Your memories of the Ashton Gate eight are WANTED

[Never to the dark side]

and if your too young,ask your Parents and Grand parents

Any paper cuttings,special brochures.radio recordings and your own film footage etc

Sound of the City on Radio Bristol 7th February from 6pm wants your memories

Wonder if the radio programme might be extended like it was when Scott Davidson did his interview?

Edited February 2, 2022 by Never to the dark side

[A Horse With No Name]

Do people still listen to the wireless these days John?

[The Original OTIB]

4 minutes ago, The Horse With No Name said:

Do people still listen to the wireless these days John?

Very much so and more so given that so much TV is garbage.

[Aberdeen Pete's Dad]

How to contact them ?

[Never to the dark side]

geoff.twentyman@bbcradiobristol.co.uk

[Aberdeen Pete's Dad]

Thanks

[Davefevs]

I was 11, don’t remember loads about it, except thinking City might not be around any longer and Rovers fans at school taking the pi$$.  

[Never to the dark side]

Rovers fans at school taking the pi$$.

Does that club still exist?

[Waconda]

5 hours ago, Davefevs said:

I was 11, don’t remember loads about it, except thinking City might not be around any longer and Rovers fans at school taking the pi$$.  

Sat in the school dining room huddled around a radio with a few others waiting for the news. there was a specific deadline time I think, possibly noon ?

Can see it now.

[ralphindevon]

I can remember at the time being quite confused and worried about the whole thing. I’d gone through the whole top flight experience as a school kid living miles away and now I’d just left school and passed my driving test, got a car and was looking forward to going to every game and here we were all of a sudden in the 3rd tier about to go bust.

Later in life when I lived and worked in Bristol we had Geoff Merrick as a regular customer, his memories were horrible to hear and wasn’t quite what I’d thought at the time. I trust all those of that certain age will be buying his book soon to read for themselves.

Put it this way, that banner in the south stand should read ‘8 men had a nightmare’

[Davefevs]

2 hours ago, VT05763 said:

Sat in the school dining room huddled around a radio with a few others waiting for the news. there was a specific deadline time I think, possibly noon ?

Can see it now.

Whether it’s because I’ve seen the newsreel several time, but that seems to have vivid memories, but I don’t remember much about the matches around that time.

[CiderJar]

I still have the unused car sticker version of this badge in a box somewhere/
It has travelled with me everywhere for all of those years .
Every time I move house I rediscover it and am reminded of those dark days.
Now FORTY years on ,we're still going strong
Although some irritating oiks are still singing THIRTY

[GrahamC]

I’d not long started work & so went home & away at the time, though gave the occasional away game a miss by then, as 3 years of pretty constant defeats were tough to take.

I absolutely think we should celebrate & thank the players who did this, but do see a bit of an attempt to re-write history.

The club was dying, gates were terrible, we were appallingly run, clearly spending money we could not afford & very few of the 8 were contributing much on the pitch by then, a combination of good players given contracts far beyond their best days & others like Julian Marshall, who was basically a fourth division standard player signed for a (then) second division side.

I hate this phrase but at the time it was unprecedented, I wasn’t close enough to know how true it was that we would fold, or whether a compromise was even possible.

What is definitely the case is that up until very recently the club’s treatment of these former players (& in Merrick, Sweeney & Tainton we have 3 of our top 10 all time appearance makers) was appalling.

 I do hate that “8 men had a dream” stuff, if you were old enough to be there it really wasn’t anything like that. Also that myth about fans signing “we’ll survive” all game, just total bollocks, we were numb.

Final point, I know I’m at the extreme end on here of my dislike for Rovers, but I’ll never forget them at this time trying to buy Ashton Gate for £480k & evict us, they are & always have been simply parasites, ******* cuckoos.

[BTRFTG]

'The 8' could have walked away by unilaterally terminating their contracts. They didn't. They spent days in hard negotiation nearly putting the club under. Altruism didn't enter into it, irrespective how much that rains on ideological romanticism. That the club these days sees fit to flog branded merchandise of the event - pass the sick bag Alice.

I don't blame 'The 8' for so doing, just as I don't blame them for signing the stupid contracts they were offered by the club, after all it was their and the their families livelihoods at stake and their green eyes had seen what Collier had done when exercising his contract rights.

But be in no doubt they were given Hobson's choice, where the stark reality was that had they not acted in terminating their contracts they would have received little by way of compensation and wouldn't have played football for a very long time (some might argue they never did as they were past it or never good enough in the first place.) No Football Creditors in those days. It's interesting, too, the PFA and players takes on the eventual outcome differed. Bitter,  the players sure were.

Lastly, attempting to garner sympathy by reminding 'The 8' weren't on sums commensurate with today's players cuts no cloth. With most clubs (including our own) stood at the edge of a precipice as a result of paying wholly unreasonable sums in wages, we should be questioning today's folly and why we haven't acted upon the lessons of '82? 'The 8' earned around 3x the national wage at the time, plus bonuses, not the 50x some of our players currently enjoy. It provided them a decent standard of living, but one might argue they also never lost out on that they never had. Better we celebrate trying to restore a sense of normality to today's game than powder coat the past.

[ralphindevon]

I’ve never read anything suggesting what would have happened if the 8 had refused to terminate their contracts.

Presumably we’d have gone bust, they wouldn’t have got any money and we would have to start again in some lower non league.

I guess the biggest question is could we have kept Ashton Gate? If yes, then we would probably have quickly risen up the leagues again but if that had been sold, I can’t even go down the - to Rovers- route, we may have never come back from that and there would only be OTIB. 

I can remember thinking during the Newport game, if this is it, who do I support next? I never did come up with an answer.

[GrahamC]

1 minute ago, ralphindevon said:

 

I can remember thinking during the Newport game, if this is it, who do I support next? I never did come up with an answer.

Remember having this exact conversation with those I traveled with on the way to Newport.

I was 18 or 19 back then, played on Sunday mornings & came to the conclusion I’d have walked away from supporting pro football at all & just played until I was unable to do so.

[ralphindevon]

1 minute ago, GrahamC said:

Remember having this exact conversation with those I traveled with on the way to Newport.

I was 18 or 19 back then, played on Sunday mornings & came to the conclusion I’d have walked away from supporting pro football at all & just played until I was unable to do so.

Yes, I was 17/18 and played Sunday mornings too. I can remember some of my team mates loved football but didn’t really have a team or if they did it was Liverpool and they weren’t that bothered if they lost and never watched them. 
This is how I imagined I would be………and I wasn’t looking forward to it.

[Shuffle]

1 hour ago, GrahamC said:

I’d not long started work & so went home & away at the time, though gave the occasional away game a miss by then, as 3 years of pretty constant defeats were tough to take.

I absolutely think we should celebrate & thank the players who did this, but do see a bit of an attempt to re-write history.

The club was dying, gates were terrible, we were appallingly run, clearly spending money we could not afford & very few of the 8 were contributing much on the pitch by then, a combination of good players given contracts far beyond their best days & others like Julian Marshall, who was basically a fourth division standard player signed for a (then) second division side.

I hate this phrase but at the time it was unprecedented, I wasn’t close enough to know how true it was that we would fold, or whether a compromise was even possible.

What is definitely the case is that up until very recently the club’s treatment of these former players (& in Merrick, Sweeney & Tainton we have 3 of our top 10 all time appearance makers) was appalling.

 I do hate that “8 men had a dream” stuff, if you were old enough to be there it really wasn’t anything like that. Also that myth about fans signing “we’ll survive” all game, just total bollocks, we were numb.

Final point, I know I’m at the extreme end on here of my dislike for Rovers, but I’ll never forget them at this time trying to buy Ashton Gate for £480k & evict us, they are & always have been simply parasites, ******* cuckoos.

Think we are similar age so that’s pretty much as I remember it. Consecutive relegations left us at rock bottom and remember going to Newport thinking this could be last game and then the pride at how we battled to hold Fulham the next week.

The AG8 did more than tear up their contracts they allowed generations to continue their love affair for the club, meet new friends and enjoy the highs and lows that only football can give you. 

I’m pleased that we are honouring the 8 as so overdue and we can never forget these people.

The Gas are parasites and remember all too well them trying to put us out of business & their fans even 40 years on gloat about our near miss. If you’re younger, you won’t have seen the rivalry too much but us older ones have memories and that’s why we hate the blue few amongst many other reasons 

[GrahamC]

6 minutes ago, billywedlock said:

Is there any other club that has gone into administration where the players have ripped up their contracts to enable a solution for survival ? There must be other examples ? 
 

 

Certainly players left Middlesbrough in 1986 & Glasgow Rangers in 2012 in broadly similar circumstances.

Think the major difference was those players found clubs of a similar standard virtually straight away, the players we made redundant were bluntly on the way down (Sweeney for instance was 37) or in a couple of cases not good enough.

[ralphindevon]

As a few have mentioned, Our neighbours behaviour during this time wasn’t good.

Walking away from the Cardiff game the other day I was thinking just how brilliant derbies were and wouldn’t it be fun if Rovers were in our league again….…

….Then I remembered 1982 and May 1990 and thought no **** em, hope they drop out of the league…..again

[bcfc01]

I was working in London at the time and with no internet or mobile phones I was dependent on people calling me on the business number to keep me updated. I seem to recall that it went to the wire and I got about 6 calls telling me the club had survived and players had cancelled their contracts. I knew four of the players, all from Bristol and true City supporters, so I had an inkling that we may survive, but it was a scary time.

I'm also aware that the players were put in a very difficult position with no help from anyone including the PFA and a couple really struggled after the event with some being very bitter about how it was handled and how they were ignored after the event for decades.

Some may like to put a spin on it and paint the players in a different light, but they were shafted by the club which put all the onus on them and deflected from their own mismanagement. 

This sums it up from the horses mouths;

https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/sport/football/bristol-city-ashton-gate-eight-6590914#

[BTRFTG]

2 hours ago, billywedlock said:

Is there any other club that has gone into administration where the players have ripped up their contracts to enable a solution for survival ? There must be other examples ? 
 

 

Accrington before but recall after us they changed the Law by introducing the Football Creditors Act and everything changed, as it did again post Bosman.

[East Londoner]

40 minutes ago, BTRFTG said:

Accrington before but recall after us they changed the Law by introducing the Football Creditors Act and everything changed, as it did again post Bosman.

I see Wolves also reformed in 1982 so imagine the two of us left a sour taste in the mouth 

[BTRFTG]

22 minutes ago, East Londoner said:

I see Wolves also reformed in 1982 so imagine the two of us left a sour taste in the mouth 

I think where 'The 8' were concerned it highlighted an unfairness in respect of potential restraint of trade. Footballers may not play without registrations and it could have been the case, had they been worth anything, that any future employer or even players themselves would have had to buy their registrations from the administrators. City didn't look to go down that road offering the players their registrations such they could find employment elsewhere. As shown by Derby the PFA now grabs the registrations when clubs default (save academy players.)

[basshead]

4 hours ago, GrahamC said:

I’d not long started work & so went home & away at the time, though gave the occasional away game a miss by then, as 3 years of pretty constant defeats were tough to take.

I absolutely think we should celebrate & thank the players who did this, but do see a bit of an attempt to re-write history.

The club was dying, gates were terrible, we were appallingly run, clearly spending money we could not afford & very few of the 8 were contributing much on the pitch by then, a combination of good players given contracts far beyond their best days & others like Julian Marshall, who was basically a fourth division standard player signed for a (then) second division side.

I hate this phrase but at the time it was unprecedented, I wasn’t close enough to know how true it was that we would fold, or whether a compromise was even possible.

What is definitely the case is that up until very recently the club’s treatment of these former players (& in Merrick, Sweeney & Tainton we have 3 of our top 10 all time appearance makers) was appalling.

 I do hate that “8 men had a dream” stuff, if you were old enough to be there it really wasn’t anything like that. Also that myth about fans signing “we’ll survive” all game, just total bollocks, we were numb.

Final point, I know I’m at the extreme end on here of my dislike for Rovers, but I’ll never forget them at this time trying to buy Ashton Gate for £480k & evict us, they are & always have been simply parasites, ******* cuckoos.

Probably  around same age as you .Just started work on yts £23.50 a week must of been my third pay packet and remember  walking from work in clifton to the city  ground to buy 2 shares then walk home to barton  hill. Me mum wasn't  too pleased she wasn't  getting any housekeep with me £3.50 left over

[Rich]

Just read the Post article where Geoff Merrick states he received two weeks wages and lost his house, if I read that correctly. And then, Jimmy Mann states we were offered about £50k between the eight of us. I think Geoff Merrick hadn't played for eighteen months due to injury, still got paid though.  My memory was that collectively they received £100k, followed by monies raised in two testimonial games. I remember hearing that Geoff Merrick put his share towards a farm in Long Ashton, possibly where he lives now.

At the time I was 27 years old and a self employed plumbing and heating engineer, earning £50 per week. Jimmy Mann was on a basic of £300 pw, six times my wage. Gerry Gow had previously been on £700 pw, 14 times my earnings, Ritchie and Whitehead £5 and 6 hundred respectfully. 

To give it a little perspective, If they shared that £100k equally, they'd have received £12,500 each, though I expect it was shared on an earnings and term of contract basis. I'd been in the housing market and a large 3 bed terrace in Knowle was about £18k, £500k nowadays. So I don't think those lads can really claim desperate times.

It was horrible for those players to have to make that decision but, I doubt they had a dream about saving the club. Very few went on to have anything of a career in the game, so in effect they were past their sell by date, due to the sheer negligence of the board of directors and stupid contracts for mediocre players. Like investments, they can go down as well as up, we went down.

Edited February 3, 2022 by Rich
correction

[BTRFTG]

1 hour ago, Rich said:

Just read the Post article where Geoff Merrick states he received two weeks wages and lost his house, if I read that correctly. And then, Jimmy Mann states we were offered about £50k between the eight of us. I think Geoff Merrick hadn't played for eighteen months due to injury, still got paid though.  My memory was that collectively they received £100k, followed by monies raised in two testimonial games. I remember hearing that Geoff Merrick put his share towards a farm in Long Ashton, possibly where he lives now.

At the time I was 27 years old and a self employed plumbing and heating engineer, earning £50 per week. Jimmy Mann was on a basic of £300 pw, six times my wage. Gerry Gow had previously been on £700 pw, 14 times my earnings, Ritchie and Whitehead £5 and 6 hundred respectfully. 

To give it a little perspective, If they shared that £100k equally, they'd have received £12,500 each, though I expect it was shared on an earnings and term of contract basis. I'd been in the housing market and a large 3 bed terrace in Knowle was about £18k, £500k nowadays. So I don't think those lads can really claim desperate times.

It was horrible for those players to have to make that decision but, I doubt they had a dream about saving the club. Very few went on to have anything of a career in the game, so in effect they were past their sell by date, due to the sheer negligence of the board of directors and stupid contracts for mediocre players. Like investments, they can go down as well as up, we went down.

Indeed, the players eventually split around £100k but, importantly, they immediately had their registrations such they could work elsewhere. At their ages, if lucky,  they'd likely have been due statutory redundancy at 1 week average pay (£154) for each year worked. Picking up somewhere between £1,000 to £1,500 at best. That's what many workers in Bristol were picking up when getting laid off.

If Merrick 'lost his house' so quickly perhaps he was one of the players who used to benefit from City's 'players houses', subsidised gaffs rented to players with families (as a kid they had a row just off Highridge Common,) but recall he went straight to chance his arm in Hong Kong so maybe he tried the ex-pat lifestyle, selling up here. Either way he didn't last long and was back home in the building trade within a few years. 

[Midlands Robin]

I was only 8 years old at the time and didn't get bitten by the City big for another 10 years (yeah, I know, a late starter) so my thoughts are very much viewing back through time from a distance.

I find it very odd on the Club web pages today they are using the term "Celebrate" in reference to the 8. To my mind, the word commemorate would be far more appropriate. 

It seemed a desperately sad time for all involved from those players, the players who remained and the supporters. 

Very few clubs get that close to the brink and somehow manage to pull it back. I know from the posts from those there at the time, there were a core of supporters who went to every game, put money in buckets, kept the faith and kept clicking through the turnstiles. There were the members of the new club board who risked a massive amount to put a rescue package in place and of course the 8 players who had to end their contracts. Those people are all worth commemorating. 

At the same time, we need to remember the lessons if we don't want to see something like this happen in the future. The bulk of fans will only come if we are in the higher divisions. Between 80 and 81 our attendances halved and by the end of 82 they were a third of what they were in the 79-80 season. On average, the club lost 12,000 fans a game. Where did they go? They were certainly still there as the attendance as the Villa game a few weeks before the Feb 3rd D-Day certainly proved. How did the board let this situation occur? What happened to the money that was coming in? There's been many stories over the years of Rolls Royces in the car park while the club hemorrhaged money. There were many people who played a part in almost costing the club it's very existence.

As I said, I respect the 8 who had to deal with a massive amount of pressure, were thrust into the spotlight and subsequently forgotten for some time but this whole event is not one for celebration. 

It's time for commemoration, reflection, thankfulness that we are still here today and acceptance that we would never want or allow our club to get into similar circumstances again.

Edited February 3, 2022 by Midlands Robin

[BTRFTG]

34 minutes ago, Midlands Robin said:

There's been many stories over the years of Rolls Royces in the car park while the club hemorrhaged money.

I can honestly say in my 55 years of following City I've only ever seen one Roller regularly occupying the car park; that's Harry & Marina's beloved motor. Never more does a car deserve to be parked at AG than that motor for without the both of them City definitely wouldn't exist. Moreover, two more self-deprecating and humble folks you couldn't wish to meet.

Forget too the numbers. Even in the top flight City had no more than 20k fans but had many 'hangers on' who'd turn out if a big team came visiting. Nothing's changed.

[archie andrews]

bent turnstile operaters didnt help either.........