Red-Robbo

Yep. Humphrey Smith. Theoretically mobile phones are also banned, but they don't seem to enforce that. To give you a story about Humphrey Smith. In a storm in 2015, the bridge in Tadcaster - where the brewery is based - collapsed. It cut both sides of the town off from each other. The town council asked Humphrey Smith if a temporary pontoon bridge could be erected from the north bank (on brewery land) to the south bank (which was part of his estate). Smith said no "I'm in no obligation to help". As a result, for two years north Tadcastrians who wanted to go the doctors or south Tadcastrians who wanted to go to the local shops faced a 12-mile journey. They built a new bridge where the old one was in 2017.

The King William in King Street is a Sam Smith pub. Not that it affects the taste of the beer, but apparently they are an awful company to work for. They make a big deal of still being family-run, but unfortunately the family that run it are arseholes.

We missed an opportunity there for a song: "Cooper, who's most effectual, Cooper, who's intellectual, we all like to call him TC, cuz he's ace managing City"

In with a shout if he gets an interview for that. He clearly has experience at bankrupting businesses.

I'm no fan of Man U, but I'm indebted to poet John Cooper-Clarke for bringing to my attention this anti-Liverpool chant, sung to the tune of a then-popular cartoon character: Kop T**ts. The unbelievable. Kop Tw***. We all know you sign on the dole And you live in a f-ing shithole Kop T****!

I think Cureton got that chant at every ground he visited.

Wouldn't say no to "Natalie Jones"

Are you watching Maaark Ashhhton? Your boys took one hell of a beating! One hell of a beating! Mark Ashton, serial killer Steve Wright, Tolly Cobbold beer, erm Russell Osman [clutching at straws here!] Your boys took one hell of a beating!

Might be better for a striker than a defender who has only scored two goals in his professional career.

I read that one - I Was A Robot, isn't it called? - and rather liked it, until it came to the interminable bit where he goes into all the ins and outs of his legal dispute with Schneider & Hutter. Both Holly Johnson and John Lydon's books make the same mistake. Legal battles over royalties might be fascinating to you, mate, but to the rest of us they are like the outtakes of an old episode of Crown Court. Just to steer this thread even further off course, two examples of autobiographies of people I had considered utter tossers but who after reading their stories I changed my mind on, are Keith Allan's and both of Russell Brand's. Got given these tomes as presents and was not only surprised I enjoyed them, but left with the feeling that I wouldn't mind a pint with either author. Both as mad as a box of frogs, but entertaining and aware of their own faults.

One I remember was "You're so shit you must be Aldershot!"

Agree. I'd red card his parents for their spelling however.

I'm not being arselicky, but I think it was fair to say Fulham were better than us. On a man-for-man basis much better; as you'd expect from a club with plenty of players of PL pedigree, who have much more money to spend than us. On most days you'd not expect Mitrovic to miss the two sitters he was handed at the end of the match. But he did and we ground out a point using something that has been absent for the team for some time - brass balls. Nigel has given them belief and guts - and that is at least half the battle.

Ah right. I had sort of assumed that with Rotten and his mates being big Arse fans, he would be too. I did read his autobiography and perhaps Spurs were mentioned there, but I was too turned off by his constant chip-on-the-shoulder, little-man-syndrome to take that detail in. One of the few music autobiogs I've read that diminished the writer in my eyes.

Yup. His additions look good. His promotions up from youth level have generally been sound. I like that his substitutions generally affect the game. We're like a middle-aged man who's just started working out and is still carrying a bit of fat. But we've made that change. We're working towards something. And we have a plan. The "buy loads of players and see if one of them works out" era is over.

As an Arsenal fan, he must be wishing his club found some sort of model of success!

If ever there was a club setting out a template for success at our level, it's them. Not massively financed and with modest crowds by virtue of living under the shadow of bigger neighbours, what Brentford have achieved is awesome. And you knew the same logical, deliberate, professional approach would continue into the Top Flight.

Sometimes you hear the phrase "it's got to get worse before it can get better". In football, that's usually just a bullshit excuse, but it seems to me that that is precisely the journey that Bristol City have been on under Pearson. We were worse at the end of last season than under Holden or LJ but it was like lancing a boil. Nige had to decide which players he could rely on to take the club forward and where there were gaps he needed to fill. Well he sorted the wheat from the chaff pretty well and it seems to me we're at the beginning of the upswing that his appointment promised. Early days and all that, but I honestly believe if he's given time that upswing could be pretty bloody big and pretty bloody special.

Cringeworthy embarrassing song IMO

Apart from irritatingly putting "Bristol, Gloucestershire" in the heading - many of the places mentioned have never been in Gloucs - this is a fascinating resource: https://www.closedpubs.co.uk/gloucestershire/bristol.html There's one for Somerset as well: https://www.closedpubs.co.uk/somerset.html

A bit posher, but still the same sort of feel to it. Still - when I popped in there a couple of years back - many of the characters I knew back in the early 90s. Bar billiard room has gone though.

Some good ones already mentioned. I've varied my matchday drinking routine and now vary my route to AG, sometimes taking in the Portwall Tavern and Golden Guinea. Glad to see the Eldon House recommended. Back in the day when I had a gf in Clifton, the "El" was our local. Fabulous place.

You wanted Nakhi to stake a claim in the side, but I felt he hardly affected the game except to push Weimann wide which, from long experience, we know neutralises any goal threat he possesses. I thought Jay did reasonably in mf. I'd have kept Pring on myself. Andy King didn't "steady us" as he was obviously intended to do. At the end of the day we'll suffer from lack of goals this season with the strike "force" we deploy. Getting someone to replace Diedhiou shouldve been a priority.

Gary Johnson tried to sign him at Torquay apparently, but wage demands were an issue there.