Jerseybean

Actually not the case.

Lots of stunning robin videos: https://fb.watch/hEDNBpr-Vh/ https://fb.watch/hEE4sTO3AO/ https://m.facebook.com/groups/794623764465068/permalink/1212441592683281/ https://m.facebook.com/groups/794623764465068/permalink/1215737439020363/ https://fb.watch/hEEx5oHCq7/ https://fb.watch/hEEFZATgS9/

Jesus Christ was going to be called Gary, but then Mary stubbed her toe.

Seasons greetings to each and every one of the 18,052 who have joined the OTIB family. Thank you for making this a place what it is, simply brilliant.

Hope you had a great Christmas (if you haven’t and don’t have the energy to wade through the following, perhaps just fast forward to the last paragraph.) Here’s to a cracking Boxing Day fixture at Ashton Gate. In case not take a look here: https://www.bcfc.co.uk/news/six-of-the-best-boxing-day-down-the-years/ It will be available to stream on Robins TV both domestically and internationally and it’s on the red button. The Baggies will bring a full allocation of 2,503 supporters and a 23,000 + attendance is expected, which, given our last home performance, is something of a Christmas miracle! Their expected line up: https://www.westbromnews.co.uk/2022/12/23/west-brom-predicted-xi-v-bristol-city-semi-ajayi-to-start-carlos-corberan-to-make-four-changes/ City are partnering with The Teddy Trust this game to bring joy to children around the world who have experienced war, abuse or poverty. The Teddy Trust collects teddies from children and families across the UK and sends them to countries including Iraq, Kurdistan, Nepal, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Ukraine and many more. The simple gift of a teddy will often be a child's first gift. The work of the Trust brings comfort and joy to children who need it most. ? City fans can donate new or pre loved bears on Boxing Day's match up with the Albion. There will be a collection point under the clock in the South Stand concourse were you can drop off teddy bears. Teddy Bears must be in good, clean condition and without an internal mechanism. The trust will only accept Teddy Bears and no other soft toys. We are now halfway through the season and City sit three points above the drop zone in 18th. At this stage last season, 23 games into the campaign, we were on the exact same number of points and were sitting five adrift above the drop-zone. In comparison, we’d won seven games at this stage last season, the same as this time around, scored five goals more this season but have also conceded three more. The inconsistencies have remained and that's a big concern. NPs (IMO) excellent pressers: Nahki Wells presser: Programme: https://www.bcfc.co.uk/news/joe-ho-ho-the-robins-online-programme/ On Wednesday WBA faced Coventry which ended with a 1-0 victory for the Sky Blues, thanks to Viktor Gyokeres' stoppage-time penalty which ended West Bromwich Albion's five-game winning run. Our Championship form: D L D D W L Our form (all competitions): L D L D W L West Bromwich Albion Championship form: W W W W W L We beat them 2-0 at their place in October thanks to a solid, determined team performance and first half goals from Williams and Wells, so this is our first opportunity this season to do the double: Match officials - ref Stephen Martin. After starting refereeing in 2003, Steve Martin ran his first line in an EFL match in 2007 after quickly progressing through the ranks. His rapid rise saw his appointed to the EFL assistant referee list in 2008 and to the National League referee list in the same year. After four years he became an EFL referee. He will be assisted by Robert Merchant and Mark Pottage. The fourth official is Mark Scholes. They allegedly have a huge list of famous fans! https://www.baggies.com/celebrities/ Over the years we have won 16, drawn 16 and lost 23 against them. My friend Nick lives in Guernsey, so has watched Alex Scott through the early years and Nick is also a bonkers Baggies fan, as it’s Christmastime we’ve struck a deal - we’d both settle on a draw, with the caveat that Scotty scores. The game will be affected by a national closure of the railway network and no public bus service on the local First Bus network (except A1 and A3 Airport Flyers). As a result the AG3 match-day bus will not operate for this fixture but additional capacity will be added to the AG1 and AG2 services which will operate at an increased frequency: https://www.bcfc.co.uk/news/ℹ-important-travel-information-west-bromwich-albion/ Ten WBA facts 1 – West Bromwich Albion have been champions of England once, in 1919/20. Albion finished nine points clear of second-placed Burnley and 11 points clear of Chelsea, who ended the campaign in third. 2 – West Brom are one of the most successful clubs in the FA Cup. The Baggies have won the competition on five occasions, with their last success coming in 1968. 3 – Although known in their early days as “the Throstles”, the club’s more popular nickname among supporters came to be the Baggies. 4 – At an altitude of 551 feet above sea level, the Hawthorns is the highest of all 92 Premier League and Football League grounds. 5 – Albion’s current ground, the Hawthorns, was named after the hawthorn bushes that covered the area and were cleared to make way for the stadium. 6 – West Brom adopted an all-red away strip towards the end of the 1950s, but after defeat to Queens Park Rangers in the 1967 League Cup Final, it changed to an all-white kit. 7 – The club was founded as West Bromwich Strollers in 1878 but they were renamed in 1880, becoming the first team to adopt “Albion” in their name. 8 – After turning professional, West Brom reached the FA Cup final in 1886, 1887 and 1888, losing the first two before beating Preston North End to win it for the first time. 9 – The 2004/05 season saw West Brom become the first team in the Premier League to avoid relegation having been bottom of the table at Christmas. 10 – West Brom are the only club to have survived relegation when heading into the final game of the season bottom of the Premier League table, again in the 2004/05 season. Early history Albion were among the inaugural 12 members of the Football League in 1888, winning their first game, 2-0 at Stoke's Victoria Ground. The club that became West Bromwich Albion was formed in 1878 by a group of young workers at the George Salter Springs factory, appropriate for a club whose terrace celebration would more than a century later become "boing-boing". Legend has it that the paucity of sporting retailers in their home town forced these early pioneers to walk to neighbouring Wednesbury to buy a ball, thereby becoming West Bromwich Strollers before taking on the Albion mantle. Just eight years after forming, in 1886 they became the first team from the Midlands to reach an FA Cup final, losing in a replay to Blackburn Rovers. The following year, they lost the final to Aston Villa, but it was third time lucky in 1888 when they defeated Preston North End 2-1 to claim the trophy. Recent history The first decade of the century saw Albion yo-yoing between the top two divisions. In the summer of 2016, the Club's ownership switched to foreign hands for the first time when the Chinese entrepreneur Guochuan Lai became the controlling shareholder in an agreement which saw owner and chairman Jeremy Peace step down. Lai Guochuan is a Chinese businessman and investor. He is the controlling shareholder and director of private investment firm Yunyi Guokai Sports Development Limited. Lai is largely a private person; however, according to a report by the Birmingham Post, a loose estimate of his total wealth is £2.8 billion. Peace agreed to stay on as a consultant for a further year but the chairmanship was taken up by John Williams, who had successfully occupied the role with Blackburn Rovers in the Premier League. Albion's first season under this new regime saw the Club finish 10th in the Premier League. The Baggies were relegated a year later with Alan Pardew taking the reigns after Tony Pulis departed midway through the season. Darren Moore took caretaker charge for the final six games of the campaign, winning three, drawing two and losing just once to so very nearly keep Albion up. Albion finished fourth in their first Championship campaign for nine years, missing out in the play offs to Aston Villa on penalties after a 2-2 aggregate draw. The Baggies appointed Slaven Bilić as Head Coach in June 2019, with the Croatian leading the Throstles back to the top flight at the first time of asking. After Bilić's departure in the following winter, Sam Allardyce became Albion's next boss on December 16, 2020 - but he couldn't prevent the club from relegation back down to the second tier and left at the end of that season. Valérien Ismaël was named Head Coach in the summer of 2021 and he guided the Baggies to their longest ever unbeaten start to a league campaign (10 matches). A tough spell and subsequent slide down the table resulted in his departure, though, and Steve Bruce took charge in February 2022. When he departed, in early October, the Baggies appointed Carlos Corberan as their new manager at the end of October. Corberan’s previous position was in charge of Olympiacos, the most successful club in Greece. He only lasted two months in that role, though, as the Red-Whites won just two of their opening 11 league matches and were defeated in both of their Europa League outings. This season West Brom were one of the pre-season promotion favourites in the Championship, and although they currently sit in 16th place their recent form has been much improved. As mentioned the recent defeat against fellow form side Coventry City was the result of a 92nd minute penalty which brought a five-game winning streak to a halt during which they only conceded once in those games. It’s fair to say that this resurgence has largely been down to the appointment of former Huddersfield boss Carlos Corberan. The task facing the Spaniard when he arrived at The Hawthorns was an unenviable one. After a sorry start to the season, the Baggies were seemingly set for a long fight against relegation, sitting 23rd in the table - their lowest ebb in 21 years. Despite losing his first game in charge to Sheffield United, Corberan has since guided his side to wins over Blackpool, Queens Park Rangers, Stoke, Sunderland and Rotherham. Albion's form has taken them from being three points adrift of safety to five points clear of the bottom three and only five points away from the play-off places. Players at The Baggies claim he has made a "huge" impact on and off the field since becoming West Brom head coach with record signing Grady Diangana claiming, "On the training pitch he goes into finer detail to help us understand - and that's everyone, every single player on the pitch.” He has also been helped by players returning from injury such as the giant USA Striker Daryl Dike who missed out on the World Cup following an injury in January which up until his recent inclusion in the side had limited his involvement over the last nine months to just minutes. A return to form of John Swift and Jed Wallace who were summer additions from Reading and Millwall alongside the classy Tom Rogic from Celtic has also supported the climb up the table. Understandably the Baggies fans will be boinging their way to Ashton Gate full of optimism having found the knack of keeping clean sheets through the excellent form of former number 2 keeper Alex Palmer and also scoring more freely with goals coming from a range of players within the side. With the club now only five points adrift of the play-off places, West Brom seem keen to capitalise on this upturn in form with the controversial Chinese owner Guochuan Lai promising funds for the club to dip into the January transfer market. It would not be surprising to see West Brom achieve what Steve Cooper and Nottingham Forest did last season in reaching the playoffs after spending the start of the campaign in the bottom three, and considering how tight the Championship is, Albion could be entering the top six sooner rather than later. Why it’s called Boxing Day and football at Christmas The specific origins of Boxing Day are not universally agreed upon, but various origin stories help unpack its history and original meaning. On explanation is that Boxing Day got its name when Queen Victoria held the throne in the 1800s, and is borne out of the tradition of wealthy families boxing up gifts to give to the poor. Since servants of aristocrats were required to work on Christmas, the following day became the time when their employers filled up boxes with gifts, money, and Christmas leftovers for them, much like a holiday bonus. Servants could then go home to share the gift boxes with their families. Another theory is that the name arose from alms boxes placed in churches for the collection of donations for those in need. On December 26, clergy members would give these funds to the poor in honour of the feast of St. Stephen, a Christian martyr known for charitable acts. St. Stephen holds so much significance that in Ireland, Boxing Day is referred to as St. Stephen’s Day. Yet another clue to the holiday’s moniker can be found in the song "Good King Wenceslas." this carol tells the tale of the Duke of Bohemia in the 10th century. On St. Stephen’s Day, he observed a poor man on his land, struggling to gather wood in the middle of a snowstorm. He was so moved by this sight that he gathered food and wine and delivered it to his door, inspiring a tradition. With so many competing narratives, it’s difficult to know exactly how Boxing Day began. It’s clear, however, that what they all have in common are themes of charity, gift-giving, and celebrations, which have lived on and are present in how this holiday is observed today. While Boxing Day has nothing to do with the sport of boxing, it has now come to be associated with watching football. Prior to the days of television, Christmas Day would feature a full schedule of football matches for fans to attend after they had eaten. During the 1950’s however, attitudes towards playing sports on Christmas Day changed. Christmas Day 1957 was the last with a full league programme. The arrival of floodlights and evening games had removed the need for fixtures to be squeezed into public holidays, and many fans were preferring to stay at home with their families on Christmas Day. In the First Division on December 25, 1957, Blackpool beat Leicester 5-1, Manchester United beat Luton 3-0, and Sheffield Wednesday and Preston drew 4-4. Chelsea beat Portsmouth 7-4, with 17-year-old Jimmy Greaves scoring four for the Blues. In 1958 there were only three First Division matches played on December 25, and in 1959 just one. The last English League match played on Christmas Day was Blackpool versus Blackburn in 1965. A crowd of 21,000 turned up to see Blackpool win 4-2. A planned revival of Christmas Day matches failed in 1983. Third Division Brentford had arranged to play Wimbledon at 11am on Christmas morning. “We hope to revive the old tradition of the husband going to football on Christmas Day while the wives cook the turkey,” said Brentford official Eric White. However, the rather sexist plan backfired, and protests by both sets of fans saw the match brought forward to Christmas Eve. Wimbledon won 4-3. The most famous Christmas Day football match took place in 1914, when one of the deadliest conflicts in human history was paused for a kick-about. The First World War 'Christmas Truce' saw around 100,000 troops along the Western Front exchange gifts, sing carols, and play football. The match has attained mythical status, but letters from soldiers provide evidence that it did take place. A recently-uncovered letter written by Staff Sergeant Clement Barker of the 1st Battalion Grenadier Guards explains how the match started. “A German looked over the trench – no shots,” he wrote. “Our men did the same, and then a few of our men went out and brought the dead in (69) and buried them. The next thing, a football was kicked out of our trenches and Germans and English played football.” https://fb.watch/hBGODd8Rcf/ And finally. For so many reasons and for lots of people this can be a very lonely and difficult time of year. Whatever your own situation if you’ve got this far through such a monster post (or just skipped to the end) it suggests you are very much part of the worldwide and wonderful Bristol City family. If you are struggling for any reason at all please reach out to someone, either on this forum or simply wherever works for you. Two years ago almost to the day Phantom started the superb thread ‘Never feel alone, it’s good to talk’ in the opening post he said: ‘Please, if you feel alone or are struggling, try to talk to someone. Life might not always feel like living and you may feel like you are at rock bottom, but the world is a much better place with you in it. Personally this site really helps me, I have really low and negative days but keeping in touch with the Bristol City family is a massive thing. If anyone ever feels alone, please reach out.’ Sixteen pages on it is as relevant and important as ever it was.

OS: https://www.bcfc.co.uk/news/introducing-red-robyn/

Interview with NW: https://youtu.be/C7mCEa5G8As

https://www.bcfc.co.uk/news/wells-pens-new-deal/

Great memories

https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/whats-on/food-drink/good-food-guide-2023-names-7954004?utm_source=bristol_live_newsletter&utm_campaign=daily_newsletter2&utm_medium=email

Good start just beat BHA on penalties https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/63967175

A man and his dog were walking along a road. The man was enjoying the scenery, when it suddenly occurred to him that he was dead. He remembered dying, and that the dog walking beside him had been dead for years. He wondered where the road was leading them. After a while, they came to a high, white stone wall along one side of the road. It looked like fine marble. At the top of a long hill, it was broken by a tall arch that glowed in the sunlight. Standing before it, he saw a magnificent gate that looked like mother-of-pearl, and the street that led to the gate looked like pure gold. He and the dog walked toward the gate, when he saw a man at a desk to one side. He called out, “Excuse me, where are we?” “This is Heaven, sir,” the man answered. “Would you happen to have some water?” the man asked. “Of course, sir. Come right in, and I'll have some ice water brought right up'” The gate began to open. “Can my friend come in, too?” the traveler asked, gesturing towards his dog. “I'm sorry, sir, but we don't accept pets.” The man thought a moment, turned back toward the road, and continued on his way. After another long walk, he came to a dirt road leading through a farm gate that looked as if it had never been closed. As he approached the gate, he saw a man inside leaning against a tree and reading a book. “Excuse me!” he called to the man. “Do you have any water?” “Yes, there's a pump over there, come on in.” “How about my friend here?” the traveler gestured to the dog. “There should be a bowl by the pump.” They went through the gate, and sure enough, there was a pump with a bowl beside it. The traveler filled the water bowl and took a long drink himself, then he gave some to the dog. When they were full, he and the dog walked back toward the man who was standing by the tree. “What do you call this place?” the traveler asked. “This is Heaven,” he answered. “Well, that's confusing,” the traveler said. “The man down the road said that was Heaven too.” “Oh, you mean the place with the gold street and pearly gates? Nope. That's hell.” “Doesn't it make you mad for them to use your name like that?” the traveler asked. “No, we're just happy that they screen out the folks who would leave their best friends behind.” ?? Author unknown.

As per the title, https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/63943512 Excellent news IMO

And showed a glimpse of quality with his assist

In a nutshell. A very poor game of football, involving two very poor teams and a very poor referee.

Poor half from both teams, one flash of good football from Cam = a goal, then shambolic and truly school-boy defending = 1-1 Please, please can we start to look after the ball much better, go forward and defend properly.

Thank you BR I stand corrected

Thank you Bizyer, here’s wishing you a great afternoon and three points COYR.