Olé

Didn't realise before now and a few people were making plans for it on Sunday - it's going to get moved to a Tuesday or Wednesday night isn't it. ?

I assume he's an Ipswich fan - and by the looks of the video he was about 5 rows in front of me & perfectly captured Dolman B Block being setup nicely to take the piss out of the Millwall jazz hands for the rest of the game.

I have never seen so many Baker boy caps on a single train before in my entire life.

This tickled me. What a way to find out. ?

It was a great advertisement for "do what you want" in our ground. We should have people who take more pride in what being at home is. Wrong sport (NFL) and it will never be close to footy but Google "Terrell Owens George Teague". Huge back story but the simple version is: don't take the piss in my house.

Every era needs a hero. In 2004 it was @Never to the dark side flying to Newcastle and back in a day just because he thought he could. Heading into 2022 a new generation will come to cherish @Chicken Georgeposting photos live from a car wash because someone dropped a Miss Millies on his Audi. We are truly blessed by this nonsense. Onwards OTIB into January, I've just been told by a mate of a mate of a mate that Eddie Nketiah wants more playing time and is available for loan.

Professional footballers anytime they do anything wrong

I've got no problem with players giving it back, but as others have said what on earth was he giving it back to, there was absolutely nothing to respond to why did it go on for so long, it was like he was seeing how much he could get away with. If it was just run directly to home fans after a goal and make a song and dance of it fine, players do that every week, but he was still aiming stuff at home fans back on the halfway line. Side question - if an away player is still disrespecting home fans for that length of time (which goes beyond the normal stuff) doesn't at least one home player lean in and have a word? We just don't have that sort of player anymore. I seem to recall even our goalkeeper once ran the length of the pitch to address unnecessary goading of City fans by opposition players. Probably no coincidence that same team fought for one another and the club and won a lot. Wish we had a nasty **** with a chip on their shoulder who treated AG more like "our house".

I also referenced that Birmingham game last night in terms of it being a generationally bad refereeing performance, however as a point of order Scott D was on the pitch after the last minute midweek penalty to Sunderland in the league earlier that season. The Birmingham game at full time was the one with Trevor Francis having a fight with a steward.

The QPR cup game is the more remarkable for me because a full 40 minutes after the ridiculous penalty, after extra time and after the final kick (Bailey Wright) of the shoot out we lost, I remember vividly in the upper tier watching in amazement as LJ stormed onto the pitch to go after the ref for a second time about costing us the game. Now you could argue that maybe Davies has had it in for us ever since because of this reaction, but either way to provoke that extreme a reaction from our manager of the day, then wind forward two years or so and our completely different (current) manager last night (rightly) describes that same referee as better off refereeing park football. Some record to provoke those sorts of reactions and comments from multiple City managers. And sandwiching an epic game at Preston where he gave two penalties against us, disallowed two of our goals, and allowed a blatant foul on Baker in the lead up to their equaliser to stand while simultaneously stopping play anytime we went near anyone.

Match Report from away at Preston (September 2019): "A frenetic end to end game played out in biblical torrential rain that had everything - except a halfway competent referee. Not only were City inexplicably denied a fully deserved winner from Diedhiou's brilliant one-two and finish to seal an end to end thriller, but the match official finished the game penalising City at every opportunity. Deepdale is just minutes from the EFL HQ and if you needed a metaphor for the last few years of administrative inadequacy in a league whose quality now vastly outstrips it's organisation, it was seeing a ref unable to keep up with two fine attacking sides and who ended up cheating one of them. Referee Davies gave Preston 2 penalties to get back from two goals down, allowed a questionable third Preston equaliser and disallowed two City goals in an afternoon he routinely pulled back play, didn't keep up to award advantage, and finished the day simply penalising the dominant visitors any time they got over the halfway line." Match Report from away at QPR (August 2019): "Football is sometimes a predictable game - for example when 2 semi-reserve sides are put out for a first round cup game you can guarantee chaos and goals. Today we got both in an end to end game that even had reserve quality match officiating too. City rode their luck in a match that swung back and forth, but appeared in control at 3-2 up, only for increasingly disinterested linesmen to be compounded by a referee picking and choosing his moments, finally deciding to award the tamest of penalties. QPR duly claimed their late lifeline back in the game as Johnson protested furiously but in truth City were always second best in the shoot out bar a brief leveller at 3-3, form being decisive as sluggish Diedhiou and out of sorts Wright, blew their lines." SAME REFEREE. Mind blowing.

No. I think parachute payments warrant a separate thread but in short I believe they're created with the right intentions but implemented in the worst possible way that does distort competition. There are more effective ways to make clubs promoted to the Premiership less conservative during their time in the Premiership and more financially sustainable in the event they don't survive. But the method chosen at present is anti-competitive and I would love to see a long term analysis on the diversity of relegated/promoted teams to the Prem versus all 3 football league divisions. I believe you'd see a difference in trend indicating that parachute payments distort competition. Don't forget a parachute side being re-promoted releases additional TV money back to the Prem. So there is literally an incentive even for the league organisers to reduce the playing field and repatriate the same teams over and over.

After witnessing the complete downing of tools at the back end of last season, a free-fall that relied on similar good fortune of others already being too far behind, I take absolutely nothing for granted. As some have pointed out, performances this year have really not been much better, with several just as bad, and any glimpses of improvement have been fleeting. As a result, I have yet to see enough evidence this team can be consistently competitive, but we have more recent evidence that a Nigel Pearson led side can completely implode (while growing over-reliant on inexperienced teenagers). If one of the teams mentioned as our safety net can do the opposite, anything is possible. Perhaps not the likeliest outcome, but I won't be complacent about some of the dross I've seen this year.

Fans are reminded that in addition to presenting their Covid passport, a bag inspection and a once over with the metal detector, mandatory drug testing will also now be taking place prior to entry to Ashton Gate. Please allow additional time as queues may form while each spectator pops into our single privacy cubicle to prepare a urine sample for us. Your test result should be made available within 30 minutes and fans are encouraged to arrive early and enjoy the entertainment on offer around the stadium complex - which will also be patrolled by friendly detection dogs on the look out for beak.

To be fair it simply says he was appointed on an interim basis in July which is true (prior to the end of the season), it then says he was appointed permanently in August. The directors report is just a summary of key activities that affect the business. The only contention is that we describe Downing and Simpson joining in July under his interim management (not true) and continuing when he was appointed permanently. I don't believe there is anything to be achieved by this so I am putting it down to the author having a poor memory of events.

Yes. I assume Derby fans are desperately digging around to find something we've done wrong so they can point the finger at anyone but their own rampant mismanagement and cheating.

Thanks for sharing this @Davefevs - based on the huge number of staff reported in our accounts and the commercial income typically achieved (outside Covid) at the redeveloped Ashton Gate (3rd best in the division) I'm going to suggest our ratio is not at the 0.725 Kieran uses but a bit better than at most clubs. At 0.6 our players average weekly wage is not 16k but 13k, at 0.5 (extreme but then we have got 560 odd staff) the average falls to £11k. £16k sounds too high to me. Incidentally, @petehintonwas involved so can tell me if I've got this wrong, but the admin staff kept off furlough to then help the Community Trust outreach during Covid (delivering meals etc) in a year the business itself is losing £40m - that is the measure of the club and it's commitment to the local area. I know many people gave their time for free but let's not forget that an organisation anticipating this bombscare of a financial results still put its hand in its pocket to help others.

You raise an interesting point because in business where the same should be true (and you started with that analogy) I know of & see plenty of occasions where people DO stick with their current employer and turn down the better opportunity with a bigger employer offering more money. The reason? Fast growing private business with a stated objective - to exit (sell) for a certain price, and where employees while maybe below market rate, have a stake in that success and get a huge payday if and when it happens. They also know success of that kind, like winning promotions, is an amazing boost to the CV. Can a Championship club like City give its players life changing promotion bonuses that outweigh the short term salary boost of a transfer while providing the gold star on the CV. If you doubled salary to £40k that’s £1m a year. A £2m promotion bonus for everyone on >25 starts, is £30m from a £200m windfall. Get creative and offer everyone an instant retrospective 2 year doubling of salaries (£2m for those on £20k, £1m for those on £10k etc) and you cover the boost from any premature transfer / pay rise on offer elsewhere and at less expense (or with the opportunity to give the incentive to more squad players). Private businesses do find ways to keep key employees below market rate and still achieving transformative success - along with incentives there does need to be a clear strategy and trajectory, and I guess fixed term contracts and agents are the anomaly that make football different - agents always favour twist.

That’s in the Bristol City Ltd co accounts as opposed to Holdco if I recall correctly

Our accounts for 20/21 are due by the end of February 2022 so they weren't needed now. You could certainly argue we are using this to soften the expectation in the transfer window. Last year we filed two months later on February 1st, but prior to that we filed fairly regularly in November (a month earlier than this) so I don't think it's too unusual .

To answer my own question @RonWalker 21/22 season ticket revenue is classed as deferred income. We also issued £4.6m worth of refunds in the trading year. ?

Good point but surely there is an accounting adjustment for early season ticket revenue on this season, which has not been fulfilled. I've assumed season ticket revenue as published is banked and relates to the 20/21 season only within the trading year. £700,000 is what, about 2500-3000 season tickets? If it's inclusive of early sales this year, that makes the benevolent actions in 20/21 much smaller. How many names were on that third shirt?

25% of supporters let the club keep their season ticket payment? (Probably more than 25% given that the initial take up after Covid hit would have been down on 19/20 season ticket sales). I know there was a gesture to put the names on the third shirt but had no idea the take up was this high.

I thought Downing and Simpson joined the day he was permanently appointed, not when he was put in temporary charge?

It's not even a survey (I think WSC or Football Away Days magazines have done proper ones of those which seemed fairly sensible as a democratic view normally is) this is just their writers coming up with a list. I think you could be right about a deliberate stunt to get publicity by winding up as many supporters as possible - Swansea/Cardiff one place difference, Old Firm one place difference, City/Rovers a few places difference, and Norwich top 20 and Ipswich not even in the 100. They seem to jump around between their criteria - location, atmosphere, history, quirkiness, new stadium design - in a way that makes so many of the selections contradictory. It would be hard to come up with a worse list than this without setting out deliberately with that agenda, which is probably how they started this sh*tstirring. Emirates stadium 11th FFS.