Bristol City Football Club

[Filo]

Hi Conrad,

I was just having a look at your new Social Group and it started me thinking. Bearing in mind I know absolutley nothing about football, I'm sure I seem to recall there was another football team in Bristol. I used to have to go to a railway workshop at Ashton Gate, at least I think thats where it was, and on the way (coming from Bath Road) we past a football club and the van driver used to spit and curse about it as we passed. What would that club have been called?

Regards,

Filo

[Conrad]

Well clearly a city the size of Bristol attracts a number of part-time teams, so we have teams like Mangotsfield and Bristol Manor Farm. Bottom of the pile though would be Bristol Rovers .

Won't be long now and I am guessing someone will point out that last time we played they won

[Filo]

Thats interesting, becuase the one we used to pass seemed to be in the middle of a housing estate, so which one would it have been? And am I right about the name Ashton gate?

Filo

[Conrad]

Oh definitely, he clearly was taking a slightly odd route round the M32, but if he was spitting it was definitely Rovers. Gone now and instead an Ikea store sadly.

There is a lot of old railworks around the Ashton Gate area, and a proposed Tesco site so sounds about right.

[Youngie]

Im going to show my age here but I actually watched Bristol City beat Arsenal 1 0 at Highbury on the opening day of the 1976 season. I was in the away end with all the City lot, and when Big Paul Cheesley scores the winner you can actually see me and my mate clear as day on the Big Match TV footage that HTV showed a thousand times.
For the Record being a Wiltshire lad my local alliegience is with the Mighty Swindon Town although I have to admit to being a die hard Manchester Utd fan......Boooo hisss i hear you cry!

[Soup Dragon]

I have seen Swindon a few times over the years, Villa beat them 5-0 i think in the old div 1, or the early Prem. I went to the County Ground a few yeats back to see them beat Rushden & Diamonds 4-2.

[Conrad]

Im going to show my age here but I actually watched Bristol City beat Arsenal 1 0 at Highbury on the opening day of the 1976 season. I was in the away end with all the City lot, and when Big Paul Cheesley scores the winner you can actually see me and my mate clear as day on the Big Match TV footage that HTV showed a thousand times.
For the Record being a Wiltshire lad my local alliegience is with the Mighty Swindon Town although I have to admit to being a die hard Manchester Utd fan......Boooo hisss i hear you cry!

Dave is far more of a City historian, so I am sure he will comment on the Arsenal result. As for the mighty Swindon town, good luck at the moment, Danny Wilson was an excellent servant for Bristol City, and didn't deserve to be sacked (IMHO). Gary Johnson is the better manager, but has yet to provide the sort of entertainment Wilson did in the 2001-2003 era, his final year at BC he played us far more defensively and it made for a number of tedious but effective matches.

Last time I saw Swindon was when they needed to beat us to stay up, we needed to beat them to have a chance of promotion, it was of course a draw. Marred completely by one of our x-players (Aaron Brown) gesticulating to the crowd rather than playing the ball for Swindon, stupid lad, he should have been more interested in keeping Swindon up than playing antics with our boo boys.

As for Man U, take a boo-hiss from me. I have to admit to a smile when they beat Man C last week though, not a fan of the way Man C have flashed the credit card and played the press in the Summer.

[Dave M]

Im going to show my age here but I actually watched Bristol City beat Arsenal 1 0 at Highbury on the opening day of the 1976 season. I was in the away end with all the City lot, and when Big Paul Cheesley scores the winner you can actually see me and my mate clear as day on the Big Match TV footage that HTV showed a thousand times.

Ah you lucky man! That game could well have been the highlight of the last 100 years of Bristol City history and was their first competitive game after I was born. I do wonder what might've been had Paul Cheesley not taken a bad injury in the very next game which forced him to retire. Oddly enough he runs the Knowle Hotel these days!

For the Record being a Wiltshire lad my local alliegience is with the Mighty Swindon Town although I have to admit to being a die hard Manchester Utd fan......Boooo hisss i hear you cry!

Yeah, that is a boo hiss from me too! Although with the choice of Swindon or a non local team I can see why you'd support Man Utd!

[Youngie]

I do wonder what might've been had Paul Cheesley not taken a bad injury in the very next game which forced him to retire....

Yeah he was taken out by a rash challenge from Peter Shilton (who was then playing for Stoke) if I remember rightly... who ironically went on to play for another 100 years!!!


It must be stated I had to endure 26 years of pain from 1967-1993 where Utd never got a sniff of the Title ...so I'm entitled to enjoy Fergie's Glory years without being labelled a 'bandwagon jumping gloryhunter'!!
Although I'm sure that won't stop you lot!

[Soup Dragon]

I may head on down to Bristol soon, if you and Dave want to meet up - i am happy to go to Ashton Gate for a match, as long as i get planty of beer in as well, and i dislike the team you are playing sufficiently to want to cheer you lot on - Ipswich would be a good one - not that i dislike Ipswich - just Roy Keane (i would like to see Ipswich at the bottom of the leagure, dump Keane and the new guy save them from relegation, as i have always rather liked Ipswich from the days when we pipped them for the league)