Bristol City v Ipswich Town
Saturday 3rd December 2016 – 15:00
Ashton Gate
Opening Thought – Jamma
Saturday’s clash with QPR provided proof, if proof were needed, that it’s the winning that counts for football supporters. I remember saying as the opening 45 minutes drew to a close that I would be delighted to get to half time with a 1-0 lead, having seen the team score a goal out of nothing as they struggled to string more than three passes together. The boos that accompanied the half-time whistle seemed to be primarily aimed at the referee, after he had failed to show a second yellow card to James Perch for a late challenge. But there was also more than a hint of frustration at the disjointed nature of Town’s play, which had left us thankful for the Rs’ own deficiencies in attack. An hour later, though, and the players were leaving the pitch to rousing applause. The overriding emotion was relief – Luke Chambers’ fist-pump even lacked its usual vigour – as we celebrated a surprisingly comfortable win. It was a strange match – nobody could claim that the Blues’ performance had been worthy of a three-goal margin of victory, and yet we could conceivably have scored another hatful. It was the perfect illustration of the adage ‘goals change games’, with Luke Varney’s poached effort at the expense of the usually reliable Alex Smithies setting us on the way to the 3 points. That was perhaps the most satisfying aspect of our display: unlike recent outings, we took our opportunities when they came along, and were ruthless enough to see out the win.
It shouldn’t be underestimated how important it was to get off to a fast start last weekend. Just look what a goal inside 20 seconds has done for Forest, who have gone on to clinch their first two away successes of the campaign… Town may not have got off the mark quite so quickly against Rangers, but Grant Ward’s opportunistic strike within the opening 15 minutes certainly gave us something to cling on to. As mentioned, our first-half performance was a jittery one, perhaps in part as a result of the nervy two previous home outings. And so to score with our first attempt on goal – or second if you count Ward’s initial effort – provided a timely boost. As the game went on, our belief visibly rose, while Ian Holloway admitted that his side lost all theirs as soon as the second goal went in. The increased confidence was not only in evidence amongst the players, but rubbed off on the crowd too, as the Blue Army relished a rare chance to enjoy a match in which their team was virtually assured of the victory. When Cole Skuse has three – albeit ambitious – long-range attempts at doubling his Ipswich Town goal tally in one half of football, you know it’s going to be your day! Joking apart, I thought Skuse was very effective at getting forwards as well as the more defensive side of his game, with one surging run in particular belying his usual ‘cautious’ tag. I’m not for one minute saying that we have found the midfield playmaker that we have been crying out for, but it did go to show what a difference a bit of freedom can make to our play. As is the case after just about every match at the moment, we would appear to be at a crossroads in terms of where our season goes from here. Our league record bears this out too, as it now reads Won 6 Drawn 6 Lost 6, with a goal difference of 0. So far in 2016/17, we have been unable to back up a win with a follow-up performance and result. As we head towards the hectic festive period, now would be as good a time as any to change that statistic, against a struggling Bristol City…
The Opposition – Bristol City
The club was founded in 1897 as Bristol South End and changed their name to Bristol City on adopting professionalism three years later, when they were admitted into the Southern League. City joined the Football League in 1901.
Bristol City won the Second Division Championship with a record number of points, becoming the first club in Football League history to win 30 games in a season, as well as equalling Manchester United's achievement of the previous campaign in winning 14 consecutive games (still a record today, and also accomplished by Preston in 1950–51).
The Robins finished as runners-up in their inaugural First Division campaign. Three years later, they won through to their only FA Cup final. After a five-season stay in the top flight, the 1910/11 season brought City's first ever taste of relegation and it was to be 65 years before top-flight status would be regained.
The 1920s were a rocky time, as City bounced between the Second Division and the Southern Section of the Third Division. By the 1930s, they had slumped into the lower division, and stayed there until the Second World War. Harry Dolman became chairman in 1949, and held the post for over 30 years. An engineer who had bought out the firm he worked for, he designed the first set of floodlights installed at Ashton Gate in the early 1950s. The late 1950s were a better time for City, with a five-year stay in the Second Division, a league they returned to for a further spell in 1965.
In 1967, Alan Dicks was appointed manager, and things gradually began to improve, with promotion to the First Division in 1976 ending a 65-year exile from the top flight.
City's second stint in the top flight was less successful than the club's first, with 13th position in 1979 being their highest finish during this era.
In 1980, the City team returned to the Second Division in the first of three relegations, their debt mounted and their financial losses increased, with two successive relegations following. Thus, in 1982, they fell into the Fourth Division, and were declared bankrupt. BCFC (1982) Ltd acquired the club's player contracts, and the highly paid senior players who became known as the 'Ashton Gate Eight' each accepted termination of his contract for half the amount due. The club failed to pay its debts to many local businesses, which left the newly formed club in difficulty in obtaining credit because of bad feeling towards them.
City spent two seasons in the Fourth Division before winning promotion in 1984. They consolidated themselves in the Third Division during the latter part of the 1980s, and in 1990 achieved promotion as Third Division runners-up.
City remained in the new Division One (no longer the Second Division after the creation of the Premier League in 1992) but in the 1994/95 season were relegated to Division Two.
Bristol City again achieved promotion in 1998 as Division Two runners-up, but went straight back down again the following season.
City were a regular Division Two top six side over the next few seasons but couldn’t advance through the play-offs each time.
Despite a slow start to the 2006–07 season, City were in the top six of League One by November and at the end of the month began an 11-match unbeaten run which drove them to the top of the division. Promotion to the Championship was confirmed on the final day of the season, as they secured the runners-up spot in the division and achieved automatic promotion.
After a stop-start run of form, City went top of the Championship on 1 March. However, a poor run ended City's chances of an automatic promotion place. They made the play-off final at Wembley but went down 1-0 to Hull.
After a poor start to 2008–09, City finished the season in 10th place.
On 22 April 2010, it was announced that former Reading manager Steve Coppell would become the new City manager at the end of the 2009–10 campaign, when he would start a 12-month rolling contract, and that Keith Millen, who had guided the club to Championship safety in his brief spell as caretaker manager, would remain at the club as his assistant. It was announced on 12 August 2010 that Coppell had resigned as manager with immediate effect, saying that he would retire from football management altogether and citing a lack of passion for the job. This followed his only two competitive games at the club.
On 29 November 2011, the club announced a loss of £11.45 million.
After a promising start to the 2011/12 season, City only just survived relegation from the Championship, having spent time in the relegation zone.
After a poor start to the 2012/13 campaign, Sean O'Driscoll was appointed head coach on a 12-month rolling contract. However, on 16 April 2013, City were relegated to League One.
After the sacking of Sean O'Driscoll on 28 November 2013, Steve Cotterill was appointed on a three-and-a-half-year contract. When he joined, the club were bottom of the table and 5 points away from safety with a −7 goal difference. Cotterill made a huge impact and guided the club to safety and a 12th place finish.
Bristol City were promoted back to the Championship for the 2015–16 season after securing top spot in 2014–15 Football League One on 14 April 2015. 1955 was the previous time they had won a league.
With Bristol City just inside the relegation zone, and only 256 days after he had led them back to the Championship, Cotterill was sacked by club chairman Keith Dawe, on 14 January 2016.
Caretaker Manager John Pemberton was replaced by Lee Johnson on 6 February 2016.
Last season, Bristol City finished in 18th place with 52 points.
The Manager – Lee Johnson
Past Match - Video Highlights - Trev
Highlights of Town's 6-0 thrashing of the Robins from back in 2007/08:
Media Watch - K L Blue
Blues re-linked with Watkins:
http://www.twtd.co.uk/ipswich-town-news/30690/
MM on Varney:
http://www.sportinglife.com/football/li ... n/358320/-
Tony Fernandes on QPR's defeat:
http://www.hitc.com/en-gb/2016/11/27/od ... defeat-at/
Form Guide
Bristol City Last 5 Matches – Currently in 13th place with 24 points
Reading FC 2-1 Bristol City
Birmingham City 1-0 Bristol City
Bristol City 0-2 Brighton
Barnsley 2-2 Bristol City
Bristol City 1-2 Hull City
Ipswich Last 5 Matches – Currently in 14th place with 24 points
Ipswich Town 3-0 QPR
Ipswich Town 0-2 Nottingham F.
Sheffield Wed 1-2 Ipswich Town
Ipswich Town 2-2 Rotherham
Newcastle Utd 3-0 Ipswich Town
Fixtures of Interest
FULHAM VS READING
NORWICH VS BRENTFORD
SHEFF. WED VS PRESTON
LEEDS VS ASTON VILLA
The Don Cup Competition
Only 11 entries this week, but still a few beauties. Nicscreamer, your effort is candidate for "caption of the season". I personally laughed my a$$ off at that. For those who don't know, that was Nic's best Robert DeNiro!
(still laughing at that). You and Patthegimps from the Forest caption are certainly frontrunners. Anyway,
Scores:
Nicscreamer 5pts
Gold&Black 4pts
Frosty (you bad man!
) 3ptsBlueblood 2pts
League Table
Herforder 34
Gold&Black 31
DerickIpsw 30
Blueblood 27
Nicsreamer 27
Bluemike 25
Ando 24
Quasar 22
Frosty 21
Watership Down 13
Number 9 11
IpswichtownNo1 10
Patthegimp 10
Tangfastic 9
Shed on Tour 7
LoudNProud 5
Ashfordblue 5
Supershred 2
Longjohn 1
Foxy Lady 1
Barmy Billy 1
ItfcTrev76 1
Have a go at this... I know it's not an old farm game but the Bristol Shitty pics were Shitty.
Match Referee – Stuart Attwell
Final Thought – Bluemike
Boy did we need that result!! OK, the performance wasn't vintage by any means but it was so much better than the last two home games and for a change helped to make Portman Road a little bit more palatable come 4.50pm Saturday evening. I'm sure there are many Town fans who will be only too quick to point out "one swallow doesn't make a summer," and that is right, just as one bad spell doesn't make Mick McCarthy a bad manager, right? Ian Holloway certainly had some words of support for our Mick and, as Jack stated, isn't it odd how every man and his dog holds our manager in such high esteem while we love to have a dig at every opportunity? It's a funny old game.
The 3-0 scoreline could so easily have been 6-1 by the full time whistle, and this is down to us going for it as opposed to sitting back and defending what we had. Another strange thing for me is how we bring in the "old guard" of Varney & Douglas much to many people’s disapproval and lo and behold we come up with our biggest win for 3 years. While reading and using different forums and social media sites, I have often seen it stated that our fans would take defeats and poor performances if we blooded some youngsters. Well sorry but for me that is nonsense and just not the case. Some of the comments I have been reading about young Teddy Bishop are just not fair or indeed accurate, given that the lad missed virtually a whole season and came back into a struggling side, so where is the patience there? Or indeed when young Emmanuel was having a tough time. OK, he may not have been ripped to bits by the fans but they still weren't content with losing while blooding him in, so that for me is a load of old tosh. People want to win, end of.
Next up we have a trip to Bristol City, one of my worst away days last season as two replica headers from their CB from corners beat us pretty easily and on the day we just failed to turn up really. The Bristol City of 3 or 4 weeks ago looked pretty tough but they are going through a sticky spell of late and the goals appear to have dried up a bit for the impressive Tammy Abraham so maybe we can go into this with the belief we can bring home the points. We are still to register two wins on the bounce this season. Maybe this is time to put that right, although I am feeling a draw seems the most likely outcome, which won't be a bad result. COYBs.
BRISTOL CITY 1 IPSWICH TOWN 1
& the budgies are winning 