ChippenhamRed

I’m more than happy to tell people I went to see ABBA Voyage with my 9 year old daughter thanks. We had a lovely day and the show is an incredible spectacle.

Absolutely loads of kids football on Sundays. Grassroots leagues in our area tend to rotate annually between Sundays and Saturdays as they progress through the age groups, then at U13 it switches to Sunday afternoons rather than mornings. But you’re right that this does make this game feasible for those ordinarily tied up on a Saturday.

Yep good point. Fortunately a drive from here in Chippenham to the edge of London is easy enough. The new Elizabeth line has made traversing from the West of the city over to Stratford a lot easier - I did it earlier this year for ABBA (next door to London Stadium)

Opposite problem for me - my son's games are a Saturday which can make the usual 3pm games tricky and away games a non-starter. This one has worked out nicely for me. I was thinking maybe more than that. But 9k should give members a fair chance of a ticket.

Train strikes? Is there proposed action on that day specifically?

https://www.whufc.com/news/date-set-bristol-city-fa-cup-tie

This is good news for me, I couldn’t do the Saturday! What chance this makes members sale do you reckon?!

Many of our biggest matches in the last 20 years were played with away fans in the EE. Cardiff play off 2003, Hartlepool play off 2004, Rotherham promotion game 2007, Palace play off 2008, the most recent Bristol derby in 2013. In fact fans of my generation (age 40) might tend to think of the old EE as an away end more than a home one. Genuinely bizarre that you can’t recall it.

Anyone know?

Logged onto the website this evening before I saw this post. I was tentatively considering an away shirt for my 13 year old for Christmas. But there’s nothing for him. No away, no third, no keeper tops, hardly any training wear. This matters. Kids aren’t all completely tied into this club like we are. Especially young teens who care about what’s cool. They can be tempted away by the bright lights of the Premier League. By much cooler clubs, with a proper, recognised brand like Nike or Adidas all over their gear. By the mega brands of the fashionable European clubs like PSG, Real or Bayern. City need to compete for the attention of young fans. And having merchandise available to purchase is a big part of creating that affinity and sense of belonging. But instead we have literally nothing to offer…at Christmas. And even the stuff we do have is piss-poor second rate clothing from a brand nobody has heard of. We are so amateur at this stuff it’s untrue. Sometimes I think this club doesn’t deserve success because we’re such a shambles. The fans do. But the club doesn’t. Embarrassing. Rant over!

When will the date and time be confirmed for this one?

We measure on metrics when we have a decent sample size against which to judge, which isn’t disproportionately weighted by the opposition you have faced and allows for bedding-in time for a new coach implementing new ideas. 10 games absolute minimum I would suggest. I share your concerns but I’m not going to jump to rash conclusions or snap judgements.

Like I said, PPG is a nonsense based on four games

Sure, he shouldn’t have to read abuse and abuse is never OK. But criticism isn’t the same thing as abuse and most fans have been critical not abusive. Lots of that criticism is justified too. To me it just feeds into an ever growing sense that the club’s engagement with supporters is increasingly stage managed and inauthentic. And Tinnion isn’t smart enough to be trusted not to say something they don’t want him to say.

PPG is a ridiculous metric to use after just 4 games in charge. Take a 4-game snapshot of almost any team in the division and at some point they will have got 4 points or less from a run of games. The guy has just arrived, give him a chance. Making points-per—game judgements after four matches is just getting silly. The point is, it’s bang average, but it’s not “terrible”.

“New manager bounce” was never applicable to this situation. Pearson was already getting about as much as you could reasonably expect from the squad - particularly given the injuries he was contending with towards the end - and there were no problems with morale in the squad. So there was no reason to think the new guy was suddenly going to do a lot better.

Seriously? You think it’s a terrible start “by any definition”? P4 W1 D1 L2 is very clearly not terrible. It could have been awful lot worse. Particularly when it included games away to Southampton and against an in-form Boro. If the season was four games old we would be lower mid table. Your definition of “terrible” is utterly ridiculous.

What chance this isn’t a Saturday 3pm kick off? I can’t make the Saturday afternoon so hoping for literally anything else! (Sorry traditionalists)

Bang on. The danger is that the fans turn too quickly on Manning through no fault of his own, when really he needs and deserves time to build the team as he wants. There are already signs of that, despite a not-terrible start. The board are to blame for all of this.

This thread is exactly what I feared when they sacked Pearson. Whoever the new man was, they were never going to be given the benefit of time when the outgoing manager was widely regarded to be doing a good job. It’s not really fair on Manning, but I blame the board for that. They have created this entirely avoidable discontent.

Never let it be said that Rovers fans are stupid.

I can’t get over that either. It’s a bang-average, cheaply built stand with pillars. Literally nobody builds stands like that any more. But the way they’re talking about it is like it’s the new Spurs stadium. It really does show just how limited their aspiration is, and how starved of modern facilities they have been, that they think this looks “class” (to quote a couple of tweets). Embarrassing really.

Such is our collective fondness for Pearson, we’re in danger of rewriting history here. In reality, Pearson didn’t win every game you might have expected him to, and not every performance met expectation. Sometimes we were actually pretty crap. That’s not to say Pearson didn’t do well here. Overall his record holds up and he was getting about par from a limited squad. But let’s not start pretending we we were guaranteed to beat anyone under him. We weren’t. You’re also not allowing for a transition period while the players adapt to a new manager with new ideas. That alone is likely to have contributed to today’s performance.

People rushing to judgement on Manning after one game is beyond ridiculous. You’ve got to give him more time than that. The problem the board have created is that they’ve sacked a popular manager, which means the new guy won’t get as much patience from supporters as they would had the previous manager overseen complete failure, as is normally the case. But - as annoyed as we rightly are with the decision makers at our club - we’ve got to cut the new guy a bit of slack and at least give him a chance to implement his own way.

I don’t agree with the decision to sack Pearson for one second, but seriously you’ve got to give it more time than this. We’re unlikely to see much of a “bounce”, because this wasn’t a situation where the players had stopped performing for the manager or he wasn’t getting as much out of the team as he might. Pearson’s record was about par for the ability of this squad, so you can’t expect a “bounce” above what they are actually capable of. Manning may well implement “front foot football”, but he’s had two sessions. The players are suddenly hearing a new voice, with a new style, giving new instructions. We really should allow for a transition period, rather than throwing the toys out of the pram after one disappointing performance. I did say previously that the problem for the board is that the decision was so unpopular, the new incumbent needs to do very well very well quickly or people will turn. But rushing to judgement after one game is ridiculous.