One Team In Bristol. Lets Do It.

[punnett]

Hypothetical and unlikely as this scenario is, there is one very tangible benefit of only having one team in Bristol (be that by merger or extinction of the weaker club): the undivided and totally partial support of the city council, the city's business community and the local media.

Neither club will ever get full support from any of those sectors while they each feel they have to be even-handed towards the two clubs.

You've just stated the exact reason why the clubs could merge, for a city our size it is nothing short of scandalous the massive under-achievment of the last 120 years, the perfect scenario as far as i'm concerned would be for the Rovers to go bust.

[italian dave]

Yes, we can take the "Bristol" from Bristol Rovers and the "City" from Bristol City!

Jobs a good'un

And for the kit; we can take the red from City and the white from Rovers.......!!

[SecretSam]

It's not a daft idea, I'd support a merged team although I know for a lot of people it would be tough

On the plus side- we could have a really cool 'Barcelona' kit (or one like Lyon's, white with blue and red trim)

And we might have a chance of glory, although with money being the limiting factor I don't know if it would make that much difference...if you look over the years since the Prem and Sky came together, 4 clubs have dominated all domestic competitions

It does pain me to see a city the size of Bristol without any real 'success', but the same is true of lots of big cities-look at Sheffield, Hull, Leicester, all big cities and what have they won?

[Barrs Court Red]

The end result of a merger would be, a plastic club, with plastic fans in a plastic ground.

I do like the thought of greater links with Rovers though, as an output for our younger players. The higher we aim, the harder it will be to blood youngsters, and giving them a chance at a proffesional local club would be usefull.

[Redbarn]

Ok i've put up with some carp on this forum. But this is the last stickleback. I AM NOT A ******* RAGGY and take no part in rag week.

I'm getting a degree to have a degree on my CV, i don't want to do it and i'm not learning much, but you don't get to the interview stage for many good jobs without one. I'm learning to jump through hoops to find more hoops to jump through. The one i'm on gives me a year in industry too so it's almost useful. But enough of my personal life.

As i've said, the banter and rivalry between the fans is dead, and i'd rather go to the football with ALL my Bristol mates (not like Robbored does though!) see Premiership football year after year in a great stadium and be proud of my club and city. I can't see that with city (esp the stadium bit and probably the premiership football) without a single club in the city.

Your sentiments may carry some sort of semblance of logic, but, sadly, who out of the Rovers team would you select ahead of ANY City player? What have Rovers got to offer?

If they ever had anything of any worth, it has been long gone. Dunford "milked" it!

[Henry]

It wouldnt be a Merge. It wouldnt change our club. It would have no benifit.

Rovers would bring nothing to the table whatsoever so what you would have is, Rovers fold and we carry on.

You can get your life that hardly no gashead would switch and come and watch Bristol United.

[twaters]

I'm going to add my thoughts, and say Bristol United is a GOOD idea.

If the city of bristol ever wants to be a team with the success of Man Utd, Arsenal etc we need to have one team.

Why i hear you shout? Arsenal have Tottenham next door, man U you have City next door, and Liverpool Everton etc etc. But Bristol is different! We don't have any success in our past to have a backlog of die hard supporters to come out of the woodwork, we don't have the same personality traits that Scousers, Mancunians and the more northern clubs tend to have.

don't get me wrong i love this city, but there is a dinstint difference in the way a bristolian approaches life than other areas of this country.

Also to take into account is the changing nature of football. No one will be able to break the monopoly of the big clubs because of the gulf in money. The only way any club will get into the top clubs bracket is if we have salery caps, maximun numbers of foreigners and a bit of Ambromovic style cash to start them off.

The only way we will progress as a football club is to have a larger fanbase, and whilst i accept that a merger between the clubs would result in a immediate drop in attendances, i would guess that only half might turn up from each club in the very near future - eventually the lure of football, good PR and a few good results may persuade the other half to gently move back to supporting Bristol and a united city.

Bristol United is the future if we want to sustain top level premiership football. Bristol City is the future if we want a good Championship side and one season premiership side and maybe a high blooded tense derby against the Gas.

No I'm not a Gas head, no I'm not "Fishing"

[Mike]

I'm going to add my thoughts, and say Bristol United is a GOOD idea.

If the city of bristol ever wants to be a team with the success of Man Utd, Arsenal etc we need to have one team.

Why i hear you shout? Arsenal have Tottenham next door, man U you have City next door, and Liverpool Everton etc etc. But Bristol is different! We don't have any success in our past to have a backlog of die hard supporters to come out of the woodwork, we don't have the same personality traits that Scousers, Mancunians and the more northern clubs tend to have.

don't get me wrong i love this city, but there is a dinstint difference in the way a bristolian approaches life than other areas of this country.

Also to take into account is the changing nature of football. No one will be able to break the monopoly of the big clubs because of the gulf in money. The only way any club will get into the top clubs bracket is if we have salery caps, maximun numbers of foreigners and a bit of Ambromovic style cash to start them off.

The only way we will progress as a football club is to have a larger fanbase, and whilst i accept that a merger between the clubs would result in a immediate drop in attendances, i would guess that only half might turn up from each club in the very near future - eventually the lure of football, good PR and a few good results may persuade the other half to gently move back to supporting Bristol and a united city.

Bristol United is the future if we want to sustain top level premiership football. Bristol City is the future if we want a good Championship side and one season premiership side and maybe a high blooded tense derby against the Gas.

No I'm not a Gas head, no I'm not "Fishing"

To be honest i sort of agree with you on the fact that if we had Bristol "United" it would give us a better chance, but on that same note there are one club cities such as Preston, Norwich, and more notetabley Leeds are one club cities and it doesn't give them a easier basis for success. Sure it gives them the whole city for the fan base rather than a split between two, but i still feel Bristol City can succeed without merging. Plus it wouldn't have any real benefit to us.

As personally it would be like merging for example Man City and Man Utd and saying one club Manchester. Fans in my opinion would defect and probably wouldn't support, as though were a "smaller" club, i think that if we merged we could lose some fans who basically may get offended at a merge. I'm not saying our fan base wouldn't increase, but both clubs have a history, a presitage, and personally i'd rather see us stay as two separate clubs as there's no real benefit to one.

As for sustaining premier league football that isn't tied with huge crowds and one club cities. A i said Norwich are a one club city [might be wrong but i'm sure they are.], they got to the prem and didn't stay up too recently, and they had a decent run the last time they were in. But having one city didn't mean success for them, as the teams who get up, and stay up, have the quality on the pitch to do so. Pompey went up and stayed there due to having the players and a passioante crowd, Fulham went up and stayed up due to huge spending, Reading stayed up due to passionate players and a positive style. So getting up and staying up isn't as hard as it sounds, and staying there is also not as hard as it sounds. After all we could go up, and stay up using a Blackburn esk transfer policy of not spending a lot ofmoney, just signing players who add to the team and such.

So a merger the way forward?

Not really. The way we go forward is by getting promoted, and playing good enough football to draw fans into Bristol City, to Ashton Gate. Merging wouldn't draw fans it would offend fans. I'd be offended if they did as it would be throwing away our choice to support the Bristol City team, i mean having one team in teh city won't get us succes, won't take us forward, what will is having a great team and a passionate fan base who sell out the stadium and sing their hearts out. AKA like Pompey did. And if we get to the prem next season,i feel we could stay there. But merging teams would cause a lot of problems.