9 Years! 6 Goals! PROMOTION!!!

[harvey54]

On 14/04/2024 at 09:30, And Its Smith said:

What a night that was. One of the best away games I’ve been too. I think we sung for the entirety of the second half 

It was. Up there with my favourite away games. The old wooden stand rocked that night. And the performance was special

[Davefevs]

36 minutes ago, bcfcredandwhite said:

I loved that season - apart from losing to Swindon - that was horrendous - but it was a great season apart from that - and I’ll always love Cotts and the squad for delivering it. 
Without detracting from it - as I said, I loved it - it was League 1. We have discovered that the Championship is a big step up - and Cotts did to his cost. 
Some say Cotts wasn’t backed. I say he was, but made unrealistic bids; Gayle, Gray, Maguire were all bids that were accepted but failed - either because the players didn’t want to come to us (Gray and Gayle) or the then COO (before Ashton) tried to renegotiate the deal with Hull at a lower price. You don’t make official bids if you are not backed financially. 
His Championship game plan was to play 3-5-2 and to deploy subs at the 80th minute when chasing the game. Disastrous. 
As soon as Cotts ‘left’ we steadied the ship under Pemberton. We switched to 4-4-2 and the recovery started. 
I’ll always be grateful to Cotts for getting us promoted with a wonderful double-winning season, but IMHO it was right he left when he did. 
Not that we’ve done much better since mind, but we’ve not been in the relegation zone for a while!!!
 

As the “story” goes, they were coming, fees, wages all agreed, they wanted to come.  They weren’t unrealistic bids, they’d been agreed by Brentford and Hull.  You even said they were accepted?  So how could they be unrealistic?

Pelling stuffed it up.  So, had Pelling not interfered (on who’s say so? Hmmmmm??) Cotts wouldve been backed.  But due to Pelling, Cotts ended up not being backed.

Gayle (towards end of window) wasn’t an unrealistic deal in terms of fee, £6m plus add-ons, accepted by Palace….but he didn’t want to come.  He even came down to Bristol out of respect.

[BobbyC]

[Mendip City]

14 hours ago, Davefevs said:

As the “story” goes, they were coming, fees, wages all agreed, they wanted to come.  They weren’t unrealistic bids, they’d been agreed by Brentford and Hull.  You even said they were accepted?  So how could they be unrealistic?

Pelling stuffed it up.  So, had Pelling not interfered (on who’s say so? Hmmmmm??) Cotts wouldve been backed.  But due to Pelling, Cotts ended up not being backed.

Gayle (towards end of window) wasn’t an unrealistic deal in terms of fee, £6m plus add-ons, accepted by Palace….but he didn’t want to come.  He even came down to Bristol out of respect.

That’s how I remember it. 
We went from failing to sign 2-3 quality players at a fairly high price to a model of accumulating run of the mill “clubs in the bag” like they were going out of fashion (and at a cost). Surely a far less financially sensible plan?!?!  Oh and I’d suggest Maguire might have been a better deal than the £8m we spent on Kalas a couple of years later. 

 

Anyway. Back to the point - that was the best away game I’ve ever been to… by a mile. 

[redsquirrel]

at the end of that window,cotts signed arnold garita, when asked who he was, he replied 'a fifty grand punt'

never forget that

[Davefevs]

1 hour ago, redsquirrel said:

at the end of that window,cotts signed arnold garita, when asked who he was, he replied 'a fifty grand punt'

never forget that

Cult hero….and an excuse for me to trot out the photo I took at West Brom.

Looks like him and the mascot are trying to avoid being captured by the men pushing the goalnet!

 

[bcfcredandwhite]

19 hours ago, Davefevs said:

As the “story” goes, they were coming, fees, wages all agreed, they wanted to come.  They weren’t unrealistic bids, they’d been agreed by Brentford and Hull.  You even said they were accepted?  So how could they be unrealistic?

Pelling stuffed it up.  So, had Pelling not interfered (on who’s say so? Hmmmmm??) Cotts wouldve been backed.  But due to Pelling, Cotts ended up not being backed.

Gayle (towards end of window) wasn’t an unrealistic deal in terms of fee, £6m plus add-ons, accepted by Palace….but he didn’t want to come.  He even came down to Bristol out of respect.

This underlines my point that Cotts WAS financially backed - the money was there. Pelling screwed it up - not Lansdown, on that occasion (unless Pelling was acting under orders from SL of course)

My ‘unrealistic’ comment was misplaced. I probably should have said ‘unbelievable’ because in my own eyes they were, unbelievable.
What I meant was that if any single one of those bids had gone through it would have been the biggest transfer fee ever paid by Bristol City - even now I don’t think we’ve paid that much in transfer fee for a player (someone may be able to tell me differently) - and we went for 3 of them all similarly priced. That’s in excess of £30m in transfer fees, plus add-ons and wages - that would put LJ/Ashton to shame!!!
Goodness knows what FFP would have said about that!
Thats quite considerable backing in my opinion. 

Edited April 16 by bcfcredandwhite
Spelling

[Davefevs]

1 hour ago, bcfcredandwhite said:

This underlines my point that Cotts WAS financially backed - the money was there. Pelling screwed it up - not Lansdown, on that occasion (unless Pelling was acting under orders from SL of course)

Aye.  That bit we will never know.

My ‘unrealistic’ comment was misplaced. I probably should have said ‘unbelievable’ because in my own eyes they were, unbelievable.

Fair.
What I meant was that if any single one of those bids had gone through it would have been the biggest transfer fee ever paid by Bristol City

Yep, at the time

even now I don’t think we’ve paid that much in transfer fee for a player (someone may be able to tell me differently) - and we went for 3 of them all similarly priced.

Gray initially agreed at £4.5m, Maguire at £2.0m.

Then after Pelling, we bid £6.0m for Gray, to match Burnley, who’d now entered the race.  We never bid again for Maguire as he was one £4.0m (if you want to play silly buggers so will we, we will double it).  With Gray looking Burnley bound, we went for Gayle, same £6.0m as Gray, but £3.0m if we got promoted.  We would never have signed both.  It was a back stop.  We got neither.  We’d already signed Kodjia, this was one to play with him.

We got Nathan Baker on loan, and Simon Cox instead.

That’s in excess of £30m in transfer fees, plus add-ons and wages - that would put LJ/Ashton to shame!!!
Goodness knows what FFP would have said about that!

As above, had we signed Gray / Gayle plus Maguire, at the new prices, £10m.  Not sure where you get £30m from?

 
Thats quite considerable backing in my opinion.

Had we spent £10m plus £250k on Fredericks I think we’d have said Cotts was backed.  But someone overruled the summer plan.  We spent £250k plus Baker, Moore, Robinson, Hamer, Cox on loan.  We sold Fredericks a month later.  By the close of that window it’s fair to say there was a severe lack of backing, and blame lay somewhere.  Cotts got sacked, but Pelling went too.

[bcfcredandwhite]

6 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

We will never know - but some have already decided. 
They may be correct. Who knows. 
 

For me (and I know I’m treading on eggshells here) I can’t believe that anyone, Cotts, LJ, Pearson, or Pep - would submit bids for players when the funds hadn’t been approved. 
If Cotts did that then he’s stupid. I don’t think that he is. 
If the funds were PULLED after being approved that’s different.  But they WERE originally available. 

Edited April 16 by bcfcredandwhite
Add words

[ZiderEyed]

On 14/04/2024 at 14:12, Davefevs said:

I was playing skittles and desperate for Derrick Williams to score, so that the whole back 5 got on the scoresheet!

Nerdiest thing I've ever heard Dave 

[Davefevs]

33 minutes ago, bcfcredandwhite said:

We will never know - but some have already decided. 
They may be correct. Who knows. 
 

For me (and I know I’m treading on eggshells here) I can’t believe that anyone, Cotts, LJ, Pearson, or Pep - would submit bids for players when the funds hadn’t been approved. 
If Cotts did that then he’s stupid. I don’t think that he is. 
If the funds were PULLED after being approved that’s different.  But they WERE originally available. 

Keith Burt managed the football budget, his role remit given to him by Keith Dawe.  He would’ve put the bids into Brentford and Hull and had them accepted.

£6.5m (over 3 or 4 year contracts) plus £14k for Gray and £8k for Maguire would’ve added circa £3.0m to that years costs.  We probably spent that (and some) on loans for players we had to give back.  How much did Gladwin, Odemwingie, Tomlin and Matthews cost.

Pelling went in over Burt’s head.

+++++

Cotts should’ve walked.

Edited April 16 by Davefevs

[bcfcredandwhite]

43 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

Keith Burt managed the football budget, his role remit given to him by Keith Dawe.  He would’ve put the bids into Brentford and Hull and had them accepted.

£6.5m (over 3 or 4 year contracts) plus £14k for Gray and £8k for Maguire would’ve added circa £3.0m to that years costs.  We probably spent that (and some) on loans for players we had to give back.  How much did Gladwin, Odemwingie, Tomlin and Matthews cost.

Pelling went in over Burt’s head.

+++++

Cotts should’ve walked.

I would have snapped their hands off for £14k and £8k for Gray and Maguire. 
I can’t believe we argued with that price!!

[Davefevs]

44 minutes ago, bcfcredandwhite said:

I would have snapped their hands off for £14k and £8k for Gray and Maguire. 
I can’t believe we argued with that price!!

It wasn’t the wages that Pelling interfered with, it was the fees.  He wanted to pay lower fees.

If only, eh?