Grey Fox

6 hours ago, ChippenhamRed said:

I mentioned this on the Lincoln match thread but thought it deserved its own topic.

I’m 40 next year. In FOUR DECADES of supporting City, the high points amount to nothing more than a few third tier promotions and Cup wins against Liverpool and United. City fans of my generation have never seen us play in the top division, and we’re not even that young any more. It’s increasingly conceivable we never will. That’s about half the fanbase now.

This despite supporting a club in the 11th biggest city in the country. A football city, not a rugby city (check the attendances). A club with a (now) great stadium and first class training facilities. A club capable of taking 45,000 fans to a game two hours away against Walsall. A club with no bigger clubs within 100 miles.

Meanwhile in my lifetime I’ve witnessed Wigan, Barnsley, Huddersfield, Blackpool, Swansea, Swindon, Bournemouth, Luton and Reading all play in top division. Blackburn even won the bloody thing!

I increasingly hate the fact that I was born into supporting this club.

Pound for pound, are we the unluckiest fans in the country? Are we the biggest underachievers in British football?

The way I look at it is, I’ve supported City since 1966, my health is good, I’m happily married to the woman I love, and have two great kids and now two wonderful grandsons. Financial side of life is OK, and we live in a nice house in a nice area. No one gets it all, and I much prefer City regularly f@#k things up for me than any of the other parts of my life listed above.

I’m sure we will make the PL one day, just as they bring in the European Super League, knowing our luck, but I will be there

5 minutes ago, pillred said:

Problem is we are generally worse after any kind of international break, for our sake I really hope that is not the case this time.

We will be f@&#ed after the World Cup then

They’re just taking the “pee”

I’m in, make that four

Jamie Vardy , Fleetwood to Leicester?

Quite simply of the 10 outfield players only three are defensive players, everyone else is charging upfield like it was an under 8’s match. Exciting, granted, but can not succeed at this level.

I am comfortable we will avoid the drop, convinced we won’t go up, so will just sit back and enjoy the ride

Hopefully next season we can get serious and play like grown ups, but it might not be as much fun.

Massive improvement on last season, however we still concede too many soft goals  and chances. This , in my opinion, is a season to enjoy without the pressures of expectancy or fear of failure. Next season may well be the one that takes us to the promised land , subject to strengthening the squad and retaining what we have.

At some point we will lose good players/ managers to bigger rivals in just the same way we take good players/ managers from smaller rivals. It’s life. The trick is to keep improving/ developing so we can get bigger and better 

Is one potential problem that the “actual “ owners, if different, have not submitted to any suitability test? Also, if not known, money laundering legislation?

I live in. sussex. The ground was built with the idea that access would be by train ( a match ticket is also a free train ticket), with no trains getting there and back would be a nightmare, and as stated above there is no love lost between the two sets of fans which would not help

I like this squad, and I like our manager, however I don’t think we have enough to go up this year when compared to the likes of Burnley , Watford , Sheffield United, WBA and some others. 
 

Pearson tells it as it is, so I’m hanging on to his original “three year” comment and hope that with some backing in the summer we go up next season. As to this, I’m confident that we won’t go down so will just sit back and enjoy, which to be honest is a rare luxury with City.

On 05/02/2022 at 23:18, Slacker said:

Bleak is exactly the word I thought of when I saw the photos.

Shit and hole both came to mine

8 hours ago, maxjak said:

Or Antoine Semenyo?

Exactly, enjoy the season

2 hours ago, maxjak said:

Austrian keeper had a blinder?  Ha!

Sure , it’s not like you ever see a keeper charged down for a silly goal in mens football, just ask any Arsenal fan"………

5 hours ago, Numero Uno said:

Firstly I did enjoy last night particularly the way Spain knocked the ball around for 70 minutes. They played some lovely football before their coach had a brain freeze and decided sitting back was a better plan than controlling the possession. They were significantly more accomplished in possession than England on the night.

I generally don’t compare Women’s and Mens football particularly from a pace and power perspective where it is simply unfair and pointless to do so. However tactically and technically the women’s game has improved massively and the game is unrecognisable from 20 years ago and credit to all for that.

The remaining elephant in the room is that technically the Goalkeeping has not improved at the same speed as the outfield play. Pointing out individual errors from men doesn’t alter that. Unfortunately for her the Spanish keeper made two basic positioning and footwork errors for the England winner meaning her dive had nowhere near enough height to pull off a straightforward enough save from a great but relatively central strike. A GK coach will be far more pissed off with that than if she had made a handling error and conceded cos that happens with the very best not just average keepers.

The problem seems to be that you are not allowed to point out anything negative after watching a ladies game although it’s ok for the posters who get outraged at any criticism of a woman player to verbally abuse Zak Vyner every week cos he’s a bloke……

I think the Spanish keeper might have been a little peeved that her defence allowed our English girl to go so far unchallenged. Virtually every goal can be blamed on someone, and as to “individual errors “ those by goalkeepers have IMO in this tournament been on more or less than an equivalent mens .Criticise by all means, but don’t unfairly blame all female goalkeepers for a mistake by one. I thought for example the English keeper was great, would you decry her for her opposite numbers errors?

7 hours ago, maxjak said:

Those are just isolated incidents, that prove nothing. Even the worlds greatest goalkeepers will make mistakes...but as a percentage of their performances over time they tend to be massively efficient and influential in the success of the team's they play for?  The women's' game has improved greatly, and is entertaining at times, last night England were extremely fortunate  to win, I feel Spain lost it , rather than England won it.   Yeah, last night was great at times, and England eventually turned up after 75 minutes, but give me a Men's  Premiership /Championship top of the table clash everytime, if i want to be truly entertained?

We are all football fans, so you can enjoy both . As to last night I agree Spain lost a match they should have won, but I have seen that plenty of times in the mens game (Real Madrid’s Champions League title this year for starters or ManU’s win over Bayern Munich for that famous treble)

19 minutes ago, Numero Uno said:

Yes, still a massive weakness overall. I know I really shouldn’t compare and I’ve said before the mens and women’s games are totally different but Bentley HOLDS the winner last night, not just saves it. The goal just looked wrong regardless of the quality of the strike.

However, the young Dutch keeper who got chucked in due to injury looks really impressive and unusually comes for crosses (the nearest I’ve seen that plays like a bloke) and the Austrian keeper very decent too. England’s keeper is a shot stopper and really doesn’t want to come for a high ball unless she has to.

Yes, and I remember all the great England men goalkeepers, check out England v USA {South Africa) or England v Wales [In France} for starters..

Enjoy the woman’s game as it is, last night was great

At my school (1967/72) the PE teacher’s favourite game if you were in his bad books was Fox and Hounds. He pointed you out and said “fox”, which meant run very fast. He then said “hounds” which meant every one else had to chase you down, when they caught you they gave you a kicking, it was up to the PE teacher how long this lasted before he stopped it. 
Happy days"………..

4 hours ago, Red-Robbo said:

 

Harvey's brewery of Lewes seem to have a pretty good estate of tied houses in Sussex.  I used to be partial to a pint of Harvey's Best when I drank in their London pub, the Cat's Back near Wandsworth Bridge. 

Harvey’s is basically a religion down here. The brewery dominates the town and has done since the 1700’s

1 hour ago, RooknRobin said:

I live in Lewes, as do a fair few other City fans living in the town or nearby. It’s a lovely place with a slightly renegade spirit. The club is great, fan owned, not for profit, all about equality. Mike Bayly recently voted The Dripping Pan as no.1 in his recent book ‘British Footballs Greatest Grounds’

I do know of the suspect sag in question, he’s also responsible for a gas scarf fixed to the back of the main stand. Wouldn’t it be great if this ‘hilarious’ prank backfired and it became the catalyst for some kind of connection between City & Lewes...

I’m up the road in Newick, as to a connection, their are plenty of good pubs to connect in at Lewes . I have been to Lewes FC numerous times , my son played for their U18’s, I know the grounds man , Roger, however it is a bloody long way from Bristol for a social. They do put up a collection of other clubs scarfs at the back of their stand, maybe a large Bristol City addition could be fun?

10 minutes ago, billywedlock said:

No idea why they are still messing around. Ashley has the money and obviously wants to get them to the Prem so he can sell it on again. Newcastle fans disliked him, but he ran a tight ship, and many fans struggle with that concept. His business is based in Derbyshire, and it is reported he is the richest man in Derbyshire. He is not buying it to close it now is he ? How can the incompetent administrators approve a bid from someone with no money when they have a  billionaire on their doorstep. Seemed more like Mel Morris wanted anyone but Ashely to own the club. 

Whilst I agree with the others '£50m lodged" is just PR , he is basically saying I can transfer the funds today. There are many many more worse owners a club could have. Mel Morris springs to mind. 

They (The Administrators) don’ like him because he has said he will not pay their excessive fee, I’m starting to like the guy

1 hour ago, Wanderingred said:

I think we should turn this into a thing.  Let’s retaliate with a few “who the **** are Lewes” banners, and get a few anti-Lewes chants going. We can even invent our own derogatory nickname for them, like LOSE-es, LOO-is or EEEEEWis.

You’re just a small town in Brighton.

Don’t be daft, they are a small club with a sense of humour, rise above it

3 hours ago, Coin-op said:

Definitely not photo shopped. I live near Lewes and the sign is real. 

I live near Lewes as well, and , yes, it is real. Think it will be my new screen saver

12 hours ago, phantom said:

I'm glad I found out in advance, it was rubbish 

Well they are called Rovers, and do play in blue and white, what else would you expect ?

38 minutes ago, 22A said:

Well done Solihull Motors; 3-1 winners today.

For years the two local rivals Solihull Borough and Moor Green Rovers played in the Southern League. Like the two Inverness teams, they merged and climbed up their respective football pyramids.

Any suggestions for non league teams in our area who might benefit from merging?

Looking back through history, Bristol South End and Bedminster merged and achieved more success that had they not. At that time the biggest teams in Bristol were Warmley and St George. Rivalry was slowly killing the two clubs but they refused to merge and both disappeared.

So , are you suggesting City should merge with the gas, in order to prosper