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That'll be cheaper than watching at home with yer heating on and yer 76" HD TV going, if you can nurse that free pint til half-time. Count me in ....

Preston were/are regularly used to "counter" the "we cannot compete" and the "we don't have Parachute Payments" argument often cited on here that we are little Bristol City and cannot begin to think or hope we can do anything at this level beyond have one half decent season then slip quietly back whence we came. We came up with Preston and so they are a very good barometer, unlike Stoke who were/are on a downward trend after a highly successful period for them. Very different, even with PP. Preston, and indeed Millwall, are excellent retorts to the notion that it is money we lack, whereas by now, surely, we can all see and understand that it was not a lack of funds but a lack of the right or good enough people making the right or good enough decisions. We wasted so much between 2016 and 2020. Preston and Millwall are pertinent to us because up until Covid they managed to do better than us with considerably less than us, thus highlighting that we did not get enough or as much out what we did have as we perhaps should have got. As I believe SL probably thought, too. Now I know you will have many thoughts in response to this and be minded to air them publicly in perhaps a forthright and some might say blunt manner on this forum but I am off out shortly and not going to take any notice.

I consider myself a "real" Bristol City fan, ie I don’t go to away games (beyond Cardiff or Reading, or Plymouth or Brum) because I can't be bloody arsed. I don't go to home games much either, unless there's a "mates rate" cheapo ticket going. I used to go more regler when me uncle used to know Les Kew and we got "complimentary" tickets. And I don’t sport any colours (too enthusiastic/cringey) or sing, unless, literally, - as in, the literal dictionary definition - we are winning. If we score and go a goal in front, I like to be sat near the away end and gesticulate at the visitors with a vulgar hand signal. I love doing that. If we're not winning, and I haven't left early, I like to let the manager and/or the overpaid prima donners not-fit-to-wear-the-shirt know that they are not fit to wear the shirt, and that they can get to ****, as well as that they are stealing a living. I like to be a bit nearer the tunnel when this happens. I was at Newport '82.

You must hear the bitterns booming - when the radio's off

It’s a good question, Dave. Maybe it's something about fear of things going pear-shaped when we do poorly is stronger than optimistic thoughts when we do well. Certainly at this moment in time. We have been poor for a couple of seasons worrying about relegation (albeit the trend over the last 10 - 15 games looks promising) and the way this season started against not the stiffest opposition we will face was disappointing. If you went back to the purple patch of 17/18 and parts of 18/19 I reckon you'd find the reverse, with wild optimism after wins and some more measured responses to set backs. I could be wrong though.

Not Arsenal, because we beat Arsenal that day.

Does what it says on the tin, gives you the Final Scores, such as: Portsmouth 3 Few Sag 1.

Three consecutive relegations, near-extinction and winding up, Newport '82, two seasons in the 4th div, 1:7 at Northampton, playing second fiddle to the Few, 10 consecutive games (not including Glos Cup - what’s that you say? Ask yer Grandfer) and 4 years without a win v the Few, runners up to the bloody Few, hammered by the Few at "their" place, ten years pissing and pfaffing about losing to Gillingham and Walsall to get back to this level, Millwall away when it put hairs on yer chest and bricks through yer coach window, those of us that followed through the 80s are warriors and heroes and yes, we have aged a bit (just read that again: three-consecutive-relegations) but we are still here, hard as ****, City as ****, seen it all, think-this-is-bad-you-ain't-seen-nothing-yet-bbbbbbabber, the diametric opposites of "snowflakes" - we are old, but we're still here. And the club's still here because we were here/there (every ****ing where) back then. They don't make 'um like us anymore (hey, put yer phone down. I haven’t finished .....)

11,000 or so. Think Les is still, er, counting

It's human nature to be more bothered or pre-occupied by negative events than by positive events, it is quite commonly thought. That's why "news" is full of bad things and news outlets pump out bad stuff, 24/7. It gets more attention than "things are going well." Some people just feel the need to offload when we are shite, get it off their chests (and get a/see the reaction), and not so much when we beat Luton 2:0. People feel disappointed when we lose and need to do some-thing about it: the forum offers a public arena for dealing with this need. Best way to reduce the moaning is total tumbleweed, no response at all to anything negative. Reason and logic and facts in response to when people are feeling emotionally disturbed in the immediate aftermath of defeat (and late surrender of one point or three) is worse than useless, it's counter-productive.

56 seasons at the top, 58 at the second tier. I reckon you belong in both ....

I don't have any stats to add here, just some ramblings on human nature and refs going about their work. If I'm a Championship ref, then Ashton Gate is not the worst place to be sent to officiate. For referees, Ashton Gate is not a "difficult place to go." We all, in our work, have customers or clients we prefer and customers or clients we do not. Customers or clients that are easy or easier, customers or clients that are difficult, or a pain in the arse. If I am a Championship ref I prefer reffing at AG to say The Den (obviously) or Brammall Lane. Ashton Gate is a nice place to go, with a nice owner, a nice ground, a nice crowd and often a "nice" (for nice, see also non-threatening) manager. Imagine being a Championship ref and making a poor decision: you then know you will be confronted by Lee Johnson. You prefer this to being confronted by Alex Neil, Neil Warnock or that spittly nasty Welsh fellow at Luton. Same under Deano. Nige? Not so much. In the 1980s, we had to get one of those 'telescopic' tunnels to pull out to enable the officials and players to exit the pitch safely. It was tight and claustrophobic in the tunnel area, with an often rabid disgruntled mob around the vomitory, quite possibly often including Otib's @GrahamC. We gained notoriety for our "liveliness" shall I say, referees would've been aware of "incidents" involving officials and the crowd at AG back then. I think the goal we scored v Doncaster in 1988 we can attribute to 1. What was at stake, and 2. The "liveliness" of the crowd and what they might do should things not go Bristol City's way that afternoon. And 3. A referee's very human preference for not making things difficult for yourself where you don't have to. Nowadays, the area around the tunnel is broad, spacious, and populated by a nice, docile crowd who wouldn't say boo to a goose. Added to this, OTIB's own @GrahamC, a vitriolic heckler of hopelss officials, now watches from the other side of the ground. And on top of all this is our anonymity at this level, our irrelevance to football beyond this region (compared to say another "nice" club with a "nice" crowd and owner like Norwich), our absence from the big moments and big discussions on a national level about football in the Championship. At this level, Bristol City don't really matter, so if I'm a Championship ref and I don’t give Bristol City a penalty, so what?

If people will put these sort of things together, then someone has to be bottom.

There's Barry Manilow's "Mandy" (Oh Mandy, you came and you signed without asking, and we cut half yer wages. Oh Mandy, you run up and down without stopping, and we want you to stay. oh Andy, you scored and you stopped us from shaking .... ) I can see that being adapted quite easily.

Did I say I would?

Why not?

Thing is, two goals up starting the second half, what is more important - scoring a third, or keeping the opposition to nil? To go for more, or hang on to what you've got? Walking back out for the second half, the team had something to "throw away," something to lose that we didn't have at 7.45. At 2:0 up we had "three points in the bag" and another goal wouldn't mean any more points. It’s one thing to talk about it in theory, or even impress it upon the team in the dressing room at half-time, it's quite another to walk back out on to the pitch in front of your crowd and not revert to type or habit somewhat. The tendency to "circle the wagons" and protect what you have is seen across various team sports, the England women hockey team did this v Australia in the Commonwealth final recently, after starting so brightly and building a two goal lead. To change the group "psychology" is tremendously difficult and will take time, as I don't need to tell you, we have been poor for so long now.

Perhaps not a surprise over the period from LJ stuttering then struggling up until well into Nige's time during which we would not infrequently have two or three attempts on goal, sometimes fewer, little possession in general, next to none in the opposition third, were dreadful to watch, and presumably spent little time in the opposition box in possession of the ball? But seeing as we were 7th, was it?, top scorers last season, you think some of that must've changed.

Crikey, sneaky Nige! And he got away with it? Fair play, I bet he kept this quiet when talking to Sky

I was telling a young man in Weston recently who identified as a Manchester United fan that most of their trophies have been won under two managers but he didn't seem to absorb this. Just looked it up and 56 of their 66 trophies - 85% - were delivered by three managers: Busby, SAF and Ernest Mangnall. They're doing ok really, at the moment, no great disaster, when you look at it like this.

Probably be the next owner after SL that takes more than gives. If anyone takes us off his hands, that is

Not if the way you are doing it is not the right way, no

We need to be in amongst it at the top of the Championship and look like we are going places (places like Anfield and Stamford Bridge) not down the bleedin' bottom looking like another year of struggle lies ahead to have any chance of persuading or convincing a player with the potential to step up a division and interest from a club already there to stick with us for one more season.

Brentford have done ok out of buying and selling, and buying some more. It's not what you do (most clubs are doing broadly the same thing) it’s the way that you do it. And that's what gets results.