City Rocker

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

21 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

Was chatting to a poster at the weekend, my City “career” started with a 1-0 win over Liverpool, followed by a 5-0 win over Coventry.  Boy, they sucked me in good and proper!  Bastards!

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. 

51 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

some bits I like, some I don’t.

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. 

4 hours ago, Port Said Red said:

This seems as good a thread as any to put this. 
We took a little walk up Clevedon Pier today and went around the museum. in one area they have a list of people with links to the area and I noticed this.

It occurred to me that someone on here may even have memories of "young Johnny Ritchie"? 

It seems he wasn't there long, it's not even mentioned on Wikipedia, but I did find this. 

https://www.punk77.co.uk/punkhistory/sid_i_knew.htm

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?"

13 minutes ago, Silvio Dante said:

To be fair, that **** Francis has still got the same haircut.

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.

11 minutes ago, TV Tom said:

Is that right? Didn’t know that 

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. 

On 05/02/2024 at 15:30, 1960maaan said:

It's a real stretch to get one over us. 

TBF, they can't rely on highest attendance, highest average attendance or any other sensible stat .
So go for the highest, lowest attendance FFS

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. 

On 01/02/2024 at 13:18, Ronnie Sinclair said:

One for the local punk scene - Shane Baldwin, of The Vice Squad Last Rockers 

7 hours ago, weepywall said:

City fan aswell I believe.

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! 

23 minutes ago, Curr Avon said:

Go to confidence island and drink 10 cans of confidence then, nay sayer!

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

38 minutes ago, Bristol Rob said:

Living local to the Mem, I can assure you that 'most Gas live local' isn't true.

You see more kids wearing City shirts walking around Gloucester Road than you do kids in Fewer shirts. Same goes for the pubs. Granted, outside of a match-day none of the pubs in the area are overly 'football', mostly they're generic 'student friendly' places which may show Premier League games, but given they've played at Eastville, Bath and now the Mem, they're far more spread than they'd want to admit.

Locally, more people who like sport live give the impression that they'd rather see the Bears than the Fewers. 

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. 

14 hours ago, Club and Country said:

Queen square can hold 15k!?! 
sounds excessive for the size of the area?

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! 

5 hours ago, Port Said Red said:

A thought to be lost TV appearance by Sweet from their "bubble gum" period. "Fringetastic"

 

 

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.

41 minutes ago, Offside said:

A true City legend. There can’t be many players who’ve played in both the top and bottom division with the same club. I only caught the latter part of his career, but he was still one of my favourite players. 

I wasn’t at the 2-1 win at Eastville in 1983 (I remember very clearly listening to the radio commentary with my dad and dancing around the living room when Hirst scored the winner), but I love the footage of that game and the way he celebrated his goal. 

Happy birthday, Tom. 
 

 

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

36 minutes ago, Kid in the Riot said:

I found his comment early doors that he might not be the one to take us further (finish the job) odd? Can't work out if it was expectation management, or a recognition of his limitations? I kinda assume the former, but interested in yours and others views...

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! 

1 hour ago, Port Said Red said:

Been done

How about........

"We don't know where he's running, or which way he's gonna go, he could go through the middle, or just put on a show, but for the 24th time, you're gonna get beat by Anis."

 

Anis? Who the **** is Anis?! 

13 minutes ago, cidercity1987 said:

Easy to say after spanking em 1-4 but Watford fans are the first this season to say we are any good and a few predicting us for the play offs 

Usually the comments are 'bang average City' 

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

3 hours ago, sh1t_ref_again said:

Both teams are benefitting from our Academy system, with the men having an average of six academy graduates in the first team matchday squad and the women eight.

 

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.