Eddie Hitler

Straight to the point. I couldn't agree more and find it astounding that so-called "really nice man" Wael and their new Kuwaiti owner are happy about having this bloke in charge and appointing his dubious mates into paid roles. Plus signing that woman-beating striker from Exeter. I thought Lee Power's Swindon had plumbed the depths of immorality in football but they are nothing compared to this lot. They are the family club if the family is Fred and Rose West. LondonLad26, London, United Kingdom, 2 days ago Anyone who has that animal as their coach should be ashamed. I'd demand a transfer, he's a thug and a criminal

After we were sufficiently fortunate to see the destroyer of clubs depart to the River Orwell it was accepted by almost everyone on here, and Nigel Pearson on his appointment, that we had three lean years coming up in which to desperately try to avoid falling foul of FFP by slashing the wage bill and selling our most marketable assets. I don't see that that has changed, other than to note that we are now into year three, the financial year end is 31 May, and after this last "holding" year we will be able to see what the Lansdown family does in the summer. Will it be a new contract for NP and money to spend, with the aim of a good crack at promotion, or will be a hunkering down in the mid-table of the Championship, hoping for a season when the stars align and we go up? It is very much a case of watch what they do in summer 2024 rather than listening to what they say between now and then.

The bloke is a violent thug with his one braincell pining away through loneliness. No respectable football club would have him on their payroll, let alone as manager. Unlike most on here, whilst I do laugh at their many pratfalls I am usually actually fine with Rovers; I'm not now though. I hope that they collapse.

It isn't "hate", the OP summed it up well. Most football clubs have fans who live, or lived, local to the club or have a family connection. Then you have the successful clubs who attract fans with no connection to the club but support it because it wins things, like supporting a successful Formula 1 franchise. Then you have Millwall with its popular reputation as the club with the nastiest, hardest, most violent fans in Britain. (Note - "popular reputation", I'm not trying to start a pissing contest here.) As such it attracts the "walk on the wild side" types who want to be associated with such despite their biggest transgression ever being stealing some Pick and Mix from Woolworths aged eight. The "deputy head at a prep school" example nails the type well.

I think you may well be right sir. Something like the Intertoto Cup.

For me the poison chalice is the "Fair Play" award, generally won by the team too weak and ineffectual to put in the crunching tackles and physical presence in the box and so finishing towards the bottom of the table. I think we won it under Danny Wilson but that could be my putting two and two together and making five.

How silly.

I do like Drink up thee Zider. Though I am not a fan of The Red Red Robin which seems a bit nursery rhyme like.

Yes. And it gets worse, it's this kind.

That's "baggins" coming out with that bizarre stance rather than Topper Gas to whom he is replying. Baggins is their forum's sexual deviant, I don't think that we have one of those. Maybe they have different forum software.

Thnaks, I was wondering how they had worked it. Though that does speak of terrible cash management by the club. I remember Torquay being done maybe eight years ago for paying their youth players below minimum wage.

Does minimum wage legislation only extend as far north as Chester?

I'm not sure that they will. Remember those trees they cut down without permission, Greens on the council are gunning for them. If we behaved in the same way do you think that we would get away with it? I don't and I don't think that they will either.

When I've read about similar with private individuals building unauthorised houses or extensions they are often ordered to tear them down. Council planning officers really don't like arrogant people who totally ignore the rules and their guidance and usually give it to them with both barrels. I think that there is a real possibility that Rovers will be ordered to tear it down with their only remaining option being to rebuild their old stand exactly as it was.

Even then the owners and the supporters club were daggers drawn. If it's a family club then the family to which they refer must be the Borgias.

I'm adding to the debate rather than gainsaying your statement but football hooliganism and fan violence was there from the earliest days of the modern game. It's been tribal - my town against your town - from the off in a way that other sports haven't been because of the mass travelling crowds of working class blokes looking for a drink and a bit of excitement for their pennies after a week in a hard labouring job. The football match was acting as both a focus and an excuse for town Vs town scraps which have always happened. Bizarrely in Cornwall there were usually mass scraps in the nineteenth and first half of the twentieth century associated with "Tea treats" which were big outdoor picnics organised in the late summer by the Methodist church. One week Hayle would take on Redruth with the winner meeting Camborne in the final the next week. Human nature. This is from wiki but I've read and heard similar before: The first recorded instances of football hooliganism in the modern game allegedly occurred during the 1880s in England, a period when gangs of supporters would intimidate neighbourhoods, in addition to attacking referees, opposing supporters and players. In 1885, after Preston North End beat Aston Villa 5–0 in a friendly match, both teams were pelted with stones, attacked with sticks, punched, kicked and spat at. One Preston player was beaten so severely that he lost consciousness and press reports at the time described the fans as "howling roughs".[9] The following year, Preston fans fought Queen's Park fans in a railway station—the first alleged instance of football hooliganism outside of a match. In 1905, a number of Preston fans were tried for hooliganism, including a "drunk and disorderly" 70-year-old woman, following their match against Blackburn Rovers.

What does "fan wise" even mean? Their gates are low, most of them are more interested in the Bristol City score than the game they're actually watching, and a decent proportion of them are happy to defraud the club by not paying to go in or falsely claiming a reduced rate. I wouldn't say that they're too good for anybody "fan wise".

I think that's about it. Nigel will have plenty of offers from other clubs if his contract isn't renewed and SL knows that he can pay enough to keep him here if he wants to do so. No rush. As Neil Warnock said Bristol City is a very attractive prospect for a manager who wants to make his name by leading us into the Premiership, something he has said several times that he would like a crack at (along with saying similar about Sheff Weds and another club which I forget). If there is the promise of a big spending budget for a genuine push next season then Nige will stay and our chances of success will be very good IMHO. And of course far more money would be paid for an established Premiership club than for an established Championship club.

I used to do that. If there was a terrible performance then there was a lot of time on the train back to dwell upon it. When we hit an especially bad patch I had to stop going as it was ruining my whole weekend. If you're only going to home games and it's half an hour up the road to get there then it's more easily shrugged off as you have invested much less time and effort to attend.

Conversely if Scott wasn't actively involved in pre-season then potential buyers would have known that we were definitely selling him and then bid lower accordingly. It makes sense to work to inflate the price of your big asset at the expense of season preparation as long as the inflated fee is then used to make good the team. Which it hasn't been. So you are right. Per another thread: What is going on?

Everyone moaning about this commentator should think themsleves lucky that they live in the RB signal area and that RB provides full commentary on City games. If I could listen to this I would be happy with Joe Pasquale and Bobcat as co-commentators. Anything better than that is a bonus.

Yes. The lack of consistency must make it very hard for existing and prospective senior staff to deal with. I understand that FFP brings its own constraints, and that these were made clear to NP prior to accepting the three year contract, but not allowing the spending of the windfall £25m surplus is applying an artificial constraint to the manager beyond FFP. Such didn't happen under GJ or the MA/LJ double headed regime where spending everything possible was the de facto policy. Whether that is favouritism, simple inconsistency, or an exit strategy is then the question.

Yes. In business planning you have an agreed budget but update the forecast through the year with projected variances from that budget. If there is no specific and justified reason for those variances then they have to be eliminated as far as possible. If however there is a good reason for one which was not known, or not certainly known, when the budget was set then the forecast variance becomes accepted and replaces the budget. For BCFC there should have been at least two budgets prepared: one if Alex was sold and one if he wasn't. You don't just stick rigidly to one budget when the initial assumptions of that budget have been proven to be wrong because of new information. I'm a finance guy but I know that finance is there to inform operational decisions in real time and not to put wholly unnecessary shackles upon a business. Accountants don't just say "No". Or rather shouldn't, if they are any good.

Very well done Sir!

Also a brilliant one. I do know it though I will leave it for someone to work it out for themselves.