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He needed determination as well as ability to become so firmly established in the side for so many seasons, moving into the top ten of the club's appearance list with a final total of 433. The man who led City into the First Division as captain in 1976 grew up just ten minutes’ walk away from Ashton Gate and was taken to matches there by his parents from the age of seven. After representing Bristol Boys and England Schoolboys as captain, Geoff was a about to leave school to become a painter and decorator when scout Cliff Morgan came calling. Bristol City’s players trudged off the pitch on a cold January at Newport County with a point in the bag following a 1-1 draw just more than 40 years ago. Previously, players were bound to clubs even after their contracts expired. But new legislation stipulated that players could now leave once their contracts had expired. The selling club would still get a fee, but the ruling changed the footballing landscape. We are never so impressionable as when we are young. Early devotions stay with us like first love, never forgotten. He was a boyhood hero from the moment I saw him, with his curly mop of blonde hair, Bristol accent and immaculate moustache of a Victorian cad.
I don’t think any player would want to be in a position where to say you either agree or this football club is gone. They don’t want to be a pawn in a political game, they just want to play football. I knew they were getting rid of a couple of players and you didn’t need to have the brain of Britain to realise we were struggling for money. A couple of months before that, one of the directors or coaches got all the players in the boardroom and said ‘you know these rumours about the club going bust? It’s not going to happen. You’re all okay you don’t need to worry.’ At the end of the day we've been looking to become a Western League Club - the first one in Nailsea and it's for the community. That's the ethic of the club, we're trying to do something here for the community to get good football here.
Nobody wants to see their business hung out to dry. I suppose who at the time would you point the fingers at? The administrators who were chasing the dream? It’s easy to think about those things.
Ray Cashley: Goalkeeper who later helped Chester win a promotion from Division Four. He worked in the promotions department of Weston-super-Mare FC and then became a driver. Anyway, they did a promotion where you could get cheap seats for the following season and it raised a fair bit of money. So they never needed to let me go. For me he was one of the top centre forwards in the country,” Harford says. “He had enjoyed a great career but he and the rest of the older players in the team were massive, massive inspirations to me in terms of the guidance they gave me.BBC Sport retells the story of how eight footballers sacrificed - or were made to sacrifice - their careers for the good of their team. 'Eight names on a tatty bit of notepaper' Maybe if they had sold me they might not have won promotion. You never know. I had a good season, probably my only good one! The message was loud, clear and brutal. It was an ultimatum - tear up your contracts or there won’t be a club to play for.
As hard as it was to leave the way I did, nothing will ever top the feeling of beating Portsmouth to win promotion,” he said. In the grand scheme of his career, his latter years at Ashton Gate may not have matched his initial spell in BS3 or his time at Chelsea and Leicester but, by then a senior pro, he still left an indelible mark on the dressing room. Then of course there was the blond hair. He was a very good-looking lad and, at that stage, he was still single so there were lots of girls in his life… until he got married, of course. We got the PFA in and Gordon Taylor turned up to talk to us. It’s safe to say he wasn’t the most helpful person, which disappointed me. He was more or less saying we’ve got to do it. Because if not, he didn’t know what was going to happen. Was John playing the piano or Paul, do you remember?) “Sorry, no. Haven’t a clue. It was basically John’s song, so it might have been him. [it was PAUL]. I don’t remember.” (…)
The pain in those players' eyes when I sat there and had to record them on my little Uher tape-to-tape machine was something that will haunt me for ever," said Pearce. It was something I never dreamed could happen, and, quite frankly, I think for everyone involved it was devastating. I think it was a lot more difficult because I’d grown up as a City fan. Do you remember those sessions [for Magical Mystery Tour]? ) “All I recall is that I didn’t think it was a good idea.” Ken Wimshurst (chief coach): He ran a sports shop and worked at Southampton’s centre of excellence. He later scouted for Real Madrid and Barcelona. He died in July 2017, aged 79. I think there were eight Bristolians in the team or played in the team and I think that brings a certain pride to the crowd, to the people who came to watch us, who identified with local players.
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