‘Nigel Pearson is the person to take Bristol City to the promised land’

By population, Bristol is – by some distance – the largest city in England to have never hosted a Premier League game.

From my estimations, Ashton Gate is the third biggest football stadium (behind the Ricoh Arena and Stadium MK) to not host a Premier League match.

And I would argue that Bristol City are the biggest club in the country to have never played in the Premier League.

Given this, I guess it’s not a huge surprise that the club, under the ownership of Steve Lansdown, has come under a reasonable amount of criticism in recent years.

It seems that some can’t fathom why such a wealthy and successful owner has failed in his objective of reaching the promised land despite having seemingly never ending resources at his disposal.

Others, however, will point to the various incremental steps that the club have taken in recent years towards reaching that goal.

As well as the magnificent stadium, the new training facilities and the Academy, the club has also managed a top-half Championship finish for the last three seasons, our best year-on-year average over that time frame for the last 40 years.

But, I guess this doesn’t match the ambitions of a certain sector of our support base, and, despite these achievements, it’s hard for even the most ardent of rose-tinted-spectacle wearing optimists among us to deny that things have gone somewhat awry since our historic win over Manchester United and the dizzy heights that we reached in the first half of the 2017-18 season.

For some – although not myself – Lee Johnson was given a season or two more than he should have following our eighth place finish in 2018. And for the club to then go and appoint Johnson’s assistant last summer, Dean Holden, following what was described as a long and rigorous process, appeared to be beyond the pale for many.

For this, the club took understandable heat from seemingly all quarters.

I wasn’t completely against the decision. I supported and I wanted to believe in the notion that the squad wasn’t too far off where they needed to be, and that the odd tweak here or there could have resulted in us obtaining that top-six finish. I now concede that, obviously, I was wrong in this.

Mark Ashton, the club’s much maligned CEO, came under increasingly venomous criticism following the appointment of Holden last summer.

Rightly or wrongly, he seemed to have become the face of what many fans saw as the club’s stuttering recent history. He has been accused of a plethora of misdemeanours, from wielding too much power at Ashton Gate, to only recruiting players from agents that he has ties with.

I feel a lot of the indignation shown towards him has been a little unfair, especially since his arrival as CEO has coincided with the club’s top-half Championship finishes.

I do, however, think there are questions to be asked as to how far his role extends beyond the commercial side of things, and if he is as heavily involved in footballing matters as many suggest, this needs to be curtailed as a matter of urgency.

Holden’s tenure as permanent boss started off well enough; his first 15 league games in charge saw us collect 27 points from a possible 45. Top-six form.

From the next 15 games, however, City collected just 12 points, undoubtedly relegation form.

Injuries and fatigue no doubt played their part, but ultimately Holden was unable to stop the rot that saw us losing six consecutive games before he was finally relieved of his duties following a woeful display against Reading last week.

Fast forward just five days from that now fateful evening to Sunday afternoon just gone. Rumours began to circulate that the former Leicester City, Southampton, Hull City and Watford manager, Nigel Pearson, had impressed in the interview and was being lined up to take charge of a club that had been repeatedly accused of employing ‘yes men’ that would work under City’s hierarchy and not overtly question the ‘process’.

My initial disbelief turned to genuine excitement as the rumours continued to gather pace. Pearson had been linked to us before, but nothing had come of it.

Given he has been out of work since the end of last season when he was, in my view, unfairly dismissed from Watford, it seemed like these rumours could very well indeed have legs.

If we were able to pull it off, however, I think most in the footballing world would see it as something of a coup, especially given he ticked almost all the various boxes most fans would seek in a new manager including.

Pearson has won promotion from this league before and has a strong character and persona that could stand up for himself against the alleged interference of the likes of Mark Ashton, and others.

As Sunday turned into Monday it became increasingly evident that the club was indeed about to appoint a manager of an entirely different ilk to his recent predecessors. To say I was thrilled, would be to underestimate my sentiments.

With Monday’s announcement that Pearson had been appointed as City’s new manager, there came a newfound positivity among the previously doom-ridden supporters’ accounts that frequent the various forums and social media platforms of the online Bristol City supporting world.

Anger and apathy had turned to hope and renewed faith.

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I understand that on the list of people that have had a hard time since the pandemic has begun, football fans are probably somewhere down that list for many in regards to sympathy.

But football is about so much more than this team or that team kicking a ball around. It brings people together by uniting strangers in a common goal and offers a form of recreation that is unrivalled.

For those that partake in the practice of supporting a team religiously, it’s every bit as consuming as those who dedicate their life to their chosen deity.

After a somewhat turbulent time in recent years as a Bristol City fan, I have a strong suspicion that the powers that be may have just found our saviour and the person to take us to the promised land.

To Nigel himself, whenever it is that we Bristol City fans are able to be back into football grounds, I for one can’t wait to get behind you and the team.

And to Steve Lansdown, thank you for listening to the fans and your continued support with all things Bristol City.

Main photo: JMP

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