Open The East End Campaign (Fan History 2006 – 2014)

Much has been said & done and socially-posted in recent weeks about the end of the East End. For many, many a

year, the natural Home End of the City (with a doth of the cap to the Parkenders of yesteryear, up tight against the

fence [and the little no-man’s-land section] giving it what-for to the away contingent), the East End had always been

100% City even when some cocknees tried to run it in the 70s. When Lord Justice Taylor enforced clubs in the top

two divisions to make their grounds all-seater in the early 90s, there was a bit of a protest in the East End at the last

ever terraced game (04 May 1991, 1-1 [Rennie] v Port Vale; 11,555) with a banner that read, KEEP THE EAST END

STANDING. This was swimming in vain against the tide, however, reflecting the dislike fans had for the thought of

losing their terracing. Interesting that it was the East End, though, that remonstrated this one last time (I may well be

wrong but I don’t remember there being similar KEEP THE ENCLOSURE STANDING or KEEP THE OPEN END STANDING

banners. Not that their residents cared less, you understand).

Soon, what had forever been a noisy, boisterous home end, with fantastic acoustics if you were inside (not so good,

given the shape of the roof front, if you were anywhere else in Ashton Gate) became the away end, for visiting fans

who now couldn’t believe their luck that they could make some noise and really be heard. The advantage, one could

possibly say, was given to the visitors in terms of potential noise made.

How, then, did City fans make it back in to the bosom of the old girl, asking the away fans to budge up and make

room?

Over a bottle of Natch in The Three Lions pub in West Street, The Natch Wall hooked up with the boys from When

The Moon Shines, the driving force behind all that has been good in the East End these past seven years, and they

explained how they and a few other like-minded, determined souls gave us back our East End.

“In reality there was no real organised campaign - those really involved didn’t plan much at all but just came up with

a series of ideas with the common goal of reopening the East End to pay-on-the-day supporters. As far back as 2003

there had been a few fan-led attempts to reopen the stand, a brief couple of games with a few City fans back within

Ashton Gate Stands inspired by others and seemingly thousands of posts on forums about the topic.

“After a particularly awful performance at home v Chesterfield (2-4, [Wilkshire, Cotterill]; 9,752) by the team and

fans in 2005, the idea of another attempt at getting the atmosphere reverberating around the old Cow Shed was

discussed in the Three Lions Public House.

“This time we said a petition would be used to show the support for a reopening, but it was to be another eleven

months before this took off, at least outside of a bar and just half-cut waffling blokes nursing pints of cider!

“A year later, September 2006 finally saw The East End petition

appearing via the Subcider site (a fledgling BCFC fans forum) and it was

pushed along by a few ex-Subbers and Three Lions’ regulars (this forum

has now morphed into Ziderheads).

“The petition now stemmed from fans sounding out the newly formed

Bristol City Supporters Trust as a means of reopening our spiritual

home end and we got the not unreasonable response of "Where are

the petitions or some form of peaceful demonstration in support?"

Petition time it was to be then!

“Initially the petition was located in various known City pubs - here in

The Lions, the Three Tuns & Jasper's - and in the hands of the same

small group of City fans on match days . A couple of early amusing faux

pas occurred at this point with flyers comparing AG’s atmosphere to the

moon. In keeping with the East End’s irreverence and off-the-wall

leftfield fanzine style approach, A4 posters featuring wanton Bristolian

mModel Cathy Barry with her Ginormous Bristol Cities bursting forth in

a City shirt were posted to these same City Pubs. The posters gave an email address but it was no surprise that the

daft rough cider fundamentalist in charge of monitoring this account forgot the password to access it within days…

"If anybody actually tried to get in contact I am very, very sorry and all that, but I'm not good at remembering stuff

like that". That was his apology!!

“The intention was to try and gather a significant number of fans’ signatures [1500 we thought] and link this to the

Supporters Trust and their forthcoming fans survey which was to feature the question [or something similar]: Would

you like to see a return of home supporters to the East End?

“The petition in theory would then be handed over to the Supporters Trust to present to BCFC alongside their

survey results. The thinking was then that the Trust would strongly argue the fans’ case backed by actual factual

evidence. This was the hope, but the reality at this point was there was more than a bit of cynicism being directed

towards the Trust as their stance seemed to be quite ambivalent. Although the Trust were supposed to be

representing supporters they appeared to be overtly negative and towing the clubs line by pointing out:

“At this point it appeared the backing of the Supporters Trust was to be anything but guaranteed as their survey was

now to be limited to Trust members only and the promise of a survey had been around for months without

becoming reality. The inactivity smacked of lacking interest and urgency.

“If the response of the Trust felt lukewarm it was nothing compared to the ‘touching’ response from the ‘gent’ who

at that point was Chairman of the Bristol City Supporters Club. Chairman Dobbin appeared to be disinterested with

the fans efforts to reopen our traditional end. His delightful turn of phrase saw him describe some of those involved

as cognitively impaired, nerdy, sad, spooky and weirdoes! East Enders were also being referred to at that point as

knuckle-draggers! Approaches to this chap, man of the fan(!), by e-mail, curiously saw attachments with any East

When the East end had been reopened support had been poor.

Generally only young ones had used the stand and acted

antagonistically towards away support.

Opening the East End would cost an extra £4000 to £5000 in

police costs.

Re-opening the stand again would have the same disappointing

result again.

A less than lucid point about Ashton Gate having a good

atmosphere when full.

End-related info disappear into cyberspace. A4 posters also addressed to the Supporters Club were later to

disappear into the mysterious BS3 postal void – but successfully delivered everywhere south of the New Cut though!

“They also had a baffling ability to fail to answer online questions relating to the East End or even acknowledge

them, but then a phoenix-like ability to reappear on the OTIB fans forum whenever the stand was mentioned taking

a contrary view to the pro-East End mob… Then there was the constant refusal to discuss the petition with the

Supporters Club Committee after appeals for help from fellow fans, calls to at least conduct some research into the

topic, requests to meet in person.

“Within a week of its inception the petition quickly grew as a healthy proportion of fans at the away game at Port

Vale signed. More City pubs in the shape of the Bloomfield Inn, The Miners Arms, The Plough & Windmill, The

Sandringham and The Ship & Castle helped add signatures in contrast to the “we are not really interested”

Supporters Club who still sat on their hands. Even without being particularly well organised the whole movement

was easily gathering momentum and fellow fans were extremely supportive.

“Fanzines were routinely written to but the Evening Post failed to print anything of ours, but still the letters were

sent till an article by the Supporters Trust then suddenly appeared in Green Un titled "East Enders are hoping to raise

the roof again". Anybody who read this article would have been left in no doubt that the Supporters Trust was

clearly siding with those fans wanting to return to the stand. Good work this and very much appreciated at the time,

Trust!

“Question and answer sessions with Stephen Lansdown ran by the increasingly visual Bristol City Supporters Trust

saw fans asking questions related to the East End. It wasn’t always us in person and even if the Chairman of BCFC did

tend to take the "Ye Gods and Jesus Christ not the East End again: I HAVE MADE THE DECISION" stance, our cider

glass felt more half full than half empty. Wurzel City fans across the universe were taking note that this all might be

more than just a silly club-bashing crusade by internet nerds and lonely bedroomists.

“Even a professional East End banner was turning up at games in the Dolman much to the amusement and surprise

of us former Williams Stand dweller, along with the odd Open The East End chant among what little singing there

was at Ashton Gate. Open The East End stickers appeared around the ground, at away games and in the proper pubs,

while the clubs CEO received a pro East End haranguing when schmoozing fans at the Liberty Stadium Swansea.

“The East End seemingly was very much to the fore of fans’ minds.

A look at the myriad of City forums revealed an East End-related topic

always near the top rearing its inane cider loving grin. This may have

been insanely dull for some forum users, but the forums invasion and

blitz was not planned. There was no meticulous hijacking going on

internet even though the chair of the Supporters Club now referred

to some fans as East End campaign lobbyists and activists. We still

weren’t sure what was going on, but it was starting to look like it

had at least a semblance of reasoned sober methodology about it all.

“By early December 2005 we had 2,000 signatures (out of the final

3,200) which considering the gates were 10,000 at best, wasn't too bad.

Local journalists and a freelance journalist got in touch wanting interviews and pictures of the poor disgruntled fans

handing over their petition to the nasty, repressive Bristol City FC, ha ha ha!

“It would’ve been easy to accept but it was always a case of wanting to work with BCFC in support of the team while

having a laugh rather than giving the club a public kick in the hairy yarbles. Our approaches were politely declined.

“To accompany the petition to BCFC via the Supporters Trust, an article of 3500+ words titled "For the Fans by the

Fans" was written. This worked as a sort of East Enders Wikipedia entry, where ideals and views were passed back

and forth. The basic premise of "For the Fans by the Fans" was that the reopening the East End to pay on the day

fans would:

Allow fans to take advantage of an excellent acoustic environment for vocal support.

Make BCFC a more affordable and accessible club by permitting pay on the day fans back in the East End.

Heal what some fans described as a ‘disconnect between the club and parts of their support’.

Deal with the bigger picture issues for City's traditional end, such as the costs of policing, unreserved seating,

concessions for the disabled, smoking etc and called for one last chance.

“We felt if after a realistic period of being open the East End did not make a profit it would shut forever. But this run

of games needed to see the club allowing unrestricted access for all at prices for the majority, on par with the Atyeo

and with some marketing to allow supporters a fair opportunity to prove that the stand really is an asset.

“December saw the Trust’s survey results being passed onto BCFC, complete with a report. Sat within the Trust

survey results was a clear indication that two thirds of those who had been surveyed would like to see the East End

reopened to wassailing Wurzels. Shortly after the 3,200 petition signatories and the "For the Fans by the Fans"

report was handed into BCFC by the Trust’s Chairman… Chairperson? Chair? Head Bloke! Stuart Rogers.

“January 2007 saw the Supporters Trust arrange a meeting at Ashton Gate between Bristol City FC and fans. After

two hours plus of discussion - including a memorable comment from the Chairman that having fans in the East End

would make no difference - the stand was to be opened for one game v Brentford. Post-meeting it transpired fans’

ideas of an open East End compared to the club’s differed somewhat: they wanted pay till 11a.m. on the day, no

U16s etc. The club had to be reminded - well, Colin Sextone did - by the Trust to announce what was occurring.

“Despite Chairman Steve's initial scepticism that opening the stand would make no difference, even he commented

on the carnival atmosphere created by the atmosphere v Brentford (1-0, Jevons [pen], March 2007). Seven and half

years on, Ashton Gate is now noted by fans as having one of the best atmospheres in the Country. Without the East

End the Johnson Bounce Around thing would not have appeared, parts of the club’s social history could have

disappeared for ever and the best bits of terrace culture continued to live on. Course, its fans that create

atmosphere, but the East End has proved that having a cracking stand brimming with character makes everything all

so much easier. We have seen fans create flags, art work, stickers, surfer flags along with one supporter being

named supporter of the year for the efforts (season 2008/09) all in the name of Bristol City FC. The East End has to

have been for the good of promoting the Football Club.

“The Gary Johnson promotion season to the Championship saw the stand full of City fans versus Rotherham. How

good was that?

“The fans in the East End had a battle to get the stand open to start with but people can now see it has all been

worth it and why we saw the celebration and goodbye of the stand a couple of weeks ago.

So we salute you old stand and say goodbye and thank you! THE EAST END 1926 – 2014.”

Cheers to the EAST END FANS, FORZA EASTEND, WHEN THE MOONSHINES & THE 3 LIONS