t we try to sell them if we’d identified we wouldn’t extend their contract.

Eliasson, Walsh, exercised their option, but can’t get them to sign.  At least we got £2m for Eliasson.  That’s ok in my book, although we could’ve sold him when the market was higher.

Diedhiou and Baker....£9m of asset value now worth zero.

I think it points to the guy doing the contract renewals (MA) and the head-coach (LJ in most cases) not being ruthless enough both on who we bring in and how long we keep them.

I don’t mind people disagreeing with me, in fact I’d like to hear the alternative view, because what I’ve painted doesn’t look good.  Part of me wants to have missed some glaringly obvious point so I can rest easy it’s not been as bad as I thought.  But I’ve yet to hear it (I think).

Died

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

21 hours ago, AshtonYate said:

I've been reading this forum from afar, and I've now finally had enough and signed up. 

I've been supporting Bristol City for 30 years now, followed home and away, so I'm not a new fan by any means.  What has shocked me though over resent years it the complete entitlement of our fans, especially at the moment.   

Mark Ashton

For me, the man has a done a decent job at the football club.  He is a fantastic negotiator and for the first time that I can remember we have been a force to reckon with when it comes to negotiation etc.  We've already heard from several employees within the club that Mark is a decent guy and works extremely really hard behind the scenes.  David Lloyd also said as much on OSIB this week.  He's obviously highly regarded within footballing circles as he's been giving a role on the EFL board!  So, because some of our fanbase wouldn't have a pint with him, wears a suit, he's suddenly slimy and a snake.  Honestly, who cares?  He's overseen one of the most successful periods in Bristol City's history.  He is an articulate and intelligent CEO, but lets hound him out with an absolute pipe dream of getting Scudamore in.  Are you having a laugh?  

Lets be honest, most people who have jumped on this witch hunt, as that is what it is, haven't got a clue what his role actually is. Fans just see a well groomed man in a suit and have just made their minds up that they don't like him because he, funnily enough, talks like a CEO. Lets be clear for the fans that can't compute this...... MARK ASHTON DOES IDENFIFTY PLAYERS TO SIGN. Mark Ashton overseas the recruitment team who finds the players.  They send lists of players to the manager, who then says YES or No. The manager will also suggest players for the recruitment team to analyse.  Where people have got the idea Mark Ashton identifies players, is beyond me and blows my mind.  But that doesn't fit in with the narrative does it. 

Why do our fans expect so much? I don't know another CEO in the football league that is expected to come out on radio and talk all of the time, its madness.    

Steve Lansdown 

It beggars belief how anyone would have a bad word to say about one of our own, who has ploughed over £200m into this club.  He has built a premier league standard stadium, a premier league quality training ground and has moved this club forward beyond recognition over the past 18 years. But yet all people want to do is abuse the guy!! Are you serious? Its like people think that running a successful football club is easy.  Simply black and white.  Could you imagine where we would be without the mans help? I'm not saying that he's always got it right, but he's sure got more right than wrong over the years and he is still ploughing money in.  You can tell that SL and JL are both at the end of the road with it, ploughing millions upon millions trying to elevate this club with nothing put abuse.  I'd have pulled the plug years ago.  The club would have been in great hands moving forward under JL, but SL has also said this week he isn't interested.  Are you surprised? Again, the abuse he gets on here is horrendous.  

10 clubs in the championship are now on a transfer ban!  We aren't one of them.  Can you guess why? Yeah, thats it, the CEO and the Owner have done a fantastic job to make sure that didn't happen during a worldwide pandemic.  We have a financially stable club when others all over the football league are crumbling.  

So if the fans got their way, we'd hound out an experienced CEO and a billionaire Bristol City supporting owner.  But where do you go from there once they leave in this little fantasy land ours? Maybe we can get in some Asian investment from owners that could barely point to Bristol on the map and have Ashton Gate sponsored by a betting company, as that's what it sounds like supporters want.  I'd hate to think what out fans would be like if we ACTUALLY had something bad to moan about. 

I love this club, I always will, but why do we as fans always have this need to press the self destruct button? We do we feel so entitled? We do we always need someone to blame? 

Every club go through ups and downs, but just think back and see how far we have come and tell me we haven't progressed in every department of this football club. 

 

I'm sorry if you don't agree, and I'm expecting a lot of abuse instead of constructive debate.  But is everything that bad?  

On reflection, I do wonder if it is something to do with the people (ie all of us: fans, club owners, players, directors, club officials etc) of this area. When you look at all sport we are from this part of the country, doing well if we're second rate, and often not that good.

We are just a bit shite at sport - shite at supporting, shite at playing, shite at owning and shite at running top class clubs, shite in general. When compared to the rest of the country. 

I was looking at a review of the county cricket clubs for the new season and it listed every club and how often they had won the county Championship - or not. Only three counties have never won it, Northants and guess who?

Compare Bristol with Leicester, for example:

Football - Bristol: nil major trophies, nine seasons of top class football between two clubs, Gary Mabbutt most notable player produced for England; Leicester - 4 major trophies, 51 seasons at the top, 4 (losing) FA cup finals, produced likes of Lineker and Shilton, and Emile Heskey  (62 England caps to Mabbutt's 16. Heskey probably has as more England caps alone than every other Bristolian put together).

Rugby - Bristol: one cup win in 1980 something (prior to Pat Lam), never League Champions; Leicester : won the lot numerous times including the big European one. Bristol has produced some England internationals, back in the old amateur days more than now.

Cricket - never County Champions (between Somerset and Glos); Leicester - top of the pile three times. 

Snooker - Bristol: Judd Trump, one World Championship; Leicester: Mark Selby, three World Championships. And Willie Thorne. Even inside, in the warm, and you can sit down a lot, we are more shite than Leicester. 

 

You might say Leicester (football) is foreign owned now but when it was locally owned before it just left us in the shade - look at those fifty plus seasons at the top level, compared to our paltry nine. Pathetic on our part. And that must be down to more than just the people watching - it’s all of us, the great and the good/apathetic.

And if we look at Nottingham, Derby, Sheffield, Norwich, Stoke, Southampton, Cardiff, almost anywhere of comparable size then we are embarrassingly shite in their company. Durham have only been a first class county cricket club since the early nineties and they've already won the Championship three times, ffs!

It's a wonder anyone still goes to watch professional sport in this city, given the embarrassingly poor record of success.  

 

So, my belief is that it's all of us that's the "problem" - from Steve Lansdown at the top, through the local kiddies that actually play the bloody game, and all the way down to us apathetic, moaning lowlife on this pitiful forum (one of the best in the country, by the way. Yes, when it comes to internet football platforms for having a moan, we are right up there with the best in the land).

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 minutes ago, Moments of Pleasure said:

On reflection, I do wonder if it is something to do with the people (ie all of us: fans, club owners, players, directors, club officials etc) of this area. When you look at all sport we are from this part of the country, doing well if we're second rate, and often not that good.

We are just a bit shite at sport - shite at supporting, shite at playing, shite at owning and shite at running top class clubs, shite in general. When compared to the rest of the country. 

I lived in Leeds for a couple of years and when we get posts on here saying how mean our fans were for booing at a game and being entitled it always makes me laugh in comparison to the fans I knew up there. Our team get an incredibly easy ride in comparison.

I remember a few years ago us being 2-0 up at Elland road and Leeds being boo'd off at half time. Came back out and I'm pretty sure it finished 2-2.

Down here we'd have been quietly tutting to each other before shuffling off to queue for the bogs and squint at the half time results.

Looking at the state of affairs for the last few years I think we're perhaps just too nice... So maybe it is partly the fans "fault" but not for the reasons the OP has said!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

10 hours ago, Stortz said:

I'm not sure if this made a scintilla of sense to you when you were typing it, but it comes over pretty batshit crazy tbh.

It's pretty ironic for somebody randomly ranting about powerplays, autonomy and obedience on a football forum to be accusing others of wearing a tin foil hat.

It's Bullshit Bingo at it's very finest.........

Link to comment
Share on other sites

16 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

In fairness, Mark Ashton did get rid of the DoF as part of his promotion from COO to CEO.  So we had someone in place.  Keith Burt, as I mentioned in an earlier post ran the playing budget, did existing contract renewals, signed players, did the contracts for those new players, ran the scouting network, analysts.

A certain MA, decided he wanted to encapsulate that element into his new role.  Over time he’s also diminished the scouting network (Day, Griffin etc) ...it’s much more data / video based now.  

Not enough succession planning Spud.

I do appreciate sometimes you have to sell first to buy (trading).

I sit here with my depth chart and think our squad is unbalanced, not just positionally (and cover), but age range, contract status.

I made a point the other day that of what I’d call the proper first team players only 5 had ever signed a contract extension in Ashton’s time here.  Pack, Smith, Brownhill, O’Dowda and Paterson.  T.Moore also.  I did miss off Flint, so corrected.  So just 3 players signed in the MA era.  That to me sounds like we’ve not recruited with longevity, and we’ve been reactionary.

Contract-wise we’ve been tardy in really identifying who we want to keep and then re-contracting them early enough.

We are seeing the impact of that with players getting into their final year, or us having to exercise options.

Matty Taylor, Bailey Wright.  Both we let out on loan, there’s no way we recouped their full wage, so it cost us.  Why didn’t we try to sell them if we’d identified we wouldn’t extend their contract.

Eliasson, Walsh, exercised their option, but can’t get them to sign.  At least we got £2m for Eliasson.  That’s ok in my book, although we could’ve sold him when the market was higher.

Diedhiou and Baker....£9m of asset value now worth zero.

I think it points to the guy doing the contract renewals (MA) and the head-coach (LJ in most cases) not being ruthless enough both on who we bring in and how long we keep them.

I don’t mind people disagreeing with me, in fact I’d like to hear the alternative view, because what I’ve painted doesn’t look good.  Part of me wants to have missed some glaringly obvious point so I can rest easy it’s not been as bad as I thought.  But I’ve yet to hear it (I think).

Died

 

I look at our squad on paper and it literally gives me a headache. I wouldn't know where to start to get the best out of them as a unit and formation. It's sooooo unbalanced.

The one thing that constantly crosses my mind...is the remit still to fast track the youngsters into the first team and play them?

Imo...it's impossible to be a promotion contender by playing them. 

Will the new manager be told this is still the remit?

If it is...then I honestly think we'll struggle to be a promotion contender.

And for me...as a Club, we have to aim for top 2 quality.

The constant drone of top 6 infuriates me.

Would any business model put so much diligent work into itself, only for all the efforts be gambled in a Casino at the end of the financial year? Because that's what the play offs are.

The play off's have created a watered down mentality of success.

When throw away comments abound of ' oh we are only a few points off the play offs', it drives me mad. How about more often than not...' we are 20 points off promotion'?

Imo...the play off's give Clubs an easy ride, as they can say we aren't far away from promotion....which imo is bullshit. As more often than not, there are 10 ISH other teams in the same boat. Basically...you are average. No where near good enough.

Fans are duped into thinking we are better than we are....

Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 minutes ago, spudski said:

I look at our squad on paper and it literally gives me a headache. I wouldn't know where to start to get the best out of them as a unit and formation. It's sooooo unbalanced.

I think the best we can hope for is for NP to given the role, and to decide on a favoured formation. We then need to bring in 5 or 6 players to create the spine of that formation and then over the forthcoming transfer windows, look to improve the fringe and weaker areas of the team.

Of course, there's an argument that not all 6 of those spine players will work out, so we're in for a rollercoaster ride.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

32 minutes ago, IAmNick said:

I lived in Leeds for a couple of years and when we get posts on here saying how mean our fans were for booing at a game and being entitled it always makes me laugh in comparison to the fans I knew up there. Our team get an incredibly easy ride in comparison.

I remember a few years ago us being 2-0 up at Elland road and Leeds being boo'd off at half time. Came back out and I'm pretty sure it finished 2-2.

Down here we'd have been quietly tutting to each other before shuffling off to queue for the bogs and squint at the half time results.

Looking at the state of affairs for the last few years I think we're perhaps just too nice... So maybe it is partly the fans "fault" but not for the reasons the OP has said!

The mild, mild West and all that. We're not that bothered, either way. We just can't be arsed. It's too much effort. And staying behind after a game to give the team an appreciative cheer/a proper bollocking? Forget it, it's a non-starter when the local Bristol passion for nipping out a bit before the end to beat the traffic/other ****ers nipping out early before the end is there to be had. 

We do do a bed sheet every now and then, though, to be fair.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

12 minutes ago, beaverface said:

I think the best we can hope for is for NP to given the role, and to decide on a favoured formation. We then need to bring in 5 or 6 players to create the spine of that formation and then over the forthcoming transfer windows, look to improve the fringe and weaker areas of the team.

Of course, there's an argument that not all 6 of those spine players will work out, so we're in for a rollercoaster ride.

Potentially, some of those 5 or 6 are already here....that’s where the hope lies.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

56 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

In fairness, Mark Ashton did get rid of the DoF as part of his promotion from COO to CEO.  So we had someone in place.  Keith Burt, as I mentioned in an earlier post ran the playing budget, did existing contract renewals, signed players, did the contracts for those new players, ran the scouting network, analysts.

A certain MA, decided he wanted to encapsulate that element into his new role.  Over time he’s also diminished the scouting network (Day, Griffin etc) ...it’s much more data / video based now.  

Not enough succession planning Spud.

I do appreciate sometimes you have to sell first to buy (trading).

I sit here with my depth chart and think our squad is unbalanced, not just positionally (and cover), but age range, contract status.

I made a point the other day that of what I’d call the proper first team players only 5 had ever signed a contract extension in Ashton’s time here.  Pack, Smith, Brownhill, O’Dowda and Paterson.  T.Moore also.  I did miss off Flint, so corrected.  So just 3 players signed in the MA era.  That to me sounds like we’ve not recruited with longevity, and we’ve been reactionary.

Contract-wise we’ve been tardy in really identifying who we want to keep and then re-contracting them early enough.

We are seeing the impact of that with players getting into their final year, or us having to exercise options.

Matty Taylor, Bailey Wright.  Both we let out on loan, there’s no way we recouped their full wage, so it cost us.  Why didn’t we try to sell them if we’d identified we wouldn’t extend their contract.

Eliasson, Walsh, exercised their option, but can’t get them to sign.  At least we got £2m for Eliasson.  That’s ok in my book, although we could’ve sold him when the market was higher.

Diedhiou and Baker....£9m of asset value now worth zero.

I think it points to the guy doing the contract renewals (MA) and the head-coach (LJ in most cases) not being ruthless enough both on who we bring in and how long we keep them.

I don’t mind people disagreeing with me, in fact I’d like to hear the alternative view, because what I’ve painted doesn’t look good.  Part of me wants to have missed some glaringly obvious point so I can rest easy it’s not been as bad as I thought.  But I’ve yet to hear it (I think).

Died

That was sudden. Condolences.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm unsure how having 14 OOC players is a good thing in regards to our squad.

 

If 14 people in my workplace were told they had no contracts at the end of the year "so prove your worth" then I'd be amazed if much above "bumbling along  " was achieved.

 

To suggest that it puts us in a good position due to so many clubs having transfer embargos. Possibly, but that is more luck than planned for, we could not know that would be the case at the start of year.

 

If all 14 do go, that's a big loss of money, definitely not something you would expect to be part of a plan. We need to be more ruthless in transfer listing people in their final year if they are not signing on. 

 

I'm not sure I like the 1 year options either. It just feels, your not good enough to offer a full contract too, but we need you for now, and hey gives you and your agent a year to find somewhere else.

 

We really need a DoF in the training centre. He would be overlooking the youth teams and academy. He should be recruiting players, coaches, medical team, scouts and a Head coach to implement a planned and consistent play style throughout the whole system.

 

There should be a planbed pathway for youth, and players identified to take over specific positions if we should lose it sell a playrt.

 

We currently have nothing like this, it feels all piecemeal and ramshackle, and we have sold all or valuable assets Kelly, Bryan, Reid, Webster, Brownhill, Kodjia and let others go for a pittance that are now playing at a level higher than us. 

 

It does not suggest a plan.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, HappyClapper said:
1 hour ago, Davefevs said:

In fairness, Mark Ashton did get rid of the DoF as part of his promotion from COO to CEO.  So we had someone in place.  Keith Burt, as I mentioned in an earlier post ran the playing budget, did existing contract renewals, signed players, did the contracts for those new players, ran the scouting network, analysts.

A certain MA, decided he wanted to encapsulate that element into his new role.  Over time he’s also diminished the scouting network (Day, Griffin etc) ...it’s much more data / video based now.  

Not enough succession planning Spud.

I do appreciate sometimes you have to sell first to buy (trading).

I sit here with my depth chart and think our squad is unbalanced, not just positionally (and cover), but age range, contract status.

I made a point the other day that of what I’d call the proper first team players only 5 had ever signed a contract extension in Ashton’s time here.  Pack, Smith, Brownhill, O’Dowda and Paterson.  T.Moore also.  I did miss off Flint, so corrected.  So just 3 players signed in the MA era.  That to me sounds like we’ve not recruited with longevity, and we’ve been reactionary.

Contract-wise we’ve been tardy in really identifying who we want to keep and then re-contracting them early enough.

We are seeing the impact of that with players getting into their final year, or us having to exercise options.

Matty Taylor, Bailey Wright.  Both we let out on loan, there’s no way we recouped their full wage, so it cost us.  Why didn’t we try to sell them if we’d identified we wouldn’t extend their contract.

Eliasson, Walsh, exercised their option, but can’t get them to sign.  At least we got £2m for Eliasson.  That’s ok in my book, although we could’ve sold him when the market was higher.

Diedhiou and Baker....£9m of asset value now worth zero.

I think it points to the guy doing the contract renewals (MA) and the head-coach (LJ in most cases) not being ruthless enough both on who we bring in and how long we keep them.

I don’t mind people disagreeing with me, in fact I’d like to hear the alternative view, because what I’ve painted doesn’t look good.  Part of me wants to have missed some glaringly obvious point so I can rest easy it’s not been as bad as I thought.  But I’ve yet to hear it (I think).

Died

That was sudden. Condolences.

Expand  

Haha....where did that come from.  No idea I ended on such a sad note ???

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Let Mark Ashton run Bristol Sport, and all it entails, but not the player / footballing side of it. He really should be commercial only, there is more than enough to do there, especially with all the projects coming up.

 

Also, why exactly do we need a voice at the EFL ? What exactly is it we are saying / getting that other clubs don't ?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Moments of Pleasure said:

On reflection, I do wonder if it is something to do with the people (ie all of us: fans, club owners, players, directors, club officials etc) of this area. When you look at all sport we are from this part of the country, doing well if we're second rate, and often not that good.

We are just a bit shite at sport - shite at supporting, shite at playing, shite at owning and shite at running top class clubs, shite in general. When compared to the rest of the country. 

I was looking at a review of the county cricket clubs for the new season and it listed every club and how often they had won the county Championship - or not. Only three counties have never won it, Northants and guess who?

Compare Bristol with Leicester, for example:

Football - Bristol: nil major trophies, nine seasons of top class football between two clubs, Gary Mabbutt most notable player produced for England; Leicester - 4 major trophies, 51 seasons at the top, 4 (losing) FA cup finals, produced likes of Lineker and Shilton, and Emile Heskey  (62 England caps to Mabbutt's 16. Heskey probably has as more England caps alone than every other Bristolian put together).

Rugby - Bristol: one cup win in 1980 something (prior to Pat Lam), never League Champions; Leicester : won the lot numerous times including the big European one. Bristol has produced some England internationals, back in the old amateur days more than now.

Cricket - never County Champions (between Somerset and Glos); Leicester - top of the pile three times. 

Snooker - Bristol: Judd Trump, one World Championship; Leicester: Mark Selby, three World Championships. And Willie Thorne. Even inside, in the warm, and you can sit down a lot, we are more shite than Leicester. 

 

You might say Leicester (football) is foreign owned now but when it was locally owned before it just left us in the shade - look at those fifty plus seasons at the top level, compared to our paltry nine. Pathetic on our part. And that must be down to more than just the people watching - it’s all of us, the great and the good/apathetic.

And if we look at Nottingham, Derby, Sheffield, Norwich, Stoke, Southampton, Cardiff, almost anywhere of comparable size then we are embarrassingly shite in their company. Durham have only been a first class county cricket club since the early nineties and they've already won the Championship three times, ffs!

It's a wonder anyone still goes to watch professional sport in this city, given the embarrassingly poor record of success.  

 

So, my belief is that it's all of us that's the "problem" - from Steve Lansdown at the top, through the local kiddies that actually play the bloody game, and all the way down to us apathetic, moaning lowlife on this pitiful forum (one of the best in the country, by the way. Yes, when it comes to internet football platforms for having a moan, we are right up there with the best in the land).

 

Really interesting post.  The question of why Bristol had underachieved at sport for over 100 years is fascinating, and I’m no nearer to knowing the answer.  They used to say that more people played sport in Bristol, hence fewer supporters putting money into the club; or that it is a commercial city with no substantial grassroots for sport.  I think geography might come into it.  Bristol is slightly isolated and maybe we’ve been seen as an outlier for decades, whereas the likes of Leicester are part of a hub of football clubs.  But the fact is that we were the second southern club to join the Football League (after Arsenal) and almost all our success can in our first decade, which is embarrassing.  The whole thing is perplexing - given our demographic, Bristol is arguably the most underachieving city for competitive sport in Western Europe.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Moments of Pleasure said:

On reflection, I do wonder if it is something to do with the people (ie all of us: fans, club owners, players, directors, club officials etc) of this area. When you look at all sport we are from this part of the country, doing well if we're second rate, and often not that good.

We are just a bit shite at sport - shite at supporting, shite at playing, shite at owning and shite at running top class clubs, shite in general. When compared to the rest of the country. 

I was looking at a review of the county cricket clubs for the new season and it listed every club and how often they had won the county Championship - or not. Only three counties have never won it, Northants and guess who?

Compare Bristol with Leicester, for example:

Football - Bristol: nil major trophies, nine seasons of top class football between two clubs, Gary Mabbutt most notable player produced for England; Leicester - 4 major trophies, 51 seasons at the top, 4 (losing) FA cup finals, produced likes of Lineker and Shilton, and Emile Heskey  (62 England caps to Mabbutt's 16. Heskey probably has as more England caps alone than every other Bristolian put together).

Rugby - Bristol: one cup win in 1980 something (prior to Pat Lam), never League Champions; Leicester : won the lot numerous times including the big European one. Bristol has produced some England internationals, back in the old amateur days more than now.

Cricket - never County Champions (between Somerset and Glos); Leicester - top of the pile three times. 

 

 

I don’t agree at all.

You know that I am not a rugby person but Bath were pretty much serial winners in the 80s & 90s, I believe. Exeter have I understand, taken over their mantle & it looks like Bristol might soon do so.

Somerset are in my opinion the best run cricket club in the country, no Test venue income, yet second to Essex (another in the same boat) on a regular basis. Those affluent Test counties poach their players (Buttler to Lancs, this winter Bess to Yorkshire & J.Overton to Surrey) but they have a seemingly endless conveyor belt of West Country produced talent. 
Also Gloucestershire were regular winners of one day competitions not so very long ago & prior to that, a Somerset side with 2 of the greatest cricketers of all time, plus a certain Joel Garner, did the very same.

Football is the outlier here, for me the reasons for that could fill a whole book, not a post on a forum, but amongst the obvious ones are a City that is now absolutely packed with non Bristolians, no historical success & total indifference from both the business community & local government, the latter shown by the Ashton Vale saga & even with our pitiful little neighbours by the amount of opposition drummed up by “down from London” Green types that now abound, in the gentrified parts.

Anyway, I’m sort of rambling now & I should find something much better to do with a rare day off work..

Link to comment
Share on other sites

23 minutes ago, The Dolman Pragmatist said:

Really interesting post.  The question of why Bristol had underachieved at sport for over 100 years is fascinating, and I’m no nearer to knowing the answer.  They used to say that more people played sport in Bristol, hence fewer supporters putting money into the club; or that it is a commercial city with no substantial grassroots for sport.  I think geography might come into it.  Bristol is slightly isolated and maybe we’ve been seen as an outlier for decades, whereas the likes of Leicester are part of a hub of football clubs.  But the fact is that we were the second southern club to join the Football League (after Arsenal) and almost all our success can in our first decade, which is embarrassing.  The whole thing is perplexing - given our demographic, Bristol is arguably the most underachieving city for competitive sport in Western Europe.

 

In football perhaps, but don't forget rugby or the city's various Olympians in other sports.

The largest stand-alone city in the UK without a league club is Chelmsford. 160,000 in the conurbation. Never been higher than Conference South. They have a crap rugby club as well.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, IAmNick said:

I lived in Leeds for a couple of years and when we get posts on here saying how mean our fans were for booing at a game and being entitled it always makes me laugh in comparison to the fans I knew up there. Our team get an incredibly easy ride in comparison.

I remember a few years ago us being 2-0 up at Elland road and Leeds being boo'd off at half time. Came back out and I'm pretty sure it finished 2-2.

Down here we'd have been quietly tutting to each other before shuffling off to queue for the bogs and squint at the half time results.

Looking at the state of affairs for the last few years I think we're perhaps just too nice... So maybe it is partly the fans "fault" but not for the reasons the OP has said!

The problem is that there's a portion of the fanbase that believe the team and club can never be criticised, and that supporters "aren't real fans" for not being happy about the performances on the pitch. I've seen plenty of tweets saying that fans would never ever boo the team, that they should be supported through thick and thin etc etc. Whilst there's no room for tantrums at the first sign of trouble, as a fanbase we give our players an easy ride.

I can remember around the time we were relegated to League One the entire East End chanting "You're not fit to wear the shirt" for the majority of a game (think it was against Wolves and we lost 4-1, the worst city performance I've watched). I've not experienced a more toxic atmosphere since, and it clearly showed the frustrations of the fans and got a response from the players after the game. You've got to support and cheer on the players, they're representing the club, but if they aren't up to standard or simply not trying (like the current team) they've got to be told. We are too nice as a fanbase, and its the same in the boardroom. Don't get me wrong, there's got to be a balance and it's not about flogging the team for nothing, but it's probably a part (however small) of the reason for the dire home performances of recent seasons. Apathy from the fans towards poor performances reaches the players, who also become apathetic.

Hopefully next season with S82 back in the ground, we'll get back to having a lively atmosphere that reflects the feelings of the fans, both good and bad, and can lift the team and push them on to success. I think we miss the atmosphere generated by the East End more than most people realise.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

22 hours ago, AshtonYate said:

Its totally not a wind-up I promise you.  We as supporters really don't have a say on footballing matters, nor does any other supporter of any football club around the world.  That isn't a Mark Ashton or SL issue.  But to say they don't listen to us, imo, simply isn't true.  I think we as fans sometimes forget that this football club do listen to us when it comes to player purchases.  Lets be honest, we were happy with the signings of most of the players we have.  SL went all out to get Kalas, Palmer, DaSilva etc; So they do listen. But they aren't going to break the bank to satisfy us all of the time. 

When I started to support this club, we were a league one / 2 yoyo club, but we are arguably in the best position that its ever been in! But yet, I honestly think there is more discontent and discontent again the board than there has ever been. 

Its like when we don't get our way, we always have to see heads roll.  Its like we never give it time.  The appointment of DH was a ballsup, but that happens in football.  Overall though, MA has had a pretty decent reign and I will be sad to see him leave as I don't think I could name anyone who could or would do a better job.  

I'm telling you now, get rid of MA & SL and watch us drop down the leagues. 

“We are arguably in the best position we have ever been”.

Seriously, wow, seriously.

We could still be in League one next season. I’ve been going since the mid 70’s and we as a football team on the pitch ( that’s what the club is all about) we are an absolute mess, a total utter shambles. It’s been the same for the last three years. Ashton and LJ have a lot to answer for, these two signed dross, and we are now paying the price. Any new manager has a big mess to sort out. 

I find it incredible that you can come out with a statement like you have. Bewildering. I think your on a wind up. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...