Bristol City to Change the game of Football?

Bless DM, lovely bloke, and he was my choice when his name was bandied around, but like all managers given an opportunity to further his career, he has fallen into the same traps that we see time and time again. Not just at our club, but all football clubs that chop and change year in year out. Relying on loanee's, playing players out of position, and changing their usual brand of football desperate for a result.

I have said it time and time again, that we need to change, not just for the short term, but for the long term and unfortunately this means accepting the inevitable as a reality. RELEGATION.

We have been destined for it for years now, and year in year out, scrape by at a massive cost to the chairmans wallet, and the further detriment to the heart of the club. It needs to change, football needs to change. Why can't we get the ball rolling on that?

A few months ago I posted an article in regards to creating our own brand of football in this country. Pundits, the media, a hefty amount of fans believe that Spain and Barcelona are the model to follow, and I agree, its a superb model, but not to be followed, not now, only admired for its innovation. They changed the way football is played, which is commendable, but by the time this nation learns to do that, it will be too late, and a new concept will be the new way. We need to create that new way, not just follow it 20 years too late. Not at Bristol City, but in the country.

Away from my tangent, my thoughts closer to home regarding our club is, we need to now stop dilly-dallying about with failing manager after failing manager, greedy journeymen players who have done the rounds, spineless loan signings with no heart for our club only their wallet.

Sounds tricky, "How do we do that Rhino?" well it's simple. Like I said, we accept the inevitable, which is relegation, and embrace a new era, and CHANGE THE GAME. We risk alienating agents and the best talent available to a club of our stature and start by bringing in young, hungry talent who want success and MONEY! We do this buy not renewing a single contract of ANY player at our club. Not unless they agree to radical changes.

The radical, but simple change is this.... LOW BASIC SALARIES, PERFORMANCE BASED BONUS SALARY! It will have its faults we will lose our best players, but who do we have in this team that has any real heart for the club? That wouldnt sell us down river the anyway? No one. Cole Skuse was a disgrace yesterday, not only in his performance but his actions and interview after the game. He has been at this club all his playing life, and owes a lot, not just the club, but the fans. But all we have in him is a disgrace of a professional who collects his wage and couldn't give a monkeys to the paying fan who traveled to watch him yesterday, despite what he may tell a microphone.

That performance, like so many, showed no heart, no desire, no guts, and more important, no respect to us as fans, and its a performance we put up with far too much. Why not do something about that, and hit the player where it hurts them most, what truly fuels their desire to do well, their bank accounts.

The fight coming from some of the non-league teams this weekend has been beautiful, and inspiring. Players putting EVERYTHING inside their bodies on the line to grind out a result against world class players. 99% of these players will never amount to one weeks wages in their entire playing careers earnings as their counterparts, but in most cases, they matched world class players. Why? Passion, pride, will and fight! We need players like that, and they WILL play like that, with that same determination and pure die-hard hunger, if its money you reward them with. The majority of their salary is funded IF, and only IF they play to a standard that makes them games.

"Why would anyone play for next to no cash, what professional would do that?" ALL our youth squad who would kill for the opportunity for a start. Any lower league player who would kill for the opportunity to play at the level we play. The same 99% of non league players who would kill to play football full time. Tie them down to 8 year contracts with reasonable and fair buy out clauses.

If I was on say £8,000 a week as a player at Bristol City, and I had a £400 win bonus for each game I won in a Bristol City shirt, is it really going to fuel me to give my all? Of course not! It's not enough of an incentive, I will be here 2 or 3 years maximum, then I will go ply my trade and rinse another club and set of fans of its/their cash. If I was on £400 a week (a very liveable wage) and given £8,000 for a win, I would be breaking my neck to outplay the other teams who couldn't give a toss whether they won or not.

My idea isn't perfect, and I am sure it has its flaws, but if we achieved even 1 promotion, it would make the world of football take notice! People, especially lower level clubs, would soon follow. What do they have to lose? What do we have to lose? Our club is on the downturn and free falling with no parachute anyway. We will only fall further behind, because we can't compete in todays climate for anything other than where we are now and where we have been. Which is fighting relegation every year at a huge cost to the club.

What do we have to gain? Players we can be proud of, a sensible financial structure we as a club of our size can afford, and maybe, just maybe a few more wins. In short we wouldn't see the same gutless attitude we see every week.

 

Nice read rhino and I totally agree with just about all the points you make. Like you I have lost my desire to listen to the rubbish that these overpaid wasters spout week in and week out, all the time having about as much commitment to their employer as my backside.

I ache for the days when footballers were commited to their individual teams, in most cases for their entire careers, rather than the crop that crawl out of every rat hole demanding more money and respect every day of their whinging lives. When I see the supposed overseas talent that land on our shores by the shedload and get 170K (Balotelli) a week for their self centred selfish mantras. Recently Frank Lampard was reported as saying he would take a 100K a week salary reduction to stay at Chelsea (WHAT!) and the list of ridiculous salaries just seem to mount by the day.

The grass roots of the game we love has all but disappeared below the horizon, almost certainly never to return, and in the future young kids will say things like "was their really ever a game that beautiful grandad" and we will reply yes indeed and it was truly a thing of great beauty. I'm not so sure that the game is about managers and players anymore but rather about the greed of everyone at every level of the game and it just get's worse every season and regrettably there is no-one out there who is prepared to stand up and stop the rot.

It's not just football either because every year on my return to England in the spring and fall I see the same unstoppable rot creeping through every aspect of the "British way of life" and when anybody stands up and says I don't like what's happeniong here they are shouted down by the minority ne'er do wells.

The whole world is being taken to the cleaners by groups that have anything but the best interests of the general public in mind as they wend their way down the greedy road that will probably eliminate the status quo. Is what we had, or would like, so bad that we allow this seemingly endless mistreatment of us to continue, when all we want is serenity for all and not just the interlopers. Harmony is such a pleasant place and it is beyond my belief that so many people seem to crave the exact opposite and do their worst to ensure it will happen.

The local village football club was where my love of the game started as like many others in the country and the thought of Saturday arriving so I could go down and meet my best mates for a game of footy. Then I went to my first Bristol City game with my uncle Bobby and I was well and truly hooked by the class acts of the day such as Big John Atyeo and others. Now I'm usually left with a bad taste in my mouth when I watch the non-committed overpaid rubbish that have the nerve to call themselves footballers when the only thing they are interested in is the pay packet. My message to them is go away and get out of my face, and perhaps if someone out there had the nerve to implement some of the criteria that Rhino has advocated you might start to earn the right to call yourself a footballer. Until such time just shut up and earn your salary which I know is highly unlikely.

 

I think what you said invermeremike is tragically spot on. Being a football forum I have focused on that side of things, but you are right, its bigger than football. Money has killed the game.

I am sick to death of listening to the majority of so called footballing experts, the pundits, and the message they spout, that football is more exciting than ever. Yes Aguero scoring that league winning goal in the last kick of the season was about as exciting as it had got all year last season. Billions of pounds spent for a single kick doesn't seem worth it to me. At the age of 27, I tell my dad on a regular basis how jealous I am of him and his era of the game, and this is from a man who lived through relegation after relegation with this club. But the game in general still had as much excitement, but with real characters, not the celebrities that don their shirts and suck clubs dry nowadays.

I get called "Not a real fan and not a supporter" for giving up my season ticket during the GJ reign, but the way I see it is, I fell out of love. Not just with bristol city, but the whole game, and I dont see why I should have to struggle and go without other little luxuries or even necessities to fund the wages of the crap I was watching. I stand by that, and all credit to the fans that still go every week, but I will only go to about 10 home games a year.

I have been saying for about 5 years now, that the game will implode soon, as people will soon cotton on as I have, and go watch the likes of Bath like I do, as I now get the same thrill as I did 15 years ago. If you want a great example of everything that is wrong with the game, read the following article on the Macclesfield Town manager Steve King when he was sacked as the manager of Lewes after getting them promoted. Its a fascinating read. Link below:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2008/may/16/4

 

True that !

Football pundits are also probably very well paid and take their share of the cash cow....

 

Well said sir, but it does hark back to a theme I have been ranting about on these boards for some years.
If we put all our money into loanees to stay up, and spend out on million pound signings to appease our fan base, then we will have little to invest in our academy. It is our academy which will put us in with the big boys, our academy which will help the club profile to grow to national proportions. We cannot compete with other Championship clubs for transfer fees and wages, so its our only way.
To do it properly would require a large investment by Sir Steve, on foreign coaches, a Europe wide infrastructure of scouting and whatever is required financially to bring the best youngsters here. As I have said before, as the academy grows in reputation, so the scouting network will deliver more youngsters (talking about getting the very best to come to Bristol).
Within 3-4 years of initiating the academy as I have outlined it, we would begin to see evidence of the results, and within a further 2-3 years a decent run at the top of the national tree.
If we are serious about Bristol City as a proper football club, if we are serious about our football, gentlemen, it is the only course of action open to us because this club cannot exist as it is on 13,000 gates and Sir Steve will not be here for ever.

Time for action at this football club, and if that means relegation then I personally couldnt give a XXXX if the end result is regeneration and extreme growth.
Time to build an academy which is the envy of every club in England.
Time to do it Steve

 

That article was written in 2008, 5 years ago?

But I do agree with the gist of your point. It would be vary easy to fall out of love with the game of football (at a pro level anyway) I actually think I am beginning to do so...

 

I know, I came across it when I wanted to learn more about Steve King after his teams result against bahhhdiff. I just thought it made an interesting read. Regardless of the age of the article. To be fair, its still relevant, if not more so, as it shows that football, if anything, has got worse.

 

I am with you, I'd take a couple of relegations if it meant true growth and proper building. Although unless you tie these kids you bring through to long term contracts with iron clad minimum release clauses, the likes of Chelsea and what-not will just poach.

 

I agree with most of what you say rhinos and I was with you about GJ at the end too..

I actually believe that this is exactly what SL has decided to do. He has drawn a line in the sand and said the frequent management changes stop here, we put our faith in one man and let him rebuild this club from the ground up and I believe that he will make a damn good job of it too.

We hang on to NPC status this year and the departure of most of the players out of contract in the summer then means that next year, it will mostly be Derek's men, all pulling in the same direction and not the current disfunctional, disruptive factions that we appear to have at the moment.

Granted, none of us quite foresaw the severity of the problems we are experiencing but to my mind, this is just the old guard trying to hang on to its jobs (in vain as they thought he would be gone by now). So, we hang on by any means possible and then complete the rebuild in the summer.

Regards Saturday, I thought CS was one who put in more effort than most but I kind of half sympathise with the players who have been getting a lot of stick for NOT at least clapping the supporters who still bother to travel. They started to move in our direction at the end but then all but Louis and CS got scared off by the abuse flying their way. Bit catch 22 that one...

 

You are spot on Wizered.
I still hold out a glimmer of hope that we will stay up but am coming more and more resigned to League One next season mainly due, in my oft repeated opinion, to the dross left over from previous managerial regimes.
I remember how long it took Alan Dicks to sort out the playing staff and also to get the youth policy going again which was the main factor in going to Division One in 1976.
I genuinely believe that McInnes is the guy who will transform us from under achievers and the laughing stock of fans of village teams like Lesta, Forest, Millwall etc, into a force to be reckoned with at the top end of the Championship. And if I'm right about that, then the next step is always possible.