Dr Balls

Any more Leicester old boys more like! Maybe Wes Morgan could replace Kalas. He’s only about 10 years older than him and hardly played in the last year or so. And our last Leicester loanee at centre back didn’t turn out to be quite so good (Benkovic). I can see both Kalas and Nagy being sold on for both financial and footballing reasons. The question is who we bring in instead, and I am not getting my hopes up. I predict a long and at times quite dire season ahead, toughing it out in the lower reaches of the division.

I was neither a great fan of his as a player, and there was always the whiff of nepotism when playing for GJ. Likewise if he hadn’t had the relationship with people around the club, I don’t think he would have been appointed and backed as Head Coach so early in his managerial career. He could be frustrating, streaky, talk management-speak BS, and seemed to employ a tombola to pick the team but his record at Championship level was ok, without actually being successful. I don’t wish him ill and he’s certainly taken on a big club with huge expectations, which will be a challenge to achieve. But he has got them to Wembley in the EFL Trophy (the Papa John’s cup? Oh purlease!) which is the only way that they could realistically achieve that at present so that’s something, but the real expectation is promotion back to the Championship. Anything less will be regarded as failure by their fans and probably their new owner.

They’ve become the Watford of League 1, in terms of over-expectations and an owner with no patience, just their results are much worse. Obviously they didn’t cope with 2 recent rounds of “Snakebite”, but it’s reckoned that very few of them could manage much more than a Tizer anyway!

Still looks far better and more robust than the tented areas at the Mem!

I have been worried by his lack of end product, but fair play, he took that really well. Hopefully he can just now do it more regularly.

Sorry but I don’t think it’s just the coach. Other clubs have invested heavily in players and it’s becoming clear that SL doesn’t really want Bristol Sport to spend anything much on the women’s game. That just seems incredibly short sighted as it will be far harder to get back to this level than it would be to stay there.

And if to rub in the impression that Bristol Sport is missing a trick... https://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2020/oct/19/womens-football-is-growing-but-can-the-fa-keep-pace-with-demand It does seem bizarre that SL is not investing even a small amount more in this as it provides a way of getting Bristol Sport more widely known. Plus it does look somewhat sexist if the men’s clubs are being well resourced compared to the competition at their level, yet the women’s team seems to be getting way many in their league, with results in line with that.

No idea. But even then the amounts wouldn’t be huge. If relegated, I wouldn’t imagine that they would get promoted any time soon. Not staying in the WPL would be such a missed opportunity when we should be looking to encourage girls locally into the game and supporting the club overall, both men’s and women’s teams.

Genuine question. Given how little it would cost Steve Lansdown to support the Women’s team compared to pretty much City, the rugby club and the Flyers, why is it that they always seem to be struggling and their best players going elsewhere? How much are they earning? It can’t be that much and the jump to bringing in some top players must be so much less. The point is that the national media, particularly the BBC, give a lot more attention to the women’s game than many other parts of “Bristol Sport”, so one might think getting more publicity through a successful women’s team was a cheap way of selling the brand.

It worked in Sweden as there is still a social contract that the Government is there for the people, which is what retains trust, and why they have done what was required. Pretty much the same in Germany. It’s not the case here because quite rightly many feel that Johnson & co don’t really give a stuff about them as long as they are alright, plus Cummings et al are allowed to “interpret the rules” however they see fit, but we have to follow them and get blamed for spreading the virus by breaking them. One thing that annoys people more than anything is hypocrisy, and this lot are full of it!

Agreed when certain segments of the population can’t social distance or wear a mask indoors, the chances of compliance for re-opening to larger numbers of spectators is pretty much nil while prevalence levels are this high.

Have you ever known a UK government high tech implementation go well? I am really struggling. As likely as the Johnson “Moonshot”, although if it really involved strapping him to a rocket, I would willingly throw in a few quid for it!

We are not where we were in March as it’s 4000 testing positive in the community and in hospital, compared to 5000 just in hospital. However the testing is an underestimate of all the cases, because a significant proportion have minimal symptoms, so may not realise they are infected. However as positive cases rise, hospital admissions have started going up again pretty quickly (in the Rhondda they went from 2 positive in hospital and none in intensive care to 35 cases and 4 in intensive care in 2 days last week!) followed ultimately by deaths. And many in the NHS are worried that combined with a usual winter surge, the addition of even a smaller wave than we had in March and April will completely overwhelm the hospital system. That’s why there are new restrictions. If we had brought some of this in at the end of February, we might not have needed the full lockdown for so long and may also have saved many thousands of lives. In the South West, we were just fortunate that the original lockdown came in when the prevalence was low at around 1% of the population infected at that time, and it never got much higher. In London it was around 5% and quickly it peaked close to 10%, which is why things were so bad there. And even then, the fact that we got off relatively lightly by comparison, still doesn’t make up for those who have lost loved ones to this disease, including some of our own supporters and ST holders.

It’s fairly easy to spread 353 people around a football pitch, with groups staying at least 2 metres apart, especially if there are no stands and seats to deal with. You could spread 1000 people easily around Ashton Gate, if everyone acted appropriately and all 4 stands were used. The problem is not in the ground itself which is outside, so less risky. It’s getting people to and from, not congregating indoors un the concourses as they enter and leave. However in the current circumstances, the big issue is that it cuts against everything else that we are being required to do, which is really to stop mixing with each other, because as long as there are potentially infectious asymptomatic people meeting other people, the risk of spreading rapidly remains high. The bottom line is that unlike Germany, Italy and even Greece, we have never managed to get testing sorted in this country and that’s why we are where are now. Instead of investing in and building on what we had in hospitals, universities and in local authority public health departments, this Tory government outsourced it to Serco, a company renowned for its high profile public contract failures, in which they get the money but we don’t get the service. NHS Test and Trace is a lie because it’s not NHS, it’s a private company making a big profit and failing us in the process. Just because you stick an NHS label on it doesn’t make it so.

This doesn’t surprise me given what’s going on in terms of the rise in cases nationally. By then we might have a vaccine, but there is the possibility that we could go a whole season without spectators. It also throws into doubt lots of events that have been postponed by a year in the hope of getting spectators or an audience.

Although rates of infection are relatively low in the South West, there is no guarantee that will continue. We were lucky with the first wave that with the exception of Gloucestershire that was probably affected by Cheltenham going ahead, the prevalence of the infection was really low (the lowest in the country) when we went into lockdown in March. That means there is a greater “at risk” population here as well. Given what is happening in the rest of the country, I wouldn’t be surprised if there was some form of national lockdown again in October, not as severe as before, but including suspending these test events. Ideally everyone in the ground including club staff, spectators and everyone on the pitch should be swabbed on arrival at the ground, but I am not clear that has happened anywhere.

Apparently someone called Baroness Dido Harding (wife of Weston MP John Penrose) is on the Board of Stewards at the Jockey Club, which oversees horse racing in this country and would have had to sanction Cheltenham going ahead. I wonder what happened to her? Talk about a “club”!

The issue with masks is that they do restrict gas flow to some degree when filtering the air that you breath. For the vast majority of people with no breathing issues this is not a problem at rest or during mild exercise as the tidal volumes that you breathe and the rate will be relatively low. With increasing amounts of exercise, it becomes more problematic, as you breathe more deeply and quicker. However even with moderate exercise, it’s the sensation of feeling a bit breathless exacerbated by the filtering effect of the mask slowing the flow somewhat rather than any appreciable change in either oxygen or carbon dioxide that kicks in first. That’s likely why those with existing problems with flow of air into their lungs, e.g. those with asthma or COPD, may find it worse with a mask, especially if they are doing any form of activity. Having tested staff wearing the much more occlusive FFP3 masks, we know that in “normal usage” that body oxygen and carbon dioxide levels are not affected. As for the return to grounds to watch games, I still think that even if this does restart, numbers will be very limited for some time (probably until we have an effective vaccine), which could mean that this coming season is pretty much a write off as well. As for when we might see full grounds again, no one really knows.

The virus is still out there and people need to realise that. Even though the South West has dodged the very worst of it so far (apologies if you have lost a loved one, as every death is very sad for the families and friends), there is still a trickle of positive cases every week in Bristol. We all need to do our bit to stop it spreading rapidly again, which does unfortunate mean simple measures such as proper hand hygiene, social distancing, and wear a mask indoors, especially if you can’t stay a certain distance away from each other. Even back as far as the Spanish flu epidemic a hundred years ago, it was high levels of compliance with the above that made the difference in terms of spread, and where was least affected and where was worst. The EFL should be underwriting the cost of testing for all clubs, especially as the smaller ones are more dependent on crowd attendance for income, which with the best will in the world, is not going to be anywhere near normal levels for next season. There will also be localised flare ups, as certain groups flout the rules, and that should lead to local measures being taken, as per Leicester, which could again affect clubs either directly by players becoming infected, or no spectators again. The real worry is what happens this winter, especially as all the other viruses and bacteria that usually cause problems every year, haven’t gone away either. Hopefully the rates of those might be a bit lower, if we follow the rules for how to prevent coronavirus spread, but as for the blusterer-in-chief saying it will “all be over” by Christmas, that also has echoes of just over a hundred years ago, as it’s likely to be just as incorrect.

Football is the ultimate results business. Our results have been terrible, and something desperately needs to change. We have plenty of turnover in players, the constant is the coaching team. Enough said!

The number of new cases has dropped significantly since the peak at Easter. We were worried about seeing a spike after VE Day Bank Holiday but it didn’t happen, and cases have continued to fall. What isn’t clear is whether or not we will get a spike after the hoards all went to the beach last week in the hot weather. People from the Midlands in Weston last week were clearly holidaying, which isn’t on tbh. The message should have gone from “Stay Home” to “Stay Local”, just as it did in Wales and Scotland. As for footballers, few are testing positive and almost none of those have symptoms. As professionals, other than training, they should be protecting themselves and their families. Unfortunately we know that not all of them are that responsible (Kyle Walker - WTF in more ways than one!). The trip to Blackburn will likely need at least 2 coaches to allow for 2m social distancing between players, especially as the match day squad will now be 20, plus the coaching team and medics. I am pretty sure it will go ahead, in part because I can’t see how a regional or even local lockdown is going to work in this country. We have no regional government, our local government has been enfeebled by a cash starvation that started in 2010, and our police forces (sorry “services“) cover different areas as well. In fact, it’s all’s bit of shambles, but then that’s the English way it seems, especially with Bozo as the figurehead, and the Mekon in charge!

If the football authorities had any sense, what they would be doing is undertaking serology (blood tests for antibodies) on all of the players and other staff to find out who has already had it. Given the high proportion of asymptomatic cases in younger people, the chances are that significantly more players will have already had the infection than is currently thought.

Yes. This is a real problem because through the tracing system used for the public, as it stands all “close” contacts of a positive case should isolate for 2 weeks. The problem is that the test is imperfect as the false negative rate is relatively high, especially earlier in the infection. If after a week, the contact was retested and still negative, the risk would obviously be a lot less but still far from zero. To say that this is all a bit of a headache is putting it mildly!

I don’t disagree but some of the advice has been less than helpful for that. Requiring people to wear masks in enclosed spaces would be a good start. The point is it’s a selfless thing to do to stop you spreading to others rather than protecting yourself. That then feeds into distancing. Why are we having to distance 2 metres compared to 1.5 metres in Germany and France or just 1 metre with masks in South Korea? The reality is that although many of the population have tried to do their bit to stop the spread, some have railed against any infringements in their daily lives, either due to political views or because they just don’t care about anyone else. And do I worry that some will be unable to contain themselves and not gather at grounds if their team wins something? Yes, whether it’s Scousers for the Premier League or if we win the playoffs, there is still a risk.

I don’t disagree that getting the rest of this country sorted is a priority, but football is also a business and somehow it needs to restart safely. But that doesn’t necessarily mean waiting until there are no cases in this country (not likely to happen any time soon if ever - we missed that opportunity in late February) or a vaccine that may or may not be effective. There is also a lot of fear and misinformation about the virus and it’s effects. It can be a serious and potentially lethal disease, but that is mainly for the elderly and those with underlying health issues. That’s not to minimise but it is to point out that young fit adults such as footballers are an extremely low risk group for being unwell if infected. That’s not to say they don’t have family members who might be at risk but that’s why there should be appropriate quarantining, just as many key workers paid a fraction per year of what some players are paid per week are having to do.