That Bristol Nightlife

Sometimes a defeat is just so alarming that extracting positives is a futile and thankless task. Such must be the sentiment down Ashton Gate way after their 6-0 annihilation last midweek. And it wasn’t even a visiting Premier League side exploding with foreign fusiliers, nor even a blue touchpaper lighting Forest. No, this was a cross bridge bolt of blue, its exponents themselves experiencing embarrassing problems but able to nonetheless hand out a total hiding to an abject Bristol City eleven. How must debutant Jamal Campbell-Ryce have felt?

Not since an evening at Romeo Brown’s nightclub back in 2006 has the stock of Robins’ right back Bradley Orr fallen so. The former Burnley loanee also once attempted to head butt team mate Louis Carey in a match against the Cobblers of Northampton. Watching these two play, they form a rag tag duo of defenders who have headstrong tendencies and perhaps enjoy that Bristolian nightlife made continually famous by ex-team mate Leroy Lita.

But in the current issue of The League Paper, Morecambe’s Phil Jevons says of the Liverpudlian lynchpin of the Robin’s defence, “Bradley’s an outstanding defender with a great engine and great distribution and he also has a great eye for goal. he should definitely be playing in the Premier League.” Too far? Perhaps, but the energy and commitment of Orr and that other uneven diamond Carey remains vital for the Clifton crew. Both dusted themselves down and repaid Gary Johnson’s faith with tenacious displays in the gutsy 0-0 draw at flailing Middlesbrough on saturday. They remain two of the Championship’s most consistent back men.

Rob Langham

Rob Langham is co-founder of the defiantly non-partisan football league blog, The Two Unfortunates, a website that occasionally strays into covering issues of wider importance. He's 50 and lives in Oxford while retaining his boyhood support of Reading FC. He tweets as @twounfortunates and has written for a number of websites and publications including The Inside Left, When Saturday Comes, In Bed with Maradona, Futbolgrad and The Blizzard as well as being nominated for the Football Supporters' Federation Blogger of the Year Award in 2013.