At the present time the state of professional sport in Bristol could easily be seen as the laughing stock of the rest of the the country. City are currently sitting in their all too familiar position at the bottom of the Second Division, having secured 11 points from 14 games. Rovers are in much the same situation in Division Four. Yesterday Bristol Rugby were hammered, conceding 65 points, which even by Rugby numbers is a landslide. They currently sit in a fragile eighth place in Division Two and look unlikely to make the playoffs. Do we as fans deserve to be served with such poor fare? Of course not. What can we as supporters do about it?? Please God help us!!!!
Not forgetting Glos CCC....propping up the Second Division of the County Championship and recruiting any New Zealander who happens to be passing by! I don't have the answer. In some cases they are club specific eg Glos CCC where the leadership has been amateurish; and in others generic in so far as I think there is a Bristol psyche of insularism and comfort zone thinking. Lansdown could have got City into the Premier League if he REALLY put his money where his mouth is. I think we (Rovers) have tried to be the big fish in the little pond in recent years and have paid too much to bring 'better' players in when we should have been scouring the local and non-league scenes. Additionally the council has done little, if anything, to encourage local sport and the necessary infrastructure. Perhaps the new mayor wil change everything!
I agree 49 that we should be trawling the lower leagues for hidden talent and I'm pretty sure we are. Without doubt the Rovers have certainly been very successful in the past with acquisitions from that area. Unfortunately Mr Lansdown's associations with Bristol Sporting teams can only be viewed as having a negative affect. Bristol Rugby were streets ahead at the top of the Championship last year when SL took over. His £30 million investment in City over the last three years has resulted in very little forward progress. I still believe that we would be better represented if we all, City and Rovers fans, got together and spoke with one voice instead of the bickering between the two sets of supporters. I am a firm believer that we would achieve much more with a united front!!
Didn't mention joining up with them Gas. Simply hinted we change our name to Bristol United, and remove the **** from the equation altogether
I suppose that we must assume Gas, from those comments, that you and probably Wiz don't have very strong views on the unification of Bristol's two football clubs!!!
Now why would we give up championship status to start out in non league football? Also the thought of merging with your lots laughable as you prefer to stay in and watch man united when its raining no thanks lets keep to how it is, rivalry and us doing remarkably better than you lot
Not one of your players would get in our team And quite probably Red none of yours would get into a United team. BUT quite a lot of the FORTY THREE THOUSAND supporters that the Rovers took to Wembley might want to pay to get into a stadium where a Unified Bristol Team played!!!!
You would find it would be our players you watch as for the 43k you took to Wembley, where are they now, oh I know watching man Utd on there tv
Now why would we give up championship status to start out in non league football? A united team would obviously choose to stay in the division which was currently held by the highest position of a Bristol Club!! Shiny, When you have watched the locally dished up crap for a few more years, you will reach a more mature conclusion.
The idea has been sought upon many a time, but being honest most of the Rovers fans would say no about merging and so would most of us. A City as big as us has two "****ty" sized stadiums where both could easily fill 20/25k if not more as we have the fan base for it, but not atm as we're both crap . We have everything available to achieve more it's just nothing is being done. Look at the council and certain people who moan about us getting Stadiums and new infrastructure, they are the ones holding us back
Don't think it works like that as it would a a new club altogether? So surely we would have to start from the bottom
I agree Red that it would always be difficult to combine the two teams because there are simply too many entrenched views to allow it to happen. It would IMO be a great debate if the two Boards sat down together and aired the subject and allowed a commonsense discussion to take place. As far as blaming BCC, I can't go along with that. IMO if the World Cup had gone our way then I believe the AV stadium would be up and running. I dont like what has happened for City over this planning application. On the one hand everyone has the right to object to something with which they diasagree, but you have to draw a line somewhere and in AG's case I think that line needs to be erased. Again IMO I think that things evolve from the bottom upwards. We need a team which causes changes to be made(in a positive sense that is). There is no doubt in my mind that unification in itself would promote a huge amount of interest from the general public. You only have to look at the way Wimbledon AFC went from nothing to league status based mainly on aroused public opinion over the removal of the local community's football club to Milton Keynes. Anyway thanks for a constructive reply.
Wouldn't have thought so, what with two teams merging? That would be one team less in the leagues anyway so I guess at the very least we would stay in the football league
