Without digging up old graves, I just thought it would be interesting to hear peoples memories of what they feel was their biggest bristol city fc "missed opportunity" moment that really stands out in your mind still. For me as a 28 year old, I would say one that really stands out was 10 years ago as an 18 year old watching the 03/04 playoff final. That was a game we could have and should have won. I will never forgive Danny Wilson for that game. Bottling it big time by picking a cart horse like Tony Rougier over Leroy Lita who didn't even make the bench despite showing great promise. Scot Murray being left out as well was a jaw dropping shock I remember! To be honest I can't recall a final I have ever seen us in where we have turned up. Auto Windscreen final against stoke = poor, Johnston Paint Trophy against Carlisle = Lucky goal not much else happened, should have dominated, and play off finals 03/04 and 07/08. That last final we never should have been there and had the far less better team, so it was a shame but wasn't as aggrieved. So what's yours?
Gordon Owen missing the penalty against Swindle to secure play offs then a week later missing the decisive penalty against Mansfield to lose the Freight Rover cup.
The big one- Wembley 2008 v Hull. Windass could try that shot 100 times again and it wouldn't go in anything like as sweetly- Just wasn't to be that day.
Failing to buy the right players in the Transfer window in order to secure automatic promotion to the Premiership in 2008 Buying Adebola and Carle was a bad joke
I would go with that too but not so much with Carle being a joke, I thought he started really well for us, and that was the time I started to see the nepotism accusations that were being thrown around at Gary Johnson, that period when he was being dropped for LJ was damaging to the team whether you call it right or wrong is irrelevant, the fans at the time were calling for a big money midfield signing which we got and then benched.. I am sure to this day had Carle played against Stoke away we would have got auto promotion in their place.
The big one- Wembley 2008 v Hull. Will never forgive Johnson bringing on Junior and moving the best midfielder in the Championship that season to RB.
****ing up our appointment of Coppell in 2010, we had a decent reputation of being a team that could easily challenge in the higher regions of the league.. I still think Lansdown should of saw it earlier that Coppell was not fully with it..the rest is history, we've been on a slide since.
Not really a missed opportunity. More a stupid appointment. But in the defense of SL, we all thought it was a real coup at the time. Not sure why, but I have no ill feeling towards the 08 final. We should never have been there, and Hull just had better players, whereas we turned up with Fat Trundle, Dele Adebola, Darren Byfield, all of which were not players at any stage of their career you would expect to fire you into the Prem. Looking at the squads, other than Byfields handful of minutes, there wasn't a single name on the team sheet that has ever even come close to playing a 1 second of Prem football. McIndoe, McCallister, Noble... These players are and always were league one players at best even in their brightest days. Looking back, I have no idea how we got there! Orr is the only one, and no idea how he has ever played Prem football, not a right back, not a midfielder, not really anything other than a thug and a constant nuisance in the dressing room.
That was part of my point, the fact we could attract a name like Coppell suggested we were a club on the up, and we had a decent reputation as a strong championship side.. Now if we appointed the right manager in that time period of April 2010, who knows what could of happened.
Ah, agree, point taken. Out of interest, who would you have gone for? I personally thought he was a sensational appointment, but it took hindsight for me to finally think "hang on, why did he leave Reading?". The appointment after he left was even more disgruntling. How a man of SL's business acumen could believe KM could do anything more than run warm up drills is astonishing.
Easter 1966 back in the days when clubs played three games at Easter. Good Friday and Easter Monday home and away against the same team with another game sandwiched in on Easter Saturday. And also back in the days when added on time was a rarity rather than the norm as in the modern 21st Century game We lost at home on Friday against Southampton with a Jack Connor og, beat Plymouth away on the Saturday and were leading 2-1 at Southampton until the 97th minute when Terry Paine equalised. Saints went up and stayed up for a long long time and we stayed down til 1976 If only!
The guy had a history of walking away from jobs like Man City because he didn't like the pressure that came with the territory and so rather than let candidates apply for our vacant position, our stupid owner chases Coppell and convinces him to take the job, before signing David James behind his back. Coppell says **** this for a game of soldiers I'm not having my position undermined, and the rest is history
Going to the play off final to watch Cardiff City and Blackpool, (friend needed someone to fill the coach) sitting with a load of Cardiff fans and watching their faces as Blackpool beat them, then travelling back in the coach and listening to their excuses I was so disappointed?????? NOT!
