Was this the start of 1982 financial collapse

[gavlin]

Interesting article in the Green Un from October 1975 City promotion year when City bank overdraft was at £200000 and their bank allowed them to stay at that level instead of selling players to halve the debt because they were near the top of the of the second division. 
This shows the club were already financially precarious. 
 

[Mr Popodopolous]

Nice find!

Before my time but always like to learn a bit more of the history of the club.

Counterfactual for those who were around then, I know he passed on in 1977 and that he was 80 iirc but if not by Harry Dolman himself but someone with the same ethos, following the model- would we have imploded financially?

Edited October 24, 2022 by Mr Popodopolous

[exAtyeoMax]

1 hour ago, gavlin said:

Interesting article in the Green Un from October 1975 City promotion year when City bank overdraft was at £200000 and their bank allowed them to stay at that level instead of selling players to halve the debt because they were near the top of the of the second division. 
This shows the club were already financially precarious. 
 

Bollom…Bristol's Brightspots…?

[Never to the dark side]

gavlin

may I ask if you have any more Green Uns hanging around?

[BS2 Red]

£11.95 for a large reproduction pub mirror is a bargain.

[MC RISK77]

8 hours ago, exAtyeoMax said:

Bollom…Bristol's Brightspots…?

What is bollom? And is that the same shop as where the old sign of bollom is in north street? above the lounge cafe I think which looks very old and not quite sure why it is still there?

[headhunter]

25 minutes ago, MC RISK77 said:

What is bollom? And is that the same shop as where the old sign of bollom is in north street? above the lounge cafe I think which looks very old and not quite sure why it is still there?

Bollom was a dry cleaners

[Major Isewater]

11 minutes ago, headhunter said:

Bollom was a dry cleaners

Sorry misread post, must change my glasses.

[Bristol Rob]

39 minutes ago, headhunter said:

Bollom was a dry cleaners

They don't come cleaner than Bollom clean.

They only ever seemed to advertise on a Friday, after the Good Neighbour show with Fred Wedlock and Sherrie Eugene and before Winner Takes All (hosted by Tarby), "we have a difference of opinion here, Dave has gone with 'Sausages' at 14/1 and Margaret has answered 'Deep maths' a 2/1 favourite'.

Then it was Albion Market, before a proper treat like CATS Eyes.

As you were.

(Should have added the voice of Geoffrey Wheeler to the Winner Takes All reference)

Edited October 25, 2022 by Bristol Rob
Wheeler, innit.

[exAtyeoMax]

1 hour ago, MC RISK77 said:

What is bollom? And is that the same shop as where the old sign of bollom is in north street? above the lounge cafe I think which looks very old and not quite sure why it is still there?

Yes! It used to be a dry cleaners, had loads of shops around the south west.

Edited October 25, 2022 by exAtyeoMax

[redysteadygo]

Bollom were dry cleaners and had plenty of shops all over Bristol. Works were in "Horefield" then in the 60s moved to the industrial estate at the bottom of Novers Hill. Were taken over by Johnson's and changed name I think in the 90s.

[GrahamC]

To answer the OP, no, it wasn’t.

This was when we rejected the £250k offer from Arsenal for Merrick & Ritchie, hoping we got promoted to Division One instead, which of course we did.

The financial crisis came much later, (3/4 years) the long term contracts we gave out as a response to Gary Collier walking out on us (though it is forgotten now we got £350k for him, a huge sum then) was definitely a big factor. Players who had been great servants were on the way down but on top flight money they couldn’t justify.

Worth recalling too that despite the nostalgia for that era some of our gates in the top flight were truly awful, definitely remember a couple of 15,000 ones against the likes of Boro.

It wasn’t the glamour of the Premier League true, but the West Country public were pretty lukewarm in supporting the club then, that was also a big factor.

Gates dropped off a cliff as soon as we were relegated (& then relegated again). Someone I know who went every game in the top flight stopped & has only been back about 5 times in the 40 years since.

[ashton_fan]

54 minutes ago, GrahamC said:

To answer the OP, no, it wasn’t.

This was when we rejected the £250k offer from Arsenal for Merrick & Ritchie, hoping we got promoted to Division One instead, which of course we did.

The financial crisis came much later, (3/4 years) the long term contracts we gave out as a response to Gary Collier walking out on us (though it is forgotten now we got £350k for him, a huge sum then) was definitely a big factor. Players who had been great servants were on the way down but on top flight money they couldn’t justify.

Worth recalling too that despite the nostalgia for that era some of our gates in the top flight were truly awful, definitely remember a couple of 15,000 ones against the likes of Boro.

It wasn’t the glamour of the Premier League true, but the West Country public were pretty lukewarm in supporting the club then, that was also a big factor.

Gates dropped off a cliff as soon as we were relegated (& then relegated again). Someone I know who went every game in the top flight stopped & has only been back about 5 times in the 40 years since.

I can't agree that the support was luke-warm in the First Division era, there weren't so many season ticket holders so gates fluctuated more, yes there were some lower gates in midweek games against teams lower in the table but for example when we played Liverpool at home at the end of our first season we got 38,688. Me and my mates certainly didn't stop watching them when they went down either although we did lose a lot of fans who used to travel from around the south-west just to see a first division game as there was nothing else anywhere close. You wouldn't expect to get the same number of fans willing to watch Notts County rather than Arsenal, say.

[Eddie Hitler]

1 hour ago, GrahamC said:

he financial crisis came much later, (3/4 years) the long term contracts we gave out as a response to Gary Collier walking out on us (though it is forgotten now we got £350k for him, a huge sum then) was definitely a big factor. Players who had been great servants were on the way down but on top flight money they couldn’t justify.

 

Alan Dicks is the first manager I remember; I saw him on the news with the players on the open top bus celebrating promotion before I even knew about football.

He took a team of promising players up to the top - legend.

The problem then was that the Board ceased to question anything that he did, in a precursor of Mark Ashton's spendthrift years.  Alan saw his task as keeping together the team that had won promotion by handing out long lucrative contracts and the Board underwrote all of his decisions.

Not once did that Board stop to ask how all of these first division contracts could be funded on a second division income, let alone third or fourth division income.  Or if the thought crossed their mind and was voiced Alan assured them that the players could be easily sold for a profit.

Alan Dicks was very much wrong on that.  Yet he was a football man and not a money man.  The Board was stuffed with businessmen yet they brought zero business acumen to the running of the club; instead treating it like a private members club for the entertainment of themselves and their guests.

The Board left the financial decision making to an ex-footballer in his first managerial role.  It was quite right that one of the first acts of the rescuing team was to get rid of them.

[Mr Popodopolous]

1 hour ago, GrahamC said:

Worth recalling too that despite the nostalgia for that era some of our gates in the top flight were truly awful, definitely remember a couple of 15,000 ones against the likes of Boro.

It wasn’t the glamour of the Premier League true, but the West Country public were pretty lukewarm in supporting the club then, that was also a big factor.

Gates dropped off a cliff as soon as we were relegated (& then relegated again). Someone I know who went every game in the top flight stopped & has only been back about 5 times in the 40 years since.

 

29 minutes ago, ashton_fan said:

I can't agree that the support was luke-warm in the First Division era, there weren't so many season ticket holders so gates fluctuated more, yes there were some lower gates in midweek games against teams lower in the table but for example when we played Liverpool at home at the end of our first season we got 38,688. Me and my mates certainly didn't stop watching them when they went down either although we did lose a lot of fans who used to travel from around the south-west just to see a first division game as there was nothing else anywhere close. You wouldn't expect to get the same number of fans willing to watch Notts County rather than Arsenal, say.

Knowing what I do about the era, football more widely it was a bit of a perfect storm. City specific plus the wider context.

1) Overhang of major contracts to 'protect assets.

2) Parachute Payments as with all clubs then.

3) Social unrest let's call it, which probably fed into crowd trouble. Think unemployment rose in the late 1970s to early 1980s...

4) Falling attendances across the board, a number of clubs hit very hard times in the 1980s, point 3 also probably feeds in.

5) The simple fact of going from the top division to bottom of the Football League is probably the biggest! Couldn't even consolidate in the 2nd tier e.g.

Think the above points all fed off each other though.

Was a terrible time to get relegated in short!

Edited October 25, 2022 by Mr Popodopolous

[GrahamC]

1 hour ago, ashton_fan said:

I can't agree that the support was luke-warm in the First Division era, there weren't so many season ticket holders so gates fluctuated more, yes there were some lower gates in midweek games against teams lower in the table but for example when we played Liverpool at home at the end of our first season we got 38,688. Me and my mates certainly didn't stop watching them when they went down either although we did lose a lot of fans who used to travel from around the south-west just to see a first division game as there was nothing else anywhere close. You wouldn't expect to get the same number of fans willing to watch Notts County rather than Arsenal, say.

Sorry, that’s wrong & looking it up it was actually far worse than I recalled;

78/79 season (these are Saturday games)

Boro home 12,300, Birmingham & QPR both 15,000. 

79/80 (relegation season)

Boro home 10,800, Bolton 13,000, WBA,15,000, Ipswich 14,000, Southampton 12,000.

There was a recession but our gates were pretty poor, the novelty of being in the top flight had worn off & people simply didn’t turn up.

I didn’t stop going either (& never have) but thousands clearly did.

[Davefevs]

50 minutes ago, Eddie Hitler said:

 

Alan Dicks is the first manager I remember; I saw him on the news with the players on the open top bus celebrating promotion before I even knew about football.

He took a team of promising players up to the top - legend.

The problem then was that the Board ceased to question anything that he did, in a precursor of Mark Ashton's spendthrift years.  Alan saw his task as keeping together the team that had won promotion by handing out long lucrative contracts and the Board underwrote all of his decisions.

Not once did that Board stop to ask how all of these first division contracts could be funded on a second division income, let alone third or fourth division income.  Or if the thought crossed their mind and was voiced Alan assured them that the players could be easily sold for a profit.

Alan Dicks was very much wrong on that.  Yet he was a football man and not a money man.  The Board was stuffed with businessmen yet they brought zero business acumen to the running of the club; instead treating it like a private members club for the entertainment of themselves and their guests.

The Board left the financial decision making to an ex-footballer in his first managerial role.  It was quite right that one of the first acts of the rescuing team was to get rid of them.

Listening to both @headhunterinterview with Dicks and Jonathan Pearce’s interview on 20Man, it appears that Dicks handed responsibility for the contracts over to the board, and that they negotiated the terms, not Dicks.

[archie andrews]

12 minutes ago, GrahamC said:

Sorry, that’s wrong & looking it up it was actually far worse than I recalled;

78/79 season (these are Saturday games)

Boro home 12,300, Birmingham & QPR both 15,000. 

79/80 (relegation season)

Boro home 10,800, Bolton 13,000, WBA,15,000, Ipswich 14,000, Southampton 12,000.

There was a recession but our gates were pretty poor, the novelty of being in the top flight had worn off & people simply didn’t turn up.

I didn’t stop going either (& never have) but thousands clearly did.

Dont forget cash at the turnstile plus greedy gatemen equals missing money and more in the ground than it looks..... 

[GrahamC]

15 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

Listening to both @headhunterinterview with Dicks and Jonathan Pearce’s interview on 20Man, it appears that Dicks handed responsibility for the contracts over to the board, and that they negotiated the terms, not Dicks.

I was too young at the time to know this sort of detail, so would just make these observations;

History is always written by the winning side, AD (88 now, God bless him) is the only one that’s still around from that era..

The board (& this never changes) didn’t have the first clue about football, so if it is true this would have been our financial director, who was Stephen Kew, I believe (no relation to Les).

We did get caught in a perfect storm, but AD was far too reliant on players that bluntly were by then past it (so Sweeney, Tainton, Merrick, Rodgers) plus we had already sold off those who were (Gow, Ritchie, Whitehead) to cut our costs. He was also incredibly passive in the transfer market as a result, whole seasons would go by with no signings or departures.

Those that were finally brought in to replace the players sold, so Marshall & Aitken were absolutely shite.

Edited October 25, 2022 by GrahamC

[Eddie Hitler]

12 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

Listening to both @headhunterinterview with Dicks and Jonathan Pearce’s interview on 20Man, it appears that Dicks handed responsibility for the contracts over to the board, and that they negotiated the terms, not Dicks.

 

I saw an interview with Alan on the golf course, it's in the longer video linked from here that included the "does the city need two Bristols?" line, and he was incredibly defensive when this came up.  "Been caught stealin'" defensive.

His words were something like "I was tasked by the Board with keeping the players and that's what I did."

That could mean that he recommended to the Board approximate contract length and wages and the Board then did the negotiation around those parameters; so he would be technically correct in that he didn't technically negotiate the contracts but I would say that he had a material input.

I doubt that such a successful manager for Brstol City restricted his advice to the Board to a suggestion that he would like to keep Clive Whitehead, for example.

[spudski]

41 minutes ago, GrahamC said:

Sorry, that’s wrong & looking it up it was actually far worse than I recalled;

78/79 season (these are Saturday games)

Boro home 12,300, Birmingham & QPR both 15,000. 

79/80 (relegation season)

Boro home 10,800, Bolton 13,000, WBA,15,000, Ipswich 14,000, Southampton 12,000.

There was a recession but our gates were pretty poor, the novelty of being in the top flight had worn off & people simply didn’t turn up.

I didn’t stop going either (& never have) but thousands clearly did.

I think another thing that affected gates, was the local amateur football scene. It was one of the biggest outside of London. 

I know many, myself included that played on Saturdays during this era. We struggled to see matches at the Gate. 

During 77/78 for two years, there was also Speedway on a Friday night at Eastville. That drew large crowds. Many who played football on a Saturday, got their sports fix on a Friday night instead. 

Like you say, money was tight and there was a recession. 

 

[Bristol Rob]

4 minutes ago, spudski said:

I think another thing that affected gates, was the local amateur football scene. It was one of the biggest outside of London. 

I know many, myself included that played on Saturdays during this era. We struggled to see matches at the Gate. 

During 77/78 for two years, there was also Speedway on a Friday night at Eastville. That drew large crowds. Many who played football on a Saturday, got their sports fix on a Friday night instead. 

Like you say, money was tight and there was a recession. 

 

Add to that a growth in unemployment and terrace violence and a drop in gates was inevitable.

[Red-Robbo]

27 minutes ago, Eddie Hitler said:

 

I saw an interview with Alan on the golf course, it's in the longer video linked from here that included the "does the city need two Bristols?" line, and he was incredibly defensive when this came up.  "Been caught stealin'" defensive.

His words were something like "I was tasked by the Board with keeping the players and that's what I did."

That could mean that he recommended to the Board approximate contract length and wages and the Board then did the negotiation around those parameters; so he would be technically correct in that he didn't technically negotiate the contracts but I would say that he had a material input.

I doubt that such a successful manager for Brstol City restricted his advice to the Board to a suggestion that he would like to keep Clive Whitehead, for example.

 

Stephen Kew and Robert Hobbs have to take a lot of responsibility for what subsequently transpired, but so does Dicksy. 

Normal internal accounting for expenditure went out the window.  

[Gert Mare]

Legend tells the story that there was quite a lot of board room struggles for power back in the late 1970's. Requests for external investors were rebuffed and a number of financially costly legal battles ensued.

The lengthy contracts, relegation and Bob Houghton's champagne lifestyle were the final nails in the coffin.

In answer to the original poster.....this wasn't the beginning. I think it all started post Harry Dolman era (between 1977-82).

[Red-Robbo]

1 minute ago, Gert Mare said:

Legend tells the story that there was quite a lot of board room struggles for power back in the late 1970's. Requests for external investors were rebuffed and a number of financially costly legal battles ensued.

The lengthy contracts, relegation and Bob Houghton's champagne lifestyle were the final nails in the coffin.

In answer to the original poster.....this wasn't the beginning. I think it all started post Harry Dolman era (between 1977-82).

 

Correct, and no legend re the power struggles. Fighting broke out at one board meeting - well, a sort of handbags version. 

More than one person treated the hospitality float as if they were MP's with expenses' forms.  

[Bristol Oil Services]

2 hours ago, ashton_fan said:

I can't agree that the support was luke-warm in the First Division era, there weren't so many season ticket holders so gates fluctuated more, yes there were some lower gates in midweek games against teams lower in the table but for example when we played Liverpool at home at the end of our first season we got 38,688. Me and my mates certainly didn't stop watching them when they went down either although we did lose a lot of fans who used to travel from around the south-west just to see a first division game as there was nothing else anywhere close. You wouldn't expect to get the same number of fans willing to watch Notts County rather than Arsenal, say.

Reading back through the matchday programmes from that era the club clearly considered the attendances to be disappointing. Alan Dicks also often grumbled about the crowd 1. Moaning and 2. Swearing, and other undesirable (and potential-family-supporter-keeping-away) behaviour. 

I think the club had thought: we get to the 1st division and the crowds will be huge, only by the time we did get there, crowds are declining across the whole game and around the country because of a number of reasons, not least the violence and the poor facilities and grounds (AG only had 7,500 seats, if we had had more seats then .... ) but also the football itself was in decline as a spectacle, culminating in changes in the early 80s such as 3 points for a win and the new pass back rule.

We just got there too late. We needed to get there in the 50s when we had Big John and crowds were huge after the war. The boom didn't last and we got there as the game was going bust.

The other thing to remember is that this fabled era in our history was in fact 3 seasons of either fighting off relegation or being relegated, in 4 years. No-one back then, other than Man Utd, pulled in bumper crowds for a team struggling at the foot of the table.

Truth is, we were a pretty poor and unattractive team to the uninitiated with only Norman Hunter as any sort of "star" scoring not enough goals playing in a ground in need of modernisation with regular fighting in the East End and Grev Smyth park, to attract these potential new supporters on a regular basis.

Getting to the 1st division was the only "success" in that time, where we needed to have more success whilst up there to pull in local people not already regulars, like other similar clubs such as Norwich and Southampton enjoyed.

 

[GrahamC]

I think the violence stuff is a complete red herring.

It was really bad from the very early 70s, certainly as far back as I can remember.

If you were going it didn’t put you off (very scary at times) but it was no different, possibly even slightly on the wane, by the time we got promoted.

[Mr Popodopolous]

16 minutes ago, GrahamC said:

I think the violence stuff is a complete red herring.

It was really bad from the very early 70s, certainly as far back as I can remember.

If you were going it didn’t put you off (very scary at times) but it was no different, possibly even slightly on the wane, by the time we got promoted.

You were there by the sound so I won't query first hand experience but at the same time, attendances nationally declined from say mid to late 1970s and bottomed out mid 1980s. Is a fair inference that the violence was getting worse or perhaps more organised Idk?

Irrespective of the reasons, they had a precipitous 5-10 year decline. Throw in a triple relegation, a brutal downward spiral and it's inevitable in hindsight.

Edited October 25, 2022 by Mr Popodopolous

[Bristol Rob]

15 minutes ago, GrahamC said:

I think the violence stuff is a complete red herring.

It was really bad from the very early 70s, certainly as far back as I can remember.

If you were going it didn’t put you off (very scary at times) but it was no different, possibly even slightly on the wane, by the time we got promoted.

Weekend dad's wouldn't take their kids, pensioners who a few years earlier would have brushed it off became more bothered and whilst there were a new/younger fans to fill the space, it was a strange time in history.

[Eddie Hitler]

3 minutes ago, Mr Popodopolous said:

You were there by the sound so I won't query first hand experience but at the same time, attendances nationally declined from say mid to late 1970s and bottomed out mid 1980s. Is a fair inference that the violence was getting worse or perhaps more organised Idk?

 

Or just reported on more.  It went from a local policing issue to being a big national political problem that the government was determined to crush.

In the stadiums it was with metal cages for the supporters in the grounds and then after the Hillsborough disaster in 1989 all seater stadiums.

In the courts it was with punitive sentences far above those handed down for violence not connected with football.