1982

[Lew-T]

Have always wondered what happened during that time? As I wasn't around to witness those days, for the fans that were around in that time, why were we on the verge of going out of business? I know for money reasons obviously but why did it get so bad? Just curious to know why!?

[tpitman]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bristol/content/articles/2005/12/02/ashtongate8_feature.shtml

[glynriley]

Players given anything up to 11 year contracts didn't help. Chuck in succesive relegatons and you've got yourself a recipe for disaster.

Dark days , I can remeber loads of houses and cars where I lived having the 'Support Bristol City , now or never' stickers in the windows.

[Lew-T]

Players given anything up to 11 year contracts didn't help. Chuck in succesive relegatons and you've got yourself a recipe for disaster.

Dark days , I can remeber loads of houses and cars where I lived having the 'Support Bristol City , now or never' stickers in the windows.

11 year contracts! What ever for? Did every club in those days do this?

[Portland Bill]

We went from crowds of 37,000 (Liverpool at home) to about 4,500 (Wimbledon at home) in 3 years.

I've still got the support City now or never badge in a drawer somewhere.

Bad bad times, but the comeback was fun .

[i hate you butler]

Have always wondered what happened during that time? As I wasn't around to witness those days, for the fans that were around in that time, why were we on the verge of going out of business? I know for money reasons obviously but why did it get so bad? Just curious to know why!?

basically started 3/4 years earlier when the club started giving out lengthy contracts to players and couldn't really afford it coupled with relegation that shouldn't have happened as we were progressing nicely season after season.The following season the star players had to be sold and city were left with mounting debts that culminated with another relegation.Then the next season should have been about consolidation but no not at bcfc eventually the eight remaining players on those long contracts saved the club by accepting redundancy but sheer hell for us fans

[Fiale]

Would be nice WHEN AV is built if there was some sort of recognition to Gerry and co... maybe entrances to the stands could be named after them or something with plaques .......

[Eco]

No parachute payments in those days

[cider head]

11 year contracts! What ever for? Did every club in those days do this?

In 1978 the English PFA won freedom of contract for its players. Previously all control had been with the clubs, but now any player whose contract was over could force a transfer, whether his existing club agreed or not. Bristol City, then a first division team, lost a young player called Gary Collier to Coventry City in this fashion, and manager Alan Dicks reacted by signing six players to eleven year contracts. Dicks reasoned that the long contract would give the club absolute control over its players, who could still be sold should the need arise.

[glynriley]

Would be nice WHEN AV is built if there was some sort of recognition to Gerry and co... maybe entrances to the stands could be named after them or something with plaques .......

Indeed , the current tribute to the 8 really doesn't do them justice.

I've said before (and be mocked for the idea) but I'll say it again anyway , we should retire the number 8 shirt.

That way , when we're all gone and unable to hand the story down to the futre generations , there will always be a reminder of how thay saved our football club.

[Brizzle Jordan]

Indeed , the current tribute to the 8 really doesn't do them justice.

I've said before (and be mocked for the idea) but I'll say it again anyway , we should retire the number 8 shirt.

That way , when we're all gone and unable to hand the story down to the futre generations , there will always be a reminder of how thay saved our football club.

No way. Neil Kilkenny deserves that number 8 shirt, he's a true icon.

[Zip Nolan]

Deryn Coller and Ken Sage were the real saviours of the Club not the Ashton Gate 8.

[Andy082005]

I was only 1 when all this happened...but I'm grateful to everyone who played their part in dragging this club out of the ashes. Without them we wouldn't have what we have now.

They should all be honoured in some way.....my own personal tribute was to add them into my tattoo.

Definately need something at the new stadium

[glynriley]

Deryn Coller and Ken Sage were the real saviours of the Club not the Ashton Gate 8.

Good shout , those 2 do tend to get forgotten. They were the driving force and made huge sacrifices , along with Les Kew and Ivor Williams I believe.

But without the tearing up of contracts , the club would have folded. Granted , the 8 would have walked away with nothing if the club had gone down the pan , but their actions shoudn't be forgotten.

Unfortunatley , people don't remember the businessmen , just the players.

[cider head]

Deryn Coller and Ken Sage were the real saviours of the Club not the Ashton Gate 8.

I've posted this before but this is is Deryn Coller's story of 1982.

Around October 1981 I got in tow with a guy called Ken Sage, whose company was Called Alusage. We had a common denominator: his auditor was my auditor, Steve Gundry. He is the one person that nobody knows about, but he was the main Driving force behined saving Bristol city. He said to me, I want you to meet a guy called Ken Sage. He's got this thing about Bristol city. He's really cheesed off with what's happening. He's a dyed-in-the-wool Bristolian, He thinks the club is very badly managed.

I went along to have a chat with him, and I found he had visions. One of them was to return the club to the people, as opposed to the board. The board at the time held solid control, and if anyone outside it had an idea, it did not stand a chance. He wanted to change it all, but he also thought that the club was up the spout financially. I was a share holder at the time I owned £500 worth of shares, about 15 % . There was a group at the time called Alternate Bristol city or something or other and we met them in the Dragonora hotel around about September or October. They had great ideas but with no substance. What the meeting did though was prompt Ken and myself to see if there were enough people out there who wanted a change, so we thought, we'll try and change it. Ken was not a shareholder at the time.

I went along to the club's AGM around about October, and you did not need to be Brain of Britain to see the club was in the proverbial. I asked a few pertinent questions and, as with all people that have the temerity to stand up and question the board, they gave you the answers they wanted to give you. Somehow I managed to get my feet inside the door, and in a corner I asked Archie Gooch, who was a gentle man, whether he didn't think the club was in more trouble than he actually knew? We agreed to pay for an independent financial report, which was conducted by Arthur Young McClelland Moores, of which Steve Gandry happened to be an employee. They came up with an enormous debt, which we all knew was there but had been hidden.

They formulated a resue plan which was quite simple: from a new company; Place a moratorium on the creditors; unload your biggest liabilities. The accountant said you might be able to struggle on if you get rid of your liabilities. Terry boyle, Jan mollar and Mick Hartford were players who had value. So the rescue plan was: Do a deal with the creditors; do a deal with the Football league (for whom this was a New situation) ; do a deal with the old company on the sale of the ground ; and do a Deal with the eight players who comprised a large slice of the liabilities.

All of them were equally important. The company could not afford the eight players. Understandably Alan Dicks had tied them up on lucrative contracts based on First Division wages and the club was in the Third Division at the time. Every week we were losing another £1,000 a lot of money in those days. A lot of people hold the Ashton Gate Eight up as saviours and to some extent they were. If they had not torn up their contracts the club would have folded. But if the club had folded they would have got nothing, not a carrot. The rescue plan was based on how much money was going to be paid out in the next twelve months. What you've got to bear in mind is the new club had nothing, not a penny. All it had was what the seven directors had put in, which was about £10,000 each. And around £50,000 of that had to go to the Football League as a guarantee, so the working capital was about £20,000. We were living from hand to mouth, week in week out. Often we had board meetings where we all had to stick £300 in the pot, put it in the club, and the club would buy this or that or pay wages. The Ashton Gate Eight all walked out with around £10,000 each and if they had not taken it the club would have gone down and the other staff would have lost their jobs. Whilst they made a sacrifice, a guy said to me once, your first loss is your best loss, to which was their contracts, they would have taken a bigger loss. And I think that at the end of the day Gordan Taylor of the Professional Footballers Association realised it was not brinkmanship or gamesmanship, but this was real. If they didn't do a deal at 12 o'clock then he's going to have to deal with the contracts of god knows how many creditors.

It was the first ever case of it's kind and the Football League wouldn't allow it to happen Again. It was a very good scheme to save the club. You talk about the Ashton Gate Eight, but there were a lot more people in Bristol who took a hit than just them. A lot of the creditors had to accept 10p, 15p, 20p in the pound, and they did it without whinging. A lot of them were pragmatic and said, we'll take 20p, because we know what the Alternative is. By doing what we did the creditors got 19.9p more than they would have got if the club went belly up.

We were surprised at the level of debt, though not the overall tenor of the report, We were surprised at the level at which it was bust, but we knew it was bust. I do not belive Alan Dicks was responsible. My view is the buck always stops at the board, The board, Individually and collectively, had to be responsible for the decline of Bristol City. The report came out just before Christmas 1981. Ken and I met the directors and suggested certain routes they could follow, one being the BCFC (1982) Plc route. The directors realised they were in no win land. It was almost relief for them that other people were prepared to take over. They cogitated for four or five days and agreed. Then we all had to find £12,500 each, as a minimum of £50,000 is needed to launch a new plc. We had to find two more people, who were Ivor Williams and Leslie Kew, and we formed a company. And of course we had the Ashton Gate Eight business to deal with, which went to the wire, becuse Gordan Taylor and his advisers belived it was a double bluff. But the one thing I know to be true, at one minute past 12 on Wednesday 3rd February, that the club was going in to liquidation if the players had not signed that document. We were on deadlines as well. The Football League wanted guarantees which we couldn't give paying those wages The club would not nescessarily have gone down at a minute past 12. Ken Sage and myself And the other two directors would have walked away, because we knew that we were on a hiding to nothing. There was no way the club could have been saved. It might have struggled along for another four to eight days, but it would have gone bust.

I was under a lot of stress, I nearly lost my house and my job. My marriage came close to finishing. I was doing eighteen hour days at city, as was Ken. We finished one particular board meeting at half past four in the morning. And I came home and my wife said to me, where have you been?And I said, At a board meeting. And she said Nobody works until half past four in the morning. And she thought that I was out with some floozy somewhere.. This was during the crisis Which went on for months. BCFC 1982 started in Februrary, but we had to deal with the Ashton Gate Eight, the Football League, and acquire the ground through a share issue.

We closed the share issue out, because we heard rumours that Osbourne Clarke [bristol based solicitors] was about to buy the million pounds worth of shares on offer. We also heard a rumour that the old Bristol stadium company, the greyhound people, wanted to develop their site [at Eastville stadium, now Ikea store] and were also looking at Ashton Gate, and through the share issue would acquire the ground and make Bristol City a tenant. So we had to close the share issue early, and the only way we could do that was to put in another £25,000 each, before, Osbourne Clarke got their mits on it.

David Russe put in £15,000 and he didn't want to sit on the board or anything; he just said, I'll do it. Bob Boyd put some money in; also Bob Marshall, John Pontin, and Des Williams The amount of times that we had a board meeting where we needed to pay a bill of just £600; so the directors would put £75 or so each in the pot to pay that bill, and that happened more times than I cared to remember. It doesn't seem like much now ---- but it was a lot of money in those days. My total commitment in to Bristol City for the first six months was over £70,000 which was all I ever had in the world and I kept it from my wife , because she would have gone absolutely ape, if she had known. She did find out Subsequently and went absolutely ape.

The first type friends of Bristol city groups were with John Southern and Alan Williams. They collected around £4,000 after writing to all the secretaries of local football clubs, and That made an enormous difference. A lot of people rallied round in very, very small ways, But those small ways made a big impact. You've got to put in mind that if you go home at night, open the fridge and there is nothing there to eat, unless someone comes round with a bowl of cornflakes, or someone brings you an egg and a piece of bacon, you can't have break-fast in the morning. AND THAT IS HOW IT WAS.

[TRL]

Good shout , those 2 do tend to get forgotten. They were the driving force and made huge sacrifices , along with Les Kew and Ivor Williams I believe.

But without the tearing up of contracts , the club would have folded. Granted , the 8 would have walked away with nothing if the club had gone down the pan , but their actions shoudn't be forgotten.

Unfortunatley , people don't remember the businessmen , just the players.

Did it really matter that they tore their contracts up? If they hadn't they wouldn't have got paid anyway. The club would have gone under, but the end result for them would have been the same. Their choice, on the face of it, was only ever going to make them legends.

I am not trying to belittle what they did, just it seems that was the only outcome. Or am I missing something?

[Tall King Blox]

No parachute payments in those days

The way we went the whole friggin club needed parachutes, that said we are still here and ranting...long may it continue....

[Tall King Blox]

I was only 1 when all this happened...but I'm grateful to everyone who played their part in dragging this club out of the ashes. Without them we wouldn't have what we have now.

They should all be honoured in some way.....my own personal tribute was to add them into my tattoo.

Definately need something at the new stadium

Not having a dig, but have you seen the "8" plaque out side the grandstand...they are remembered, we all owe them so much

[i hate you butler]

Did it really matter that they tore their contracts up? If they hadn't they wouldn't have got paid anyway. The club would have gone under, but the end result for them would have been the same. Their choice, on the face of it, was only ever going to make them legends.

I am not trying to belittle what they did, just it seems that was the only outcome. Or am I missing something?

they basically got a fraction of what they were entitled to

[TRL]

they basically got a fraction of what they were entitled to

Yeah I get that, but as there was nothing really to give... Or was there more money available than let on?

From my memory, they could have left legends, or stayed and hoped to have got paid. All likelihood they would have lost out with both options.

[Redminster]

Amen Ciderhead.

I was born in Jan 1981 and these guys are why I as a proud Somerset bloke (and pseudo-Bristolian) have a club to support. CTID

[Mendip City]

Great stuff. These guy ALL need to be remembered with pride and respect by our club and arguably the whole of English football. Unfortunately we led the way in financial failure in English football but also battled back due to support and commitment of good people.

Anyone know what Ken Sage, Derryn Coller etc are up to these days?

[Tall King Blox]

Yeah I get that, but as there was nothing really to give... Or was there more money available than let on?

I dont think money at the time was the issue, the club needed to fold, without the guys doing what they did the club couldnt have continued as 82 Ltd,

[i hate you butler]

Yeah I get that, but as there was nothing really to give... Or was there more money available than let on?

From my memory, they could have left legends, or stayed and hoped to have got paid. All likelihood they would have lost out with both options.

Yeah I get that, but as there was nothing really to give... Or was there more money available than let on?

From my memory, they could have left legends, or stayed and hoped to have got paid. All likelihood they would have lost out with both options.

yeah basically a big whipround to pay these players off at a loss to them from the likes of coller,sage.boyd etc

[Tom]

Great stuff. These guy ALL need to be remembered with pride and respect by our club and arguably the whole of English football. Unfortunately we led the way in financial failure in English football but also battled back due to support and commitment of good people.

Anyone know what Ken Sage, Derryn Coller etc are up to these days?

Quick google says that Deryn is still on the board at Park Furnishers (his father set the business up).

[Mendip City]

Quick google says that Deryn is still on the board at Park Furnishers (his father set the business up).

Thanks,that's it he was Park Furnishers... Not sure that Alusage still exists? My turn to google!

[Tom]

Thanks,that's it he was Park Furnishers... Not sure that Alusage still exists? My turn to google!

I guess this is him? http://www.thisisannouncements.co.uk/4527049?s_source=clsw_tiwb

RIP If so.

[cider head]

they basically got a fraction of what they were entitled to

Some say the ashton gate 8 left with nothing and on the dole but that was not strictly true. All found other clubs, Jimmy mann went to Barnsley, Julian marshall went to Blackburn rovers, Trevor tainton and David rogers joined Torquay united, Gerry sweeney and Peter aitken went to York city, Geoff merrick and Chris garland flew out to Hong kong for a spell, Garland flew back briefly to play for city on a match by match basis the following season, Sweeney went on to become assistant manager at Walsall and later back at Ashton gate but Merrick retired playing a season later.

A special match was played for the Ashton gate eight at Ashton gate between Ipswich town and Southampton. A crowd of 6,020 helped raise gate sum of £82,750 shared between them.

Trevor tainton, Geoff merrick and Chris garland have had testimonials at Bristol city

Long winded but these are other articles about 1982 but here goes

It is now 28 years since City found themselves in a finacial situation which nearly forced the club out of buisness.

Many younger fans will not remember, others have forgotten, how bad the situation was. The facts were that city owed

£850,000 more than the value of their assets. The total debts included £500,000 to players, £12,000 to the inland revenue, £80,000 to customs and excise (for VAT) and over £120,000 in unpaid transfer fees. On the field things were just as bad, successive relegation found the club at the foot of the old Third division, heading for the Fourth.

Gates were down to below 5,000 and morale was rock bottom. The situation was brought to a head by a spell of bad

weather which meant that the club had no revenue at all from gate receipts, the only money coming in was from the

lottery.

It soon became apparent that in order for the club to survive then eight senior players would have to tear up sizable contracts. In total the eight were owed £290,000 and at the 11th hour they accepted a payment of some £100,000. The following saturday City were at home to division pace setters Fulham, giving debuts to several youngsters including

18 year old Rob newman, the 0-0 result was a credit to all those who played. The attendance was some 9,000 and was by far the highest for a league game so far that season, and it was reported that the fans created an atmosphere suggesting that there was three times that number present.

The lessons from the near disaster would suggest the club had learnt by the club, perhaps too well. Before steve lansdown days there appeared to be a reluctance to ''speculate to accumalate'', a constant frustration to success hungry fans. However what all supporters of Bristol city should remember is that at one stage of the 82 drama a bid was put in by Martin flook and Barry bradshaw, the Chairman and vice Chairman of Bristol rovers, to purchase Ashton gate for £450,000. If this bid had been successful then, as today, there would be one team in Bristol playing at Ashton gate, only it wouldn't be Bristol City.

Further to this excellent article from The Swiss Ramble about Bristol City’s financials, it seemed relevant to post the following, which details some of the issues encountered by Roy Hodgson and Bob Houghton at Bristol City in the early 80s. The following was initially published in the latest Fulham Review (continues after the jump).

In 1978 the English PFA won freedom of contract for its players. Previously all control had been with the clubs, but now any player whose contract was over could force a transfer, whether his existing club agreed or not. Bristol City, then a first division team, lost a young player called Gary Collier to Coventry City this fashion, and manager Alan Dicks reacted by signing six players to eleven year contracts. Dicks reasoned that the long contract would give the club absolute control over its players, who could still be sold should the need arise.

In 1979-80 the club finished third from bottom of the old first division and were relegated. To take them back up they hired a young manager with a growing reputation: Bob Houghton.

Houghton, of course, turned to his old friend, Roy Hodgson. “If Halmstad had still been in the European Cup I might have had difficulty in getting my release to come to Bristol and join Bob,” said Hodgson. “But the Swedish season only had another three weeks to run. Although I had a contract for another year, I wanted to make the break. Bob even asked me whether I would come to Bristol before he got the job.”

At this point Hodgson had been on the verge of moving to Dallas in the USA, having organised a meeting with the backers of the Dallas Tornadoes football club. But the Bristol offer changed his plans: “I would have made a lot more money there but, like Bob, I wanted to prove myself in England. After five years I had to decide whether to stay on in Sweden, where I was well known, for another five or ten years, or to make a break and try elsewhere. Bristol City seems well organised so I hope to be able to concentrate on the coaching side with Bob.”

Houghton and Hodgson really didn’t know what they were letting themselves in for. Relegation from the first division had caused gates (then a club’s main source of income) to drop from 18,000 to 10,000. Another relegation to division three would hit gates even harder. But Hodgson wasn’t to know what he had walked into, and continued to speak positively of his new opportunity.

“Both Bob and I had managerial experience at a young age in Sweden when we were confronted with lots of problems. My five years there offered a very good apprenticeship. This is a big club and we’re lying in a position that it totally unsatisfactory to all concerned. It is a matter of working hard. There is no magic formula. We just hope we can make the right decisions.”

It was around this time, late in 1980, when the question of Bristol City’s finances was first raised publicly. Local journalist Peter Godsiff noted that the club had been spending more than it had been bringing in for some time, and was moving in the wrong direction on the pitch, a dangerous combination. Indeed, Godsiff calculated that City’s operating costs were around five times its gate receipts.

Deryn Collar, a local businessman, went to the club’s AGM and noted that “you did not need to be Brain of Britain to see that the club was in the proverbial.” Collar organised an independent financial report and learned that the club was, as Godsiff had suspected, facing enormous debt, heretofore hidden.

Hodgson himself noted, later on: “When we came the club was rock bottom and the first thing we had to do was sell players. We ended up with a junior team playing in a league of men.” However, “we were not made aware of the situation before we arrived. The club had only just been relegated from the old first division. We thought it can’t be that bad, we’ll get them promoted. We were very confident in our coaching ability and thought we could turn the club around.”

But it was not to be. At the start of the 1981-82 season (City had been relegated again in 1980-81) Houghton warned that “the club’s cash position hasn’t changed radically overnight. We’ve taken a risk to give ourselves a chance of being successful. We now hope the supporters will back us. Our future depends on crowds averaging 8,000 or more this season.” The risk in question was the £150,000 signing of Mick Harford from Newcastle United, a big buy at the time and, in hindsight, probably a reckless one.

Houghton continued: “We are looking forward to a season that will stop the rot as far as the club is concerned. Two years of relegation and an exodus of good players has been little reward for our loyal supporters.”

The 1981-82 division three season began quietly, with only 6,586 watching the side draw 2-2 with Doncaster Rovers, while 7,471 came to the 3-2 win over Plymouth Argyle. The team lost at Portsmouth, prompting Houghton to threaten wholesale changes (“if things don’t improve I will bring young reserve players into the side”). Houghton was then linked with the Sweden international job, but was clear in his intentions: “I am very optimistic about Bristol City’s future. I returned to England 10 months ago because I wanted to become a successful manager in the Football League. Nothing has yet persuaded me to consider changing course.”

It would only be a matter of time.

For the visit of Reading, Houghton (showing extraordinary prescience) used his programme notes to complain about the way Match of the Day’s coverage was devaluing football: “the only selling factor for them these days is goals. A goalless game [Match of the Day had come to the Bristol City v Preston North End game a week earlier – attendance down to 5,389, “the lowest since the war”] especially a third division match, means that rather than a presentation of the match and 90 minutes on the park, they are more interested in the sensationalism and ask questions about whether managers should get the sack. It underlines the disappointing fact that televised football presented these days is unbalanced and is more involved in the personality cult in a quest for the next sensation.”

The plans for regular 8,000 attendances were going badly awry, as only 5,006 watched City beat Reading 2-0 in late October, at which point the team was in a safeish mid-table position. But money was running out, and the club sold young striker Kevin Mabbutt to Crystal Palace for £100,000, receiving defender Terry Boyle in exchange. The management had had high hopes for the Mabbutt/Harford partnership, and to see it dissolved so quickly must have been a huge disappointment.

At this point the club came clean, informing shareholders that it had made a loss of £400,000 in the preceding year, and that present losses were somewhere between £3,000 and £4,000 a week. Winger Clive Whitehead was sold to West Bromwich Albion for £100,000, and a new shirt sponsorship deal brought in £20,000. A new director, Leslie Kew, loaned the club £50,000.

But on the pitch the slide continued, with only five of 16 games won. Chairman Archie Gooch appealed to supporters for help. The 28 November programme noted that “he [Gooch] is looking for any ideas from people interested in the future of the club to help solve the acute financial problems.” Gooch was consigned to his bed soon afterwards, ordered by doctors to “slow down”. The club’s problems were taking their toll.

It got worse. Only 4,862 turned up to see City lose 3-2 at home to Burnley; 2,900 came to see an FA Cup 2nd round win over Northampton. Two directors resigned, and the aforementioned independent enquiry began. Gooch, fighting on, announced that he hoped to launch a £1,000,000 share issue in February. Now only four clubs had fewer league points than City, and a remarkable third consecutive relegation grew more and more likely.

In his programme notes, Houghton ended 1981 with a sombre sign-off:

“Relegation and a continuing financial crisis has left everybody deflated. I am sure I speak for the players, the staff, the directors, and perhaps most of all you, the supporters, when I say that our New Year resolution must be for a brighter, happier 1982. We all hope the year to come will help erase the memories of certainly the worst year I have ever had in football, and probably one of the worst the club has experienced.”

Then he resigned.

The club communicated the situation:

“Applications have been invited for the position of manager in succession to Bob Houghton, who resigned just before Christmas. The announcement was only made public after the last home match here against Wimbledon. Mr Houghton only signed a three year contract last March, so his decisions to leave came as a major surprise to everyone at the club. His assistant Roy Hodgson has taken over on a temporary basis, and made a magnificent start when he took the side to Peterborough and returned with a 1-0 victory.

“There has been considerable speculation about the identity of the club’s next manager, but Chairman Archie Gooch does not want to make a hasty appointment. One of the candidates for the vacancy will be Mr Hodgson. Roy understands the position and he is a very capable man and will be considered with others. My hope is that in the next few weeks the players will back Roy up and he gets success. Maybe then he’ll be the appointment.”

Hodgson’s first programme notes led with his mixed feelings about the circumstances surrounding his appointment.

“The pleasure from being given the opportunity of writing the manager’s column for the first time is tinged with personal regret that Bob Houghton has seen fit to resign. There are many people at Ashton Gate who realise the hard work and effort put in during his 15 months here. He worked for the long-term future of the club and made many personal sacrifices to keep the club going through a difficult period.”

Hodgson had only been in charge a short time before the Football League imposed a selling ban on the club, which still owed Newcastle United £100,000 of the £150,000 Mick Harford fee. At this point the club revealed that eight senior players must leave, so as to save money and stave off liquidation. These players, some of whom were on Alan Dicks’ long term deals and therefore would have been entitled to significant payoffs, became known as the Ashton Gate Eight.

The players were offered £58,000 between them in compensation, far less than the value of their remaining contracts. They were, very reasonably, not sure about this, but the club by now had an annual salary bill of £350,000, was losing £4,000 a week, and was somewhere north of £700,000 in debt. Something had to give.

The Ashton Gate Eight were, perhaps rightly, cast as heroes for eventually accepting this contract cancellation. Had they not agreed Bristol City would certainly have been in deeper debt, and would have had one more problem to worry about. As it was, many of the players in question felt that they didn’t have a lot of choice: if they stayed and the club went under they wouldn’t have received anything at all. So they left Bristol City, which, with Deryn Collar at the helm was about to be re-formed as a new company.

The news was coming thick and fast:

A STATEMENT FROM THE DIRECTORS OF B.C.F.C. (1982) LTD

It has been a difficult and worrying week for us all but here we are, B.C.F.C. (1982) Ltd. Quite a mouth-full!

We would like to think that it will still be known as Bristol City – The Robins. This could be the start of a new era. The last few weeks have been the most traumatic for everyone concerned with Bristol City Football Club, management, the players, the staff and the directors have been under great pressure but at the deadline hour of 12noon on Wednesday 3rd February the players co-operated and have given this great club a real chance of survival. We now need your support, bring your families, friends and neighbours to cheer your team. Many young faces will be on show, they need your vocal support. The new Board of Directors will work to their full capacity on your behalf. Remember, it is your club and we have the responsibility to look after it for you. Thank you for spending your Saturday with us, we look forward to seeing you much more. There is nothing to be gained from looking at the past – we have to look to the future and for the first time for many years this is bright and glowing as it has ever been. However, let there be no complacency, the club is dependent on the support. SUPPORT AND WATCH YOUR CLUB – IT’s GOING PLACES.

Roy Hodgson’s take:

“Everyone at the club was uncertain about the future and the game at Newport was played under the shadow of redundancies and closure of the club. It was hardly the ideal preparation and I must admit I was a little worried about how the players would react as we were going across the Severn Bridge.”

City were now only above the relegation places on goal difference. Hodgson himself noted that “Unless we get a couple of experienced players soon, I don’t give us much chance of avoiding relegation.” City were regularly playing teenagers, and had lost two their most important players, Terry Boyle (broken jaw) and Peter Devine (broken leg) to injury.

When you’re down, you’re down, and the Football League threw another spanner in the ever-complicated works by demanding a £250,000 performance bond (presumably as a kind of deposit against future issues), money the club clearly did not have. The City board flew to League HQ to negotiate this requirement, and emerged with a compromise deal that allowed them to press on with the planned share issue, seemingly the only hope of survival. Chris Curling, the club secretary, said “It is now up to the public and supporters to show that they want a football club operating at Ashton Gate in the future. The directors have picked up the gauntlet and have challenged people interested in the future of the club to support the share issue.”

Hodgson’s notes underlined the seriousness of the position:

“Everyone at the club was shocked last Thursday to find that the share issue for which the club has been preparing assiduously for the last few weeks was once again in jeopardy. This resulted from a Telex from the Football League stipulating that the club find a very large sum of money to be lodged as a bond in case the new company could not continue to run Bristol City in the first year. Such a claim was obviously an impossible one for the new board of directors to meet.”

The club got serious, with an advert in the programme leading with:

SUPPORT BRISTOL CITY FOOTBALL CLUB. NOW. OR NEVER.

Some excerpts from the BCFC (1982) prospectus that followed:

A lack of playing success leading to relegation in two successive seasons together with criticisms which have been made at the top levels of management have meant that the speed of decline in its fortunes has been almost unprecedented.

The new company therefore sees the situation as offering the chance of a fresh start.

We are determined to strive for a number of key objectives:

One – strict financial management

Two – shorter player contracts

Three – Strengthened youth policy

Four – a stress on attacking football

Five – matches to be good value. Reduced admission prices, etc

Six – Improved communications from the club

Seven – Alternative (profitable) uses of Ashton Gate

Eight – reversion to red and white, the club’s traditional colours

The new club needs to raise minimum funds of £600,000 to purchase the Ashton Gate ground, and to acquire other assets. A significant part of these funds must come from the share issue which should appeal not only to supporters but also to those interested in maintaining prestige and pride in the City of Bristol.

If the share issue fails to achieve sufficient support the chance of Bristol City surviving as a Football League club would be negligible. The Ashton Gate stadium might well be demolished to make way for building development.

In the next issue of the programme, before the April 6th game against Carlisle United, there are no notes from Hodgson. The club had lost six games in a row, including a 1-0 defeat in Chesterfield for which City had only 12 available players, three of whom were recovering from the flu, and had sold Mick Harford to Birmingham City for £122,000. Star goalkeeper Jan Moller had also been moved on, to Toronto Blizzards for £85,000.

In a column that might be filed under “deckchairs, rearranging”, Hodgson focused on the Harford sale in his next programme notes column, explaining to the fans why this would necessitate a change in the team’s playing style:

“I do think it is worth explaining a little about tactical formations and playing style as this is an area where there is much misunderstanding and certainly an area where people have been misled by some of the things they see and read.

“All playing styles are dependent on the players the manager or coach has to choose from. And I am sure I speak for most of my managerial colleagues when I propose that most of the styles adopted are based firstly on the relative strengths and weaknesses of the players available, and only secondly on the manager’s philosophy of the game. In recent weeks we have seen a further depletion of our staff with the departures of (goalkeeper) Jan Moller and, even more importantly, Mick Harford, who was a key figure in our attacking play.

“This has forced a change in our tactical thinking. We are obviously concerned about our lack of goals in recent matches and as time is beginning to run short we have decided to pursue a more adventurous playing style in the remaining games. This will hopefully make it easier to get players into goalscoring positions whilst making the task of defending that much more difficult.

“Against teams that play with only two players up front I shall be entrusting the task of covering them to two ‘marking players’, who will be supported by a sweeper. His job will be to cover the flick ons and support the markers if they are beaten in one-on-one situations. By then pushing the players who normally play full-back further forward to mark the opposing wide midfield players we shall have gained a man, who can play in a forward position. It concerns me that a move away from the traditional playing style our players have grown up with will be fraught with problems and that the amount of time available to sort out these problems in training is going to be limited. Perhaps we should take heart from the old cliche, nothing ventured nothing gained.”

Hodgson also stressed to the press that his team would attack at every opportunity for the rest of the season. “It is a tremendous gamble, but we have reached the point of no return.”

It didn’t pay off. The team lost 4-0, 2-1 and 3-0 in its next three matches, drew 0-0, lost 2-0, beat Gillingham 2-1 then lost 5-0 at Huddersfield and drew 0-0 at Wimbledon.

To make matters worse, the share issue failed.

Hodgson was scathing: “Once again we come to the end of a crucial week in the club’s history when the expected failure of the share issue has meant there is a large question mark hanging over the club’s league status and survival. Like everyone else I am surprised that the weight of opinion in favour of democratising the club with each shareholder having a say in running it has not provided a concrete response in terms of money invested. It would appear that the club’s critics in recent years who have been vociferous in those organisations affiliated to the club are happiest when criticising from a position of non-responsibility. When the chance has come to do something positive about altering the status quo, they have been found wanting.”

And then he was dismissed. According to the local press, he took the news with a resigned shrug, saying “it was not unexpected.” Hodgson’s return to England, his first managerial position in his home country, had ended in disaster.

On May 15th only 1,034 fans watched City beat Chester City 1-0. City went down again and Hodgson returned to Sweden.

Unless otherwise noted, all quotes from Bristol City FC Matchday programmes, seasons 1980-81 and 1981-82.

[cider head]

Blimey, and more, but it is good education for younger fans to read up on

Bristol City: the price of loyalty

On 28th November 1981, I watched Burnley play Bristol City at Ashton Gate. With money very tight, Liz and I took in lodgers. Going to a game became a rare treat. But at least we weren’t as badly off as Bristol City. Our local club was in a real mess. Like Swansea, they had over-reached themselves. Having defied the odds in reaching the top flight in 1976 they strived, doggedly, to stay there. Manager, Alan Dicks, had cannily, but expensively, recruited a clutch of experienced top professionals to boost the Club’s lofty ambitions. Joe Royle and Norman Hunter, in particular, played their part. But it wasn’t just these ageing stars that enjoyed lucrative contracts. With the Club enjoying an average gate of 22,000 or more, the outlay might have been fine. But a day of reckoning would come if the Club fell from its perch. And that’s what happened, in April 1980. A year later City were in Division Three along with local rivals, Rovers, prompting that dreadful Observer quip: ‘a sagging pair of Bristols’.

Dicks had departed and was replaced by one of our brightest coaches – Bobby Houghton; one of Hastings United’s diaspora of talented coaches. Others include the wonderfully eccentric, Colin Murphy; Des Anderson, who was Dave Mackay’s sidekick at title-winning Derby in ’75; and the unsung Ted Ballard. Like George Raynor, Houghton was almost unknown in this country; that is, until he took his Malmo side to the 1979 European Cup Final. Here, the Swedes narrowly lost to Clough’s Forest. Only Trevor Francis’s headed goal separated the sides. Like George Raynor, Houghton helped transform Swedish football, enabling it to become much more competitive internationally. Like Raynor he taught Swedish sides how to beat acclaimed opponents, albeit by adopting a direct, pressing, style of play. And again, like Raynor, he never received the recognition his skills merited in his country of birth. Everywhere else he has worked – in Canada, USA, Saudi Arabia, Greece, China, India and Switzerland – his worth is fully recognised. In 2010 Houghton received a Rosbif Special Achievement Award given to ‘English footballers in foreign lands’. It is ironic that Sven-Goran Eriksson was chosen to be England’s coach having been heavily influenced by Houghton’s methods, early in his career.

Sadly for Houghton and Bristol City, he never had a chance of demonstrating his skill. The Club was in free fall. Gates had crashed. In Bristol City’s last season in Division One the Club attracted an average crowd of only 15,558, a 30% drop on previous seasons. That figure fell by a further 6,000 in the following season, to 9,676. By the end of the disastrous 1980-81 season, which had resulted in a further relegation, the Club’s debt stood at around £0.5 million. When I arrived at Ashton Gate in November 1982, that debt had increased by a further 40% with £120,000 unpaid tax payments. The Robins were reported to be losing £3,000 a week.

I had little difficulty in finding a good vantage point. With a threadbare crowd of 5,200 I was spoilt for choice. There was a mood of chuffing dissent even before the game began. It was hardly helped when Burnley’s young midfielder, Kevin Young, prodded them into a 3rd minute lead. But Burnley’s self-belief was as fragile as their host’s. They were still in a dicey position – just four places off the bottom. Realising this, City managed to turn the tables. Unfortunately for them, their second goal proved to be a stronger catalyst for their stung visitors. The instigator of this change was Burnley’s eighteen-year-old midfielder, Trevor Steven. Oblivious to the frenetic tackling, he played with his socks bunched around his ankles. He was in the centre of everything. He played quick one-twos with his fellow midfielders, Kevin Young and Tommy Cassidy, as he probed for openings. Whether passing short or long, he executed his service with composed precision. He looked for runners on one side of him, only to suddenly reverse direction and pick out an unmarked colleague on the other. Nothing seemed to trouble him. He was unruffled by the rough and tumble stuff, creating space around himself with nonchalant calm. He seemed to have so much time on the ball. With a feint here, a drop of the shoulder there, he continually eased away from trouble. On a heavy, churned surface he played as if on a bowling green. I knew then that he was destined for the very top.

With Steven continually wrong-footing the home defence, Bristol were forced to pull more men back. Burnley grasped the iniative. With Burnley’s back line posted on the half-way line and sweeper, Martin Dobson, reinforcing their advanced midfield, the game became a turkey shoot. However, it took two late goals from Paul McGee for Burnley to snatch their just desserts. At the end the Bristol players slouched off the field in despair as a chilly mist drifted in from the Avon, enveloping the ground in a damp shroud. The illuminated suspension bridge and the twinkling lights of Clifton lent a festive air to the winter evening but there were no celebrations at Ashton Gate.

Early in the New Year, Bobby Houghton resigned saying: ‘there is nothing more I can do’. With losses reaching more than £4,000 a week, accountants were called in to try to save the Club. Their solution was drastic. Among their recommendations was the immediate termination of eight first team players’ contracts. The players were: Peter Aitken, Julian Marshall, David Rodgers, Geoff Merrick, Gerry Sweeney, Trevor Tainton, Chris Garland and Jimmy Mann. Those on longer and / or more lucrative contracts had already left the Club, including Joe Royle, Norman Hunter, Terry Cooper, Clive Whitehead, Tom Ritchie and Gerry Gow.

Deryn Collier, who became a director of the re-born Bristol City (1982), recalled the grim events of 1981-82 in an article written for the Bristol City fanzine ‘Three Lions and a Robin’: ‘I owned £500 worth of shares, about half a per cent. I went along to the club’s AGM around about October 1981, and you did not need to be ‘Brain of Britain’ to see the club was in the proverbial. I asked a few pertinent questions… We agreed to pay for an independent financial report... They came up with an enormous debt, which we all knew was there but had been hidden. They formulated a rescue plan which was quite simple: form a new company; place a moratorium on the creditors; unload your biggest liabilities. The accountant said you might be able to struggle on if you get rid of your liabilities’.

‘Terry Boyle, (a Welsh international defender), Jan Moller, (a Swedish ‘keeper) and (tall centre forward), Mick Harford, were players who had value. So the rescue plan was: do a deal with the creditors; do a deal with the Football league (for whom this was a New situation); do a deal with the old company on the sale of the ground; and do a deal with the eight players who comprised a large slice of the liabilities. All of them were equally important. The company could not afford the eight players… If they had not torn up their contracts the club would have folded. But if the club had folded they would have got nothing, not a carrot. The rescue plan was based on how much money was going to be paid out in the next twelve months… the new club had nothing, not a penny. All it had was what the seven directors had put in, which was about £10,000 each. And around £50,000 of that had to go to the Football League as a guarantee, so the working capital was about £20,000’.

‘We were living from hand to mouth, week in week out. Often we had board meetings where we all had to stick £300 in the pot, put it in the club, and the club would buy this or that or pay wages. The Ashton eight all walked out with around £10,000 each and if they had not taken it the club would have gone down and the other staff would have lost their jobs… Gordon Taylor of the Professional Footballers Association realised it was not brinkmanship or gamesmanship… If they didn’t do a deal at 12 o’clock then he’s going to have to deal with the contracts of god knows how many creditors. It was the first ever case of it’s kind and the Football League wouldn’t allow it to happen again… there were a lot more people in Bristol who took a hit… A lot of the creditors had to accept 10p, 15p, 20p in the pound, and they did it without whinging. A lot of them were pragmatic… (They) got 19.9p more than they would have got if the club went belly up. We were surprised at the level of debt… I do not believe Alan Dicks was responsible… The board, individually and collectively, had to be responsible for the decline of Bristol City’.

‘The report came out just before Christmas 1981. (We) suggested certain routes … one being the BCFC (1982) Plc route. The directors realised they were in ‘no win’ land. It was almost relief for them that other people were prepared to take over. They cogitated for four or five days and agreed. Then we all had to find £12,500 each, as a minimum of £50,000 is needed to launch a new plc… And of course we had the ‘Ashton Eight’ business to deal with, which went to the wire because Gordon Taylor and his advisers believed it was a double bluff. But the one thing I know to be true, at one minute past 12 on Wednesday 3rd February, that the club was going in to liquidation if the players had not signed that document. The Football League wanted guarantees which we couldn’t give paying those wages. The Club would not necessarily have gone down at a minute past 12. Ken Sage and myself and the other two directors would have walked away, because we knew that we were on a hiding to nothing. There was no way the club could have been saved. It might have struggled along for another four to eight days, but it would have gone bust’.

‘I was under a lot of stress. I nearly lost my house and my job. My marriage came close to finishing. I was doing eighteen hour days at City, as was Ken. We finished one particular board meeting at half past four in the morning… The amount of times that we had a board meeting where we needed to pay a bill of just £600; so the directors would put £75 or so each in the pot to pay that bill, and that happened more times than I cared to remember. It doesn’t seem like much now ---- but it was a lot of money in those days. My total commitment in to Bristol City for the first six months was over £70,000 which was all I ever had in the world and I kept it from my wife , because she would have gone absolutely ape, if she had known. She did find out subsequently and went absolutely ape… The first type friends of Bristol City groups collected around £4,000 after writing to all the secretaries of local football clubs, and that made an enormous difference. A lot of people rallied round in very, very small ways. But those small ways made a big impact’.

In an article which appeared in the April 1982 edition of Marxism Today, Peter Ball presented a view more from the players’ perspective. He wrote: ‘… The directors' answer, when the club got into trouble, was to face the players with an ultimatum: either they accept £58,000 to be split among the eight and tore up their contracts worth between £250,000 —£290,000, or the club went into liquidation. For players who had mortgages, families and responsibilities based upon their contracts, it was an impossible situation… Now they were faced with losing their livelihoods or taking the responsibility for closing the club and costing their other colleagues their jobs too… The Professional Footballers' Association, however, immediately acted in defence of their members. As Gordon Taylor, the PFA secretary remarked 'We couldn't afford to have such a bad settlement, not only for the sake of the players concerned, but for all our other members'. PFA accountants studied the books, and although the deal that was finally negotiated was far from perfect, they did succeed in rescuing something from the wreckage. Instead of the club going into liquidation, which would have left the players waiting for up to two years before they received a penny, or accepting the 'take it or leave it' offer, the PFA succeeded in protecting the players' contracts… with first claim against the proceeds from a new share issue and from the sale of assets of the old company, the most valuable of which is the grounds and its facilities. A second consequence of that agreement was that at the same time the jobs of other PFA members employed by Bristol City were protected… Merrick's reward for rejecting a move to Arsenal in order to help the club he had supported as a boy reach the first division was public abuse. Some of his colleagues received threatening phone calls. All were treated as if they were holding the club to ransom, rather than the other way round… the PFA estimate that only around 25-30% of contracts will come up for renewal in the summer… With a short career expectancy and a rough average wage of £175 a week (obviously top first division stars get much more, but a young player on the fringe of a fourth division team may only get £50 a week), footballers are hardly to blame for the economic mess the game finds itself in’.

As for the eight players, each of them gave their accounts in interviews conducted with Radio Bristol in 2006. All of them, bar one, indicated that they were entirely unaware of the severity of the Club’s financial situation and were unprepared for the fate which was to descend upon them.

Jimmy Mann was annoyed that the Club directors presented the eight players as being on long, lucrative contracts. ‘That was nonsense,’ he said. ‘Clive Whitehead had been on an 11 or 13 year contract and Tom Ritchie had one of about 7 or 8 years, because Alan Dicks wanted to hold onto his big players, but we weren’t. I had a contract of 3 years which was the longest among the eight of us.The press said we were on £30,000 or £40,000 a year. That was nonsense. What we had was a decent living wage but it wasn’t a fortune… We were put under a lot of pressure. It was said that the Club could fold and everyone would lose their jobs. It was on the TV and on the front pages of the Evening Post. The PFA were in a difficult position being confronted with this by the directors and their accountants. The PFA put our names around other clubs but nothing came of this. Other clubs must have thought there was something wrong with us, being picked out for the chop. I rang Norman Hunter at Barnsley and he gave me a trial, then a short contract. But I kept getting injuries and ended up working for Securicor before becoming a Jetty Master at Goole docks’.

Captain, Geoff Merrick added: ‘I had been with the Club for 17 years. We had grown up together. We socialised together. The seventies had been the best period of my football life. We didn’t really know what was happening. There was no real feeling that Bristol City was in such a state and about to fold. (After returning to Ashton Gate following a reserves’ match at the Arsenal) I met Jimmy Mann. He had some names written in biro on a tatty piece of paper. He told me that we needed to meet the directors on the Monday morning. Jimmy didn’t know the reason. He was asked to pass this onto me and the others in the reserves. This summed up their lack of feeling for us. It was very sloppy. If I was to sack someone I would deal with it on a first hand basis… We were innocent really, unprepared for the macabre situation we were about to face… I was supposed to be the players’ representative with the directors and the PFA. I had to deal with the media and the supporters, too. We ended up with two weeks pay in cash. Fortunately, my wife who was really strong: she only admitted how upset she was, afterwards. I found I lost two stones during the crisis… I ended up playing in Hong Kong for a while. I had to do something. We had a mortgage to pay and a family to look after – one boy of 10 years old and two, aged 4 and 5. I could have gone to Portsmouth but by then I’d promised them in Hong Kong I’d go there. I didn’t want to break my word but I didn’t stay long, though. I came back and decided to go into farming and, because that didn’t pay enough, I went into the construction business, setting up my own firm. It took around 10 years to put our life together again’.

Chris Garland said: ‘I was disappointed with the Club directors. Seven out of eight of them were successful businessmen, yet they made a real mess of things (at the Club). They went on to be successful businessmen afterwards. They wouldn’t let their own businesses get in that way… We were offered 10p in the pound only on our contracts, although this was eventually lifted a bit. Mine didn’t have long to run anyway. I felt sorry for the lads with longer contracts. We did get a testimonial game: Southampton played Ipswich at Ashton Gate. I got one, myself, too, after I had Parkinson’s Disease. Alex Ferguson kindly agreed to bring his Manchester United side for this if I could wait eighteen months as ‘’they were a bit busy at the time’’. That really helped me out with the mortgage and so on… (After leaving Bristol and playing in Hong Kong and Sweden) I came back and played as and when needed for City under Terry Cooper for £20 per week. I was so pleased the club survived. I was just proud to wear the red shirt again. Four of us were local boys – Geoff, Trevor and David. We all grew up with the club. It’s still my club’.

Gerry Sweeney recalled: ‘I wasn’t at the meeting with the directors to start with. I hadn’t been asked. Then they phoned me and asked me to go to the Club straightaway. I had been cleaning the car so I was in an old tracksuit. But I had to go as I was because they told me I had to be there in ten minutes. When I arrived at the meeting, I couldn’t work out what was going on. They just carried on with what they’d be saying. It took me five minutes or so to cotton on. I thought ‘’this can’t be right’’. I thought it must be a prank, like one of those Jeremy Beadle things. I was 37 years old and had only 14-16 months left on my contract. This last contract was a little bit longer than those before. It was given as a reward for what I’d done for the Club. I knew I didn’t have much time left but I wasn’t ready for it to end just like that… The directors kept blaming the players but no one is going to take less money if you can get more. We couldn’t say anything to anyone although people kept asking – team mates and supporters… The Football League and the PFA got together and although the original club was wound up they were allowed to finish the season before becoming Bristol City (1982). That wouldn’t happen now. The team would go out of the League like Newport County did and have to work their way up through Non-Leagues. We got the Ipswich – Southampton game. That helped a bit. We got 10-12p in the pound from the proceeds of that game… Afterwards, I went to York with Peter Aitken for a few months to help them avoid re-election, then I worked for Securicor, became a postman, began coaching, did some scouting and was an assistant manager at Walsall for two years. I also coached the school kids and the youth side here’.

Peter Aitken said he was the least surprised, among ‘Ashton Gate Eight’, about news of their fate. He explained: ‘attendances were falling. Violence on the terraces was causing fewer families to go to games. There were lot of financial problems in football then. Many clubs were letting experienced players go and carrying on with the younger players. I came across from Bristol Rovers. I could see things were pretty tight. It didn’t look as if the Club was going forward. Most of the players had seen better days. But I still assumed a contract was binding. I assumed the directors would deal with the finances… I remember we had just been beaten 1-0 by Aston Villa in the FA Cup. We’d played really well against the next European Champions. We’d only lost because of an unlucky deflection. Roy Hodgson (who was working alongside Bob Houghton – they both previously coached in Sweden) told us: ‘’the chairman would like to meet the players on Monday morning’’. I said straightaway to the others: ‘’we’ll be getting the sack’’. Trevor Tainton said: ‘’no, we are on contracts’’. I said to him: ‘’look around you’’… There were loads of photographers and newspaper people outside the offices in Bristol where we held one of the meetings. Gordon Taylor didn’t realise how big this was going to be. He didn’t want to see Bristol City go under because the players were his responsibility. Some people tried to split us but we stayed closely together… After helping save York, I went to Hong Kong for a year. I needed the money. The interest rates had just gone up. My mortgage repayments were £50 per month higher. After I came back I worked at Rolls Royce and played for Bath. I then worked alongside Tony Pulis at Gillingham before becoming a postman. Then I went to work with Bristol Rovers, my first club’.

Trevor Tainton said: ‘I had been at the Club 20 years, playing around 400 games. I had signed a contract and had been expecting that it would be honoured. Family members and friends kept telling me to stick it out. ‘’Someone will come in and save the Club’’, they said. I had been Bristol born and bred. Playing for my home Club was special. So, leaving was a wrench. I’ve still a lot of feelings for the Club… I went to Torquay for a couple of months but they didn’t have any money either, so they had to let me go. I’d always enjoyed playing so I continued to do so at Trowbridge. I wasn’t interested in managing or coaching so I became a security officer, first at Patchway then at Oldbury Power Station. The money we got from the Club wasn’t outstanding but I recognise that people are in and out of jobs all the time. Life goes on’.

David Rodgers was equally philosophical. He said: ‘there was a lot of flack from the supporters. It wasn’t personal, though. People would stop you when you were out shopping and ask what was happening. However, the attention we received from the press and public isn’t as intrusive as it is today. It happened so quickly. It is debatable whether the PFA did their job or whether we should have called the Club’s bluff. I had been at City for fourteen years. I played briefly at Torquay. They couldn’t afford another player. So I took a huge cut in pay to play at Lincoln for a couple of months. Then I returned home. My wife was working. I had to find something, too. I eventually got work at Bristol Grammar School, then Clifton College where I became a housemaster. Looking back, although we were sad and bitter at the time why should we have more consideration than anyone else like those laid off at Aerospace, for example’.

Julian Marshall remembered: ‘I had just signed a two and half year contract. I didn’t expect it to be torn up. Although I kept away from the City, my girlfriend worked there and picked up a lot of the gossip. World in Action did a TV documentary about the Club’s plight. It was then that I realised how big this story was. It would have been a good time to have had a agent to help us but we had to help ourselves and one another. Apart from organising the Southampton – Ipswich game, which was a wonderful gesture by those clubs, Bristol City did not offer any support. I wasn’t even akllowed to train with the Club after our contracts were ended. So in order to keep fit, I had to train on my own because I was still hopeful of getting another club. I was then only in my mid twenties. I had a short-term contract with Blackburn as Bobby Saxton was looking for cover at centre back. I was very grateful for the offer but it was a big wrench leaving Bristol. Although I went to Walsall for a while it wasn’t a happy time so I decided to start a different career in financial advice. I’d always been interested in money matters – stocks and shares and so on – and now I have my own business.’

As at Swansea, Bristol City suffered on account of its stewardship. A dream triumph was quickly transformed into a catastrophic collapse, with the Club rescued only at the eleventh hour by the brave, whole-hearted efforts of its new owners and the equally brave actions of its victims – the eight players who agreed to walk the plank in the interests of the Club, its employees and its supporters. BBC commentator and City fan Jonathan Pearce commented: ‘People should never forget in this city that without those eight players there would not be a Bristol City Football Club here today. I don't think they've ever been given due recognition’. At a time when players are frequently castigated for their alleged lack of integrity, it is worth remembering the loyalty shown by these eight individuals and the price they paid for it.

In 1982, it wasn’t just the ‘underdogs’ who were experiencing the financial pinch. Former Division One heavyweights, Wolves, were in the mire as well on account of rashly expensive purchases, such as Andy Gray, and £10 million spent on ground improvements. Had it not been for the late, decisive intervention of a consortium led by former player, Derek Dougan, they, too, would have gone to the wall. However, their demise was only postponed. By the second half of the eighties they would find themselves in the basement alongside languishing Burnley, who had also been brought low by imprudent dealings in the transfer market. By this time, though, Bristol City had begun to rise, Lazarus-like, from its pit of despair. By 1990, Bristol City were back in Division Two; a magnificent recovery from impending oblivion, just eight years before.

Photo call of the 1982-83 team with DC, KS, LK and DW in the shot.

[Dollymarie]

Would be nice WHEN AV is built if there was some sort of recognition to Gerry and co... maybe entrances to the stands could be named after them or something with plaques .......

There is a plaque. It's by the players entrance on the Atyeo stand wall.