RedRock

I think Towler is near-ready for the Championship in his favoured position. A strong pre-season and he could be in contention for the first team squad. No way should we even consider helping The Sags after what the parasites did in ‘82 and in later years to Bristol Rugby.

Thought Towler’s performance today was mature, confident and classy. If he can maintain that level, more than worthy of a squad place for 2022/23. Our centre backs ain’t the problem we’ve loads of them, I’m more concerned about the wingbacks personally.

Decent performance from the 50 odd minutes I witnessed. Thought Towler was a step above the rest, commanding and assured with good distribution - although the defence looked a bit of a mess towards the end of the first half. He looked the most ‘oven-ready’ for the first team. Front two looked lively, glad to see Bell looked confident and sharp given Nige’s ‘experiment’ and, generally, good pacy attacking movement in our forward play. Never heard of Backwell, but thought he was more than sound in the minutes he had.

What I like is Nige clearly likes winners, fighters, consistency, building teams and partnerships. All player attributes/objectives missing from previous managers transfer target priorities. Despite my little ‘wobble’ last month it appears, at last, we have a proper football manager. Give him what he wants imo - subject to FFP limitations.

You’d have thought that someone by now would have invented a clothes rail with legs and wheels, so products can be moved around to fit different sports day match demand. If the business was that short-sighted not to have a storeroom nearby, would have thought bringing a shipping container into the car park to store products would have been cost effective. Given up with the commercial side of our operation. Ever since Beryl left its been worse than useless. Range, stock availability, display - all abysmal.

Are you watching Windass? Keep knocking them in City …. we owe them for that play-off final defeat.

Could be a great season for the West Country. Plymouth promoted to Champ. Forest Green and Exeter up to League 1. Cheltenham stay up in League 1. Sags remain languishing in Div 4 Basement.

Get in Exeter!{

While Man City/Real is compelling, more than half an eye on Division 4. Four home wins would do just fine!

Really interesting day on the trains that one. Outside the tube station post match the Police lined us up on opposite sides of the station, once we’d got through the barriers there was no separation and no police either. Pretty moody on the tube with Arsenal going up and down the carriages looking for us. Can’t remember whether it was going up or coming back we got ambushed on the platform with bricks coming over the top of stationary trains. It was definitely on the way back they got us at a bridge on the edge of London. Fortunately, I was leaning my head on the inside of the window which saved it from breaking but most of the windows went in on the following carriage causing an unscheduled train stop at Reading. What a day though.

Good memory! I must have been older than I thought - a problem that continues to the present day!

Several notable, the first ever for me was Swindon ‘69 possibly, was on the first of two specials. I was on the early one and remember leaning against some gates into the ground that gave way and everyone piled in, only to be chased out by police dogs. Some of the chaps on second special ransacked Swindon’s Marks and Spencer’s for some bizarre reason. Millwall were there - who we had played the previous week - but we had the Town End to ourselves. Wolves early 70’s was like Hospital train returning from The Somme on the way back. Did a Cardiff one and some others as well. Good fun generally, especially arriving at the away destination.

Living as a kid on the ‘front line’ in North West Bristol, the majority of mates were Sags, several of whom were ball boys at Eastville. Most tried to convince me at one stage or other to cross to the dark side. Don’t know how, but one Saturday they persuaded me to ballboy at the Dog Track. It was against Reading. Still receiving therapy.

Saw that Richard Scudamore was with SL yesterday. That would be a good appointment as Executive Chairman, to help share the burden with Jon. Family Lansdown - Scudamore - Gould - Pearson. Not a bad off- the -field set up. Almost Premier League I’d say. Just need to tweak the coaching with a bit of top quality/experience and sort the recruitment out. Then, with the infrastructure we have in place, there would be few better positioned Clubs in the Championship. Merely the players to sort then, aside from FFP.

Back in the day, there were unwritten rules. While far from total observance, most complied. Never forget getting on a train at Newton Abbot heading to Plymouth. Loads of our ‘lads’ on board noisy, well-lubricated and already ‘well up for it’. Mother with young child around 4 years of age in seats both clearly frightened by the numerous characters in close proximity. One of our lads then started a conversation with said child who immediately was put at ease. How it should be.

Bless. Maybe those Ipswich fans who thought we were bitter at the loss of Ashton and his mates may think differently now. Suspect though it may take another season or so. Dry those tears at our ‘loss’ fellow reds.

We just don’t seem to play intense, fast rugby anymore. Sale much quicker into the mauls and quicker in thought too.

Well done City. Never had any doubts we’d survive to strut our stuff in next Season’s Championship (at least after the 90+2 minute).

What. A. Game.

We’re passively submissive, we’re just like that product in the old Honda advert we do just enough to be ‘ok’. Well, just ‘ok’ is not good enough. The rest of the Championship are raising their game. Power, pace, leaders, winners. So, we can just continue doing things the same old way. Funny thing is though in sport you make the same input and tend to get the same output. So… change things. Develop some winners. You never know winning something might just give the players a desire to keep on winning. Being the best. Nah, Bristol is too nice a place to be ruthless and develop winners. No wonder our team is full of ‘good humans’ who roll over when faced with the likes of the Millwalls of this world.

Watched the last 20 minutes. Reflects where we are as a Club. Second best to Mark ****** Ashton’s Ipswich. If we want to breed winners, embed the winning mentality in the Club from the earliest ages. Don’t accept just ‘ok’, don’t accept losers. For decades that’s what we’ve done and our current first team is the product of that mentality. I would have put the strongest possible Under-23 side out, including first teamers. With the message win every match and pick up the trophy. So, first big opportunity for addressing the passiveness and missed. Sort it out management.

Previously you could have said training facilities - now you can’t. I’m with Jon, the staff and players are massively underperforming. They’ve run out of excuses. The staffing structure and the players need changing.

Brilliant football manager. Some dark arts, but renowned for teams of winners, leaders and fighters. Some culture shift from Ashton’s failed teams of ‘good humans’. Regrettably, not a manager of a sort that our Owners, or indeed, majority of supporters would have accepted. An opportunity lost imo, as I’m sure he would have relished the opportunity to bring this comatose Club to life again. Pretty sure he would have succeeded too. Hope he has a long and happy retirement, though wouldn’t be surprised for someone to entice him back.

Is that you Steve? I think possibly Steve would have chosen Robins in preference to LJ in the first place. Just a pity LJ convinced him and Jon that he was going to be the next Pep and they took the bait ( as others did). Pretty sure from the ‘World Class field’, Robins would have been Steve’s choice after LJ departed. We, I suspect, have Ashton to blame for Holden as it allowed him to continue his role unfettered.

You haven’t mentioned CoD! So, progress. For me, CoDs time with us just sums up our entire situation/operation and why we are in an absolute cluster**** of a hole. On your more general point though, I agree. Don’t think I can deal with another season of the same faces, making the same mistakes, the same attitudes, the same injuries, the same inconsistencies while a new manager assesses his squad. Is the grass any greener on the other side? Possibly not, and you can point to Pearson’s appointments off and on the pitch and say, at best, they’ve made bugger all difference. The likes of Simpson, King have made us worse. Counter-argument would be how many ‘fresh slates’ do our players want? They’ve seen off LJ, Holden, Simpson and nearly Pearson. I’ve reached the stage of roll-the-dice, I’m past watching the same old players churn out the same old performances.