I was trying to get him away from the club, so as others don't have to embarrass themselves by spouting the bs company line.
Like your way of thinking, just count your fingers after shaking his hand to check they are still there.
Back in 1980 I met a huge hairy arsed policeman who played rugby for South Wales police (well before the professional game and the police team indeed had several internationals) and he taught me the technique for the hand shaking crush grip (it hurts) just in case a freemason tried their hocus pocus on me.
cor 54 you young whippersnapper you, 1952 I started following CITY ….. would say as I passed your age I was more of an active fan! [ as you are now... ] however because I am now a fan of 68 -69 years I am no more of a fan than anyone who has spent a handful of years following the Robin! My biggest regret is I don't get to go so much now... in fact this may be my first season never to have gone!
I was born and bred less than a mile away from Ashton Gate, I remember spending much of the summer school holidays in around AG/Ashton Park. Waiting for a kick around with players, who had not been offered full pay during the summer and had no trade to make their wages up, so were paid by the club to do odd jobs around the ground to make their wages up, most were only on £5 a week back then. During my first summer after my family moved from Bedminster to Headley Park, I bumped into Bobby 'Shadow' Williams labouring on the mixer for somebody having a driveway laid near us, he spent his lunch break kicking around with my mates and I and signing autographs, gutted when he left us but not as gutted as when Brian Clark left, I never got my head around that one at all and made even worse when he became a Cardiff legend and scored against us a few times.
A lot of us have been saying this for years and years that we get a disproportionate amount of serious and long terms injuries which is out of proportion to other clubs. I'm glad the whistle has been blown. The club are utterly pathetic at times, and the management and the way that this has been handled, yet again, are made to look like the rank amateurs they are, and the fans aren't stupid when it happens again and again. And that's why, despite all of the ambitious rhetoric coming from Lansdown and co over the years, the fancy revamped stadium, the blunt truth is that we will never amount to anything with these idiots in charge. They really aren't capable of organising a piss up in a brewery.
Firstly I am very interested in your honest views about our current situation. You seem to fully support the Lansdown's and sometimes take aim at fans who criticise them or the club but you obviously dislike Ashton and his role within the club. Ashton was anointed by SL not elected by the fans. There is something clearly dysfunctional at the club and Ashton's fingerprints seem to be all over the crime scene, so do you support SL's seemingly unconditional support of Ashton? The latest revelation about injury rehab, needs sorting and sorting fast, we have 2 people employed one of whom was selected by Ashton and one whom he worked with whilst he was causing similar damage at Oxford and one of them seems to have a dubious CV. We have a young player who was viewed as the answer to our long term midfield woes, wheeled out to summarise I believe our first game of this new season who was 3 weeks away from full fitness and now 5 months on is still nowhere near full fitness, the final straw for the player seems to have been the 2nd statement about the situation surrounding him and Walsh that was pretty much forced out of Holden and neither statement was convincing. It is inconceivable that Holden was unaware of the players feelings and I suspect that the article was not a surprise to him either. The club IMHO has left the player hung out to dry and Holden seemingly has not publicly fully supported his player in this mess and I believe his statement about Walsh has to be called into question as well, surely if Walsh has no issue and is preparing to sign a new contract, we would have seen the interviews and neither have given interviews since the season began. It looks as though we may be in danger of losing a talented player for nothing and losing an incredibly unhappy player before he has even kicked a competitive ball for us, unless something is done quickly to sort this out. And all of this against the backdrop of Mawson having a serious knee injury which required an operation and being treated at his parent club and returning well ahead of schedule. As I said I am interested in your take on things, given what happened last week.
I’m not fully supportive of SL, I am appreciative in what he has put into the infrastructure but not the running of the footballing matters. IMO we was quick to get rid of Cotts but we also know this was not SL’s appointment. And then we went too long in keeping LJ at the club which we know was SL’s appointment. Believe it or not I think we will be better off with JL dealing without any influences as he is like us a fan so will want the best for the footballing matters. Ashton to me is too much involved, and should either come out and claim all transfers but like Wiz says when things are going well he’s all other it, when things are bad he shirks away. In my opinion he is the blame for this with taking 6 weeks to appoint the man who was already here. I have read that this was not JL’s choice and he went along with it. I’m not against putting a number 2 in charge, but not one that has limited experience. I like Dean but to me we seem to be the same on the pitch as the boardroom as in yes men no one is strong enough to challenge people above them. So we’ve a weak under belly. I do tend to react to people who criticise the club, and that is something I’ve got to address but to me they are my team and tend to go over the top defending them when I should respect others opinion.
Thanks for the honest reply. And I agree with you, I had a conversation with my son the other day and he said something along the lines of, he has given us a wonderful stadium, he has wonderful plans in place to expand the amenities, but they are all shiny things, needed yes but the playing side is wholly dysfunctional from our transfer policy to our obvious rehab problems and fan communication is appalling. He went on to mention on the night of Bristol Bears European final there were photos of him and Mrs L wearing Bristol Bears shirts and an article about the interest in general on the game with people on Guernsey, I have never seen the like from the family for the football side. And again I have to agree with him, the rugby side of the franchise is seamless in it's day to day running and fan communication, they have signed another player already for next season, planning ahead. We have everything going for us, why is the playing side of the club so dysfunctional? and why are fans not treated like fans and kept up to date honestly, instead of trying to bury the truth and inviting conspiracy theories about 2 players who were expected to be pivotal to our season, conspiracy theories that now seem to have more than an element of truth, it looks like amateur hour to me and is bound to put off potential signings and potential managerial talent, who would honestly want to work in that sort of enviroment? The trick is what they do now and to me it is almost impossible to resolve without somebody moving on, I find it difficult to see a scenario where Williams will ever play for us and that is not only a shame but it's embarrassing, I suspect that he must feel let down by the whole club and especially the one man he needs to respect, Dean Holden. Can you imagine the questions if we do lose Walsh on a free after what Holden said publicly last week? SL seems to unconditionally support MA and that seems to be becoming toxic within the club and it's fanbase. As for your comment about Cotts I agree but for several reasons his relationship with SL was at rock bottom, from what I can fathom, SL would have liked to have sacked him before the season even started, but realised that after our record breaking season it would have impacted on season ticket sales and made many fans very angry.
If I can just add a thought, I liked Cotts a lot, he did wonders for us of that there is no doubt, I was really sorry he left us and the way it developed, we have all heard rumours but have never had the complete facts, there were various times he was out of sinc with the fans and internally he fell out big time, I like him and still do but do you think he had an arrogance about him which eventually led to his downfall, he was very self opinionated and stubborn, 352 style and all that, he was never a yes man, SL had to remove him and look how and what we ended up with.
I think the whole Bristol Sports thing and his fascination with the egg chasers in particular, has been to the very serious and ongoing dilution, detriment and brand/reputational damage to Bristol City FC
Again I agree, one of the improvements that has occurred is the fact that we can go from 3-5-2 to 4-4-2, although LJ was never convinced by 3-5-2 and never tried it much. I have always liked 3-5-2 but you need a functioning midfield to employ that system properly, to not only fully protect the back 3 but also create for the front 2. I think in our current predicament 4-4-2 is probably wiser because without athletic wing backs and a fully functioning midfield, better err on the side of caution. Our problem is obvious, we scored 2 goals per game in our first 5 games. And 13 in our past 17 games. We have not scored more than 2 goals in any game and have only scored 2 goals in 8 games out of 22, that is shocking and we are not missing chances just not creating many if any chances.
I can't fathom it out, SL spent millions upgrading the stadium and all associated facilities, spent millions preserving the financial base and status of Bristol City FC, spent millions on players, their contracts and wages, 4.5 years later we are still a mundane, mid table side, heading nowhere,what a waste, we have missed our chance.
The only saving grace is the academy to be honest, there is an abundance of talent coming through. We have 4.5mil player on 20k a week that nobody will take responsibility for signing who cannot get a game and a 1.2mil player who looks as though he will never play for us and nobody is taking responsibility for that, a top striker who we have turned into a bang average striker because we cannot adequately feed him with chances and 7 players whose contracts run out in June. Not good reading.
