The Exiled Robin

Ahead of the new season, Lee Molland www.twitter.com/Molls28 has written a short-pre-season opinion and issues a rallying call, reminding us all of why we should be so excited about this new season and new adventure "We’re now hours away from the start of the Championship season, and for the first time since his perhaps slightly controversial arrival, Steve Cotterill has City fans split. Not because of results (nobody could doubt that incredible record he has) but due to the lack of transfer activity. Although, let's not forget that we have spent £2.1 million on Jonathan Kodjia. I broke my own rule of getting excited over a YouTube clip! It looks like the boy can get behind defences, but more importantly, finish. Pre-season has been full of speculation over incomings to Ashton Gate, but as time has ticked on, only Kodjia has arrived. Some fans are nervous, some relaxed, some even angry.  Me? I’m backing whatever Mr Cotterill perceives as the right decision f...

April 14 th , 2015. Could this be the day? The moment of crowning glory this team has worked so hard for all season? The maths are now simple. A win at Bradford on Tuesday night will mean Bristol City become the first team in the country to gain promotion this season. That in itself is a mark of the success we’ve had, and I’m pretty certain this success-ravenous manager City somewhat stumbled across will be drilling this into his players in the dressing-room before the match. This is another chance to make headlines as ‘winners’, a chance to get our club’s names and their own names up in lights at the same time. The accolades will follow as and when promotion is achieved, but I think it’s fair representation of our season, and of our approach, that most fans are travelling up to Yorkshire in expectation rather than hope. Cotterill seems to have created a team of winners across the club and even the fans are now turning up with a a more positive mindset than at any previous...

It’s tantalisingly close now. Tuesday’s captivating and hard-fought victory over local rivals and promotion rivals Swindon Town has left us within a game or so of securing our passage back to the second tier of English football. Despite a run of tough games still to come, it does seem a case of ‘when’, and not ‘if’ now for even those most pessimistic of City fans. But will promotion be enough? Without wanting to be greedy, we’ve been top of the table for most of the season, by a considerable margin for much of it, and we haven’t won a league title in sixty years. Of all the games left, Saturday’s at Deepdale against Preston North End is clearly the most important for that particular issue and will ensure that Cotterill will leave his players in no doubt they cannot ease off the gas right now. Tuesday’s performance proved that is unlikely anyhow, although that was tinged with revenge for an animosity filled defeat in November. Our other defeat that month, the following week...

Easter is so often a critical time in the shake-up for key issues, with two games in three or four days, but with so much of 2015 being that way for City, and the lead at the top remaining in double-digits for now, it’s probably more a case of not having a disaster than needing two wins. Saying that, wouldn't it be fantastic to grab a pair of victories, and all but seal promotion back to the Championship in the first week of April?! But at this stage of the season anyone still remotely involved in the shake-up for any positions fits the bill as tough opposition, and Oldham won’t be wanting to roll over. They’re five points off the top six, and defeat in this game would probably destroy their hopes of making the end-of-season jamboree once and for all. Josh Bowker gave Stu Radnedge a Latics view of what’s been an eventful time at Boundary Park since we last met... “It’s been a crazy few months since our last fixture, way back at the start of November. Latics went into ...

Well, what a week! Six days after 42,000 of us returned home from one of those special days at Wembley, City return to their ultimate target with a league match against Lee Johnson’s Barnsley. Little Lee just can’t keep away from Ashton Gate, can he. Perhaps a portent of times to come…   This week Stu Radnedge spoke to Andy White, a Tykes fan who has renewed hope for their new regime. “It's been a difficult season back in the third tier for we Barnsley supporters. The football on the whole has been poor/dull, results little better and we've had to say goodbye to yet another manager, the greatest we've ever had. First time around. Unfortunately, results and the failed product put paid to his second coming a couple of months ago now. Lots of us found it a harsh decision to remove Danny Wilson. We were mid table, anything could have happened. But the board sacked him after a 2-1 home defeat against Fleetwood Town. The caretaker managership then oversaw a 5-1 humiliat...

It says it all about the season we’re having that there was such an empty feeling of disappointment following Saturday’s final whistle. Not the kind of let-down from the past few seasons that lead to booing and hours of vitriol on social media, just the nagging, frustrating whiff of a chance gone begging, this potentially record-breaking season just taking the most minor of knocks against an improved Gillingham side. It’s hardly surprising in some ways. The quality of delivery has been so perfect, so often this season, we’re always going to have the odd game where that quality dips by 5-10%. Perhaps that was the difference, or just one of those days where things don’t quite fall. On the positive note, we’ve got a chance to get it out of our system straight away, with Tuesday’s visit of Crewe Alexandra a decent Hors d’oeuvre ahead of Sunday’s super sweet dessert – the real icing on the cake of what is – hopefully – a sublime fillet steak of a season. To have achieved 80 points, som...

A fair bit has happened to Yeovil since we last played them. A national television appearance and certainly little shame in their huge FA Cup tie with Manchester United, followed just a few weeks later by Gary Johnson paying the price for their season-long flirtation with the relegation zone. Meanwhile City have gone on and on, with our visit to Wembley later this month the reason for this re-arranged fixture. Stu Radnedge caught up with Leeds-based Glover Ben Barrett for his typically humourous take on the situation at Huish Park ahead of the final match in our mini-series against the bottom four. “Last time I did this, I said that 500 words wouldn't be quite enough to describe the goings on at Huish Park this season, the truth is, that three months down the line, this email could turn into a dissertation-length ramble if I'm not careful. Right, let's keep this simple, I'm a positive bloke, I love being a Yeovil fan, but my word - this season sucks. ...

It was the moment many, including myself, truly started to believe. I’m not talking about the win on Saturday that put us an incredible 8 (EIGHT) points clear at the top, albeit with new likeliest challengers Preston have a game in hand. No, I’m talking the win at the Matchroom Stadium last season when we actually looked like – and got the result that – a side who could do something in this division should be getting. Remember at that time we were still battling relegation, whilst Orient were flying high and aiming for an ultimately unattainable promotion, which made the result and the performance even more noteworthy. A year on and the tables have very much turned. As mentioned before, City have bought exceptionally well and brought in a manager who is getting the very best from his bunch of players, whilst Orient have lost last year’s supremo and, whilst they have attracted some decent looking players, for one reason or another they’re clearly not gelling as the club wou...

Ahead of Saturday’s clash with Rochdale at Ashton Gate, Stu Radnedge picks up the pen once more and gives his views on the run-in and our chances of ending the season with silverware. “Reflection. Not that provided by a mirror but a time for “serious thought or consideration” according to the old Oxford English Dictionary. Reflecting on Monday, I secured my seats for Wembley and then wrote the blog – which, on reflection, wasn’t my greatest idea for the simple reason of it being a bit wishy-washy. So enamoured  with the potential for silverware I wrote something that said not a lot. And what was there to say? Honestly? Not a lot – you see those days, when a loss meant the wheels had fallen off the zider bus to the Championship, have long gone. As I predicted in last week’s post, the players would regroup, and mount a charge again to right Saturday’s wrong. The delight at booking my seats for Wembley will only be surpassed by us winning the league – IF that hap...

Surely the worst moments of our season? Was it the first time we've been truly poor, truly outplayed by anyone?  Defeats previously have been narrow (we still haven't lost by more than a single goal), not without reason (see Wade Elliott's early red card at Swindon) or a tad unlucky. Saturday's first half was a horrible flashback to the dark days of last season (and the season before that) with a slightly flapping goalkeeper behind a static, tentative defence who were giving far too much time to their opposition. Ahead of this week's midweek tie against Doncaster, Stu Radnedge put himself the other side of the metaphorical microphone and takes a view on where the defeat leaves City's promotion hopes. "A victim of our own success? Maybe – or at least that was my opinion after Saturday’s result against Colchester. I, like many other fans, was somewhat surprised at the level of our demise in less than 30 minutes against the U’s. As we have experi...