Off Topic Statement from Lansdown

He'll be talking to Geoff Twentyman on sound of the city between 6-7pm

Majority shareholder on City's current form and the need to "pull together".

• Lansdown asks fans to "channel frustrations into support of the club"
• Majority shareholder highlights the progress club has made
• He insists "we have a good squad and will continue to invest"

City's majority shareholder Steve Lansdown has issued the following statement.

I hate losing football matches and, like every City fan, take no pleasure in having lost the last eight league games.

There is no point in feeling sorry for ourselves. What we need to do is pull together, be stronger and work harder. That is what I intend to do and I expect everyone associated with the club to do the same.

Look at the progress we have made:

Our infrastructure is so much better now, as illustrated by our recent recruitment and the clear pathway we have established for our Academy players to follow and force their way into the first team.

We have a good squad, which we will continue to look to invest in, with the ability to entertain us and climb up the league.

The stadium speaks for itself with improved facilities and atmosphere, but we continue with our work to develop the training ground and Academy facilities.

I have no intention of seeing this wasted.

Every supporter and their opinion is valuable and respected. It is understandable that you are unhappy at the moment and frustrated by recent events.

What I would ask you to do is channel that frustration into raucous support of the club, its management and players in order to turn things around.

Steve
Read more at http://www.bcfc.co.uk/news/article/...eve-lansdown-3534836.aspx#HcVUf5ShozxaSUiH.99

 

He must really like The Johnsons

 

Sorry - I know I sound like a doom-monger, but I said this would happen - and I feel absolutely NO joy in saying I told you so..

I said that spending £millions on a new stadium, for a 3rd tier football club with 14k hard-core fans was not the best idea. I said it was like buying a big, smart office block in the centre of town and hoping my business grows into it.
If current trends continue, we are going to have the best stadium in L1 with 2 seats per person - with buddleia bushes springing up in our unused upper stand.

You invest in the team FIRST, then outgrow your home and extend it at that point.

The Lee Johnson thing is just another mosquito bite on the frustrating, annoying, itchy and sadly predictable journey I have been on since committing myself to being a City fan back in the 1970s. I was/am underwhelmed by LJs appointment and still am. The experiment has failed and continuing to stick with it is like someone who is already £50 down on a fruit machine, keeping going in the hope that it must pay out at some point.

My sympathy for LJ against the vile abuse he has received, both as a player and a manager is also irrelevant. I feel sorry for the guy when certain people refer to him as 'runt' etc because, no human being should have to endure that type of abuse - its pathetic and unnecessary and quite frankly playground bullying. However, he is not the right manager for our club and needs to go. It might have worked - it didn't - move on - ASAP.

SL has certainly built a property 'empire' at BS3 - its impressive as a hospitality venue, but the DAY JOB has been neglected and treated as secondary - unless of course the day job was obtaining the Ashton Gate real-estate and we have simply been seduced into thinking that he cares for the club? Even now, I think not, and I believe that SL really does want us to do well - but he is NOT a football expert. I do not know the guy personally, but he strikes me as being the type of chap who is impossible to say 'no' to in a board room. He seems to have a powerful personality and does his own thing without really listening to us fans. To a point, I understand this; if it was YOUR millions would you let a bunch of die-hard fans spend it for you? .

I absolutely get that he has spent lots of money on 'propping up' the club, but clearly, you only need to look at the table and our recent (10 year) history to see that he hasn't a clue about running a football team. Financial investments; yes, football; no.
Maybe he needs HIS annual appraisal; Right Mr. Lansdown - what exactly have you achieved and how much have you spent from the budget to achieve it? Oh, it's all LJs fault is it?

I don't really know where I am going with this. I am just fed up with seeing us fail with a squad - and money - that most championship fans would dearly love to have at their clubs - yet on the pitch its the same old-same-old every time. Whether it's GJ, DM, KM, SoD, SC or LJ - we just don't seem to be able to hack it in this league - (well, GJ nearly did and was 'fired' when we were 18th - - we have hardly set the league alight since then, but that's another story; he would have taken us down vs he would have turned it around blah blah blah....)

I am bloody fed up with this cycle of disappointment, underachievement, frustration and failure - and want it to end. GOD - please give me ONE season in the championship where we are not in a relegation fight.

Perhaps its ME that is deluded; fans of most other clubs think of us as a small Div 3 outfit - maybe they're right and we are exactly that?

Rant over - thanks for listening.

 

Fan power will be the one thing that SL will listen to.
Time for the fan base too show our concerns next Tuesday evening.

 

Bloody hell R&W.
You watch your first match in yonks and you write an epiphany.
You may now realise how bad it is for the poor sods like me who have season tickets.

SL is totally deluded and just prolonging the agony. He's putting fan against fan, which hardly helps the team on the pitch.
Lose next Tuesday and AG will be toxic.

 

So much wrong with this it's hard to know where to start....

I'm not feeling sorry for myself as a fan, I'm livid we can lose 8 games in a row with the most expensive squad ever assembled by a long long way!!

Banging on about the academy.... what planet is he on. Reid and Bryan? Who else? We just shipped out Wes Burns? But seriously? Who else has he got to point to and say "look at all our hard work over the last decade and more, these 8 first squad players are a shining example of where we are going". Two players, one of them a fringe player, come on Steve??

I officially give up trying to understand him on any subject, I really do. He should just stay mute and do what he likes, but dont try to explain this nonsense Steve with your hug a hoodie mentality. You surround yourself with utter incompetence in football and will hemorage your fortune and alienate half a city because of it. Clueless!

 

ummmm, it isn't!!

 

blimey if that happens we will all be dooooomed... he pays for the City OUT OF HIS INTEREST ..
If I can make a grand a year from my divi's he is making a few million more times than that! so don't think he will manage that!

 

Haha he's spending it a faster rate than you and with nothing to show for it. You make sure you get on a nice holiday and make some happy memories with yours, it's the only thing we get to take to our graves.

 

he is a billionaire so has in excess of £1,000,000,000 lives on the channel islands so tax is lower a return of 3 % on wealth per annum is equal to £30m +

HL probably manage his funds and get 7-8% ? I currently make 5.6% on the portion of shares I have giving me a dividend .. wheeling and dealing "1p" shares like Surgical innovations gives me more ..but it is being patient that counts ...

 

Got to say B&W, I have to agree with most of what you've written including some of the disgusting comments regarding LJ that has been written.

For me to get a decent fan base (and for the size of our city we should have one) you need continued success, even if it's a bit of a yo yo between the prem & championship.
Norwich are a fine example, the City it self is a quarter of the size of Bristol (Lived there for 8 years) but normally fills Carrow Road every game 25k +, 20k+ season ticket holders. Norwich for years has been the biggest drag to get to for years, up until recently, but have always managed to get in decent managers and attract decent players.
We on the other hand, yo yo through the lower leagues with the occasional visit to the championship, attract terrible managers & mainly terrible players.
Like you say, apart from the few years we had in the old First under Alan Dicks in the 70s and the season under GJ when we were 90mins away from the Prem, it's been dire.
I am forever grateful to SL for investing in the club over the past decade. A club that's been in my soul since the late 60s, but for me has never made the right decisions regarding the team itself. Poor recruiting of managers apart from GJ and Cotts (for the league we were in) has been his downfall.

Like you say B&W, the team success should have been sorted before all the new infrastructure, but it's done now.
I'm not sure how long SL's interest will remain, but if he is serious regarding City hitting the big time, I'm afraid the only way, is to dig deep into his money nest and recruit a decent management team, who WILL attract top players to achieve the alternate goal.
If again he persists with the cheap option, then maybe it's that time to call it a day and the club looks for an alternative investor.... NOT MY WISH but maybe a necessity if the club is looking to move forward.

 

I've watched plenty of matches over the years actually RP. My previous game was Preston. Not as many, or as frequent as you, granted, but plenty nonetheless. I care passionately about our team - if I didn't, I'd be down the Merlin (a sports pub in Swindon) every weekend cheering Liverpool, ManUre or ARSEnal every weekend like the plastic fans here in the town I live with.
Anyway, I'm with you in the LJ Out camp now.

 

I have never made a secret of my dislike for Lansdown.

And I know I'll be crucified on here for saying it again, and that he really is the Messiah, the man with the money, has the clubs best interests at heart etc etc etc. But it's how I feel and always have.

The points made so eloquently by BCFCREDANDWHITE are all true, and it makes me seethe with anger with the incompetence and dismissive attitude shown by him again. Wake up Steve, things ARE NOT alright.

We've a super rebuilt stadium that may or may not be hosting L1 football next year after another few months of total calamities this season, and we have endured years of staggeringly bad management decisions and interference that anyone and everyone can see from here to Timbuktu.

But we still get the same smug, self satisfied smile and the predictable rhetoric spewing forth. Why doesn't he just say. This isn't good enough and therefore I am relieving Lee Johnson of his managerial/Head Coach duties to ensure we stay in the Championship. Why does he love LJ so much ? It is just that he's not wanting yet another loss of face ?

If Mark Ashton really is in charge of matters on the pitch, why isn't he telling Lansdown that LJ has to go ?

Under the Bristol Sport umbrella, I seriously believe that the stature of our football club has been massively undermined.

 

It seems the football club is very much a pin prick in the grand scheme of things,a rich mans toy.

 

BCFC is only a part of the Empire-11,000 of us pay up front for the year, so regardless what division we are in, attendances will still be there. I was told on a club tour ages back, that to break even, we would need to have every seat filled at home for every game at a cost of over £300 per match.
Playing there once every 2 weeks is not sufficient income to make the operation work and so other functions are used.

If SL did ever sell out who would buy? Well my guess would be a foreign owner.Who knows how that could end up, good or bad?

 

How would Bristol City invest in the team without Mr Lansdown redeveloping the stadium and increasing income?

The more money brought into Ashton Gate via Bristol Sports activities, the more money flows into BCFC. That is the supposed virtuos circle in operation. Ashton Gate had to be redeveloped to increase income for Mr Lansdown to invest (lose) more money in the FC. Mr Johnson is helping him out there with the word in brackets.

 

I don't agree with everything here but fair enough, proper decent post. First off, we absolutely needed that stadium. I think you may have a point about the size of it, but no one can deny that we absolutely had to upgrade and get proper facilities for off-the-field revenue, as well as boxes. I think I heard that we were the only club in the whole football league without proper executive boxes, there's no doubt about it, that stadium was necessary, in one form or another.

Completely agree on the underwhelming feeling around LJ, and the fact that no matter how badly he does, no one should insult his personal character, only his ability to do the job.

I don't think the day job has been neglected whatsoever. I've never known us be so on top of things; the scouting, the transfer dealings, we seem to be first in at nearly every opportunity. Players like Josh Brownhill will have had a hell of a lot of interest. The problem is the manager. If we had a top manager getting results, everything would be fine, and no one would say the day job is being neglected; it's just one of the hyperbole's that come out when results aren't going our way. It's entirely possible for the club to be doing well in every aspect except results. The problem is, it's the results that matter.

I don't know where I stand. I'd love, love, love for SL to be seen as having a masterstroke for sticking with LJ, his Alex Ferguson moment, and seeing us get promoted under him. But can anyone honestly see it happening?

 

Right now, no. But it seems like we're going to have to hold tight and hope for the best as clearly the leash is being extended and not shortened.

 

Having now watched the interview I now outright dislike him and would rather he sell up.

I have no idea why he has gone on tv to refuse to answer basic questions but the things he does say is regurgitated horse s**t about "sticking together" or believed that the majority of fans fully support LJ. Is he blind, deaf, stupid, oblivious? I'd say 80% want him out now and the rest aren't sure they want him here after one more loss.

On top of this he then just makes stupidly obvious statements that weren't worth mic'ing him up for or giving him air time, like;

"I don't think anyone is happy with seeing us lose 8 leagues games in a row. Not the fans, the board, or anyone involved with this club including myself."

Was that really a necessary statement to make?

He has no acumen for this sport at all. We will be in league one next year and we fully bloody well deserve it I say! We don't have the nouse to compete at this level at the moment, off the field with smart footballing people right through to coaching and playing.

How has he not learnt in all his time throwing good money after bad doesn't mean you have "a good squad of players" it means you have expensive players currently with zero justifications for their fees at present. What they could do in the future is irrelevant as all football is now!!!! Not in 5 years. All for building but progress has to be steady and successful. You can't be building but going completely backwards, that's idiotic! Saying "we are building" is the cheap copout excuse to avoid saying "yeah we are ****e at the moment".

Absolute cretin!

 

I must say,he did not do himself any favours last night.