It's official. I support an absolute joke club.
(BBC link
here)
Former England manager Roy Hodgson has been put in caretaker charge of Bristol City after head coach Gerhard Struber was sacked.
The 78-year-old returns to the club he managed in 1982 having been out of the game since leaving Crystal Palace in 2024.
Struber has been sacked after a run of one win in nine games in all competitions which has seen the Robins slip to 16th in the Championship.
I've only really been following the City from my armchair for a little over ten years (it took me a while to get into football), so my opinion on managers is not particularly marked. However, my grandfather is a season ticket holder and has supported the club since 1947, so he knows a thing or two about the club. Gerhard is the only manager in recent history (apart from Steve Cotterill) who I've never heard him say a bad word about. And this is not me pandering to the fact that he seems like a genuinely lovely guy, and hastily trying to excuse our results: no, I bear as much responsibility for the team's results as he does and I've watched a grand total of one game this year, in which we looked not out of our depth against a Premier League side, with
our B-team.
I'm not like the most vocal of our fans, who will scream and shout at owner Lansdown because we're not in the Premier League. I have no wish to get promoted to the Premier League. I don't collect Match Attax (although if we were promoted, I'd think about it). I don't watch Match of the Day (although I'd watch Struber's interviews if we were, the man is comedy gold). I have no wish to see my team get stuffed 6-0 every week.
I'm not like the most vocal of our fans, who will scream and shout at owner Lansdown because he needs to sell the club NOW. I'm going to be careful what I ask for. I don't want my club to become an oil tycoon's plaything, or a crazy billionaire's game of Football Manager, or a moneyed state's sportswashing bandwagon. I appreciate all that Lansdown has done for the club over many years. I trust him to treat the club responsibly and to sell it, when the time comes, to the right man or woman, someone who knows that boring is sometimes best.
And this isn't boring. This is sacking a manager who has had his entire defence out injured - save for one new signing who has had to be thrown in at the deep end - and has had established players sold out from under his nose, and replaced by players who look good but need time to adjust to the Championship and to English football. This is a knee-jerk decision that smacks of Gerhard being pushed out to take the rap for the board's recent mistakes - mistakes I would have happily forgiven them for, if they had given Gerhard time to sort out where the club was heading and to mould the squad into a cohesive unit. We're on 51 points, which is enough to stay up. I wouldn't have cared if we'd finished 20th this season as long as we had a summer to regroup (but not rebuild, as that would most definitely be a knee-jerk decision).
But anyway. I'll stop ranting. What's done is done. Thank you Gerhard. Good luck Roy. You'll need it.
As an aside, has there ever been a longer gap between spells at one club than the 44 years between Roy's spells at Ashton Gate?
www.bbc.co.uk
