Why has Bristol always been in the football wilderness?

This is a really interesting question. I started going to Eastville in the mid 70s, initially with my Dad who was a teacher in Southmead and used to take some of the boys (and it was boys then), and I tagged along to the South Enclosure. Later with friends we were on the North then at Twerton. I'm closer to 60 than 55 now and live miles away so only catch the occasional game live. I remember even in the 70s the prevalent idea that Bristol wasn't a 'football city'. I used to struggle with that idea as a youngster mad about the game, all my mates were too and we were caught up in the whole thing, at a time when being a football supporter was culturally quite difficult to admit. But in the mid 70s Bristol had a team in the old first division plus a team that held it's own in the second. For younger readers that's equivalent to the Premier league and championship. Which isn't really the football wilderness. So there is a tradition of 2 teams punching at a reasonable level. Since then things have been a bit crap and although I remember the 70s, many (most?) won't and so there seems to be nothing to reference, no shared experiences and most of all no winning of anything that actually mattered. Watney Cup anyone?

I went to Liverpool university in 1986. After a couple of weeks of constant football culture I decided to go to Anfield. got the bus for a game v Tottenham. Nico Klassen's first match for Spurs. On the bus to Anfield a lady who must have been in her 70s collared me and assuming I was from London gave me a grilling about football. After a while we sort of got on and she gave me a decent explanation of why Liverpool would win despite Klassen because of the way the midfield was set up. Turned out she was wrong as Tottenham won 1 v 0 and I think it was Klassen that scored. But that was a football culture that was new to me. No 70 year old ladies on the bus from Horfield to Eastville talked about football at all, let alone the midfield set up of opposition like Doncaster Rovers. All this has made me wonder whether the passion for football in the city of Liverpool (and other cities like Manchester, Leeds, parts of London) came from winning or from some sort of punchy regional pride and honour that then found an outlet in football. I still don't know. I do remember at school a good friend had on his haversack (remember those?) the painted words (neatly painted it must be said) 'Spurs are the Best'. He said it was because his granddad played for them but I still don't know if that's true. A city passionate about football, their local football, might have given him more of a hard time. After all my granddad boxed for Plymouth Boys but at no stage did I paint 'Plymouth Boys are the Best' on my school bag. Had I done so things may have become more awkward than they already were.

I guess my answer to the question is that I have no idea.

Blimey: poster on the internet is full of doubt.

It’s not about size. Bristol is hard to define as South Gloucestershire claims areas commonly thought of as Bristol. If these are included Bristol is as big as Sheffield and even Liverpool. We just don’t think of ourselves as big nor as football centric.
Rovers fans are pretty passionate but we tend not to be expecting much in the way of success. Maybe the Liverpool bred attitude percolating from JB will have an effect?

Bristol has always been a Footballing City.

It still has the biggest amateur and Semi Pro Football set up outside London. So the people playing Football is higher than anywhere else other than the capital.

Also if you add up both Rovers and City's average attendances it makes up pretty much 30k, if Rovers had a better stadium it would be even more. That's not too bad considering both clubs have never had any success.

To be fair, they support who they enjoy watching much like every other entertainment. 

To be fair, City did make it to the promised land of the old First Division, and survived for several seasons.  From memory they might have even been top after a few games had been played, a nasty injury to Paul Cheesely blighted that era for them. 

If Geoff Bradford was not the victim of an horrendous Charlie Williams foul that put him out for the rest of the season, in the FA cup reply at Donny on a frozen pitch, I genuinely feel we would have won promotion that year.

Mike Jay will know the stats but didn't he score something like 26 goals in 23 games up that point?

We finished something like 6th behind Leeds (John Charles) and Liverpool about 4 points from promotion (albeit 2pts for a win back then) but pretty sure we lost 2-1 at both Anfield and Elland Road in the last few games.

Just 4 more goals could well have been enough and a fully fit Geoff would have surely scored them!

He was outstanding when he returned but he must have not been the force he was after 3 broken legs. ( Not all at the same time obviously!)

He was that good he would have scored for fun in the top division no doubt.

If is a massive word but if he never had that injury we would have got to the top and stayed there for a good while.

In a parallel universe in 1982 the Sh!t went properly bust and we bought the old Trashton for £1. We spent a few quid painting it blue and a young man stayed the Gashead he originally was. Not much difference in playing results until 2007/8 when the sale of the whole of Hargreaves Lansdown sees a few quid spent on players for us winning League 2 comfortably. In 2009 we bought the old Eastville site and started regularly filling the new 35,000 capacity in our first Premier League season in 2013. 2017 saw our first European Campaign with a narrow defeat by Accrington in the Europa League Final.

Last year's Quadruple (our third) was something younger Gasheads have come to expect. Tickets at the new 150,000 seater Fruit Market stadium are sold out for the opening ceremony and game against Brazil, who can't believe they have been honoured to play at the new home of World Football.

Fans around the world refer to "Rovers" without the need to reference Bristol as we're so globally acknowledged.

Wilderness no more. 😀

Regarding location there is a positive as it should be easier to retain players as so few local clubs they could move too without moving house.

The same applies to Plymouth, Swansea and Cardiff but they've all managed to get promoted to at least the Championship?

The real reason we've not made it in recent years is lack of ambition or money, we blew promotion when we signed kids under Holloway. Lambert was sold and the transfer money never really reinvested. Then we just let the likes of Boden and Taylor leave without signing similar quality when DC seemed to be building momentum.

Perhaps finally building a new stand to increase ground capacity is a sign we're trying to get the finances right for a promotion push 🤞