City Rocker

For the avoidance of doubt, this is ska...

Ha! I remember those games well. If anyone had told me that was as good as it would ever get, I might have saved a lifetime of misery and got into croquet or curling or lacrosse or something.

Well this sums up the last 40-odd seasons, but let's at least afford Manning the time Nige had to shape his team and culture.

Great story! I'd read before that Sid lived down that way for a while (I thought Weston) with his mum when he was a kid. They also had a stint on Ibiza. I seem to recall hearing about one of his mates (could have been Jah Wobble or one of the Johns) saying Sid came back to school in London with a west country accent. Can you imagine?! "Ere Nancy, where's me smack babs?"

He was big in the seventies. Indeed, he's pretty hefty today. (copyright: The Bountyhunter)

Actually thinking about it, the Nolan sister incident at Torquay was a few seasons later wasn't it? The one when those City lads borrowed a boat from the harbour?

The win at Chester to clinch promotion from div 4, that was 1984 wasn't it? One of my favourite ever games, and the only time I've ever cried at a football match! Edit: I was at the Torquay away game as well, a mate got arrested. Still prefer Chester

I absolutely love this and look forward to seeing the team running out on Saturday dressed as my boyhood heroes. Agree about the Toffs shirts, I've got one of these, I've owned it for maybe about 10 years and it is absolutely great quality - perfect cut, 100% cotton, v-neck version. Can't remember how much I paid, probably about 30-odd quid. But it will never date, and you can still get them from Toffs at £47. This is the 75/76 slight update with the v-neck (which I personally prefer) which was when I went to my first City game. It doesn't commemorate the Leeds game, but still a fantastic throwback if you were a kid back in the 70s.

Yep, they averaged slightly more in the first season, then we came back and smashed it the year after, culminating in promotion. 40 years on, they've never got close since. The city is ours.

Remember, even when City were at an absolute all-time low, those two seasons in the fourth division, while Rovers were in the league above, we still averaged higher gates than they did across the two seasons. Let that sink in for a moment.

Really sad to hear of Shane's passing, and at such a young age. Yeah I used to see him and Dave Bateman (who also died way too young) down the football in the early Vice Squad days. And a bit later drinking with Dave in the Ship and Castle pre-match, though I don't think Shane was going to games any longer.

All fine here in Switzerland!

Just opened a bottle of Blind Optimism. Tastes lush! But can go sour quite quickly, I've found.

Yep, I live around there too. Among my near neighbours, the only people who I know to have any interest in local football are another City season ticket holder (as am I), a lifelong Rovers fan who rarely attends games, and an exiled Crystal Palace fan from South London, who goes to watch the Rovers occasionally just to see a game. BS7 is (thankfully) not a gas heartland, if such a place even exists any more.

Not at all, there was a comfortable 20k crowd in the square for the Massive Attack show in 2003. And in gas-maths that's nearly forty thousand!

Wow, great find! And three years later they were doing this. What an awesome rock band and what an incredible drummer Mick Tucker was. The Sweet were so underrated.

Just Another Rainbow, the brilliant new single by Liam Gallagher and John Squire is out today. Sounds like the Stone Roses and Oasis, as it turns out! Also a little Quadrophenia-era Who and Revolver-era Beatles, a killer groove and a sublime guitar solo from Squire. I've listened three times I absolutely ******* love it.

Great point, and not only that, you could argue he played at the top of Division 1 (after two games in August 76), and the bottom of Division 4 (little over 6 years later). I doubt any other player for any club has done this!

Yeah that sounds right, I remember listening to this game on the radio, many years before Radio Bristol did live commentaries, so Radio 2 it must have been. For some reason I recall throughout the game you could clearly hear the dulcet tones of our own Tony Harling, who must have been sitting near the commentary box. "BER-RISTOL!!"

Exciting times for a young lad. Annoyingly, no one explained that the next four years would be as good as it would ever get supporting City, nor that we'd spend the following forty-odd years forlornly wondering if we'd ever get back up there again. I was stood on my little wooden stool in the Enclosure, just near the East End fence, perfectly placed to see Cormack's second half goal. Not to mention also, an ideal vantage point to watch a hundred or so Arsenal charge into the East End just before the game, only for the City mob to steam in and give them a kicking. A good time to be an eleven year old, especially from the safety of the Enclosure

I saw it at the time as a hint that he didn't expect the club to keep him on longterm. Relationship issues. I honestly doubt Nige was anywhere near as upset as we all were when the inevitable split came - he'd been through the same thing before, several times of course, the big golden pay-off probably making it a lot less painful for him than us!

Anis? Who the **** is Anis?!

To be fair, quite a lot of Leeds fans also said we were the best side they had played so far this season.

Imagine, if you will, my distain upon opening this seasonal missive, only to discover that our so-called 'chairman' lacks rudimentary spelling skills. "Benefitting". Schoolboy error, anyone?! When, oh when will the Technical Director instill the standards of functional literacy at the football club that its fanbase deserves? This shoddiness would never have been tolerated on the erudite Phil Alexander's watch! Mark my words, we're on a downward spiral to untutored, inarticulate mediocrity

My father-in-law, a Chelsea fan and knowledgeable long-time football follower, watched the game with me this evening, very much as a neutral. He was really impressed with City, in particular Mehmeti, Knight and Vyner, said we played some excellent football at times, dominated the second half and thoroughly deserved the win. But hey, that's just the reaction of a neutral with no preconceptions or agenda.