Have to say this is a good script below.we as fans want the best possible for our club,this is to the point. What is the ******* point in having a rich owner if all he does is hide away and do nothing! Every other club that has a rich owner does well, us well we all know what happens there! I'm sorry but I'd rather be back in league one watching my club win games than watching this ****e in the championship, me and about 7 of my friends left after 20 mins today and were all season ticket holders. The owner has to be accountable in this as all but one of his managerial appointments have been dire and on the cheap, del has to go now with Skuse and Carey and lets start afresh, if that means league one then so be it cos we blatantly can't cut it at this level anymore. I will buy a season ticket in league one because I love this club but watching us die in the championship just hurts especially when we have a big money owner that doesn't spend! I still say the January transfer window in the play off season was our chance and Steve did nothing, this club is going down and no amount of clapping will save us. It's about time we fought for our club, forget the stadium because the club matters more and always will and we fans deserve a bit more than this!
He has also constantly backed the managers with players He has also got us to the championship He has also spent over 40 million in 5 years and he is willing to spend 90 million to give us a new state of the art stadium I'm sorry but the blokes brilliant to us and to give him grief is idiotic, But that's just my opinion
I've said it before that Lansdown has to take some of the blame with his decisions over the years, especially at appointing managers
He is pumping 11 million into this club yearly, we then ask him to dig deep and get us some players like he is our dad handing out pocket money. To be truthful if I was him and read critism against me paying out all that money, I would say **** you, get of your arse and work hard get yourself some money then see if you want to lose 11 million every year? Without him I don't care what anyone says, we will fold and before anyone says this club will be here long after I have gone, remember that I live 10 miles from Newport County so have loads of county fans who watched thier club go bust and be out of the league for years. Unlike them if we went bust kids will grow up supporting Rovers we would never get back! So think before you bite the hand that feeds you.
Seriously.. What a joke. As already stated the bloke has thrown millions into the club, what the hell else do you want. Getting rid of Skuse who's currently our best contracted CM?! What about Killa, Marv, Pearson etc... Janurary in the play off season we brought in Dele and Nick Carle. If anything it was that strengthening that screwed us because we started playing long ball football to Dele. As for 'blatently can't cut it at this level any more' what is the massive surprise? We have one of the lowest average attendences, a stadium that isn't set up to bring in a lot of money from corporate events, a serially underperforming academy (until recently), this period since GJ is the first time we've stayed at this level for more than a season since 93/94.. since when did we have a right to be pushing for premier league football? Yes it's to the point, unfortunately it's also utter ****.
I have to say, there are two parts of me that are split regarding Steve Lansdown; My Heart & My Head. Heart being the positive, the reasons; It does seem genuine that Steve's heart is into making Bristol City a much better club, than when he took over, I believe he loves the club and the City and would love to be remembered for the good & the contribution he's made. He continues to pour money & time into something he believes will one day be prosperous & successful. Head being the negative, the reasons; I don't mean this to sound rude but IMO; If Hargreaves & Landsdown was run by Steve alone, the way he runs the football club, I'm not convinced it would be so successful. (like I said, it's just my opinion) It seems to me that the board he set up at the gate is not far short of Useless & clueless. They, together have no clue whatsoever in how to run a Professional football club and if Steve admitted he wasn't sure about running a football club he should have appointed someone to the board who did. Or should have seeked professional advice from Directors alike. I'm no fan of DOF as that then gives the power and the hands on away. He needed to learn all there was to know to make it work. This is the reason for SL's failures regarding appointing managers etc and getting carried away. Signing the likes of David James (for what ever reason), which most could see was a total WASTE of money. (running before he could walk) GJ was an inspirational appointment, whom had a great record with Yeovil,bringing them up the leagues. The thoughts of bringing in a established manager such as Coppell should have been genius and was the right thing to do.....(not his fault Coppell had lost the plot, although rumours around should have given out some warning signs) Maybe because he felt he got his fingers burnt, he opted to keep away from established managers and i'm afraid it all went down hill. I believe moving away from Bristol and taking a step back didn't help, Cheap option was Millen, already signed a 3 year deal as assistant it was easier and cheaper just to promote him as Manager...As we know, MASSIVE MISTAKE. Of course the one thing you don't do after making such a massive mistake is to go and do it again. What does Steve do? Takes a MASSIVE GAMBLE on an unknown, a rookie in a very poor Scottish League, with no experience of either the Premiership or Championship whatsoever. How can anyone be surprised this was NOT gonna work out....I as you know was Not. What he now needs to do is put it right, grow some balls, learn by the mistakes and sort it before it's too late, before he gets pissed off with the whole project. At this moment in time I back Steve Lansdown 100% to do the right thing, but if we go down, because no action is taken or it's been left too late, my faith in him will fade very quickly.
Again, this talk of "on the cheap" (reminds me of someone)... SL should actually come out and say, without revealing salaries, how much he has actually paid out in compensation, changing around the accademy management, etc. Might shut some of these idiotic comments up....
I'm hoping he paid Mickey Mouse salaries for a Micky Mouse management that had no experience in the English league let alone Premier or Championship levels. You keep harping on about the Academy. What's the point in the Academy if we're relegated, anyone decent in it will move on to better, bigger and more successful clubs. It's like having a great 30,000 seat stadium, in league 1....who's gonna be interested?
If Mr lansdown wanted to no longer put in money to cover the debts he creates the club would only fold if he wanted it to. at present the club runs at a serious loss but if the ground was returned to the clubs ownership money could be borrowed against the asset and debts covered also by fans e.g share issues. people might invest in it v nobody now. many fans dont go want want want some say spend less use the acedemy, cut the squad size and attempt to run the club at something like an even keel again. Even on citys gates other clubs have maintained championship football. City have not always lost this amount of money and have adopted different ways of operating. It was not so long ago that team had players called Amankwah, brown, burnell, carey, clist, coles, doherty, hill hulbert starting most local most coming through the ranks and costing little. Johnson did things differently but did not spend heavily till 2008. since the rails have come off BCFC and the debts have gone upwards big time and that is SL's choice and personally I think it is ridiculous. that was two examples of ways of running the club differently there. SL's Long term plan now is?
We need to take a good look at ourselves - if you look at the average attendances we are 20th in our division with 13,204 (Pboro, Barnsley, Willwall and Watford below us) Without SL's investment we would still be in League 1 on those gates.
It doesn't help when the football is poor and we've been struggling at the bottom of the championship for the past 2 and half years.. Progress and success will bring the crowds. you can't keep putting on a bad show and expect people just to turn up.
Blackpool gained promotion when spending less and having smaller attendances and Burnley sustained ten years in the championship and more on very similar. Clubs constantly have moved up from division one with smaller attendances than city.
My question to Redrobin is who wrote the original article? It appears to me that you were quoting someone else's words in the thread. There are some vitriolic words written in the original thread and in the replies that it generated, and I think the points that some of our followers are trying to get across have some validity. We are indeed fortunate to have Steve Lansdown as our benefactor and without him who knows where we would be at this time. However, like a lot of other posters, I have to seriously question a lot of his decisions made in the area of human resources when it comes to Bristol City FC. Being a partner in his day job should give him all the skills to succeed at being a football club owner and yet most of us spend our days questioning his decisions made on behalf of the club we love. So where have the collective "we" gone wrong and what is it about BCFC that conjures up images of not being able to make the right decisions when our life depends on it? If I had the answer to our seemingly endless problem of not being able to fix what is so eveidently broken then I wouldn't be sat here sending my thoughts via not606. I believe that our problems lie at the grass roots of our club and until someone goes in and fixes the disease that threatens those roots we will continue to die a slow and agonising death. Surely, but surely, there is enough business acumen within the top brass to fully understand the situation and come up with a cost effective way of turning around our ever deepening on-field problems. If indeed, as I suspect, we do not have the movers and shakers in place at BCFC then I fear the situation will only get worse and the supporters will suffer even more heartache. A successful organisation is run by successful people and only when you have that infrastructure in place will you reach your goal. Over to you Mr Lansdown.
Hi inver yes i have copy and pasted,i thought it was very relevant the goings on at BCFC over a period of time. SL has said many times he wants to take us to the promised land,you need leadership of quality to do this from top to bottom.Sadly at present we are a rudderless ship,sinking quicker than the titanic.
The club without Mr Lansdowns wealth is still a viable business, it would require quick and radical change without him to avoid bankruptcy. It maybe now impossible to return BCFC to what it was prior to Mr Lansdown. Bristol City is now split into different companies, the ground is under different ownership, club rules allow a major shareholder to take control, the board are employees instead of investors and men such as John Laycock have left. BCFC now is Mr Lansdown's creation. I can't remember Mr Lansdowns actual words, but he has stated something along the lines of he would not put the club's existence at risk. I feel it is a discourtesy to suggest he would jeopardise BCFC.
I live near Watford and thats an interesting observation - smaller than us, with a recent owner who bled the club dry (and could well still see them docked points for mismanagement). Some new Italian owners, brought in Gianfranco Zola, who in turn used his knowledge and contacts to bring in some brilliant Italian youngsters who, when blended with journeymen like Lloyd Doyley and others, has created a club that is punching so far above their weight its unreal. And their ex-managers ...Malky McKay and Brendan Rogers ... are doing pretty well as well. They have even been in the Premiership in the last 10 years. So what have Watford got that we dont? Not great support. Rich owners, yes. A better manager..yes, very likely. A rubbish ground. But what is it that makes them so much better than us.
Football I believe is not a normal business, to attract sponsors, crowds, publicity etc you need to have a good product already set. it's easy to see what watford are doing, it's a gamble but a educated gamble. Bring in a good manager, bring in good players, wether on loan or not, get the football to a good level, attract the interest and build from there. All the Academy stuff could come later, as when the club becomes s good establishment, it will attract the young talent whom would want to stay..Plus the fact, the rest of the squad are learning at a different level. We seem to do everything backwards here, cheap option on manager and players that struggle to make a team to compete at championship level but build a good Acedemy, to which any decent player will just simply move on.. Or in other words, totally clueless!
