Eddie Hitler

5 minutes ago, Kid in the Riot said:

You mean like the right wing media fanning the flames of culture war non-issues like Nike designing a cross in different colours, whilst in the same week it being announced that the UK now has 12 million people in absolute poverty including 3.6 million children?

You have to hand it to them, tragically it works....

The strongest objection I read to that was by Kier Starmer of all people.

I think he was going for a "man of the people" image.

Personally I was outraged by the sheer profiteering by the FA and Nike in charging £120 for a polyester top.

That should have been enough on its own to trigger a boycott.

What do these cost to make? Probably less than a fiver.

The "reward' used to be membership of the London branch of the Supporters Club, of which I was a member.

By the time I joined, mid 90s, I had the impression that the perks had mostly fallen away but you met up with people to travel and had entry to the Supporters Bar at Ashton Gate.

It was also a great way of hearing what was happening at the club in the days before internet forums (Rob Fernandez / @Olé's Net Centre starting about 1998) and without spending half your salary on calling Team talk only to hear that nothing had occurred.

This might still be going, it's a very long time since I lived in London.

This was however run by the fans rather than the club, the club does perks for membership and season ticket holders which is about all it has ever done AFAIK.

48 minutes ago, richwwtk said:

If you are referring to SL's time in charge overall I don't think you could be more wrong.

You have @Barrs Court Red 's list a few posts up, all things that have happened over the last 21 years as a result of multiple (mainly business) decisions that have been made by SL.

Your list on the OP is a list of individual decisions that were either obvious mistakes at the time or turned out to be mistakes with hindsight, but I do not believe for a second any of them were made with anything but the best intentions for the club. There are also some things listed that are either debatable or simply wrong.

Overall though, the positives have to outweigh the negatives simply because the club is in a better position now than when he took over.

Of course you can point to clubs that have overtaken us in that time, but the fact that our average league position these days is higher than it was then means there are a larger number of clubs that we have overtaken ourselves.

Things aren't great right now, but in my opinion they are nowhere near as bad as the overwhelming mood in here seems to be. We are frustratingly inconsistent, and certainly poor at breaking obstinate sides down, but we are also capable of being very good on our day and Manning may yet find the key to that happening on a more regular basis albeit a poor run to the end of the season would see him sacked I would think.

Yes.

Whilst we may all think that the club should be doing better that isn't the same as saying that the club is doing terribly.

This isn't to say that people should lower their sights, no, dream away, but don't say that we are doing badly when we really are not.

The infrastructure is of course excellent, and it's almost a cliché to say that, but also the Academy produces excellent players, we can attract in decent players, and a series of disasters excepted we look no more like dropping into Division 3 than we have for the last few seasons.

If it was a school report it would be:

"Has done okay, but can do better".

13 hours ago, Lrrr said:

Steve Evans? Comparative age to Warnock at least...

Now you're talking!

(Joke!)

10 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

I agree with the sentiments.

I think it was @ollywhyte who said Plymouth owner was realising that being wonderfully run in Lg1 becomes a different kettle of fish / financial burden in the Championship.

Simon Hallett, well intentioned chap. He was allowed to buy a stake by Martin Brent to make sure that he looked like a reasonable person to be owner and after a year or so Brent sold him the rest of the shares.

Brent was almost a reluctant owner who took over when Plymouth was in one of its regular going bust phases with the promise to return it to financial stability which he absolutely did and had them turning a small profit.

Hallett also looked sensible and did the right things but then promotion to the Championship happened and all the costs went up, then he realised that he was rich enough to underwrite a league 1 club, but not a championship club for which realistically you need to have in the hundreds of millions.

6 minutes ago, BrizzleRed said:

What baffles me is, even if it turns out that Hargreaves was the real brains behind Hargreaves Lansdown, SL can’t be daft.

They clearly made a good team.

I have noted that I find SL to be ridiculously stubborn but if you're stubborn over the right things then that's a good thing.

Here his stubborness manifests himself in denying the obvious because the fans are calling for it and he refuses to back down, e.g. LJ being retained well past his sell by date.

20 minutes ago, W-S-M Seagull said:

That's a symptom of having owners who are not present in this country.

We basically have people at this club who act as if it is their club and do as they please because they want to be the one who wants to take credit from the man at the top. 

The club is rotten from the core. 

The politics that go on at Bristol City/Bristol Sport would put the Conservative party to shame. 

The club is very bizarre and that's as much as I'm willing to say on that.

 

That is though the position of most non-Premiership and quite a few Premiership clubs though.

I know that Exeter is owned by a fans trust so I wondered what their finances were looking like.

Not bad at all is the answer.  Clubs don't have to be run at a stonking loss if they are well run.

Columns are the latest accounts, to 30 June 2022 and then 2021:

Profit (no debt interest!)

Balance sheet:

Oh yes, for in its every life the ageing phoenix has to die in order to be reborn.

1 hour ago, beaverface said:

I can categorically say that I am NOT suggesting the Lansdown's heart hasn't been in it, because I think they have put a lot of time, effort and money into the club, I just feel they're just losing their sense of direction nowadays and aren't reading the room any more.

I'm merely commenting on Scott Davidson's previously putting his heart into the roll. Please don't infer it any other way.

The problem is that outside of the top premiership clubs who make money football clubs aren't comparable to other PLCs with vast numbers of shareholders and independent board members because they are hugely loss making and rely upon a single large shareholder putting ?£10m a year in, or whatever, to keep them solvent.

If I owned a club and it was personally financing it to that degree then I wouldn't be giving other board members the power to overrule me.

The ideal is probably a Scott Davison type Chairman bringing in, as he did, wealthy individuals as shareholders and directors to fund the club and make decisions collectively.

SL has said he is open to new investors coming in so maybe that will happen and SL will take the Scott Davison role, until then he's paying for everything so he's going to make the decisions.

I would do that, anyone would do that.

12 minutes ago, Bristol Oil Services said:

Reading? Writing? Arithmetic? Paper machè? Show and tell? Show me your's, I'll show you mine? 

Miss, he's at it again!

14 minutes ago, Numero Uno said:

As far as I'm concerned his own actions have proven (to me anyway) beyond all reasonable doubt that he has been grossly over-promoted to his current role. As a result, yes, I want to see him relieved of those duties. I don't know whether he has a mortgage or not, in terms of whether he should be running the football operation of the club I buy a season ticket for, that really isn't a concern of mine tbf. In the same way that when the club increase season ticket prices nobody rings fans up asking whether they have a mortgage and what effect a season ticket price hike will have on that.

Which is a perfectly valid, and I would say nuanced viewpoint.

If only more posts were as thoughtful.

12 minutes ago, Numero Uno said:

Our lads were on the piss Saturday evening and the manager of the football operation at the club is................apart from stabbing a couple in the back then picking his own man who is boring most of the fanbase who pay to watch his shite into submission, what has this "ruthless" bloke actually achieved ABOVE academy level?

I know this isn't strict forum etiquette here but it is possible to hold a nuanced view of somebody rather than opting for the usual binary hate / love opposition.

I think that Tinnion has done good work at the Academy and is therefore not automatically some useless Machiavellian schemer who wants sacking because of "what he done to our Nige" and that we should be mounting a hate campaign to see him ousted.

This is a normal bloke with a job and a mortgage who was being cheered as the best thing since sliced bread not so long ago after an earlier spot on SOTC discussing the Academy and how it worked with NP, and is now apparently the devil incarnate who is trying to destroy our club from within.  Maybe he is neither.

On another thread I pointed out the source of a term that Joey Barton had used and then I had one poster trying to start a huge row with me as he was delighted, in his mind, to have found a Barton-supporter with whom he could have a row.  That I actually can't stand the lying violent criminal clearly hadn't entered his mind, I had posted something that was not entirely and unequivocally critical of Barton and therefore I must be a fan of his.

It's schoolroom stuff.

26 minutes ago, TV Tom said:

That's ignorance beyond belief 

I don't know, I heard a radio comedy one time where a running joke was that the Scots character was an active supporter of Dundee, and hated Dundee United.  Or vice versa, I genuinely forget.

How many English people would know anything about either club and be able to differentiate between them?  I think one of them plays in orange but that's my knowledge exhausted.

1 hour ago, Fuber said:

I've pointed out on a separate thread that Tinnion was mostly in charge of literally academy recruitment, and that's it, even then none of the players coming through now - Conway, Bell, Palmer-Houlden, were recruited by him. We won't see the impact of Tinnions running of the academy until more players break into the team, but aside from the likes of Knight-Lebel many don't seem to be progressing or given a chance under Manning like they would under Pearson (who played the likes of Taylor-Clarke and Yeboah) due to the U18 Cup fiasco.

Horseman, Probert, and Davenport were mostly in charge of their development, with the former credited by Reid and Bryan in their development.

Scott's signing (per the announcement on the club website) was spearheaded by Probert, not Tinnion who by that stage was splitting duties between youth and his role as loan manager, and was orchestrated on a tip of from Vance to the club via SL. As for Semenyo, by 2017, at some stage, recruitment was being split between Tinnion and Damian Butt (Head of Academy Recruitment) - https://www.bcfc.co.uk/news/semenyo-signed-up-from-sgs/

Those links with SGS, Guernsey - will remain even if Tinnions leaves.

Add to that the manner of Pearsons sacking - which others have pointed out has Tinnions fingerprints all over it, and based on Tinnions role in ST Promotional material - the exact kind of thing we'd slate Ashton for, sorry I want him gone.

He's grabbing too far - one person should not be capable nor in charge of the Academy (Director), Loan Manager, and Technical (a word he can't even spell in this LinkedIn profile) Director, all at the same time.

Out of reps, but a big hat tip to your detailed knowledge of how the Academy works.

What I would say is that whilst an organisation becomes good from having talented individuals it requires good management in order to empower and encourage those individuals to shine.

The Academy has done well under Tinnion's management and that Academy stars individually credit particular individuals with most contributing to their development that doesn't take away that he has been in overall charge and so empowering and encouraging those individual successes to happen.

That doesn't make him the best thing since sliced bread but it is to his credit.

I also don't mind that he has a ruthless edge to him.  Danny Wilson was an all round nice man and his team reacted by spending their evenings out on the piss and then failing to win through the play-offs.

9 minutes ago, Galley is our king said:

Shocking downhill slide since Pearson sacking.

If it was right to sack him, then it follows it MUST be right to sack Tinnion and Manning....sooner rather than later!

Tinnion is doing a good job at the Academy IMHO. I can see why he receives some criticism but calling for his sacking is a wild overreaction.

The results since NP left do however make a mockery of the stated reason for sacking NP and appointing Manning: that NP wasn't getting enough out of the players and that bringing in Manning would mean a much better final league position.

This aim has blatantly failed.

What is the Board's response?

Is it "Oh well." perchance?

1 minute ago, Kingswood Robin said:

I saw them beat us at Wembley. They last made the FA Cup 6th round in 1969. Beat Leeds over two matches in the cup (we always bang on about that). Put Rovers out of the league.

Given they are a pin ***** of a club compared to us, they've done quite well.

I'm giving up now 

5 minutes ago, Kingswood Robin said:

1 divisional title in 69 years, 5 promotions since 1976, last FA cup 6th round appearance in 1974 and a run in the league cup about once every 25 years. Can we point fingers?

Those Man City and Man Utd cup games we had are exciting by anyone's standards.

What have Mansfield fans had to cheer about?

(Cue @Kid in the Riot telling me that they won the European Cup last year!)

15 minutes ago, Kid in the Riot said:

Rotherham have won promotion five times since 2013. 

That's rather sneaky of them!

They used to be famous for not being promoted.

2 minutes ago, ExiledAjax said:

We're pretty close. I'd say we're almost certainly the dullest club in the top 2 divisions.

Personally I believe this because 99% of the time when I'm asked who I support, and I say "Bristol City" I'm met with silence. A blank face. An "oh right...where are you this season?". Unless the person I'm speaking to is particularly versed in the travails of EFL clubs they just have nothing to say. 

I just find that other fans of football just have...nothing to say about this club. We're not hated, we're not respected, our stadium isn't famous, we've very few nationally notable ex-players, we're neither remembered or loved.

Yes, I worked in London with an older woman who was very into her football.

She could never remember whether I supported Bristol City or Rovers because she knew nothing about either team, from shirt colours down.

I was surprised by this but as we are way out west and have had little national impact then maybe I should not have been.

She was always very nice about it and didn't ever have a go, but genuinely could not differentiate between the two Bristol clubs.

Surely the dull teams are those who are rarely promoted or have any cup runs.

Teams like Mansfield, Rotherham, Chester City / Chester.

4 minutes ago, ExiledAjax said:

My gut expectations would be that Steve is looking to sell everything or 20%.

Or, like Plymouth, sell 20% and then, after assessing the new investor for a couple of years, sell the remaining shares if satisfied that the club is in good hands.

Though that said Simon Hallet seems to have hit the financial reality of funding a second division club as compared to a third division one.

Or back in the 1950s and before, when computers weren't setting the fixtures and football was a cheap weekend entertainment for working people such that some would hold a season ticket for both City and Rovers so as to be confident of having a game to watch every Saturday.

2 minutes ago, The Dolman Pragmatist said:

They got about a third of the way across the pitch and realised the match hadn’t finished and looked at each other in total confusion, then turned round and tried to run away.

Was this the young lads or our midfield?

17 minutes ago, Fjmcity said:

pisses me off that they won’t do this though, can’t fathom it

My opinion is that it's Steve Lansdown stubborn streak which has served him so well in business which keeps raising its head.

Lee Johnson should have gone far before he did but Steve wouldn't do this primarily IMHO because there was a load of fans demanding he be given the push and SL thought it showed strength of charcater to refuse to bow to that pressure, when in actual fact it showed that he was reacting adversely to that pressure by not sacking LJ despite his turning in a terrible overall record with massive resources at his disposal, resources that NP and SC would have turned into promotion if given the chance.

Acting illogically - either by bowing to pressure or refusing to bow to pressue - is not a good trait.

Nor is sayng "it's my club".

I still like the ownership but they need to up their game.  And by that I don't mean just spend more money.

9 hours ago, Mr Popodopolous said:

Trying to work out what ownership model would be best for us.

I like our current ownership but they need a wise old head directing football matters as the owners are no better at this than I would be.

Neil Warnock or Roy Hodgson maybe.

Not some bullshitting suit like last time but we need somebody.