White Stripe

I was at Wigan when they played Leeds a few years back.  The Leeds support was really impressive.

I became interested in Hibs when LJ was manager and started watching the highlights of SPL games, other than the big two.  I still do.  Tbh I enjoy the football, there's something a bit old school about it which I like.  

25 minutes ago, ExiledAjax said:

The correlation between wage budget and league position holds quite well across leagues, countries, divisions etc.

FWIW Manning probably had Oxford out-performing their wage budget by a few positions. I think they tend to be shown as having a wage budget somewhere around 8th in that division, and he had them in 2nd iirc.

I've no proof of it, and I'm not saying it vindicates any decision, but I have a suspicion that this was a factor in his appointment with us.

We need to over-perform our wage budget.

Aye.  Our budget has been pretty decent though, hasn't it?  Just over mid-table? Close enough to give us a fighting chance, other things being equal.  Nige said in that recent interview that Liam had inherited a good situation (or words to that effect).

Interesting observation about Manning at Oxford.  I hope Oxford get promoted.

11 hours ago, Barrs Court Red said:

And that is the beauty of the close season, because it’s impossible to say how it’s going to go for most of the 92. 
 

I have a feeling next season won’t be a mid table finish. 

I looked at a chart of total salary spend per club for the season just passed and compared that with league position.  There was a strong correlation between them. There were two glaring exceptions: Ipswich, who overperformed compared with budget and Sheffield Wednesday who underperformed.  The rest of the clubs weren't far off. The caveat is the salary figures - were they accurate.   I agree with your statement, based on the fact that the squads aren't sorted for next season it's ludicrous to predict at this stage, but it's always interesting. 

I've been on Otib since it looked this the screenshot below. I took this screenshot from web.archive.org from 2001.  I've had several forum names.

I scraped the data from three pages.  Beneath this image I've pasted a list of user names and a list of discussion topics (there's nothing new under the sun).

Role Call

Topics

They have a point, don't they Steve?

15 hours ago, cheese said:

Does your friend feel an attraction to sheep?  That could be the clincher if so.

Not in the fraternal sense, but apparently he's very partial to roast lamb.

32 minutes ago, GrahamC said:

I did live through it, I saw pretty much every home game in the 79/80 season, went home & away in the 80-81 season, saw the vast majority of games in 81/82.

It was shit but “this it could be worse” stuff really winds me up.

This is the equivalent of “we could be Watford & keep changing out manager” or “we could have Vincent Tan”, we’re mediocre, have achieved far less than those 2 clubs & it is simply because of our owner.

I get that. There's no excuse for the level of imbecility (and worse) we saw with the sacking of Nigel, nor the reckless spending in the past, the paucity of quality footballing experience at Board level and on and on it goes.  Plus all the clubs that have left us in their rear-view mirrors, including Hull City.

Saying 'It could be worse' - well in a lot of ways back then it was - I've still got the "Now or never" badge somewhere.  It was a throw-away comment because I had a flashback to standing on the uncovered area between the East End and the Williams, there was plenty of room, with a mate of mine and he was moaning about something or other. I don't remember the game. I remember that after the game we wandered over to the Adam and Eve in Hotwells for a few jars.  

5 minutes ago, Mr Popodopolous said:

Interesting link, shall look forward to reading...thanks for posting.

However the timing is also.. interesting.

Could be worse? Yes obviously but relative to the needless trajectory the timing is really interesting.

Imagine the armageddon on social media if we had to field a student from Bristol University though! 

Things could be worse.  Some of us lived through our nosedive from the old First Division to the Fourth Division. It wasn’t pleasant, although hitting rock bottom wasn’t the end of the world.  Thank god for Terry Cooper, someone who, imo, truly is a City legend.

Recently I came across the article “THE STORY OF BRISTOL CITY’S THREE RELEGATIONS IN 747 DAYS” and thought it might be of interest.  For those who haven't read it, here is the first paragraph: "Just 747 days. That is the time it took Bristol City to travel from a final-day trip to White Hart Lane on 3 May 1980, taking on Tottenham Hotspur in the First Division, to them facing Hull City at Ashton Gate on 28 August 1982, for their first ever game in the Fourth Division.”

Here’s the link to the article: https://thesefootballtimes.co/2017/09/20/the-story-of-bristol-citys-three-relegations-in-747-days/

How about if you were born in England, to your knowledge none of your grandparents were Welsh but 5% of your DNA is Welsh? Can you play for Wales then?

Asking for a friend...

Off topic but I'd be a happy chappie if City had had the same success in the league as Watford have had.

And others... Palace, Norwich etc.

23 hours ago, MarcusX said:

Well technically the subject, though the post seemed to go onto a different topic

Aye. It was two posts merged into one.

Rotherham are done.

Sheffield Wednesday's resurgence is impressive and I hope they make it.  

Of the rest, I'd like Stoke and Birmingham to go down.

Like this:

----

Birmingham

Stoke

Rotherham

The clubs from Sheff Wednesday up to say QPR have 38 / 39 points. These clubs win roughly 1 point per game. There are 10 games left. On average a couple of them might get to around 48 points. 

The goal difference of those teams though suggests that they will stay roughly where the currently are. 

Form wise, only Wednesday's (I hope they stay up) and QPR's show they are doing better than those around them. Our current form is a nightmare but thank god for the points won under Nigel.

I reckon we need 3 or 4 points. We aren't going down!

"Manning's under development, he needs more time".

No.  Giving a rookie manager time to learn his trade in the Championship is, imo, totally unreasonable.  The championship is a mix of chaos and insane physical demands, given the number of games per season - the last thing any manager has is time.

Not only that, Liam does not appear to have improved over the time he already has had.

Finally, why should we, the paying customers (the Club's view of supporters imo), have to put-up with a sub-standard head coach?

I like to look at goal difference to roughly estimate where a team is heading in terms of position in the table. City's goal difference is -2, which makes them around mid-table.  To me, this means we'll be ok, barring a complete collapse in defense.

38 minutes ago, glynriley said:

You do have to wonder, don't you. Crazy though, because one season in the Prem and he set's the club up for years and virtually negates the need for him to have to put his hand in his pocket as often.

Doesn't explain all the acts of self sabotage over the years though. This latest one will probably see us back in level 3 in the next couple of years as well. That's my expectation.

 

 

Aye.  Imo, maybe SL is currently in his comfort zone.  Secondly, at the Premier League level, the operations would need to step up to a whole new level and that would mean SL relinquishing some control to people who can operate at that level, and SL doesn't seem to be the relinquishing of power kind of guy. 

This is all speculation obviously but yeah, as you think back to all the 'close but not quite' of our time in the Championship, almost snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, plus the canning of Nige, as you wrote, you do have to wonder.

I don't actually want City to get promoted. It's partly because I despise the Premier League. Although football is incredibly popular in terms of attendance, the money pouring in is distorting the game horribly.
I also don't want City to get promoted because we as a club would almost certainly be totally embarrassed week in, week out, both on the field but even more so off of it. Imo the current governance of the club would not survive a season in the Premier League.  The fiasco that was Nige's sacking proves it (that and many other shite strategic decisions). God knows where it would all lead.

In terms of what I hope for... well, the journey is the destination - the games week by week are the 'thing'.  Unfortunately, that ship has sailed for me.  I liked where Nige was taking us, my gut feel is that, given time and budget for reinforcements, he would have taken us forward, adding quality to a team of totally committed players. I would have loved to see that team going all-in, week after week. 
As always, our Top Brass drop a clanger, just as they did when Gary Johnson needed a goal scorer to get us over the line.

PS - I have a sneaking suspicion that SL doesn't want us to get promoted either.

22 hours ago, Davefevs said:

Your user name always makes me think of the Blues Brothers, but I’m guessing you’re just from Elmore?

I play guitar.  Years ago I learned slide guitar and came across Elmore James' 'Dust my Broom'.

I was inspired to play slide after hearing The White Stripe's cover of 'Death Letter'.

https://youtu.be/ba0IunweO5Q?si=cRMHyC27gHtivpgB

I hadn't realised until just reading the Bristol Live article, that Cotts has five promotions on his CV.  That's impressive.

I was a fan of Lee Johnson, at least for the first couple of years (though I always wished him well). However, Lee has not and probably never will, match the success Cott's has had.

5 hours ago, Rudolf Hucker said:

Attendance now being reported as 8543. No indication yet of the Exeter support. 

Not sure if relevant to your post but some season ticket holders bought tickets in the new cow shed in order to beef-up the numbers.

2 minutes ago, IAmNick said:

And none of them are worse than Millwall and Blackburn who we've lost to in the last month or so.

What's your point?

City rose to the occasion. 

5 hours ago, Never to the dark side said:

Your a Gent,

that will save me a few hours looking for the Glyn Riley article.

Now I just need that telephone audio to Australia,the Bolton game was played on Saturday 24thMay 1986

So I presume it would have been in and around that time

May 1986 there was no proper Green Un

Green Uns were publish up to 1979 and then restarted again in 1997

So it would have been an article in the Evening Post/Western daily press

The game itself is on YouTube somewhere.

None of the above teams are better than West Ham.