Steve Watts

1 hour ago, Mr Popodopolous said:

Bit of chatter from the Wolves end..There is also someone on there who claims to know a relative of Scott.

I really hope we stand firm because although this is a plausible scenario, the nauseating arrogance and inward looking nature of some PL fans is starting to grate. (Brightonwolf).

I've been quite risk averse but £25m or close to £25m ie say £22m with several million more in realistic add-ons or no.

Nige's father in law!  We all know if Wolves play dirty, Nige will just fight them off with his bare hands!

I think the best move for Alex from the teams linked so far would be Brighton. Exposure to European Football and would likely get the game time he wants.  Wolves and Bournemouth again will offer him the game time he wants, but would he want that in a team in transition that (certainly in Bournemouths case) are a good bet to struggle at the wrong end. He loves Spurs, but I don't know if he gets games there.  I'd love Newcastle to be interested as I think Howe is the perfect manager for someone like Scott to progress under, but I've not seen any link there since March.

5 hours ago, TedsHeadIs Red said:

Still can’t get over that we got him for just 18K 

Which is a good enough nudge to raise just once again how remarkable a manager Terry Cooper was.  We got him for 18k and Coops went up to Darlo with a van and helped him move down here.  Legends...both of them,

14 hours ago, RedHienz said:

Funny thing memory.

Not to long ago they used to do raffles for the shirt sponsorship. £1k to enter, who do they draw - yup company one of the directors owned.

Good for them having a progressive owner and experienced CEO who evolving the club into prison fc.

Not always that way....we did have the joyous moment where the Sportman Pub won it and they were essentially a pub team at that time!

3 hours ago, steviestevieneville said:

if it’s rhetorical it doesn’t need a question mark as it doesn’t require a answer 

3 hours ago, Miah Dennehy said:

We clearly had different English teachers, I have never heard of a rhetorical question not requiring a question mark. A quick Google check suggests they do. If, however, we have any experts in the subject on here who can confirm that one way or the other,I am more than happy to apologise for my ignorance

Either or is fine.  There are several different sources that tend to concur....  

However....the bottom question asked below was a strange one....Having been married for 17 years I tend to find most rhetorical questions begin with them! 

22 hours ago, Rocky said:

 

They paid their £8 for a blue tick, so they must be legit.

21 hours ago, Street red said:

Not sure but Brian tinnion follows the page 

I too follow pages purely for the lols it gives

53 minutes ago, BCFCAL said:

So much chat and it is all just recycled and was there at the very start of the window - same clubs, same fees, same 'interested in'. Just this thread has gone off on a tangent about every footballer in the world, plus any tweet that comes out about Scott.

Truly believe that £25 million is too much money for the teams touted as interested, as he has no prem experience and won't be a guaranteed hit in his first season, which West Ham and Wolves need, and Spurs have just got Maddison, and are after 2 central defenders, and Levy isn't a massive spender. AS also seems like a clever lad and wants first team football, and that isn't guaranteed when making the step up, he knows he has time on his side to play in the prem. Think he'll be here next season, and hopefully sign a contract stopping him leaving on a free. Also seems very happy in pre season.

There's both recent and aged precedents of this with the club.  I think I read that Ross McCrorie did this at Aberdeen to ensure that the club got fair value, something we will have been aware of.  And further back, Darren Barnard did the same for us when Danny Wilson was coming in for him at Barnsley after their promotion to the prem.

On 06/07/2023 at 11:57, Open End Numb Legs said:

Meanwhile, the objections are lining up to the bus shelter. Some good points made here:-

Comment:As a neighbour living close to the site of the proposed stand I have the following objections:

There has been no consultation with the neighbours in the community about the proposals.
Looking at the plans there are no measurements so that you can make a direct comparison between the size of the old stand and the new one but visually it looks to be about twice the height and about a third longer than the old stand.
This would cause direct impact on the amount of light coming to my house and garden and be a lot more overbearing than the old stand.
The new stand looks to be built directly at the boundary of the rovers property which is quite a bit closer than the old stand was.
Also aesthetically it will look like the back of a warehouse and since the trees which had grown between the old stand and our gardens have been removed by the contractors - there is nothing visually attractive to break up the view.
It is claimed that there will be less noise from the stand but there is nothing in the plans that evidences this.
As the stand will be bigger, closer, and include toilet and refreshment facilities it seems unlikely.

On match days the constant swearing and sometimes racist and homophobic commentary is pretty offensive for the neighbouring families so it would be great if the noise could be properly
dampened.
Construction work has started with pile driving very close to the boundaries of neighbouring properties. Knowing that the foundations of the old terraced houses are very shallow has there
been any assessment of potential subsidence in neighbouring homes as a consequence?
Parking on match days has always been a problem - what additional parking facilities will rovers
be including to ensure that the neighbours in the local areas aren't even more badly affected by
the additional fans that may come?
Rovers seems to pride itself on being part of the community but in the years I have been a neighbour has never really engaged with the neighbours. Why not?
Lastly I know that in the plans for a new stadium previously approved this stand would have been
bigger but those out-of-date plans relate to a time when Rovers owned the homes (including mine)
directly neighbouring the area and so there would have not been the direct and damaging impact
on the neighbours that there is now.

Imagine they have to tear it down and they're left with a full view of the pitch!  They think now there's nothing visually attractive....!

On 05/07/2023 at 18:55, Silvio Dante said:

Keith, Keith, Keith.

People in tented houses shouldn’t throw stones.

 

Oh I don't mind Keith posting reminders of that lot recently playing league matches against Eastleigh!

5 hours ago, Monkeh said:

More then rovers fans

Silly little monkey Monkeh.... All the Rovers fans are locked out of the city so of course there's more City fans.....

2 hours ago, RedEd73 said:

If not going for longevity, surely Neves and Jota at Wolves must be in the conversation.

If not going for longevity then Scott & Bellingham, given the career they're going to have should be there.  Like others have said - there's no indication as to the metrics used, in which case it's all a load of bollocks!

15 hours ago, BS4 on Tour... said:

Hi all, well, obviously I’ve got to highlight the first line of the (apparent) Dover Athletic statement: “Following the news today of Ade Shokunbi we had agreed in principal” ... PRINCIPAL?! Principal? - good grief, how standards have dropped (it’s “principle”)

Lots of gen x / millennials are running digital outputs for multiple organisations and media outlets and the results are disastrous - just look at the ‘running threads’ at the bottom of the screen on channels such as Sky News, GB News, Talk TV etc - they are full of spelling and grammatical errors that can be appropriately deemed pathetic in the modern world of spell checker etc.

My dear old Dad was a much respected journalist back in the days when they were old school and actually left their desks to get out in the world to find stories on which to report. He was on first name terms with the likes of Morecambe & Wise, Norman Wisdom etc (look it up kids!) yet he left the profession in disgust in the 1980s saying “standards have dropped so far, I no longer want to be part of this” - he was ahead of his time as everything has seemed to plummet since - eg “we had agreed in principal” - Principal? Principle?

Those who ridicule and think this is all trivial are merely contributing to the massive downturn in basic standards. It ain’t important to many, but it is to me ... cheers

Shame he couldn't introduce you to Eric and Ernie enough for you to be on the same terms.....!

55 minutes ago, sinenomine said:

It's important to note that there have been errors in writing since writing began. Greek and Roman texts are littered with spelling and grammatical errors. 

Jane Austen, F Scott Fitzgerald and Agatha Christie were all terrible spellers. 

There is a 17th century version of the King James Bible that says "Thou shalt commit adultery".

The word cacao was misspelled as cocoa sometime in the 18th century and stuck.

Popeye's love of spinach is down to an error where the amount of iron provided was given an extra zero in a textbook. 

Our language evolves through mistakes. Words like ammunition, culprit and syllabus are all in use but were borne of mistakes. 

But sure, let's blame Gen X and Millennials. Absolute boomer nonsense. 

OOOOOOoooooohhhh....look at me and how I can google how long spelling mistakes have been commonplace!  Just cuz ur down wi da kidz dunt mean nuttin.

52 minutes ago, City oz said:

• Replays - Well how would that work. If there was a draw what do the teams do pick short straws. - Well - Extra time and pens....
• Early rounds mid-week -If early Rounds were played mid-week the season would blow out and we will be watching football and cricket at the same time. - How so?  it'll still be the same number of matches and actually frees up Saturdays for league fixtures therefore meaning less midweek matches or an earlier finish to the season?
• stand-alone weekend - So players that pay in the Prem might have two play two games one day after the other. - Well I think it goes without saying that it won't be any teams in the final playing the following day.  Full fixture list will be full in the same way that semi-finals weekend sees a full fixture, just not including the teams in that round (and their opponents) - 
• Same point as the above one. - Same point as the above one
• TV rights- yes agree.
• Payment from Prem clubs - Why? - Because that's where the money is.....

I'm not sure what your points are to be honest, but I've responded where I can.... 

I do disagree though with with early rounds being midweek.  This involves much smaller clubs that rely on the funding that gate receipts bring.  Exeter vs Gateshead for (an admittedly extreme) example would see far few away fans travelling on a Tuesday night than a Saturday.  This seems an unnecessary move that would impact clubs financially in my view.

3 hours ago, Davefevs said:

Can’t recall his interviews at Everton as caretaker, but can’t say I was hugely impressed by his interviews at FGR.

The lazy conclusion is he’s a tub-thumper because of his playing-days style and isn’t a tactician.  I’m not sure he dispelled that in his time at FGR though!!!

Although playing personnel wise they were a bit of a mess.  They never recovered from losing Wilson, Cadden and Matt, together with the long-term injury to 21/22’s top scorer Stevens.  Instead of improving on their Lg2 side, they became worse.  Burchill didn’t do very well, but they were still in the mix when he was sacked.  Big Dunc came in, but they’d already appointed a new HoR (as Harry alluded to).  He’d come from St Johnstone.  He openly admitted he struggled with understanding how competitive Lg1 was, had assumed it was like Scottish Championship (T2), and therefore his recruiting level was flawed.  That didn’t help.

Hope they get themselves sorted.  The more South West teams the better imho.

 

Weeeellllllllll.......maybe we could do with losing one of them.......

1 hour ago, Engvall’s Splinter said:

If I could guess a club who’d appoint the first female coach, then FGR would be up there. Something about their Chairman and the public eye. Cynical I know. 
 

Wish her the best of luck. 

He does like to be pioneering, with the vegan food, new stadium plans etc, so if there's an opportunity to become the first pro club to appoint a female manager who has all of the necessary qualifications then they would absolutely be the team to do it.  Would open the door for other extremely qualified female coaches as well.  I don't view it with the same cynicism as you and think it'd be great if she started the season in charge and started really well.

It was always bound to happen sometime because there's no real reason for it not to.  There will come a time that women who follow in future would be rightly thought of and referred to simply as manager, not female manager.   Just like Phil Neville was "manager" of the England Ladies rather than the "male manager" of them.

3 minutes ago, petehinton said:

Blimey, drank the kool aid here

Please tell me there's at least one reply that simply says "Row M"!

2 hours ago, BCFCGav said:

I hope one day we find out why he pulled out of coming back this summer. Leaves a bad taste. Best way to show him is finishing above Millwall. 

We don't know if he did pull out of coming back.  He was honest with his reservations about returning is all that's been said.  It could be that he was hoping the club could give him some reassurances about those reservations but instead decided to back out ourselves as we knew we couldn't give him the assurances he wanted.

6 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

I guess they had their assets thawed out rather than frozen!

4 minutes ago, Antman said:

it's just taking the peas

Apparently it's broccoli inspired!

And available to buy for the bargain price of £79.99 right here!

At least no kit we release could ever match this beauty from La Hoya Lorca FC.....  They went bankrupt and were dissolved last year....presumably the shirt sales weren't enough to keep them solvent!

On 26/06/2023 at 08:53, Silvio Dante said:

Tbf I can “get” the club not stocking loads of leisure T shirts, polos etc. I’d think they appeal to a smaller section of the fanbase, and crucially, when anything is “fashion” driven it will go out of style and have a shorter shelf life.

Which is why proper retro shirts is a no brainer. They are an “enduring” item stock wise and don’t ever need to be redesigned/sold off at a loss. I think even Rovers do them and in most club shops I’ve been in recently there is a range/area specifically for retro. It makes pretty good commercial sense IMO and as we’re so keen on the “callback” in our kit designs, I’m surprised we don’t do them.

It's where we went wrong with the redevelopment.  There just isn't the floorspace for a wide enough range of merch.  Hopefully if the rumours are true about the arena housing a bigger and better shop then we can finally get this sort of thing sorted.

12 hours ago, City Rocker said:

Fair to say there's no chance of planning or building consents being granted in time, but on the contrary, they're pushing ahead with the build full speed, without so much as a nod to the necessary regulations. 

Implicit from the tone of Wael's big announcement a couple of months ago, they plan to blame others (NIMBYs, anti-Rovers councilors, etc) when the season starts and they don't have consent to use the stand, despite having sold season tickets for it. 

Contrary to their statement at the time, "Planning permissions and building regulations have all been submitted", that wasn't actually true, it was a big lie, but they went ahead and started work anyway. 

“Given the scale of the development, timelines are tight and we will be doing all we can to ensure that the new structure is in place as quickly as possible, with minimum disruption. That said, as with any development of this nature, there is always the chance of delays that are out of our control, but we have done all we can to look to mitigate this risk.

"Planning permissions and building regulations have all been submitted, and the club is working with our Safety Advisory Group to make sure that all regulations are covered as part of the build process, so that the new development can be signed-off for use at the earliest possible opportunity.

"We would like to ask supporters to remain patient whilst we work through these improvements, but the expectation is that they will be completed in time for the new season." 

Condensed version: we will bully our way through this, regardless of due process or the rights of our neighbours. 

Since when was planning permission required to construct something from IKEA?

On 26/06/2023 at 22:15, Kid in the Riot said:

The thing I still don't really get tho is: Millwall.

They have one of the lower wage bills in the division, so I'm just struggling to see them matching what we were offering. And if that's the case then, as noble as Joe Bryan may be, it's a bit mad to think that he's turned down a bigger offer at his hometown club to stay in London with a higher cost of living, on less money.

Maybe Milwall are matching our offer...in which case he'd have to be one of, if not their highest earner, I'd have thought. 

For a mere mortal like you and I maybe, but the wages Joe will have picked up over the last few seasons will probably just be enough to stop him from having to sleep in the doorway of the local Lidl.....

Unless he or Nige comes out and says what those reservations were we'll never know.  

It's the age old adage that gets rolled out time and again in football - Never go back.  He left having had his best season for us and on a real high.  Perhaps his reservations were purely and simply that he could become another statistic to that adage and would rather leave his time here as a fond memory.  Who knows? Well....besides Joe & Nige? 

12 hours ago, ExiledAjax said:

 

The two sentences in this press release are what we're getting.

https://www.bcfc.co.uk/news/third-shirt-available-to-buy/

"The Third shirt harks back to City’s look in the late 80s, inspired by the Robins’ yellow shirt and socks, and green shorts worn between 1988 and 1990. It features a one-off modern-style Robin motif as a nod to the one which graced the shirt during those years."

It's um...not really an explanation imo.

What badge is it supposedly nodding to?!?  Because it's not even remotely close to a robin on a football in front of the suspension bridge!

On 20/06/2023 at 19:05, petehinton said:

They seem to think they’re gonna announce 3/4 signings in one go…think they’ll need to at this rate. Fair play if they do!

I see where you're getting confused.  You've assumed 3/4 means 3 or 4.  In actual fact they're bringing Ex PSG & Bradford player Bruno Rodriguez out of retirement.  Having had his right leg amputated he is now three quarters of a footballer......

(Yes I realise that humour is dark....!)

On 14/06/2023 at 08:57, Shtanley said:

Hey all, 

 

Issue 3 of One Stream in Bristol is now up for sale. £4. 60 odd pages. 

 

Buy it here https://onestreaminbristol.bigcartel.com/product/flag-day-print-a3 

£4.60 is a bit steep....especially when you only get the odd pages......

If it's as cruel as it was last season we'll probably have a Sat-Weds-Sat run of Boro, Southampton and Sunderland all away in that order...

On 15/06/2023 at 09:54, miser said:

It's already there, but to give a sense of progress, it will only take a photo once a month. 

As that nice man Wally Al Qaida keeps saying - these things take time////

On 16/06/2023 at 19:05, petehinton said:

According to someone on their forum, it’s better to not sign anyone at the beginning of the transfer window as the fees are too expensive….

Gas logic. 

To be fair he's right.  At the end of the transfer window the free agents are getting desperate and stop asking for a signing on fee.

23 hours ago, BS15_RED said:

I wonder what Henbury Gas has to say about this….

It was obviously those gert 'teds getting in the home end again.  tsk.

8 hours ago, GrahamC said:

That was Cornick.

Or, as she would say, Arry Coorrrneck.

1 hour ago, Port Said Red said:

This has crossed my mind, it certainly feels like Brighton are making this move as Easy as possible for both parties and makes me wonder if they are hoping it will smooth the way for another deal.

Definitely not the case.  The only reason it's free is because Brighton didn't offer him a new and improved deal by whatever the deadline was.  Just like us with Liam Rosenior.  It could prove to be a decision they regret in the future regardless of where he ends up.

New regs introduced for next season, including the reintroduction of multi ball and the banning of towels....

https://www.efl.com/news/2023/june/efl-statement-regulation-changes--summer-2023