The Exiled Robin

The news of Gerry Gow's passing has stirred many memories from fans old enough to have him play in his prime to those younger fans who never did, but who have heard so much about the great man. A couple of years back I wrote this blog post on City's promotion side of 1975-76, a side which had Gow very much in its engine room - appearing as an ever-present as City, finally, once again reached the top flight after decades in the wilderness. Quite simply, he was one of the best and most-loved players in our greatest team, and that tells you all you need to know http://thetwounfortunates.com/great-football-league-teams-49-bristol-city-1975-6/ The Exiled Robin Follow me on Twitter  --- 'Like' us on Facebook http://exiledrobin.blogspot.c om

It’s been a summer of huge excitement at Ashton Gate with the completion of the West Stand setting the perfect backdrop to the most extravagant outlay of our existence. Millions of pounds we know about, plus plenty we probably don’t in loan fees, signing-on fees and wages have led to a glut of exciting signings of mainly young players, a nice mixture of experienced mid 20-somethings and younger, high potential players. Having already snapped up players from Juventus and Bayern Munich, Lee Johnson and Mark Ashton have turned their attention closer to home with the latest loan signing and could have just landed the most exciting signing of them all, from Roman Abramovich’s Chelsea. Whilst there may be a touch of self-congratulation around it, both Johnson and Ashton have talked about the lengths they’ve gone to so as to snap up the teenage striker who was also being linked with a move to Spanish La Liga side Real Betis. As is often the case with these sorts of things, it was as ...

In the first of a series of pieces in the lead up to the new season, I take a look at one of our new signings, one who is arguably both the least known and the most exciting in terms of potential. It’s pretty safe to say that when the rumours started surfacing about City landing this young, Oxford winger, most had to quickly Google the name to find out a little bit more about him. Kemar Roofe took most of the plaudits at the Kassam Stadium last season and was the player fans perhaps hoped we’d be in for this summer. On a little more investigation, the move comes as little surprise when you hear Mark Ashton was a big fan of O’Dowda whilst at the U’s, and gets on well with his family. Whether or not you feel Ashton should be the one identifying players or not is a matter for another day, but you’d hope and assume with the network now in place that Lee Johnson has also seen enough to be convinced. Equally, digging a little deeper I have found out that some at the club actuall...

'Big’ Sam Allardyce. England manager. Yes really. On the face of it, no-one should be too surprised. He’s an Englishman who has managed in the Premier League for most of the last 15 years, and – on paper – has done a pretty good job at most of the clubs he’s managed at. Most recently he got West Ham back up at the first attempt and then consolidated their position in the Premier League, giving Slaven Bilic their platform for his success last season. He then somehow saved Sunderland from inevitable relegation last season, with an inspired signing of Jermaine Defoe providing the firepower once he’d re-organised and patched up the division’s worst-looking defence and turned them into clean sheet regulars. His hugely successful stint at Bolton is perhaps drifting into the memory banks but what he achieved there – especially when you look at where they are now – was nothing short of miraculous, albeit one that set in motion the start of the build-up of debt that has s...

Justice. 27 long years, almost to the day after the dreadful tragedy on that warm, spring day, the families of the Hillsborough victims finally had their loved ones’ names exonerated this week. Having spent a lifetime being told their criminal activity caused the disaster, their names are finally clear and they can truly, for the first time, rest in peace. As the truth has slowly seeped out over the last two decades, the outpouring of highly emotive comments from football fans far and wide has been hugely prevalent and that’s not only because it was such an awful event, with such obvious injustice. It’s partly because anyone who attended games at that time, and indeed, anyone who still does now, knows that it could have been them. Their friends, their parents, their children. I personally remember sitting in Block E of the Dolman Stand on that day. City were losing 2-1 at home to Blackpool in front of a little over 5,000 of their own fans – which tells its own story...

Now is Bobby Reid's time. He's always shown in fits and starts he can perform with great ability, but has struggled to match those levels consistently. My latest blog looks in more detail at his recent form and what he needs to do next. http://m.bristolpost.co.uk/Bristol-City-blog/story-29096485-detail/story.html Comments, shares etc welcome as ever. Thanks all, COYR!

My latest blog post for the Bristol Post, focusing on Tuesday night's defeat against Brighton and suggesting they might well be 'the model' we should be following over the next few seasons. "THERE was a huge popping sound at Ashton Gate on Tuesday night, the noise of a bubble bursting that would have been heard as far afield as Milton Keynes, the South of London and Yorkshire as well as Bolton, had they not all been suffering equally that evening....." More here: http://www.bristolpost.co.uk/BRISTOL-CITY-BLOG-bubble-burst-hopefully-s-blip/story-28802989-detail/story.html What do you think, reasonable expectations or pie in the sky? Comments and thoughts welcome as always! Thanks for reading!

The signing of Scott Golbourne (not Goldborne, Goldbourne or Golborne!) must have been as much a relief for those in the club’s hierarchy as it was for us supporters. Constantly barracked and ridiculed over the past few months for the seemingly disastrous lack of transfer activity, Golbourne is only the second permanent signing for the senior squad in 18 months since we embarked on our hugely successful League One title-winning campaign. Plenty of loans have been tried in the meantime, but only Jonathan Kodjia’s bolt-from-the-blue signing from Angers in the summer has caused the editors on Wikipedia to move a player's full time club to Bristol City in that time. Any fan over the age of 17/18 or so will fleetingly remember Golbourne, of course, as he spent his formative years with us but his opportunities were limited at that stage so I knew little about him, other than he’s looked like a pretty solid looking traditional full-back in the games I’ve seen him in since. ...

Just when City’s attempted activities in this transfer window appeared to be heading towards a similarly disastrous outcome as the summer’s opportunity, then the signing on loan of ex-Peterborough forward Lee Tomlin from Bournemouth certainly ignited some excitement into proceedings. Warmly welcomed almost universally, the temperamental character who tends to play just off a main striker, joins with a point to prove having been given little chance on the South Coast during the Cherries’ hugely impressive start to life in the big time. He is somewhat notorious to the Ashton Gate faithful already, of course, having been sent off in the opening quarter of an hour in a game against ‘ The Posh’ during Derek McInnes’ time in charge, for an elbow on Greg Cunningham. We went on to win 4-2 against a tiring ten-man side, and it’s not the first, and probably won’t be the last time that Tomlin’s fiery nature causes him problems on the pitch.  However, despite a far from spotless ...

The prospect of raiding the under 14’s for squad members seemed  to finally jolt City into transfer action this week, as they swooped for the double loan signing of Derby County centre-half, Alex Pearce, and QPR’s ex-Swindon attacking midfielder, Ben Gladwin. To say caretaker boss John Pemberton moved quickly is perhaps masking the truth somewhat as I have it on very good authority that the Pearce signing in particular was lined up by Cotterill for last Friday morning, only to be delayed following his dismissal the evening before. We all saw what Gladwin could do last season, in the games against us in particular, but also in Swindon’s other televised games during the run-in. His challenge is two-fold; to prove that the great run of form at the end of the season wasn’t a flash in the pan, and, if it wasn’t, to prove he’s got the intelligence, pace and ability to show it at Championship level. With Alex Pearce, however, our experience is probably more limited, aside from reme...

In the end, it was very sudden.  In a season where pressure has increasingly grown on Steve Cotterill for all sorts of reasons, an unknown combination of a lacklustre, exhausted-looking performance at home to Preston, an unsavoury altercation with an abusive ‘supporter’ at the end of that game, or perhaps a behind-the-scenes disagreement over transfer policy look to have ultimately curtailed his time at Ashton Gate. No manager these days can win just four out of 28 games in a season, be in the bottom three, and expect to be impervious to the threat of being sacked. But given such an incredulous level of success last season, Cotterill was surely closer than most to having a level of credit in the bank to be given until the end of the season? I share views with many as a general principle where I wish all clubs would give mangers more time to build, but the days of giving a manager the luxury of years of under-achievement, of the type Alex Ferguson enjoyed, resulting in a ...