Poll on the Lansdowns - Stay or Go?

[ChippenhamRed]

So much nuance and so many variables that mean I can’t answer that as a simple yes or no.

[bearded_red]

I reckon the only thing more boring than ‘be careful what you wish for’ is actually watching City play football.

[Rocking Red Cyril]

And Tinnion to be replaced and not allowed within a 10 mile radius of the gate or training ground ever 

[Lorenzos Only Goal]

I am perplexed by that number of two thirds, I mean SL has a lot of loans in the club they have very preferential interest rates.  A buyer of anything other than a sovereign fund would mean replacing those loans with a huge amount of PE money at a higher rate of interest and we would in return more than likely put us in a horrible financial position. 

I'm pissed off with them sure, but conversely I'm careful what I wish for.

[Red DNA]

11 hours ago, The Constant Rabbit said:

No comments required - it's a simple 'Yes or No' poll.

 

How do OTIB posters feel about the Lansdowns staying or going?

As per all of these polls, apart from percentages there’s no transparency on actual numbers of people who bothered to vote. 
 

Please provide numbers - not percentages, so we can see how many of the fan base bothered to vote one way or the other.

I doubt very much if the total figures will reach the 600 or so who had to endure yesterdays game let alone the coming W Ham game.

Remember, if the majority - who vote - go for Lansdown out, that’s nowhere near the majority of the fan base, only those who bothered to vote.   

As good as though this forum is it’s not 100% of the fan base of this club. 

Edited January 14 by Red DNA

[Numero Uno]

So when Steve is no longer able to fund the club it is inevitable we will be liquidated shortly thereafter? Be careful what you wish for and all that.

[italian dave]

29 minutes ago, mason said:

How exactly are we in the "best position"?

1, We are now tenants in our ground with no say on who plays here or uses it, every stand/end has been replaced since my first visit yet it seems to have made us? how much exactly? and got us where?

2, We are still a mid table 2nd div/championship club as we were in 1967

3, The present boss seems to change managers every 5minutes and lacks conviction of his own choices, unlike back then when HD stuck with AD and it paid off

4, Nice redeveloped stadium and training ground has also got us where?

5, A close knit club, between players and fans and management has been replaced with a huge gap with each going their own way

6, We again seem to have to "trust him on Tinman" for our future, that went well last time didnt it.

7, Player sales seem to be just be trying to balance the books and cover mistakes SL/JL have made rather than buying/building a better squad

So this over 70yr old wants a change and is fed up with the circles this club this club seems to be forever going around.....probably wrong but thats my opinion.

1. There’s a whole debate about that which is probably too complicated to get in here, but arguably we’re in a more secure position than we’d have been with many other owners who’ve “invested” in English clubs in recent years, and going forward the prospect of those risks materialising are far greater if SL sells.

2. @Port Said Reds post (to which you are responding) very clearly said ‘since the Dolman era’. ‘67 was the Dolman era.

3. Oh, come on. We have a track record of managers lasting far longer at City than at most other clubs.

4. It’s got us a modern ground and training facilities. Would you rather we hadn’t?

5. If you’re referring to the events of the past few weeks then I’d suggest that we need to give things a little longer before making judgements about where we are in the context of the past 50 years!

6 I’m not sure this is any more than conjecture?

7. SL has always been clear that he wants the club to balance the books. Is that an unreasonable aspiration? It doesn’t stop us building a better squad. And what’s happened the past 2-3 years has essentially been about compliance with FFP and avoiding points deductions etc. Again, would you have preferred we hadn’t done that?

I wouldn’t disagree that we’ve essentially spent the past  50 years getting back to where we were in 67. But as another (not far off) 70 year old I also remember the one big ‘down’ of those 50 years, and I don’t want to see a repeat of the early 1980s.

For every Man City and Brentford there’s a Reading! 

[42nite]

Jon and Tinnion are liabilities. They should go and we should get people in who are not under Steve's thumb who know how to run a football club.  

[frenchred]

2 minutes ago, italian dave said:

1. There’s a whole debate about that which is probably too complicated to get in here, but arguably we’re in a more secure position than we’d have been with many other owners who’ve “invested” in English clubs in recent years, and going forward the prospect of those risks materialising are far greater if SL sells.

2. @Port Said Reds post (to which you are responding) very clearly said ‘since the Dolman era’. ‘67 was the Dolman era.

3. Oh, come on. We have a track record of managers lasting far longer at City than at most other clubs.

4. It’s got us a modern ground and training facilities. Would you rather we hadn’t?

5. If you’re referring to the events of the past few weeks then I’d suggest that we need to give things a little longer before making judgements about where we are in the context of the past 50 years!

6 I’m not sure this is any more than conjecture?

7. SL has always been clear that he wants the club to balance the books. Is that an unreasonable aspiration? It doesn’t stop us building a better squad. And what’s happened the past 2-3 years has essentially been about compliance with FFP and avoiding points deductions etc. Again, would you have preferred we hadn’t done that?

I wouldn’t disagree that we’ve essentially spent the past  50 years getting back to where we were in 67. But as another (not far off) 70 year old I also remember the one big ‘down’ of those 50 years, and I don’t want to see a repeat of the early 1980s.

For every Man City and Brentford there’s a Reading! 

1) point still stands we are Tennant's

2) so you confirm no progress

3) always some will be longer some shorter, we are heading for the later

4) it's not helped our on field position or style at all, I would argue it hasn't attracted the better player we need

5) he should show some adaptability

6) it's not conjecture as you put it, he's been promoted well beyond his capabilities

7) it is stopping us progressing now, and most of it is down to his and juniors previous mistakes

[Galley is our king]

Voted yes but I have a lot of gratitude towards SL.

Unfortunately we are now being run by JL. The person with no qualifications or experience to run anything especially a football club. His employment record shows 4 years working for Hargreaves Lansdown. Executive position? PR department? No, the call centre.

That's the sum of it.

Then he goes and gets rid of all the people around him that disagree with him (Pearson and Alexander) and replaces them with people too weak to say it as it is.

I would humbly ask SL to take back the reins, stop his son treating his position as a hobby before enormous damage is done to the club we ALL love.

[ChippenhamRed]

14 minutes ago, bearded_red said:

I reckon the only thing more boring than ‘be careful what you wish for’ is actually watching City play football.

It’s not even a week since that really boring second half at West Ham.

[Robbored]

2 hours ago, frenchred said:

What like, man city, Liverpool, Ipswich, Leicester, wrexham and such like you mean?

Like Charlton, Cardiff, Reading, Man Utd, Newcastle under Ashley. For every successful take over there’s a mirror of unsuccessful ones and that’s exactly why I say “be careful what you wish for”.

We could end up a lot worse off.

 

[italian dave]

12 minutes ago, bearded_red said:

It’s remarkable how it now seems to be accepted that after that West Brom game Nige was wanted out by some massive majority.

No doubt there was a decent amount that seemed to take that view but at the game there was plenty of people around me shouting at the ‘We want Pearson out’ brigade to shut up. On a personal note, and this doesn’t really prove anything, there wasn’t one person I speak to about City that wanted him sacked.

I don’t think it’s ‘remarkable’. All it’s about is the poll on here after that game, and how that contrasted with the poll at the time he was sacked. And that’s become a bit of a totem on here.

And all it really does is show the pointlessness of polls like this!

I Imagine that, had Preston’s forum conducted a poll about Ryan Lowe 4 months ago it would have looked hugely different to the one last week.

On a personal note, outside the forum, everyone I spoke to after Pearson’s departure were either indifferent or happy to see him go. The truth is that there are as many different views on these things as there are City fans! 

[Silvio Dante]

13 minutes ago, Red DNA said:

As per all of these polls, apart from percentages there’s no transparency on actual numbers of people who bothered to vote. 
 

Please provide numbers - not percentages, so we can see how many of the fan base bothered to vote one way or the other.

I doubt very much if the total figures will reach the 600 or so who had to endure yesterdays game let alone the coming W Ham game.

Remember, if the majority - who vote - go for Lansdown out, that’s nowhere near the majority of the fan base, only those who bothered to vote.   

As good as though this forum is it’s not 100% of the fan base of this club. 

Eh? The numbers are on the poll:

 

 

[frenchred]

1 minute ago, Robbored said:

Like Charlton, Cardiff, Reading, Man Utd, Newcastle under Ashley. For every successful take over there’s a mirror of unsuccessful ones and that’s exactly why I say “be careful what you wish for”.

We could end up a lot worse off.

 

For every unsuccessful takeover there is a mirror of successful ones

As I said, some people are frightened of change

[Numero Uno]

2 minutes ago, Robbored said:

Like Charlton, Cardiff, Reading, Man Utd, Newcastle under Ashley. For every successful take over there’s a mirror of unsuccessful ones and that’s exactly why I say “be careful what you wish for”.

We could end up a lot worse off.

 

Broken record……..

[robin_unreliant]

What a pointless question - it really doesn't matter what I want. What we all want is to get promoted and win the PL, like Leicester. I'd vote yes to that.

We have no say whatsoever, regardless of what we want. SL will either get fed up and slash the asking price, writing off a huge sum, or he won't. What we want has bog all to do with anything sadly.

[Shauntaylor85]

Surely we are an attractive buy, I would say more so than Birmingham were. We need change, it’s the same old hamster wheel going round and round. Getting tedious. 

[Robbored]

2 minutes ago, frenchred said:

For every unsuccessful takeover there is a mirror of successful ones

As I said, some people are frightened of change

If /when SL sells his shares I’d certainly be concerned that the club end up with an unreliable major shareholder. As I said before - we know what we’re getting with the Lansdowns.

[frenchred]

Just now, Robbored said:

If /when SL sells his shares I’d certainly be concerned that the club end up with an unreliable major shareholder. As I said before - we know what we’re getting with the Lansdowns.

Very true

More debt, more mistakes and countless managers to blame

[italian dave]

8 minutes ago, frenchred said:

1) point still stands we are Tennant's

2) so you confirm no progress

3) always some will be longer some shorter, we are heading for the later

4) it's not helped our on field position or style at all, I would argue it hasn't attracted the better player we need

5) he should show some adaptability

6) it's not conjecture as you put it, he's been promoted well beyond his capabilities

7) it is stopping us progressing now, and most of it is down to his and juniors previous mistakes

1. We have a complicated corporate and governance structure which has been debated endlessly elsewhere. It’s just not that simple. 

2. The whole concept of “progress” depends entirely on your starting point, doesn’t it? Evidently we’ve made no progress since 1977. We’ve made massive progress since 1982.

3. Sorry, but I think the opposite is evidently the case. Two of our last three managers have been in the top 2/3 length of service at the time they were sacked. And the other was, let’s be honest, always going to be a stop gap during Covid.

4. I don’t think that’s prove-able either way because we’ll never know what would have happened without the ground improvements and the training ground. But surely you’d recognise that both have taken the club forward in terms of facilities, in terms of income - the income from hospitality alone has made a massive difference compared to where we were before. We’d have had to sell even more players without that!

5. Not sure I understand what you mean.

6. That’s purely opinion. (Not saying I’d necessarily disagree, either, but it’s opinion nonetheless)

7. We’ll see!

And I note you didn’t address the Reading comment!

[Natchfever]

6 minutes ago, Shauntaylor85 said:

Surely we are an attractive buy, I would say more so than Birmingham were. We need change, it’s the same old hamster wheel going round and round. Getting tedious. 

Bristol Sport as a package isnt an attractive buy. 

[Numero Uno]

2 minutes ago, Robbored said:

If /when SL sells his shares I’d certainly be concerned that the club end up with an unreliable major shareholder. As I said before - we know what we’re getting with the Lansdowns.

Lots of investment

Even more sound bites

Bricks and mortar (their one and only tangible achievement for the level of investment imo)

Dull football bar a few months here and a few weeks there

Unable to handle any criticism from football people

Ego’s getting in the way

[firstdivision]

10 hours ago, Lew-T said:

Yes.

And that’s not because of a couple losses in the league either. 20 years of failure and making the same mistakes.

The club is stale and needs freshening up.

Well, 14 of those years have been spent in the Championship, Lew, which is considerably better than the 20 years previously and actually compares pretty favourably with the spread of our 130-odd-year history. All depends how you look at it.
 

I would say the last ten years have not been matched since the 70s. But it’s hard to find any perspective these days. That’s not to say I’m not desperate for greater success but we’ve been pretty ordinary for a large part of our history, and more ordinary more often than recently. 

[italian dave]

7 minutes ago, robin_unreliant said:

What a pointless question - it really doesn't matter what I want. What we all want is to get promoted and win the PL, like Leicester. I'd vote yes to that.

We have no say whatsoever, regardless of what we want. SL will either get fed up and slash the asking price, writing off a huge sum, or he won't. What we want has bog all to do with anything sadly.

Thats very true.

And add to that: not only do we have bog all to do with whether SL sells. We have even less to do with who he sells to.

And that’s the most important bit of the question - and it’s not specified in the poll.

Hence why I’m not voting either way! 

[Numero Uno]

2 minutes ago, firstdivision said:

Well, 14 of those years have been spent in the Championship, Lew, which is considerably better than the 20 years previously and actually compares pretty favourably with the spread of our 130-odd-year history. All depends how you look at it.
 

I would say the last ten years have not been matched since the 70s. But it’s hard to find any perspective these days. That’s not to say I’m not desperate for greater success but we’ve been pretty ordinary for a large part of our history, and more ordinary more often than recently. 

If stats are the only thing that matter we should all buy a newspaper on a Sunday and sod the season ticket. For literally YEARS now the entertainment on offer has been sub-standard due to various issues and it’s not sustainable moving forward. Watching dull Championship football for years on end is grating for many. We have Ipswich McCarthy era written all over us unless the hierarchy act.

[italian dave]

9 minutes ago, Robbored said:

If /when SL sells his shares I’d certainly be concerned that the club end up with an unreliable major shareholder. As I said before - we know what we’re getting with the Lansdowns.

I’m with you on this RR.

But I get the sense now that it’s more likely ‘when’ than ‘if’. Do you?

It feels like SL has lost interest in the football club now. He wants the Sporting Quarter built and that, with Bristol Sport at its heart, to be his legacy. Which in many ways will be a much more significant one than he could achieve with Bristol City alone.

[Numero Uno]

The logic of wanting someone who has “lost interest” in our football club owning it is lost on me tbh.

[firstdivision]

12 minutes ago, Numero Uno said:

If stats are the only thing that matter we should all buy a newspaper on a Sunday and sod the season ticket. For literally YEARS now the entertainment on offer has been sub-standard due to various issues and it’s not sustainable moving forward. Watching dull Championship football for years on end is grating for many. We have Ipswich McCarthy era written all over us unless the hierarchy act.

Who said that stats are the only thing that matter? I was merely offering some perspective to the observation that we’ve failed for 20 years.
 

Also, I got quite excited at Watford on Boxing Day, at West Ham last week (albeit I had to keep quiet because I was among the home fans), at home to Plymouth earlier in the season, watching the second half of the Hull match, watching the last fifteen minutes at Rotherham etc. I really loved the backs-to-the-wall win over Sunderland as well. 
Unless you support Man City or Spurs, there are bound to be dull moments. Actually, the dull moments make the exciting moments more special. I can remember some dross from the 1970s, eg a 2-0 NYD defeat at home to Orient, a home defeat to Forest the year we got promotion (21 Feb 1976). I could go on…some perspective, you see. 

Edited January 14 by firstdivision

[Numero Uno]

Just now, firstdivision said:

Who said that stats are the only thing that matter? I was merely offering some perspective to the observation that we’ve failed for 20 years.
 

Also, I got quite excited at Watford on Boxing Day, at West Ham last week (albeit I had to keep quiet because I was among the home fans), at home to Plymouth earlier in the season, watching the second half of the Hull match, watching the last fifteen minutes at Rotherham etc. I really loved the backs-to-the-wall win over Sunderland as well. 
Unless you support Man City or Spurs, there are bound to be dull moments. Actually, the dull moments make the exciting moments more special. I can remember some dross from the 1970s, eg a 2-0 NYD defeat at home to Orient, a home defeat to Forest the year before we got promotion. I could go on…some perspective, you see. 

I’ve been accepting of counter attacking football at home for 4-5 seasons because the budget issues at Board level that caused us problems demanded it. I believe you might comment “some perspective you see”. Nothing clever is it? However the hierarchy have promised something more attacking and front foot THEIR WORDS not mine or anyone else’s. Let’s see them deliver it now.