You Don’t Know What You’re Doing

So we’re staying put. After years of uncertainty and playing along with the council, we back exactly where we were. What a joke.

Throughout the tortuous drawn-out process, the board has maintained a diplomatic silence for fear of upsetting the local politicians. Even at the annual general meeting, our Chairman Steve Lansdown insisted on saying little about them for precisely that reason. He knows the council, who issue entertainment licences and health and safety licences, could still make life difficult for us whenever they feel like it. The policy of forcing all the fans to remain seated is a classic example. Fortunately, unlike the club I do not have to watch what I say, so here goes.

This city is damned with a council full off inept, unimaginative, hostile, self-serving and useless political cretins who would not recognize a vision of the future if it jumped up and bit them on the arse. While other cities like Cardiff invest, redevelop, reinvent themselves and attract new business by providing state-of-the-art facilities and attractions, Bristol is festering and becoming a backwater overtaken by its more daring, forward-looking neighbours. Even the Spine Road redevelopment had to be forced on the council by a Government-appointed agency with the power to side-step them. The city is moving backwards and these political weasels who put their own trendy little agendas above the interests of the people they purportedly represent are the reason.

You need vision to take a city forward. I currently live in New York, where the former mayor Rudolph Giuliani was living proof that politicians with a big idea and a will to carry it through can transform a city. Inside a decade, the Big Apple was reinvented. Times Square was turned from a no-go area packed with sleazy sex shops into a family-oriented tourist Mecca. Ditto Central Park, where I now go running at 11pm or midnight feeling completely safe. I wouldn’t dare do that in a park in the centre of Bristol. Crime, which was rampant in NY, was wiped off the streets by the now-famous Zero Tolerance policy of tackling the scourge from the bottom up. You are now less likely be attacked, mugged, robbed or raped in New York than you are in London, even though the American city has a million more residents. The NY Mets baseball team play in the spectacular new Shea Stadium with state-of-the-art facilities, and both they and their local rivals the Yankees are kept happy because Giuliani, who is a sports fan, realised they brought prestige and an economic boost to the city. He didn’t talk about it. He bloody well got on and did it.

The sad thing is that few of us ever really believed that Bristol City Council were going to help the club find a new home. I simply don’t believe that there is no land available in Bristol. Are we seriously expected to believe ours is the only city in Britain where every inch of suitable land is spoken for? Don’t make me laugh. All around the country, clubs are moving to stunning new stadia which not only provide great facilities for the supporters and confer prestige on the city, they also provide conference facilities, hotels and a sporting venue which can attract other prestigious events, along with the economic benefit. The only difference is that they have local politicians with a can-do attitude keen to help rather than hinder. For all the lip service the council gave to the clubs – for I include the Gas in this – what have they actually DONE? Nowt, apart from making us waste time and money.

Two things made me laugh when I read the announcement. They both come from city council leader Diane Bunyan.

Firstly, she said: “This process has been a great example of how the clubs and the council can work together. We now all have a much clearer idea and a shared view of what is realistic and achievable.” Jesus. Hello? Earth calling Bunyan. Is there anybody there? This woman seems to be under the illusion that she has achieved something by deciding to do nothing. She has concluded that nothing is “realistic and achievable”. Well what a positive way to take the city forward. She actually seems proud of that outcome and satisfied that nothing is actually happening. That, for her, appears to be as good as actually doing something. If that is the case then she does not deserve to be a councillor. We need people with a “can-do” attitude rather than a bunch of visionless, bumbling idiots who can’t see the big picture and look for excuses to avoid doing something rather than getting on and making a difference.

Secondly, without a hint of irony, Bunyan praises City and Rovers for their work in the community and adds: “It is important for Bristol as a city that they should continue this work and the council will encourage them whenever they can.” Yeah, right. Of course they will.

But hang on. What is it exactly that she praises the clubs for? Well, it gives us a clue as to the council’s motives and priorities. What is important to her about the clubs is their “support for the girls’ and women’s game.” Surprise, surprise. All they are interested in is the politically-correct claptrap as always. I am not knocking City’s policy of encouraging and promoting the playing and watching of the game widely among women and children, or its superb community policy. Far from it. We can be proud of it. What I am doing is emphasizing the council’s warped sense of priority. It is as if they think that is what a football club exists for. If we were a club looking to build a 60,000-seater football stadium for a team of under-privileged one-legged lesbians, you can bet the council would move Heaven and Earth (and the fruit market) to make it happen. But never mind building prestigious new facilities for City and Rovers. It just shows what contempt these councillors actually have for the masses – i.e. you and me. Can they not see that the more the clubs are allowed to progress and prosper in their central goal of providing top flight football in top flight facilities, the more they will be able to develop the off-shoots they adore, like football in the community and teams for women and the disabled? Like it or not, they depend on the core activity of making Bristol City’s first team as successful as possible.

These councillors do not deserve to be in charge of the city and I hope those of you who can vote remember that next time you enter the ballot box. Get rid of this bunch of clueless, lily-livered morons and bring in people willing to shake things up and actually get things done.

Now onto the club’s “decision” to stay put, which wasn’t really a decision because the council have made it clear they will be hostile to any alternative.

I am relieved that we will stay in control of our own destiny. Of course, despite my emotional attachment to Ashton Gate, I would have loved City to move to a shiny new stadium - provided we owned it. Strictly speaking, the council are only supposed to consider a planning application on planning grounds, so it should make no difference whether the club owned the land or whether it was a joint effort between City, Rovers and the council. But we all know they pay lip service to that and vote on issues of self-interest, putting obstacles in the way of anything they don’t agree with. Any application to build a new ground would not stand a chance unless the council could have a piece of the action. Disgraceful but true. So realistically, the options were between moving to a ground in which City were, at best, a minor partner or staying at Ashton Gate.

It would have been suicide to move from a ground we own – our biggest asset – to one we rented. I went on the record and swore that if the board decided to take this path, I would have flown back and chained myself to a bulldozer in protest, and I meant it because I felt that strongly about the club I love. I don’t care if it looked like the new Wembley, it would not have been in the club’s long-term commercial interest to let go of our biggest asset and become tenants. Any board that sold us down the river like that would lose my support, and I don’t believe for a minute our current directors would have been that stupid. It was only right that they explored all the options. However, at Ashton Gate, any other events brought in have to fit around our fixtures because football is the priority. And, of course, we take all the profits from other activities. Colin Sexstone has done a great job of making the stadium work for its upkeep by diversifying and promoting it as a venue for activities as different as pop concerts and firework displays. If we had moved to a new stadium which we did not own ourselves, our fixtures would have had to fit in with other events and other sports teams who would have had the same priority as us. And of course, the profits from commercial activities such as business conferences – touted as one of the main arguments for moving to a new stadium - would, at best, have had to be split between two or three organisations, meaning we would not have reaped the benefit.

As tenants, there would have been the risk of suddenly having the rent bumped up beyond what we could afford, especially if the council – known to be hostile to sports and the competitive ethos in general – got sick of City and decided they wanted us out. It would have been unthinkable to take that path and would have shown an inability to learn from past events. You only have to look at the Gas to see what a mess you can get in going down that route. They sold off Eastville and were then forced to move out when the rent was hiked up so high they couldn’t afford it. They became squatters at Trumpton in Bath and then the Mem, wandering like nomads for a decade without a home while the council did their usual act of washing their hands. Support dwindled, they lost their roots and they had no ground to make income from or to use as security if they needed to raise money from the financial sector. And where are they now?

So I am glad we will remain at Ashton Gate. The plans look stunning on paper. It is now up to our directors to show us that they possess the vision, forward planning and energy which the city council lack by actually getting on and making it happen.

RedTop

* Do you agree or disagree with RedTop’s assessment? Write in with your views to: letters@theincider.com. We’ll print the best ones in Issue Eight.