Red-Robbo

Just read this, TD. The words of a stranger cannot bring a lot of comfort after a terrible thing like this, but I wish you strength and all the comfort of family of friends in dealing with this. You've always been one of the good guys here. I hope the happy memories can eventually overpower out the pure grief, although I know from personal experience, we never stop grieving in some ways. Last week, I went to the funeral of someone who totally unexpectedly killed herself. 48 years old. I couldn't save her, but I'm helping support her kids. Family and friends are so important.

He was right. A hurricane wasn't on its way. You can only get hurricanes in the tropics. They are tropical cyclones. It is not possible to have a hurricane in the North Atlantic. This was his lunchtime forecast. His forecast after the 6 O'Clock News did warn that a severe storm was coming and people living in southern England should "batten down the hatches". Nowadays of course they have weather satellites that can monitor more accurately the position of storm cells as they make their way up from the mid-ocean. Back then, they relied on educated guesswork with much of the info coming from offshore weather ships and reports from commercial shipping.

I don't necessarily see that as an intended criticism of NP. City are underperforming, given the size of Bristol, the investment here over the years. I'd hope Lansdown Jr has enough intelligence to realise that cannot be laid in any way at Pearson's door. I think if the Lansdowns thought the underperformance was because Nigel Pearson is a bad manager, he would have been out of here. They must read and here what most City fans are saying. This bloke is our best chance of a rebuild and of correcting the errors of seasons past.

Which ones, Ivor?

This was a bigger Pressure Drop, albeit from the 70s...

Yup. I think what jaundiced Jordan hinted at but doesn't clearly state, and Nigel alludes to, is that the standard "you have to sell" model was added to by Mark Ashton to include sweeping your acquisitions far more widely than we needed, buying players the club didn't need, in the hope they'd scooped up some hidden gems. It's a strategy that saw us pay far too much for non-required players and no hopers. Perhaps we should call it the trawler method.

He certainly never broke into a sweat either...

With the red and yellow teams and all the blocking strategies it's sort of Connect 4 on ice.

But they are hardly just a "Bristol City Model". As I said, nearly all clubs have to have the buy low, sell high mentality to stay afloat. Some seasons that won't work, you then go through a dry patch where you have no war chest to speak of. The economics of football are ridiculous though. Without TV money and that trickle down virtually all non-PL clubs would go bust, as would a number in the top tier. Nowhere else would such a large number of relatively modest sized enterprises be able to pay such incredible salaries. No companies with such modest numbers of active consumers could operate as FL clubs do.

Try a conversion at the Atyeo End and if you catch a 90mph gust you'll punt it clear over the Suspension Bridge!

Isn't "sell your best players if it brings in such a big profit that you might be able to replace them" the same 'business model' all Championship clubs without PP are forced to pursue? In fact, aren't more or less every club barring PL ones and Championship PP recipients in this position?

I've taken the sheets off the rotary line. Otherwise I feel it might end up in Wiltshire.

Try to dig out the Freegarde-Hendy doc on Netflix. He wasn't as sophisticated as the Israeli fella, but his cons were more extreme. He also served little time considering the harm he did, and is out currently doing the same crime to another wealthy widow.

Good point. In terms of actual game management, I often think running it down the other end and having a pop at goal is usually better than trying to hold it in the corner. A) We don't have that many players good enough at close control to hold it in the corner. They lose it then a counter-attack happens with them stranded, facing the wrong way. B) Goal kicks usually waste more time and at this juncture of the match are inevitably taken long giving you a 50/50 chance of winning the ball. C ) You never know, you might score!

Ah, those 95th minute "time-wasting" subs that actually don't waste any time as the ref stops his watch as soon as the subbed man starts to walk off and then adds the standard minute. Sometimes I reckon they prolong games.

The Sound Pressure Level? The Spanish Primera Liga? Your Sexual Partners List?

I've been impressed by the way Pearson usually (not 100% of the time) makes subs in a timely manner and how willing he is to hook off a player who is having a 'mare. I'd love a quid every time I was sitting at a match waiting for Lee Johnson to make some obvious change. I think he thought tactical substitution was illegal before the 65th minute.

Not sure I saw Brunt even approach competence in the 12 games he played for us, let alone score a goal. King is much better, although clearly not at his peak, I can see him getting involved in the coaching set-up as an ongoing transition off the pitch, a lot more than someone like Danny Simpson.

I guess @Hunsupport might also be a person to ask about Budapest. He doesn't seem to be on here much now though.

Same. He was a Libertarian, which in the US encompasses a lot of folk who don't want the government to do anything apart from buy arms from their companies and provide police to ensure poor folk don't encroach on their properties. However his angle was anti-Nanny State and in particular allowing people to drink, smoke and take drugs to their own detriment if that's what they want, providing they have the correct information on all those products. I can get with that. Unlike the "I don't like paying any tax" Libertarians, he was also anti-Trump. Remember his very dry, although slightly cliched, BA adverts?

He's one of the good guys. Lovely dry sense of humour.

Didn't we also play Kettering as a non-league club in the Cup?

Well, I thought that was the more obvious area of the con. I dunno if they were emotionally vulnerable: I wouldn't imagine any of them struggled to get a date. The fiction that he was a billionaire's son was integral though: not only did it pique their initial interest, but it helped reassure them when he started asking for money.

As a teenager I was once pestered by a gay gardener in the Harlow Carr Gardens there. Wanted to lure me into the potting shed. Nowadays, the police and some sort of child counselling service would probably be involved. Back then I just told him to **** off.