The Travelling Fans are Owed a Refund

Luckily I live just outside Bristol. As I write this I am sat only 4.8 miles from Ashton Gate a mere 9 minute car journey. Even that seems like too far to have travelled to watch that joke of a Bolton Wanderers performance.

Bristol City won that game at a canter not having to work particularly hard to come away 6-0 winners. There were spells (by spells I mean about five minutes in the first half) where Bolton played ok without causing City any problems. But then something snapped and the fight left them.

City’s fifth goal was the clearest sign of this. Academy graduate (take note Josh Vela, Rob Holding, etc.) Joe Bryan picked up the ball on the half way line and just ran forward. The Bolton defence parted like a particularly jumpy flock of seagulls and the youngster ran through to score City’s fifth. There was no clever trick or flick or well-timed pass to take our defence out of the game. Bryan just ran, that was it. It was reminiscent of the joke defending from Brazil against Germany in the World Cup. Just appalling.

And the reason I make a snide remark at our youngsters is that Bryan today showed the level a good quality academy graduate should reach. None of ours who were involved showed that level at all.

But back to the main point. This performance was a joke. This was the worst I have seen Bolton play since that fateful FA Cup semi-final against that team from Stoke no one cares about.

This performance was so bad the players should dip into their pockets and refund those who travelled long distances to watch them. Bristol to Bolton is three hours each way in a car with no traffic. It doesn’t bear thinking how much longer that is in a coach. These fans deserve a performance which shows the same level of dedication to the cause which they showed by making the trip. In no way shape or form did they get that.

So I call on the players to do the right thing and offer these fans a full refund, it’s the least they can do.