ChippenhamRed

1 minute ago, redkev said:

I’d keep the ABBA thing to yourself if I was you

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.

18 minutes ago, Bar BS3 said:

Or all the kids that play on Saturdays & can't do away games can now go...

I've never even heard of kids football on Sundays- thought that was just pub league stuff. 

Every kids team I know of play on Saturday mornings & this now means I can take my son without missing his game, so all good for me. 

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.

3 minutes ago, ralphindevon said:

I don’t think any strikes planned but don’t rule out maintenance work on a Sunday. Some journeys, from Devon, are already saying bus replacement may make up part of the journey.

Travelling by train in recent times is an absolute lottery, I’ve just had most of my return ticket for the Saints game refunded as it was late both ways, for different reasons. 

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)

2 hours ago, Silvio Dante said:

Yeah I’m out on this one. Youth team coached take precedent and there is a game that day. Imagine many in local football will be in the same boat - even with early k/o for kids game no chance to get there 

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.

1 hour ago, richyy66 said:

Given its on a Sunday - Potential Train strikes - Doubt we would sell out for this one. I reckon 5000 tops.

I was thinking maybe more than that. But 9k should give members a fair chance of a ticket.

1 hour ago, richyy66 said:

Given its on a Sunday - Potential Train strikes - Doubt we would sell out for this one. I reckon 5000 tops.

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?!

2 hours ago, Robbored said:

Were they? I really don’t remember away fans ever  being in the old EE, but I do remember the Sheffield Wednesday fans in the days when Trevor Francis was their manager in the open end (where the Atyeo is now is) when it was snowing heavily and the PA system ( you could hear it back then) that trains from Temple Meads had been cancelled……….That would have been the early 90s before the Atyeo was built

So…..that’s where away fans have been for several decades.

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.

7 hours ago, ChippenhamRed said:

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

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?

Just now, Mr Popodopolous said:

How about 5?

At what point do we measure on metrics. We have to back Manning and give him a chance but I fear we have made a strategic error and could be heading backwards.

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.

7 minutes ago, Mr Popodopolous said:

We were ticking along nicely at 1.4.

Not brilliantly but nicely up to and including Sheffield Wednesday at home.

At my more conservative end I was thinking 60-65, perhaps 63 pts might be a useful target but time will tell.

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.

14 minutes ago, Mr Popodopolous said:

PPG we would be 21st, think 4th from bottom Huddersfield have 20 from 19?

Albeit yes would have to check the table back to 4 games in.

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”.

58 minutes ago, Redland said:

Under Nigel Pearson after many difficult years I was genuinely enjoying going to watch City again.

The team and fans seemed united. The players were committed and fighting for the cause and I felt we were moving forward. For the first season in years I was not worried about relegation and felt that with a couple of quality additions we could be aiming for the top six.

I was genuinely shocked when Pearson was sacked and I am sad to say that after 60 years a lot of my enthusiasm for the club drained out of me. Pearson was one of the few managers we have had who has a proven track record including promotion from the Championship. The board then choose to throw it all away and have appointed an inexperienced manager with no Championship experience and already the consequences are plain to see.

For me the tragic thing is that this situation was unnecessary and entirely self-inflicted. Sorry if this is going over some old ground but felt it only fair to let LM have the benefit of his “new manager bounce” before commenting.

“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.

53 minutes ago, Silvio Dante said:

Agree the board are to blame but 4 points from 4 games with a broadly fit squad and performances poor overall (Soton good 45, Boro and QPR good 20, nothing much today) is by any definition not a “not-terrible” start. It’s verging on relegation form and deservedly so.

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)

1 hour ago, BCFCGav said:

The frustration isn’t REALLY on Manning, it’s on the ownership for forcing us through another transition when we really didn’t need one. Whoever came in was drinking from a poisoned chalice.

Nige had patience in his early tenure as 1) he took over a shit show and 2) he was a well known and respected manager who came in to save us. 
 

Sacking Pearson was dumb and will have long lasting repercussions - as many of us suspected.

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.

Never let it be said that Rovers fans are stupid.

3 hours ago, Club and Country said:

What's hilarious is the fact they are literally ecstatic about it

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.

3 minutes ago, Dastardly and Muttley said:

This squad of players are good enough to beat QPR away, that’s pretty much a fact.

They were playing as a team under NP.

The board deposed the leader of the team and the next performance is completely lacklustre.

There’s going to be questions and rightly so. That performance was unacceptable and I’m certain it would have been better under either NP or even CF.

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.

6 minutes ago, Dastardly and Muttley said:

What an absolute joke. Get rid of an experienced manager and support staff, claiming it’s so we’d play front foot football and then the first performance is like this.

Most new managers get a bounce or a honeymoon period, but really, that was an atrocious performance with nothing positive at all against one of the worst teams in the league.

Lansdown and Tinnion have a lot to answer for.

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.