Midlands Robin

It's also worth remembering that, while the football was entertaining under Danny Wilson, he had us top six once and top of the table twice at Christmas before falling away on each occasion. That's the biggest disappointment of his time in charge. (Well, that and not having Lita on the bench in the playoff final)

Tweeted with the original poster of the ratings list on twitter to tell him his opinion of Ward was way off base. His response was that he didn't see any of the 97/98 season because it was around the time his first child was born. He's only based his opinions on what he's seen.

That was great to watch.

Too easy

This game was live on ITV wasn't it?

I know others have already posted this but it's worth saying again, to rate John Ward as a 2 and describe him as another awful appointment must be some sort of joke surely? Ward took over a misfiring team from Super Joe and took us into the play offs in his first season here and then promotion in the second. We would have won the title had the club managed to hold on to Shaun Goater. In 98-99 he had some rotten luck and several injuries plus as things were starting to turn around, he never got the help he was after so walked away. Ward is definitely not a 2/10.

Gerrard has done well in Scotland but on paper, Rangers should be able to comfortably beat two thirds of the Scottish Premier League every day of the week. Villa are a completely different proposition. He's going to have to ensure they play their best against teams with similar pedigrees and there are no real walkovers. He has proven that he can lead a team and now he has to show that he can develop a team as well.

Let's just say, there's not much work getting done at my desk this afternoon.

Just found out what happened. One of the blokes who works on security at the RHPC is a chap called Piers. Well, his lad, Nigel makes a quality homemade Perry using a specific brand of pear. This led to one staff member at the training ground being overheard telling another: "Nigel, Piers son, Press conference this afternoon" Easy mistake to make. Stand down OTIB.

I'm tempted to say that my workmate as a massive Walsall fan must hate football as well.

Just spoke to a bloke at work who is a massive Walsall fan. He confirmed he's not aware of anything going on at Ashton Gate.

Wasn't Mr Chairman last seen celebrating the successful hiring of Dean Holden by investigating the delights of the trans Atlantic real estate market?

I've got a feeling my old Sea Cadet Unit was based on her for a while. The cadets are now based on the island between the Nova Scotia and Pump House pubs. When I was a kid in the 80's we could hear the roar from Ashton Gate on Tuesday night when City scored. Happy memories.

Don't you just love a board that makes the decision to sack a manager prior to a match assuming he's going to lose it and, when he doesn't, they still go through with it anyway.

Just playing out a fantasy to take my mind off how shite we are at the moment but, wouldn't it be beautiful if Biffer Barton gets the tent dwellers on a bit of a run, just in time to take a break at her Majesty's pleasure. The nice man with the posh watch will be forced to sack him and no doubt find another low calibre replacement who will accept a handful of magic beans to take charge. The wheels then come off and their brief little sojourn in the top half of the table ends. Before you can say "plastic furniture" they're shitting bars of fudge that they're heading for another stint in League 5. Just let me hold on to that dream for a while....... ?

Just gone to complete ratshit. We so badly need an injection of fresh blood into this team.

For the love of our Lord Adge Cutler, if we had a quality attacking winger we'd be so much better. I hate to see Wells, Martin and Weimann all trying to get out wide. We aren't that bad but we so desperately need a wide player who isn't a striker in a wide role.

I was just typing this out when you got there first. Let's just hope it's not 96 Tears then.

Fun Barnsley fact. Ex City Left Back, Darren Barnard (great player for us), who went on to join Barnsley in the Premier League for £750000 missed several games in the 97-98 season for them because of a leg injury. What caused the injury? He came downstairs one morning and into his kitchen and slipped on a puddle of dogs piss his dog had very kindly left as a surprise on the kitchen floor. ?

A few decades ago we had a group of Hari Krishna types do a lap of the pitch playing bongo's, at half time. One of many bonkers half time entertainment moments from the early 90's.

Doesn't a lot of the issue depend on what type of calls from agents were allegedly being missed? If City's recruitment team were actively pursuing a player and had missed returning calls from their agent then I'd say that was a bad thing. If, on the other hand, the calls that weren't being picked up were cold calls from agents trying to hawk their roster around the market then I don't see the problem missing those types. I'd rather we were identifying targets and going after them and not relying on an agent calling on the off chance.

Yeah, agree with you on that.

The big problem as I see it with the "Lansdown model" is how can it work without a scouting network deeply embedded within the game? If that is missing then how are we supposed to locate these players that other clubs have missed, snap them up for a bargain price and develop them into assets worth multiple millions? on the flip side of the coin, Atkinson and Tanner both look like great signings who do fit the mold of the type of player we should be signing. Tanner was signed as that archetypal young player who we could mold into a first team regular and within a week or two he's already in the first team and starting. That says something positive about our recruitment process if those two are anything to go by. It would definitely appear that we have a significant amount of work to do to broaden and deepen our scouting and recruiting team but it can't be all bad if Atkinson and Tanner are anything to go by.

Curious about this, can you tell me which clubs have gained promotion to the top flight by having the best "firm". I presume that's what you mean by not getting battered off the pitch? If promotion was simply down to having the hardest fans I think someone should let Steve Lansdown know and maybe he'd stop investing in the team and open a gym instead.

I agree to an extent but at the Mem, in a packed crowd, in a tight match it was brilliant. You must remember the Bris v Gloucester game in the 06/07 season? The last 10 minutes Gloucester were camped in our end. I was stood on idiots corner in the wind and rain and it was a thriller. Jason Strange dropped over in the last few seconds to send Bris top. What a night that was. I think the biggest difference between Footy and Rugby is that Rugby is a slow burner. Most matches are decided long before the final whistle. Footy can turn on a sixpence. As we know all too well from the recent Forrest match. 89 minutes of 1-0 up and 3 points turns to 2-1 down and nothing in the space of 3 minutes. You don't often get that sort of last minute turn around in Rugby.