Rich

Anyone else concerned about Dasilva being targeted in the air?

Vlad the Appealer.

So it could be Rhythm and Blues.

Rooney deflecting pressure from his players onto the officials, hoping for a little more help for WRDC. I thought it was the other way around. I saw one last minute super goal to win a match, where the Derby player carried out a scissors kick, while the defender tried to head the ball, the goal was allowed. Guarantee it would have been dangerous play and a foul to the defending team had it been City who scored.

Hoping it will go away I expect.

Felt sure it was moved to February, now people are saying April. What's the world coming to, whenever I was arrested, I'd be up before the court and fined within days.?

I don't recall that being mentioned, another thing added to a long list of how not to run a successful football club.

I'm with you on this. I felt so embarrassed. Yet another example of our club getting it completely wrong.

Joey has offered his services to the Ukraine, he said he'd be willing to teach them a thing or two, obviously football related.

It wasn't just a share of the testimonial money. As far as I remember and I'm confident this is correct, although many figures have been bandied around recently. They received a share of £100k raised from the sale of the old club, to BCFC 1982. Not sure if that was equally shared out, or based on contract value and length. I'd imagine Merrick's contract was worth more than Marshalls. They also received monies from a testimonial. If it was an equal share out, which I doubt, they'd have received £12k each, the equivalent of a large terraced house in Ashton, todays value £500k. I did hear that Geoff Merrick put his towards a farm in Long Ashton. Trevor Tainton started a business, which sadly failed, Marshall went to Walsall and sadly they also went bust, lucky omen? At the time I was a self employed Plumbing and heating engineer, earning £50 per week,, although they weren't earning anything like todays money It wasn't bad. Jimmy Mann was earning a basic £300 per week presumably plus bonusses and he was one of the lower paid players, so six times my earnings, possibly £4k to £5k per week in nowadays terms. Though it's difficult and probably unfair to make proper comparisons. Without meaning to sound ungrateful to those players, there was a reason they never played many games between them after the collapse of the club. I would hazard a guess that it was mostly age related. They were in an awful position of accept the pay off or, 20p in the £ that creditors agreed to and got or, possibly get nothing.

There was a collective of responsibility for the wrong doings and effect that subsequently materialised. When we got to div 1 it was obvious that we had to attract better more experienced players, especially with the loss of Cheesley right at the start of our experience. We then also lost what was probably our best player in Collier, massive hit losing those two. The youth team (todays academy) was abandoned to help pay towards those costs. Ultimately there were not a lot coming through when we did hit on hard times. Not sure about the scouting system being cut back as well. When those older players reached their sell by date which was quite quick as they were all older players in Cooper, Hunter, Royle, Cormack, we'd tried to bring in equivalent replacement players but not successful in the likes of Fitzpatrick from Scotland. So we were struggling with the core that got us promoted, Merrick was injured for 18 months prior to the collapse. I don't think you can blame the players as we'd lost our best in Gow, Ritchie, Mabbut, Whitehead, by the time of 82 came about. Then when it really hit was the selling of Harford and Moller by the old board, our chances of survival from the 3rd went with them. The 8 players were doing what they could for themselves and negotiated a pay off, I believe it ended up at £100k, £12k each, plus monies raised at testimonial events. Not too bad really, as a large terrace house could be bought with that in Ashton, about £500k nowadays. In truth, it was bad management by the board of directors, who ruled with their hearts not their heads. Of course, there were no parachute payments in those days. They'd have probably been better cutting their cloth and accepting that, if that option was available then.

A little out of date but, it aint Henley on Thames. Inside England's most deprived town where mum 'won't take kids after dark' - Mirror Online

Can anyone honestly see Barry Fry working with Johnson?

Not just Hull. One rainy night waiting for a taxi on the centre, I decided to seek shelter in a phone box. I was laughing at the others getting wet and just happened to look down. There right in the middle of the floor was a large Richard The third, still steaming. I was lucky as I'd somehow managed to miss it when turning around, I think it was also waiting for a taxi.

It was a strange incident. I remember it as 13 coaches, not being pedantic. The only time I remember there actually being a hatchet used was against SUFC. Ahh! the good old days.

1 League cup Semi Final in those years?

Agree, JL's quote was definitely missing context, and NP could have asked in what way did JL mean underperforming.

Can't sign in to twitter. Is this what you refer to? "We should be competitively better than we are doing at the moment in the league." ?️ I actually agree to a point, and I think many fans would. I think the players are not giving it their all at times, Seen many of them let their runner go from wide positions and run down the line to get a cross in, making it harder for the defenders, Semenyo did it the other day just jogging back, when we know he has pace to burn. Other times the head goes back and they give up because they weren't sharp enough to react. So was the criticism of NP or the team?

Just putting a question out there. Would it be fair to say that JL has made a statement saying that we're underperforming so far? Not standing up for the guy but, surely there's more to it than that. Did he expect that with the players we have at the club that we'd have performed better? Did he say that if players had stayed fit then we'd have expected to have performed better? I must admit I've only seen his quote. There seems to be a difference in what JL is referring to as performing and, what NP refers to as performing. JL appears to be referring to points gained by the club, where as NP refers to players performances. I'm with NP all the way but, it does seem that people are taking quotes too literally and until the true meaning of JL's words are defined, then people are beating him up for a not to an apparent reason. Thanks for reading. Steve.

I suppose it's a bit like when Rovers tried to rename the rugby ground to the "Memorial Stadium", it's still called the Memorial Ground.

That would leave a foul taste in the mouths of some posters on here.

You're very positive in your take on things, even to the point of your positivity being negative. I personally feel the awarding or not of penalties is a very grey area. I don't agree with your assessment of some of our players and I've never claimed there was a conspiracy against us, where you got that from I don't know. We'll have to agree to disagree.

Has this been held in reserve by our owners, should we get close to breaking FFP? Can an owner sponsor his own stadium? If so, Ashton Gate Bristol Sports Stadium.

While I agree that we don't get into dangerous areas as often as some other teams, resulting in fewer shouts for penalties. We've had a few tricky type player that's been able to get in the box, such as, Patterson, Elliason, O'Dowda, more recently Scott, sure there must be others but, as others have stated, we've had a fair amount of so called stone wall penalties not given for us, while at the same time some very soft ones given against us. I firmly believe that there's a perception amongst officials that what you say is the case, yet a run of the mill middle championship team like Preston can average about eleven pens a season. There are some teams that just seem good at winning penalties or putting constant pressure on the ref by being able to get in the box and invite challenges which result in penalties being awarded. I believe we are not very good at either getting the opposition to make rash challenges but, also not very good at putting pressure on the ref to give them. We do seem to have had plenty of cases especially more recently, where we've almost been assaulted and nothing has been awarded. We have certainly been a more adventurous side this season with plenty of players getting in the box and rash challenges made, yet no penalties. It can't just be down to the officials net getting it right. On the gas thread I mentioned about their supporters, the coaches, subs and managers react and claim for fouls bookings and penalties, as one, this is bound to have an effect and put pressure onto the officials to act. At AG, I feel we are one of the least responsive sets of supporters, probably comatosed into accepting that we won't be very successful, after years, no decades of mediocrity.

Can't recall anyone ever saying that refs favour them. I do remember plenty of people pointing out that they "win" plenty of penalties. You make it seem like people are calling them lucky, I see it as people are calling them out as cheats. I put a post up earlier that shows they have consistently "won" more than the league average over a period of six + years. It also matters not that this season, they have had more pens against them, that's probably due to them being a more aggressive team, also shown in the number of sendings off, both of which are considerably greater than in previous years. Perhaps their manager isn't targeting pens and sendings off like previous regimes. There was a time when the whole crowd, players, coaching tea and subs would create mayhem at the most inocuous of tackle, usually resulting in a soft booking, soon to be followed by more outrage and the S/O. Their total of eight this season is still on the high side regardless of what competition they were in and, if like other clubs they hadn't "won" those extra pens, where would they be? They look on course for the average per club this season, in all comps it's about one every fourth game.