Here's A Thought

[newboy]

Not in a direct sense, no: that would be a simplistic misinterpretation of what I was trying to say. Of course I wasn't suggesting the players, individually or collectively, cross the white line on a Saturday afternoon with their minds elsewhere, worrying about the town green controversy. That would be absurd.

I was talking about something more subtle, but at the same time very real and actually quite powerful, which is rooted in, if you like, the psychology of the situation; or just call it sentiment if you prefer. As we all know, this club has had not one but a succession of kicks in the teeth in a very short time: Sainsburys; Coppell; town green; bottom of the table. Sentiment can have a discernable effect on far more important things in life than the fortunes of a mere football club. (It can sway financial markets and potentially cause economic meltdown, for example. The short term fluctuations in share values on a daily basis has very little to do with the underlying investments and the profitability of the companies themselves, and more to do with how positive people feel - an abstract and unmeasureable factor, but one you ignore at your peril, as anyone who's ever lost money can tell you). It is an influence that permeates all organisations, large or small, for better or worse. I could write a book on morale in the NHS, for instance, and how it affects performance, having spent over a quarter of a century working in it.

One thing the club desperately needs now, and by that I mean evereyone from the groundsman, through executives and players to the fanbase, is a lifting of the spirits which, rather like Steve Coppell's mood, are unquestionably depressed at the moment. Stadium matters and match results are on one level totally unconnected. But I do believe that a breakthrough in any one of the major issues affecting the future of the club would be likely to have a positive impact in other areas. To try to picture a possible scenario: some time between nopw and Christmas, Sainsburys' application is approved and town green status is rejected by the Council. Good news at last and huge relief! The chairman, board and executives are delighted, as are most fans. Chairman takes to pitch with microphone (again) before home match and gives rousing speech about his vision for the future of the club. Fired up crowd responds rousingly to players' efforts, etc.etc.

OK, OK, I know I'm hamming it up a bit for effect, but there is a serious point here, and I remain unrepentant in my view that the outcome of these planning issues will determine the long-term health of this club long after the next half dozen results, and possibly even whether we are relegated or not this season, are completely forgotten. I may exaggerate in the interest of trying to press my argument, but I can assure you I am not in the least philosophical about the possibility of going down. No fan is, or could be, and anyone who thinks I lack passion on that score doesn't know me, but at the risk of sounding like a stuck record, there is more at stake.

Those of us opposed to the dismissal of Millen at the moment are not daft. I consider myself a realist and I know if this losing streak continues much longer he'll inevitably have to go. But it will be a solution of last resort and I still back SL's decision to give him as long as he thinks he can, which my guess would be, along with some others here, until about early December at the latest, so that if a new man must be found, we have time to get him in place in time to assess the squad before the January window. In the meantime, you can if you like dispute my use of the word 'screaming' to characterise the calls for Millen's sacking, but whatever you call it, it has risen and continues to rise to a considerable clamour and I remain of the view that it is (a) premature and unhelpful, and (b) a dangerous distraction from another battle, the outcome of which will continue to affect the club's fortunes to a point in the future when I'll be dead and buried and nobody will remember who the hell Keith Millen was.

I rest my case.

To this day, I still find it amazing that the form of professional footballers, and sports people in general can be affected so much by confidence. You'd think that if your sole job was to kick a ball at the right time in the right place that after a few years it would become an automatic reflex and that you'd get a base level of confidence/proficiency. And yet people like Michael Owen are influenced so much by what's going on around them and previous displays.

So it's not hard to believe that turmoil at the club at many levels isn't ultimately going to affect on-pitch performers. I would argue however that a good manager could and should turn off-pitch turmoil to their advantage by creating a siege mentality. No evidence of that so far.

[CliftonCliff]

To this day, I still find it amazing that the form of professional footballers, and sports people in general can be affected so much by confidence. You'd think that if your sole job was to kick a ball at the right time in the right place that after a few years it would become an automatic reflex and that you'd get a base level of confidence/proficiency. And yet people like Michael Owen are influenced so much by what's going on around them and previous displays.

So it's not hard to believe that turmoil at the club at many levels isn't ultimately going to affect on-pitch performers. I would argue however that a good manager could and should turn off-pitch turmoil to their advantage by creating a siege mentality. No evidence of that so far.

I accept that as fair comment, on both scores. Yes, the game is played with the feet, but the outcome of matches is primarily determined by what happens between the ears. And KM does need to find a way of translating adversity into a basis for motivation.

[Nogbad the Bad]

Not in a direct sense, no: that would be a simplistic misinterpretation of what I was trying to say. Of course I wasn't suggesting the players, individually or collectively, cross the white line on a Saturday afternoon with their minds elsewhere, worrying about the town green controversy. That would be absurd.

I was talking about something more subtle, but at the same time very real and actually quite powerful, which is rooted in, if you like, the psychology of the situation; or just call it sentiment if you prefer. As we all know, this club has had not one but a succession of kicks in the teeth in a very short time: Sainsburys; Coppell; town green; bottom of the table. Sentiment can have a discernable effect on far more important things in life than the fortunes of a mere football club. (It can sway financial markets and potentially cause economic meltdown, for example. The short term fluctuations in share values on a daily basis has very little to do with the underlying investments and the profitability of the companies themselves, and more to do with how positive people feel - an abstract and unmeasureable factor, but one you ignore at your peril, as anyone who's ever lost money can tell you). It is an influence that permeates all organisations, large or small, for better or worse. I could write a book on morale in the NHS, for instance, and how it affects performance, having spent over a quarter of a century working in it.

Simplicity is not always a bad or absurd thing. Footballers, in the main, are not the most sensitive of souls. It looks to me as though you are in danger of over analysing the psychological aspect to our problems, perhaps inevitably due to your former career. On the pitch we need to stay up and to do that I believe we need a more capable and inspirational leader. Off the pitch the stadium decisions are out of our hands and short of signing petitions we are not going to influence the outcome so we are fairly impotent. One aspect of the club doesn't really affect the other. I take on board all your points but unless you are actively looking for deeper psychological issues, it's really not any more complicated than that, surely?

One thing the club desperately needs now, and by that I mean evereyone from the groundsman, through executives and players to the fanbase, is a lifting of the spirits which, rather like Steve Coppell's mood, are unquestionably depressed at the moment. Stadium matters and match results are on one level totally unconnected. But I do believe that a breakthrough in any one of the major issues affecting the future of the club would be likely to have a positive impact in other areas. To try to picture a possible scenario: some time between now and Christmas, Sainsburys' application is approved and town green status is rejected by the Council. Good news at last and huge relief! The chairman, board and executives are delighted, as are most fans. Chairman takes to pitch with microphone (again) before home match and gives rousing speech about his vision for the future of the club. Fired up crowd responds rousingly to players' efforts, etc.etc.

OK, OK, I know I'm hamming it up a bit for effect, but there is a serious point here, and I remain unrepentant in my view that the outcome of these planning issues will determine the long-term health of this club long after the next half dozen results, and possibly even whether we are relegated or not this season, are completely forgotten. I may exaggerate in the interest of trying to press my argument, but I can assure you I am not in the least philosophical about the possibility of going down. No fan is, or could be, and anyone who thinks I lack passion on that score doesn't know me, but at the risk of sounding like a stuck record, there is more at stake.

The club must be sustainable even if we are forced to stay at AG. If not, we are overspending, perhap dangerously, and I seem to remember a promise to us fans post '82 that such profligacy would never be allowed to happen again. I've said before and I'll say again, historically mid table Championship with an eye on the play offs is City's optimum position in the league structure and we should never overstretch the club reaching for more. No one has ever convinced me that we cannot achieve sustainable Championship respectability at AG should the decisions about AV go against us. The fees and wages for players like Styvar, Stewart and Hunt shouts at me that we are an extremely wasteful club compared to many of our rivals, and that, of course, would have to stop.

Those of us opposed to the dismissal of Millen at the moment are not daft. I consider myself a realist and I know if this losing streak continues much longer he'll inevitably have to go. But it will be a solution of last resort and I still back SL's decision to give him as long as he thinks he can, which my guess would be, along with some others here, until about early December at the latest, so that if a new man must be found, we have time to get him in place in time to assess the squad before the January window. In the meantime, you can if you like dispute my use of the word 'screaming' to characterise the calls for Millen's sacking, but whatever you call it, it has risen and continues to rise to a considerable clamour and I remain of the view that it is (a) premature and unhelpful, and (b) a dangerous distraction from another battle, the outcome of which will continue to affect the club's fortunes to a point in the future when I'll be dead and buried and nobody will remember who the hell Keith Millen was.

I don't agree with your conclusion that fans wanting a change in manager is unhelpful/a dangerous distraction from another (more important) battle. It could equally be said that the real danger would come from not voicing natural concerns about continuous on pitch disasters until such a time that our position is beyond salvageable. Week after week desperately poor performances are leaving the fans deflated and there is absolutely no relief on the horizon. When the fans are so despondent and frustrated that many have already given up watching the club at all it hardly matters which ground they are NOT going to turn up to. Getting it right on the pitch is the absolute priority and getting the right manager in is something that is within the club's power to facilitate this.

You can't expect fans to look at the very long term, after they are six foot under themselves even, as the priority. What the average the fan cares most about is enjoying their visits to AG and seeing an exciting game of professional football and this is the same whichever division, or ground, we are in. For far too long it simply hasn't been enjoyable traipsing down to AG and even less so shuffling home again after another defeat. The basics have to be right - the club needs to provide attractive fayre on the pitch and the crowd want to be part of an uplifting experience on their expensive visit to support their club. Intrinsically, it makes very little difference to the average fan whether SL pushes through the new stadium or not. We may, or may not, be able to achieve Premier League football sustainably without it, but, believe it or not, the Premier League is not the be all and end all for everybody either. What is vital is that under his tenure SL ensures there will still be a local club for future generations to watch in BS3 or thereabouts and that attempts to push us further than our natural level never put the future of the club itself at risk.

I rest my case.

Added to that, if fortunes had been reversed on play off final day and we had gained promotion instead of Hull, is is not possible that we would still be a Premier League club to this day in our comparatively small but very vociferous ground?

Unlikely survivors, like Wigan, for instance, but with a far more intimidating home atmosphere?

With the TV millions and the right manager, it is quite possible, isn't it?

I rest my case.

[CliftonCliff]

I rest my case.

That makes two of us, then. You can only debate so much. Let's wait and see how things turn out now, shall we? I'm all typed out.

[BrizzleRed]

Added to that, if fortunes had been reversed on play off final day and we had gained promotion instead of Hull, is is not possible that we would still be a Premier League club to this day in our comparatively small but very vociferous ground?

Unlikely survivors, like Wigan, for instance, but with a far more intimidating home atmosphere?

With the TV millions and the right manager, it is quite possible, isn't it?

I rest my case.

Sorry Nogbad I'm usually in agreement with most of your posts but the case is certainly not proven by using your example, as we'd probably have gone bankrupt trying to pay the inflated wages required in the Prem, with the limited income the Gate could bring with a 20k capacity.

Interesting you use Wigan as an example, as they get very poor support themselves, but they've got a new modern stadium with all it's non matchday benefits. To my mind this just proves you don't need big gates to be successful, just the bigger income generation a new stadium can bring, with the benefit of occasional big gates for the most attractive opposition.

In a perfect world I'd like to see us at an improved Ashton Gate, but that would cost us even more money and does anyone seriously believe the nimbys wouldn't try to get that option kicked out because of increased parking, traffic and pollution problems?

As the club have said, AV is our ONLY OPTION, so let's just get behind it and help push this club and the city of Bristol into the 21st century and stop living in the past.

[Guest Parson St Station]

Sorry Nogbad I'm usually in agreement with most of your posts but the case is certainly not proven by using your example, as we'd probably have gone bankrupt trying to pay the inflated wages required in the Prem, with the limited income the Gate could bring with a 20k capacity.

Interesting you use Wigan as an example, as they get very poor support themselves, but they've got a new modern stadium with all it's non matchday benefits. To my mind this just proves you don't need big gates to be successful, just the bigger income generation a new stadium can bring, with the benefit of occasional big gates for the most attractive opposition.

In a perfect world I'd like to see us at an improved Ashton Gate, but that would cost us even more money and does anyone seriously believe the nimbys wouldn't try to get that option kicked out because of increased parking, traffic and pollution problems?

As the club have said, AV is our ONLY OPTION, so let's just get behind it and help push this club and the city of Bristol into the 21st century and stop living in the past.

Nail hit on head...why is it so hard for people to grasp that its not about 30,000 people once a fortnight but useage 300+ days of the year? 100 people in conference room, staying in hotel, eating and drinking in bar/restaurant. cost 150 quid per head.Thats 15k for one day,do that 4 times a week and thats 60k...that pays for 8 players wages.How much more basic do people have to get to understand why the new stadium must be built?

Add in Pink, Oasis and Arctic Monkeys playing gigs and the revenue is in the millions, please people see the big picture.If we get relegated, then that will suck.If we don't get a new stadium, then when SL decides he's had enough we will languish around at the same level as the gas until we go into admin, wither and die.

[lager loud]

Going down could be a 'bump in the road'?????

Good grief - it took us 9 years to get out of League One last time. If we go down we will be right back where we started when Lansdown took over - hardly progress.

Been away for a couple of days.

It might be a biggish bump in the road (and I'd prefer to avoid it) but we know we can get promotion from League 1 with current resources or less. I'm not sure we know we'd have any chance of surviving in the Premier League based at Ashton Gate.

As it happens, I'm one of those who doesn't get that excited about playing Premier League football, as I think the novelty of watching foreign players trying to get us to finish 17th would wear off after a season or two - if we lasted that long. But SL is definitely driven to get us to the Premier League - and my post was mostly about how he might see the two issues of relegation and not getting the new stadium.

Let's hope we don't have to find out how he reacts to either!