Red-Robbo

Well, I hate to criticise a bloke who has significant health problems to overcome, and I wish Marcus all the best in his fight, but there may be a degree of bitterness from a striker who had clearly peaked in his late 20s and resented being told he wasn't good enough to play in the second tier any more. Nonetheless, Johnson was proved right and his subsequent clubs, after an unsuccessful loan at Preston, were lower league.

Lovely that you identify so strongly with the man that I literally cannot offer the slightest criticism of him without getting this sort of response. Good job I didn't get started on my opinions of those gilets he wears. I'll leave you with three thoughts: a local journalist doing a public broadcast is never going to say "I find so-and-so difficult and a bit rude and patronising" unless said individual has left their local club and maybe even retired. It just will never happen. You have to work with the guy. You cannot fall out while he's in his job. Saying "I have yet to establish a rapport" but guys who work with him in the game like him is NOT the same as saying you personally like him. I think those words were quite carefully chosen. Secondly, managers get sacked for all sorts of reasons but never in my experience because they are hounded out by journalists. Most are sacked because they lose lots of games. Journalists would be remiss if they failed to mention crowd disquiet, demonstrations etc, as they did when there were widespread LJ out feeling. In that case, I think Lee was given an opportunity to give his thoughts on them, as was Steve Lansdown. I'm unaware of any "hounding" of Nigel by the press here, only in social media by fans. Do you have an example of an "arsey" comment he has had to endure, Len? Thirdly, just to remind you of this: It isn't part of a Pearson-out agenda. He'll stand or fall on his record, not on his professionalism in dealing with reporters. I hope we continue seeing signs of improvement on the pitch.

I think assuming journalists like him is a very big leap and one you are making without knowing what those in the media actually think. Of course, individual interviews do not stop people going to matches, but the fact that football is featured in the media very extensively and has been since its inception, is one of the things that helped the sport to grow. Reporters today are part of that symbiotic relationship with the sport. They engender interest in it. Without fail, they are fans who like writing about football. In the big picture, it's a very minor gripe about Pearson. His main job is to get the team to perform successfully and (as you've said) build a continuing culture here that can sustain success and help a relatively small club compete against some much wealthier adversaries. I didn't hear his post-match thoughts on R Bris, so here I'm talking about some other occasions where I felt he let professionalism slip and was discourteous to reporters doing their job. I worked in the industry, so perhaps I am more disappointed when managers cannot be respectful.

I think you'll find that no one who has to work in an ongoing situation with a manager and a club would criticise the media skills of him and them in public. It would be professional suicide.

I didn't say his occasional rudeness to journalists will stop attendances. There are lots of successful but ignorant sportsmen. It doesn't engender much sympathy though when things go wrong for them however.

I know journalists find him a difficult person to deal with. This has been a recurrent theme throughout his career, not just at City. I don't think he's generally abrassive, but he does need to understand that reporters are just doing a job the same as he is. By publicising the club and its games, they engender interest in it and the sport generally.

He has been rude though on numerous occasions. Brusque, dismissive and even offensive to reporters just trying to do their job and let the man have his say to the fans who pay money to watch the teams he puts out. As I've been in those guys shoes, the lack of courtesy does rankle with me, somewhat. Has nothing to do with his management ability, just I'd rather he dropped the paranoid the 'media are out to get me' tone that seems to lurk at some of his press appearances.

It's so long ago, that I barely remember when your team were a threat - yet alone a rival - to us. Still, ancient history is all you have to cling on to, what with your laughable ground, poor support and constant embarrassments. If you think Steve Phillips is any way a comparable keeper to Adriano Basso, it shows you know as little about the game as most of your fellow 15ers: the vast majority of whom, haven't attended a Rovers game for years. Don't cry too much though about your team's constant abject failure and patheticness. Give this disc a spin:

Wasn't Barton, was it? His MO.

It's part of the job of a manager of a football club. If you don't like talking to the media after games, do not do the job. The fans, naturally, want to hear your view of the game and interviewers give you a platform to do this. Even if you consider the questions silly or obvious, you can deal with them courteously: You, after all, are a highly paid football professional and they are reporters, you'll know more and sometimes have to explain things simply. Basically, if they - with their job to do - treat you courteously, there is no excuse for you not to do likewise back. Football is ABOUT fans, we are its lifeblood, which is why it is important for the guy making matchday decisions to talk through the game, give snippets of info on the players, and generally discuss how things went in his view. Explaining it honestly and thoughtfully sounds much better than becoming hyper-defensive or displaying an attitude.

I possibly sit a bit nearer "A block" - in the old "C block". I could hear a definite improvement in noise levels.

Not so with their daughter, Honey Dew.

Rankin-Costello was aptly named. He couldn't stand up for falling down, whenever he lost the ball. Thought both he, Morton and Hedges were unpleasant whinging cheats to be honest. Blackburn were a fairly average, but quite cynical, side. It amused me what crybabies they were when Scott began to take tumbles as easily as their players did. I'll be pleased when they fail to go up, to be honest.

If you were born in the utter grimness of South Lancashire, would you choose to live there, once you'd reached adulthood? Some may travel, but the ones I talked to in the Tobacco Factory pre-game all lived down here.

Because we disagree. You know that thing about football being a game of opinions? Well, that. One picture taken from an angle that is going to make the nearest player (ie: Bell) look further advanced, does not prove anything for me. If he was offside, it was by millimetres but I don't think the linesman could possibly have known that with enough certainty to flag.

No ******* way has it endured apart from in a few non-football attending mutants. My wife's family are from Bath and are City all the way. It has to be said, most Bath residents - as has been noted by yourself - support neither Bristol clubs.

Perhaps, but that defender two along from Bell has his leg sticking waaaay into the box and one still taken after the ball was kicked and from an angle nearer to Bell than that part of the box does NOT prove it for me. And the lino wasn't parallel. He wasn't looking down the line, although he might not have been yards away as NP stated. It was tight and for anyone to say they are 1000000% sure - well, unless they've brought a theodolite to the game - they are exaggerating. You give goals unless you know they are offside.

No. You have ti be 100% sure. Not "all but".

"All but" isn't good enough. Like being "probably guilty", you give the benefit of the doubt. The lino wasn't parallel. He was 10 yards behind play.

This was it. To me, he looked onside. Ran onto the ball.

For some reason, I never imagined you were a pensioner JB. Now I know, when you write about the history of the towns whose clubs we play, you're doing it from memory!

I was never in charge of Blue Peter, CR.

I admire it if he did that by getting them to play out of their skin, rather than cheat out of their skin.

Can't ever forgive him for that diabolical performance from Rotherham in 2016 where, from the dugout and in full view of the clueless officials, he encouraged his side to cheat, dive, feign head injuries, give out kicks and pushes off the ball and generally waste time in order to scrape at 0-0 draw. It was not what anyone pays to see at football. It was anti-football.

The most well-meaning, but horribly backfiring, children's TV idea ever.