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We need to get away from "size" being something deterministic, or more important than it is; it's not irrelevant, it's possibly more important than in years gone by but when you look at Brentford in the Prem, Luton in the Championship and say Bradford still ailing in L2, you come back to people and the choices and the decisions they make (with the cards dealt to them). The Titanic was bloody massive, but the people running - literally - the ship were lacking. Sheffield Wednesday are big but not big enough to withstand people running their club making poor decisions. Sometimes, smaller clubs can outwit bigger disorganised ones by being cuter and leaner and smarter, on and off the field. In over 100 years we have managed this twice. It's not too much to ask that we do so again, not when others of similar stature manage to do so.

How was your friends' evening, mate - did they get parked up ok?

The bricks and mortar (steel and concrete) are ok, set up for success, all we need now is, are, er, the people.

SL stays and we are ..... Bristol City. Rock and a hard place

It was three years of struggle, mate. And one year finishing 13th. A lot of losing and drawing, and not scoring enough. And disappointing crowds, that moaned too much. Loads of scrapping though ....

Difficult place to go, Chippenham mind. From Lincoln.

I miss Deano. Where is he now?

Football lads: don't do that (coke) do this:

Yeah, me. I have. Jimmy Sirrel did this years ago, when we went 4-2-4 from 4-4-2, and something about Forbes Phillipson-Masters not running (very fast).

Pretty much what Nige said he wants us to be.

Why don't the club put away fans in the upper Lansdown, so we can have City fans behind both goals and improve the atmosphere?

Yes, that's my point: it's a number of factors. Increasing violence being one of them. And apathy around here too, that can be factored in. When we got to the top the club expected old fans to come back, and new ones to be made, but that mix of 1970s factors contributed to that not happening, with these people. I reckon. The first programme I picked up was Man City Feb '78, and of 46 lines on AD's page, 38 are about dart throwing and the potential closing of the ground and playing at a neutral venue, and the consequences of that. AD wanted us to "grass" on whoever was chucking darts. We perhaps forget now what an issue it was, 45 years ago. Or maybe the club went on about it too much? Interestingly, we're 14th in the table at that point, and 15th in the attendances table. Getting more than Wolves, Boro, Ipswich and Norwich. Not too shabby. And we hadn't played Liverpool or Manchester United by that point. If I had to pick one crowd deterring factor from that era it wouldn't be your economics or violence, it would be that we were a bit disappointing and struggled for three of the four seasons.

Really? Not: "When you gonna get yer cheque book out?"

This could be a shite appointment, to be fair/add some balance to this thread.

"If you were going it didn't put you off," fair enough. But what if you weren't going? Why weren't you going? Because it didn’t put you or others like you off doesn't mean it didn't deter others, might I point out. It was part of a "package" into which we might add televised football, that made football very unpopular for a time and coincided with a sharp decline in attendances. You didn't have to be in the thick of it - the violence - to be uncomfortable at least, if not deterred. @77 punk wasn't, I know, deterred by the "action" at his bus stop after the game the night Tottenham were relegated here but if we'd been playing them in the cup the following Saturday I reckon he would not have waited for the 339 at 5pm at that stop, not if we'd beaten them again, just in case, and maybe gone and seen The Clash in town first or something or other. Alan Dicks was clear in his programme notes that the behaviour of some (young) supporters was making Ashton Gate unattractive to some potential supporters. If you went in the 1950s as a teenager then stopped, and thought about going again in your thirties maybe with a child in 76 or 77 you would not have found everything to your liking, I'm sure.

Reading back through the matchday programmes from that era the club clearly considered the attendances to be disappointing. Alan Dicks also often grumbled about the crowd 1. Moaning and 2. Swearing, and other undesirable (and potential-family-supporter-keeping-away) behaviour. I think the club had thought: we get to the 1st division and the crowds will be huge, only by the time we did get there, crowds are declining across the whole game and around the country because of a number of reasons, not least the violence and the poor facilities and grounds (AG only had 7,500 seats, if we had had more seats then .... ) but also the football itself was in decline as a spectacle, culminating in changes in the early 80s such as 3 points for a win and the new pass back rule. We just got there too late. We needed to get there in the 50s when we had Big John and crowds were huge after the war. The boom didn't last and we got there as the game was going bust. The other thing to remember is that this fabled era in our history was in fact 3 seasons of either fighting off relegation or being relegated, in 4 years. No-one back then, other than Man Utd, pulled in bumper crowds for a team struggling at the foot of the table. Truth is, we were a pretty poor and unattractive team to the uninitiated with only Norman Hunter as any sort of "star" scoring not enough goals playing in a ground in need of modernisation with regular fighting in the East End and Grev Smyth park, to attract these potential new supporters on a regular basis. Getting to the 1st division was the only "success" in that time, where we needed to have more success whilst up there to pull in local people not already regulars, like other similar clubs such as Norwich and Southampton enjoyed.

It's about attention, and a bit of "look at me!" I got me ears pierced in 1982, just for that. Worked a treat! Girlies loved it. Teachers hated it. Result! Did one ear the old fashioned way, ice cube behind and through with a needle. Ouch. Should've made a preparatory hole with a bradawl first. School boy error. After that, got the other - the right ear, that was considered a bit "gay" back in them days, a little bit out there - one done proper job, in a shop in Broadmead. Moved on to DIY tatts after that, another school boy error (although I wasn't at school by then). That's another "look at me!" "Because I'm worth it" thing, tatts. Every one's got a bloody tatt nowadays, yer local vicar, yer lady administering yer covid jab this morning, yer Liz Trust - I bet she's got "Growth" tattooed on her bleedin arse or somewhere. And ear rings.

I can no longer browse happ-i-lee

Come on and let me know ....

This indecision's bugging me

Clearly some doubts about our promotion prospects, as things stand

Disagree. It’s only Stevie Gee (Gee for Guernsey) that has to have an option to replace, cos he's the bloke that will replace Nige, when Nige gets off his arse and walks

Alan Dicks sat on his arse during games for 13 years, and it never did us any harm. Well, not until Gary Collier took his classy arse to Coventry

To be fair to Nige, you were both sat on yer arse. For all we know, Nige might've glanced over and thought: well, if she's sat on her arse ....

I think @GrahamC was highlighting this a few weeks ago, we got no prime age players in the 25 - 28 years category. Although we had one in his prime last season, but that's over now