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"He's taken us as far as he can"


Kid in the Riot

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1 minute ago, Robbored said:

Do you remember AG before the upgrade?     :cool2:

AG has been redeveloped to its maximum potential given the location in BS3. There’s no other ground space available to expand it further. That’s why SL wanted to relocate but the ‘village green’ legislation put a stop to that.
AG is now as good as gets.

I understand what you are saying, but with enough time and money we could have the best stadium in the world in BS3. These are the limiting factors for any built infrastructure.

If we reached the Premier League, were swimming in cash and were selling out every match, every effort would be made to extend the stadium further.

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2 hours ago, Major Isewater said:

I don’t know the percentages but I suspect even those will be higher for SL than us.

Ultimately the buck stops with SL and his guardianship of the club has left the supporters frustrated by his lack of footballing nous and success whilst other clubs have show us how it’s done. 
 

SL reputedly has £1.5 billion and he has invested approx £150 million in City.

That is on tenth of one per cent of his wealth.

When I bought £70 of shares in BCFC 1982, that was 99% of my available cash.

 

Edited by cidered abroad
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1 hour ago, daored said:

Agreed the last comment is the key to his stewardship.

In defence to the Lansdown family , the championship is an unfair league financially. The parachute payments have to be reviewed 

SL has been clear for a long time that he wants the club to be financially sustainable. Unfortunately, I don't think that is compatible with the challenges at Championship level. The revenue from TV and matchdays just isn't enough to cover the costs of a Championship level squad. I believe we already pay >100% of revenue on wages. The only way to become sustainable would be to have parachute payments, which would mean getting promoted so we are caught in a difficult position. I do wonder whether SL would take a risk if we weren't bound by FFP rules, to try to get us that promotion so that we become sustainable at this level and hopefully the next level up.

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8 hours ago, Davefevs said:

I was reading that article, waiting for it to mention City and then read a load of nonsense….but it was spot on.  Matt Slater is a good writer, but I wondered whether he had some conversations with Gregor or James too.

Not sure Derby won’t be sold without Pride Park, but the company structure makes Pula look like a kids jigsaw puzzle!

I do wonder in hindsight whether LJ was SL’s last hurrah?  I often joked it was his Trading Places equivalent with Eddie Murphy being played by LJ!  Was that SL’s final go at showing the fans / football world he knew football?  I dunno, but I sense the flame is going out.

I don’t go down the line of “be careful what you wish for”….I don’t think SL would sell to a bunch of sharks.

Interesting times ahead.  Need to stay in the Champ though.

In many ways it does feel like we are in a "holding pattern" waiting for something like a sale/outside investment.

 

 

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3 minutes ago, glynriley said:

The appointment of Holden, nice bloke that he was, pretty much finished me where it comes to SL's ownership.

For all the talk of getting to the Prem when LJ was sacked, it showed me 1 of 2  things.

All the talk is just that, talk. Or he has clearly not learnt from the internal appointments of Tinnion and Millen. I can't think of a worse appointment for a club with "Premier League ambitions" than a man taking on his first role.

Couldn't agree more. SL's whole footballing ideology comes from a trip to the Nou Camp, because not only did he learn about how they usually promote head coaches from within, it opened his eyes to everything else under the FCB umbrella (basketball, futsal, handball etc) and so Bristol Sport was born. 

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7 hours ago, zippycar said:

 

I also wonder that if Mr Hargreaves had been a football man, would we be where we are today?

There are always at least two in every partnership and anyone at Hargreaves Lansdown will tell you who was the boss and the driver and who knew that there was no upside to owning a football club.
 

People often trot this line out without any evidence of course as if SL was some backroom boy there.

He understands finance brilliantly, he really didn’t make the fortune he has simply by being Hargreaves’ puppet.

He just doesn’t understand football though or make the right calls often enough to put us in the hands of those who do.

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17 minutes ago, WarksRobin said:

I understand what you are saying, but with enough time and money we could have the best stadium in the world in BS3. These are the limiting factors for any built infrastructure.

If we reached the Premier League, were swimming in cash and were selling out every match, every effort would be made to extend the stadium further.

You seem to be contradicting yourself there WR.

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6 minutes ago, GrahamC said:

People often trot this line out without any evidence of course as if SL was some backroom boy there.

He understands finance brilliantly, he really didn’t make the fortune he has simply by being Hargreaves’ puppet.

He just doesn’t understand football though or make the right calls often enough to put us in the hands of those who do.

Yep - and that’s where much of the criticism aimed at him comes from. He was conned by smarmy Ashton as many of us were when he was first appointed.

I have a far more positive feeling now that RG is the CEO.

Edited by Robbored
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3 minutes ago, Robbored said:

Yep - and that’s where much of the criticism aimed at him comes from. He was conned by smarmy Ashton as many of us were when he was first appointed.

I have a far more positive feeling now that RG is the CEO.

It would be interesting to find out who was the driving force behind choosing Holden as Head Coach.

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8 minutes ago, Robbored said:

He was conned by smarmy Ashton as many of us were when he was first appointed.

Some listened to the Oxford and Watford fans who were more than delighted to see the back of him and the  toxic atmosphere he bought to their clubs.

Ashton did some good for the club but more good for Mark Ashton .

 

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1 minute ago, VT05763 said:

It would be interesting to find out who was the driving force behind choosing Holden as Head Coach.

SL trusted Ashton and invisible Jon to recruit a new manager and after weeks of inertia they eventually came up with Holden - that went well………..:disapointed2se:

They recommended him to SL and he gave the nod.

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2 minutes ago, Bat Fastard said:

I think that much of the comment on this thread is rather disrespectful of SL and his family.  In the years he has been in business it is clear that he is a gifted businessman and he has now been in football long enough to have picked up a considerable amount of knowledge and wisdom.  We should take stock and look at the state of our beloved club since he took over the reigns.  The infrastructure will be with us for many decades into the future and can provide a sensational platform for all elements of Bristol Sport to progress.

If these has been a fault - it may just be a degree of bad luck.  Expensive stars being signed and then suffering long-term injuries after a very small number of games.  The injury crisis that sunk Dean Holden. COVID - that impacted all clubs but together with FFP has made it difficult to simply buy our way out of current difficulties.  Unfortunate recruitment - maybe.  These kind of difficulties can affect any business and luck has a part to play.  Looking back, I think we have made sensational progress and the academy looks likely to save a fortune in the transfer market in years to come. Maybe we are further progressed than many think and providing we can avoid the drop this year, the future looks quite promising and maybe also sustainable.  I feel very comfortable with someone like SL in charge because he is building for the City of Bristol as well as Bristol City.  I think Steve is a visionary leader and we are very lucky to have him.  Those who wish for change, should be very wary of what they wish for - it may be that the grass is not greener on the other side of the fence and that we should fertilise our grass by supporting the club and the Lansdowns to the utmost.  The future is bright although there are some squalls to get past in the near future.

See the source image

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50 minutes ago, Peter1450 said:

From where I am, it's a resounding yes. And I'd go further and say they would be quite happy with us being a big fish back in 

This will go against the majority on here but being the “ big fish” in L1 was far more enjoyable than anything that’s been offered for several years.

I know exactly where you're coming from.  I've always said I get as much pleasure out of us beating MK Dons, Scunthorpe, Walsall etc as I do beating Huddersfield, Reading, Barnsley etc.  A win is a win is a win.  We go crazy when we score and are delighted when we win - no matter the opposition.  Being a big fish in league one just gives us more of those moments.  After the struggles of the past few seasons it would be nice to be able to enjoy going down to the ground again.

Whilst I would rather we had those moments at this level of course, I understand the mindset here for sure.

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46 minutes ago, Robbored said:

Do you remember AG before the upgrade?     :cool2:

AG has been redeveloped to its maximum potential given the location in BS3. There’s no other ground space available to expand it further. That’s why SL wanted to relocate but the ‘village green’ legislation put a stop to that.
AG is now as good as gets.

If we had the Premier League riches I would disagree. Those houses behind the Atyeo could theoretically be bought up, it's happened for ground redevelopments before, and those flats behind the Dolman can't have many more decades left. Not that I could imagine it ever happening mind you.

Not to disagree with KITR as he's a good poster, but these sorts of threads always pop up when we're not doing so well, it's just the nature of football fans being a little bit fickle, and we're all guilty of it. That said I'm not even remotely informed and have far less information to make an opinion on these things, so it does make you listen when certain people have their heads turned. It's hard to criticise for the appointment of Pearson as most of us were behind that too, but the likes of Holden, and being 'fooled' for want of a better term by Ashton, these things don't look particularly great.

Another way of looking at it, is that the Championship has come on so much in the past decade or 2. We have had huge infrastructure improvements, but instead of it getting us where we want/expect to be, the possible truth is that most other clubs have been doing similar things and in reality it's only actually been enough for us to keep up, and no more. Perhaps we're over-expectant in that respect. I can't imagine we'd be where we are now if we still had the GJ-era infrastructure in place.

Annoyingly my Athletic subscription expired last week so if someone could paste the full article that would be great.

Edited by nebristolred
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39 minutes ago, cidered abroad said:

SL reputedly has £1.5 billion and he has invested approx £150 million in City.

That is on tenth of one per cent of his wealth.

When I bought £70 of shares in BCFC 1982, that was 99% of my available cash.

 

Sorry, but they use "short form billions" these days - so it is 10% of his wealth, not 0.1%. Also you are comparing his wealth to your available cash - I very much doubt he had £150 million in loose change down the back of his very expensive sofa. There were several sales of H-L shares reported at the time if I recall

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42 minutes ago, WarksRobin said:

SL has been clear for a long time that he wants the club to be financially sustainable.

Which doesn't square with giving Ashton free rein and allowing him to massively increase our costs.

Saying one thing and doing the opposite doesn't create the impression of a man with a plan.

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2 hours ago, exAtyeoMax said:

Why do you think that was?
I’ve often thought it was a kind of class thing…Hire well spoken nice people, who don’t rock the boat, when I would think many top people are ruthless and tough. That’s probably why he didn’t like Cotts, he was too rough around the edges and straight talking. SL doesn’t like Warnock, possibly because he’d be straight talking and direct (not rude) but is relatively successful in his remit. 

I think SL doesn't like Warnock due to the cheats and liars, accusation after the phantom goal v palace..

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Here is the article from The Athletic:

If there is one club that is forever called "Sleeping Giants" it is Bristol City. Peter Goldthorne of The Athletic examines the legitimacy of this claim:

I have reached the conclusion that it is grossly unfair to label Bristol City as "Sleeping Giants" for even those of gargantuan stature that are asleep do at times awake and then rightly adopt the mantle of giants. In Bristol City's case they remain constantly asleep. Medical opinion is unanimous in cases of giants being asleep for 41 years plus that they are not actually sleeping at all but are either deceased or in a comatose state from which they are unlikely to arise. Thus I feel Bristol City should be called "Comatose Giants" as if prodded, unlike those that are dead, they do exhibit signs of life (unless it's approaching the 90th minute or beyond in a game).

The Athletic believes that although comatose so not strictly dead that owner Steve Lansdown should try and return the club back to the shop in Bolton from whence he bought it and try to convince the shop owner that it is indeed a dead club and not one that is just resting or pining for the (Fred) Fords. We believe that it should then be put back on the shelf with a price tag of £150,000,000 the high asking price due to the fact that the club comes replete with a modern 27,000 seater stadium that hosts the Bristol Bears rugby club as well as having lighting  that considerably pisses off Tilly Vacher in Clifton.

 

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4 hours ago, Major Isewater said:

I don’t know the percentages but I suspect even those will be higher for SL than us.

Ultimately the buck stops with SL and his guardianship of the club has left the supporters frustrated by his lack of footballing nous and success whilst other clubs have show us how it’s done. 
 

It's not relative though, is it?

If you've got £1 billion and you spend £300 million on the club, you've still got assets ie Players, Ground and can recoup some if not more back.

If you've got £100 and spend £30 on City then you've just wasted £30.

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