Promised land on the horizon?

Well the busy Christmas period is over, and it is a time which can make or break a season for any club. Thankfully for Bristol City we have come through this intense time with only one defeat to our name, and that came away against West Brom, arguably the best team in the league. We find ourselves sitting in joint first place alongside West Brom and Watford, all on 47 points after 26 games.

The media have continually mentioned about when the ‘bubble’ will burst and in the beginning I thought this too, but something now tells me this won’t happen. We have shown already we can bounce back from severe defeats as we did at Barnsley (3-0), the 6-0 drubbing at Ipswich, and recently at West Brom when we were on the wrong end of a 4-1 score line.

The team spirit created by Gary Johnson means the players don’t dwell too long on a defeat and refocus their minds quickly on the next fixture. We are taking each game as it comes and as a result have not become unnerved by the new teams we are facing.

Although there are still 20 league games to play I am starting to believe we can sustain our current form and maybe make it to the promise land. Sceptics may say it is too soon for City to get promoted after only coming up from League One five months ago, but when a great opportunity comes along you have to grab it with both hands.

The money we would receive would be welcome even if we were to be relegated back to the Championship. Promotion is worth in the region of £60 million and with parachute payments of about £20 million it would do us no harm financially.

The club are already looking to the future with the capture of exciting attacking midfielder Nick Carle, an Australian International who we have paid £500,000 for from Turkish side Genclerbirligi. Having seen a video of him on the internet, he looks an exciting player with many fancy skills and he certainly knows where the goal is.

2007 has now come to an end and many football supporters in Bristol didn’t want it to end after such a successful year for both Bristol clubs in which both were promoted. Hopefully 2008 will be even more exciting and my next blog will be describing a City victory over Middlesbrough in the F.A Cup on Saturday.

ANDY DAVIES