1990/1991 season....

[Jack Dawe]

We were the 6th best supported club in the division that season, averaging 13500. Doesn't sound a lot but Wolves averaged only a couple of hundred more, Newcastle 16000 and Brighton - who reached the play offs - 8000 (and in the 1ST Div, Chelsea averaged 20k. Crowds were low across the country, compared to now). There was an appetite in BS3 for some success at a proper level of football. 

Enough paying punters to "compete" at that level, you would have thought. Something to build upon. 

But it didn't happen.

 

This season has been bloody marvellous compared to most of what followed 1990/91. It'll be interesting to see if we can "build" on a good second tier season this time.

 

 

 

 

 

[Wanderingred]

Hmm. It was an enjoyable season and the football was great to watch but I think people are just remembering the good stuff. We actually only won 1 more game than we lost and had a negative goal difference due to losing several games heavily (including a 0-4 at home to Swindon - ouch!) 

I've no doubt that if the forum was around then, people would have been just as critical as they are now. They would have absolutely panned our defense for sure. I remember everybody was seething when we played Millwall, lost 1-4 and missed out on the playoffs.. otib would have had a meltdown that day!

Anyway, my best memory of that season (other than the obvious.. Donawa vs the sags) was being tucked up in bed as an 8 year old, listening to my old Fisher Price radio.. we had a night game at Brighton which we needed to win to remain in contention and I believe Gary Shelton scored the winner in the last minute. I still remember how happy I felt.

League table

https://www.11v11.com/teams/bristol-city/tab/leagueTables/1991/

Results

https://www.11v11.com/teams/bristol-city/tab/matches/season/1991/

[EnclosureSurge]

I posted elsewhere that the sale of Andy Cole summed this club up and even under Lansdown we are just as pitiful.

Newcastle, struggling at the foot of the second division but believe they are a big club, bring in Keegan then spend big money on Cole, because they believe.

City, flying high out of division 3 and surprising people in Division 2, but we know where we belong and there seems little point in building a team around Cole, better off waiting for a big offer and sell him off. We can slip quietly back to Division 3 and the football league trophy then.

3 hours ago, Busterrimes said:

Andy Cole didn't join us until the following season on loan and then permanently for the 1992=93 season. By then we were a totally different beast and had started to struggle as Lumsden had already been sacked. Cole was brought in by Denis Smith.

There are some similarities between 1990-91 and 2017-18. Warnock getting promotion, he was manager of Notts County who won the Play Offs that year.

 

Quite. I don't think we can complain that we signed a completely unknown Andrew Cole aged 20 from Arsenal yoof for a ridiculous amount of money both then and for us. £500,000 was akin to more money than we had ever talked about for a City sale or signing. It was an insane amount for a kid. Making a huge profit on him after he blazed so many goals - not even I could hold that against Les & Des. And I hold a lot against them. It was clear he was destined for bigger things and not with us as we were so imbalanced front & back. Poor Denis didn't know his back four from his front four (from Cole, Jacki, Rosenoir, Allinson, Morgan). It was evident from everything he did he was waay too good to be playing for us. You just have to accept that. That was good business in those days, not a lack of ambition.

Great season. As stated every time this comes up, Brighton away was fantastic. 1-0 Shelts, late on. The business City bloke/fan running on the pitch in his mac. You don't get that any more.

[22A]

Notes I made at the time. As always, feel free to correct any errors.

In time for the recommencement of second division football at Ashton Gate, City signed two defenders and three strikers. Welsh international Mark Aizlewood came from Bradford City for £110,000 and Andy May cost £90,000 from Huddersfield. Mark Gavin went to Watford and City received Wayne Allison plus £100,000. Louie Donowa joined from Ipswich for £50,000 and Mark Jones was picked up on a free transfer from Crystal Palace. First division Aston Villa were seeking a new manager and approached both Bristol clubs. Joe Jordan declined stating that he wished to complete the job that he had started. This year four clubs would be promoted, the top three automatically and those in fourth to seventh places would play off for the other one.

                On the opening day of the season, a panel of pundits on B.B.C. Radio 5 stated they believed Bristol City might be good enough to win promotion straight away. That afternoon Blackburn Rovers were the visitors and were 1-0 up at half time. In the second half Aizlewood equalised only to see Blackburn retake the lead. Then Bob Taylor scored twice and Nicky Morgan hit another for a 4-2 victory. In midweek, City went to West Brom for a League Cup match and Morgan scored two more in a two all draw. The following weekend saw City at Swindon, but the match was played on the Sunday at the request of the police. Junior Bent scored the only goal and this was the first time that City had won on a Sunday since the idea was introduced in 1974. That win lifted City to fourth position when the first League table was published, but it was also to be the highest spot achieved in the 1990/91 season. In the return cup match with West Brom, a goal towards the end of extra time was enough to see City through and 14,000 spectators turned up for the next match against Plymouth. Nicky Morgan scored again in a 1-1 draw. This was followed by a bomb shell; Hearts asked Joe Jordan to become their manager. After pondering it for two days, he accepted. As he had but recently signed a new three year contract, the directors sought £250,000 compensation from Hearts who offered £70,000. As they were not English, the matter had to go to F.I.F.A. for arbitration and they decided on a figure of £80,000. Jordan's assistant John Lumsden stayed on as caretaker manager, but that weekend City lost for the first time, 2-1 at West Brom. In Glasgow, Celtic triumphed three nil over Hearts and Jordan was seen in tears at the end of the game. Lumsden was officially appointed manager in midweek and the team responded with three consecutive victories. These comprised a pair of home League wins over Brighton and Newcastle with a visit to first division Sunderland for the League Cup second round, first leg in between. A sensational goal by Morgan in the second half secured the surprise result.  

                October 1990 proved to be dismal though after such a promising start. On the third, Leicester won 3-0. Earlier in the week, their manager had taken them away to escape the abuse of their own fans due to poor results. Three days later City lost four nil at Wolves and then came the return match with Sunderland. They scored after twenty seconds and Morgan equalised five minutes later. Just before the interval, Sunderland went 2-1 up on the night and level overall. In the second half they scored four more for an emphatic 6-1 win. The divisions top two clubs then visited; West Ham drew and Oldham won 2-1. Again the scoring was all done by Nicky Morgan. In midweek, Bob Taylor was dropped for the game at Millwall and City won 2-1, but the month ended with another defeat. November saw an improvement. Bottom placed Watford visited and Wayne Allison, playing in Bob Taylor's place, scored twice against his former club. Watford then scored twice themselves before conceding an own goal and City were positioned 11th. This was followed by a defeat at Oxford, so Lumsden experimented with team formations. 4-4-2 brought a 4-1 win against Hull, he then tried a sweeper system when City returned to Oxford for a Zenith Data Cup tie. This was a competition for clubs in the top two divisions. Towards the end of the game, City equalised an early Oxford goal and in extra time took the lead, only for Oxford to equalise. A penalty shootout was now held and again City failed with spot kicks. For the following game at Ipswich, Lumsden tried 3-4-3 and they always looked like scoring, but after 15 minutes they missed an open goal and five minutes later conceded one. In the second half goal keeper Sinclair was beaten by another shot, but Aizlewood charged through the area, leapt acrobatically and palmed the ball over the bar! Thompson hit the resultant penalty high and wide of the goal. Allison was taken off and Bob Taylor came on. Junior Bent had been causing the Ipswich defence problems with his wing play all afternoon and towards the end of the game, he dribbled the ball past five defenders before passing the ball to an unmarked Taylor who hit the equaliser.

                The team slipped to 13th. position on December 1st. when struggling Charlton won 1-0 at Ashton gate.  Sheffield Wednesday became the third team in nine matches to concede an own goal when they came to Bristol. A week later, Newman scored the only goal in the return with Blackburn and City were nicely placed, but Notts. County were close behind. At  Meadow Lane, Bent and Smith put City 2-1 up after County opened the scoring, but two goals in the last nine minutes resulted in a home win. The final two games of 1990 saw Portsmouth beaten 4-1 and Middlesbrough 3-0.          

                Five matches were played during January 1991 and all were defeats. On New Year's Day it was two nil at Barnsley and a player was sent off. Four days later they slipped out of the F.A. Cup 2-1 at first division Norwich. Swindon won 4-0 in the only home game of the month, then Plymouth won one nil and at Bath, Rovers triumphed 3-2. By doing so, they climbed above City for the first time that season as they slipped back to thirteenth. February saw the pendulum swing the other way with only three games played due to the weather, but all were victories and they ended the month eighth. Ten of City's final 16 games pitted them against teams chasing one of the top seven positions. In March they were unbeaten at home, but only scored twice in four away games. One of those was a 4-1 defeat at Portsmouth. All six games in April were against higher placed teams. On Easter Monday, Notts. County were beaten 3-2 followed by the fixture at Middlesborough who had the same points as City. Bob Taylor scored in the second minute, but 'Boro equalised before the interval. In the final minute of the game, City appealed for a penalty when a home defender clearly handled the ball in his area, but the referee allowed the game to continue. Their 'keeper punted the ball upfield and with a desperation shot a forward volleyed it on.  The shot hit a post and went in for a 2-1 home win. City bounced back with Newman scoring the winner against Barnsley and he was on target again in the defeat at Oldham. Fortunately, three of the clubs in the play off places also lost that day. City then went to Brighton and were all over them, but only won due to a last minute goal by Gary Shelton enabling them to enter the final four games with high hopes of a play off place.

                The home game with Millwall fell on the anniversary of the death of Dean Horrix. His two sons were mascots for the day and led the teams out, one in each of the club's colours. Nicky Morgan gave City an early lead, but Millwall hit four themselves in the second half. The following week they again lost an early lead and had to settle for a draw with Port Vale. Four days later they visited Hillsborough. Sheffield Wednesday needed one point to grab the last of the automatic promotion places, but they took all three with a 3-1 win. On the final day of the season City could still get into the promotion frame by winning at Watford whilst Barnsley and Brighton lost. City did win, 3-2, but the others failed to cooperate and the season ended in 9th. spot on 67 points. Eight clubs beneath City, including relegated West Brom, had actually lost fewer games. Although they might not have been ready for promotion, three more points would have seen them sixth. Perhaps that referee's decision at Middlesbrough had a greater effect on the club's fate than was seen at the time as the next few years would be relegation fights. In the close season City returned to Watford and signed Gerald Harrison as a free transfer and goal keeper Keith Welch came from Rochdale for £200,000. Chris Honor went to Airdrie for a tenth of that and Rob Newman was bought by Norwich for £600,000. Both of those players had been in the City youth team that had won an International tournament in France in 1984. The day before the 1991/92 season kicked off, all 22 clubs in the first division registered their resignations with the Football League so as to form a F.A. controlled Premier League the following season.

[Davefevs]

5 hours ago, BobBobSuperBob said:

Had one of the best if not the best , touches / first touches of the hundreds of City players I’ve seen Graham

Class Footballer , and a very clever one

Good finisher , great to play off

Only lacked any pace , otherwise would have been a Div One striker

 

( Taxi driver working out the airport now )

 

3 hours ago, BS4 on Tour... said:

Spot on....I loved watching Nicky Morgan, his close control was absolutely awesome...

Think the comments on here prove he wasn’t underrated by a lot of us.

Drove up to a very wet Hawthorns for a Rumbelows Cup tie - 2-all, pretty sure Morgan got both.

Good, intelligent footballer.  Liked the bookies though!

[finbarr_in_z]

19 hours ago, Boston Red said:

Plus, for that season there were 3 automatic promotion places and the play-offs were 4th to 7th. We were still in with a chance of the play offs on the last day of the season against Watford away. We won 3-2 but still missed out.

 

Which, if I remember rightly, was an immense fancy dress outing. There was a pitch invasion during the second half which had Keystone cops being chased by real police and the Archbishop of Canterbury being handcuffed & marched off the pitch. Those were the days.....

[finbarr_in_z]

On the subject of fancy dress, I had to post this somewhere

http://www.sportbible.com/football/news-reactions-hartlepool-fans-dress-as-clowns-for-final-away-game-of-season-20180428

Top effort (although they could be in training to be  )

[Lanterne Rouge]

6 hours ago, EnclosureSurge said:

 

Great season. As stated every time this comes up, Brighton away was fantastic. 1-0 Shelts, late on. The business City bloke/fan running on the pitch in his mac. You don't get that any more.

Always remember getting back on the coach soaking wet as it had pissed down for the entire game and we were out in the open to hear Radio Sussex re-running the goal;

`Shelton scores and there is absolute pandemonium to my left`

They weren`t wrong about that!

[BS4 on Tour...]

1 hour ago, finbarr_in_z said:

On the subject of fancy dress, I had to post this somewhere

http://www.sportbible.com/football/news-reactions-hartlepool-fans-dress-as-clowns-for-final-away-game-of-season-20180428

Top effort (although they could be in training to be  )

They do that every season, it’s always impressive!

[Lanterne Rouge]

15 minutes ago, BS4 on Tour... said:

They do that every season, it’s always impressive!

A couple of years back they all went to Plymouth dressed as Star Wars stormtroopers. There were some cracking shots of loads stood on various stations in full gear.

[redapple]

13 hours ago, 054123 said:

From what I remember we didn’t have the richest Englishman in football at the helm for previous 15 years and were still dragging ourselves out of the near collapse of the 80s.

Completely different parameters.

Didn’t have to compete against teams getting hundreds of millions in parachute payments year after year either.