Why Bristol - the most underachieving sports city in England - is finally stirring from its slumber

Bristol has an uneasy relationship with success. The rapid gentrification of the city, which has seen apartment blocks and expensive coffee shops continue to spring up even during the Covid-19 pandemic, has prompted an existential crisis among the city's longer-term residents: stickers reading "Make Bristol s--- again" are a common sight on lampposts and walls, a protest at the influx of Londoners heading west.

One area where Bristol has never had to struggle with the burden of glory, however, is sport. It is the biggest city never to have hosted Premier League football; its rugby union club has never won the league title; and Gloucestershire, who play their home games in the city, have not won the County Championship since WG Grace led them to the title in 1877.

But there are signs of stirring. Bristol Bears are top of the Gallagher Premiership under the expert tutelage of Pat Lam [see table below], and, following torrid recent months, both City and Rovers enjoyed victories on Saturday under high-profile new managers.

Gallagher Premiership 2020/21 latest standings (top four)

Joey Barton's appointment at the Memorial Ground was the more startling, although it will take time for the former Manchester City midfielder to revive a club still facing a desperate struggle to drop into League Two. It is at City where expectations will be rocketing, however, following the arrival of Nigel Pearson.

EFL Championship 2020/21 latest standings (mid-table)

High expectations are never in short supply at Ashton Gate. It was Lee Johnson, the former manager, who described City as "a Premier League club in waiting" in November 2017 and when they defeated Manchester United in the Carabao Cup the following month that prediction looked reasonable. But while the shops around Ashton Gate are now as likely to sell sourdough as cider, the football club has stalled with mid-table finishes in the Championship, barring a flirtation with the play-offs.

Prior to a marauding second-half comeback to beat Swansea 3-1 on Saturday, Pearson - the club's eighth manager in 10 years - clocked the mood. "I think people will get tired of saying it's a club with potential," he said. "I think it's time that we try to realise that potential."

It is not just Premier League football which has proved evasive - they have not played in the top tier at all since 1980, a remarkable statistic for a city of half a million people with no major rivals for miles around. The 2008 play-off final defeat to Hull is as close as City have come, despite a £45 million redevelopment of Ashton Gate and millions more spent on player transfers.

Louis Carey, the club's record appearance maker who played in that play-off side, suggests a change in mentality is required.

"The foundations are incredible to start something," he says. "I just believe that it's a mentality (issue) at the football club. The team always seemed to start well, and then there's that energy around the place that says 'same old City will throw it away'. In my beliefs, you get back what you put out. I think there's got to be a mentality shifting - the feeling that we're good enough."

If there is that mentality at City, it does not come from the top, where Stephen Lansdown - a self-made billionaire who started out in business from a bedroom in Clifton - is as ambitious as they come. The 68 year-old is a hands-on owner and, as a lifelong City fan, is invested with more than just his cash.

He went on local radio to attempt to take the blame for the disastrous appointment of Dean Holden, whose six-match losing streak led to the sack a fortnight ago, and then took personal charge of appointing Pearson, interviewing him on Zoom.

The swiftness of that appointment helped calm tensions amongst fans who had turned on Mark Ashton, the chief executive, over an inexplicable five-week delay between sacking Johnson and then recruiting Holden, his former assistant.

Lansdown said prior to Pearson's appointment that he would need to recruit Pep Guardiola if he was to recreate the same success he has enjoyed recently under Lam at Bristol Bears but in terms of a proven Championship promotion-getter, he may have found the next best thing.

Pearson, steeped in experience at Leicester City and Watford, was announced within hours of Barton joining Rovers, meaning that not since 1990 - when Rovers and City were promoted to the old Division Two under Gerry Francis and Joe Jordan respectively - have these bitter rivals had such renowned coaches simultaneously.

Carey, the former captain, is cautiously optimistic. "Nigel Pearson has got an incredible track record - it's a bit like with the Gary Johnson situation, where he's come into the club with a good track record of getting teams promoted."

Unlike his two predecessors, Pearson is manager rather than head coach, and there is hope he might have greater input in transfer strategy in the summer should things go to plan. It means there are now two alpha-males at the club in Ashton and Pearson, but Carey suggested there may only be one winner. "On paper it looks a good fit, but it has to be a system where people collaborate and work together," Carey said. "If you've got too many egos, trying to be top dog, it ain't gonna work. That's a fact."

The sales of Adam Webster, Bobby Decordova-Reid, Joe Bryan and Josh Brownhill have generated tens of millions for the club, but a moneyball-style extensive player turnover, and the previous managers' habits of constantly tinkering with the system, has been unsettling.

However, in a Championship where salary spending has been at 107 per cent of revenue, the club's pre-tax loss of £10.07m for the latest tax year amid Covid represents comparative stability. Last year the club returned a profit. A soon-to-be-completed new training facility may also help ease concerns raised privately by senior players around alarmingly high levels of injuries in the squad this season.

Despite the sense of impatience, it is clear that City have made huge strides off the pitch, with Ashton Gate's capacity expanded to 27,000 and plans for a new 'sporting quarter' close to the stadium, which will include a 4,000-capacity home for the Bristol Flyers basketball team and housing developments.

It is a far cry from the 1980s and 90s, when Ashton Gate was a dilapidated shell and Rovers would ground hop between stadiums. Marina Dolman, the City president and widow of former chairman Harry, who has been attending games without fail since 1961, says fans had a right to demand better.

"In Bristol, we always expect the best," she said. "The improvement in the stadium has been wonderful. It's one thing he (Lansdown) does have in common with Harry because Harry always said to the team that, 'we need to improve the stadium for the sake of the supporters'."

Amongst the younger generations, Stanley Hughes, 25, a City fan and podcaster whose show One Stream in Bristol has soared in popularity during lockdown, says current frustrations are borne out of unrealistic expectations. "I think it's sort of inevitable that the fan is going to get frustrated because everyone else is bigging us up," he says.

Like those tongue-in-cheek anti-gentrification stickers, this is a city with an uneasy relationship with success. Integrity matters at a club that would not exist at all were it not for the sacrifice of eight players agreeing to cancel their contracts in Feb 1982, with City minutes from folding.

City came back from the dead then, and there was a sense of revival on Saturday too as the players huddled together after the final whistle at the Liberty Stadium. In a take-no-prisoners figurehead in Pearson, success might yet be achievable in the manner the fans crave.