CliftonCliff

I judge them on what they do. It's rarely worth listening to what they say.

12 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

Yes, indeed.  Wonder if he’s changed tack and realised he wants to do something off his own back.  That’s not meant to be rude, perhaps it’s dawned on him that there is more to life.

Yes, and something he's cut out for and is good atm as well - and that isn't meant to be a jibe, either. He might actually be a lot happier - and I dare say so would many of us. 

53 minutes ago, JP Hampton said:

 

Or trying doing a similar poll on here and you may find it’s not far off that . I’ve seen hardly anyone “disapproving” of Manning.
Quite the opposite and wishing him well. 

Just because people are disappointed about Nige doesn’t necessarily equate to not approving of Manning. 
Most people are capable of more than one thought process. 

Exactly this. Not too intellectually challenging to distinguish between those two positions, is it? Some people will choose to willfully misunderstand or conflate the two in order to provoke an argument. It's tiresome.

28 minutes ago, Shauntaylor85 said:

Yep. Same people survive manager after manager. 

Remind you of anything?

Bit like national politics, really. Bunch of slimy, mendacious, self-serving people who take the credit for everything and the blame for absolutely nothing, are never accountable and who somehow survive and even prosper despite being incompetent at much of what they do.

Said elsewhere when the debate was still raging that I had in the past sprung to Lansdown's defence, but my perceptions of the ownership have been irreversibly changed by this woeful episode and I will never trust them again. In fact, my relationship with the club is probably at its lowest ebb since I started going to games regularly at the age of 14 (I'm 76), and I don't think I'll feel better about that until this regime is history.

Well, I started this thread about 8.30 this morning and by 1.30pm it looks as though it's done and dusted, if the Liam Manning thread can be believed. There's certainly a very high level of conviction that he's the man. 

Pretty much confirms everything I said at the outset. It would have taken something pretty spectacular to excite me and convince me that this puts us in a better position than the one we were in just over a week ago, but I will keep an open mind and wish the bloke all the best. He's a promising young coach and has clearly done very good work at Oxford but he's untried at this level, so we'll see. 

4 minutes ago, RedRoss said:

Another I don't care but spent time posting another topic..

Another I'm expecting to be underwhelmed topic.. Surely results bad or good that will ultimately come in time is the only thing that matters?

Another topic to say regardless of the appointment it won't matter anyway as you don't trust the board..

I wanted Nige to stay, I'm not happy with the way it was dealt with but these dramatic posts are too much. 

Can understand you finding it repetitious and getting tired of it, but with respect, there's a simple solution - stop reading it.

1 hour ago, pl00peh91 said:

No point fawning over an ex, plenty more fish in the sea 

Not of that calibre, there aren’t. There’s a reason he was headhunted for the most important job in English cricket and is now running the sport in this country. It was a huge loss. I suspect it was his skilful mediation between Lansdown and Pearson that helped prolong the latter’s tenure. I wish to God he was still here, or even someone with half his ability. As it currently stands, we have nobody in an equivalent role, which is a big part of the reason people who know about these things keep pointing out the total lack of any proper corporate governance. We can never know for sure, but I agree with those who have said that last week’s events might well not have happened had Gould still been in post.

2 minutes ago, SDBS36 said:

My fear is we will promote from with in again as we have done before and not take this chance to progress 

Well, at this stage that would require that the last man standing, Fleming, is still in employment, which according to the ITK mob, he isn’t.

10 minutes ago, Roadrunner said:

Well we have got tp  replace one of our top managers the club has every had, so yes cant get excited. I remember when the great Harry Dolman announced our new manager Alan Dicks. Alan who we all said and the rest is history. Just trying to stay a little bit positive.

Well said and fair comment. I can remember the Alan who? reaction, as well. I guess you never know.

Well, thanks for all the responses, guys. It’s affirming in one way, at least. Either I’m not just a cynical, miserable old git, or if I am, I’m in good company.

For the sake of clarity, there are limits on my negativity. I will not in any sense be against the new guy - well, not unless it’s bloody Warnock or something equally horrific. I’m still a supporter, have been for over 60 years, and I’ll want them to do well.

I think all I was trying to say is that in order to justify the massive upheaval and the almost arbitrary sacking of four very good people, you have to be be able to say that, as a direct result of those actions, the club in the coming weeks is in a better place than it was the week before last.

I’m going to need a lot of convincing.

1 hour ago, Dr Balls said:

So it’s now a week since Nige was sacked and it’s been followed by a load of word garbage about the reasons for this. However it is perhaps the case that the 2 Directors of the club (yes there are only 2 - 1 is JL, the other is the CEO) have let the cat out of the bag. It’s not that they want promotion this season but rather that they need Premier League football and the associated money next season to make Bristol Sport a worthwhile asset to sell.

As it stands, all of the various components of Bristol Sport are loss-making, with only the men’s football club having a chance of breaking even by selling players it develops at a high price. This produces the said “nest egg” but there is no guarantee that this will ever be spent. In fact, it may just be used to help cover further financial losses.

Bristol Sport has turned into a major headache for SL and he wants out. ETM holding up the development of the housing at “Longmoor Village” turns off the revenue stream wanted to develop the “Sporting Quarter” including the new arena, which has now been delayed with no sign of anything happening there any time soon.

In the meantime, men’s professional rugby is a financial basket case, with all clubs losing money like it was going out of fashion. That is likely to make any overseas investor keen on buying the men’s and women’s football teams, plus Ashton Gate and the HPC think that there must be better options elsewhere, especially given the supposed asking price for Bristol Sport of £200 million. And SL won’t want to be left with just the rugby and basketball teams, and then having to pay to rent out their playing venues.

The bottom line is that promotion is no longer a vague aim, but it is essential to the wider aim for the Lansdowns of selling up and getting out. Now that might be a good thing for fans if it was realistic, I.e. appreciating we needed to use the “nest egg” to buy the players needed to achieve it, but the impression given by our 2 directors and Tinnion, the technical director, is that our current squad is good enough to get promotion. Having seen our performance yesterday against the bottom team in the league, who were down to 10 men for more than 60 minutes, you would have to suggest that they have either been taking something fairly hallucinatory or they have no idea of Championship football. Neither suggests that the current demand for any incoming new head coach is achievable.

And so any person interviewed for the vacant post is quite rightly going to ask “And what resources are you going to give me to make this happen?” If the answer is you have to work with the current squad, I think most would say “forget it”. And if the answer is “You can use some of the nest egg” that suggests that the owners always intended getting rid of Nige and not allowing him anywhere near those funds I.e. they were deliberately setting him up to fail. Especially as he would have told them that we don’t have a squad to compete with the likes of Leicester, Leeds or Southampton, and Luton to a greater or lesser extent “got lucky” doing it on the cheap.

So there we have it. Are we an attractive option for an ambitious head coach? Only if the available resources match the stated aims. And will SL manage to sell Bristol Sport? Only if the stated aim is achieved, which suggests having to splash the cash in the January transfer window, which as we know is not a good time to try buying players at a decent price. And the fall guy for all of this and the one that has done most to put the club on a more stable footing both in football and financial terms in the past couple of years is Nige, who is likely to have pointed out the currently unrealistic nature of the aims. Unfortunately it seems that if you don’t like the message, it’s always easiest to shoot the messenger!

This is spot on.

I remarked on another thread earlier in the week that SL really has painted himself into a corner with the way he’s structured this interconnected nest of companies.

if it was just BCFC he wanted out of, it’s impossible to sell as a stand alone entity. It’s long ceased to be an independent football club and, crucially, no longer has the security that comes with owning your own stadium. It cannot now be extricated from this convoluted corporate network and the only way to dispose of it is to flog the entire group together, which - surprise, surprise - nobody wants to buy.

To use the most apt sporting metaphor, it’s a spectacular own goal. The growing desperation that lies behind the current situation is reflected in the increasingly erratic decision making, culminating in this week’s self-defeating and destructive behaviour. 
 

It’s a thoroughly demoralising and alarming time to be a supporter and it’s very difficult to see at the moment how a positive outcome can be achieved.

3 minutes ago, Zuni said:

"New brooms sweep clean". Last thing a new coach wants is any of the senior coaching team hanging around in the background.

Sure fire way to get a split in the playing camp.

Sad as it is, get rid and bring in people he knows and trusts, as Pearson did.

Harsh as it is, and perhaps needs to be, I do accept there's a lot of common sense in that, but there is also a counter-argument about throwing out the proverbial baby with the bathwater that applies particularly to Rennie's departure. It means the whole culture-defining network of relationships that NP carefully assembled has been dismantled. It seems wantonly destructive and I can't see how it serves the best interests of the football club.

Hell hath no fury like a bruised ego. it would appear.

4 minutes ago, pillred said:

Usain Bolt was 6 foot five.

Yeah, pity he wasn't a better footballer.

17 minutes ago, italian dave said:

Well, (Nathan) Jones is the second most common, and (Luke) Williams the third.

And Johnson is in the top ten

OMG, that conjures up some truly gruesome possibilities!

8 minutes ago, Street red said:

Still makes me sick to the stomach to see the group leave Fleming is just a quality character and very likable especially the group of players we have.

That’s a big part of what’s made many of us so angry. We haven’t just lost a very good manager, but Rennie, Euelle, and very probably Fleming as well, in due course. Bloody madness.

2 minutes ago, redsquirrel said:

im only trying to say it, no one said anything about remember how to spell these germans aswell  if thats essential, i want robins

If you want a quintessential English name that we can all remember and pronounce, you should go for Smith. Might not go down well from a football standpoint, but then when did we ever base managerial appointments on trivialities like that?

2 minutes ago, Pugofwar said:

Dean Smith. No nonsense British name! Easy, decision made, not sure why the process is taking so long. 

You beat me to it.

4 minutes ago, bcfcnick said:

If Curtis has gone (and I sincerely hope not) then he'll go with a 100% record as he joked about yesterday.   I thought the tweaks he made were good bringing out the best in TGH and a few others. I liked the way he set up the side. 

If the Club had any sense they would keep him on as he is the type to help a new head coach, the players like and respect him, he's a decent coach, a superb communicator and, for want of a better word, a bit of 'soul' in the Club will be lost if he goes.

A very good 'on the mark' article by James Piercy that covers Flem's time here saying "Fleming’s loyalty and friendship with Pearson means it’s likely he will move on, but he’ll surely leave as one of the most beloved assistants to have stood in a technical area alongside a manager".    

https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/sport/football/bristol-city-verdict-healing-power-8884313

 

Well said. Have posted elsewhere that we could do worse. This is not a Tinnion/Millen/Holden scenario. He would be the surviving embodiment of the culture that NP instilled. If you think trying to maintain some continuity with that is an important consideration, then there is logic to it, and he has a lot of respect and goodwill, partly through his close association with Nige, but also in his own right.
 

Not to be dismissed out of hand, but would he want it, having been a witness to this week’s car crash?

17 minutes ago, And Its Smith said:

I know. And the answer is no.  Will give you 5000/1 

15 minutes ago, Northern Red said:

No.

12 minutes ago, Glen hump said:

I do and it’s a no 

1 minute ago, TammyAB said:

No

We’ll take that as a No, then, shall we?

Next topic?

1 hour ago, Warwickshire Red said:

Quick too. Tommy couldn't get past them in a sprint and they got back well for the "open goal" chance.

Yep, you’re right, thought that, too. Pretty rapid for such big blokes.

7 hours ago, And Its Smith said:

Lee-berk-naysht is how it’s said in case he gets the job!

O Level German (Failed) was 60 years ago, so I could be wrong, but as the e comes before the I, would it not be lie-berk-naysht?

(Not that I think it’s something we’re going to need to know.)

11 hours ago, Davefevs said:

Bloody ell - Wednesday had some units on display today.

Back three of Iorfa, Diaby and Bernard…no slouches either.

Callum Paterson, Michael Smith.

Then they brought on more with the subs.

++++++

On a bit of a moan - I thought we let them play out from throw-ins far too easily and break our first line.

Said the same to my mates at the time. Bloody huge guys, some of them. Terrified me, and I was in Row 8!

16 hours ago, Mike Hunt-Hertz said:

Lansdown at the wheel?

Which one? Since neither one of them has a clue where they’re headed, it could have been either.

(Actually, on second thoughts, I think we can safely conclude it was neither. If the Lansdowns were driving, they’d have been up Shit Creek*, not Bournemouth.)

*Without a paddle, naturally.

23 minutes ago, Riaz said:

The tweet about Eustace rejecting City

The guy has two followers. Probably bollocks

Ah, I see. Sorry, bit slow on the uptake there. Thanks for clarifying. Makes sense.

16 minutes ago, Riaz said:

2 followers. 

Sorry, what?