Eddie Hitler

30 minutes ago, Bristol Rob said:

Some of the Fewers in my local pub are really eager that they get a proper youth/academy in place.

Partly because they have seen the success City have had with young players, but mostly because they aren't convinced by the transfer strategy at the Mem. Players taking one last deal as the club is closer to home after a career elsewhere, with no resale value. No marquee (haha tents!) signings that signal any ambition and a loan strategy that just makes them a feeder club for sides that do have a better youth set-up.

Can see their point, it isn't as if they would need to start with a childs team and work from there, loads of academy players are released every year and they only need to get a tune out of one or two of them to make it pay.

-ish.

I was hugely enthusiastic about Scott Davidson's starting up an Academy, in 1996 maybe, and thinking that the home grown players would start rolling off the production line and into the first team in a few short years but they just didn't.  The Academy was costing over a million year and wasn't producing the players to justify that.

It has only been since the spend on the Academy coaches and facilities was seriously upped that the production line has begun to roll and a steady stream of excellent players has come through.

Rovers will do it on the cheap like we did for many years and as a result it just won't work beyond the odd decent player coming through who might have done so anyway through their existing youth programme.

I'm not blaming them for being enthusuiastic, hell I was in 1996, but our experience has shown that just having an Academy isn't enough.  It needs to be properly staffed up and have great facilities.

21 minutes ago, BCFC11 said:

Think @Kid in the Riot has said previously that Wally is/was actively looking to sell up?

Well that would make sense of taking out the loan rather than putting more of his own money in.

The loan will go with the club but anything owed to him personally is going to be negotiated down as part of the sale.

4 minutes ago, Midlands Robin said:

The other problem they have if they don't have the stand ready for their first home game is that they aren't generating the revenue to pay down the loan. 

Every week that goes on is an amount of cash wasted. Not only have they got to increase their average attendance just to pay down the loan, they are currently at a capacity of less than last season so they will be generating even less revenue than before. 

That's true but Wael has been soaking up big losses for years, albeit a small fraction of those that the Lansdown family pick up for City, so unless he's running out of money this isn't going to be a problem.

Football clubs don't have the same business rules as other companies, losing millions a year is absolutely standard.

I suggested that the loan was taken out to try to impose some financial rigour upon the club in the same manner that the Ashton Gate redevelopment was funded by a third party loan, which the income from the new structures are steadily repaying.

@bert tann suggested otherwise and that it was a sign of stretched finances.

I don't have his inside track but I would have thought that if Wael is either running low on funds or no longer wishes to keep pouring the money in each year then he would have put the club up for sale rather than taking out a loan.

6 minutes ago, Selred said:

Doesn't mean he was found innocent.

I know.

Many times people are acquitted when they have committed the crime of which they are accused, far less frequently people are found guilty when they haven't done it.

He has not been found guilty of the offences so if you say that he has done them he could in theory sue you, but in reality wouldn't bother.

The UK criminal justice system is far from perfect, but it just about does the job.

8 minutes ago, gornagain said:

The jury did not find him not guilty.

That's a technicality, he wasn't found guilty.

I can't stand the bloke but his name has been dragged through the mud and his reputation ruined for accusations of which he has been found not guilty.

This trial reminds me of the Dave Lee Travis one.

Think he was a Yew Tree I love you? Think again.  He lost his house, his wealth and his career and the only crime of whch he was actually convicted was to walk up behind a researcher on The Mrs Merton Show and jiggle her tits.  Whilst that's not a good thing to do it hardly puts him into the Savile category.

In his own words after the original acquittals:

"I do not feel like there is a victory in any way, shape or form. On the contrary, I think you already know that I have been through a year-and-a-half of hell on this."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Lee_Travis

Revised plans have been submitted to allow  completion of the new stand in time for the start of the new season.

He will always have that special status for me as being part of the first Bristol City team I ever knew.

4 hours ago, phantom said:

What does this actually mean?

It means that someone has lied in order to get round Twitter's minimum age requirement of thirteen.

That looks like he knows the Premier League and has just guessed all the other divisions.

City and Preston for two are not remotely amongst the smallest six clubs in the Championship.

41 minutes ago, redkev said:

I had one gas head said to me the other day when discussing football matters 

well all city do is chuck money at it 

I then mentioned and what do you think Man City , Man Utd , Liverpool , Arsenal do need I go on 

by the way we also have a quality academy so we’re not just chucking money at it , then out come the word 82ers ffs can’t they get over it , by the way this lad was no older than about 35 makes even more of a joke about the 82ers he wasn’t even born 

 

I actually think that we ought to embrace 1982 to the extent of having it as a second date on the club badge.

I wasn't old enough to really appreciate it at the time but the huge amount of work and cash put in by the rescue team and the supporters plus the actions of the Ashton Gate Eight should be celebrated IMO as 1982 was the year when the club could have died but through the actions of several incredibly hard working individuals, eight players ripping up their contracts, and many thousands of fans reaching into their pockets to buy shares and make donations it survived and has become the biggest and best club in the South West when it could so easily have folded.

Thank you all the people who in 1982 contributed to the rebirth of our club.

19 minutes ago, Miah Dennehy said:

Okay, here's a question for you. Do you know what rhetorical means?

I take it that that's a rhetorical question.

22 minutes ago, Nogbad the Bad said:

What did it say?

 

In a fairly bizarre philosophical leap some of the more demented posters on their forum are now spinning this signing of a violent convicted criminal as an altruistic act by St Joey of Barton who has actually signed him with the primary purpose of reforming and redeeming him, and is in a position to do this as he understands him given that his own charge sheet is as long as his arm.

They have gone so far beyond the pale now that even Lee Power-era Swindon fans will be appalled.

And as we all know, a fish rots from the head.

Not such a nice man after all.

This is so unlike Rovers.

Here they were celebrating a multiple woman murderer in 2017.

And then the usual suspects finding some way of justifying it.

https://gasheads.org/thread/6925/fred-west

https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-rovers-fan-accused-taking-790420

12 hours ago, BS4 on Tour... said:

Hi all, well, obviously I’ve got to highlight the first line of the (apparent) Dover Athletic statement: “Following the news today of Ade Shokunbi we had agreed in principal” ... PRINCIPAL?! Principal? - good grief, how standards have dropped (it’s “principle”)

Lots of gen x / millennials are running digital outputs for multiple organisations and media outlets and the results are disastrous - just look at the ‘running threads’ at the bottom of the screen on channels such as Sky News, GB News, Talk TV etc - they are full of spelling and grammatical errors that can be appropriately deemed pathetic in the modern world of spell checker etc.

My dear old Dad was a much respected journalist back in the days when they were old school and actually left their desks to get out in the world to find stories on which to report. He was on first name terms with the likes of Morecambe & Wise, Norman Wisdom etc (look it up kids!) yet he left the profession in disgust in the 1980s saying “standards have dropped so far, I no longer want to be part of this” - he was ahead of his time as everything has seemed to plummet since - eg “we had agreed in principal” - Principal? Principle?

Those who ridicule and think this is all trivial are merely contributing to the massive downturn in basic standards. It ain’t important to many, but it is to me ... cheers

Spot on.

I don't pick people up on forums for errors as they are not acting in a professional capacity but I frequently see absolute howlers in online press stories; including within headlines.

There is no excuse for not proof reading such stories, one recent headline spoke of "causalities" after an accident.

This was presumably proffered by the autocorrect spelling after a mistyping, we all do it, but to not realise that it is a different word is shocking.

7 minutes ago, petehinton said:

Is a big if, but if he joins them then Christ they’re really pushing themselves close to the edge financially I’d imagine. They were over budget last year as it is, and the players they seem to want to bring in will be on far far more than most of last years squad. 
 

They’ve clearly thought fucknit let’s try and go for it, but with no real footballing brain behind them or structure in place it’s a hell of a risk if it doesn’t pay off (which inevitably, it probably won’t). Clubs have their own echo chambers of course, but their business/squad is still way off a fair few others in league one. 

Steve Lansdown however let himself be drawn into the hype surrounding Gary Johnson's promotion push and kept throwing money at it, culminating in losing to Hull in the play off final.

He admitted in interview to feeling "a bit silly" because he had blown £50m on this and it hadn't worked out. 

Sometimes owners lose the sense they were born with when they have a very persuasive manager of chief executive telling them that promotion's in the bag if they just spend "another few million".  And another few million.  And another few million.

The amount of money that Wael's shovelling towards Barton for players and employing his mates as staff (former taxi driver Peter Johnson should have been our "you're joking" moment) shows that Joey Barton seems to be Wael's cause for being "a bit silly".

I know that Wael is wealthy but I don't think that he's that wealthy, and promotion to the Championship just means that the annual loss jumps up rather than suddenly leaping into profit

I can them being up for sale again within five years.  Though I'm not saying that we won't be as well if the ITK people are correct. 

36 minutes ago, cityal said:

Clearly Vardy is past his best years, but I suspect he will be more than decent in the championship (assuming he stays with Leicester or moves to another Championship club)

I suspect wages would be an issue for us even if he lowered his current demands - I'd also imagine there are some at our club (and some fans) that don't want the complete circus this would bring.

I think like Michael Owen, Vardy was all about his blistering acceleration and now that he has lost that extra yard which made him special he's no longer a star striker.

He can still do a job as he has the eye for goal and a good shot on him but without that burst of speed the big money he will want will not be worth paying, even if we could.

Which we can't.

And of course there was Zach Clough.

Or rather his dad.

A month into the 2015–16 season, Clough dislocated his other shoulder and ruled him out for 3 months. In January 2016, a number of clubs including Everton ^[13] and Bristol City were interested in signing Clough. Bristol City had a £3,000,000 bid accepted however, Clough said that he wished to stay at Bolton so turned down his contract offer.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zach_Clough

37 minutes ago, James54De said:

Ticket prices across other entertainment sectors increase in relation to inflation. 

Yes, my point was that there is no reason for them to do so.

It is an easy and obvious course to take as long as your consumers will continue to swallow the increase.

I worked somehwere in the 2000s where the standard contract was for an RPI increase in pay every year.  After five years I was on over £10k more than my equivalent at a similar company despite the jobs having started at the same point.  The RPI increase was ceased.

Despite the RPI increase being dropped I continued to work there for several years and also did most others.

When a company notes that they have increased their prices by inflation you should question whether it was reasonable for them to have done so rather than assuming that that is the norm and continuing to buy their product.

2 hours ago, James54De said:

Inflation rate from £140 would be £154. £170 would be £188. No reason for the club to go above that. Certainly wouldn’t expect club to go below that. 

If annual inflation was negative, as it was in 2009, would you expect the club to reduce the price accordingly?

Probably not.

The current high inflation is mostly on energy and food.

The main costs for Robins TV will be salaries which haven't gone up by 10%, NMW being an obvious exception.

They can, of course, put the price up by as much as they wish but the aim will be to maximize revenue which comes from hitting the sweet spot on the demand curve.

I would hope that the club are more sophisticated in their sales analysis than to routinely apply general inflation to prices.

I recently dealt with setting rates on the hire.of a big meeting space which were last set five years ago.

In that time competition has increased for hourly hire but decreased for full day hire so we cut the hourly hire rate and increased the daily. We will then monitor outcomes to see if those decisions were correct and change them if not.

Please stop starting new threads @shahanshahan as I have to keep ignoring them.

Just have one women's England team thread as you do one women's Bristol City team thread and put them all on that one.

I wouldn't say that you are the only one interested in this but it often seems like it.

Don't bother to reply as I am just about to Ignore this thread as I have to do for all of your threads and AFAIK there is no Unignore function so I won't see it.

9 minutes ago, Monkeh said:

Yes, a player can turn down a contract or even refuse to talk to a club

Why then do most of the Rovers' new signings look like someone is pointing a gun at them off camera to make them hold up the shirt?

It's an expensive hobby owning a football club.

At least FFP stops the sums thrown away annually from being utterly mental and destroying the club.

Bradford City have never recovered from Geoffrey Richmond's reckless spending to buy their way into the Premier League.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradford_City_A.F.C.