2020/21 Prediction League; Game 8 v Bristol Rovers (home)

Div3North · 22-10-2020, 23:28

Accrington Stanley

v

Jumpin’ Jack Flash’s Invitation XI

2020/21 Prediction League; Game 8 v Brizzle (home)

So; this week’s Starter for Ten; what was suddenly erected in Bristol on 15th July 2020, and disappeared within 24 hours?

And I want no smut, thank you very much ....... no Percy Filth .... Who remembers Percy Filth? ... He ..... it ...... featured in a sit-com in the early 70s, written by Jack Rosenthal (Dame Maureen Lipman’s husband) and Geoffrey Lancashire (Sarah Lancashire’s Dad), starring Richard Beckinsale and Paula Wilcox as Beryl and Geoffrey (who she called “Geoffrey Bobbles Bonbon”), entitled “The Lovers” .... Incidentally, can you still say “smut”? The Deputy Leader of the Labour Party got a right handbagging from the Deputy Sneaker of the Commons for calling a Tory MP “scum” in Parliament ............. apparently (she claimed in her mealy-mouthed “apology”) “tensions were running high” ........ either that, or you’ve got a foul mouth, luvvy .......... where’s the carbolic when you need it?

More shenanigans in the EFL on Tuesday, I see; apart from us inflicting Fleetwoof’s fourth defeat in seven (leaving them one point above the trapdoor places), Donnie stuck it to Ipswich 4-1, knocking them off the top, Oxford climbed off the bottom with a 3-2 win over the MKDonuts (who stay 22nd), Rochdale won by the odd goal in one at Burton, now rooted on the bottom of the table with a GD of -7, and 7 of the top 8 won ......... form side currently is Slumberland (13 pts from their last 5), with Hull, Posh, and Donnie on 12 from 5 ....... ‘Sack the Manager’ sides include Blackpool and Burton, each with one point from their last five, plus Swindon, who’ve lost their last four straight, and The Cobblers, who won their first in five .... against Swindon! ............ Only unbeaten side in League One now is the Roker Boys (which may be because they’ve only conceded one goal in six games), and everyone has won at least once ............... unlike Wycombe from le Championnat, who lost 1-0 at Reading, and now have one goal scored, thirteen conceded, and nul points from 6 games.......... Barnsley Lambchops haven’t won yet either, and Sheff Wednesday’s 12-point penalty is now down to -4; Reading and the Cherries still unbeaten ............. Coventry, PNE, Notts Forest and Derby also have fewer points than they’ve played games (so an ‘r’ number of under one; ours is now 1.714, up from Sunday’s 1.5, but below the previous 1.8)

And Gareth Ainsworth summed it up quite neatly, I thought, post match;

“We’ve had a couple of shots on their goal, but didn’t hit the target. If we do, then we find an equaliser”

.......... but not if you’re 3-0 down at the time, Pal ............. And if you don’t hit the target, then the shots aren’t, technically, “on their goal” ........ they’re “vaguely in the same direction as their goal” ............... if you follow me!

Bristol, it seems, has a population of 463,400; the urban area population of 724,000 is the 8th-largest in the UK. The city lies between Gloucestershire to the north and Somerset to the south, and around the beginning of the 11th century, was known as Brycgstow (Old English "the place at the bridge"). For those who know their history of the late 15th Century, it was a starting place for early voyages of exploration to the New World; in 1497 John Cabot, a Venetian, who became the first European to land on mainland North America, sailed out of Bristol (in the days when the harbour was in the town); in 1499 William Weston, a Bristol merchant, was the first Englishman to lead an exploration to North America, and at the height of the Bristol slave trade, from 1700 to 1807, more than 2,000 slave ships carried an estimated 500,000 people from Africa to slavery in the Americas.

Bristol itself, you might want to know, has 51 Grade I listed buildings, 500 Grade II* and over 3,800 Grade II; it also has a Prison (Yes!!!!), formerly called Horsfield Prison, but now HMP Bristol. Its history includes fourteen executions, the last taking place on 17 December 1963 when Russell Pascoe was hanged for the murder of William Rowe during a robbery; his accomplice Dennis Whitty met the same fate at HMP Winchester on the same morning. Notorious ex-inmates include John Straffen, the serial killer, Gary Glitter, the shamed rock star (“D’you wanna be in his gang? No chance!”) spent two months at Bristol in 1999 for possession of child pornography, and Ben Gunn, no, not THAT Ben Gunn ..... And going back to Famous People From Bristol, in 1739 John Wesley founded the first Methodist chapel(called the New Room) in Bristol and, along with his brother Charles Wesley and George Whitefield, preached to large congregations in Bristol and the neighbouring village of Kingswood, often in the open air.

The city was also associated with Victorian engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel, who designed the Great Western Railway between Bristol and London Paddington, two pioneering Bristol-built ocean-going steamships (SS Great Britain and SS Great Western), and the Clifton Suspension Bridge. The new GWR replaced the Kennet and Avon Canal, which had opened in 1810 as the main route for the transport of goods between Bristol and London, thereby making the journey quicker and much less wet.

Some folk from Bristol, it’s claimed, still speak Bristol’s own dialect, known as Bristolian , so if you’re ever there, and someone says stuff like, "Cassn't see what bist looking at? Cassn't see as well as couldst, casst? And if couldst, 'ouldn't, 'ouldst?" , they’re either speaking Bristolian, or they’ve escaped from the local Bedlam .... children used to be admonished with "Thee and thou, the Welshman's cow" , with thee and thou being in common usage ("What bist thee doing?"); Linguist Stanley Ellis (didn’t he referee the World Cup Final?) described it as "a cranky, crazy, crab-apple tree of language and with the sharpest, juiciest flavour that I've heard for a long time". You what ....?

Bristol City was formed in 1894 as Bristol South End, and they’ve played in the top division; they also reached the FA Cup Final in 1909 .......... Slightly easier Starter for Ten; who beat them 1-0, to record the first of their (current) 12 FA Cup wins? Bristol Rovers were formed in 1883 and promoted back into the football league in 2015. Bristol Manor Farm is the highest-ranked non-league club within the city boundaries. They play their games at The Creek, Sea Mills in the north of Bristol; were formed in 1960, and currently play in the Southern League Division One South ......... I think.

Brizzle (from the Bristolian word for ‘Bristle’ – or maybe 'Bristol') have played home matches at the Memorial Stadium since 1996. They spent 1897 to 1986 playing at the Eastville Stadium and then spent ten years at Twerton Park in Bath. The club's official nickname is "The Pirates", reflecting the maritime history of Bristol. The local nickname of the club is "The Gas", derived from the gasworks next to their former home, Eastville Stadium, which started as a derogatory term used by fans of Bristol City, but was affectionately adopted by the club and its supporters. Famous ex players include Pitt, Dix and Petherbridge (plus Pugh, Pugh, Barney McGrew, Cuthbert, Dibble and Grubb) .......... Jack Pitt played 467 times, and spent 50 years at the club as player, coach and groundsman; Ronnie Dix – in his day – was the club’s youngest-ever player (15 years 173 days) and the Football League’s youngest-ever goalscorer (15 years 180 days); and George Petherbridge played ten games fewqer than Jack did ....... Managers? Homer was one, then there were Prince-Cox, Percy Filth – no, sorry, Percy Smith, and Fredford (or Fred Ford, as he preferred)

They’ve been in League One for four years now; last season they ended up 14th – 3 places and five points above us – with a record that read P35 W12 D9 L14 GF38 GA49 Pts 45 ................ we played them at their place in September and shared six goals (half each, of course – one-and-a-half Desmonds) with our goals from Clicker, Sam Finlay, and Dion Charles from 12 yards .......... the return game was postyponed, then cancelled, owing to Covid ......

They got rid of 22 players in the summer (bet that was a weight off the Bank Manager’s mind!) .......... most you won’t know (they barely knew each other), but prolific striker Jonson Clarke-Harris went to the Posh, CM Liam Sercombe to Cheltenham, Theo Widdrington went to Lewes, Lewes Widdrington went to Theo (ok, I made that one up), and CB Rollin Menayese – born in Kinshasa in DR Congo, and someone whose name I could have lots of fun with – joined Mansfield (and is probably regretting it, given where they are at the moment)

They signed twelve, and I’ve heard of even fewer of them than I had of the ones who left ... they got freebie CBs Josh Grant and Jack Baldwin from Chelsea and Slumberland, German CB Max Ehmer from Gillingham, Scottish LW Sam Nicholson from Colorado Rapids, CMF Zaine Westbrook (wasn’t he in WestLife, or some such?) from Coventry, and left back Ali Koiki from Burnley (sounds like a Pantomime Villain – “You two Thieves come with me, you 38 wait out there”)

At the moment they’re an OK tenth – P7 W3 D2 L2 GF8 GA9, with 11 points ..... wins against the Cobblers (2-0 at home), Lincoln (2-1 away) and the PointyNosed Furry Things (1-0 away) – three wins in their last four; they went to Ipswich in the EFL Cup and came back on a 3-0 drubbing; they’ve played Oxford and Walsall in the Troffy, drawn both after 90 mins, and lost both shoot-outs, for two “losing draws” (still can’t get my head round that) ........... Leading (League) scorers are Brendan Hanlan (3), and Luke Leahy and James Daly (2 each) ...........

Deadline for entries would have been, as always, scheduled kick-off time, which was 3.00pm on Saturday 24th October ............. except we’ve got eight players with positive Covid tests (plus one/two staff) – so the game’s off, which (unless you’re called Somerset) matters not at all, as long as they’re all ok ....

And the Bristol Erection was a black resin statue of Black Lives Matter protestor Jen Reid, which was entitled, “A Surge of Power”; Ms Reid had been photographed standing, fist raised, on the plinth which had, until shortly before, contained the statue of local philanthropist and slave trader Edward Colston; that statue had been pulled down by a group of protestors (as they call themselves) – or criminals (as the Crown Prosecution Service call them) - and tipped into the Docks; all niceties apart, the local Council had it away on the back of a lorry before 5.30 the following morning .............

And the 1909 FA Cup Final was Manchester United’s first, courtesy of a goal midway through the first half by Sandy Turnbull, who started his football career with his hometown club, Hurlford Thistle, and later moved to Manchester City. In 1905, City was found guilty of malpractice relating to payments of its players, and the entire squad was suspended from playing football. When the ban was lifted on 31 December 1906, Turnbull moved to City's rivals Manchester United, along with Billy Meredith and two others. In 1908 alone, he scored 27 goals in 25 games, and on 19 February 1909 he scored the first ever goal at Old Trafford, in a 4–3 loss against Liverpool. His final game for the Reds came against Sheffield United in 1915.

Turnbull enlisted in the 23rd Battalion of the Middlesex Regiment (2nd Football) during the First World War before being transferred to the 8th Battalion of the East Surrey Regiment. After being promoted to the rank of lance-sergeant, he was killed during the Battle of Arras on 3 May 1917 aged 32. His body, if recovered, was never identified. He is commemorated on the Arras memorial.

Funny old world, innit?

Good luck to everyone! ………….. Stay safe and keep well! ………… And thanks for playing - when eventually you can!

ossy kid · 23-10-2020, 01:33

game off - Kovid

KiTChener · 23-10-2020, 03:22

Brilliant potted history lesson, D3N, enjoyed the read!
Please save for when the game is eventually played, would be such a shame if this never saw the light of day again!
Thank you for your time & effort in producing this, much appreciated.

choirboy · 23-10-2020, 13:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by ossy kid

game off - Kovid

Could say the match is ‘KOvoid’!

ossy kid · 23-10-2020, 16:28

Another great read Div3 which, had I read first, I wouldn't have needed to post "Game off" as you were "on the ball". Cheers and keep up the grand brain teaser/history lesson.