handsofclay

To my knowledge there's only one Gazza. 

People might've scoffed earlier on regarding my suggestion of Steve Bloomer 28 goals in 23 appearances, probably thinking that comes from an era when it was easier to score. It wasn't. If anything it was harder. It was easier for defending sides to get offsides as it was before the rule change that reduced it from three to two defending players between the recipient of the ball and the goal. 

Also Derby County are the only club in the country whose record all-time goalscorer amassed his tally before WW1. If it was so easy to score back then lots of other clubs would also have set their goal-scoring records in the Edwardian era. 

To illustrate this, Bristol City played ten games, including replays, in the 1909 FA Cup campaign and scored 12 goals in those ten games. Hardly prolific goal-scoring in a very successful campaign. Yet Steve Bloomer was scoring at a greater rate than that for England every match in that era.

Steve Bloomer who doesn't quite make the list with 28 goals from 23 matches.

In a second tier match in Egypt a referee, used to officiating in the top tier of Egyptian football where VAR is deployed, borrowed a spectator's phone to replay a goal that the team that conceded it were complaining about. He then seen there was a handball so disallowed it. 

He has now been suspended even though he arrived at the right decision because he used modern technology and his initiative. Yet in the top tier it's fine to use video assistance. 

Seems a shame as by this means VAR can be used in virtually any match even on the Downs League and maybe an app could be developed which could put the lines on the phone to help determine offsides too.

Obviously it might take a bit of time locating which fan in a crowd of thousands has the best video clip of the incident and the phone might meet with an accident as it's being passed around the ground towards the ref if it purports to show something detrimental to the side most of the spectators support, but there is a germ of a great idea there. Surely ideas like this should be encouraged and refs who use their initiative to arrive at the right decision should be embraced and not punished.

I have personal experience of this as in our over 50s hybrid of Walking Football just a few weeks ago I had a shot that was going in the top corner and had beaten the keeper all ends up. A defender then dived with his arm outstretched and saved it with his hand on the line. 

Of course, in our football, we cannot go sending players off who have paid to play. So no other punitive measures bar a penalty was awarded which a teammate then walloped against the post and it was cleared. We lost 2-1 but we had a certain goal prevented by foul means and were given a goalscoring opportunity, which was missed, and nothing else in response. 

The guilty party seemed to be embarrassed by what he had done as he is fairly new to our group and hopefully it won't happen again, but if it does we will have to entertain the unpalatable prospect of sending off players who have paid like everyone else to play who deliberately stop certain goals by foul means as otherwise it might become the norm. 

4 minutes ago, Maltshoveller said:

This is where the rule is wrong

Sent off for stopping a goal scoring opportunity BUT they are given a penalty so still have that opportunity

 

It was more than a goalscoring opportunity had he not deliberately handballed it it would've been a goal. It's all very well saying that by awarding a penalty it has provided another goalscoring opportunity but that opportunity could be missed, thus if players aren't sent off for preventing a goal by foul means it would encourage all players to become second goalkeepers if the official keeper is beaten in the hope that the resultant penalty would be missed.

Apparently, Burnley have asked if they can have a points deduction so that they can remain in the Championship next season.

If he continues at this rate I can see him scoring at least 42 by the end of the season.

My main concern, of several, is that international football whether that's playing for one's country in tournaments or playing for one's club in European matches, will eventually become so taxing on players due to the increased workload that domestic competitions will take a back seat. Similar to cricket where international players rarely play for their counties, indeed, at times they'll turn out for a completely different county if there's a match in the build up to a Test or T20 etc and they need a run out. 

I can see domestic competitions being used to blood promising youngsters and the old guard who are past representing their country. The standard will become diluted. Unless the tail stops wagging the dog. 

I wouldn't mind if World Cups etc were consigned to history. Much prefer the domestic club competitions and European and possibly world club competitions, but as long as they aren't played to the detriment of the domestic game 

On 07/03/2023 at 18:48, Eddie Hitler said:

 

Tbf the only place I've been in recent years, maybe the last five where I haven't got about much, where I thought "this is dog rough, I'm not hanging about here" was surprisingly Shepton Mallett on a Sunday afternoon.

That isn't a joke.  Though maybe I just caught it on an off day.

On 08/03/2023 at 11:41, Red-Robbo said:

They executed military prisoners - some GIs convicted of rape and murder during WW2 - there. 

I visited Shepton Mallet prison and seen where the military prisoners were executed by firing squad in the prison yard. This isn't a joke what I am about to impart, but the firing squad executions had to be changed to indoor hangings at the prison because the locals complained about the noise.

I can imagine Mrs Smith ordering Mr Smith in their terraced house in Shepton Mallet to knock on the prison door to ask them to keep the bloody noise down.

Well done Jerry. That is some achievement.

I found him a great help when he sorted out my parking fine problem a couple of months ago. 

I think it's outrageous. Bilic has been their manager for five months and not one mention of a testimonial being organised to mark this achievement. 

36 minutes ago, sugarwray said:

No encouragement from the stat in today's Times newspaper. Fewest FA Cup semi final appearances since competition's revamp in 1925 among regulars* in top two tiers

Bristol City 1

Cardiff 3

Swansea 5

Charlton, Coventry, Blackpool, QPR, Hull 6

* at least 45 seasons in the top two divisions in that period

 

Who knows? maybe, like with penalties, our barren streak will end and we will make up for lost time and start clocking up Wembley visits

The Times have got that wrong, then, if it's FA Cup Semi Final appearances since 1925 then City should be on 0 not 1, as our last Semi Final appearance in that competition was in 1920. 

3 hours ago, cidered abroad said:

Goes back further than post war in 1945 as it's been in existence since I first started watching City in 1950.

As for the Man U in 1958 if my memory is correct the players brought in were Stan Crowther from Villa and Albert Quixall of Sheff Wednesday.  Harry Gregg and Bobby Charlton, survivors of the crash, played in the rearranged Cup tie about a week after the crash.

How could either of them perform up to normal quality a few days after getting people and possibly bodiesl out of the aircraft.

The next match v Sheffield Wednesday was 13 days after the crash. Harry Gregg played but not Bobby Charlton. Still a short amount of time after such a tragedy and in Gregg's case he was definitely hauling survivors, and possibly bodies, from the wreckage.

I had the 1958 cup final on DVD a few years ago (Bolton v Man United) and what surprised me was that although the crash occurred just three months earlier it wasn't mentioned once by Kenneth Wolstenholme in the commentary.

Maybe just 13 years after the horrors of the second world war the stiff upper lip and not pandering to those in grief mentality still prevailed.

I think it makes the cup that little bit more special. Each player knows that once they don a shirt and play in that year's competition that that is it. If his team is knocked out he no longer has the opportunity to progress further. 

It would seem all wrong if a player was knocked out playing for Rochdale in Round Two, but got a transfer to Nottingham Forest (who hasn't??), then suddenly found himself back in the cup and playing in the final. 

The only tweak, perhaps, could be if a player had played in an earlier round for one club and transferred to another club and both clubs were still in the competition when the switch was made. Then he could play for his new club because he hadn't played for a team that had been knocked out of the cup

Wigan probably had a better shout for a pen with the Tanner handball in the area. 

I would like to think that if we are awarded a penalty, hopefully after the record is broken, that our captain will decline it and say, 'Pah, we're Bristol City we don't need penalties to win games.'

Wigan should not be underestimated. Scott should play and I reckon it might be an idea to pick ten players alongside him too.

9 minutes ago, Lanterne Rouge said:

I`d suggest you buy a City top and she could slip that on but I doubt the shop will have any........................................

Better still, seeing that we have had plenty of yellow and green second strips over the years, just stick a Bristol City badge over the Norwich City one. 

I rather hoped when the bid for Currie was rejected on transfer deadline day that we would've put a late bid in for Cunningham. He is experienced at this level and brings that element of s**thousery that most successful teams need. 

However, the main reason I would've liked him here being taken up onto the roof on Tuesday night is because hopefully someone would've then pushed the bleeder off of it.

Clive Whitehead eventually went to WBA as a left back.

I am probably in the minority here with the view I am about to express.

Don't get me wrong, some of those Eight players deserve adulation for their contribution in gaining promotion to the top flight and then keeping us there for four seasons. However, they stayed too long. The team wasn't refreshed and the panic over the Collier freedom of contract move prompted the ridiculous knee jerk reaction of offering ludicrously long contracts to players, some of whom were already on the downward slide. 

I don't blame the players for accepting those contracts. But it has to be remembered that their performances contributed to City's downward spiral from 1980. 

I hear terms like they 'selflessly tore up their contracts to save the club,' but their contracts were with what would have become a bankrupt company. They were worth diddly squat. I believe the creditors of the company, which they would then have become, received 5p for every pound they were owed. Meaning, effectively, that players that had three years left on their contract would have received about six weeks wages had they not been torn up.

By tearing up their contracts they were offered assistance by the PFA and the proceeds of a testimonial game. But it also meant, rightly or wrongly, they then wouldn't be blamed for killing off Bristol City. Either way they were greatly out of pocket but one route offered the chance not to be blamed by supporters.

It was a horrid time. Eight men didn't have a dream they had a bloody nightmare. It must've been awful for them. I have every respect for them but I don't buy into how history has now mythologised the story and made it fit a narrative of selfless devotion to a club by eight of its players.

This is how the story is sold now. But this wasn't the case. Let's look at how the players were regarded at the time in 1982. I mentioned a testimonial match played for them by two top flight clubs at Ashton Gate (Ipswich and Southampton). Surely with such selfless devotion the City fans at the time would've packed the ground to the rafters to show their appreciation. But no, the attendance was something paltry like 2,500. That fact would not fit the narrative this story has adopted now.

Plus, none of the eight players, despite becoming free agents, were taken on by clubs at a higher level. Indeed, only one, Jimmy Mann, was taken on by a club at a similar level in the football league.

Please, again, don't get me wrong, I admire most of those players for their earlier contributions to the club on the pitch and I feel for what they had to go through in making the decision they did. But I felt at the time, and subsequently, that they had little option but to do anything else and I certainly don't buy into the narrative that they were heroes for making that decision.

2 hours ago, devoncider said:

And before that, Harrogate Railway? In that horrid yellow kit. Roberts scored iirc

That was on Sky Sports 

15 hours ago, BCFC Rich said:

I think there is a rule about this and you have to take the position of the lowest placed side. So even if we merged and followed @REDOXO's sensible and agreeable 5 point plan we'd be automatically relegated to League 1. 

You are correct about that rule.

Apparently it's not being announced for a few days to keep Preston guessing about our team line up on Saturday.