Predicting football can be hazardous at the best of times; particularly when looking years into the future, but just for kicks, how long do you think it will take for Bristol City to reach the top flight (if ever)?
I went for 5-10 years There are so many variables in football it's almost impossible to predict this, especially as we're not a huge club. What I do know is that it's becoming harder to reach, and even harder still to stay in the Premiership. If we are stable and can gradually improve our squad then we might have a chance in a few years.
Got to keep the faith and think that one day we'll have a chance but I agree that the gulf between Championship & EPL is now so massive that it's hard to compete with the clubs with parachute payments. Whilst I am a one club man and really want City to do well, I also have reservations about potentially being in the EPL if we're just there to make up the numbers and try not to get relegated. Last season was an anomaly with Leicester. If Leicester fans are honest, this coming season their main target will be comfortable survival. It's just an incredibly uneven playing field when you look at the money behind the big clubs and I ask myself "what's the point" of only trying to survive and not actually win anything? I maintain that the EPL has been the worst thing to ever happen to English football. The game has changed beyond recognition and for the worst. Plastic fans have completely taken over and the game panders to the TV rights. Whatever happened to Saturday afternoon at 3pm being special? We all want our club to be successful but it would be interesting to know how many of us out there really have the stomach for the EPL and the hazards that being a member, likely short term, would bring??
If we can put two or three top quality players into the team then we have a chance over the next few years. What with the new stadium,the revinue can be earned with a succesful team playing good football. I reckon the first three games will be sold out,which shows what can be achieved. However the likes of Bournemouth,Swansea,Palace,Hull can do it,so no reason why city can't. We seem as fans very quick to belittle our stand in the football tier. I would go as far as saying BCFC is a untapped oil field waiting to be brought to life. The population is there to fill AG on a weekly basis with the prem just next door. However do BCFC want it badly enough that is the question.
Membership of the Premiership also brings with it the extortionate wages, Primadonna players, gamesmanship, and out and out cheating that we don't really see that much of in the Championship, and which was virtually never seen in L1. Plus ticket prices are likely to go through the roof. But that is the price of success in English league football I'm afraid. I'd still like to see us go back to the top division and have a crack at staying there for longer than 4 years before I die.
I understand the criticism of some aspects of modern football, stemming predominantly from the vast (and increasing) money involved; though I do also think that the improved professionalism, organisation and safety shouldn't be disregarded. Logic would dictate that the disproportionate riches of the biggest clubs would create a monopoly, which we have seen mostly across the Premiership era and across Europe, but I'm hoping that last season (whilst undoubtedly something a one-off) is an indication of a slight change in England. Because so many clubs now have significant money to play around with (imagine a few years ago, the idea of Bournemouth bidding £15m for a player like Jordan Ibe!), it could be that the advantage of wealth has at least been blunted. Obviously, Leicester stunned everyone last season, but West Ham too came pretty darned close to making the Champions League (as well as having one of the World's hottest current properties in Payet) and even Tottenham, who (though hardly minnows,) still were previously a grade beneath the more traditional 'giants'. I think the theoretical 'glass-ceiling' for City would be to make the top-flight, establish themselves and possibly make the Europa League one day - it's nice to dream, even if the current reality is that we're possibly more likely to get relegated then promoted!
this is not good, I find myself agreeing wholeheartedly with red robin- please tell me it wont last and its only a temporary thing.
You pay your money and you take your choice, whatever that is at any given time. Frankly I can't see anything coming down the pipe to give me any hope of us getting there soon. However, did anyone expect Leicester to win the title? You just never know, even if you support Bristol City.
I must admit, I can't understand this type of thinking at all. Bristol City in the the Premiership puts us internationally on the map. It fills our stadium every week, gradually making us a bigger club, giving us the opportunity of realising that potential that I am assured we have (even though I have never seen it realised in a lifetime of watching City), and it gives us a genuine football white knuckle ride for as long as we stay there. It candies our eyes with some of the best talent in world football, and it brings home to us the fact that what we do by being obsessed with this club actually matters. And it turns our heroes into Superheroes. I can remember my old dad telling me about the report of the Arsenal V City match in 1976 (I had to work), how his face glowed with pride as he quoted the BBC's commentary description of Trevor Tainton's performance as a revelation. I can remember the togetherness as facing the big and nasty First Division brought a REAL atmosphere of togetherness to the club and its supporters. knowing what we faced ahead of us. This is what makes clubs grow. This is what makes clubs realise their potential instead of belly-aching about what could have been with the people who never show up because the beautiful game gets a little scruffy as you go down the leagues. The Premiership is what makes people dream, and what turns the dreams of this club into the fires of ambition. And that is what fuels our blessed Sir Lansdown to go out and spank another 3 or 4 million on a substitute from Bournemouth. But then I have aired this view point before, and it seems that City fans don't necessarily agree with me, so I say my piece and retire to a safe distance. Lets hope for a happy season.
A large part of me is not sure I want us to. I hate what the Premier League has become its ruined the game in England. The only potential benefit is to breed another generation of City fans and perhaps pick up some global following, but is the financial risk with it? Quite happy with being in the Championship from a purely football perspective.
I think there could be a european super league before we get into the premier league. I think the structure of all the leagues will change within the next 5 years. There will be so much money on offer to the top clubs they wont give any thought to breaking away from the rest.
SL seems more determined than ever to get City to the Prem because it's already happened for Bristol Rugby. And I now believe that it will happen sooner than many realise. If, and it is a big if, City continue this season as they did for the last four months of last season, they will be knocking on the play off door. The eighteen months under Johnson from Jan 2016 to May 2017, could replicate Cotterill's reign of the last four months of 2013-2014 and the championship winning team of 2014-2015. I don't think we'll do it this year because unless we get in another 5 or 6 Championship hardened recruits now, it will take the "three windows" as LJ said. But a strong performance this season could lead to promotion next time around. We all have to be positive because feint hearts don't become winners.
I think its possible we could reach the premiership within 2 years but it's equally possible we could find ourselves back in league 1. With all SLs money we have tripped and stumbled whereas Blackpool, Norwich - and Leicester have all leapfrogged us to the promised land. Ok some might point at where Blackpool are now but I think that those teams have shown that it really can be done. Just why it is taking us so long considering we have a billionaire owner suggests mismanagement of sorts. Maybe it's like dieting; if you lose weight quickly you are more likely to put it back on, whereas lose it slowly you have more chance of keeping it off. Spend loads quickly we might be a bubble which could burst, whereas build slowly and carefully we might end up with something solid. Trouble is, we aren't even an established Championship side yet - for most of last season we were staring at the real possibility of an immediate return to League 1.
I may be wrong but I believe both Southampton and Norwich bounced straight from League 1 to the Premiership in consecutive seasons, as indeed we nearly did. They didn't bother to establish themselves as championship sides: they knew they were destined for bigger things
as a sub prem club in sixth you win the playoffs straight back down or win the auto places 0r third on goal difference and fail or ... ... you can go on and on
