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Dear Incider,
Now being a happily married man and this being a good thirty years ago, you will appreciate that these occurences happened to someone else in the "real East End ", not the apology of the Wedlock.
Well, once upon a time when crowds used to flock to Ashton Gate - and I'm talking 30,000, 35,000 even 40,000 plus – there must have been ten to twelve thousand packed in the East End where you had to be continually on the "sway" to see both goalposts. When we scored you would either go with the flow by just lifting your feet and go forward until connecting with the amusingly described "crush barriers" - and believe me, if you hit them with a few hundred behind you it hurt - or go down and be trampled.
In the dark cold depths of winter, there were only three ways to keep warm in a big tight packed crowd:
1. Find an obliging young lady in front of you that did not object to you placing your hands up her jumper to give her a cuddle and warm your hands and, if really lucky, she dealt with other parts (censored).
2. Leap up and down continuously until exhausted or you slipped on the wet steps from…
3. Suffer the " East End warm", which resulted from those behind having to eject the several pints consumed earlier in the Rising Sun down the back of your legs because getting to the gents through the crowd was an impossibility.
Oh memories were made of this when there were real supporters – gulp.
Tony Parker (Teepee)
Dear Incider,
As we approach the mid-point of the 2003/04 season, I look back to all the hopes for the coming season in the summer and can't help but feel a tinge of disappointment at how we appear to be doing.
The summer was a mixed one with the apparently widely-coveted Lee Miller and Luke Wilkshire's arrival tempered by the departure of our flying Scot wizard, Scott Murray, to Reading in a bid to get one big pay-day before his career draws to a close.
Nevertheless, hopes were high as City took to the field on a balmy summer's day to face a Notts County side in turmoil on the brink of going out of existence. Ninety minutes of football later, not only were we going to get promoted, we were going to do it in style with both debutants having good debuts in a convincing 5-0 win. Hell, even Lee Fat-hews managed to come off the bench to bag himself a couple!
Then things started to go a little awry.
Gone were the free flowing one touch passes from the opening day. Gone was the attacking outlook that we saw on that opening day. In their place were long hopeful (hopeless?) balls out of defence by Messrs Coles and Butler , safety-first team selections and points dropped by the dozen due to a complete inability to defend set pieces. But Danny told us, “We pride ourselves on defending set-pieces”. So that last bit must have been our collective imaginations!
Unfortunately this theme continued pretty much unabated until on a damp October evening when we travelled to bottom of the table Wycombe Wanderers. Somehow, despite the negatives of the season thus far, all our other competitors for promotion seemed to have as great an aversion to playing consistent winning football as we did. So, going into the Wycombe game, we found ourselves in seventh place and knowing that a win would place us right amongst the early pace-setters. Wycombe hadn't won a single game since their win on the opening day of the season. I don't think you get much more of a sure thing in League football. City to lose that is. We always do it. Any team who happens to be on a poor run of form, give ‘em a game against Bristol City and, sure as eggs are eggs, we will gift them a win.
Danny continued his defensive selection, City lost 3-0 and for the first time this season, Wilson 's detractors actually appeared to outnumber his supporters. Something had to change and Danny either picked up on the fans' growing frustrations or someone told him that either the team's approach changed or our manager changed.
Next up was Sheffield Wednesday at home and, for the first time in months, City appeared to approach the game in a positive frame of mind. Wilson juggled his players around and lined City up in a more attack minded 3-5-2 formation. “Overnight sensation” it was not, we actually drew 1-1, but the signs were there that if the approach was right City could actually take the game to the opposition without gifting the opposition lots of goals at the other end.
In the following weeks Wilson 's team selections appeared to get bolder by the game before dispensing with defensive midfielders altogether for a trip to fourth-placed Brighton & Hove Albion. If ever a game called for City to be slightly cautious, this was it. Brighton had an enviable home record having only conceded four goals all season and were apparently scoring goals for fun. Approaching the game in positive mood again, City ran out 4-1 winners, thus doubling the amount of goals Brighton had conceded at home in just one game yet limiting them to just one serious goal-scoring opportunity all game - and even that was a penalty!
City have continued to approach games since with the attitude that midfielders are there to create chances for the forward players, and even get forward themselves, whilst also realising that just because these players do this doesn't mean they can't help with the team's defensive responsibilities. We've even had a sighting of that forgotten midfield goal-getter Simon Clist in a game where we still managed to keep a clean sheet!
Where the season goes from here is anyone's guess but whilst Wilson continues to select teams the way he has recently, with the emphasis on picking players that will give us a better than average chance of scoring, this particular City fan will view the chances of promotion with renewed confidence. We are just one point off the last play-off place and only seven points off an automatic promotion place with a full 78 points to play for - so we stand as much chance as any team of having good cause to get out the bubbly come May 2004.
Ian Marriner (Madger)
