Lansdowns have done so much – Joyce

JOE Joyce has paid tribute to the impact Steve Lansdown and his family have had on the sporting scene in Bristol, writes John Evely.

Earlier this week it was revealed that hometown boy Joyce will leave Bristol Bears for Connacht at the end of the coming season.

Billionaire businessman Lansdown owns two of Joyce’s great sporting loves, Bristol Bears rugby club and Bristol City football club, along with basketball team Bristol Flyers, and women’s arms of the rugby and football organisations.

In many ways, Lansdown and Joyce have been on the same journey at Bristol Bears, Bristol Rugby before it rebranded in 2018, with the owner named as the majority stakeholder in 2012 having been financially backing the club since 2008.

Joyce, 28, who has played for Clifton, St Mary’s, Southmead and Dings Crusaders, joined the Bristol Academy in 2012/13 from SGS Filton, making his first-team debut the following season in the British & Irish Cup. To date, the 6ft 5in lock has played 152 times over ten seasons in an eventful decade for the club.

Joyce, below, is the longestserving player in the Bristol squad and has been in sides promoted from the Championship twice, relegated from the Premiership once, won the Challenge Cup and finished top of the Premiership.

On a personal note, he won every award he was eligible for at the club’s end of season awards, so announcing the news of his departure to Lansdown was one of a series of ‘tough’ discussions, along with director of rugby Pat Lam and Chris Booy, who has been club chairman since 2009.

He said: “I spoke to Steve on the phone, and I thanked him for not just what he has done for me, but for what he has done for the rugby club and for Bristol City.

“Look at our training centre,” Joyce said, sat in the indoor barn of the Bears’ £11.5m High Performance Centre which the club moved into in the summer of 2020. “It is incredible the way the Lansdown family looked after us as a group during Covid as well.

“I owe it to the Lansdown family and to Pat (Lam) to really finish well.

“There are not really words to express what the Lansdown family has done, not just on the sport side but for the community as well. It was another tough conversation, but I felt I owed it to those people to speak to them face to face before they heard it from someone else.”