Steve Landsdown

[bcfcbs20]

where did the money come from to bring in spence and mcgiven on loan?

Where did the money come from for all the loans and foster come from?

where did the money come from to fund kilkenny wages come from?

he spent money but told we had to reduce the wage bill somthing millen coudn't do but McInnes has managed

We needed a centre half a left winger and a creative atk midfileder we did'nt get any of them Spence has hardly played Mcgivern was ok to start with but has got worse and worse as the season has gone on. The least said about Killkenny the better he was our marque signing and has 1 good game every 10 simply not good enough that is why we are in a mess now. Foster, Pearson, Wood, Bikey etc.... to little too late im afraid.

[Frome Valley]

joke of a thread,

without lansdown we wouldn't even be in the championship we'd probbily be down in league two with the gas

Simple as that

BCFC's income prior to Steve Lansdown was enough to sustain a team in league one and the lower end of the championship. The club was also largely owned by its supporters and financially was sound, it is neither now. Clubs have achieved far more in this division spending less than BCFC "may" do to get relegated.

[Andy082005]

It seems everyone wants to blame anyone but themselves. The people responsible for this mess are the players and the fans. The club was doing nicely with GJ, OK the football wasn`t Barcelona, but we were becoming an established Championship team.

The Players and the fans got him sacked which was the catalyst for SL stepping down as Chairman and the slide to where we are now.

Its as simple as that.

.....utter drivel my friend. Utter drivel

[Dolman Block B]

joke of a thread,

without lansdown we wouldn't even be in the championship we'd probbily be down in league two with the gas

Simple as that

Spot on that

Lansdown has put everything into our club

Anyone who finds time to slate h needs shagging

[woodle]

The important thing is realising that this summer means the offloading of some high-earning, non-performing and/or over-the-hill players. This reduces our week-on-week operating losses and allows Steve's money to be used to bring in a bit of quality.

I can see it now....An exact repeat of how we came up to the championship last time.

We will end up in the championship with a load of league 1 dross AGAIN.

It will be so bad for the club if we go down.

The progress has totally dried up.

Lansdown is all but a club legend for his investment to the club, BUT in terms of that investment on the championship scale.....its naff all.

Forgetting our loans our team worth is about 5th from bottom on the league scale and our wages aren't that much better.

We need to get real, The only way we are ever going to reach the PL is by heavy investment in scouting, academy and players that are actually good.

Reaching the PL would pay a vast amount of everything spent back and would fill the 30,000 seat stadium.

We are not Swansea and cannot put all our hopes on doing a blackpool.

The vast amount of clubs that succeed pay better wages and put much more investment into playing staff etc.

[Andy082005]

No doubt we would be in trouble without his money, for that we are grateful . No doubt we should be in a much better position if it was spent more wisely.

Nobody should be above criticism, regardless of their position. If not we have a dictatorship where everyone is afraid of El Presidente.

Exactly right. Lansdown has done a lot of good for this club, and I hope he continues to do so....but lets not forget the dedts he clears off every year are of his, and the clubs doing. That may sound really bad, but its true.

If we had beat Hull and made the prem....he would have creamed it, but we didnt.

Lansdown, as much as anyone at the club....needs to have a long hard look at himself and the mistakes he made. After we got promoted in 2007 he said in an interview " we will not make the same mistakes as we did last time" (i.e when we got promoted in 1997/98.

Well Steve....we have.

Please dont feel this is an "attack on Steve"....its not. Im just saying, he shouldnt be allowed to escape under the criticism radar

[Frome Valley]

Spot on that

Lansdown has put everything into our club

Anyone who finds time to slate h needs shagging

Well thought out argument considering that the last financial accounts mentioned concern over the viabilty of BCFC as a business. How did it get to this stage on and off the pitch?

[CodeRed]

Spot on that

Lansdown has put everything into our club

Anyone who finds time to slate h needs shagging

Investing and putting money in 10/10

Decision making on football matters (Judge me on tinnion, Johnson 5 yr contract, millen 3 yr, Coppell and - sadly - McInnes) 2/10

He makes all the moves, but made a lot of mistakes - setting the Championship prices at "what i thought the market will bear" for one , where was the reward for all those years of L1 crap

The market will now come back to bite him as no one has the stomach for more long years of hoofball hell in L1.

Decent bloke , heart in the right place, and put his money in - where no one else has. But the wealth doesn't make him a football expert and he should have had a more balanced boardroom and not a couple of plastic yesmen.

CR

[lifelong]

.....utter drivel my friend. Utter drivel

In your opinion, I see it differently and so do many others.

[Monkeh]

In your opinion, I see it differently and so do many others.

well why don't you invest you millions of pounds into the club and do a better job then

[lifelong]

well why don't you invest you millions of pounds into the club and do a better job then

What??

[Andy082005]

In your opinion, I see it differently and so do many others.

How did fan pressure get Gary the sack??

The pressure on Millen was far worse, yet he held on to his job a lot longer. I cant recall any protests, or chanting at games for GJ to go?? Yes this forum had a lot of people calling for GJ's head....but its a forum, and is hardly the voice of the majority.

GJ ran out of ideas very quickly after the play off season. It was clear for all to see. This all came to a head with thumpings against Cardiff and Donny, and then the debacle that was Plymouth away and "that" incident. loved the bloke when he was here, but his time was up and we needed a new man, with fresh ideas.

We kept hold of Johnson to long....it was important we got the next appointment right! Forget Coppell.....he was not here long enough, the big mistake was appointing the utter moron that was Keith Millen. The very same man who, along with Sir gary ....ran out of ideas. The very same man....who 5 months before he got the job, said he wasnt ready to take the job on.

Forget the Tinnion mistake.....it was rectified and sorted! Holding on to GJ for as long as we did.....again, could easily have been rectified, the one big mistake was not getting rid of Millen towards the end of last season.

We were safe roughly March time last year, and even after that we limped across the season finish line. We were terrible, and Millen should have got the heave ho with a good 3 or 4 games left. He didnt.

He then did zero pre-season.....and we have never been able to recover

[NickJ]

Spot on that

Lansdown has put everything into our club

Anyone who finds time to slate h needs shagging

Steve doesn't deserve criticism in as much as he has put a lot of time and effort into Bristol City, and of course, cash.

However he has been a willing party to a system, a football business model system, which is inherently wrong. Nobody has put a gun to Steve and told him to invest millions. Unfortunately he has done so and the decision making has, lets face it, been poor.

As I have consistently said, 10 years ago we were a very easily solvent club, with relatively wide share ownership. The club felt like it was ours. Okay, we were never going to have the money of the top Premier teams or even the likes of the Wigans and the Fulhams at that time, but it was our club and Bristol City, having learned from the excesses of before, was a club run very differently to many others.

We had a manager, Danny Wilson, that had us playing lovely football and in my view would have got us promoted with, what is more, something very dear to my heart, a nucleus of a team consisting of local lads that had come through the academy system.

Steve felt that wasn't enough, sacked Wilson and made the infamous "trust me on Tinnion" quote. Every single appointment since then has been unsuccessful, barring Johnson, and I would argue that in many ways Steve got lucky there.

Steve also felt that wide share ownership of a football club stifled progress, because wealthy benefactors would not put their money in if they did not have complete control and ownership. What he meant was that, as a wealthy potential benefactor, he would not put his money in unless he had complete control and ownership, and so set about the dismantling of the rule enshrined in the clubs constitution, if you like, since 1982, that no one individual could own more than a certain percentage of the football club. Other board members became so disillusioned that they resigned. So Bristol City has joined the rest, we are owned and controlled, essentially, by one person who calls all the shots. That is what is, in my opinion, inherently wrong. Steve, like every other owner managed club, is accountable to nobody. If football were a real business, that would be fine, but football clubs, and supporting football clubs, is not a real business, it is largely an emotional attachment.

When people say Steve has done a lot for the club, what they mean is that he has put £30million in, or whatever it is. Where has that got us, right now. A team filled with journey man loanees who will **** off at the end of April and will never again give Bristol City a moment's thought. There is the promise of a stadium, which, whatever your views on that, has not yet happened and which we do not know for sure how Bristol City will benefit, because the details have not been released.

I do not blame Steve and I think he has probably done everything for what he felt were the right reasons and what was right for Britol City, however the outcome on the field has in all reality been no different to what would have happened anyway with less money but better decision making, and off the field has been, in my opinion, an unmitigated disaster.

Steve felt that for Bristol City to be successful, the whole financial structure had to change, in line with the likes of the Fulhams and the Wigans, albeit on a smaller scale. Personally I do not agree with the ends or the means. The conundrum is that in the absence of very astute football decision making, in order to keep up you have to have what every other successful club has, a wealthy benefactor. Steve and Bristol City has just become a part of a system that is wrong, wrong, wrong.

[Monkeh]

Steve doesn't deserve criticism in as much as he has put a lot of time and effort into Bristol City, and of course, cash.

However he has been a willing party to a system, a football business model system, which is inherently wrong. Nobody has put a gun to Steve and told him to invest millions. Unfortunately he has done so and the decision making has, lets face it, been poor.

As I have consistently said, 10 years ago we were a very easily solvent club, with relatively wide share ownership. The club felt like it was ours. Okay, we were never going to have the money of the top Premier teams or even the likes of the Wigans and the Fulhams at that time, but it was our club and Bristol City, having learned from the excesses of before, was a club run very differently to many others.

We had a manager, Danny Wilson, that had us playing lovely football and in my view would have got us promoted with, what is more, something very dear to my heart, a nucleus of a team consisting of local lads that had come through the academy system.

Steve felt that wasn't enough, sacked Wilson and made the infamous "trust me on Tinnion" quote. Every single appointment since then has been unsuccessful, barring Johnson, and I would argue that in many ways Steve got lucky there.

Steve also felt that wide share ownership of a football club stifled progress, because wealthy benefactors would not put their money in if they did not have complete control and ownership. What he meant was that, as a wealthy potential benefactor, he would not put his money in unless he had complete control and ownership, and so set about the dismantling of the rule enshrined in the clubs constitution, if you like, since 1982, that no one individual could own more than a certain percentage of the football club. Other board members became so disillusioned that they resigned. So Bristol City has joined the rest, we are owned and controlled, essentially, by one person who calls all the shots. That is what is, in my opinion, inherently wrong. Steve, like every other owner managed club, is accountable to nobody. If football were a real business, that would be fine, but football clubs, and supporting football clubs, is not a real business, it is largely an emotional attachment.

When people say Steve has done a lot for the club, what they mean is that he has put £30million in, or whatever it is. Where has that got us, right now. A team filled with journey man loanees who will **** off at the end of April and will never again give Bristol City a moment's thought. There is the promise of a stadium, which, whatever your views on that, has not yet happened and which we do not know for sure how Bristol City will benefit, because the details have not been released.

I do not blame Steve and I think he has probably done everything for what he felt were the right reasons and what was right for Britol City, however the outcome on the field has in all reality been no different to what would have happened anyway with less money but better decision making, and off the field has been, in my opinion, an unmitigated disaster.

Steve felt that for Bristol City to be successful, the whole financial structure had to change, in line with the likes of the Fulhams and the Wigans, albeit on a smaller scale. Personally I do not agree with the ends or the means. The conundrum is that in the absence of very astute football decision making, in order to keep up you have to have what every other successful club has, a wealthy benefactor. Steve and Bristol City has just become a part of a system that is wrong, wrong, wrong.

10 years ago we were still losing 4 million a season

[NickJ]

10 years ago we were still losing 4 million a season

I didn't say we weren't, although, in fact, we weren't.

The more important point however is that we were solvent.

The success of a football club should not be dependent on how much money the owner has, in fact football clubs should not have a single owner. These are the main points I am making.

[Red Exile]

Steve doesn't deserve criticism in as much as he has put a lot of time and effort into Bristol City, and of course, cash.

However he has been a willing party to a system, a football business model system, which is inherently wrong. Nobody has put a gun to Steve and told him to invest millions. Unfortunately he has done so and the decision making has, lets face it, been poor.

As I have consistently said, 10 years ago we were a very easily solvent club, with relatively wide share ownership. The club felt like it was ours. Okay, we were never going to have the money of the top Premier teams or even the likes of the Wigans and the Fulhams at that time, but it was our club and Bristol City, having learned from the excesses of before, was a club run very differently to many others.

We had a manager, Danny Wilson, that had us playing lovely football and in my view would have got us promoted with, what is more, something very dear to my heart, a nucleus of a team consisting of local lads that had come through the academy system.

Steve felt that wasn't enough, sacked Wilson and made the infamous "trust me on Tinnion" quote. Every single appointment since then has been unsuccessful, barring Johnson, and I would argue that in many ways Steve got lucky there.

Steve also felt that wide share ownership of a football club stifled progress, because wealthy benefactors would not put their money in if they did not have complete control and ownership. What he meant was that, as a wealthy potential benefactor, he would not put his money in unless he had complete control and ownership, and so set about the dismantling of the rule enshrined in the clubs constitution, if you like, since 1982, that no one individual could own more than a certain percentage of the football club. Other board members became so disillusioned that they resigned. So Bristol City has joined the rest, we are owned and controlled, essentially, by one person who calls all the shots. That is what is, in my opinion, inherently wrong. Steve, like every other owner managed club, is accountable to nobody. If football were a real business, that would be fine, but football clubs, and supporting football clubs, is not a real business, it is largely an emotional attachment.

When people say Steve has done a lot for the club, what they mean is that he has put £30million in, or whatever it is. Where has that got us, right now. A team filled with journey man loanees who will **** off at the end of April and will never again give Bristol City a moment's thought. There is the promise of a stadium, which, whatever your views on that, has not yet happened and which we do not know for sure how Bristol City will benefit, because the details have not been released.

I do not blame Steve and I think he has probably done everything for what he felt were the right reasons and what was right for Britol City, however the outcome on the field has in all reality been no different to what would have happened anyway with less money but better decision making, and off the field has been, in my opinion, an unmitigated disaster.

Steve felt that for Bristol City to be successful, the whole financial structure had to change, in line with the likes of the Fulhams and the Wigans, albeit on a smaller scale. Personally I do not agree with the ends or the means. The conundrum is that in the absence of very astute football decision making, in order to keep up you have to have what every other successful club has, a wealthy benefactor. Steve and Bristol City has just become a part of a system that is wrong, wrong, wrong.

Well said.

Spot on in my opinion.

Anyone spending any time with Steve would have to conclude that he is determined to run the club his own way and to make his own decisions without having to take others on a journey. Perhaps understandable given what he would see as his investment in the club, but from a supporters point of view worrying.

By contrast a couple of years ago I had the great pleasure of meeting the Burnley chairman. The chairman of a proper board with a diversity of opinion. He spoke as a custodian of something very precious to his local community. And planned for their time in the Prem very wisely. Spoke of having a good time but primarily clearing debts and building a firm financial foundation.

In senior management positions you need diversity, people who can challenge and question. I'd have said that at the root of many of City's recent problems, not least the stadium fiasco, lies a failure of alternative courses of action to be proposed and championed. A board lacking independent thinking is weak. A brief look at the club's board members and their background suggests that the main qualification for membership is owing something to Steve Lansdown.

I believe that's worrying. And whilst I have nothing against Steve, who I've found charming and devoted to the club, I think he's made the wrong call in surrounding himself with yes men. And I think he's backed his own judgement too often. In appointing Millen he made a catastrophic mistake in haste, an appointment which would surely have been challenged had there been other strong voices in the boardroom.

The consequence is that we are in hock to him to a degree that I for one find disturbing.