The Bristol Rovers History Group. |
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It was great to see former Rovers striker Barry Hayles back at the
Memorial Stadium on Tuesday night when Rovers took on Wycombe
Wanderers.
Supporters Club Director Helen Wigmore was able to present Barry with
the cap to mark his debut for the club, against Plymouth Argyle, back
in August 1997 and is pictured here with him after handing over his
cap!.
Barry was the 615th player to represent the club in league football
and his cap bears that number..
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On 18th March, at our home game against Portsmouth, we were delighted to welcome our former striker Archie Stephens to the Memorial Stadium for the first time. A relatively late entrant to the ranks of professional football, he was 27 years of age when he joined Rovers from Melksham Town in August 1981 and he went on to score 40 goals in 127 league games. During his time at Eastville. In March 1985 Middlesbrough paid Rovers a fee of £20,000 to secure his signature. He went on to score 24 goals in 92 league appearances for ‘Boro and later played for Carlisle United, Yeovil Town (loan), Darlington, Guisborough Town, Northallerton Town and Great Ayton. Thanks are due to Rovers’ supporter Chris Wathen and another former Rovers striker, Paul Randall, for arranging Archie’s visit and thanks, also, to the club for their assistance.
Paul and Archie were quite a formidable strikeforce for Rovers when they partnered each other in the early 1980’s and it was fitting that Paul should be the one to present Archie with his cap at half time. As I’m sure you are aware, the Supporters Club is hoping to present a cap to all players who have made at least one Football League appearance for Rovers. When he made his debut, against Chesterfield, on 5th September 1981, Archie became the 481st player to represent the club and his cap bears that number. Paul, who received his cap at the Bristol Rovers Former Players Association Dinner before Christmas, was number 441. John Kayes and the Tote End Old Boys had a special flag made bearing the words ‘Archie Stephens, Tote End Legend’ which will, by the time of our next home game be hanging in the Thatchers End, signed by the man himself. Our photos show Paul presenting Archie with his cap (photo courtesy of JMP) and Archie and Paul pictured with Paul’s son Mark, Archie’s son Ben with Chris Wathen standing between the strikers – is he offside! (Thanks to Chris for the photo). |
Hi there
I hope you are good. We’ve just found out a bit of a family connection to Rovers and we are trying to discover more about it, My grandparents always had an old pendulum clock in their living room, as a kid I never really properly looked at it but the sound is etched in my memories from visits. On a recent visit I inspected it in more details and turns out this was passed down to my 96 year old grandad, as his grandad was a Fred Channing who was involved in the club in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. My grandad isn’t that much of a talker, and so he never really thought to mention his ties to Bristol Rovers even though me and my brother would have loved that connection, and weirdly he was more into Italian football than the English game. Either way me and my brother made it down to The Memorial Ground for our first game there since we knew about the connection last season, and loved the atmosphere! Thought you might like to see the clock, you can see the date it was given to him was 1920 which matches up with the dates you describe him leaving the club due to ill health! Thanks for uploading the information you’ve got on him, like I said our grandad isn’t much of a talker and there isn’t many of his side of the family around now so it’s good to be able to see a bit of our family history on the web, the photo is also amazing! If anyone has any more information on our great great grandad, or a copy of that photo, we would love to see it 😊 Keep up the good work Thanks Cameron. |
On the 7th of April we had the pleasure of welcoming Hilary Lewis, daughter of the late Harry Bamford to The Mem. Here she is pictured with the cap awarded to him to mark his Bristol Rovers league debut on 31st August 1946.
Also in the photo is Jamie Howarth, who presented Hilary with the cap on behalf of Bristol Rovers Supporters Club. |
Steve Badock, who made a goalscoring debut for Bristol Rovers in a 3-3 draw at Darlington on 18th August 1985, was the 502nd player to make his league debut for the club.
He was presented with his cap to mark that debut at half time in the match between Rovers and Derby County on 15th April-2023. Jamie Howarth, who presented the cap to Steve, is pictured here with him. |