BrizzleRed

4 hours ago, Lew-T said:

 

We’re looking to do something similar. Is it relatively easy and reasonable in price to do this?

Anything on the way through worth visiting?

Thanks in advance

Here’s a good link for parking at Ealing Broadway Shopping Centre.  It’s a maximum of £12 for 24 hours and is a very short walk to Ealing Broadway station.  I think the car park is locked from midnight to 6am, so don’t leave it too late to collect your car after the match, if you choose that option.  https://www.ealingbroadwayshopping.co.uk/parking-ealing

There have also been some suggestions of using JustPark and that costs around £7.

There’s also limited parking opposite the station, so plenty of parking options near the station.

Note there’s a Tube strike on Sunday, though the Elizabeth Line isn’t part of the Tube, so will still run as normal  I’d recommend only parking somewhere near an Elizabeth Line station, if you’re parking anywhere in West London and then using public transport across the City.

1 hour ago, Southport Red said:

 Georgie Best, Stylo Matchmakers. Bought second hand from a school friend. I was the envy of Portway school (for about a week). 

That was my first pair of football boots too, though I was lucky enough to have them new.  

Made no difference though, because the only similarity with George Best was the actual boots, as I was totally shit!!!

1 hour ago, downendcity said:

The hot knife trick started as a good idea, but just a slip and you ended up with a hole bigger than the one you started with!

Hot knife never worked for me.  Tried sticking cycle inner tube repair patches with with Bostik glue and that was no better and at best, swelled up in a bubble!

I’d love us to keep our best young players and build round them.  Realistically, that isn’t going to happen until this club shows genuine desire and ambition to move upwards.  If we did that, maybe those players might stick around for longer and believe they could make that progression with us.

You can’t make a player stay who doesn’t want to.  That’s the situation we’re in, so it’s how you replace them and what you do with the money from the sale that counts.  

That nest egg isn’t doing anything for us at the moment, so we certainly aren’t maximising the returns we had from the sales, or helping us on the pitch.

1 hour ago, Sir Geoff said:

We kept doing that with throw ins as well. 91 other clubs try and steal 10 yards up the touchline, we were taking throw in from 10 yards back from where the ball went out. Strange.

Crazy isn’t it.  They say winning a football match can be about the small percentages, yet we seem to be willingly giving away some of the advantages we’re given.

It baffles me why we keep doing this, though I suppose it’s no surprise, as our set pieces in general have been very poor for years.

37 minutes ago, Red-Robbo said:

There were some very basic but baffling things I noticed today. 

We seemed to lose possession after more throw ins than we kept it.

A number of times we took free kicks 10 yards back from where we could have. In our own half.

Passes often went to the marked man rather than the free man.

Basic stuff. We just weren't at the races.  

That free kick we had near the Lansdown touchline in the second half particularly stuck in my mind.  

After placing the ball a few yards back towards our own half and trying to take it quickly, the ref made us retake it.  With that, we then chucked the ball a few yards further back into our own half and then finally took the kick.  

It was almost like someone trying to steal a few yards with a throw in, except we were actually trying to go backwards!  Amazing how many of our free kicks were being knocked backwards or sideways too.  

1 hour ago, johnheadbcfc said:

That Cardiff game christ thay was bad 

Yeah, now that really was awful that day and they totally embarrassed us.  

Today was crap, but doesn’t even come close to that shocker.

11 minutes ago, Scrumpys Dietary Advisor.. said:

And you have completely missed the point...

I've sat through plenty of dross throughout the decades BUT, that provoked an appropriate response

Today provoked nothing, I have never experienced Ashton Gate in total silence. It was truly soporific. The only level of excitement was when we won a corner late on which was embarrassing but, it was all we had to shout about 

My point is about the football, not City specifically today. This style of play will be the death of football from a live spectator perspective 

I’d pick out the ‘live spectator’ in your last paragraph as particularly telling.  

I totally agree on what you posted earlier about how football has changed for us old ‘uns.  I reckon the best way for football to survive when dishing up the dross we watched today, is for us oldies to all die off!  

Once that happens, they’ll just have the simpler job of convincing the younger fans that this kind of football is clever and acceptible, as they won’t have the benefit of knowing any different.

30 minutes ago, ashton_fan said:

Surely if he speculates extra funds and the bet doesn't come off the accounts are in an even worse state? Isn't that what he tried with LJ?

Or alternatively, if you speculate the funds at the right time and we make the jump up, we could be well away.  

Money paying for itself, rather than being pissed down the drain, so to speak.

1 hour ago, cotswoldred2 said:

Soooo who pays the bills? 

We are in a pretty good position compared with most other head banging owners....get a grip.

And who racks up the bills in the first place …… you aren’t Jon by any chance???

3 minutes ago, CliftonCliff said:

And that's the big worry, isn't it?

Fail to exercise proper governance over the club and to install suitably qualified people to run it. Get in an almighty mess through sheer negligence, in both football and financial terms, especially in regard to player recruitment. Sack the manager, fail to acknowledge any responsibility for having caused the situation in the first place, bring in a new man (or a succession of new men) to sort out the self-inflicted shambles. Eventually get the situation stabilised, usually necessitating the sale of your best players, and having wasted several years in stagnation in the process, at least in football terms. Then dispense with the guys who got you out of the hole you dug yourself into and start all over, usually with a young, so-called, up-and-coming coach (you hope) instead of someone of experience. Rinse and repeat. 

No wonder fans despair after two decades of watching this pattern repeat itself. Three wins on the trot don't disguise the accumulated evidence of the last twenty years.

Nail smashed squarely on head CC

You can live in hope for so long, but the last bit of hope under this ownership drained out of me with the Pearson shenanigans.  

I’m sure our fortunes on the pitch will ebb and flow, but I’ve now got zero confidence that we can sustain any meaningful progress under SL.  

As for Premier League ……. no chance!

12 minutes ago, Numero Uno said:

We have to hope that Liam can deliver above expectation to negate the malaise “upstairs” although, in my view, he needs board backing and bang on recruitment, no mistakes (a tough ask for anyone tbf), to achieve that.

Certainly true it’ll be a tough ask.

Problem I see is, whatever is potentially achieved on the pitch, there’s always someone in the background who’s got an unerring ability to screw it all up!

This latest childish display by the club just confirms one thing to me.  Whilst we get changes of managers or head coaches, nothing really changes at the top.

It’s a warning to anyone getting excited about the possibilty that three wins on the trot are signalling a new beginning.  Just remember, we still have the same owner and we are already reverting back to the ‘cozy club’ after dumping a highly experienced Manager and also a very experienced ex-Premier League CEO and replacing him with the yes man, social media maestro BT and his childish tweets.  Does that really signal a professional outfit who are going places?  

Sounds like another typical Lansdown rinse and repeat to me and after all these years under SL’s ownership, I sadly believe it’s unrealistic to anticipate him achieving anything more than he already has, when he still allows this amateurish nonsense to continue.

Just a heads up to anyone driving.  I’ve been through the Almondsbury interchange in both directions in the middle of the day today and it’s been very slow, with long queues in all directions.

Worth you allowing a bit of extre travel time if you’re going that way, or maybe avoid that area completely if you can.

1 minute ago, cotswoldred2 said:

Of course it is...just a blip and you can all get back to actually have some value added hatred for the new style.

Nigel is fine....he has a lot to look back on and is a millionaire...wipe your tears xxx

Why don't you grow up FFS.  

Let's get it straight, Against Sunderland and Hull, we DID ride our luck a bit, but I'd also argue, we created our own luck with the battling performance.  Against Watford, that was a straightforward cracking performance and LM can take credit for all three results.  On the field, things are looking very promising, particularly if we can repeat the level of performance shown at Watford a few more times.  It's still early days though and after following City for years, anyone with any sense will want to give it a lot longer before they start creaming themselves about the masterstroke pulled off by our wonderful management team.

From my perspective, Liam Manning is starting to look like he could be a very good fit for us.  The problem for me is, we've now ripped out a very good backroom team and undone some great work that was put in place to make this club more professionally run.  That's all forgotten when we're doing well on the field, but I can see that all come back and bite us later.  That's why the Lansdowns' stock is deservedly now so low with many fans.  Take off the blinkers and look at the bigger picture, before you start chucking insults around like confetti.

54 minutes ago, ChippenhamRed said:

This is what I’m doing - driving to Ealing Broadway and hopping on the Elizabeth Line.

Although I suggest using JustPark to find a space in Ealing, which is generally cheaper than a multi-storey and guarantees your spot. I’ve paid £8.40 to park all day.

Good one.  I haven’t used JustPark myself, but know others who have and they reckon it’s great.

I just realised though, that tool Sadiq Khan recently extended ULEZ right out to the M25, so Ealing is now well inside the zone.  Obviously no problem if your vehicle is ULEZ compliant.

On 25/12/2023 at 18:43, Street red said:

Exactly and I'd love to use the train but it's no longer cheap and I can't see getting to London for £22 or less and I'm coming from street so that means either Cary or temple meads. I've even asked a west ham fan at work and he can't even tell me the best option if I use the car which says it all.

An option would have been to drive to Ealing Broadway Station, which is just outside the ULEZ.  There’s an outdoor car park opposite the station and also a multi-story at the nearby shopping centre, though the latter closes in the evening.  Parking is around £12 per day at either I think.  You can then catch the Elizabeth Line from Ealing Broadway straight across to Stratford Station.

I expect the coach fare is cheaper than your combined fuel and parking though and you can have a few

51 minutes ago, awbb said:

It's great to get 3 wins on the bounce. 

I don't think we'd have seen what we saw yesterday had we not grabbed those 6 points at home from games in which, on other days, we might not have been able to get over the line. Confidence helps so much.

The near impossibility in The Championship is to be able to do that game in and game out. It needs your Manager/Head Coach to get their plan right and have the players execute it. Most of the time, you need the opposition to help you by doing the opposite.

So, it's fair to say, I'm not expecting us to tear teams apart, yet, as much as I would like it! If we put Birmingham in our pocket and give Milwall a kicking at AG on New Year's Day, I might... just might start to get excited.

I'm not ******* bouncing until we've done something, after all. 

Amen to that

2 minutes ago, ExiledAjax said:

If you've only been watching the home games then you're perception is correct. At home we've seen a 30% increase in the number of shots taken. That's notable.

The most important thing is that the increase in number has come without a drop off in the quality of the chance. 

We're still a little way off the sort of numbers that top 6 teams typically display, but it's trending in the right direction.

Cheers for the clarification EA and at least I wasn’t imagining things.

I’m more than happy with trending in the right direction, so long may it continue

7 minutes ago, cotswoldred2 said:

That does sound like back peddling a tad. This club has a reputation for being loyal with managers, perhaps a bit too loyal, complacency has been our downfall, do you need proof? 

Boxing day last year we had just come of two home defeats Stoke and W.B.A it was a dark depressing Christmas and I thought then Pearson should have gone, and so did the majority of the football world, but we dallied...contrast that with yesterday and the it's chalk and cheese.

I too in a fit of pique ranted on here about a succession of poor owners after Saints away, but perhaps Jon has pulled a rabbit in getting LM, I certainly hope so.

Got absolutely no idea where you think I was back peddling.  

As you chose not to answer any of the straightforward questions I posed, and just continued pushing your own pov, it seems obvious you aren’t up for discussion, so let’s just leave it there.

4 minutes ago, johnheadbcfc said:

Not LM sensitive just sick of 5 weeks of a Pearson love in to the point people seem to revel in city struggling over it , not gonna dig through pages and pages to prove my point. I very much enjoyed the win 

Cheers mate  

Well, if it makes you feel any better, you and your little cohort’s constant digs and snidey comments are just as wearing, so I guess we’ll all have to suffer together then!

Hopefully people will eventually grow up and realise we all want the same thing …… a successful BCFC.

26 minutes ago, johnheadbcfc said:

Just so I know... its partly down to pearson if we do well but all mannings fault if we don't?

Is everything ok, as you seem to be super-sensitive about everything LM?

Any new manager/head coach is going to be inheriting the team of players assembled by his predecessor.  A lot of people believe that LM has actually inherited a solid team of honest players with a great team spirit and work ethic.  

They may not be especially gifted, but they are arguably a lot better than you’d usually expect to to inherit from a sacked manager, as they were already performing ok under NP.

Of course LM has been given a solid base to work with, so are you disputing that then?  You seem to be part of a group on here who are throwing around snide comments and seem determined to create a them and us attitude and try to twist anything into a Pearson v Manning narrative.  

We had enough of that shit under LJ, so how about accepting we all want to City to succeed and enjoy a ******* good win yesterday!!!

3 hours ago, ExiledAjax said:

1 extra shot per game. Up from 11 per game under NP to 12 under LM. A 9% increase.

It's all come at home though which might be why people see a bigger increase. Shots at AG have gone from 10 to 13, whilst away from home we average almost exactly the same.

More important for me is that shots on target has increased by almost 50%, from 3 per game to 4.4 per game. Simultaneously shots on target against has come down to below 4 per game. I like that, I think it's good.

The average quality of these chances remains pretty consistent with NP's time here.

That’s interesting EA, I hadn’t actually checked the stats, but it felt like a bigger increase than that to me, so fair enough.

I haven’t been away this season, but my personal impression at the Gate is there seems to be an increasing willingness to fire off a shot, sometimes from distance.  
I’m not a big follower of stats and am more of a gut feeling type and it felt to me that we’d improved that element of our game more than the stats apparently suggest in that case.

I’m a massive fan of NP btw, but my only reservation about him was, we seemed to be overly cagy and cautious at home and we all know how poor our home record was.  

It just feels to me we are now more willing and geared to get forward quicker and put the opposition under more pressure in their own box and maybe that’s given me the skewed impression of our shot count.

4 hours ago, REDOXO said:

It is! Me too! But I have a brilliant knowledge of the ignore button. 
 

Thus if you talk nonsense and I don’t respond you are on the ignore/**** button!

Yes the old ignore button.  I’ve never actually resorted to in all my time on here, but there are definitely some tempting me lately.

I’ve always preferred to discuss, rather than ignore, but I need to remind myself why the phrase ‘flogging a dead horse’ exists!

3 minutes ago, REDOXO said:

Why do you bother?

I honestly don’t know mate, it’s pointless really …….. sometimes I just can’t help myself though!