FAN’S VIEW: 24/25 – No.9: BRISTOL CITY AWAY

OUR OPPONENTS

The way many football clubs are structured within other over-arching business models is incredibly complex and difficult to follow. Who owns what, who is ultimately in control, how important is the football club in the overall scheme of things (usually very very important of course), where’s the money, where’s the debt, how are the almost inevitable losses being covered? In the Championship those losses are significant year on year.

Given these tangled webs and rabbit holes I may well have gone very wrong on this but hey, I’ll give it a go.

The majority shareholder is Steve Lansdown, co-founder of Hargreaves Lansdown (HL) financial service company in 1981. Initially trading from a bedroom, it grew to become massive and is now one of the largest in Bristol. He stepped down as Chairman of the firm in 2009 and left the board in 2012. His stake in the company is now less than 10% but he’s made a shed load of money selling his shares and from dividends received. HL manage over $50b worth of assets.

Lansdown has been and is involved in other financial services and private equity businesses. Forbes currently estimate his net worth to be $2.8b. Clearly not short of a bob or two. He lives in Guernsey. Wonder why?  He is now 72 and whilst not actively looking to sell the football club would welcome new investors.

Lansdown is founder of Bristol Sport and is also the majority shareholder in Bristol Bears rugby club and Bristol Flyers basketball team alongside BCFC.

Chairman of the football club is Lansdown’s son, Jon. The senior Lansdown taking much more of a back seat these days.

The latest football club accounts are to 30 June 2023 and cover a 13 month period. They were signed off in December and the strategic report section strays beyond this period. It mentions that the management team of Nigel Pearson and his two assistants left in October. True. The word “sacked” wasn’t used; sacked they were though. City were 15^th at the time.  A new head coach came in on 7/11/23. Who the **** would that be? Prior to Saturday’s encounter City were 17^th.

Before tax they lost £19.4m. The previous year the loss had been even greater: £26.8m. Excluding player trading the loss was £21.5m. They sold Alex Scott to Bournemouth for £25m which was instrumental in them meeting financial fair play regulations.

Staff costs were £26.3m

Income included £3.3m from the Football League pool. All clubs in the Championship get an equal share then further amounts based on each broadcast game. We’ll now benefit enormously from this compared to when we were in L1. Then there’s the solidarity payment from the Premier League which during this period was £4.8m.

They had 14,372 season ticket holders including half season tickets.

22.5m shares were allotted to Bristol City Holdings Ltd by way of a debt to equity swap. This company is not a trading entity. It has two direct subsidiaries, the football club and Ashton Gate Limited which operates the stadium facilities. 

Bristol City Holdings Ltd’s parent company is Pula Sports Limited, a company owned by Lansdown senior and his wife. It exists for the purpose of investing in Bristol City holdings via debt and equity injections.

Fair to say Bristol City FC is costing the Lansdowns many millions each season although it’s not as if they can’t afford it. This though is the nature of the Championship. And it’s not as though they’re getting anywhere with this funding. This is their tenth consecutive season at this level. In that time they’ve finished 19^th once, 18^th once, 17^th twice and never higher than 8^th. For the size of the place – they’re in the top 10 cities in England based on population – it’s a surprise that they’ve had so few seasons in the top flight. In the early 1900s they were there for five seasons, getting relegated in 1911. They didn’t make it to that level again until 1976. They went down in 1980 and were relegated again the season after and the season after that too to end up in Division 4 (League 2 in modern speak). 

BRISTOL CITY 2 OXFORD UNITED 1

So the record remains. Not a point dropped at home and not a point won away. As at Coventry and Blackburn the margin of defeat was by only one goal. On the day I thought they were that bit better than us over 90 minutes but not quite by that whole goal which they achieved. I’d say about three quarters of a goal. But we lost again without disgracing ourselves and showed that we are close to getting something on our travels. A point or three will come one of these days. By the same token we will obviously drop points at home too but playing as we are we’re clearly “in there pitching” as the saying goes and should be fine.

Football matches can turn on specific incidents and in this we all know it was the Mark Harris miss immediately before Bristol equalised. At 2-0 up instead of drawing 1-1 I very much suspect we would have gone on to win.  

Giving away the penalty that led to the home side’s winner meant it wasn’t Sparky’s day.

The stats point to the hosts being a bit ahead of us in most categories. They had 56.3% possession and 19 shots, six of which were on target. Our shot count was seven with two on target. Jamie Cumming made four saves and Max O’Leary, the City keeper, just one. They’re shown as making 455 passes to our 368 but I’m going to ignore that. The passing accuracy recorded is 58% and 42%. Clearly that is not right. Never seen figures that low before. That means every other pass attempted went astray. That being the case there would have been no game of football.

Other key evidence in any argument that we deserved a point at least would have included Siriki Dembele’s shot thrashed against the bar from way out not that long after we’d taken the lead. O’Leary was well beaten.

Dembele was quality. What a signing he is. Talk about hitting the ground running. It was Josh McEachran who set up our number 23 for this effort and that was a combination instrumental in creating our goal too.

McEachran had been fouled and Sinclair Armstrong ever so slightly kicked the ball away knocking it a bit further forward than from where the offence took place. As soon as the ball came to a rest McEachran knocked it to Dembele who went at the heart of the Bristol defence. Ruben Rodrigues was also very switched on, making a run and pointing where he wanted the ball.  It was delivered, albeit with a bit of a nick off a defender. No matter, RR wasn’t tracked and he put it into the roof of the net in some style.

Photo, Steve Daniels

Earlier Tyler Goodrham had side-footed over from a Greg Leigh cross after good work from who else but Dembele.

Bristol had some good chances too. Armstrong ran onto a cross and headed just wide but most of their efforts were “straight at the keeper”. That’s an oft used phrase but that often overlooks the good positional play by the goalie who has ensured he’s in the right place to make the save.

That Harris miss came early in the second half.  We’d won the ball in midfield, put a move together when the underlapping RR squared across the box. As one of the commentators on the highlights clips said “how on earth is that not 2-0?” At least nineteen times out of 20 he’d put that away wouldn’t he? Having watched it back again the ball appeared to come across quicker than I’d thought it had on the day but this is the Championship.

Red shirts were now starting to find a bit more space than they had earlier and if there’s any slight dropping off of standards at this level it will likely get punished.

The equaliser came in the 57^th minute. Bristol had played the ball about a bit and the scorer wasn’t really marked. Armstrong’s shot was another straight at the keeper – only this time it went through Cumming’s legs. Keepers are expected to save such attempts on their goal. Our custodian was clearly unhappy with himself.  Actually sometimes hitting the ball low and at or very close to a goalie isn’t the worst of options by any means. It can be difficult for them to get their legs sorted if a full stretch isn’t required.

The penalty? At the time with a completely biased head on I didn’t think so. Seeing it again I can see why it was given.  A question I’d ask though is why was our main striker in that position making a forward’s tackle? Nahki Wells, who cost Bristol £5m nearly five years ago, emphatically buried the spot kick.

With added time we had over a quarter of an hour to get something from the game but never totally convinced that we would do so. Our subs did not make us stronger. Two changes were made in the 81^st minute. Hardly enough time for a player to have much influence. Off went Goodrham and Dembele and on came Malcolm Ebiowei and Kyle Edwards. The former has yet to show that he would be too high up the pecking order if everyone was fit. I’m thinking Matt Phillips and Przemyslaw Placheta in particular here. It was so good to see the return of Edwards. If we can get him back to what he was a year ago, what a player Des will have to choose from. It will take time though because he’s been out for 10 months and that’s a very long time in football.

Josh McEachran goes off. Photo Steve Daniels

Our two other subs were brought on earlier in the game. Will Vaulks replaced the injured McEachran. That’s not good news particularly given the way he’s been playing in the last couple of games and also as it has been announced Cameron Brannagan is out for at least six weeks. Vaulks is a decent player and yes our squad has much more depth than it has in recent years, which of course is absolutely necessary given the level we’re at, but lose a few in certain areas of the pitch and a team can soon be struggling.

RR, who had a very good game, went off for Dane Scarlett in the 68^th minute. The young Spurs lad brought nothing extra. I hope it works out for him here.

3380 Oxford supporters travelled to this game. An away sell-out. Not far down the road and there was the Liam Manning snake factor to take into account but a turnout that obviously couldn’t be bettered. Those fans were right behind the team from first to last and past the final whistle too.

A wet Des. Photo, Steve Daniels

There was a heavenly downpour during the match but being undercover and right near the back of the stand I remained dry throughout the day with the weather being fine on the trip to and from Bristol despite the warning of thunderstorms.

The train being a few minutes late into Temple Meads impacted the planned tight schedule of pubs en-route to Ashton Gate. So the decision was made to stick with the Llandoger Trow in the centre before walking to Bedminster. The Llandoger is such a good pub this was no hardship whatsoever and the beer was faultless. For once I stuck with the same ale as it was so good. A local brew from Bristol, Tradstar, a British golden ale, from the On Point Brew Company. Never had it before. Whilst we were sat outside the Llandoger supping about 20 people rolled up being given a tour of the city. Turns out that they were Bristol City fans from the Netherlands over for the match.

Much closer to the ground the Old Tobacco Factory Café and Bar was as good as it had been last year i.e. excellent. I was surprised that it wasn’t packed and how easy it was to get served.

The only other establishment visited and the only one I’d not been to before was the Portwall Tavern close to the station which we popped in to whilst we waited for the 19:00 train home. Great pub but the beer wasn’t quite up to the standard of the other two.

Before I move on a quick look at the League table. We’re 9^th and Bristol City are 13^th a point behind us. Might not last but that’s the way it is now.  

THOSE WE HAVE LOST

JACK BADGER

It’s incredibly sad when we lose anyone but Jack Badger was only 24 years old. I’ve never met him and to be honest I’d never heard of him until his passing. He was an Oxford United fan. On Saturday on 24 minutes there was applause.

He himself was a talented local footballer, a midfielder at Hellenic League Abingdon United.

RIP Jack.

STEVE HARDWICK

Steve Hardwick played 156 games in goal for us from 1983-88. Prior to that he’d played for Chesterfield and then clocked up 92 games for Newcastle United. In 1988 he went to Huddersfield and played 109 times for them.

My recollection of Steve is that he wasn’t the tallest of number ones but never let us down and battled for his first team place with Alan Judge for a while.

I have one memory of the man that I will never forget. Back in the day when the club used to have a pre-season open day for the kids at the Manor I was asked to help out one year. Laying out cones and any general bits and pieces that needed doing.

There was the inevitable youngsters taking a penalty at a first team keeper. I recall a goal being set up in front of the Osler Road terrace. I can’t remember if it was full size or not but I do know it was my job to put the ball(s) down on the centre spot, which was indicated by a little marker, and then get the youngsters to form a queue if there was more than one waiting. Twelve yards was way too far out for these tiny people so I moved the spot closer. Still they ran up and could only trickle the ball towards goal. So I decided it had to be moved further forward still. I don’t intend to be rude here but picture the lad who is always last to be picked, the one who is shall we say a little overweight when compared to the others. Well it was his turn next. He waddled up and then from about six yards out somehow thrashed the ball with such venom from six yards that Steve had to react as if he was stopping a Peter Lorimer thunderbolt. He got his hands up just in time to stop his facial features being rearranged. “F***ing hell, are you trying to kill me?” he said. I can’t remember my reply, if any. Pretty sure I moved the spot back a bit again after that.

Steve passed on 16 September at the age of 68.

RIP Steve.