Eight years in the life of Luton Town

I was just looking at the current scores for tonight's games in the Championship and couldn't help but notice where Luton Town are in the division. Going back to the pre-2014 season when they languished in the Conference after a horrendous points deduction lead them down the path to near destruction their return to the league has been more than miraculous. Luton are in the playoff positions right now and could be promoted this season on what has to be a low budget operation coupled with low attendances which makes the rise back to respectability even more remarkable and should be a boost to all clubs of their ilk.

Have you guessed where this is taking me yet? Please remind what feats of impossibility have Bristol City achieved in the same time span? The answer is sweet nothing and it makes me cringe at the ongoing annual antics down at Ashton Gate that continue to take us nowhere and is it any wonder that NP got it in the face after another pathetic performance against a former Champions league winner (oops it was Barnsley). How can anyone be excited watching dross every week knowing the same old tripe will be on the menu for years to come.

Kudos to Luton Town and their supporters.

 

And so many other clubs that have dropped down to the depths but still manage to take stock and reinvent themselves celebrating more success while the likes of us just watch on with gritted teeth and admiration as we remain stagnant or struggling ..

 

Doesn't fit well does it onefor? When I look at the tables it tells me that there a lot more teams who have out-achieved us by more than a country mile and wonder why it can't be us? I missed all the top flight years after I emigrated to Canada but since I hooked back up with the life and times of Bristol City it has shocked me to witness the lack of ambition of my club. I always thought when there was all the talk of a brand new state of the art stadium in Ashton Vale that maybe we were on our way to something better finally. Time and a lot of bad decisions at all levels has forced me to think that someone at our club is totally out of touch with the reality needed to build it back bigger and better, and everything still going on to this day shows how little we have learned by our mistakes. Apathy is alive and well when it comes to the club which I watched as a young boy on my uncle Bob's shoulders and dreamt of what would be never realizing that it would be nothing.

Bristol deserves better than the fare on offer and I wonder why people still fork out money to watch players who don't give a flying fock about their employer or the supporters. Rant over for now.

 

Mark Ashton has to be part of it IMO..

 

The fault has to lie with Steven Lansdown, nevertheless he's the reason we still exist.
The Steve Cotterill era was by far the most enjoyable time in the last 8 years.
Since his demise the fanbase has fractured and no team or organisation will succeed with such disunity.

 

You left out John Pemberton Wiz

Whilst I share the many frustrations and disappointments that have been raised, discussed and debated on here over the past 8 years, I'm not terribly upset by our overall position as being an established Championship side. Yes, there are teams like Luton who have recovered well from a serious knockout (due to financial irregularities I seem to remember) but there are other former Championship sides who have suffered worse than ourselves (Sheff W, Sunderland, Scunny to name a few)
Out of interest I've looked up our previous seasons including before Cotts. I've gone back to 1993-94 for no reason other than that was all that was visible on one single screenshot. You need to remember that prior to the 2004-05 the Championship was known as Division 1 and what is now League 1 was known back then as Division 2. It surprised me to see that in this date range we have spent MORE time (15 seasons - soon to be 16) in the second tier than the third (13). I expected that to be the other way around - but this was because League 1 is where we spent our longest consecutive period, between 1998-99 and 2006-07 - 8 consecutive seasons - now that really WAS **** - the last 8 years have been divine compared to that dark time!!!!

 

December 2013-January 2016: Steve Cotterill ...21 championship points

February 2016-July 2020: Lee Johnson .. 15 /2016 ... 27 pts from 51 same squad as SC
2016/17 ...... 54 points --------------- 2017/18 ...... 67 ...points ------- 2018/19 ....... 70 points ....
2019/ 20 .... 55 points from 41 games against backdrop of Covid no crowds and departure of Brownhill...
arbitrarily you could say LJ WOULD HAVE DONE NO WORSE THAN 8 points from15 history shows after bad run did get some good results so 63 pts!!

August 2020 -February 2021: Dean Holden 2019/20 from 5 games ....... 8 points
2020/21 .............. 36 points after losing 5 on trot

February 2021 - Present: Nigel Pearson ............. 20/21 ....... 6 points and from 21 /2022 ... current 43 points from 38 games.

during LJ tenure he didnt get to keep the best players, so was victim of getting the books straight for the future, it never happened that his squads were allowed to have a season without disruption our key players were sold on and rule was sell when valuable and hopefully get cheap youngsters we could bring on!! TO be completely honest MA TOTALLY SCREWED BCFC to elevate his own image for future appointments ......

 

pemberton was a short stop gap as was PS and KD?

 

Yeah but he managed to do in that short time what Cotts had failed to do for weeks - earn a point - and it was simple really; play 4-4-2 and use your subs to mix it a bit if things are going wrong - before the 85th minute!!!!!

 

When you consider other teams like Watford who sit right next door to some of the top teams in the country, and yet still find a way upwards, I wonder how they gain success with the most trigger happy owner anywhere? I know they have bounced up and down over the years but nevertheless they remain consistently in the picture for promotion when they fall from grace but some of that could be influenced by the parachutes.

The malaise that engulfs us is of course part of the problem but finding a tenable solution seems to evade our mindset all too often and it concerns me that the root problem is a lot deeper than we can possibly imagine. Our owner is no fool in the business world so why do we have to endure this lackadaisical approach on his behalf of the team many have watched since boyhood? Are we watching the real change at Bristol City or is it all likely to vanish in a puff of smoke along with Nigel Pearson who is possibly as close to an actual football person that we have had in charge?

 

My son cusses the life out of me for injecting Bristol City blood into his veins.....the fact that he was born in Norwich where I lived for 8 years!! Norwich being a fraction of the size of Bristol has had so much more success, makes me sick!! I could never bring myself to going to Carrow Rd apart from to do the odd DJ slot!!

 

That's the mustard onefor. Keen stuff.

 

We've been badly run from a football perspective by our owner over the last decade and that's why we seldom achieve much.
Teams like Luton come along every now and again and are focused and play for each other. They have no big names and no big budget but I'd swap the mentality of their players for ours.

 

My boy says exactly the same to me.
He's now said 'whatever I do please don't do the same to your grandchildren'.

 

Sounds like Red Robin, always blames $hite players when we lose, and NP a as a genius when we win.