bpexile

10 minutes ago, gl2 said:

Stayed in Sydney a few years back for a week on a world tour with the wife, next to "Paddys"? market (I think) in a great hotel, mono rail in front and a load of chinese resturants behind, park opposite and easy access to the ferries to Manley beach, Sydney Harbour etc, loved it; way not long enough but a world tour is a world tour. Probably not get there again unless the lottery comes up but have the pics and memories.

 

I live in South Australia & have been to Sydney a couple of times but on work trips. As you would know Oz is a massive country & you couldn't see it all in a lifetime but I'll keep trying 

6 hours ago, gl2 said:

Guessing the bottom line for many is, having enough available money to go to games closely followed by being healthy enough to do so.

Distance to travel to and from home games also comes into it, I know myself living in and around Bristol is a big plus, as opposed to round trips of many,many miles with m/way traffic and parking also a big headache.

 

 

I obviously don't get to games because I live in Oz but have always & will always be a City supporter. As I said in one of my previous posts, it's in my blood. Glad to hear you still support the club, It's a bit like wedding vows isn't it "In sickness & In Health". Good luck to you gl2 & stay safe mate 

6 hours ago, HappyClapper said:

I had one of those. Uncle Ronald!!

Did he have a twin brother called "Reggie"....................

2 hours ago, joe jordans teeth said:

JET,Jackie and Palmer,the talent was there in all 3,Jackie is a hero to many dispite not doing much when you look back on it and JET was hit and miss,Palmer just seems to like the life of being a pro without actually doing nothing to earn it 

Not to mention Tomlin....................................................................................................oops just did.

4 minutes ago, Rocking Red Cyril said:

Tie him into the longest contract we can. We do not want to sell him .

Exactly, I know part of SL's dream is to sell for profit but this lad will I hope be part of our ticket up.

4 hours ago, Rocking Red Cyril said:

I do like how simple NP keeps it . No excuses, fancy talk around this or that. Just seems to say it as it is. 

Beat me to it Cyril, his straight talking without all the BS we've endured in the past is what I like most.

19 hours ago, petehinton said:

states pretty early into this that it was his call to sack him...even more power than he had here. Scary stuff.

What a slimey b********d !!!

18 minutes ago, redsocks said:

The kids not good enough for the championship.missing Williams and matty James.if they were both fit bakinson would not play.players needed in jan to help boost this current squad.the football is awful.i think Pearson could be the problem.when was the last time we actually won a game at home were we entertained, felt comfortable that we were going to win and not felt nervous going into the last 10 mins thinking shit here we go again.

All part of the rebuild process, it's not going to be pretty but the signs are there.

3 minutes ago, VT05763 said:

Still at the club.

Hopefully he can be moved on, definitely not working for him or us with BCFC is it? 

4 minutes ago, VT05763 said:

Controversial but I think Vyner has the best range of passing bar Palmer.

Who's this Palmer you speak of VT?................................................................. but that's another story isn't it ?

49 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

Michael McIntyre, bit of a nause.

Makes me laugh................................................................................................ oops sorry, just the wind again.

2 hours ago, spudski said:

 

Genetics have a lot to do with what fitness level you can achieve, keep and be constant. Then you have to have the right attitude.

My point in all my posts in this thread has been about Britton not being genetically able to get to the fitness level required, regardless of good training and attitude.

The same can be said of former players mentioned in the thread. How many skillful players have we seen over the years that aren't natural athletes, have the fat gene, or other physical negatives..Molby, Gascoigne, Tomlin etc etc 

Over the years watching, it's noted how many players that are extremely skillful naturally aren't physically gifted. It's a common theme.

 

 

I agree & there is also the gifted skillful & extremely fit athletes in all sports that just can't be arsed to perform when it's needed. We see such skills wasted here in Ozzie rules football, exceptional skills but just can't be arsed.

It must be very frustrating & upsetting for those, as you say with the fat gene & sadly there will always be those that don't fulfill their capabilities.

16 minutes ago, LondonBristolian said:

I suspect attitude and fitness largely come together. The level of fitness needed for today’s game takes a level of discipline and commitment that you need a certain attitude to do. It’s not an attitude I have, for sure! 

Agreed, it's total commitment that's needed in today's game 

1 hour ago, spudski said:

I'm on about fitness. Le Tissier wouldn't get in any Championship now. You can't compare fitness levels to the past.

If you had flair and skill like Le Tissier, but not an ability to run for 90 mins, you could get away with it back then. In fact if you had skill like him, you could actually use it to overcome lack of fitness. To a greater degree...that's why you saw more ' ballers' back then.

 

I'm thinking Tomlin is a good example of huge ability but not fitness, although I think attitude was his greatest downfall.

5 hours ago, Slippin cider said:

Absolutely fantastic….

So true mate & we all get upset about losing games, it really puts life into perspective doesn't it ?

7 minutes ago, Sleepy1968 said:

I imagine our afternoon games happening during the early hour in oz, Do you get to catch many games 'live' e.g. streaming video/audio or text alerts? If not, is that the first thing you catch up with, apart from maybe having an urgent tinkle, when you wake up on a Sunday morning?

Now we are on to summer time & the UK is back onto winter time the game times are mainly either very late night (11:30pm +) or approx 6am, depending on which state you live in the clocks vary. I used to have my mobile along side the bed with the alerts on but I began to either lose too much sleep or have nightmares . I now gingerly turn on the phone & follow the progress of the game, I just can't help myself, as I said once hooked that's it forever.

Nice to hear from you Sleepy 

I gave up going to games in 1970 when I came to OZ, I've seen a few games on visits to the UK but just cannot get BCFC out of my system, once you're hooked that's it. I used to get very nervous when we play the lowly teams that are fighting for existence in the league because our record against them has been dire to say the least.

NOW I just get get nervous before EVERY game for the same reasons, but hey............................................... nothing lasts forever.

It will get better, C'mon City.

1 hour ago, Davefevs said:

he needs someone to run the database and build the dashboards!

 

Anyone in mind Dave ?

1 hour ago, Harry said:

I was having a little bit of a wonder about our starting line up yesterday and how it was put together. 
I found it quite interesting that to get to the 8 non-academy players we started, you have to go back 50 transfers. 
So that’s 50 signings we’ve made, that resulted in the 8 players being fielded yesterday. 
 

That’s over 10 transfer windows - the earliest being O’Dowda in July 16. 
 

We can shorten this period down by stating that only 1 of our last 12 signings started. Read that again. ONE OF OUR LAST TWELVE SIGNINGS!! 
 

So, whilst we all knew there was a stockpiling of players under MA & LJ, since LJ left, things haven’t got any better. 
 

I keep banging on about it, I know some will be bored of me saying it, but our recruitment over the last 4 years has been absolutely shocking. And it hasn’t improved over the last 18 months either. 
 

We need to sort out the recruitment ASAP. We still don’t have a Head of Recruitment. We still don’t have a Chief Scout. We still rely upon an in house database that doesn’t send a scout to watch Cheltenham v Exeter under 18’s last Saturday morning, a database that won’t have a damn clue about Felix Miles or Will Armitage or Alex Hartridge, just like it didn’t have a clue in the past about the likes of Grimes, Watkins, Jay, Key or the likes of Twine, hell let’s even go back further and say Bowen when at Hereford. 
We seem to have once again abandoned the idea that there are potentially good youngsters on our doorstep, and we aren’t thinking about these for the future. 
 

Unless we’ve got 15 absolute diamonds in our youth set up, I sincerely worry about the next few years with the lack of knowledge of local/south west youngsters. 
 

I wouldn't call it banging on Harry, you're simply pointing out the basics of how the club should be run. I would have thought that NP could have addressed this issue by now but perhaps its not in his job description. Our CEO now seems a a very astute & capable person, surely he should be putting things in place to remedy this huge failure of the club.

Sounds to me we need a "Harry" on the job 

9 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

I don’t get too excited when we win, I don’t get too down when we lose.

I was massively frustrated today, yet the game was salvageable.

Here are some things that agitated me today:

Either a sloppy run, or a delayed pass, a stupid yellow, then goal from their possession.

Then Gibbs-White should’ve got a second yellow.

In second half.  We had 3 chances in succession, Weimann break from Martin pass, eventually Bakinson shot. Then Wells fails to find Weimann who is clean-through.  Then O’Dowda almost gets a good cross deflected in for an og.

Then Bentley throws the ball away trying to break Semenyo….they score from the retained possession.  He should’ve learned when throwing one out to HNM earlier.

I’m not saying we deserved anything today, we didn’t, but we had chances to change the complexion of the game.

So Bristol City.

 

Obviously some of the errors NP spoke about, very frustrating.

30 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

Why is Bentley hoofing it?

You then add that our centre halves aren’t suited, well that answers the question above.  Without Williams we don’t really have a CM who can play 360 degrees either.

Again I’m not saying you’re wrong, but my challenge back would be:

worth going and watching Peterborough play a few games.  They play some lovely patterns.  They have 4 wins, 4 draws, 12 defeats, scored 4 less than us, conceded 7 more than us.

They play nice football because they commit their own defenders into passing patterns to create the extra man, that allows them to pass it.  But when they lose the ball their defence is a shambles.  They get punished.

That’s the price they paid for trying to play a nice passing game.  The match before us, they parked the bus against Bournemouth and got a 0-0.  Trying to play football against us and losing 3-2 or grinding out a 0-0 v AFCB.  Which way gives them a fighting chance of staying up?

I loved Cotts, but his stubbornness to play night flying centre backs and Freeman in the hole in a 3421 / 5212 cost is several games.  We got demolished 4-0 by Fulham at AG yet played some really good stuff.  That lovely stuff was because we committed an extra man to the attack, but we’re good enough to execute, and we got caught naively time after time.  I just think telling Ayling to stay back and moving Freeman into a more LCM role were the small tweaks that could e made a difference.

I genuinely think playing nice football at this point of the build will put us in more relegation danger than playing the direct stuff we are at the mo’.  Over time, absolutely, and today is not the best benchmark either.

I always enjoy reading your rational posts Fevs, thankyou for keeping a level head before posting. It's a shame that many others can't accept the old saying that "Rome Wasn't Built in a Day".  It's old hat but so very very true & imo NP just has to be given the time & backing to succeed, then if he fails the inevitable will have to take place.

6 minutes ago, Port Said Red said:

Fam scored yesterday.

 That's all we need to hear

3 hours ago, pl00peh91 said:

Always preferred LJ to MA and think history will be kind to the time he spent managing us despite all the **** he gets on here. MA is a shambles of a human however.

I also preferred LJ, for all his downsides he loved this club, whereas MA only loved himself & his pocket.

A wretched person in my view.

7 hours ago, Kid in the Riot said:

or is that "he's taken us as far as he wants to take us"? 

It's difficult to know with the Lansdowns, and it's probably time to recognise them as a collective. Whether it's in terms of day to day decision-making or a horrible worst case scenario, it's not just Steve that is, or would, make decisions involving the football club, it is also Maggie and Jon. Some may consider it inappropriate to speculate in this way, but should the worst happen to Steve, I believe Maggie would inherit his shares. And so forth. Therefore, it is important to recognise that Bristol City FC, RFC, WFC and Flyers are owned by "The Lansdowns".

Steve owns 99% shares in Bristol City FC, yet I still see people banging on about there being "a board". The board is Steve, Maggie and Jon, because guess what? They own 99% of the club. Brian Tinnion, Lee Johnson,  Mark Ashton, Nigel Pearson,  Richard Gould - employees, nothing more. Their say, pretty much subservient with their level of power at the club. 

Over the past 20 years The Lansdowns have presided over the football club and been key to all decision making, including the appointment of managers. When I say "key", I mean appointing every single one of the football managers and agreeing to every single signing made by the football club, without exception. Ah, bar one Steve Cotterill, who was only appointed following an extremely persuasive case put forward by recruitment specialist Keith Dawe. 

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm sure very persuasive cases were put forward, by someone, of why we should sign Gustav Engvall and Sammy Szmodics, however the buck stops with the man, and his family, that sanctioned these signings.  And sanctioned the people that were put in place to make these signings. 

Recuitment has been an unmitigated disaster over the past three years, and ultimate responsibility must be laid at the door of the family signing off this wastage. 

As we head back towards L1 for a potential third relegation under The Lansdowns, the question has to be asked:

Have they taken us as far as they can, or indeed, as far as they want to take us? 

From where I am, it's a resounding yes. And I'd go further and say they would be quite happy with us being a big fish back in L1.

Derby County are about to be sold for £50m. It got me thinking. The Lansdowns picked up the club and ground for comparative peanuts. Mel Morris still owns Pride Park so that is not part of the deal. 

If The Lansdowns were to sell Bristol Sport  including the ground, I would hazard a guess that it wouldn't be too far off the £150m+ they have invested. Further to that, I would speculate that once the sporting village is complete they would break even AT WORST on their investment.

This isn't supposed to be a hatchet job, just an honest appraisal of The Lansdowns running of our football club.

From where I'm standing, I hope what I read today in The Athletic, and what I already knew to be fair, is true and help or potentially a full takeover is on the way. 

What did you read Kid 

3 hours ago, Nugget said:

I saw a famous person once

I almost saw a famous person once