Red Exile

That's a great result. The first match in an age that I've not followed minute by minute. Maybe I need to make a habit of that? COYR

9 minutes - Jesus wept. I've been purposefully keeping away from updates! COYR

Get in!

I was more surprised at the use of the word 'fickle'. Do they even know what it means? To have stuck it through so much dross is the very opposite of 'fickle'! As for being careful what you wish for...on the basis of those ratings it was perfectly legitimate to have wished for better at many points in the past 40 years! We've had some decent managers, Terry Cooper, Joe Jordan, Denis Smith, John Ward, Danny Wilson, GJ, Cotts. The problem has been that with the exception of the Cooper-Jordan handover almost every successful manager has been followed by an appointment that's undone much of the good work. We're living through just such a period now. Our fan base has been far from 'fickle'!

Unfortunately City have form when it comes to failing to plan ahead, or indeed - to use your earlier suggestion - coming up with plans that look as though they've been calculated on the back of fag packet. Dean Holden being a case in point. It's what got the club into this mess.

Well said! I suspect that we both work in the media. ? As I said immediately after he'd finished speaking I felt the Richard Gould interview with Geoff was a car crash - stumbling and mumbling, drawn into speculation, optimism for the future built on nothing more than wishful thinking. When what was needed was clarity, confidence and reassurance. Geoff Twentyman is inclined to be generous to his interviewees, he doesn't want to burn bridges, but he is very good at his job, has been for a decade or more, Gould needed more preparation and a positive story to tell. The club has been in turmoil for several seasons. A shambles for over a year. This has all the hallmarks of previous Lansdown debacles. I note that elsewhere there has been a call for Tinnion...I can recall exactly where I was when it was announced that Brian Tinnion was being appointed manager, my heart sank, seemed as terrible a decision at the time as it does now. I've broadly given up - but find myself drawn back to the flames as yet again City appear to be crashing and burning.

I thought it a fairly accurate representation!

It's not a war though is it?...come on. It's a football club. It's being abysmally run. Some of us are season ticket holders and have invested a fair bit of the family treasure in the expectation of a modicum of entertainment. This interview was a new low. I'm peeved and I have no concerns about expressing my peeved-ness!

Agreed. Just posted on the other thread - not much point in agreeing to do an interview with a chap like Geoff if you really have nothing to say. Lots of wishful thinking. All too cosy and complacent. Not a great deal more impressed by Gould than I was by Ashton to be honest...and that really is saying something!

Car crash interview in my view. Seemed completely unprepared. Not much point in agreeing to do an interview with a chap like Geoff if you really have nothing to say. Manager sick, no idea when he is coming back. Not doing anything to replace him except working hard or somesuch. Lots of wishful thinking. All too cosy and complacent. Not a great deal more impressed by Gould than I was by Ashton to be honest...and that really is saying something! Good luck everybody!

...and mine!

Which, for me, massively begged the question how hard headed, down to earth, Steve Lansdown, could possibly have been impressed by either Mark Ashton or LJ. I've made no secret on here of the fact that I wasn't!

Great OP. When I'm full of belief I'll travel all over the country to watch City, win lose or draw. But the brief drained away several years ago...a combination of empty promises, false hopes and the sheer slog of getting to matches. On the promises, I'm not expecting City to rip up trees every week but watching the team I've supported since I was a nipper playing tidy football and competing with football's bigger boys would be fine by me. Not reaching repeatedly for the sky - crashing and burning. Most of the people I know who follow City are very successful in whatever track they have followed in life. I can't imagine any of us would have been taken in by the transparently vapid sales patter we've had to endure in recent seasons. Watching Ashton's interviews felt like an insult to the intelligence. I have a nagging sense that I'm taken for a mug by the club each time I renew our STs, which isn't true when I renew my membership of other organisations. On the travel...it is indeed tedious. For quite some time the effort has been met with precious little reward!

I took a break for a variety of reasons in the Millen/McInnes/SOD era. Fortunately most of those reasons no longer apply, but the common thread is incompetent management of the club and squads assembled that can barely compete, a total lack of ambition. Came back with gusto when Cotts got the job...the break did me and my relationship with City a lot of good. I fear we are back in the bad old days.

I'm not quite so angry this morning, but you have hit the nail on the head. It's supposed to be about watching entertaining football, not an excruciating loyalty test. I'll be back at the Gate when I think there is a chance of seeing skilled players competing in a well organised and ambitious Bristol City team. As you say, not seen that in a long while. I'm taking a break.

...and then the ungrateful so-and-sos who pay to watch every other week have the gall to complain (quietly...on a forum he doesn't have to read) ...there's no way he'll be meeting with ungrateful folk like that.

I've been saying the same thing since at least the Millen years. In fairness, however, I appreciate that we are all City fans and just see things differently. That said, I'm pretty sure I've been right all along.

I'd have thought it quite likely we'll be playing Swindon next year...and football-wise a fair bit like them. (Plymouth could pass us!) I live near Swindon, know a fair bit about their trials in recent years - the thought that Lansdown's millions have left us in not much better a position than Swindon is a touch...

I was discounting the early 80s - my younger self seems to recall being part of a demonstration at the back of the old Grandstand back in those days. But all things considered Lansdown has led a charmed life. Personally I was far madder when he was refusing to back Cotts or to ditch LJ. We still had a chance to push on when Cotts took us up, what a team that was - just needed a bit of strengthening. LJ revealed his ineptitude at back end of 2017/18 and SL dug his heels in. Now...I reckon we are doomed! ?

I wonder when 'sack the board' or anything like it was heard at Ashton Gate? Steve Lansdown has had it very easy over the years!

I've made the same arguments for a decade or more. Have you ever met the man? Nice enough chap. I've bought him a drink but I'm not surprised he doesn't have a queue at his door. It's his club. His project. End of. He's had 20 years to get it right. Sadly for all all of us I can't see it happening soon. Another relegation beckons. (btw the repost to 'silly school boy' is 'cap doffing'.)

He bought the club, the whole club, and choked off any further interest or investment from anyone else in one of the biggest, and more prosperous, cities in one of the wealthiest countries in the world, and has operated a closed shop for 20 years. The club has been entirely run by him and one or two friends. I appreciate that we are all City fans. I don't doubt that Lansdown's supporters want the best for City. But it has to be accepted that whilst he's spent millions on a nice couple of stands, football-wise he's achieved next to nothing...in 20 years.

...that he's run up...and for what? Great watching City isn't it! Thrilling stuff!

Mine too. Wasn't a popular opinion at any point in the following couple of years! Any more than pointing a finger at the blessed SL is today amongst some of our fan base...

Wake up mate...