SPORT IN MY CITY AND RIDICULED” 43 STEVE LANSDOWN

Men, who knows what they could achieve. We’ve been to find out more…

BRISTOL OWNER

NEW ENTRY

Back in the early 1990s, when the balance of power between near-unbeatable Bath and their local rivals Bristol was sufficiently one-sided to make the feudal relationship between landowners and serfs seem fair, a senior England forward drank deeply from his free pint in the players’ bar before making a startling pronouncement.

“The funny thing is, we can thump Bristol home and away until hell freezes over and still not be as big a club as them,” he said. “If they ever get it right off the field they’ll be massive.”

It was quite a statement. Since 1983, the Recreation Grounders had lost only once to their nearest and dearest – by a single point in an Easter ‘friendly’ – and would not do so again in a hurry.

Twenty-six victories in 27 games across 14 seasons? You did not need to be a far-seeing prophet to predict an eventual turning of the tide. You needed to be stark raving bonkers.

Yet while rugby’s ‘A4 gap’ has stubbornly refused to narrow over the course of the pro era – far from gaining ground on Bath, Bristol have struggled to even play in the same division – we are about to discover how big a club they truly are. Or rather, how big they might become.

For the first time since the days of Morley and Harding, Fry and Pomphrey, Polledri, Rafter and Hesford, the West Countrymen can honestly say they have the fundamentals in place. For that, they can thank Steve Lansdown, 63, a businessman with a keen interest in the local sports