pongo88

Which means that the last time Rovers built a new stand was before WW2!

Using the Brabazon Hanger at Filton as a combined arena and football stadium is a ridiculous idea, for many of the reasons mentioned, but I’ll throw in a couple more. The current floor is thick concrete built to support the weight of numerous large aircraft. Fine for an areana, I but it would have to be removed to provide a grass pitch. Ideally grass needs some natural light to grow, but the hanger roof if a fixed structure. You could have drop-in grass pitches or a new retractable roof, but it’s a increased cost. Rovers have no money to pay for anything as the money raised from selling the Memorial ground would just repay the money put into the club by Wael

At least some of them have a good sense of humour: “No longer will fans be able to tear up their season tickets and throw them in disgust at the manager/directors. We'll all have to carry nail scissors (offensive weapons?) and snip them into little pieces.”

Very true Vincent. There are always more unemployed managers than employed managers in football. As Bob Dylan said: “When you ain't got nothing, you got nothing to lose”

Rovers only had one shot on target during the entire game - the penalty. Difficult to miss from 12 yards

Or perhaps a John Bull printing set. (Apologies to anyone under 50 as they won’t know what this is.)

He’s awful

Based on some of the optomistic comments on the Rovers forum, I think many of their supporters are on the magic mushrooms

This is the post that sums up City’s current state. Throw in the starting 11 and it looks even worse

I know it’s “New York, New York so good they named it twice”’ but this is a bit OTT

@havanatopia - you’re incapacitated in Siquijor? I’ve never heard of this place so I did a quick Google. It looks like a very convenient place to be incapacitated

In case you’ve forgotten today is the 38th anniversary of when Rovers south stand burnt down at Eastville. It was a wooden structure and was about to be condemned as it didn’t meet safety standards. As a result of the fire Rovers received an insurance payout. Some people, at the time, claimed that the fire was started deliberately to get this money though, of course, I couldn’t say that. One result of the fire was that their trophy room was destroyed and all their trophies lost. I’m not sure what these trophies were, but I’m sure they were interesting

The agony and the ecstacy! Reading the forum City are either going to spend the season fighting relegation or will improve as players gel / return from injury. Perhaps LJ should change his name to Lee Marmite

Nice intro @havanatopia. Do I detect a change of style for this season? You seem to have moved away from the Michael (Denzil Xavier) Portillo travelogue theme and onto a more football focused style.

This sounds like a Tommy Cooper joke: “I went to the doctor the other day, I said 'it hurts when I do that' he said ' well don't do it' “ If you hate asking yourself questions, don’t do it!

@havanatopia - you said it’s a tough opener. Are you referring to the match or your marriage? Just remember, it’s just the first 50 years of marriage that are difficult. After that it gets easier.

Another quote from their forum: “Apparently it only takes two or three days to erect the east stands.” It’s obvious their builders are so much more advanced than the ones used to develop Ashton Gate, as each stand there took a year. Steve Lansdown missed a trick and should have contacted Wael for advice

Shrewsbury, who reached the League 1 playoffs last season are 9/2 to be relegated and no money Rovers are 13/2!

As bad as they are, I think a neutral might think 13 / 2 is a good punt, as average teams sometimes scrape into the playoffs and get promoted. A neutral might just look at last year’s league table and not realise that Rovers keep selling players and replace them with free transfer players. If a neutral really looked at their situation they would go for the 13 / 2 bet to get relegated.

The voice of reason will get you nowhere on the forum

As it’s illegal to consume alcohol when football is being played, Rovers will be OK, as what they play can’t be described as football in the normal sense of the word

From their forum 5 hours ago: “The lady in the shop said there is a shirt sponsor for next season, but wouldn't say who it is, which is fair enough.. She also said the 2 new "stands" would be going up later in the summer, apparently they come prefabricated and take no time to erect. So there you have it, slow but tangible improvements which can only be good news.” Why, oh why, did Steve Lansdown waste years and £50m on redeveloping Ashton Gate when he could have followed the Rovers’ example and just put up some prefabricated stands?

The new grounds man has been experimenting with a new type of sand based pitch at a secret seaside location. Just a little bit of fine tuning and it will be ready to install at Horfield

The half moon gaps were a result of the holiganism of the era. The logic was it kept supporters slightly farther away from the goal, and thus made it more difficult for them to throw things at the goalkeeper

One thing Rovers used to have at Eastville, that we’ve never had, is flower beds behind the goals. I often think, when I go to City’s modern stadium, that the one thing missing is flower beds. I think SL missed a golden opportunity, regarding flowers, when the ground was redeveloped. We could have had John Otway instead of the Wurzels and a new song - “Beware of the flowers cos I’m sure they’re gonna get you, yeah”