cidered abroad

2 minutes ago, Loosey Boy said:

Pring can’t be 100% fit - Sykes at LB again?

No Tanner at lb? Or 3-5-2?

Minute possibly for Terry Venables as their first home game since he died.

2 hours ago, richwwtk said:

Top left quadrant I think? Above Dave Smith (I'm sure I saw him bombing down the wing around 1990?)

I did spot it after I posted.

The David Smith was a left footed left winger, who was also a very good left arm fast bowler for Glos CCC in 1950/60's and who played in five Test matches for England.

@richwwtk

Where is Atyeo's signature?

I have an autograph book with the 1955 promotion team with one exception - Arthur Milton.

7 hours ago, Mendip City said:

But that’s that point. LM has bought into whatever they have said. If you felt the squad was mid table at best (as I do) would you take a job where your boss has told the world the squad is much better than that? 
LM is surely not that naive? Is he?? 
Whatever anyone thinks JL and BT’s cowardly way of sacking NP (blaming results) has set an expectation on them and their new man. 
Ashton Gate is going to be an angry place in the New year if we’re playing dead rubbers and not challenging at the right end of the table. 

It will be even angrier IF the slow drop from higher up the table becomes a slide downwards. What will we all think when QPR or Wednesday overtake us?

3 hours ago, GrahamC said:

Jimmy Lumsden as well, blimey.

Tony Fitzpatrick was a really poor buy for us, basically AD spent the bit of the Gary Collier money he was given on a central midfielder who played it square a lot. Once Norman Hunter retired & Geoff Merrick started to struggle with injuries we were then very light at the back as a result.

Played in back to back relegation seasons & went back to St Mirren for considerably less than we paid.

He didn't play square but ran around in circles every time he had the ball. Trouble with that is that he quickly became very giddy and lost the ball a lot.

I am wondering about the changes to our tactics and their implementation.

With LJ and I also think Manning will be the same, the players have to follow the plan(s) set by the manager. The big difference with Pearson was that while there were plans, the players were also encouraged to think for themselves. So perhaps in the latter stages v Norwich, instead of all out attack the players might have stayed tighter at the back, by doing so, encouraging Norwich to come at us and hit them on the break for the winner.

There are many ways to win a football match but is throwing all ten outfield players up to their penalty area is possibly not one of them.

Having said that we've been done at home in the last minute at least twice. Norwich and Stoke while NP was here. We are perhaps, just unable to see games out especially at home.

He has almost everything going for him and his last twenty years must have gleaned and learnt a mass of data and tactics. So his knowledge is not in doubt.

But how good a manager of professional footballers is he?

That remains to be seen and we all know that hardened pros can be a real handful if they choose to not join in. And unlike many other industries, they will be able to dig in, enjoy the pay and do sod all to comply.

How he deals with that, if it happens, will determine his success on the field.

6 hours ago, Redandproud said:

Why do Bristol Sport charge so much for the food, bought 2 sausage rolls yesterday, I was astonished how much they charged, I didn't notice the price until I got home and looked on my bank account, WHAT £8.10, WHY, yet outside the ground the pie man (, Clarke's) is only £1.60 ,pity he wasn't there yesterday, Bristol Sport ripping the fans off yet again, 

 

The only thing I buy there is a cup of tea £2.25.

The rest is a collection of poor food and expensive drinks. With Sainsbury's and other food retailers just outside, and local pubs at both ends of the ground, I fail to see how anyone would go inside the ground for food or drink.

4 minutes ago, Mr Popodopolous said:

It'll reinforce a view perhaps that the hierarchy are liars and that won't go down well.

When did owners and very senior people in business and politics ever worry about lying to employees, customers and the general public?

7 minutes ago, Mendip City said:

Yes, and I have wonder what those people who saved the club would have said if you’d told them the club would plod between the second and third level of football do the next 40 years with no tangible success…. 

As one who bought £90 of shares, my total savings then, I just wanted to save the club. A year or two later when Cooper got us back in third tier, I did wonder how long it would take to get back to the First Division.

When Jordan got us back to Second, I honestly thought that we'd give it a good go to go back. But he left and it's drifted along for the last thirty years.

Now at 80 years, it probably won't happen for me as it is so obvious that the Lansdown reign is more interested in building money making property developments than getting top league football to Bristol. 

10 hours ago, sglosbcfc said:

Since Nigel has been removed we have only won one game and we have started shipping goals. In the game we won, we still conceded twice. With an average of one point per game under Manning, with the bottom three now seemingly improving, how worried should we be about relegation? I'm not looking over my shoulder yet, but I have to admit I am very concerned about how the defence has crumbled since big Nige was sacked.

For every team that goes from the bottom six to the top six during the course of a season, there's one that goes the other way!

So we should not be complacent. It happened to us in 1979-80.

Today was a replica of several previous home games this season.

Take a lead first half, while the opponents are still having a good look at us and working out how to play the more important second half.

They equalise within minutes of the second half starting. About ten minutes from time, City go on all out attack and lose with a sloppy defensive play in the last couple of added time minutes.

The comedian on another thread who said the bottom three were already down a couple of weeks ago will still be laughing at the end of April/early May?

4 hours ago, petehinton said:

Yeah, thought the same. Has said similar with the post too about us “having a history of starting halves slowly” - we don’t. Not this season anyway.  Hopefully not a sign of how he is after losses, because I think he’s spoken well with the media thus far.
 

Also went straight down the tunnel at FT, after lapping up the crowd on the pitch after we beat Boro. Cannot stand managers that do that, can’t have it both ways. 

Just like LJ?

Nobody is relegated or promoted as early as first of December. Ask Swindle fans!

3 hours ago, Keepers Ball said:

I assumed it was on SKY but no. We're playing on Sunday because of the Squatter Egg chasers. 

And because my Son plays on a Sunday, we will miss the match.

And some wonder why I detest sharing the use of the stadium with that lot?

Cough back to the Memorial ffs

You miserable person. The sharing of OUR STADIUM means that we benefit from costs that are shared with the Bears can reduce the losses we make and help to keep us out of trouble with FFP.

The Bears rarely ask us to change match day. This one is for a televised local derby with Gloucester and with the fan numbers coming from just up the road will add some more to Bears and City income.

I'll be there for both games and hope to see two wins for Bristol.

56 minutes ago, chinapig said:

Is that the great Tom Finney to John's left?

Yes and Jimmy Dickinson captain of Portsmouth.

Don't know who the one to right of Atyeo is.

2 hours ago, SomeRandomBristolian said:

I was doing some thinking on the coach on the way back from Southampton last night. It got me thinking how many really successful players have gone onto become really successful managers? 

IMO just because they were a great player doesn't necessary mean they will be a successful manager, (or head coach.)

I know Pep has done a great job wherever he has gone, and Arteta at Arsenal. But a lot of really great players who have won multiple titles as a player struggled when making the transition to a manager. 

Looking at Rooney at Birmingham, obviously not doing so great at the moment, looking how Gary and Phil Neville got on when they went to  Valencia, to coach and failed. Didn't Paolo Di Canio go to Swindon a few years back now? 

When you look at people like Eddie Howe, Alex Ferguson, Jose Mourinho, who didn't have the most ground breaking playing career went onto become very good football managers. 

What's peoples thoughts?

 

In fact Mourhino hardly played at all. His father was a goalkeeper at Setubal. Mourhino got into football management via a job as a translator with Bobby Robson when he went to Sporting Lisboa. From there to management over a few years when he won Champions League with O Porto.

4 hours ago, Robin101 said:

Nah, not for us.

Wednesday, Rotherham and QPR look cut off already. Can’t remember the Championship relegation places having such a solidified look at this point in the season before.

Wednesday must surely have the lowest points total for this point of a season for any team in years and years. Even if they got a decent point last night, they’d have to go on a great run of form pretty much to the end of the season to catch 21st.

QPR been consistently one of the worst teams/worst team for 12 months now. 

Rotherham always swimming against the tide somewhat at this level.

Six points clearly not an impossible ask to make up over best part of 30 games, but would anyone be willing to bet it won’t be these three sides relegated?

Don't kid yourself. Just remember that City were 8th in the First Division in October 1979 and still got relegated at end of April.

Once a team starts sliding down it's more difficult to escape than an Olympic ice run.

I haven't read any of the previous pages, only this one.

We looked ok in the first half and created some decent chances. But we rely on one player to score and if he's out of sorts, we end the game on NIL.

I thought Southampton looked like a typical bottom end of Premier League table. Play keep ball very well but didn't create the chances as we did. They may go back up but I think not unless Ipswich implode.

I notice that all of our matches against the three Prem sides, have been away. Big advantage for them? All three lost by a single goal and in none of them were we totally outplayed. I wonder what the scores would have been if we had all three at home instead of away? Am I cynical that we had three away games and none at home yet. Relegated Prem sides are always at their most vulnerable in the early season.

PS. What about the handball by a Soton defender? Did Stroud chicken out of the right decision?

it died with a coiple of minutes to play. Typical!!!

4 hours ago, 22A said:

OK; P'boro' were elected to the League in 1960. In their first season, they were Div 4 Champions scoring 123 goals with Terry Bly getting 52 of them.

And next season after their promotion, we played them away quite early in the season.

First time that I saw any behavioural of anger during and after from quite a few of them as we beat them, If I remember correctly it was their first home defeat for three or four seasons as we won 4-3. Bobby Shadow, Etheridge and Gordon Low scored.

Typical City, we lost at home the next week to the Welsh giants, Newport County.

1 hour ago, BCFCGav said:

Anyone who follows the unders closely able to enlighten me - feels like in the past whenever I saw we were playing they were beating all comers, but this season they seem to lose whenever I catch a result?

Not a moan or anything - they’re young lads learning the trade and I’m sure a few of them will be stars for the first team one day given our excellent track record of youth development.

For several years I believe that we have tried to introduce young Academians at an earlier stage than many other clubs. If that is true, it can get the youngsters more experience playing with and against those who could be several years older, thus getting them to progress quicker both in footballing talent and their mental growth. On the other hand, it can mean we get walloped by more experienced sides.

His job is to clean the kit and also lots of other things that are invaluable to the club.

One of his most important functions and it's not written down anywhere, is to help to keep all the playing staff in a positive frame of mind. Any job for any type of company  is a miserable place to work when there isn't a constant level of humour involving everyone. That makes him priceless as confidence and positive outlooks are so necessary in a football club. Lose the humour and you lose team spirit.

So I say that Murray is the latest in a long line of very good kit people at City.

The first time I saw Terry Venables play was at Ashton Gate for Chelsea under 18's in an FA Youth cup semi-final.

The City had a forward line of Lou Peters, Brian Clark, Terry Bush, Adrian Williams and Jantzen Derrick.

Chelsea had Bonetti in goal, Alan Harris, Terry Venables, Murray and Bobby Tambling all of whom had long and successful careers.

In the early 1990's I went to a sports lunch somewhere near Stoke and Venables was the guest speaker. I always remember this part of the chat.

When TB was manager, or head coach, at Barcelona. Lineker and Mark Hughes were in their squad. Terry said that he used the "F" word frequently while coaching - like about every other word.

Spain played an international friendly against England at the Camp Nou and Lineker scored all four in a superb win 4-0.

After the match Venables is talking to someone in the area outside the dressing rooms. The Spanish and Barca goalkeeper Zubizarreta, came out and walked by Terry who said to him "Alright Zubi?"

The response was "Fxxxxxg hell !", smiled Zubi and went home.