The anticipated post-war struggle facing Bristol Rovers following several years of inaction was a very real problem in 1946, but New Year 1947 heralded a turn in fortunes for the Eastville club. A run of ten defeats in eleven league games in the autumn included soul-destroying reversals at Cardiff City and Notts County. However, victory over Crystal Palace on 4th January was the first of thirteen in an eighteen-match run and Rovers were able to finish the first post-war season in fourteenth place. Bland statistics indicate a clear picture of a season of two halves. When professional football returned in its recognised format, the general public, starved of full-time sport for so long, was quick to support the new season. Attendances were high - over 30,000 at Eastville for the visit of Cardiff City, bringing gate receipts of £2,218, and 25,000 for Bristol City. Manager Brough Fletcher, retained by Rovers and nurturing young Bristol-born players, worked to build together a side worthy of the enthusiastic support the side was shown. The club’s wage bill to players and officials for 1946-47 came to £9,483. The match programme rose in cost from 2d to 3d. Football had returned in earnest. Frank Curran, the scorer of Rovers’ final goal of the 1938-39 season, scored the first of 1946-47 with a well-placed drive after twenty minutes. The opening day draw at home to Reading also featured a début goal for Vic Lambden, from Lance Carr’s cross ten minutes after half-time, the first of 117 league goals for Rovers the Bristol-born forward was to score in a decade. The first components were being put in place for the all-conquering side of 1952-53. Harry Bamford, Jackie Pitt and George Petherbridge, like Lambden mainstays of the Rovers side through the halycon days of the 1950s, were given league débuts early in the season. Ray Warren, the captain of that championship-winning side, was one of three ever-presents in a highly changeable Rovers team. Minute One of the Directors’ meeting on 11th November 1946 introduced the infamous “no buy, no sell” policy although, notably, Con Stevens had already left the meeting, while John Hare and Lew Champeny both voted against. Curran and Warren were just two of five players to play league football for Rovers both sides of the war. Wilf Smith, Wally Whitfield and Wally McArthur all returned to first-team action. Other players, such as Carr, an ever-present in his only season with the club, and the veteran Harry Smith had enjoyed long and successful careers with other clubs before the war. These were understandably years of great change and it is no surprise that as many as 29 players appeared in the Rovers line-up before the end of December. Indeed, the side which drew with Brighton in December showed six changes to the eleven beaten 3-0 by Northampton Town at Eastville. This constitutes the largest number of changes to any post-war Rovers league side. It is, however, no great surprise to learn that, at this stage, an own goal was Rovers’ only score in seven league matches. Continuity was indeed well nigh impossible to maintain. One new face in the side, albeit briefly, was reserve player-coach Harry Smith, a former Nottingham Forest and Darlington full-back who became, at thirty-eight years and forty-three days, Rovers’ oldest league débutant when he appeared in the Northampton Town defeat. Another was Fred Leamon, a former Royal Marine from Jersey. Leamon became the club’s top scorer in 1946-47 with thirteen league goals. He later represented Wales at bowls and worked as a security guard for BBC television. He died in 1981 after suffering a heart attack at St Paul’s Cathedral whilst working at the Royal Wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer (1961-97). Rovers’ third ever-present, besides Carr and Warren, was full-back Barry Watkins, embarking on a run of 52 consecutive league appearances. Heavy defeats were prominent at home and away early in the season. Teenager Jackie Sewell, a future England international, scored two of six goals Jack Weare conceded at Notts County. He scored twice in a minute, just past the hour mark, twice converting sweeping County moves, against a Rovers defence which had already found itself 3-0 down after twenty-six minutes. Weare left the field injured at Cardiff City after only seven minutes, with Rovers already trailing to a third-minute Stan Richards goal. Ray Warren played eighty-three minutes in goal and ten-man Rovers, in unconventional red and white quartered shirts, crashed to a 4-0 defeat. It was the second in Cardiff City’s club record run of nine consecutive league victories, with Fred Stansfield (1917-2014) a formidable presence at the heart of their defence. Watford scored four times at Eastville in September, where Rovers, 3-0 down after forty-eight minutes, pulled two goals back before being defeated by a spectacular right-foot drive on the hour by débutant Johnny Usher, whose hat-trick seven days earlier had helped defeat Rovers reserves. There were six goals in a seventeen-minute spell midway through this 4-3 defeat. The Bristol City side which won 3-0 at Eastville featured a forty-three-year-old goalkeeper in Alex Ferguson, still the oldest man to appear against Rovers in league football and a club record twenty-one years after his first league match against Rovers, which had been for Gillingham in September 1925. Mansfield Town, Southend United and Exeter City all scored three times against Rovers in games before Christmas. Southend achieved this feat with full-back Bob Jackson in goal, a secret kept hidden from Rovers after regular goalkeeper Albert Hankey had been injured earlier in the day. After New Year, as Rovers strung together some good results, heavy defeats recurred less frequently. However, there were demoralising 3-0 reversals at both Torquay United, for whom Joe Conley scored all the goals, and Leyton Orient. The 4-0 defeat at Ashton Gate in February, with Wilson Thomas and Don Clark scoring twice each, remains Rovers’ heaviest loss in league action on that ground. Ironically, though, the side which played that day remained unchanged for a club record of twelve consecutive league games. This in itself symbolises the rebirth Rovers experienced in the latter stages of this first pre-war league season. A run of five straight wins in February and March first set the club on the right path. Rovers scored three goals in each of the first four victories, several of these emanating from Leamon, who scored twice at Bournemouth. Outside-left Carr scored the only goal of the game, a rising left-foot drive at the Thirteen Arches End after twenty-seven minutes, to defeat Cardiff City at snowy Eastville and he scored Rovers’ second at Carrow Road seven days later. This exciting 3-3 draw marked the only league game in the career of Norwich City’s goalkeeper Antonio Gallego (1924-2015), a Spanish Civil War refugee. One familiar face in the Aldershot side Rovers defeated in January was Alf Fitzgerald, who had scored an FA Cup hat-trick at Eastville for Queen’s Park Rangers in November 1937. Victory at home to Mansfield Town proved to be the third in the Stags’ club record run of seven consecutive league defeats. Once the goals were flowing, Rovers were to lose just once in a run of thirteen league matches to move to mid-table respectability and banish the ghost of pre-war re-election. Notts County, so dominant when they had beaten Rovers at Meadow Lane in November, were humbled 4-1 at Eastville, Leamon again scoring twice. Just three days after a comfortable victory over Rovers at Brisbane Road, Leyton Orient conceded six goals on their visit to Eastville, with Len Hodges and Jimmy Morgan both scoring in each half and Ken Wookey created three goals as Rovers raced to a 6-0 lead on the hour mark. The stage was set for some bigger victories in the years to come. Ray Warren scored penalties in both league games with Queen’s Park Rangers, his first, Rovers’ second goal at Loftus Road in October, being the centre-half’s first league goal since November 1936, a club record gap of almost ten years. Wing-half Wally McArthur’s goal in the defeat at Port Vale in April was his first since the opening day of the 1938-39 season. Rovers completed their season with a home game with Ipswich Town, whom they were to meet in more dramatic circumstances twelve months later. This match kicked off at 3pm, with Bristol City’s remaining home game with Queen’s Park Rangers starting at 6.30pm. Both matches were to result in a 1-1 draw. The FA Cup brought Rovers no joy as, for the first time since elevation to the Football League in 1920, the club was knocked out by a non-league side. Rovers visited Penydarren Park, where a crowd of 14,000 saw Merthyr Tydfil defeat their deflated opponents 3-1. Bill Hullett, the captain, scored twice for the home side, whose other goalscorer, George Crisp, had played in 22 league matches for Rovers during the 1935-36 season. In fact, Rovers led at the interval through Lambden’s twentieth-minute goal, but Hullett scored with a rising shot soon after the break and with a header ten minutes from time before Crisp added the third. The Gloucestershire Cup Final was again lost, Bristol City winning in a replay.
1947-48
However remarkably well Rovers survived having to apply for re-election, ultimate success could not entirely hide the side’s shortcomings. Rovers had been a point adrift at the foot of the Division Three (South) with only two games to play. There had been one run of six consecutive defeats and eleven home defeats in total. Manager Brough Fletcher was gradually piecing together the side Bert Tann would lead to great success, but the early steps on the path were faltering ones. The arrival of the former Fulham outside-left Harold Cranfield, a mere youth at twenty-nine, saw thirty-seven-year-old Lance Carr move to Merthyr Tydfil on a free transfer. This apart, Rovers opened the new season with an eminently recognisable side. Only twelve players were used in the first ten league games as Rovers sought greater on-field consistency. As the season progressed, Geoff Fox and Bryan Bush made their first appearances in the side Tann was to inherit. Josser Watling made his league bow on the left, while Fred Chadwick, a prolific wartime goalscorer, played in half a dozen games at inside-forward. Jackie Pitt, the only ever-present, was level with Fred Leamon as the club’s second highest goalscorer behind young Vic Lambden, who contributed eleven league goals on his return to the side following a ten-month absence. The full-back pairing of Harry Bamford and Barry Watkins continued to develop, while Ken Wookey’s six goals from outside-right came at crucial moments in the season. Ralph Jones, later a successful singer who performed at Glyndebourne and at the Edinburgh Festival, was given a run in the side at full-back, but was injured in the 4-0 defeat at Exeter City and was out of football for two years. Secretary Charles Ferrari resigned on 23rd October 1947 and the greyhound company assumed responsibility for the management of Rovers’ accounts, with John Gummow appointed secretary on 8th December. Gummow was to serve in this role for a year before the appointment of Ron Moules who continued as club secretary up to his sudden death in 1967. The Rovers director John Hare had called a meeting on 26th August 1947 to set up a Supporters’ Club. The purpose was to back the club financially and vocally, giving a mouthpiece to the paying spectators. As football emerged from the repression of wartime, this appeared a natural step. The first chairman selected was a local solicitor, one Herbert John Hampden Alpass (1906-99). As a cricketer, Hampden Alpass had played in seven first-class games for Gloucestershire, where he had been a colleague of the former Rovers player Wally Hammond. At the age of forty, he now had considerable energy to put into Bristol Rovers and he was to support the club in a number of ways for many years. For two years he ran the Supporters’ Club before resigning in 1949, whereupon Eric Godfrey ran the organisation through the glory years of the 1950s. One early committee member was Ray Bywater, who remained on the board until January 1966. Other early volunteers included Joan Bruton, Tom Spiller, Bill Creed and Harry Stansfield, whose father had played in goal in Rovers’ first Football League match. At its peak, the club was to have a membership of over two thousand. On the field, the tally of eleven home league defeats, a club record equalled only in the relegation season of 1992-93, goes some way toward explaining why this was a season of struggle. Don Clark was again one of Bristol City’s scorers as they won at Eastville, Doug Lishman scored twice for Walsall in their away victory and a Watkins own goal proved to be Southend United’s winner when they visited. The most extraordinary home defeat, however, was clearly Newport County’s 3-2 victory on Easter Saturday. Rovers had not scored for four games, but Jackie Pitt successfully converted two early penalties, after just five and six minutes, to equal Jonah Wilcox’s achievement on Boxing Day 1925. It was a game of three first-half penalties with County’s Len Emmanuel scoring one after thirty-three minutes in his side’s success. Emmanuel, once on Rovers’ books and the uncle of a future Rovers midfielder, had himself scored two penalties in the sides’ 2-2 draw at Somerton Park in November. Rovers conceded four penalties in three league games at this stage. Emmanuel thus became the only opponent to convert three penalties against Rovers in a league season. To counter this argument, Rovers scored four goals at home to Brighton, as well as at Leyton Orient and Ipswich Town. In November, two goals apiece from Leamon and Len Hodges earned the side a convincing 5-1 victory at Norwich City. The largest victory, however, came at Eastville on Easter Monday. Vic Lambden scored a hat-trick inside nine first-half minutes and a fourth after half-time as Rovers beat Aldershot 7-1 to equal the club’s largest league victory at that time. Pitt scored twice, for the second consecutive game as Rovers defeated opponents who had beaten Rovers 2-0 only three days earlier. After a promising start, Rovers’ season began to fall away in the New Year. The Aldershot victory ended a run of six consecutive league defeats, only one short of the club record seven straight losses which started the 1961-62 relegation season. Queen’s Park Rangers, with Danny Boxshall scoring twice, and Bristol City both put five goals past Rovers. Don Clark, tormenting Rovers’ defence as usual, became on Valentine’s Day the only City player to score a league hat-trick in a local derby at Ashton Gate. Rovers trailed 3-0 by half-time to Norwich City, with Les Eyre scoring twice and Driver Allenby once, before Rovers rallied and almost claimed a point. Bamford’s thirty-fifth minute own goal was Exeter City’s second in Rovers’ heavy defeat at St James’ Park in March, Dennis Hutchings scoring once in each half. There had been high-scoring games, both sides for instance scoring at least twice in four consecutive league matches in the autumn. However, with two matches to play, Rovers were fighting for survival. On the morning of Wednesday 28th April, Rovers were bottom of the table with thirty points and two games to play, both against Ipswich Town. Above them stood three clubs, Norwich City on 31 points, Swindon Town on 32 and Brighton on 33. Incredibly, Rovers followed up a 2-0 home victory over Ipswich Town with a resounding 4-0 victory at Portman Road against opponents who had until very recently harboured genuine championship hopes. Rovers had clutched a final position of twentieth from the jaws of re-election. As Rovers completed a run of five wins in seven league games, they moved above both Norwich and Brighton on goal average. Both Rovers and Norwich won final-day games away to top-four sides to leave Brighton bottom of the table in the wake of their goalless draw at Swansea. It was, indeed a narrow escape for Rovers and, given the need to apply for re-election in 1938-39 and the club’s desperate start to the first post-war season, failure to win at Ipswich Town would have left the club’s league future in a perilous state. Indeed Gillingham, who returned to Division Three (South) in 1950, headed a plethora of viable alternatives to a struggling side like Bristol Rovers. Nonetheless, survival had been achieved and with it were sown the first seeds of a bright future. Bert Tann, who was to succeed Fletcher as manager in January 1950, arrived at Eastville in February and swiftly persuaded three of Rovers’ staff to attend a Football Association Trainers and Coaches course in May 1948. Trainer Bert Williams, his assistant Wally McArthur and assistant coach Harry Smith were the first Rovers employees to attend such a course and this set a benchmark for the years to follow. There was considerable hope that the future would bring success. A free-scoring FA Cup run earned Rovers a lucrative fourth-round tie against Second Division Fulham at Craven Cottage. In fact, behind after only ten minutes and 2-1 down at half-time, Rovers had only defeated unfancied Leytonstone through Morgan’s headed winner, while a pre-war Rovers player, Bill Pendergast, was New Brighton’s centre-forward in their 4-0 defeat at Eastville. Lambden and Morgan had both scored in all Rovers’ three previous ties and, in their new-found enthusiasm, the Supporters’ Club took a thousand spectators to the Fulham game. Rovers put up a brave show before a 20,000 crowd but lost 5-2, despite goals from McArthur and young George Petherbridge. Arthur Stevens, who was to score twice in Rovers’ FA Cup quarter-final on the same ground ten years later, scored a hat-trick. In April, Rovers entertained a touring side, Racing Club Haarlem, winning by a single Lambden goal after ten minutes and laying the foundations for a close-season tour of the Netherlands. Once survival had been achieved, a 2-1 win at Ashton Gate secured the Gloucestershire Cup, Morgan and Watkins both scoring with low shots inside the opening eighteen minutes. Barry Watkins had not scored in his first 62 league games for Rovers, but six league and Cup goals late in the season proved his versatility.
1948-49
Rovers’ oft-discussed “no buy, no sell” policy had its origin in the immediate post-war years. The directors decreed that the club could develop local talent and keep it at Eastville. To this end, only free transfers, generally of peripheral players, were likely to occur. Over the summer of 1948, Fred Chadwick moved to Street and Harold Cranfield to King’s Lynn, while Peter Sampson and Bill Roost arrived from local football. Fred Laing from Middlesborough and Newport County’s Harry Haddon also arrived on free transfers. When Ken Wookey was sold to Swansea Town in November, the £1,000 transfer fee was put into the players’ benefit fund. Manager Brough Fletcher was continuing to build the side which his successor Bert Tann was to lead into Division Two. Fifth place in Division Three (South) was a good indication that the raising of standards was under way at Eastville. Fletcher’s side was becoming more consistent both in appearance and in results. Defensive players Harry Bamford, Geoff Fox, Wally McArthur and Ray Warren were all ever-presents, while a further four players missed just one league game each. The side still, however, lacked a prolific goalscorer to partner the ever-improving Vic Lambden. The imminent arrival on the scene of Geoff Bradford was to have a profound effect on Rovers’ on-field success. Preparation for the new season included a two-match visit to the Netherlands. Rovers lost 1-0 to NEC Nijmegen and beat Racing Club Haarlem 4-2, thanks to two goals from Lambden and one apiece from Barry Watkins and Maurice Lockier. However well-prepared the side may have appeared, there was a heavy defeat on the opening day of the season, as Ipswich Town crushed Rovers 6-1 at Eastville. Strangely, this was a third consecutive league fixture against the Suffolk club, yet memories of the four-goal win at Portman Road in May were cast aside as Rovers collapsed to a then club record home league defeat. Sampson, making his club début and on his way to 339 league matches for the Eastville side, and goalkeeper Harry Liley did not play again in the league that season, while Ken Wookey was playing his final game for Rovers. Bill Jennings and John Dempsey scored twice each for Ipswich, who scored sixteen goals in their first three league games but finished the season below Rovers in the Third Division (South) table. After the opening four games, Rovers were to suffer only one heavy defeat, a 5-0 mauling at Swansea Town where the future Welsh international Frank Scrine scored a hat-trick and twenty-eight-year-old Roy Paul, later the winner of 33 Welsh caps, also found his name on the score-sheet. Indeed, when Noel Kinsey scored twice and Ron Ashman once for Norwich City on December 4th, it was the final time that season that Rovers conceded three goals in a game. By then, Rovers had also crashed 4-1 at Notts County, whose £20,000 signing of Tommy Lawton had caused great concern over spiralling transfer prices. Lawton scored four times as County beat Ipswich Town 9-2 only twelve days later, but the bubble soon burst and Rovers completed the season six places above the Meadow Lane club. Thereafter, Rovers enjoyed a relatively trouble-free season. Only sixteen players were used in the final 41 league games of the 42-match season. The largest victory was 5-1 at Aldershot, George Petherbridge scoring twice, while Warren and the home side’s Tom Sinclair both scored from the penalty spot. Jimmy Morgan scored twice in a 4-0 victory over Bournemouth at Eastville. Bill Roost scored a couple of goals on his début, as Reading were beaten 4-1 at Eastville on Good Friday and another twenty-four hours later as Port Vale lost by the same score, Josser Watling adding a brace of goals. Three points were taken off Bristol City, a 3-1 win at Eastville being the fourth of sixth straight home victories after the disastrous opening game. The 1-1 draw with Swindon Town in October, where Lambden scored after fifty-six minutes for Rovers and Jimmy Bain from Maurice Owen’s pass fourteen minutes later for the Robins, ended a remarkable run, unparalleled in the club’s history, of 37 consecutive league matches without a draw. As is the nature of such records, Rovers proceeded to draw ten league games in the season, including four in succession in the spring. Three of these ten draws were secured through Ray Warren penalty kicks. He scored from the penalty spot in both of the last two games, the latter past his future Rovers team-mate Bert Hoyle at Exeter City, to end the season with a club record of seven successful penalties in a season. This match at Exeter was watched by a crowd of 7,000, the lowest at a Rovers game all season. The lowest attendance at a game played at Eastville was the 11,147 who saw the 2-0 defeat from a header in each half from Tom Sinclair crosses, at the hands of Aldershot in April. Bearing in mind that Rovers did not attract a five-figure home crowd at all during the relatively successful years between April 1985 and December 1999, much can be made of the club’s loyal support in the post-war period. For the third year in succession, the size of crowds had risen, heralding the golden years of the 1950s. In 1948-49 the average attendance for a league game at Eastville was 17,539, the sixth highest in the division, a figure due to increase to the club’s seasonal best of 24,662 in 1953-54. Two prolific goalscorers were able to contribute to the 51 league goals conceded, the fewest since 1933-34. Guido Roffi, Ynysbwl-born of Italian descent, scored for Newport County against Rovers at Somerton Park for the first of two consecutive seasons. For the third year in succession, Bristol City’s Don Clark scored in both league fixtures against Rovers. Although he scored in each of the first six post-war derby matches and remains the only player to score a league hat-trick for the Robins in these games, his total of nine goals against Rovers still lags behind the figure of twelve goals in league local derbies scored by the prolific John Atyeo. Rovers did, however, beat Bristol City in September, their first league victory over the old rivals since Christmas 1937. A huge crowd at Eastville saw Jackie Pitt and McArthur in fine form for Rovers. After twenty-five minutes, feeding off Petherbridge, Lambden beat the veteran Dennis Roberts and drove past George Marks. Five minutes later, Rovers were two goals ahead when Watling volleyed home from fifteen yards. Just six minutes after half-time, Lambden’s through ball sent Petherbridge through to secure a victory which was straightforward, despite Clark’s headed reply from a John Davies cross five minutes from time. Ipswich Town, having inflicted a heavy defeat on Rovers, featured prominently in the season. Rovers, in white shirts and blue shorts, won 1-0 at Portman Road in December, Jimmy Morgan scoring after sixty-five minutes from a Petherbridge cross. Ipswich fielded in this game a forty-year-old in the shape of Ossie Parry, who had first played against Rovers in league action as long ago as August 1932, while on Crystal Palace’s books. Only seven older players have ever appeared in the league against Rovers. Also in the Ipswich side was the former Rovers centre-half Matt O’Mahony. In September he had scored an own goal for Notts County, a bizarre companion for the own goal he had conceded while playing in Rovers’ colours against Notts County in December 1937. There was a sharp exit from the FA Cup at Walsall, where home forwards Arthur Aldred and Phil Chapman scored as Rovers lost 2-1. This enabled Rovers to arrange a friendly with Newcastle United on Fourth Round day in January, a precursor to the epic FA Cup-tie two seasons later. Sadly for the crowd of 25,855, this game was abandoned because of fog just seven minutes after half-time with the score 1-1, Petherbridge having scored for the Pirates. Goals from Lambden, the club’s top scorer in the league with thirteen, and Morgan enabled Rovers to retain the Gloucestershire Cup. Rovers won the White Hart Cup in defeating Bridgwater in May 1949, their visit as the first Football League side on the ground drawing a 5,000 attendance, and also played a Berkeley and District XI as well as Cadbury Heath for the Frank Loader Fund.
1949-50
One of the major turning-points in the history of Bristol Rovers was the appointment of Bertram James Tann as manager early in January 1950. The new manager arrived on the personal recommendation of Sir Stanley Rous (1895-1986) and also of Cliff Lloyd (1913-73), later the secretary of the Professional Footballers’ Association and once a Rovers reserves player. Tann, a charismatic forty-five-year-old Londoner, who had played professional football with Charlton Athletic, breathed new life into Brough Fletcher’s side. He forged close working links with the local community through schools and organisations and established pre-season training camps at Uphill, Weston-super-Mare. His innovative approach even led to an appearance on the quiz show, “The £1,000 Word”, on the first day –14th January 1958- that the channel destined to become ITV television was on the air. His eighteen years as manager were to see Rovers reach two FA Cup quarter-finals as well as the distant dreamland of Division Two. In addition, his revival of Rovers’ fortunes helped distract some of the attention away from mounting dilemmas off the field. Over the summer of 1949, Fletcher was once again unable to break away from the board’s “no buy, no sell” policy. This was a restriction which would both restrict Tann but also enable him to build a Rovers side capable of achieving success. Of six new arrivals, only Frank McCourt could claim to be a regular in Rovers’ side, although Tony James, a former Brighton inside-left, contributed five league goals. Unable to sell, Rovers lost just two players through the close season, both to Trowbridge Town. Harry Haddon was to score over 200 goals and spend seven years as manager at the Western League club, while Fred Laing left after one season to work at Butlins Holiday Camp in Ayr. Bert Hawkins (1923-2002), who had never made Rovers’ first-team, left over the close season and played for Bristol City, West Ham United and Queen’s Park Rangers in the Football League. Over the summer of 1949 more than £250,000 had been spent on pitch improvements and concrete terracing at Eastville, this increasing the terracing capacity from 6,000 to an unlikely 27,000. The oft-seen photograph of Bill Roost standing up to the Ipswich Town goalkeeper, Tom Brown, epitomises in many respects the Rovers of the later Fletcher era. His two goals in that game and two more against Leyton Orient in December brought rare convincing wins, but early season form was largely disappointing. Eight victories and twelve defeats prior to New Year did not inspire confidence. Some young talent had been blooded, most notably Geoff Bradford, who played in depressing defeats at Crystal Palace and at home to Watford. Generally, however, the club was waiting for the major input Tann was to contribute. By the turn of the year, Rovers were out of the FA Cup, falling to a nineteenth-minute Maurice Owen goal at Swindon Town. The heaviest defeat had been 4-0 at Carrow Road, where Les Eyre scored twice for Norwich City. Rovers also conceded three goals in a game on four occasions in an early-season fortnight. Trips to Ipswich Town and Southend United both ended in 3-1 defeats, while both Notts County and Bristol City scored three times at Eastville. County’s scorers were the England international Tommy Lawton, who scored twice, and outside-left Tom Johnston, while City’s victory was a demoralising blow for which Rovers were to seek ample revenge in January. This local derby had seen entertainment form the band of the Coldstream Guards, conducted by Captain FJ Harris and with permission from Colonel EH Goldbourn, the commanding officer. Rovers were due to meet Port Vale at Eastville on 10th December, a game which was put back seven days as Vale were obliged to fulfil an FA Cup-tie on that day. Only 9,890 were present on the final Saturday before Christmas Eve as goals from George Petherbridge and Josser Watling earned Rovers a 2-1 victory. For the blank Saturday, a friendly was hastily arranged, with Millwall the visitors to Eastville. Rovers were a goal up through Jimmy Morgan after only five minutes, before succumbing to defeat before a crowd of 4,613. The final game of the Fletcher era was a tepid 1-1 draw at home to Southend United. Bill Roost, Rovers’ seasonal top scorer with thirteen league goals, was the home side’s scorer, following a ninth-minute run and cross from Watling, with Albert Wakefield, who had scored the Shrimpers’ second of three first-half goals against Rovers in September, again getting his name on the score-sheet, this time ten minutes after half-time. On 2nd January, Fletcher was dismissed and his assistant trainer Dick Mann, with the club since November 1945, followed on 31st January. Although the decision had been a unanimous one, it provoked a rift between directors, which was to plague Rovers for a number of months. Fletcher himself was to spend just one brief spell in football after leaving Eastville, joining Walsall as manager in 1952; he settled in Bristol, where he died in 1972. Tann’s task, as his replacement, was to convert a team of local players and free-transfer signings into a side capable of holding its own in Division Three (South) and subsequently in Division Two. His first game in charge saw Rovers gain ample revenge for September’s defeat by beating Bristol City 2-1 before a crowd of 33,697 at Ashton Gate. The combination of the big occasion and the feelgood factor as the new decade opened helped Tann’s period as manager to start in the most positive manner possible. Tann certainly inherited very settled defensive and half-back lines. Harry Bamford and Geoff Fox continued to be models of reliability at full-back, with Fox and centre-half Ray Warren ever-presents and right-half Jackie Pitt missing only two games. However, no forward appeared in more games than Roost, whose 28 appearances in 42 league matches made him stand out in attack. There was obviously work to be done in this regard and Geoff Bradford was recalled in February, scoring the opening goal in a 2-0 victory at Watford, the first of a club record 242 in the league. Eleven wins in the first nineteen league games under Bert Tann enabled Rovers to finish in ninth place, a respectable finish to the league season. The largest win, 5-1 at home to Norwich City in April, was achieved through five separate goalscorers and Rovers bizarrely completed the season without drawing any away games. However, developments off the field were drawing attention away from the club’s performances. Five directors, Bert Hoare, Jim Bissicks (1889-1966), Eric Lloyd, George Humphreys junior and Ernest Smith were distancing themselves from the three with interests in the greyhound company, Con Stevens, John Hare and Lew Champeny (1898-1953). A number of disagreements, notably the role of Rovers at Eastville and the knock-on effects of the “no buy, no sell” policy, dropped on 1st February, had been fuelled by poor on-field performances. The appointment of a new manager had brought these points to a head. Although Tann’s side was now achieving more positive results, the situation with the board of directors continued to deteriorate. The spring of 1950 witnessed two key developments in the saga. The chairman and vice-chairman, Stevens and Hare, in line with their interests regarding the Bristol Greyhound Racing Association, were relieved of their positions on 21st March. The Greyhound Company had hitherto handled Rovers’ accounts and this task was now taken on by club secretary John Gummow. On 22nd March Lloyd became chairman with Hoare as his deputy. In a separate development, an FA Commission met in Bristol on the final day of the month and subsequently fined Rovers £250 after examining the club’s books. The greyhound company was instructed to dispose of its controlling interest in the football club and the former secretary, Charles Ferrari, was banned from football management. As the season drew to a close, the situation appeared to be resolved. In order to lose its controlling interest, the greyhound company sold 400 shares of £1 each which Mr Hare held as their representative in his capacity as a private individual. In anticipation that the “non-greyhound” directors were likely to be removed from office, the directors secured the appointment of three new board members. Hampden Alpass, a figure already well-respected in football and cricket circles, Syd Gamlin and Dr Matt Nicholson, gave no promises or undertakings and were duly elected on 18th May, Alpass as chairman. Sure enough, Jim Bissicks disposed of enough shares to disqualify him from the board, while Hoare, Lloyd, Humphreys and Smith were removed through a poll vote at a shareholders’ meeting eight days later. Normal boardroom relations gradually returned, but the question of Rovers’ relationship with the greyhound company continued unabated until the club’s departure from Eastville in 1986. There was Rovers interest in the FA Cup Final, for a former Eastville favourite, Phil Taylor, was in the Liverpool side beaten 2-0 by Arsenal. On a more parochial level, Rovers’ season was completed by defeat in the Gloucestershire Cup Final to a couple of first-half goals from Bristol City’s Sid Williams. The attendance of 16,560 brought gate receipts of £1,150 and represents the highest crowd ever to watch a Gloucestershire Cup-tie at Ashton Gate. Blackburn Rovers attracted a crowd of 13,349 to Eastville for a January friendly in which Tony James and George Petherbridge scored twice apiece. On 31st July 1950 Rovers reported an annual profit of £2,574.
1950's
1950-51
Whilst Rovers’ financial affairs continued to come under scrutiny, the side’s performances on the field under manager Bert Tann still impressed. Sixth place in Division Three (South) was a fine end-of-season position and a first-ever FA Cup quarter-final, through a cup run which earned the club £5,754, was a major achievement. Rovers’ exploits fired the imagination of the success-starved Bristol sporting public. During the summer of 1950, the board had waived its “no buy, no sell” doctrine to allow two transfers to take place. Goalkeeper Bert Hoyle was signed from Exeter City for £350, while Frank McCourt was sold for £2,000 to Manchester City, where he won six Northern Ireland caps. Len Hodges moved on a free transfer to Swansea Town, while veteran wing-half Wally McArthur retired to become assistant trainer. This season is, of course, primarily remembered for the scintillating FA Cup run which took the club further in the competition than ever before. It was slow in starting, for Rovers required three games to dispose of obdurate non-league Llanelli in the first round. Rovers and Llanelli each played in eleven FA Cup matches in 1950-51, more than any other competing club. The Welsh side boasted Jock Stein, later an influential international manager with Scotland, at centre-half, while their right-half Len Emmanuel was well known to the Eastville crowd. Once Rovers had won the second replay 3-1 at Ninian Park, they still required three more games before disposing of Gillingham 2-1 in appalling weather at White Hart Lane with Ray Warren converting a penalty five minutes from time. The Gills were enjoying their first season back in the Football League after failing to be re-elected in 1938. Only 10,000, Rovers’ lowest home crowd of the season, saw the third round clash with Aldershot. Once Vic Lambden had given Rovers the lead after only eight seconds, it was plain sailing and the 5-1 victory incorporated a Lambden hat-trick. Over 26,000 saw Rovers win at Second Division Luton Town in the next round, George Petherbridge scoring the winning goal. Cup fever gripped Bristol and a new ground record of 31,660, producing receipts of £2,600, gathered at Eastville for the visit of Hull City. The Second Division visitors fielded the veteran former England international Raich Carter and the future England manager Don Revie as their inside-forwards, but two goals from Josser Watling helped give Rovers a convincing 3-0 victory and a place in the quarter-finals for the first time in the club’s history. Watling’s first followed a goalmouth scramble after twenty-six minutes and his second, ten minutes after half-time, crashed in off the crossbar. A quarter of an hour from time, victory was sealed when Roost set up Lambden for the third. On 24th February 1951 Rovers ground out a goalless draw with Newcastle United in the FA Cup quarter-final at St James’ Park. The attendance at this game, 62,787, which produced £7,561 in gate receipts, remains the largest ever at a football match involving Bristol Rovers. Around 5,000 Rovers supporters had witnessed this momentous game, but some 100,000 queued at Eastville two days later for tickets for the Wednesday afternoon replay. A line of policemen was deployed to keep about 50,000 people out of Eastville car park as soon as it became evident how over-subscribed the game had become, while His Majesty’s Cinema was turned into a medical treatment station. As it was, a number of businesses shut, supporters tuned in to live wireless commentary and 30,074 crammed into Eastville for the game itself. Fifteen minutes in, amid scenes of incredulous delight, Geoff Bradford scored a fine opportunist goal to give Rovers a surprise lead, prompting strains of the crowd’s favourite song “Goodnight Irene” to echo around the ground. By half-time, however, goals from Ernie Taylor, whose shot deflected in off Geoff Fox, Charlie Crowe and the legendary Jackie Milburn gave the Magpies victory, despite a spirited second-half Rovers revival. Newcastle United went on to win the Cup, the same eleven players who had faced Rovers twice in four days defeating Blackpool at Wembley. Off the field, Rovers were subjected to a lengthy Board of Trade enquiry under Section 164 of the Companies Act of 1948 into the club’s affairs since 1932, published as a report in 1951. This document gives evidence of investigation into serious allegations regarding the relationship between the football club and greyhound companies. In particular, the Modification of the 1932 lease in January 1934 and the subsequent hasty sale of Eastville to the greyhound company came in for close scrutiny. Inspectors interviewed Sir Stanley Rous, the Secretary of the Football Association and Isidore Kerman, the chairman of the British Greyhound Racing Association, in London on 14th September 1950. There was also criticism concerning a written report by Hampden Alpass and John Hare, submitted at a board meeting on 17th August 1950, into Rovers’ rights as tenants at Eastville. It was clear that no such report had been requested and Syd Gamlin expressed astonishment that this had taken place secretly. Gamlin wished for it to be put on record that “he considered it improper for this to have taken place without a definite resolution by the Board” (Board of Trade report, 1951, P20, Section IV ii). As previously in 1940, rash decisions by individual directors had serious repercussions for the club. The Board of Trade enquiry found sufficient irregularities for the football and greyhound companies to be separated and Gamlin was removed from the board on 25th April 1951. Rovers claimed the Greyhound Company owed them £844, but the auditors declared that, of a total of £2,675 payable on work to the stadium, including turnstiles, plumbing and levelling of the car park, Rovers should pay £2,111. Throughout the 1950-51 season, one key to Rovers’ success was their ability to retain a consistent side. Apart from half a dozen players who appeared in no more than seven games each, Rovers relied on just twelve relatively regular players. Goalkeeper Bert Hoyle, half-backs Ray Warren and Peter Sampson and top scorer Vic Lambden, the first post-war Rovers player to reach twenty league goals for the season, played in all 58 league, FA Cup and Gloucestershire Cup games. A settled defence was completed by full-backs Harry Bamford and Geoff Fox and right-half Jackie Pitt, who between them, missed just nine league games all season. In the forward line, Geoff Bradford and Bill Roost ably supported Lambden, with Petherbridge, Watling and Roost competing for the remaining places. Jack Weare, once a fixture in the Rovers goal, could not break into the side and was allowed to join Swansea Town in March 1951. In completing the season in sixth place, Rovers fell back on an excellent autumnal run of nine wins and three draws. Following defeat at Norwich City in September, the side was unbeaten until going down to the veteran Fred Kurz’s fifteen-yard drive after half an hour at Crystal Palace in January. One November victory was over Orient, for whom the future Rovers left-half “Chic” Cairney was making his first league appearance. Eastville was developing into a stronghold, where Rovers won thirteen and drew three of their first sixteen home league matches. Indeed, it was the penultimate league game before Rovers’ proud unbeaten home record finally fell to runaway champions Nottingham Forest. Between November 1949 and April 1953 only five home league games out of 81 were lost. There were five-figure crowds at every home match in 1950-51 at an average of 17,763, with the highest at a league game being the 31,518 that saw Lambden’s double strike defeat Bristol City in December. With Colchester United newly elected to the Football League, Rovers had the honour of being the first visitors to Layer Road, where they fought out a goalless draw. It was the same result on Christmas Day, when Rovers and Port Vale met in a league fixture played at Stoke City’s Victoria Ground. Swindon Town were beaten 2-1 after Jimmy Bain’s goal had put the Robins in front. The home game with Norwich City in February was abandoned after an hour with the pitch waterlogged, after a Lambden brace had put Rovers 2-1 ahead. When it was replayed in April, Rovers overcame a half-time deficit to claim a point in an exciting 3-3 draw, thanks to second-half goals from Lambden and Bradford. Rovers’ final five games were all at home, Nottingham Forest, through first-half headers from Johnny Love and Tom Johnson, being the only away side to win. For the home draw with Ipswich Town in March, when Peter Sampson scored his first goal for the club, Rovers faced their third oldest League opponent in history, goalkeeper, Mick Burns, at forty-two years 239 days. A familiar face came back to haunt Rovers in January, for the scorer of Torquay United’s twentieth-minute goal at Eastville in a 1-1 draw was Wilf Whitfield, who had made his Rovers début in November 1938 and had last scored on that ground in league football almost twelve years earlier. On 4th November, Plymouth Argyle arrived at Eastville with an accordion player, who performed contemporary songs around the edge of the pitch prior to the start of the match. One of these songs was the Huddie William “Lead Belly” Ledbetter record “Goodnight Irene”, an old mixed-race song emanating from 1880s Cincinnati, Ohio and first recorded in July 1933, sung by Argyle supporters by dint of the fact that The Weavers, featuring Pete Seeger (1919-2014), had in 1951 released their own version. As Argyle took a first-half lead, their supporters used the song to taunt home fans. Three Rovers goals in eight second-half minutes provoked a rendition of “Goodnight Argyle” and the song soon caught on. When Rovers played at Newcastle in the FA Cup quarter-final, the Magpies bowed to pressure and played the Jo Stafford rendition of the song during the pre-match build-up. Lead Belly, born on a plantation near Mooringsport in Louisiana on 20th January 1888, had died in New York on 6th December 1949, so his fame as the self-professed “king of all twelve-string guitar players” was almost entirely posthumous. “The murderous old minstrel Lead Belly” (Time magazine, 14.08.1950), who had spent time in jail for homicide, claimed to have learned “Goodnight Irene” in 1918 from his uncle Terrell Ledbetter, who had encouraged his early musical interest. ‘(Lead Belly’s) arms were like big stove pipes, his face was powerful and he picked the twelve-string guitar’ (Woody Guthrie). As Rovers’ FA Cup run gained momentum, “Goodnight Irene” had been swiftly adopted as a club anthem, sung by generations of Rovers supporters ever since. All in all, 1950-51 was a season to offer encouragement to Bristol Rovers. A consistent and efficient team was riding high in Division Three (South) and had reached the FA Cup quarter-finals. Manager Bert Tann had taken on successfully the task of maintaining Rovers’ post-war promotion push. Despite the traumas of the Board of Trade enquiry, financial irregularities appeared to be a thing of the past as the club sailed into less choppy waters. The considerable support at Eastville was looking forward to many enjoyable years ahead. They were not to be disappointed.
1951-52
On the back of FA Cup success, Rovers built a side which would fulfil its potential in the spring of 1953. The advantage of hindsight is, of course, the wisdom to see what a springboard the 1951-52 season gave to the championship-winning side. Harry Liley, the veteran goalkeeper, had joined Bath City, while Howard Radford and Andy Micklewright were the only signings to make a sizeable impact on Rovers’ promotion push. Radford was initially Bert Hoyle’s understudy, but became a key ingredient in Rovers’ Second Division side, playing in the league team until 1962. Micklewright played sporadically in this and the promotion season, scoring from inside-right in the large win over Walsall in April 1952. Harry Bamford retained his place in the side following his powerful defensive play during the summer Football Association tour of Australia, in the course of which he had scored three goals. Following an inspection by a team from St Ives Research Centre, Bingley, on 6th February 1951, the pitch at Eastville was treated with nitro-chalk at the rate of half an ounce per square yard to counteract the acidity of the turf and allow for an improved playing surface in 1951-52. Football was on the up in Bristol, with Bristol City also building a side that would reach Division Two. In addition to defeating First Division Preston North End in the FA Cup, Rovers scored an unprecedented and still unequalled sixty goals at home in league matches this season. Only three times in the club’s history has a Rovers team scored five goals in two consecutive league games and two of these instances took place in 1951-52. Rovers scored a club record 22 league goals in the calendar month of April, more even than the twenty of October 1982. With both professional clubs performing well in an era of high attendances, it is little surprise that the derby at Eastville in January drew the highest crowd at any game at any Third Division (South) ground that season. The 34,612 constituted a new ground record, since bettered only once and saw goals from Geoff Bradford and George Petherbridge give Rovers a 2-0 victory. The season began slowly for Rovers. Single-goal defeats at Walsall, to a Hugh Evans header after just 26 minutes, and at home to Watford were interspersed with draws. When Shrewsbury Town visited Eastville in August, Harold Robbins became the first opponent for over twenty years to score a league hat-trick on that ground, but Rovers still scrambled a 3-3 draw. Tommy Docherty, a namesake of the highly successful manager, scored Norwich City’s goal at Eastville to earn a draw, the second of three consecutive seasons he scored against Rovers. Although Rovers had, in forty-eight hours in September, beaten Aldershot 5-1 and Crystal Palace 4-0, Vic Lambden scoring twice in each game, there was little sign of the success to come. A draw at Millwall on 10th November was the seventh consecutive league game without a win and left Rovers with just five victories in their opening seventeen matches. Manager Bert Tann was not one to panic and it is no coincidence that Rovers fielded an unchanged side for the following game. The side had not won at home for over two months, but consecutive five-goal victories were to turn the season on its head. With a predominantly Bristol-born and Rovers-bred line-up, the club was to enjoy a hugely successful eighteen months which took the club to previously unattained heights. In front of the hugely popular Bert Hoyle, whom fans showered with oranges after he rashly admitted his fondness for them, was the ever-reliable pairing of Harry Bamford and Geoff Fox. It is unlikely that Rovers will ever again find such a dependable full-back partnership. Captain Ray Warren, at centre-half, was flanked by Jackie Pitt and Peter Sampson. Crucially, Fox, Pitt and Sampson were ever-presents in 1951-52 and the entire back five appeared in every game in the championship season. Also an ever-present was George Petherbridge, whose dazzling right-wing skills were switched to the left the following year. Inside-forwards Bill Roost and Barrie Meyer made significant contributions to the side in both seasons. Josser Watling played well but did not score and his replacement, John McIlvenny, was to be the only major change. Undeniably, the fact that Rovers could boast two hugely prolific goalscorers was a key factor in the side’s success. Lambden had proved his pedigree, but continued in fine style. His four goals against Colchester United made him the only player to have scored so many times twice in the league for Rovers. His club-record 29 league goals in 1951-52 were followed by 24 more the following year when, as an ever-present, he helped Rovers towards great success. Bradford, on the other hand, was just beginning to prove his worth and his 26 league goals, including ten in the final eight games, serves as a prelude to his 33 in 1952-53. Indeed, goalscoring was not generally a problem to Rovers, who scored 89 in finishing seventh in Division Three (South). The visit of Brighton on 17th November saw Lambden and Bradford on the score-sheet in a 5-0 win. In the very next game, Petherbridge scored four times and became the sixth Rovers player to achieve this feat in the league, as Rovers defeated Torquay United by the same score-line. He opened the scoring after four minutes and scored with a header and three right-footed shots. Rovers also beat Port Vale 4-1 and scored three times at both Aldershot and Watford, both Lambden and Bradford scoring in all these games, before again hitting a purple patch over Easter. Roost scored twice on Easter Saturday, and Lambden, Bradford and Petherbridge once each, as Gillingham were beaten 5-0. Two days later, Colchester United, who had that week beaten Rovers at Layer Road, were taken apart by a rampant Rovers forward line. Lambden opened the scoring in the first minute, completed his hat-trick after fifteen minutes and grabbed a fourth after half-time, with Bradford adding two more in a highly convincing 6-0 victory. That Rovers did not achieve greater success in 1951-52 must be put down to a lack of consistency. The autumnal run of seven matches without a win was followed by a run of three points in six games around February and two straight defeats after the Colchester game. After November, Rovers still lost at home to the top two sides, Plymouth Argyle and Reading. In February, the side even went two games without scoring. Despite scoring five or more goals in six home matches, Rovers finished fourteen points behind eventual champions Plymouth Argyle. There were some clear lessons to be learnt and Tann would ensure that all that was required would be done. Prior to the game at Brisbane Road on 6th February, Rovers and Leyton Orient observed a one-minute silence in memory of King George VI, who had died at Buckingham Palace the previous day. The match itself was very exciting with Geoff Bradford scoring twice for Rovers and Orient’s thirty-five-year-old left-half Jackie Deverall contributing an own goal as the sides shared six goals. Another player to share his goals was the ubiquitous Vic Lambden who, not content with the hatful he contributed, contrived to score for both sides in the 1-1 draw at Brighton in April. Only Jock Hamilton had managed previously to score at both ends and, of Rovers players, only Tim Parkin and Geoff Twentyman have repeated this feat since in league action. Lambden also scored in both games as Rovers saw off non-league FA Cup opposition in Kettering Town and Weymouth. The visit of the Dorset side attracted a crowd of 27,808, encouraged by the fact that the two previous league games at Eastville had finished 5-0 to Rovers. In the third round, Rovers drew the mighty Preston North End at home. Not only were the Lilywhites founder members of the league, but they were also able to field players of the calibre of Tommy Docherty and Charlie Wayman. On paper, at least, Rovers should not have been able to beat their illustrious opponents. Preston were to finish the season seventh in Division One, above FA Cup winners Newcastle United, but Rovers defeated them 2-0 with an efficient display. Before a 30,681 attendance, Bradford, with an angled first-half drive, and Lambden thirteen minutes from time, after goalkeeper Jim Gooch had saved his initial header, grabbed their customary goal apiece for a famous victory. In round four, Rovers stumbled at Southend United, losing 2-1, and the Gloucestershire Cup Final was lost to Bristol City in May by the same score-line.
1952-53
Comparisons between Rovers’ promotion seasons are perhaps an inevitability. In both 1952-53 and 1973-74, Rovers enjoyed a 27-match unbeaten run before suffering a very shaky patch. Whereas Don Megson’s side had a nine-point lead in 1974 and still did not win the championship, Bert Tann’s team almost let slip a ten-point margin over their nearest rivals. In April 1953, Rovers won only two points in a potentially disastrous run of six matches. The goal averages, 1.97 in 1973-74 and 2.02 in 1952-53 are also incredibly similar. Like the 1989-90 championship side, Rovers won 26 league games in 1952-53, then a club record; the 2006-07 campaign was entirely different. This was, however, the first time since elevation to the Football League in 1920 that Rovers had gained promotion and the first championship since the Southern League in 1904-05. One by one, many of Rovers’ fellow Third Division (South) founder members had sampled life in Division Two and now it was to be Rovers’ turn. Success was achieved through an ever-present back-five and the firepower of Geoff Bradford and Vic Lambden. Bradford’s 33 league goals, amazingly 24 of which were scored at Eastville, constituted a club record and went some way towards creating the legendary aura associated with his name to this day. It was typical of his season that he should score a hat-trick on the day promotion was finally secured. The one significant change in personnel was the addition of John McIlvenny from Cheltenham Town. Although he scored just twice, McIlvenny at outside-right, like George Petherbridge on the left, were instrumental in creating many of Rovers’ club record 92 league goals. Rovers began the season well with a run of four convincing victories early in September. Bradford and Lambden both scored in a 5-3 win at Walsall and a 3-1 home victory over Gillingham, whose scorer Jimmy Scarth was credited with a hat-trick in only two minutes in November, when the Gills defeated Leyton Orient 3-2. Bradford scored a hat-trick of right-foot shots in a 3-0 victory over Torquay United and Rovers won by the same score at Colchester United. After defeat at Millwall, Rovers embarked on a club record 27-match unbeaten run, after which the championship appeared won. This incredible run began with a 3-1 victory over Colchester United, where familiar goalscorers Lambden, Bradford and Petherbridge helped complete the double over the Essex club. It was to run from mid-September to the end of March. In October, Rovers had trailed 2-0 at Northampton Town before injury-time goals from Bradford and Bryan Bush had reclaimed an unlikely point. This was the spur for Rovers to set off on an extraordinary run of twelve consecutive league wins, from 18th October to 17th January. Not only is this run easily a club record, but it was also achieved in spectacular fashion. Rovers conceded just five goals in this run, yet scored seven against Brighton, to record the club’s largest league win at the time, five at Ipswich Town and four each past Gillingham and Reading. In every one of these twelve games, Bradford, Lambden or Bush got on the score-sheet. It was an awesome display of the capabilities of Tann’s side and one which no Rovers team is likely to repeat. In two separate matches in November, Rovers scored four goals in eighteen minutes. At home to Reading, McIlvenny’s fifteenth-minute goal was followed by further strikes from Bradford two minutes later and Lambden after 25 minutes. Warren’s penalty, incredibly his final goal for the club, preceded a goalless second-half. Two home games later, Rovers repeated the feat against Brighton. After Petherbridge’s eighteenth-minute opener, Rovers scored six second-half goals, a tally equalled only in the game at Reading in January 1999. Roost scored twice, after forty-eight and seventy minutes, either side of the predictable goals from Lambden on fifty-three minutes and Bradford seven minutes later. Petherbridge claimed his second goal with a quarter of an hour remaining, before the luckless Reg Fox put through his own goal two minutes from time. Thereafter, Lambden and Bradford scored twice each in a 4-1 victory over Aldershot and again when Coventry City were defeated 5-2. Rovers were involved in a six-goal draw at Brisbane Road for a second consecutive season and beat Ipswich Town 3-0 at Eastville in March in the twenty-seventh successive league game without defeat. After Reading, with goals from Ron Blackman and Tom Ritchie, had put paid to this proud record, Rovers proceeded to beat Bournemouth and Swindon Town. The former game followed a one-minute silence, as Queen Mary, the widow of King George V, had died four days earlier, and featured goals from Bryan Bush and Bournemouth’s Jack Cross, both of whom had also scored in the game at Dean Court in November. It seems implausible, but Rovers won just one of their final nine league games. One of these matches, a draw with Newport County, was remarkably the ninth consecutive visit to Somerton Park in which Rovers had conceded exactly two goals. County included the former Rovers forward, Doug Hayward, in their side and Bill Stroud, later father-in-law to Tony Pulis, scored one of their goals. This sole victory, however, was the 3-1 win at home to County which secured promotion to Division Two. With impeccable timing, Geoff Bradford, having established a new club seasonal record at Somerton Park, scored a majestic hat-trick to send Rovers up to the heady heights of Division Two. His first-minute sidefoot was followed by headers after forty and seventy minutes, whilst beleaguered County, who had at one stage equalised through George Beattie’s shot off the underside of the crossbar, lost goalkeeper Harry Fearnley with a broken collar-bone. After the victory over Newport County, club chairman Hampden Alpass addressed the ecstatic crowd of 29,451 from a microphone in the directors’ box: “my first feeling is one of gratitude to players, manager and staff. Being on top of the table since the middle of September has meant that every club has been out to beat us and every match has been like a cup-tie. The strain on the players has been terrific. Secondly, I have a feeling of pride that, after all these years, the club has succeeded in reaching the Second Division”. Alpass received the Championship Shield and thirteen medals at a Football League meeting held at the Café Royal in London on 13th June. The players split a £275 bonus between them for their achievements. No small part, of course, had been played by Bert Tann, whose dynamic approach to management had inspired Rovers. Supporters, thrilled by the 1950-51 Cup run and now promotion, seemed to view him with an awed reverence. Never before or since has one individual held such a magnetic sway over Bristol’s sporting public. This final success was achieved without the services of goalkeeper Bert Hoyle. Rovers contrived two goalless draws each with Bristol City and Exeter City and the Ashton Gate encounter drew a crowd of 35,372, the highest at any Third Division (South) ground that season. That evening, in Devon, Hoyle suffered serious injuries in a motor accident and his career with Rovers was sadly and abruptly ended. Howard Radford gamely took over in goal but, as the promotion push began to falter, Tann persuaded the directors to breach their “no buy, no sell” policy. Bob Anderson, signed from Crystal Palace, played in the final seven games and went on to appear in Bristol City’s Third Division (South) championship side of 1954-55. No other player has won two championships from the same division with two clubs from the same city. A first-minute goal from Roost proved decisive in an FA Cup first round replay against Leyton Orient, after Warren had missed a penalty in the original tie, and Lambden’s goal earned victory over Peterborough United at Layer Road. The previous two seasons’ FA Cup campaigns had earned Rovers plum draws and this was no exception. Rovers faced a third round tie at Huddersfield Town, who were promoted to Division One at the end of the season, and the task was made still tougher when goalkeeper Hoyle left the field injured and the versatile Lambden finished the game in goal. Ten-man Rovers lost respectably 2-0, to goals from Jim Watson and Jim Glazzard. In the Gloucestershire Cup Final, first-half goals from John Atyeo and Alec Eisentrager (1927-2017) gave Bristol City a 2-0 win, while Rovers drew a cricket game in September, scoring 75-5 in response to a Duke of Beaufort XI’s 164 all out. Tann’s projection of the club had much to do with the on-field success of 1952-53. The average attendance of 23,411 was the highest in the division and reflects the close affinity felt between the team and its supporters. A largely Bristol-raised side of local men, led by an eloquent and enthusiastic Londoner, had brought long-awaited success to a delighted public. Now the team of local heroes was to face the new and welcome challenge of Second Division football.
1953-54
The promised land had been reached. The fears of those who felt Bert Tann’s home-grown side would struggle in their inaugural season in Division Two were proved unfounded, as Rovers finished in ninth place, just twelve points behind the two promoted sides, Leicester City and Everton. Tann had nurtured the team spirit and commitment which had driven the club so far and was now developing it to create a high quality side. The golden years in the Bristol Rovers story were the days when this largely Bristol-born team came so close to that still elusive place in the top division. Rovers’ arrival in Division Two was announced with a hugely entertaining 4-4 draw with Fulham at Craven Cottage. In predictable fashion, Geoff Bradford opened the scoring after thirteen minutes and marked the occasion with a hat-trick while Geoff Fox, four minutes after half-time, scored only his second goal in over 200 appearances. Bobby Robson, later manager of England, scored the first two of Fulham’s three equalisers. Arthur Stevens, whose hat-trick put Rovers out of the FA Cup in 1948, and the future England forward Johnny Haynes, with only the second goal of his embryonic league career, scored once each before Bradford pulled Rovers level fifteen minutes from time. A crowd of 28,173 saw the first home game, when Doncaster Rovers spoiled the celebrations by winning through a solitary Eddie McMorran goal after sixty-six minutes from Len Graham’s defence-splitting pass, although Rovers won seventeen corners to Doncaster’s three. Rovers began the season with a side composed entirely of players who had helped the club to the Division Three (South) championship. The star attraction, once again, was the phenomenal goalscorer Geoff Bradford. He followed up his club record 33 league goals in 1952-53 with 21 goals in only eighteen league appearances. Quite what Rovers might have achieved if he had remained injury-free remains a moot point, for a career-threatening leg injury, suffered after he had scored the opening goal at Plymouth Argyle in November, was to rule him out for almost six months. In true heroic fashion, he made a dramatic comeback in the final match of the season, his knee heavily strapped, and scored a hat-trick as Rovers defeated Stoke City 3-2 at Eastville, his fifth hat-trick of the season. After Rovers had trailed 2-1, two dramatic Bradford headers inside sixty seconds brought an unlikely victory. Although Rovers as a team scored five hat-tricks in 1926-27, Bradford’s feat is a clear club record. Bradford’s injury, coupled with the winding-down of Vic Lambden’s long career - he scored just twice this season -, meant Rovers had to search for adequate free-transfer replacements. Three of the players given first-team opportunities were to play a significant role over the next few years. Peter Hooper was to enthral Rovers supporters for a decade with his close control and powerful shot. Remarkably, he had apparently played for Kenya against Uganda in 1951 whilst on National Service, but it was at Eastville, with his 35-yard drives and over 100 league goals for Rovers, that the young Devonian was to make his mark. Frank Allcock appeared in 59 league games for Rovers before a knee injury ended his career. The player who made the biggest immediate impact, however, was Paddy Hale, who was in effect Bradford’s deputy. Hale’s goalscoring record for Rovers is certainly unorthodox. In nineteen league appearances in 1953-54, he scored twelve times, never more than one per game, to finish as the club’s second-highest scorer. Thereafter, he appeared predominantly as centre-half and never scored again in over 100 further league matches, before joining Bath City in 1959. On his début, Hale, the recalled John McIlvenny and Gloucestershire cricketer Barrie Meyer all scored as Rovers defeated eventual champions Leicester City 3-0 at Eastville, in one of the highlights of this first season in Division Two. Rovers recorded a number of comfortable wins early in the season. Bradford scored all the goals as Rovers won 3-0 at Brentford, while Derby County were defeated by the same score. Bill Roost, Josser Watling and Bradford all scored in consecutive games, as Rovers won 5-1 at Notts County and 4-2 at home to Hull City. Bradford’s hat-trick at Meadow Lane was the start of a personal run of eleven goals in seven games prior to his injury. After November, Rovers were to score three times in a match only in the home games with Plymouth Argyle, when Alfie Biggs, a name for Rovers’ future, scored his first goal for the club, and Stoke City. October was a month for draws, with Rovers registering three 3-3 draws in four weeks. First, Rovers went to Elland Road to face a Leeds United side deprived of the league’s top scorer, John Charles. Bob Forrest scored a hat-trick, but two Bradford goals earned Rovers a draw. The roles were reversed three weeks later, when Bradford scored an Eastville hat-trick against Luton Town, but did not finish on the winning side. The third six-goal draw was the one in which the club’s top scorer was injured on 7th November. Rovers also drew 1-1 at home to Birmingham City in October, Bradford scoring past international goalkeeper Gil Merrick, while Ted Purdon scored against his future club. The attendance broke the ground record and remains, at 35,614, the largest ever at a home league game. It was also the highest at any Rovers game all season, home or away, marginally ahead of the 34,015 at the goalless draw with Everton three days after Christmas. For six consecutive years, 1952-53 to 1957-58, the club’s average home crowd topped 20,000 and, in a mood of optimism and enthusiasm, the seasonal average of 24,662 in 1953-54 remains the highest in Rovers’ league history. Urged on by large crowds at home, Rovers produced several notable victories. Away from home, there were not many bad defeats, though Everton were 4-0 winners on Christmas Day, with David Hickson scoring twice before a 27,484 crowd in Rovers’ only visit in league football to Goodison Park. A first-ever league visit to Boothferry Park saw Rovers lose 4-1 to Hull City in April, with Sid Gerrie scoring three times and Viggo Jensen, the holder of fifteen full Danish caps, converting a penalty. What is remarkable about a Rovers side deprived of their key goalscorer, is the number of low-scoring results through the winter and spring. In a run of twelve league games between December and early April, five were 1-1 draws and two goalless, while four others featured just one goal each. It was a series of mid-table results, but the lack of a consistent goalscorer was abundantly clear. Promotion to a higher division not only brought a host of new opponents, particularly northern clubs, but also meant Rovers faced a number of high-profile players. Four well-known future managers were in the West Ham United side that drew 2-2 at Eastville in September. Dave Sexton, a goalscorer, Frank O’Farrell and Noel Cantwell were joined in the Hammers’ line-up by Malcolm Allison, for the first of eight league appearances against the side he was to manage in 1992-93. In April, a Jack Froggatt header fifteen minutes from time earned the points for a Leicester City side which also included Stan Milburn, Derek Hines and the Football League’s all-time top goalscorer, Arthur Rowley. Mel Charles, the experienced Welsh international, scored against Rovers in both meetings with Swansea Town, who also fielded both Len and Ivor Allchurch in the game at the Vetch Field on Easter Saturday. These new experiences were invaluable to the East Bristol boys as their team established itself in Division Two. Ultimately, the demise of the Bradford-Lambden partnership and lack of adequate replacements hindered Rovers’ chances of progressing above mid-table. However, ninth place in this new division was a major achievement upon which to build. Whilst the stability of the side remained relatively intact, it is worth noting that no individual player was an ever-present. The back five, each one a permanent fixture in front of the goalkeeper in the championship season, all missed sporadic games for a variety of reasons. There was no success in the FA Cup where, for a second time inside a month, Blackburn Rovers won at Eastville. Eddie Quigley, once Britain’s most expensive footballer, scored the only goal with a low, hard drive after fifteen minutes. The Gloucestershire Cup Final was drawn 2-2 with Bristol City, Rovers being indebted, in Bradford’s absence, to the veteran club captain Ray Warren’s only goal of the season.
1954-55
The bubble was certainly not about to burst. Rovers had spent 26 seasons trying to get into Division Two and were now proving they could stay there. Manager Bert Tann had instilled a confidence and sense of belonging into this homely club and on-field performances indicated the side was capable of holding its own. Even an uncharacteristic late-season lean spell from the prolific Geoff Bradford and humiliating defeats at Rotherham United and Blackburn Rovers, could not dent the infectious enthusiasm at the club. Those who feared a decline was setting in and Rovers were heading back to Division Three (South) were to be proved wrong as season 1955-56 found the club just four points away from promotion to Division One. Consistency on the field was mirrored in the large crowds which flocked to Eastville every matchday. With an average home crowd of 23,116, Rovers were the third best supported Division Two side, behind Liverpool and Blackburn Rovers. For a third consecutive season, the average was not only above 20,000, but also higher than that at Bristol City, who were Division Three (South) champions. A new ground record of 35,921 in January saw Rovers defeat First Division Portsmouth 2-1 in the FA Cup third round, with Bradford and Bill Roost scoring past the Northern Ireland international goalkeeper Norman Uprichard to record a famous victory. This ground record did not even see out the month. In round four, Chelsea, league champions that season for the only time in that club’s history, drew a crowd of 35,972 to Eastville where, the former Rovers schoolboy, Roy Bentley, in fine form, Chelsea were able to win 3-1. One Rovers supporter wrote from Parkhurst Prison on the Isle of Wight to request a ticket, so confident was he of attending the game and then, with release and ticket safely secured, he wrote again to ask for a second ticket, this time for the prison governor. Even the Gloucestershire Cup Final was watched by its highest ever crowd, home or away. 20,097 saw Rovers win 2-1 at Eastville, with Bristol City’s Ernie Peacock deflecting the winner into his own net from Biggs’ right-wing cross seven minutes after half-time. Rovers continued to boast a strong defence, with Howard Radford in goal. Right-back Harry Bamford was supported initially by Geoff Fox, who played his 274th and final league game for Rovers in April, and from November by Frank Allcock. Pitt, Warren and Sampson remained the usual half-back line, though Jimmy Anderson, a signing from army football, enjoyed an extended run in the side at left-half. Of the forwards, only Bradford, Roost and Petherbridge enjoyed any consistency in a side again lacking an ever-present. Young Peter Hooper offered glimpses of his potential and Barrie Meyer, Alfie Biggs, Paddy Hale, John McIlvenny and Josser Watling all appeared in the forward line. Vic Lambden, given one final run in the side, contributed seven goals late in the season. He scored the only goal of the game after sixty-five minutes at Plymouth Argyle on Easter Monday, from Geoff Bradford’s through pass, in what proved to be his final appearance for the side. In almost a decade, he had scored 117 times in 269 league matches and remains the fourth highest goalscorer in Rovers’ Football League history. He subsequently joined Trowbridge Town, where he scored over 150 goals in six highly successful seasons in the Western League. As one long career ended, so too did that of Bryan Bush, whose final appearance in a Rovers shirt came in the débâcle at Blackburn Rovers. One new face, though, was Dai Ward, who played at inside-left against Nottingham Forest in April, and was to give Rovers many years of valuable service. Over the summer of 1954, William Cowlin and son had erected new gates and railings at a cost of £203 and a stand season ticket for 1954-55 cost six guineas. The season started in a frenzy of goalscoring from Geoff Bradford. He scored the only goal against Port Vale and was to score nineteen goals in fourteen league games by 23rd October. Ultimately, he was easily the club’s top scorer with 26 Second Division goals. In the first week of September, he scored two hat-tricks in 48 hours, first in a 4-1 home victory over Derby County and secondly as Liverpool were defeated 3-0 at Eastville. The goals against Derby came in a frantic eighteen-minute spell in the opening half hour, with Peter Hooper adding the first of his many Rovers goals, while the Liverpool game was the seventh in succession in which Bradford had scored, a new club record which was to last just eighteen months. At this stage, in fact, he had scored in each of his last nine league appearances, if his final games before injury in November 1953 are taken into consideration. Rovers also recorded a 5-1 home victory over Leeds United, a fourth consecutive game in which Bradford had scored twice, and a 4-0 win at home to Ipswich Town, thanks to a brace of goals from George Petherbridge. The largest victory, though, was when Swansea Town visited Eastville in the first week of October. Mel Charles, having scored in both fixtures against Rovers the previous season, put through his own net after only six minutes and Bradford doubled Rovers’ lead nine minutes later. After half-time, Bradford scored again after fifty-five minutes, Hooper scored on the hour mark, Ron Burgess became the oldest man ever to concede a League own goal against Rovers twelve minutes later and Roost added a sixth with a quarter of an hour left. Hooper’s second goal, in the last minute, meant Rovers had equalled the club record 7-0 league victory. It was also the second of only three occasions that opponents has contributed two own goals in a league match. On 12th September 1954, Jack Lewis, Rovers’ inside-right in the 1904-05 Southern League championship season and the winner of a Welsh cap while on Rovers’ books, died at the age of 72. Around this time, Rovers’ defensive frailties were being exposed. In two consecutive games, as again in December 1957 and November 1992, Rovers conceded five. All the West Ham United forwards, including the future Manchester United manager Dave Sexton, got on the score-sheet in a game played in torrential rain and a thunderstorm. Four days later, Rovers scored three times at Anfield, only for John Evans to score all Liverpool’s goals in their 5-3 win. It was a devastating show of goalscoring from an underrated forward, finding the net after seven, 39, 40, 70 and 85 minutes, and his achievement remains a Liverpool record equalled only by Andy McGuigan and Ian Rush. The Upton Park game was the first time since October 1948 that Rovers had conceded five goals in a league game, yet Rovers proceeded to lose 6-2 at Rotherham United and let in four at home to Notts County and West Ham United. John Dick scored three of the Hammers’ goals at Eastville. Seventy goals were conceded in the league, the club’s worst defensive record since 1947-48. The heaviest defeat came at Blackburn Rovers in a match which Rovers had led 3-2 at half-time. Roost had put Rovers ahead after only six minutes and Lambden twice restored the lead after Eddie Crossan and Tommy Briggs had equalised. However, in a one-man second-half, Briggs scored six more for a personal tally of seven and to consign Rovers to an 8-3 defeat. Briggs was a powerful and strong centre-forward, exactly the type of player Rovers struggled to contain. His first goal had come from a low drive twelve minutes before half-time and his second, Blackburn’s third equaliser, was a header from Crossan’s free-kick after forty-eight minutes. Fourteen minutes later he converted Bobby Langton’s cross to put the home side ahead. With twelve minutes remaining, Rovers trailed 4-3, but Briggs was to score four times with his right foot in those final minutes, the last as a reluctant penalty-taker to establish a club record. He also hit a post, but Briggs had scored seven goals in fifty-six minutes to inflict on Rovers their heaviest league defeat since April 1936. Seven days later, Rovers responded with their largest win of the second half of the season. Fulham, appearing in the snow in red and white quarters, as opposed to Rovers’ blue and white quarters, were beaten 4-1 at Eastville, with the future England forward Johnny Haynes scoring their goal. A series of low-scoring games saw Rovers’ second season in Division Two end with the club in ninth place in the table. On the long trip to Elland Road, where Rovers lost 2-0 to Leeds United, Bob Forrest’s opening goal after eleven seconds constitutes the fastest goal scored in a league match involving Rovers. It had been a long season and many lessons had been learned. Rovers set off for Devon, where the season was rounded off by an extraordinary friendly, won 10-6 at Dawlish, with Bradford contributing four of the goals.
1955-56
In the history of any football club there is a key moment where fate can determine success or otherwise. In the case of Bristol Rovers, bereft of their injured talisman, Geoff Bradford, two late defeats meant missing out narrowly on promotion to Division One. The club has still never attained the dizzy heights of the top division. Neither too, of course, had Coventry City, in many respects a Third Division equal of Rovers, who when finally promoted in 1968, grabbed the opportunity with both hands and enjoyed over thirty years in the top flight. Rovers missed out by four points, the thin line between success and mediocrity. With Geoff Fox, Vic Lambden and Bryan Bush having departed, the championship side of 1952-53 was finally breaking up. Ray Warren, after twenty years with the club, played in his 450th and final league game in December, while Bill Roost, John McIlvenny and Josser Watling were being used less frequently in the side. With Howard Radford a pivotal figure in goal, Harry Bamford was now accompanied at full-back by the promising talent of Frank Allcock. Bamford, the only ever-present, again did not score, though he was debited with an own goal against Bury in November. Peter Sampson, George Petherbridge, Barrie Meyer and newly-appointed club captain Jackie Pitt remained of the old guard, with Paddy Hale now assuming the mantle of centre-half and the talented Peter Hooper at outside-left. Alfie Biggs, who scored twice in victories over Nottingham Forest and Sheffield Wednesday, was fast emerging as Bradford’s new sidekick. Fred Ford, the new coach, was to share in five excellent seasons, and later returned to Eastville in 1968 as manager. The rôle of Geoff Bradford in the Rovers story cannot be underestimated. He scored in all but four of his first seventeen matches of the season, seven times scoring twice in a game. Potentially key games at Stoke City and Hull City were both won 2-1, Bradford scoring the goals on both occasions. On 2nd October 1955 he became the only player to appear for England while on Rovers’ books. The Supporters’ Club chartered an aeroplane to take thirty-four Rovers fans to the game in Copenhagen, including in their number Mrs Betty Bradford as a guest of the club. For the majority of the travellers, this was the first time that they had been in an aeroplane, but their memories of the occasion were to prove priceless. Characteristically, in a 5-1 victory over Denmark, Geoff Bradford scored England’s fifth goal, with a low right-foot shot eight minutes from time from Jackie Milburn’s flighted cross pass. It was to be his only England cap. Then, having scored a hat-trick in the return fixture with Hull City, Bradford was seriously injured in an FA Cup game at Doncaster Rovers in January. With their star player out for the rest of the season, Rovers’ promotion push foundered on the rocks of inadequacy. The Hull game was the ninth and final time Rovers had scored four or more goals at Eastville in league and FA Cup football in 1955-56. Bradford had scored at least once on all nine occasions. The Hull City side included the veteran Stan Mortensen, scorer of a hat-trick in the 1953 “Matthews’ FA Cup Final” and the holder of 25 England caps, but it was Bradford who stole the show with three goals. Promotion rivals Leeds United had been defeated 4-1 at Eastville in October, Bradford claiming a pair of goals on that occasion. The largest victory, however, was a 7-2 mauling of Middlesbrough in November. Rovers went into the home game with Middlesbrough having scored sixteen goals and conceded ten in their previous four league matches. The crowd of 23,728 anticipated a feast of goals and was duly rewarded. This remains one of only two post-war league fixtures where three Rovers players have scored two or more times each. Bradford opened the scoring after thirteen minutes and two Ward goals meant Rovers led 3-0 with only eighteen minutes played. Charlie Wayman pulled a goal back just before half-time, Bradford and Hooper put Rovers 5-1 ahead and Lindy Delapenha (1927-2017) scored the visitors’ second. Hooper’s second goal, after seventy-eight minutes, and one from Petherbridge six minutes later left Rovers in the ascendancy. The euphoria of this 7-2 victory lasted just a week. The following Saturday, at Notts County, Rovers crashed to a 5-2 defeat, their heaviest of the season. Ron Wylie, later manager of West Bromwich Albion, was to score only five goals all season, but claimed a hat-trick for County. Bradford-less Rovers later crashed 4-1 at home to Rotherham United with Ian Wilson, the scorer of one of the six at Millmoor in October 1954, weighing in with three goals. Tommy Briggs, after his seven goals the previous season, scored just the once at Ewood Park in February, while Johnny Haynes scored at Eastville for a second consecutive year, playing for a Fulham side which included Jimmy Hill at outside-left. The first all-ticket game ever to be staged at Eastville was the local derby with Bristol City in March. The sides had drawn 1-1 at Ashton Gate in the autumn before a then record Ashton Gate crowd of 39,583 and the first Second Division clash of these sides in East Bristol was expected to attract a large turnout. Rovers had, prior to this fixture, scored in 43 consecutive home league games, but faced a proven goalscorer in John Atyeo. The attendance of 35,324, though not a ground record, remains in perpetuity as the highest ever at a league game at Eastville. These were the days when thousands flocked into the Tote End, which boasted a maximum capacity at one point of 12,250, and the Muller Road End, where up to 16,900 spectators gathered behind the trademark flowerbeds which, carefully maintained by the Rovers groundstaff, formed a colourful if unorthodox backdrop to the goalnet at that end of the pitch. However, despite the massive support in the cauldron of one of Britain’s most keenly-fought local derbies, Rovers were to lose 3-0, with Atyeo scoring twice. A new goalkeeper, Ron Nicholls, played his first few games in the winter months. Like Meyer, he was a county cricketer, the fourth highest scoring batsman in the history of Gloucestershire and, although potential training clashes between the sports lay ahead, both players contributed well to Rovers’ on-field success. Meyer scored a hat-trick at Fulham, as Rovers recorded their largest away win of the season. He was also instrumental in Rovers defeating Liverpool 2-0 at Anfield through Bradford’s header three minutes before half-time from Meyer’s cross and a low shot from Biggs cutting in from the right after fifty-nine minutes, on the ground which was to see such undiluted success in the years to come. The fixture at Elland Road on 21st April 1956 was one of the more crucial league matches in Rovers’ history. With Sheffield Wednesday virtual champions, Rovers lay second with 48 points and two games remaining. Leeds United, with three games left, had 46 points, one more than Blackburn Rovers and Nottingham Forest. Victory for Rovers would leave the Eastville side requiring a point at home to Liverpool for promotion to Division One and, in eager anticipation, the Supporters’ Club once again chartered an aeroplane for the trip. Dai Ward had scored crucial goals in recent weeks and his goal at Elland Road set a club record, as it was the eighth consecutive league game in which he had scored, eclipsing Bradford’s seven in succession earlier in the season which had equalled his own record. Dramatically, from a Petherbridge cross, Ward headed Rovers ahead after only two minutes. Before half-time, though, John Charles had headed home a George Meek cross and set up Jack Overfield for what proved to be Leeds United’s winning goal. The Elland Road crowd, 49,274, remains the largest league crowd in front of which Rovers have played. Once the bubble had burst, Rovers also lost to Liverpool. Wednesday were champions with 55 points, Leeds United promoted with 52, while Liverpool, Blackburn Rovers and Leicester City all inched above Rovers on goal average. So close to their target, Rovers were left to wonder what might have happened if 25-goal top scorer Bradford had not been injured and wonder why no adequate replacement was found. A final placing of sixth in Division Two remains the highest in Bristol Rovers’ history. The FA Cup brought, as the Bristol Evening Post described it, “Rovers’ finest hour”. Matt Busby’s Manchester United played at Eastville before a crowd of 35,872 and were defeated 4-0. Although Duncan Edwards was injured, the United side was packed with household names, five of whom were to perish in the Munich air crash in 1958. An opportunist goal from Biggs put Rovers ahead after only ten minutes and Meyer, at the second attempt, doubled the advantage before half-time. Creative and surprisingly confident against such talented opponents, Rovers scored again through Biggs and a late penalty from Bradford, after England left-back Roger Byrne had handled. Rovers were the ‘£110 team with the million-dollar touch of class’, according to Desmond Hackett in the “Daily Express”. It seemed hardly just that Rovers should exit in round four, falling to an angled drive ten minutes before half-time from inside-right Bert Tindill in a replay at a snowy Doncaster Rovers which was overshadowed by Bradford’s horrific injury. Meyer’s first-half goal at Ashton Gate enabled Rovers to retain the Gloucestershire Cup.
1956-57
Bert Tann’s home-grown side had come close to an unlikely promotion to Division One and had produced an England international in Geoff Bradford, but reality lay around the corner. Season 1956-57 saw some large victories and heavy defeats as the side had to settle for ninth place in the Second Division. It was largely an unchanged Rovers side which opened the season with a home victory over Grimsby Town thanks to a Dai Ward fifty-sixth minute reaction shot. With Frank Allcock’s enforced retirement casting a shadow over the previous season’s success, Les Edwards partnered the evergreen Harry Bamford at full-back, Ron Nicholls appeared regularly in goal and young wing-half Norman Sykes made the first of numerous league appearances. Rovers scored in each of the first fourteen league games of the new season to complete a run of 24 consecutive matches dating back to March 1956. Two more games would have equalled a club record established in 1927, but Rotherham United held Rovers to a goalless draw at Millmoor. The early-season run included a 4-2 win at Doncaster Rovers, Bradford scoring twice, and a 4-0 home win over Stoke City, as Rovers remained unbeaten in their opening five league fixtures. There were equally convincing 4-0 victories at home to Huddersfield Town, which included a blitz of three goals in five minutes, and against a Fulham side boasting the England international and former Rovers schoolboy, Roy Bentley, as well as Elton John’s uncle Roy Dwight. In March, two Bill Roost goals contributed to a 4-2 home win over Rotherham United. The two largest wins, however, came in consecutive home fixtures over Christmas. On 22nd December, Rovers defeated Doncaster Rovers 6-1 at Eastville. Dai Ward, who scored after seventy-seven, seventy-eight and eighty minutes recorded the fastest league hat-trick by a Rovers player and Barrie Meyer, for the second consecutive Saturday, scored twice. This was the first time Rovers had accumulated ten league goals against any opposition in a season. The anomalies of post-war football left Rovers to be crushed 7-2 by Bury at Gigg Lane on Christmas Day before repeating their 6-1 score-line over the same opposition on Boxing Day. Peter Hooper, the eighth player to score three times before half-time for Rovers in a league game, scored a hat-trick against Bury, with Meyer again weighing in with two goals. Hooper gave Rovers a sixth-minute lead and completed a thirty-minute first-half hat-trick when he scored from the rebound after his thirty-sixth minute penalty had been saved. Such a convincing home victory stands in direct contrast to Rovers’ heaviest defeat for almost two years. Bury had led 3-1 after seventy-nine minutes before five goals in eleven minutes, four of them to the Lancashire side, distorted the score-line beyond recognition. Stan Pearson, now almost thirty-seven and a member of Manchester United’s 1948 FA Cup winning side, became the oldest opponent ever to register a League hat-trick against Rovers, whilst Tom Neill and Eddie Robertson added two goals apiece. Outside-left Norman Lockhart’s missed penalty saved Rovers from further embarrassment. Incredibly, within weeks, Rovers had lost by the same 7-2 score-line at Leicester City where again, for the fifth and most recent time in Rovers’ league history, three opponents had scored twice each. One of these, Arthur Rowley, who had also scored at Eastville in September, remains to this day the record aggregate goalscorer in Football League history. While these two defeats stand out, an extraordinary 5-3 defeat at Ashton Gate in September similarly exposed Rovers’ defensive frailties. John Atyeo and Cyril Williams scored twice each for Bristol City, Dai Ward twice for Rovers, the Robins fielding David Smith, who was to win five caps for the England cricket side as a right-arm, medium-pace bowler. Middlesbrough and three Ls - Leicester City, Lincoln City and Liverpool - all won at Eastville but, to counter this, Rovers won six away games, including victories over Notts County at Meadow Lane and West Ham United at Upton Park. At Vale Park, Rovers led 2-0 after eighty-six minutes but, after a frenetic final four minutes, were left clinging on for a 3-2 win, afforded by two Geoff Bradford goals. This was Port Vale’s seventh consecutive league defeat en route to a club record nine in succession. That there was no shortage of goalmouth excitement at Rovers games is illustrated amply by the fact that the local derby with Bristol City at Eastville in February was only the club’s second goalless draw since April 1954. Yet, this game provided an incident which, in many respects, epitomised the spirit of Bristol football in those glorious days of the 1950s. Local derbies never have been for the faint-hearted and two tenacious battlers, Rovers’ Jackie Pitt and City’s Ernie Peacock, were sent off for their misdeeds in a robust game. As they left the field together, the players linked arms, a symbol that rivalry does not necessarily mean enmity and a sign of what football meant to those at the chalkface in the immediate post-war era. Four minutes from the end of the 2-1 home defeat against Leicester City in September, Hooper’s penalty was struck with such ferocity that, rebounding off a post, it set the opposition on the attack. With Rovers players pushed forward for the penalty, Ian McNeil sent Tommy McDonald through to score past an unprepared defence. Three weeks later, Sheffield United took a first-minute lead at Eastville through John Wilkinson, only for Rovers to recover to win 3-1. Similarly, an apparently convincing 3-0 home victory over Notts County in February conceals the fact that County’s Gordon Wills missed a penalty. In December, Tommy Briggs revisited the Rovers defence, scoring both Blackburn Rovers’ goals in a 2-0 win. He had now scored a total of ten goals in Rovers’ three most recent visits to Ewood Park. All of which hides a surfeit of 3-2 results, which threatened at times to reach epidemic proportions. Rovers won by this score against Leyton Orient, Swansea Town, Nottingham Forest and Port Vale and lost 3-2 at Middlesbrough, Grimsby Town and Fulham. Three consecutive games in the run-up to Easter finished this way. What with 7-2 defeats and 6-1 victories, the team from East Bristol was due a run of unusual results and so it was to prove in 1957-58. This would have to be achieved without left-back Les Edwards, whose place was taken by a rejuvenated Josser Watling, and forward Bill Roost, whose goal at home to Swansea Town in March marked his final game in a nine-year association with the club. In the FA Cup, Rovers were 3-0 up at Hull City after only nine minutes and held on to win 4-3. Shades of 1981 at Preston, perhaps, and sure enough, victory at Boothferry Park attracted North End and a 32,000 crowd to Eastville. Preston were to finish the season third in Division One and boasted two future Manchester United managers at wing-half, Tommy Docherty and Frank O’Farrell. Rovers had just lost 7-2 at Leicester City, while Preston were to beat Portsmouth 7-1 in Division One only a week later. Although Hooper scored from the penalty-spot after just five minutes, the form book was not rewritten as North End ran out 4-1 winners. Tom Finney, now thirty-four and already the holder of sixty of his career total 76 England caps, scored twice and shot wide from a sixty-fifth minute penalty after Paddy Hale had fouled England international Tommy Thompson. The Gloucestershire Cup Final was also lost, 2-1 at home to Bristol City. The New Year’s Eve fixture marked the retirement, at the age of sixty-nine, of Billy Pinnell, Sports Editor of the Bristol Evening Post. Affectionately known as “The Traveller”, he had reported on over 1,500 Rovers and City games, some 600 of which had been matches outside Bristol. An acknowledged authority on the local professional football scene, Pinnell had worked as a reporter on the Bristol Times and Mirror from 1919 and had been Sports Editor of the Post for almost twenty-five years. Pinnell died, at the age of eighty-nine, in January 1977.
1957-58
The FA Cup is a tournament filled with excitement and expectation, although in Rovers’ case early disappointment is all too frequent an occurrence. In 1957-58, for the second of three occasions in the club’s history, however, Rovers reached the quarter-finals. Unlike 1950-51, they only had to progress from Round Three, by dint of Second Division status, but like the previous quarter-final appearance, the run was to end in a 3-1 defeat. The FA Cup journey began with a convincing 5-0 victory over Third Division (North) side Mansfield Town, four Rovers forwards getting on the score-sheet. The reward for this was a home tie with high-riding Burnley and a crowd of 34,229 was attracted to Eastville. Burnley, finalists four years later, were to finish sixth in Division One and boasted famous names such as England captain and centre-half Jimmy Adamson and Jimmy McIlroy, an inside-forward who won 55 caps for Northern Ireland. Yet, for the second time in three years, Rovers were to defeat top division opponents. Rovers led through Paddy Hale after twenty-five minutes until a flurry of mid-second-half goals left the tie all-square. A 2-2 draw meant a potentially tough replay at Turf Moor, but Rovers emerged 3-2 victors, Norman Sykes scoring his first goal for a year and Dai Ward adding a couple. This was a staggering achievement for Rovers to have accomplished. It remains the only occasion that the club has won any fixture before a crowd of over 40,000 and was until January 2002 the only time Rovers had won away to a top division club in the FA Cup. Supporters of football in Bristol could not believe their luck as Rovers and City were drawn together in the fifth round. An attendance of 39,126 at Ashton Gate brought gate receipts of £5,439 and witnessed arguably the most exciting of all Bristol derby matches, with seven goals, a missed penalty and a highly controversial Geoff Bradford winner seven minutes from time. Rovers should have taken a first-minute lead, but it was Barry Watkins who scored against his former club three minutes later to give City an early lead. By half-time Sykes, Ward and Barrie Meyer had scored, Ron Nicholls had saved a penalty from Watkins and Rovers led 3-1. However, City recovered to level at 3-3 and, with a quarter-final place up for grabs, Ward’s through ball to Bradford, looking suspiciously offside, brought Rovers a 4-3 victory. The second quarter-final in Rovers’ FA Cup history was an all Second Division affair. However, despite a Bradford goal to parallel the one he had scored in February 1951, Fulham ran out clear winners. George Cohen, an England World Cup winner in 1966, played alongside the old guard of Roy Bentley, Roy Dwight and Johnny Haynes. Jimmy Hill put Fulham ahead from a rebound after his ninth-minute shot had been blocked, and Arthur Stevens, whose goals had knocked Rovers out of the FA Cup in 1948, added close-range goals after twelve and thirty-five minutes. At the kick-off, a Rovers supporter had run onto the pitch, dribbled the ball and scored, but all Rovers had to cheer was a classic Bradford header from Sykes’ sixty-eighth minute free-kick. Rovers approached season 1957-58 with no new personnel, but with converted forwards Josser Watling and Paddy Hale filling the troublesome left-back and centre-half positions respectively. This was to be the final season goalkeeper Ron Nicholls and forward Barrie Meyer were to spend at Eastville, while half-back Jackie Pitt retired at the season’s close after 467 league appearances, a figure only bettered by Stuart Taylor and Harry Bamford. Full-back Bamford, who turned thirty-eight in February, was the club’s only ever-present, while Geoff Bradford top-scored with 20 goals in 33 league matches. In another high-scoring season, Rovers scored 85 and conceded 80 in finishing tenth in Division Two, goalless draws at Huddersfield Town and Notts County sticking out from amongst a glut of goals. If FA Cup attendances were high, then so too were those in the league, where the golden years of post-war football coupled with Rovers’ years of relative success combined to boost crowd figures. For a sixth consecutive season, the average attendance at Eastville topped 20,000 yet, at 20,604, this was also the final such season in the twentieth century. The opposite side of the equation is that the crowd of 5,687 which watched Rovers’ 2-0 victory over Cardiff City at Ninian Park in March was the lowest gathering all season for any Second Division fixture. In a season of unusual results, one of the most remarkable was a 6-4 defeat at Swansea Town in Rovers’ final Christmas Day fixture. Despite being bottom of the table, the Swans were two goals ahead after half an hour through Mel Charles and a Cliff Jones penalty and 3-1 up through Ivor Allchurch (1929-97) after thirty-eight minutes. Peter Sampson’s first goal for over two years and Dai Ward’s seventh goal of the season left the score 3-2 at half-time. Alfie Biggs equalised two minutes after the break and Meyer made the score 4-4 with twenty minutes remaining, after Jones had scored his second. However, Charles scored his second of the game and, with twelve minutes remaining, Jones completed his hat-trick to give Swansea Town a 6-4 win they were acknowledged as having fully deserved. Twenty-four hours later, with George Petherbridge scoring twice, Rovers made a mockery of this result by defeating the Swans 3-0 at Eastville. As was also the case in September 1954 and November 1992, Rovers contrived to concede five or more goals twice in the space of four days. In this case, following six at the Vetch Field, it was six more at Upton Park. In becoming the youngest League hat-trick scorer against Rovers, eighteen-year-old John Smith scored three times as West Ham United won 6-1, just as his team-mate Billy Dare had scored a hat-trick in the Hammers’ 3-2 win at Eastville in August. Alan Peacock scored three goals in Middlesbrough’s 4-3 victory over Rovers at Ayresome Park in March, the other goal claimed by Brian Clough (1935-2004) who scored in both league fixtures against Rovers in 1956-57, 1958-59 and 1959-60. Ally McLeod (1931-2004), later Scotland manager, scored the opening goal as Rovers crashed 2-0 to Blackburn Rovers at Ewood Park in January 1958. Yet, the heaviest defeat of the season was at Eastville in December when, in Jackie Pitt’s penultimate game for Rovers, Grimsby Town won 7-0 to inflict Rovers’ heaviest ever home league defeat. At one stage, the Mariners scored four goals and missed a penalty in the space of eighteen second-half minutes. In fact, Hooper, unmarked in front of goal, and Biggs had both spurned opportunities to put Rovers ahead before Ron Stockin, after six minutes, and Gerry Priestley, two minutes later, put the visitors 2-0 up when goalkeeper Nicholls had twice lost control of the ball. Priestley’s cross was converted at the second attempt by Johnny Scott a minute before half-time, before Grimsby’s four late goals. After seventy minutes, Ron Rafferty scored from the penalty-spot after Sampson had fouled Priestley. Seven minutes later, Jimmy Fell’s solo goal made him the fifth Grimsby forward on the score-sheet and his next run led to a second penalty, blasted over the bar by Rafferty. Late goals for Scott and Stockin, their second each of a bizarre game, meant Rovers had lost a league game by seven clear goals for the first time since April 1936. On the other hand, in addition to a successful FA Cup run, Rovers enjoyed some memorable victories of their own. In November, nineteen-year-old Bobby Jones was given a league début against Middlesbrough, opened the scoring after just two minutes and later added a second in a 5-0 win. Two Bradford goals helped defeat Blackburn Rovers 4-0, while Leyton Orient were defeated by the same score in a match where Rovers’ Hooper and the visitors’ Johnny Hartburn both missed penalties. Barrie Meyer’s second hat-trick for Rovers enabled Rovers to defeat Derby County 5-2 in August and, a fortnight later, the first hat-trick of Alfie Biggs’ blossoming career earned Rovers a 5-3 victory at Stoke City. More bizarrely, in beating Notts County 5-2 at Eastville, Rovers were indebted to own goals from Frank Cruickshank and John McGrath. Only in three other league games have two opponents scored for Rovers. The season drew to a close with high-scoring home draws. On Good Friday, Fulham earned a 2-2 draw at Eastville through goals from Roy Dwight, an FA Cup winner in 1959, and the celebrated Jimmy Hill. Twenty-four hours later, another Bradford double eased Rovers towards a 3-3 draw with Bristol City, where all six goals were scored in an extraordinary first-half. The sides met again in the Gloucestershire Cup Final, where City won 4-1, as well as hitting the woodwork twice, after Bradford had put Rovers in front from a Biggs pass after only six minutes. The four meetings of the sides had produced a total of 23 goals. The season over, focus was switched to the World Cup in Sweden, where the host nation, coached by George Raynor, a member of the Aldershot side which played Rovers in 1938-39, reached the final before losing to Brazil.
1958-59 Towards the end of his long and successful career as a full-back with his only league club, Harry Bamford had begun to give back to the community which had supported him for so long. The 3-2 defeat at Derby County in September was his 486th for Rovers, a club record at the time and since bettered only by Stuart Taylor. In the meantime, he coached schoolboys at Clifton College and it was on his way home from a training session that his motorcycle was involved in a collision with a car. For three days, his life hung in the balance before he died of his injuries on 31st October 1958. At a memorial service in St Mary Redcliffe Church, manager Bert Tann said that “a part of Bristol Rovers died with him”. Not only had Rovers lost a gifted player, but a pivotal figure in the club’s history had died at a point where his career was still not quite over. His influence on the spirit of Rovers in the 1950s was instrumental in the club’s success. An annual memorial trophy for sportsmanship amongst local footballers was set up, awarded on four occasions to Rovers players and won in 1967-68 by Alfie Biggs’ brother Bert. On 8th May 1959, a combined Bristol XI featuring six Rovers players defeated Arsenal 5-4 in a testimonial fixture, Geoff Bradford scoring twice, before an Eastville crowd of 28,347 which contributed to the Harry Bamford Memorial Fund. A total of just over £3,709 was raised. It is no coincidence that the days of FA Cup quarter-finals and promotion challenges were over. Following Bamford’s death, Rovers fell into a decline which climaxed with relegation in 1961-62 and the scary proximity of Division Four twelve months later. Over the summer of 1958, Divisions Three and Four were created out of the old geographical leagues. As early as 30th November 1944, the Rovers secretary Sid Hawkins had written to the Football League to say the club directors “strongly deprecate the suggestion that the Third Division clubs should be divided into Third and Fourth Divisions”. Within the Rovers camp, trouble was brewing as the two county cricketers, Ron Nicholls and Barrie Meyer, unable to make pre-season training because of commitments with Gloucestershire, put in transfer requests amid disputes within the camp. On the eve of the new season, the goalkeeper joined Cardiff City in an exchange deal involving John Frowen. He later played for Bristol City and was to appear in 534 matches for Gloucestershire between 1951 and 1975. Meyer, after 139 league games for Rovers in almost a decade, joined Plymouth Argyle in a deal worth £4,500 plus the services of John Timmins. Another player who later resurfaced at Bristol City, Meyer played 406 times for Gloucestershire and also served as a Test umpire. Eastville had a 3,000 capacity North Stand constructed through the close season at a cost of £76,000, of which the Supporters’ Club, then numbering 6,931 members, paid £10,000. This new stand was officially opened in August, prior to the first home game of the season. Following an away win, this first of five in the league being completed when Orient’s George Wright conceded an own goal on his club début, Rovers defeated Scunthorpe United 4-0 in this fixture, with four forwards getting their names on the score-sheet. By the time the sides met at The Old Show Ground in January, the Iron had scored in 21 consecutive league games but Rovers were able to hold them to a goalless draw. Ken Jones, who made his Scunthorpe United début that day, was to play in 168 league fixtures for that club. It was a mixed season for Rovers, for they neither won three league matches in succession nor lost three consecutive league fixtures all season. Rovers scored four at home to Scunthorpe United, Rotherham United and Swansea Town as well as at Cardiff City and, in November, seven times at home to Grimsby Town. The heaviest defeat came in the final away game of the season, 5-2 at Sheffield United. In addition, Rovers lost an exciting game at Charlton Athletic 4-3 and by 4-1 at Lincoln City, where David Pyle contributed an own goal and one of the Imps’ three further goalscorers was Roy Chapman, later the father of the striker Lee Chapman, and himself a scorer for Mansfield Town against Rovers in November 1963 and December 1964. The greatest personal performance, however, came against Rotherham United at Eastville in March. Geoff Bradford had scored eleven league hat-tricks for Rovers, but never before four times in one match. He had also missed the 3-3 draw at Millmoor in October and, returning after injury only a week before this return fixture, had in fact not scored since Boxing Day. However, a first-minute goal set him on his way and he contributed all his side’s goals as Rovers recorded a 4-1 victory. The first Rovers player to score four times in a match in this division, he was also the first to achieve this feat since Vic Lambden on Easter Monday 1952. Not only did this equal a club record as yet unsurpassed, but Bradford also remained until Rickie Lambert in October 2008 the most recent Rovers player to score four league goals in a home fixture, Robin Stubbs, Alan Warboys and Jamie Cureton all having done so in the meantime away from home. The team performance of the season was against Grimsby Town at Eastville in the middle week of October. A masterful 7-3 victory, the only occasion Rovers have won by this score-line in league football, made light of the fact that Rovers had lost their two previous home games. After a quiet start, the match exploded into life just before half-time, as Dai Ward, after twenty-eight minutes, and Peter Hooper, eleven minutes later, gave Rovers a 2-0 lead, only for Tommy Briggs, whose seven goals for Blackburn Rovers had sunk the Eastville side in February 1955, to pull one back a minute before half-time. Ward extended Rovers’ lead and Mike Cullen replied for Grimsby before two Hooper goals in four minutes completed his hat-trick and left Rovers 5-2 ahead. Undeterred, Ron Rafferty, scoring against Rovers in both fixtures for the second consecutive season, registered a goal fourteen minutes from time. Geoff Bradford, however, scored twice in five minutes, three Rovers players had registered doubles, as against Middlesbrough in November 1955 and Rovers had avenged the 7-0 drubbing of eleven months earlier. On Easter Monday, Rovers and Swansea Town served up a goal feast at Eastville. Rovers led 3-2 at the interval and, though Bradford had restored the two-goal cushion just after the hour mark, the home side was forced to settle for a 4-4 draw. The Pirates had taken a fourth-minute lead through Ward, Hooper had added a second ten minutes later and, though Welsh international Len Allchurch (1933-2016) had reduced the deficit after eighteen minutes, it had taken Hooper just seven more minutes to put Rovers 3-1 ahead. Once the Swans had scored twice in four minutes midway through the second-half, Rovers were resigned to a second consecutive home draw. In November goals from Geoff Twentyman, whose son was to be a doyen of the Rovers side, and Brighton and Hove Albion’s 1983 FA Cup Final manager Jimmy Melia gave a Liverpool side featuring their future manager, Ronnie Moran, a tight victory at Anfield. Although Huddersfield Town took just one point off Rovers, their forward Kevin McHale scored in both fixtures, as did the ubiquitous John Atyeo of Bristol City. In January, Bert Tann fielded virtually a first team for a Football Combination game against Portsmouth reserves, Rovers winning 9-1. In that month, Rovers gave a league début to Ray Mabbutt, a local wing-half who, like his younger son after him, was to give sterling service to the club for many years. Outside-right Granville Smith also impressed, as did Graham Ricketts at half-back, full-back Doug Hillard and goalkeeper Malcolm Norman. As the old guard began to move on, so a number of players with sizeable contributions to make to the club’s story began to seize the moment. In finishing sixth in Division Two, there were indeed grounds for optimism. Rovers won their final three home games, each time defeating sides with larger reputations and greater spending power and which had beaten Rovers earlier in the season. Two goals from Hooper, the only ever-present, and one from Ward earned a 3-0 victory over Liverpool before Rovers ended the campaign with 2-1 home wins over Charlton Athletic and Sheffield Wednesday. In the latter, Rovers fielded Tony Gough, whose second league appearance was to be for Swindon Town a remarkable eleven years later. He did not play at all in the league during the 1960s. Latterly the captain of Hereford United in their epic FA Cup victory over Newcastle United in 1972, Gough holds the appearance record at Bath City. Wednesday were defeated by a Bradford goal, struck venomously from Doug Hillard’s through ball after eleven minutes, the 200th goal of his Rovers career and his twentieth of the season to leave him as the club’s second highest scorer, behind twenty-six goal Ward. Also at this time, on 18th April 1959, the former Rovers manager Percy Smith died in Watford, aged 78. Despite the FA Cup glory of the previous season, Rovers found themselves a goal down in nineteen seconds and lost 4-0 at home to Charlton Athletic in the third round. This very early goal, the first of two by South African international Sam Lawrie, was followed by goals from John Summers, who famously scored five times when the Addicks recovered from 5-1 down to beat Huddersfield Town 7-6 in Division Two in December 1957, and Ron White. Rovers took a sensational lead in the Gloucestershire Cup Final with the fastest goal in the club’s history. Sweeping forward from the kick-off, Ward scored after only seven seconds, but Bert Tindill’s second-half equaliser for Bristol City left the score all square.
1959-60
With the benefit of hindsight, the end of the 1950s can be seen to have drawn to a close the golden years in the Bristol Rovers story. 1959-60 opened with a six-match unbeaten run, but entailed several heavy defeats. Four or more goals were conceded on six occasions as Rovers finished the season in ninth place in Division Two. Relegation in 1961-62 and a long struggle, ultimately successful, the following season to avoid the unprecedented drop into Division Four, lay just around the corner. It is still difficult for any Rovers supporter to admit this, but Geoff Bradford was no longer the prolific, potent goalscorer he had once been. The five hat-tricks in 1953-54, the two goals in each of four consecutive games in October 1954 and the England cap were a thing of the past. He scored twelve league goals, two against Stoke City in February being his only brace of the season. While Alfie Biggs had recovered from his poor goal return in 1958-59, and was top scorer with 22 league goals, Bobby Jones did not score at all this year. Granville Smith did not pose the threat at outside-right that his early performances had promised. The veteran Peter Sampson’s appearance in the opening day draw with Leyton Orient was his only game of the season. On the other hand, Bert Tann was beginning to weave together a team of young, predominantly Bristolian footballers. A lack of funds hampered his progress, but his task was to glean every nugget from the local football scene. Ray Mabbutt, a prime example of this policy, was the club’s only ever-present in 1959-60. Doug Hillard, David Pyle and Graham Ricketts continued to establish themselves in the side, while local teenage inside-forward Ian Hamilton scored his first goals for the club. Victory over Swansea Town on Boxing Day marked the league début of twenty-year-old Harold Jarman at outside-right, a Rovers player until 1973, a county cricketer with Gloucestershire and an essential ingredient in the long-running recipe of football in Bristol. Having drawn three of their opening four games, Rovers’ first home win came against Ipswich Town in September. The new floodlights at Eastville were used for the first time in this Monday evening game, artificial lighting allowing for greater flexibility over kick-off times. Four 134-feet-high pylons had been installed at a cost of £16,000 and paid for by the Rovers Supporters’ Club, whose chairman Eric Godfrey had been one of the committee that first proposed the concept in April 1959. Prior to the game, Rovers’ chairman, Hampden Alpass, expressed his gratitude and added that “our supporters’ club is second to none in the country in its support of the parent club”. Although the home side lost Doug Hillard with a dislocated shoulder just seven minutes after half-time of the first fixture under floodlights, two goals from Peter Hooper gave Rovers victory, while Ted Phillips scored for Ipswich Town in both league fixtures against Rovers. For the following game, at Sunderland, Brian Doyle was given a first appearance of the season and responded with the only goal of his Rovers career. Rovers lost just three home league games, 2-0 defeats to both Liverpool and Middlesbrough and an astonishing 5-4 against Brighton in October. Prior to the game at Colchester United in January 2000, this was amazingly the only occasion Rovers had lost in the league by this score. Alfie Biggs was in the middle of a goalscoring run, in which he had scored Rovers’ first in five consecutive fixtures. His eighteenth-minute goal cancelled out Tommy Dixon’s opener. Peter Hooper then twice gave Rovers the lead, with Adrian Thorne, who was to score four times against the Pirates in August 1960, levelling the score at 2-2 on the stroke of half-time. Hooper’s second, seven minutes after the break, should have left Rovers in control but, within twelve minutes, two quick fire goals from Bill Curry put Brighton 4-3 ahead. George Petherbridge scored Rovers’ second equaliser after seventy-two minutes, only for half-back Jack Bertolini to pop up with the winning goal thirteen minutes from time. Five-goal defeats were also the order of the day at Middlesbrough and Plymouth Argyle in consecutive away matches before Christmas. At Ayresome Park Brian Clough, later such a successful figurehead at Nottingham Forest, scored a hat-trick in a 5-1 result. He scored again in April when Middlesbrough completed a comfortable double over Rovers. Colin Grainger, the talented musician playing outside-left for Sunderland, Eddie Brown of Leyton Orient and Rotherham United’s Brian Sawyer all scored in both league fixtures against Tann’s side. So too did Graham Moore, as Cardiff City, fielding future Rovers players in Brian Jenkins, for the Ninian Park tie, and John Watkins, drew both games. For the trip to Ninian Park, Rovers’ Supporters’ Club chartered the steamboat “Glen Usk” to travel from Hotwells to Cardiff. Rovers also lost 4-1 at Villa Park and 4-0 at Anfield, where the future England international Ian Callaghan was making the first of his club record 640 league appearances for Liverpool and Roger Hunt, a World Cup winner in 1966, scored one of the goals. Portsmouth were defeated 2-0 at Eastville in September, while Swansea Town, Sunderland, Stoke City and Rotherham United all lost 3-1. Rovers scored three times in a glorious twelve-minute spell in the opening half-hour to defeat a strong Sunderland side. Towards the end of April, Huddersfield Town and Plymouth Argyle both suffered two-goal defeats at Eastville. Away from home, Rovers won five league games, all by a single goal. Victory at Scunthorpe United, in an extraordinary game which finished 4-3, was largely due to Hamilton’s first two goals for the club. Rovers had gone ahead after only eighteen minutes when Bradford scored following a neat interchange of passes with Hooper, but conceded a goal either side of half-time before Mabbutt equalised. Hamilton’s brace, either side of Barrie Thomas’ second goal of the game, were both confidently taken, the first from a fifteen-yard strike on the hour and the winning goal, nine minutes from time, after goalkeeper Ken Jones had only parried a rasping drive from Hooper. The most remarkably victory, though, was a 5-4 win at Fratton Park which mirrored the home defeat against Brighton. Portsmouth conceded a second-minute own goal through Ron Howells, the earliest own goal in any Football League match involving Rovers, only for Ron Saunders, later a highly successful manager, to equalise fifteen minutes later. Dai Ward’s twenty-third minute goal gave Rovers a 2-1 interval lead and, when he scored again two minutes after the break Rovers appeared to have some breathing space. Not so, for Saunders grabbed a second within a minute and, although Hooper put Rovers further ahead, Derek Harris reduced the margin to 4-3 with seventeen minutes remaining. Eight minutes from time, Biggs handballed and Reg Cutler drove home the equaliser from the penalty spot. With all to play for, Rovers swept forward and, on eighty-eight minutes, Hooper claimed his second goal of the game to give Rovers a memorable victory. In the FA Cup, held to a goalless draw at home by Doncaster Rovers, the Eastville side won 2-1 in the replay at Belle Vue. Both Biggs and Ward found their customary way on to the score-sheet, with Albert Broadbent replying for the home side. The reward for this victory was that, for the second time in three years, mighty Preston North End were drawn to play Rovers at Eastville. This fixture against one of the most powerful sides in the country drew a record crowd of 38,472 to Eastville. This figure stood the test of time and now remains in perpetuity the largest attendance ever to assemble at the old stadium. The huge gathering was not to be disappointed, either, as the sides served up a six-goal thriller. Biggs scored twice for Rovers, while the legendary Tom Finney was one of North End’s scorers. Gordon Milne, later a very successful manager, was in the Preston side while Jim Smith, who was to play for Stockport County in both league fixtures against Rovers in 1969-70, conceded an own goal. The replay at Deepdale drew a crowd of 33,164, Preston running out 5-1 winners with Finney and Sam Taylor, scorers of a goal apiece in the first game, now claiming two each. The Gloucestershire Cup Final was lost. Bristol City had finished last in Division Two and been relegated but, despite trailing at half-time, defeated Rovers 3-2 to win the trophy, the evergreen John Atyeo scoring twice. Rovers also played Bristol Rugby Club on 4th May in an experimental game of Socby. After a goalless first-half, Bradford scored twice and Hooper once to give Rovers a 3-1 win, with the rugby club’s captain John Blake scoring a consolation goal. Coach Fred Ford, a pivotal figure in five excellent seasons, left Rovers to become manager at Ashton Gate. Dai Ward was rewarded for his talent at club level by representing Wales in their 1-1 draw with England at Cardiff on 17th October 1959. He was, after Jack Lewis in 1906, the second player to play for the full Welsh side while on Rovers’ books and he was to win a second cap as a Cardiff City player three years later.
1960's
1960-61
It is all too often the case with a relatively small club that the threat of relegation is never too far away. While Rovers had finished in the top ten in Division Two for seven consecutive seasons, there was now no money for purchasing replacements for older players. As a younger generation of Bristolians came through the ranks, the club slipped to a final league placing of seventeenth and two long, trying years lay ahead. Twenty league defeats was the club’s worst record since 1947-48 and 92 goals conceded the most since 1935-36. Rovers finished the season just four positions and four points above relegated Portsmouth. Once the season had opened with an unexpected defeat at home to Middlesbrough, in which Rovers twice equalised before falling to Alan Peacock’s seventy-ninth minute winning goal, it was clear that a troublesome year lay ahead. Within weeks, Rovers had lost 6-1 at Brighton, where Adrian Thorne became the sixth player to score four goals against Rovers in a league game, and 4-0 at Rotherham United. Rovers were to concede four goals at each of Luton Town, Southampton and Huddersfield Town and five in both encounters with Plymouth Argyle. At home, in addition to Argyle’s visit, Rovers were to concede four to Leeds United and three on a total of three occasions in the league. With the familiar names of George Petherbridge, Alfie Biggs, Geoff Bradford, Dai Ward and Peter Hooper, the sole ever-present, in the forward line, it was a very recognisable Rovers forward line which began the season. With the retirement of Brian Doyle, John Frowen became the regular left-back, working behind Ray Mabbutt and in partnership with the solid Doug Hillard. However, lack of early-season success prompted two departures. Dai Ward left to pursue his career with Cardiff City, where he was to win a second Welsh cap. The deal, worth £10,000, also brought John Watkins to Eastville and the prospect of him and the emerging talent of Harold Jarman on opposing wings certainly filled supporters with optimism. At the season’s end, after missing the last fifteen games with a fractured leg, Biggs joined Preston North End for £18,000, though he was to return in fifteen months. A final nine league matches brought to a conclusion the long and reliable career of wing-half Peter Sampson, leaving just Bradford and Petherbridge of the championship-winning side. After 339 league games for Rovers, Sampson spent two further seasons as captain of Trowbridge Town. However, young Bobby Jones continued to progress and two players for the future, Joe Davis and Terry Oldfield, broke into the side for the first time. The side’s only ever-present, Hooper was top scorer with twenty league goals. Another departure was secretary John Gummow who, ill from July 1960, retired five days before Christmas and was replaced by Ron Moules. The second home game of the season featured the greatest comeback in Rovers’ history. Four goals behind at the interval, Rovers staged an exceptional second-half recovery to draw 4-4 with Leeds United at Eastville. Don Revie, later an England manager, had been in the Leeds side which drew 1-1 with Rovers at Elland Road five days earlier, but this Monday fixture still found Rovers facing strong opposition, including centre-half Jack Charlton, a 1966 World Cup winner. The referee, Jack Taylor, was to be in charge of the 1974 World Cup Final, where he awarded a controversial first-minute penalty. Leeds were 4-0 up inside forty-one minutes. Colin Grainger, a thorn in Rovers’ side while with Sunderland in 1959-60, scored after ten minutes, John Hawksby scored twice, the second after Noel Payton had hit a post and John McCole snapped up a rebound off goalkeeper Malcolm Norman. Rovers, however, approached the second-half with renewed vigour and scored three times in twelve minutes, through Petherbridge, after an interchange of passes with Hillard, Hamilton from a Mabbutt free-kick and Hooper. A very tense half-hour passed until Hooper hit a dramatic equaliser from a Biggs cross with two minutes remaining. Even then, Graham Ricketts had an opportunity to score, but an entertaining game finished with honours even. Despite the heavy defeats, Rovers were to achieve some very creditable results. The first win of the season, against Rotherham United in the eighth game, was the first of four in six games and there were three straight victories just before Christmas and four in five games in March. Leyton Orient, Swansea Town and Southampton were all beaten 4-2 at Eastville, Hooper scoring on each occasion. Swansea’s case was not helped by Mel Nurse, the winner of twelve Welsh international caps, conceding an own goal. Hooper scored again in a 4-1 victory over Luton Town added a further goal in an extraordinary 4-3 home win over Liverpool, where Bobby Jones scored twice for the first of two consecutive league matches. Liverpool’s Kevin Lewis scored three times, one from a penalty, in so doing becoming the first of four opponents to score a league hat-trick against Rovers and yet end up on the losing side. Indeed, Rovers won their last seven home games of the season. Portsmouth, ultimately relegated, were beaten 2-0 in a key fixture in March, Hooper and Bradford both scoring. Sheffield United, already promoted and having reached the FA Cup semi-finals with Len Allchurch in majestic form, were seen off 3-1 in the final home match to complete an improbable league double. From New Year onwards, Rovers were unbeaten at Eastville and recorded a second away win, two Hooper goals defeating Lincoln City at Sincil Bank. A potential win at Swansea Town in February was thwarted by an early injury to goalkeeper Howard Radford, which ended his season and saw Mabbutt play the final seventy-two minutes in goal. A flurry of goals in January was epitomised by the 3-3 draw with Scunthorpe United, for whom Barrie Thomas scored twice in each of the league meetings with Rovers. Yet, while the club’s home record was good, Rovers contrived to lose ten of the last eleven away games. As the season drew to a close, these defeats became steadily heavier. Rovers lost 3-0 at Liverpool and Portsmouth, fighting for their survival, and 5-0 at Plymouth Argyle, George Kirby and Wilf Carter scoring twice each. Ominously for 1961-62, these results left Rovers scrapping for points to ensure the retention of Second Division football. This achieved, Rovers crashed 4-0 to Huddersfield Town at Leeds Road on the final day of the season, the home side requiring at least a point to guarantee survival. As it was, Derek Stokes scored twice, as he did in October 1961 on the next occasion the clubs met and as he had at Eastville, after thirty-eight and seventy-eight minutes before Hamilton struck a consolation goal six minutes from time. The signs for 1961-62 were bleak. With minimal funds for player recruitment, Bert Tann was able to sign just Brian Carter and John Hills over the summer of 1961. Rovers lost every game in which either of these players appeared. Eighteen players were used in the opening four games, but Rovers lost the first seven, the Huddersfield game at the end of 1960-61 creating a club record eight in succession. Ward and Biggs had left, but young talent in the form of Mabbutt, Jarman and Jones was coming to the fore. Over the close season, though, Bobby Campbell, later Rovers’ manager between 1977 and 1979, joined Rovers as trainer. In July 1961, Tann brought Bill Dodgin to Eastville as chief scout. A wing-half with Rovers in 1936-37, he had played alongside Tann and Fred Ford at Charlton Athletic. Dodgin was to be Rovers’ manager between August 1969 and July 1972 and his return to Eastville at this point must be viewed as a highly positive move. Mention must also be made of the Social Club, which put together a busy first full working year for its 2,000 members. Tombola, often run by the son of former goalkeeper Harry Stansfield, and dancing evenings proved highly popular, while there was a darts night every Monday and whist on Tuesdays. Sunday evenings were Show night, where Bill McMullen presented a variety of acts, including a fire eater, an Indian fakir and a troupe of performing cats. Brian Jones hosted an increasingly successful Rock ‘n’ Roll evening every Wednesday. Rovers made history in September by hosting and winning the first game ever played in the newly-created League Cup. By dint of a 7.15pm kick-off, fifteen minutes earlier than other ties, Fulham’s Maurice Cook is credited with the tournament’s first goal and Rovers, with Jarman scoring for the club for the first time, with the opening victory. Hamilton scored twice as Rovers ran up a 5-3 victory at Reading before succumbing to Rotherham United. It was the first match ever played under floodlights at Millmoor and the home side won through goals from Alan Kirkman and Ken Houghton. In the FA Cup, First Division Aston Villa were held to a draw at Eastville but won the replay convincingly, with two goals apiece from Bobby Thompson and England international Gerry Hitchens. Dai Ward was accused by many of lacking interest in this game and, indeed, never appeared in a Rovers shirt again. Two Biggs goals helped defeat Chelsea 3-1 in a friendly in January before an Eastville crowd of 5,245. Rovers gave a début to David Stone in the Gloucestershire Cup Final but, after a goalless first-half, lost 3-1 at home to Bristol City. John Atyeo, who had scored a hat-trick against Brentford forty-eight hours earlier in the final league game of the season, scored two of the goals.
1961-62
After nine seasons in Division Two, Rovers were relegated to Division Three. It was the end of arguably the most glorious chapter in the club’s history. The first seven games of the season were lost and there were 22 league defeats in total, the most since 1936-37 though not as many as in the relegation campaign of 2010-11, while a tally of thirteen league victories was, at the time, the lowest since 1947-48. Rovers scored 53 league goals, the lowest figure in the Second Division years, where the club had reached eighty in four consecutive seasons. The 2013-14 relegation season, by means of comparison, saw Rovers scored just 42 League goals and lose twenty times in the League. In truth, the minimal funds at Bert Tann’s disposal, meant it was inevitable the club would struggle. John Hills and Brian Carter, the latter having played for Portsmouth in the nine-goal thriller in February 1960, arrived on free transfers and Micky Slocombe was the only local player to break into the side in the early part of the season. Geoff Bradford began the season at centre-forward, but by Christmas was playing at right-back with the ever-reliable Ray Mabbutt leading the line. Although a tireless worker and key figure in the side, Mabbutt was to score just twice all season. The only ever-present was left-back John Frowen, who completed a run of 66 consecutive league appearances, while Bobby Jones, with one more than Bradford and Peter Hooper, was top scorer on thirteen league goals. It is not just that Rovers lost their opening games, though, but the manner of these defeats which set the stage for the season ahead. A bumper crowd of 19,438 at Eastville on the opening day of the season earned the players a £6 bonus each, but Liverpool, destined to be runaway champions, took the points. This was the first fixture before the newly-roofed Tote End, where the greyhound totaliser clocks, installed in 1935, had now been placed prominently on the roof facia. Bury completed a league double and Rovers crashed 4-0 at Rotherham United even before Rovers’ first goals of the season. Bradford scored twice at home to Sunderland, but Rovers still lost and did so again at Scunthorpe United and Stoke City, in Josser Watling’s final game for the club. Doug Hillard’s broken leg at Scunthorpe ruled him out of football for seven months. Seven straight defeats, or eight if the final game of 1960-61 is included, constitutes an unwanted club record and left Rovers adrift at the foot of Division Two. Through the middle of September, the revival got underway. Consecutive 2-1 victories were followed by a decisive 4-0 win against Leeds United, Hooper scoring twice against a side who were, in fact, to finish just three points above Rovers. A draw at Norwich City followed, but this encouraging run was ended by none other than Alfie Biggs, who scored the only goal of the game from six yards out two minutes from time as Preston North End defeated his home town club. Whereas in the relegation season of 1980-81 only five league matches were won, this Rovers side certainly proved it could win key games on occasions. A Jones hat-trick contributed to a 4-1 win over Swansea Town, a fifth consecutive home victory and the third of four occasions that Rovers scored as many as four times in a home match. Astonishingly, Rovers completed league doubles over Leyton Orient, who were promoted to Division One, and over sixth-placed Southampton. On the other hand, though conceding fewer goals than the previous season, Rovers suffered a number of heavy defeats. Their situation is best summarised through the experiences of Keith Havenhand, who only ever scored fourteen goals for Derby County but became the only player to register two league hat-tricks in a season against Rovers. Derby won both matches 4-1. Len White also scored three times, with Len Allchurch claiming one of the others, as Newcastle United defeated Rovers 5-2. Although Jarman gave Rovers a fourth-minute lead at Roker Park, Rovers trailed by half-time and conceded three goals in the final quarter of an hour to lose 6-1. Roger Hunt and Ian St John were Liverpool’s scorers, as Rovers lost 2-0 at Anfield to a side featuring Ron Yeats, Ian Callaghan, Jimmy Melia and Gordon Milne and which was to win the league championship in 1963-64. Future Rovers players John Williams and John Brown both scored for Plymouth Argyle at Eastville, though Rovers won 4-3, and Alfie Biggs scored in both league meetings for Preston North End. However, own goals proved to be something of a problem. When Rovers lost at Brighton in December in the final league appearance of George Petherbridge, who had played in 452 league matches and scored in the first sixteen consecutive post-war seasons, it was to a David Pyle own goal after twenty-nine minutes, from Bobby Laverick’s low cross. Norman Sykes somehow contrived to concede own goals home and away to Sunderland, a feat paralleled in August 1977 when Phil Bater scored against his own side in both legs of a league cup-tie with Walsall. However, Pyle and Sykes both scored own goals in a bizarre 2-0 home defeat to Stoke City in January. Dennis Viollet, who had scored for England against Luxembourg just four months earlier, made his Stoke début but Rovers contributed both goals by deflecting harmless-looking crosses from Don Ratcliffe into their own net, Pyle six minutes before half-time and Sykes after sixty-six minutes. In Sykes’ case, it was just seven days after his own goal at Roker Park. At half-time in the Stoke game, referee RH Mann of Worcester, who took charge of that season’s League Cup Final second leg, had to retire after pulling a leg muscle and was replaced by JW Tucker of Loughrane. On 22nd October, the day after a crushing 4-1 defeat at Huddersfield Town, a former Rovers stalwart, Ben Appleby, the club’s fourth highest appearance maker in the Southern League days, died at the age of 84. The defeat at Leeds Road was soon followed by heavy defeats against Derby County and Newcastle United. The upshot was that the home game with Middlesbrough at the end of November was watched by the first home crowd under 10,000 for many years. Esmond Million, later a Rovers goalkeeper, was injured in this game but the visitors still inflicted on Rovers one of their seven league defeats at Eastville. Seven days later, a goalless draw at Walsall was the first Rovers league match with that score-line since the game at Barnsley in March 1959, a club record run of 114 league fixtures. Bury featured the future Sunderland manager Bob Stokoe in their side for both League encounters against Rovers. Meanwhile, the Devon hypnotist Henry Blythe, whose teenage son was on Rovers’ books, at that time running a psychology course at Ruskin College, Oxford, offered his services to prevent Rovers from suffering relegation; Bert Tann rejected the offer. Rovers went to Middlesbrough on 14th April out of the relegation zone with five matches to play. Brighton were apparently virtually relegated and the race to avoid the second position saw Leeds United on 30 points, Rovers and Boro’ on 31 and Swansea Town, with just four games left, on 32. It had not been Rovers’ season in the north-east, what with a 5-2 defeat at Newcastle United and 6-1 hammering at Sunderland, but the 5-0 loss at Ayresome Park left Rovers with much to do. On Good Friday, Rovers drew with a Charlton Athletic side forced to play inside-forward John Hewie (1927-2015) in goal. Twenty-four hours later, Bradford’s two goals earned a draw with Walsall and left Rovers and Leeds United, with two matches remaining, on 33 points above Swansea Town, now with a game in hand, on 32 and a rejuvenated Brighton on 31. On Easter Monday, as Rovers and Brighton lost, Swansea picked up a point. Twenty-four hours later Leeds United drew with Bury and the Swans beat Plymouth Argyle 5-0. Brighton were relegated and Swansea safe while, with one game left, the remaining relegation place was to be taken by Leeds, on 34 points, or Rovers, a point below them. As Leeds faced the daunting task of visiting Newcastle United, Rovers had to beat Luton Town, a side they had earlier defeated at Eastville. At Kenilworth Road, however, Gordon Turner put the Hatters ahead after three minutes, following a poor goal-kick by Howard Radford, and Alec Ashworth’s shot twelve minutes later was deflected in off Dave Bumpstead so that Rovers, in losing 2-0, were relegated with Brighton to Division Three, three points adrift of Leeds United who had unaccountably won 3-0 at St James’ Park. Above Leeds and Swansea Town were an incredible eight clubs on 39 points. Crucially, Rovers had won only twice in the sixteen fixtures against these sides. League performances were reflected in Cup results. Oldham Athletic, a Fourth Division side, held Rovers in the FA Cup before winning a replay through two John Colquhoun goals at Boundary Park. Rovers beat Hartlepool United 2-1 in the League Cup and held Blackburn Rovers to a draw before the First Division side recorded a straightforward replay victory, Eddie Thomas scoring all four of their goals. Roy McCrohan, later a Rovers player, was a member of the Norwich City side which defeated unfashionable Rochdale 4-0 on aggregate in the League Cup Final. Rovers had latterly strengthened their side with the signings of Dave Bumpstead from Millwall and Keith Williams in a £6,500 move from Plymouth Argyle, and it was the latter who scored Rovers’ goal in a demoralising 3-1 defeat in the Gloucestershire Cup Final at Ashton Gate. Rovers led at half-time, but Brian Clark’s splendid second-half hat-trick won the trophy for Bristol City. The Football League defeated the League of Ireland 5-2 in a representative game at Eastville in October before a crowd of 31,959, with Bryan Douglas of Blackburn Rovers scoring two of their goals. Tragedy struck in November, when Ian Hamilton’s brother John, a promising young player on Rovers’ books, died with his wife and daughter in a bungalow fire at Olveston.
1962-63
Although the 3-0 defeat at Hull City in August 1962 was officially Rovers’ first game in Division Three, the realigning of the divisions in 1958 had led to a distortion of statistics. The reality was that Rovers were back in the division they had occupied between 1920 and 1953 and in which they have spent the bulk of their league existence. The reality was also that, devoid of financial support, the club was to struggle and, indeed came within minutes of a disastrous second consecutive relegation into the uncharted waters of Division Four. Manager Bert Tann made strenuous efforts to avoid such a calamity befalling Bristol Rovers. He had appointed Bill Dodgin in 1961 as chief scout and now, in July 1962, he promoted Bobby Campbell to the post of coach. A fast raiding winger with Chelsea and Reading, Campbell had won two Scottish caps and was manager at Dumbarton before joining Rovers. Both Dodgin and Campbell were to manage Rovers in their own right but, for now, their rôle was to rebuild the club from the ashes of relegation. There was clearly insufficient talent on Rovers’ books and no money to purchase replacements, so their task was to work with the many mediocre local footballers, searching for the rare glimpse of raw skill or character which would enable a young player to break into league football. Long, dark winter evenings were spent carefully building up the skills of numerous players under the dim floodlights of the Muller Road car park ash practice pitches. The departure of George Petherbridge to Salisbury City left Geoff Bradford as the sole survivor of the Division Three (South) days. Doug Hillard, Norman Sykes, Ray Mabbutt, Harold Jarman and Bobby Jones were all by now experienced Rovers players. The new goalkeeper, with Howard Radford retired, was Esmond Million, signed for £5,000 from Middlesbrough. The same fee bought the accomplished left-back Gwyn Jones from Wolverhampton Wanderers, an excellent musician and alert defender who, in missing only two league games in 1962-63, played more times than any other Rovers player. These two players were purchased with the money raised by the sale, after 297 league games and 101 goals, of Peter Hooper to Cardiff City. John Watkins joined Chippenham Town. Rovers also eschewed their quartered shirts in favour of a short-lived white top with blue pin-stripes. Rovers were able to benefit from the experience of the previous season’s signings, Keith Williams, top scorer with seventeen league goals, and Dave Bumpstead. This complemented well the slow influx of local talent such as Micky Slocombe, Joe Davis, Tom Baker and David Hurford. All eight of Graham Muxworthy’s league appearances, including defeat at Ashton Gate where Rovers trailed 3-0 by half-time and Bobby Williams scored the fourth against his future club, were in the calendar month of April. Glaswegian Alex Munro arrived, initially on trial, and Jimmy Humes joined from Preston North End on the recommendation of Alfie Biggs. Finally, the great man himself returned in October in a £12,000, Biggs coming back to Eastville after fifteen months away. Prior to the new season, a Bristol Combined XI lost 2-1 at Ashton Gate against Arsenal in a match to raise funds for the St Mary Redcliffe Restoration Appeal. Williams scored, while Million, Bradford, Jones and Sykes also played. Life in Division Three soon proved uncomfortable, as a string of poor results testify. An early season 5-2 defeat at Wrexham, where Williams missed a penalty, was followed by a catastrophic October. Rovers lost 3-0 at Swindon Town and equalled an unwanted club record, set in April 1922, by conceding three hat-tricks in a calendar month. In losing 7-2 at Shrewsbury Town, Rovers suffered their heaviest defeat since December 1957. Frank Clarke and Jim McLaughlin scored three times each, the second of three occasions on which two opponents have each scored hat-tricks against Rovers in the league. Arthur Rowley, the league’s all-time top scorer, hit the third goal from 25 yards and later hit the crossbar with a free-kick, while the Shrews also fielded Ted Hemsley, who was to play a key role in Rovers’ Watney Cup Final triumph in 1972. Two goals down inside ten minutes, after Million twice spilled long-distance shots, Jarman pulled a goal back, Biggs headed against the bar, Hamilton missed an open goal and Williams saw a good shot saved before Rovers conceded two more goals to trail 4-1 at half-time. A fortnight after defeat at Shrewsbury, Rovers lost 3-2 at Southend United, for whom John McKinven scored the first of his two hat-tricks against Rovers. The season, however, got no easier. Eddie O’Hara (1935-2016) scored three times as Rovers lost 4-0 to Barnsley at Oakwell, four Carlisle United players got on the score-sheet at Brunton Park and five Hull City players at Eastville. Bristol City completed a league double over Rovers and Coventry City won 5-0, with Willie Humphries and Ron Rees scoring twice each. On the other hand, two Terry Oldfield goals steered Rovers to a 5-2 victory at home to Halifax Town and the resurgent Biggs scored twice in a 4-1 home win over Brighton. Rovers also won at home to Barnsley who fielded their youngest ever player in league football, at sixteen years 226 days, in goalkeeper Alan Ogley. On Good Friday, Rovers recorded a 5-3 win at Queen’s Park Rangers, with Williams and Jones scoring twice each. Rovers had led twice but responded to Mark Lazarus giving Rangers a 3-2 lead after seventy-six minutes with three goals in nine minutes for a well-earned victory. Another encouraging sign was the emerging talent of inside-forward, Ian “Chico” Hamilton, whose ten league goals made him joint second highest scorer alongside Jones. The winter of 1962-63 was one of the worst in the twentieth century as far as the weather was concerned, with snow lying for weeks. The game at Reading on Boxing Day was abandoned after an hour because the pitch was frostbound, with Rovers a goal down. As a result, Rovers did not play between 15th December, two days after the former Scottish international Jimmy Howie, an exceptional Rovers player in the 1902-03 season, had passed away at the Central Middlesex Hospital and 9th February, when the side began a run of three consecutive victories. Great goalscorers of the 1960s, such as Notts County’s Tony Hateley and Jeff Astle, both on the threshold of long and successful careers, scored against Rovers in 1962-63. So too did Dai Ward at Eastville, for a Watford side boasting Bobby Brown, who had represented Great Britain at football in the 1960 Olympics. Another former Rovers forward, Barrie Meyer, celebrated his final game in professional football with a hat-trick in Bristol City’s 6-3 victory over Southend United in March; Bobby “Shadow” Williams, a future Rovers player, scored City’s other three goals that day. In April 1963, “The People” newspaper alleged that goalkeeper Million had accepted a £300 bribe to enable Bradford Park Avenue to beat Rovers. He had allowed a back pass to slip past him and let a cross go, leaving the innocent Kevin Hector, later the winner of two league championship medals with Derby County, to score twice. Hector was to score against Rovers in the FA Cup in 1975. The match had been drawn 2-2, so Million and his accomplice Williams had received none of the money. Suddenly Rovers were making national headlines for all the wrong reasons. The press uncovered details of how they had unsuccessfully tried to persuade full-back Jones to join them. The Mansfield Town defender, Brian Phillips (1931-2012), a former team-mate of Million’s at Middlesbrough, was named as the “fixer”, working on behalf of a syndicate of professional gamblers and was later sentenced at Nottingham Assizes to fifteen months’ imprisonment. Rovers had invested £11,500 in transfer fees for Million and Williams and the battle against relegation had not yet been won. However, the club wasted no time in suspending both players. They and Phillips were fined £50 each at Doncaster Magistrates Court in July 1963 and banned from football for life by the Football Association. Williams was to resurface in South African football which, at that time lay outside the remit of FIFA, the world governing body. The image of professional football had been tarnished, but Rovers’ immediate response to the crisis and the way the club had responded and helped bring the culprits to justice came in for high praise. Rovers were left to survive the relegation dogfight without two key players, but with a clear conscience that the club was working hard to stamp out all that is unsavoury in the game. By dint of the atrocious winter weather, Rovers extraordinarily played nine league games in April and five in May. Bradford and Biggs had scored to beat Colchester United, leaving Rovers requiring victory over Halifax Town at The Shay to avoid relegation, prior to the final game which was lost 2-0 at Port Vale. A narrow 3-2 win at Halifax avoided the prospect of double relegation and Rovers never did appear in Division Four. Yet, it was a close call. A miserly crowd of 2,126, albeit boosted by some 500 enthusiastic Rovers supporters, saw Rovers a goal ahead after two minutes through Jones’ shot and 2-0 up ten minutes later when Hamilton headed home Bradford’s cross. However, already-relegated Halifax recovered after half-time and equalised through shots from Paddy Stanley and Dennis Fidler. With just fourteen minutes remaining, Rovers won a corner and Jones’ kick found Hamilton’s head to ensure Third Division survival. FA Cup defeat at Port Vale contrasted with victory over the same opposition in the League Cup. However, after brushing aside Cardiff City, Rovers lost 3-1 in the third round at Second Division Bury, who fielded at centre-half Bob Stokoe, later a hugely successful manager. Goals from Hamilton and Jones earned Rovers a 2-1 victory over Bristol City at Eastville in the Gloucestershire Cup Final.
1963-64
In comparison with the relegation dogfight of 1962-63, the second season in Division Three gave cause for great optimism. Identical tallies of wins and defeats left Rovers in twelfth place in the table and seven of the next ten seasons were to see top-six finishes. While 79 league goals were conceded, the 91 scored has only ever been bettered in the 1952-53 championship season. Alfie Biggs became the first Rovers player since then to score thirty league goals. The total of 170 goals by both sides in Rovers’ 46 league matches constitutes a club seasonal record. One crucial element in this relative success was the benefit of a settled side. After two seasons as a reserve goalkeeper, Bernard Hall was an ever-present and his full-backs, Doug Hillard and Gwyn Jones, missed just one league game between them. In the forward line, Biggs and Harold Jarman were ever-presents, Bobby Jones, Ian Hamilton and John Brown, a free signing from Plymouth Argyle, all regulars. Brian Jenkins, recruited from Exeter City, and the veteran Geoff Bradford also appeared. With a settled half-back line, Rovers could continue to experiment with youth, Roger Frude and Lindsay Parsons both making a league début in April. The pin-striped shirt had not been a success and Rovers took to the field in 1963-64 in blue and white striped shirts. John Frowen, after 84 league games, had returned to Wales to sign for Newport County. After sporadic appearances, several other players had moved on, including Allen Wood to Merthyr Tydfil, Hugh Ryden to Stockport County, Jimmy Humes to Chester, Tom Baker to Dover and Graham Muxworthy to Bridgwater Town. After appearing in the first three winless games of the new season, Dave Bumpstead announced his retirement from football to work in industry, though he later returned to manage Brentwood and Chelmsford City. As Bert Tann cultivated a side fit to survive in Division Three, there was no scope for sentiment and Bradford and Norman Sykes were both dropped. A new-look side was beginning to emerge, with goalkeeper Hall embarking on a run of 115 consecutive league games and Brown, Jarman and Hamilton supporting free-scoring Biggs. In winning nineteen league matches, Rovers scored seven times at home to Shrewsbury Town, five at Brentford and four on five other occasions. In December, a sixth occasion Rovers scored four times proved insufficient for victory. Two first-half Hamilton goals were mirrored by a brace each from Tony Richards and Jack Mudie, as Port Vale drew 4-4 at Eastville. Richards had put the visitors ahead after only thirteen minutes, but Rovers three times threw away the lead, with five goals being scored in the space of sixteen minutes midway through the second-half. A Hamilton hat-trick earned a 5-2 win at Griffin Park, while Hull City, Bristol City and Notts County all lost 4-0 at Eastville. The win against Bristol City, which started with a Mike Gibson own goal, was rounded off with Geoff Bradford’s final goal for Rovers. The crowd of 19,451 was bettered only by Rovers’ visits to Ashton Gate and to champions Coventry City. Rovers also recorded 4-3 victories after being 3-1 down away to Southend United and to bottom club Notts County. At Roots Hall, Rovers were a goal down after four minutes, 2-1 down inside ten minutes and were 3-1 behind following a sixty-fifth minute defensive mix-up. Biggs reduced the deficit ten minutes later, Hamilton equalised with three minutes remaining and a great comeback was completed when Peter Watson, under pressure from Biggs, steered the ball into his own net to give Rovers victory. At Meadow Lane, sixteen-year-old Bob Woolley claimed the second goal to become the youngest player ever to play against and score against Rovers in League football and Keith Fry scored twice, once from a penalty awarded for handball against Stone, as Rovers trailed 2-1 by half-time and 3-1 seven minutes after the break. The stage was set for Biggs, whose goals after sixty-two, sixty-nine and eighty minutes, the winner from a volley, completed his second hat-trick for the club and earned Rovers a once unlikely victory. Notts County must have dreaded the sight of Biggs for, following his hat-trick at Meadow Lane, he scored twice in a 4-0 win at Eastville to take his seasonal tally to the magical thirty mark. Rovers scored a club record 39 away league goals in 1963-64 and, in January and February, won five consecutive matches away from home to equal a club record set in the 1952-53 championship year. The biggest win of all, though, was a seven-goal demolition of Shrewsbury Town at Eastville in March. Four forwards scored, with Jones and Jarman striking twice each and Biggs, from a penalty, and Brown once. Centre-half Dave Stone, a former chorister at St Mary Redcliffe who was just establishing himself in the side, scored his first goal for the club. Five goals ahead by half-time for only the second time in the club’s history, Rovers equalled their largest ever league win with comparative ease. Seven days later, though, they were brought down to earth when John O’Rourke’s hat-trick gave Luton Town a 4-2 victory. O’Rourke was to score five of the six league goals the Hatters scored against Rovers that season. There was another 4-2 defeat at Coventry City, though revenge was gained in the FA Cup, while John Atyeo’s final league goal against Rovers and one from the former Eastville favourite, Peter Hooper, gave Bristol City an opening day 3-0 win. With the England manager Alf Ramsey in the stand, apparently running the rule over Jarman, Denis Coughlin scored Bournemouth’s winner after half an hour at Dean Court and, four days later, Coughlin added two more goals at Eastville as Rovers followed up their 7-0 win with four straight defeats. Similarly, high-flying Crystal Palace were indebted to Peter Burridge, who scored the winner at Selhurst Park and twice at Eastville as his side, en route to promotion, completed a league double over Rovers. The season was completed with heavy defeats at Reading and at Crewe Alexandra. Rovers played their final game at Gresty Road on 25th April, at which point in 1962-63 seven matches had been remaining, against a Crewe side which had to win to avoid relegation. Their 4-1 victory condemned Wrexham, 5-0 losers before a paltry crowd of 4,497 at Port Vale, to the drop. Although only nine league games were drawn, four of these finished 2-2. Both matches with Peterborough United were four-goal draws, the winner of 43 Northern Ireland caps, Derek Dougan, scoring on both occasions. Joe Haverty, a Rovers player the following season, scored for Millwall in their 2-2 draw at Eastville. When Rovers visited Boundary Park, goals from Hamilton and Jarman were not enough, as Bobby Johnstone became the fourth opponent to score two penalties in a league game. The Gloucestershire Cup Final, too, was a 2-2 draw, with Alex Munro scoring his first goal for the club and the future Rovers forward Bobby Williams scoring Bristol City’s second goal. At the close of the season, Rovers were informed of the death, at the age of 69, of David Steele, who had played in Rovers’ first league game. He had won league championship medals with Huddersfield Town and, as a scout, had been credited with the “discovery” of Len Shackleton. There was a loss on the field, too, with the retirement of Geoff Bradford, the last survivor of the 1952-53 championship-winning side. In 461 league appearances, he had scored a club record 242 goals, including twelve hat-tricks. After leaving Rovers, he worked as a tanker driver in Avonmouth and continued to take an interest in the club’s progress. In his testimonial game in April, a Bristol United XI lost 4-1 to an International XI. Recalled for the final home game of the season, however, Bradford had been overshadowed by Reading’s Dennis Allen who scored a hat-trick as his side, with Peter Shreeves at inside-left, won 5-2. In the previous game, Bert Tann had given a début to Lindsay Parsons and, thus, a member of the 1973-74 promotion side was in the team prior to the final game of the longest survivor of the 1952-53 line-up. Hamilton, perhaps harshly labelled “the inside-forward who never seems to score goals”, claimed the first four at home to Shrewsbury Town in the League Cup, with two first-half headers and two shots after the interval. The visitors managed by Arthur Rowley, scored twice in ninety seconds to pull the score back, the second when Gwyn Jones’ clearance ricocheted into the net off George Boardman, before Biggs added a couple of goals in the last seven minutes. Rovers’ League Cup ended in a replay at Gillingham, where Ron Newman scored twice. In the FA Cup, Rovers won at Bournemouth, after Hall had saved Stan Bolton’s penalty, and Coventry City, before defeating Second Division Norwich City at Eastville. Round Four saw Rovers at Old Trafford, before a crowd of over 55,000, facing Bobby Charlton and George Best in a very strong Manchester United team. Rovers lost 4-1, with Denis Law’s hat-trick including two second-half headers and David Herd scoring once and creating two others, while Scottish international Paddy Crerand headed the ball into his own net for Rovers’ seventy-first minute consolation goal. While Bristol Rovers, despite visiting this prestigious ground, reported an annual loss of £41,000, the Supporters’ Club reported a £100,000 profit.Meanwhile, plans were afoot to demolish much of the heart of Easton, where 5,000 of the 14,000 population were to be rehoused. The shelving of these plans in later years was to lead to the enforced cheap sale of considerable numbers of homes. Thus, one thousand inhabitants were forced to move away and 61% of the population was rehoused in high-rise tower blocks. This newly constructed accommodation proved a magnet for immigrants from former British colonies, who arrived at this time to fill vacancies in many industries. Their arrival was met with a certain degree of hostility in a land that as yet had no race discrimination legislation. In 1963, the Bristol Omnibus Company had refused to employ black workers and a boycott of buses, arranged by Paul Stephenson, was endorsed by many public figures, amongst them the Bishop of Bristol, the Rt. Rev. Oliver Tomkins (1908-92). The Company’s decision was to be overturned in the aftermath of a May Day rally in Eastville Park, supported by the Labour Member of Parliament for Bristol South-East, Tony Benn (1925-2014). On 17th September 1963, Raghbir Singh from Clifton was appointed as the first “non-white” bus conductor in the Bristol area and the process of integration was thus given some scope to develop further.
1964-65
In retaining the shape of the previous season’s side, Bert Tann introduced just one close season signing. Roy McCrohan had played in 385 league games for Norwich City and joined Rovers in a £400 deal from Colchester United. Unable initially to break into a well-drilled side, he appeared in ten league matches for Rovers, scoring in the draw at Brentford, before working as Bobby Robson’s assistant at Ipswich Town. Otherwise, it was a consistent Rovers line-up for the 1964-65 season. Although goalkeeper Bernard Hall was the only ever-present, six other players appeared in over forty league matches. Alfie Biggs scored eighteen league goals, with Ian Hamilton top-scoring on twenty-one. The mid-table position obtained twelve months earlier had raised the level of optimism and Rovers, with 82 league goals and more points than in any season since 1952-53, finished in sixth place. Rovers completed the season with consecutive away wins to end up with twenty league victories. This final flourish took the club within four points of promoted rivals, Bristol City. Although City finished with three straight victories to pip Mansfield Town on goal average, the reality was that Rovers were outsiders in the race. A desperate seven-match winless run in February had cost the club dearly, during which time Rovers lost three games in succession to potential promotion rivals, Hull City, Brentford and Bristol City. Defeat at Hull City was preceded by a one-minute’s silence in memory of Sir Winston Churchill, the former Prime Minister, who had died six days earlier at the age of ninety. Rovers had, in fact, begun the season in sparkling form. The first four home games were all won, with eighteen goals scored. Only one point was dropped in the opening five league fixtures. Alfie Biggs scored the second hat-trick of his Rovers career as Peterborough United were defeated 4-0 at Eastville in September, and fifteen goals in the first fourteen matches. However, his season was curtailed by injury and, with Ian Hamilton also sidelined with a troublesome knee, Rovers’ goal flow could not be maintained. As it was, Harold Jarman and Bobby Jones both contributed significant goals later in the season. On the opening day of the season, Biggs, Hamilton, Jarman and the impressive John Brown all scored against a strong Mansfield Town side that was ultimately only denied promotion on goal average. In the next two home games, in the space of a few days, Rovers put five goals each past Grimsby Town and champions-to-be Carlisle United. The former game finished 5-3, Rovers leading 3-0 after thirty-two minutes and 5-1 with fifteen minutes to play, with seven separate players on the score-sheet and the future England manager Graham Taylor (1944-2017) playing at left-half for the Mariners. Carlisle had led after eighteen minutes, only for Rovers again to lead 5-1 with a quarter of an hour left. This was the third and most recent occasion, after two such runs during the 1950-51 season, that Rovers have scored five times in consecutive league fixtures. Rovers were to beat Bournemouth 4-2 in October and record 4-0 victories at home to Workington and Port Vale. Unusually, Rovers could also claim to have completed a league double over the champions Carlisle United, Jarman and Hamilton both scoring in the 5-2 victory in September and in the 2-1 victory at Brunton Park at New Year. Rovers also led at Ashton Gate, when Joe Davis’ second-half penalty, his only goal of the season, threatened to derail Bristol City’s promotion push. City recovered to win 2-1. Promotion rivals Gillingham were comprehensively beaten twice, with Jarman scoring one of Rovers’ three goals on each occasion. On the other hand, relegated Colchester United claimed two draws with Rovers, lowly Walsall won at Eastville and struggling Exeter City and Southend United both drew on their travels. In addition to the champions, Rovers also completed league doubles over Luton Town, Gillingham and Barnsley. In October, the local derby at Eastville attracted a crowd of 25,370, the highest at any Rovers league or cup game all season. Later in the campaign, only 2,300 were to see Rovers lose to a 25-yard Dixie Hale volley and an eighty-third minute Jimmy Morgan winner at Workington. However, later in October, there was an astonishing match at Roots Hall where Southend United defeated Rovers 6-3. Hamilton’s third minute opener could not prevent Rovers from trailing 4-1 by half-time, Jimmy McKinven having scored twice. Hamilton scored again after fifty-eight minutes, but the home side led 5-2 with eleven minutes to play. Moments after McKinven had completed his hat-trick, so too did Hamilton for Rovers. It was Hamilton’s second hat-trick for the club and the only occasion a Rovers player had scored three goals and ended up on the losing side in a league match. McKinven had previously scored three times when Southend United had beaten Rovers 3-2 in October 1962. This remains one of only two league games featuring Rovers when both sides have included a hat-trick scorer. As the season progressed, Tann looked to strengthen his squad. The December signing of Irishman Joe Haverty from Millwall went some way towards achieving this aim. A diminutive figure at five feet three-and-a-half inches, the second shortest player to appear for Rovers, Haverty was a highly skilful acquisition and he was to score in the large win against Port Vale. He also played for Eire against Spain while on Rovers’ books. Another player to break into the league side was local inside-forward David Hudd, who picked up a career-threatening ankle injury at Barnsley and never reappeared in a Rovers shirt. In Biggs’ enforced absence, it was Hamilton who was to lead the way with seven goals in four games over Christmas, including his second hat-trick of the season as Luton Town were beaten 3-2 at Eastville. However, a team which had started so confidently in front of goal now scored just eleven goals in a run of twelve league games between the end of January and Good Friday. It was, with the benefit of hindsight, probably just as well that Rovers did not gain those four extra points and promotion to Division Two. In the absence of Biggs, the side was no match even for average Third Division sides. The most successful Rovers sides could boast a string of well-known local characters and, although Biggs, Mabbutt and Jarman were household names by 1965, this particular side still lacked depth. The patient work of Tann and his sidekicks continued, work which would ultimately lead to success under Don Megson in 1973-74. One key member of that side, Lindsay Parsons, once again made a few league appearances, while another, the giant Stuart Taylor, was waiting in the wings. The FA Cup offered Rovers a tantalising glimpse of glory. Victory at Walsall, where David Stone scored his only goal of the season, drew Southern League Weymouth at Eastville. Eschewing a repeat of the 15-1 victory in November 1900 or even the five-goal win twelve months later, Rovers were perfectly satisfied with a 4-1 score-line. There then followed a tie which features largely in any perusal of the annals of Stockport County. They fielded a side featuring outside-left Peter Phoenix, who had scored in an FA Cup tie at Eastville in January 1962. However, the Cheshire club was now languishing in the bottom position in Division Four, where they were destined to end the season and, though outplayed, left Eastville with a goalless draw. By the time of the replay, both sides knew that an away tie at First Division leaders Liverpool awaited the winners. An expectant crowd of 19,695 at Edgeley Park saw County take the lead after half an hour through Derek Hodgkinson, with Frank Beaumont adding a second within a minute. Stung into action, Rovers responded with goals from Mabbutt and Jones in a six-minute second-half spell. With just four minutes remaining, to the delirious delight of the home faithful, Ean Cuthbert’s free-kick was knocked home by Ian Sandiford and Rovers’ cup dreams were over. County, though, were to take the lead in front of a 51,000 crowd at Anfield and hold out for a respectable draw before losing in a replay. The key to this opportunity, victory over Rovers on a Monday night at Edgeley Park, is still viewed by many Stockport County supporters as a defining moment in their club’s history. Luck was not on Rovers’ side in the League Cup, where goals from Ralph Hunt and Peter Stringfellow gave Fourth Division Chesterfield a 2-0 victory over Rovers at Eastville. On the other hand, after a goal apiece before half-time, Rovers beat Bristol City 3-2 in the Gloucestershire Cup Final at Eastville, Hamilton scoring the winning goal. Arnold Rodgers scored three times for a Bristol City Old Players side which defeated their Rovers counterparts 6-3 at Eastville, with Geoff Fox, George Petherbridge and Geoff Bradford scoring. Further afield, Bath City lost 4-2 to Arsenal in December in a match to mark the official opening of the floodlights at Twerton Park, a ground destined to become Rovers’ home in 1986.
1965-66
Ever the shrewd tactician, manager Bert Tann was slowly moulding a side which was to reap further success in the early 1970s. With the help of men such as Bill Dodgin and Bobby Campbell, a group of players was being honed at minimal expense. Season 1965-66 saw a team of experienced local players, such as Alfie Biggs, Harold Jarman and Doug Hillard, combined with younger Bristolians, such as Dave Stone, Ray Graydon and Stuart Taylor. The cornerstones for the years to come were being put carefully in place. Season 1965-66 was one of great change nationally. The introduction of substitutes brought a new dimension to the game. Rovers’ first nominated substitute, Roy McCrohan, remained unused and was never to appear for the club again. The first time a substitute was used by Rovers was the appearance of Joe Davis in a 3-0 home victory over Walsall in October. Yet, this was also the season in which England hosted the World Cup and won the Wembley final. Geoff Hurst, whose father Charlie Hurst had played for Rovers reserves in 1938-39, scored a memorable hat-trick in the final, while Alan Ball, a Rovers player himself in 1982-83, ran the engine-room in midfield. Despite having finished as high as sixth in 1964-65 Rovers, albeit never appearing to be at risk of dropping into Division Four, completed the new season in sixteenth place in Division Three. The total of 64 goals scored in league football was, with the exception of the 1961-62 relegation year, the lowest seasonal total by the club since 1949-50. The absence of goalkeeper Bernard Hall from three league matches and an FA Cup defeat in November not only ended a run of 115 league appearances, but also left Hillard as the club’s only ever-present. Six players played in over forty league matches, but 23 were used in all, Harold Jarman being the top scorer with thirteen league goals, three more than Alfie Biggs and Bobby Jones. What above all transformed Rovers’ season into one of mediocrity was a demoralising club record run of fourteen consecutive league games without a win. This depressing statistic was to be repeated in the relegation season of 1980-81 and in the club’s first season in the basement division, 2001-02. Following victory over Oldham Athletic in the middle of October, Rovers were not to win again until the defeat of Grimsby Town at the end of January sparked a revival of sorts, as Rovers won six out of ten games. Yet, this previous run of fourteen games had included seven draws, two of these against Millwall, who were promoted to Division Two at the season’s end. There were also three 1-0 defeats and a 2-0 loss at struggling Oldham Athletic, whose goals came from Albert Quixall, a scorer for Sheffield Wednesday at Eastville as long ago as New Year’s Eve 1955, who this time converted a penalty, and Jim Frizzell. Oddly, the only heavy defeat of this dreadful run was a 6-1 mauling at the hands of the Tigers, champions-elect Hull City at Boothferry Park in December, when five opponents found the net. When heavy defeats arrived, they came just as Rovers were playing well. After a positive run of results, Rovers lost 4-1 at third-placed Queen’s Park Rangers on Good Friday, with the future England international Rodney Marsh one of the goalscorers. Revenge victory over Rangers was followed by a 5-2 capitulation at Peterborough United, for whom the former England centre-forward Derek Kevan was a goalscorer. Two big wins in September preceded a 3-0 defeat at Swansea Town and Rovers lost by the same score at Scunthorpe United, as well as losing 4-3 both at Swindon Town and at Brighton. On a Tuesday night in October, Rovers led 2-0 after only twenty-four minutes at Swindon Town, Jones and Jarman having scored. Eric Weaver and Roger Smart drew the home side level by half-time but, just four minutes after the break, Rovers again gained control with Jarman’s second of the game. However, two goals in four minutes, scored by Dennis Brown and Keith Morgan, consigned Rovers to defeat. Defeat at Brighton came as a result of what the “Bristol Evening Post” described as “an abysmal display by Rovers’ defence”. Charlie Livesey scored Albion’s opening goal after thirteen minutes and he was to equalise after Brown and Jarman had scored for Rovers shortly after half-time. Livesey then turned provider, creating a goal for Brian Tawse twenty minutes from the end. Oldfield pulled the scores level after eighty minutes but, with only five minutes remaining, Hall misjudged Bob Baxter’s free-kick, leaving Wally Gould with a simple tap-in and his goal left Rovers smarting from another high-scoring defeat. As the season progressed, a number of new signings were able to contribute to Rovers’ later success. John Petts, a former England international at schoolboy level, became a regular choice at right-half and scored in the large victory over struggling Mansfield Town. Chris Weller and Dick Plumb were both tried in the forward line, the latter scoring twice in a 4-0 victory over lowly Oldham Athletic, while Scottish inside-forward Ken Ronaldson scored two league goals as the season drew to a close. Rovers scored three or more goals on eleven occasions in the league. Bottom of the table York City lost their goalkeeper Tommy Forgan injured and, with right-back Alan Baker in goal for seventy-five minutes, lost 5-1 to Rovers. It was the club’s largest away win since an identical score-line at Notts County in September 1953. A week later, Rovers met Oxford United for the first time in league action, a Jones hat-trick past goalkeeper Harry Fearnley, who apparently smoked his pipe whenever his side was attacking, giving Rovers a comfortable 3-1 victory. The two biggest wins, though, came in February. Having beaten Grimsby Town to end their fourteen-game spell without a victory, Rovers’ goalscoring went berserk as they recorded a 5-0 win at Brentford, Alfie Biggs scoring a hat-trick. It was the first time Rovers had ever won an away league game by such a decisive margin. A fortnight later, the goal machine went one better, as Mansfield Town were defeated 6-0. Biggs, with two more goals, in the first and thirty-ninth minutes, was one of five Rovers scorers, with Roger Frude contributing a rare goal and Jones scoring for the first time in four months before Petts completed the scoring three minutes from time. It was to be September 1971 before Rovers next won a league match by six clear goals. As would befit Rovers’ season, though, York City, at the foot of Division Three, visited Eastville seven days later and fought out a goalless draw. Don Rogers, whose goals were to win a sensational League Cup final for Swindon Town in 1969, scored the only goal of the game at Eastville in September with a terrific 25-yard drive. Keith Burkinshaw, later an FA Cup-winning manager at Tottenham Hotspur, conceded an own goal at Eastville at the end of March, as his Scunthorpe United side was defeated 2-0. The goalless draw at Workington in April marked the first of a club record 546 league appearances made by Stuart Taylor between 1965 and 1980. At six feet five inches, Taylor became until the twenty-first-century the tallest player to represent Rovers in league action. The inclusion of the Bristol-born central defender as well as Lindsay Parsons in defence marked the first stage in the construction of the side Don Megson would lead to promotion in 1973-74. While the FA Cup brought Rovers no joy, Megson and the future Rovers full-back Wilf Smith were in the Sheffield Wednesday side which led 2-0 in the FA Cup Final at Wembley, only to lose to three Everton goals. Rovers did not progress beyond Round One in the League Cup either, but West Ham United were in fairness more glamorous opponents than Reading and there were two epic matches. The Hammers, FA Cup winners in 1964, were to reach the League Cup Final this year before losing over two legs to West Bromwich Albion, and fielded three players, Geoff Hurst, Martin Peters and Bobby Moore who were to win World Cup winners’ medals in the summer. A large Eastville crowd saw Hurst open the scoring after only two minutes and, though Brown equalised with a long-range left foot drive, the England striker Johnny Byrne set up another Hurst goal and then scored off the far upright to put West Ham 3-1 ahead after half an hour. Before the interval, Petts reduced the arrears when his low shot arrowed in off a post and he started the move from which Jarman equalised after fifty-eight minutes. Although Peters later fired against his own post, the Hammers survived. In the replay, Byrne and Hurst gave them a 2-0 half-time lead. Again there was a spirited Rovers revival, Petts volleying home after fifty-four minutes after Jarman had created an opportunity and Jones equalising two minutes later when Eddie Bovington slipped. Then, ten minutes from time, Petts lost control, Hurst fed Byrne and he grabbed the decisive goal. In the Gloucestershire Cup Final, a first-half Jarman goal gave Rovers victory over Bristol City at Ashton Gate. On 29th November 1965, Stapleton Road station closed to goods traffic after over one hundred years of business, staff being withdrawn on 17th July 1967, leaving the local railway station to Eastville Stadium dealing solely with human transport.
1966-67
On paper, finishing fifth in Division Three represents the highest final position achieved by Rovers since their return from Division Two five years earlier. In reality, however, missing out on promotion was a bitter blow. Bert Tann’s side suffered four straight defeats in the run-up to Christmas, yet still harboured genuine promotion hopes after a run of seven wins in nine games. Entering March, leaders Queen’s Park Rangers and Rovers still boasted a six-point gap over the chasing pack. Yet Rovers then endured a run of nine matches without a win to finish, after a final-day defeat, just two points behind promoted Middlesbrough. Rovers rejected stripes and turned out in 1966-67 in an all blue strip. In contrast, it was not a Rovers side which showed many changes from the previous season. Gwyn Jones, having lost his left-back berth to Joe Davis, had joined Porthmadog and a familiar line-up drew 3-3 with Swansea Town on the opening day, with young Stuart Taylor at centre-half. The season kicked off in a wave of optimism, for England were world champions. Alan Ball, who joined Rovers in January 1983, had become the first six-figure transfer in British football by joining cup-holders Everton from Blackpool in August for £110,000. The optimism sweeping Eastville emanated from the successful youth policy, whereby Rovers were able to field Bristol-born players such as Ray Graydon, Alfie Biggs, Doug Hillard and the side’s only ever-present Harold Jarman. Laurie Taylor, Wayne Jones and Vic Barney, all products of the youth scheme, broke into the league side as the season progressed, while Larry Lloyd played his first game in the Gloucestershire Cup Final. Success was based around a strong home record. Of the top eight sides, only Watford avoided defeat against Rovers. In fact, their decisive 3-0 victory at Eastville in December was only Rovers’ second home league defeat in fifteen months. The other home defeat came, bizarrely, at the hands of bottom-club Workington, whose second away win of the season was assured through a Brian Tinnion shot after twenty-eight minutes. This home success was gained through the prolific goalscoring of Biggs, with 23 goals, and nineteen-goal Jarman. Although no other player contributed more than five league goals, a total of fifteen Rovers players, the most since 1949-50, made the score-sheet. Rovers completed a league double over five clubs and won away against Reading and Middlesbrough, both of whom finished above them in the table. Rovers dropped just one point in their opening four league games. Despite defeat at Colchester United, the first five-figure home attendance of the calendar year saw a convincing 3-0 victory over Swindon Town, with Hillard, Jarman and Ian Hamilton scoring. It was the first in another run of three consecutive victories. After five straight home wins, the last being another 3-0 win, this time against Darlington, Mansfield Town were the visitors at Eastville in mid-October. This was a highly entertaining eight-goal draw. The visitors were 2-0 ahead after thirty-five minutes, only for Ken Ronaldson to reduce the margin three minutes before half-time. John Rowland’s second goal put Mansfield 3-1 up after sixty-five minutes and this sparked a Rovers recovery. Biggs, after seventy minutes and Jarman after seventy-five and eighty-five minutes, contributed three goals in a quarter of an hour and Rovers were dramatically in front. As the seconds ticked away, Stuart Brace equalised for the Stags and Rovers had to settle for a 4-4 draw. Three days later, Rovers again scored four times at Eastville, Jarman again scoring twice in a 4-1 victory over Gillingham, for whom Brian Yeo scored in both league meetings with Rovers. Walsall, Colchester United and Doncaster Rovers, the latter fielding the former Rovers wing-half Norman Sykes, all conceded four goals at Eastville. Rovers also beat Shrewsbury Town 4-3 in a dramatic game at Gay Meadow in November. Rovers already led 2-0, through Biggs and Jarman, when the home side was awarded a thirty-sixth minute penalty against Ray Mabbutt for handball. Bernard Hall saved Trevor Meredith’s kick. Seconds after half-time John Manning reduced the arrears only for John Brown, on forty-nine minutes, and Jarman again, just nineteen minutes from the end, to give Rovers a 4-1 lead. Two goals in three minutes set up a tight finish, but Rovers held out to complete a league double over the Shropshire club. As Christmas approached, and seeing his side lose its way with four consecutive league defeats, Tann splashed out £6,500 to bring the highly experienced right-half Johnny Williams to Eastville. A veteran of over 400 league appearances with Plymouth Argyle, Williams was in fact Bristol-born and the son of a journalist with the “Bristol Evening World”. He was to play in the final 21 league games, scoring the opening goal at home to Oldham Athletic. His near-namesake Bobby Williams, well known in Bristol circles after many years at Ashton Gate, arrived in a £16,000 move from Rotherham United in March to act as understudy to Ronaldson and the emerging talent of eighteen-year-old Wayne Jones. Rovers suffered three 3-0 defeats and lost 4-1 at Oxford United, still their heaviest defeat at the Manor Ground. A young Ron Atkinson orchestrated this defeat, with his brother Graham grabbing two of the goals. What cost the side dearly, though, was a club record run, since equalled in 1975-76, of five consecutive league draws over Easter. Three of these came in home matches, just at a time when Rovers required victory to push for promotion, while there were two drawn games with Bournemouth in the space of three days. In addition, Rovers lost several games they should have won, going down 3-2 at Doncaster Rovers, destined for relegation, for whom the former Pirate Graham Ricketts played and the former Rovers apprentice Laurie Sheffield scored twice. Rovers also lost at Torquay United, whose second goal in front of the highest attendance all season at Plainmoor, was scored after fifty-six minutes by Robin Stubbs, a Rovers player in 1969. Stubbs had hit the crossbar in the opening seconds of the second-half, with Ron Barnes equalising Bobby Williams’ thirteenth-minute opening goal from the subsequent rebound. On New Year’s Eve at Eastville, during the 2-2 draw with Middlesbrough, Johnny Williams’ back pass stuck in the mud and goalkeeper Bernard Hall and Boro’s John O’Rourke (1945-2016), who had scored a hat-trick against Rovers in March 1964, collided sickeningly. Hall was rushed unconscious to Frenchay Hospital, with Ray Mabbutt continuing in goal. The injury was more serious than many believed, however, and Hall spent sixteen days unconscious. Ultimately, with the best wishes of all football supporters across the country, he was able to return to normal life but not to football. After 163 league games, he was forced to retire on medical grounds and was granted a testimonial game in October 1967 against West Ham United. Ultimately, though some matches were comfortably won, Rovers were obliged to miss out once again on promotion. At Workington in February, Biggs scored in first-half injury-time with Hamilton adding a second eight minutes from the end. In the final home game, two Biggs goals defeated runaway champions Queen’s Park Rangers. Defeat at Watford meant Rovers, having finished their fixtures, still lay in the second promotion place, but could only watch helplessly as other clubs overtook them. Reading won at Workington to go above Rovers on goal average, Watford drew both their games in hand to finish a point higher and Middlesbrough, in defeating both Peterborough United and Oxford United, overtook all three to gain promotion. Back in fifth place, Rovers were left to rue wasted opportunities. The extent of Rovers’ participation in the League Cup was a single-goal defeat at Cardiff City, though a future Rovers goalkeeper, Dick Sheppard played in the final for West Bromwich Albion, beaten 3-2 by Queen’s Park Rangers. The Gloucestershire Cup Final was lost 3-0 at home to Bristol City, for whom Tony Ford, later a Rovers full-back, converted a second-half penalty. Another future Rovers player, Terry Cooper, the club’s manager between April 1980 and October 1981, was a member of the Leeds United side which lost the 1967 Fairs Cup Final 2-0 on aggregate to Dynamo Zagreb. In the FA Cup, Rovers had to rely on a Joe Davis penalty and an own goal from left-half John Lamb to earn a draw with Isthmian League Oxford City. Defeat avoided, four goals in the replay, three from the talismanic Biggs, brought Rovers a comfortable victory. Fourth Division Luton Town, conquerors over Exeter City, were no walkover but Rovers won through the odd goal in five to set up a third round tie at home to Arsenal. A crowd of over 35,000, the highest at Eastville for seven years, saw Rovers take on an Arsenal side that boasted Frank McLintock, captain of their 1970-71 double-winning side. Rovers were easily beaten 3-0, one of three goalscorers being George Graham, later a successful manager with Arsenal, Leeds United and Tottenham Hotspur.
1967-68
Despite having ended up so close to promotion in 1966-67, Rovers finished the following season in sixteenth place, albeit a comfortable six points clear of the relegation zone. Long-serving secretary Ron Moules had died suddenly in May 1967, aged forty-five, having served the club in this capacity since September 1949. Bert Tann’s final summer as Rovers manager saw few changes in playing personnel. Joe Davis had joined Swansea Town for £1,000 at the tail end of the previous season, so Doug Hillard and Alex Munro were full-backs behind goalkeepers Laurie Taylor and Ronnie Briggs, who played in 23 league matches each. Johnny Williams, Stuart Taylor and Dave Stone formed the half-back line. The forward line included top scorer Alfie Biggs, who scored eleven times before joining Walsall in March, Wayne Jones, Harold Jarman and Ken Ronaldson. The veteran Ray Mabbutt, an occasional utility player, weighed in with ten goals, one more than Johnny Williams and the returning Bobby Jones. His signing, just days after an opening day defeat at Bournemouth, could have inspired the club to a successful season. There were no ever-presents and five players wore the number nine shirt. Ian Hamilton’s recurring injury problems restricted him to one final game for the team. In league football, only the visits of Peterborough United in November, Reading on Boxing Day and Torquay United on Good Friday drew five-figure crowds at Eastville. In comparison with the preceding years, these were not the best of times and reshuffling in April was Rovers’ method of dealing with the situation. While changes within the club were imminent, alterations in the neighbourhood were taking place in 1967. Plans were already afoot for the M32 motorway, which was to open two years later ominously close to the old stadium. A Sunday market, the brainchild of Ron Moules, had first opened in 1967 in the stadium car park and was extended in 1972 to cover Fridays too. Investigations into the flooding problem which had plagued the Eastville district for so long were continuing and flood relief work, aimed at stemming the flow of the river Frome into land around the South Stand, resolved the problem in the summer of 1968, following a particularly bad winter, in which five million gallons of water had been pumped off the pitch. Then again, 10th July 1968 saw extensive flooding after five inches of rain fell in Eastville in a day; even more fell in twenty-four hours in Chew Stoke and the bridge over the River Chew at Pensford collapsed. Eight people died in Bristol, three of whom were washed away in a car in Keynsham, and five million gallons of water was pumped out of Eastville Stadium. On the field, in a season of great inconsistency, Rovers never won more than two league games in succession. The best runs were one of three wins in four games in the autumn and a similar spell in December, when two Johnny Williams goals in the final five minutes contributed to a 4-1 victory over Shrewsbury Town. The noted Worcestershire middle-order batsman Ted Hemsley, who had appeared in the 7-2 victory over Rovers in October 1962, now conceded an own goal, by deflecting Bobby Jones’ low thirty-second minute cross into his own net for Rovers’ equaliser. He was later to miss the crucial penalty when Rovers won the 1972 Watney Cup Final. In contrast, the worst run was one of three consecutive defeats around January. Rovers scored five times at both Northampton Town and Oldham Athletic and four times each at home to Oldham Athletic, Shrewsbury Town and bottom-of-the-table Scunthorpe United. The Pirates also contrived to beat both sides promoted at the end of the season, Oxford United and Bury. Indeed, the first victory of the season was 2-0 away to eventual champions, Oxford United. Even in losing 3-1 at home to Southport, there was a goal from Ronaldson after only twenty-eight seconds. However, just three days after his final Rovers appearance, ironically against Walsall, top-scorer Biggs moved to join The Saddlers in a £10,000 transfer. Rovers had been stripped of a proven goalscorer. The most remarkable victory came at Northampton Town in October. A 1-0 win over Barrow gave little indication of what was to come against a side which had won five of its previous six matches, especially as Mabbutt was drafted in as an emergency inside-forward for his first game in two months. As it was, Mabbutt scored a hat-trick, there were six first-half goals, a hat-trick scorer for each club for the second and most recent time in Rovers’ club history and an astonishing 5-4 win for Rovers. In the first-half the Cobblers led twice and Rovers once, with home centre-forward Frank Large scoring twice and winning the penalty converted by John Mackin, who scored two penalties when York City visited Eastville in October 1971. Mabbutt had scored when Johnny Williams had his shot parried, while Bobby Jones, against his former club, and Williams had also found the net. Level 3-3 at half-time, Rovers took the lead again through Mabbutt and, after Large scored his third of the game, so too did Mabbutt to record the only hat-trick of his career and give Rovers a 5-4 win. Amazingly, Mabbutt was to score twice more as Rovers drew 3-3 at Tranmere Rovers in the next fixture. Rovers were also involved in two high-scoring wins over Oldham Athletic. In February, after falling behind to an Ian Towers goal after fifteen minutes, Rovers took control and Johnny Williams’ penalty, his second goal of the game, put Rovers 3-1 up with only eleven minutes to play. However, Towers scored again and, five minutes from time, the former Rovers trainee Laurie Sheffield equalised. In the final seconds, from a Williams free-kick, Biggs headed his second goal of the match to give Rovers a dramatic victory. Yet, the return game in May was even more unlikely, as Rovers recorded their first away win since victory over Northampton over six months earlier. In winning 5-3 at Oldham Athletic on the final day of the season, Rovers completed only a second league double. Wayne Jones, after eleven minutes, and Bobby Jones, fifteen minutes later, had given Rovers a comfortable half-time lead, only for Ian Wood, after fifty-three and fifty-eight minutes, to pull the Latics level. Within seconds, Taylor had put Rovers ahead again, before Wood completed his hat-trick twelve minutes from the end. Once again, Rovers replied instantly, Bobby Jones scoring his second goal of a fluctuating game, with Jarman adding the visitors’ fifth three minutes later. By scoring what were in fact his only three league goals of the season, Wood became the third opponent to score a league hat-trick against Rovers and end up on the losing side. On five occasions, at Peterborough United, Watford, Northampton Town, Bury and Swindon Town, Rovers conceded four league goals, the heaviest defeat being 4-0 at Vicarage Road, where Watford’s star-in-the-making Tony Currie scored twice. The only hat-trick in Rovers matches during 1967-68 was scored by Stockport County’s Jim Fryatt in April, when Rovers lost 3-1 at Edgeley Park. Fryatt, who had scored for Southend United at Eastville in March 1963, is also credited with one of the fastest goals in league history, his strike for Bradford Park Avenue against Tranmere Rovers in April 1964 being recorded as four seconds after the kick-off, though current thinking would time it as perhaps nearer twelve seconds. The future England manager, Graham Taylor (1944-2017), scored in Grimsby Town’s 3-2 victory over Rovers in February, while Dennis Rofe, later a Rovers manager, was a teenage goalscoring substitute when Leyton Orient won at Eastville in April. Graham Clapham, whose son Jamie later played for Rovers, appeared in the Shrewsbury Town side against Rovers as the season drew to a close. In the final weeks of the season, Bert Tann was elevated to the post of general manager and secretary. On 1st April 1968 the directors appointed fifty-two-year-old Fred Ford as the new Rovers manager. A former team-mate at Charlton Athletic of fellow Rovers managers Bill Dodgin and Bert Tann, Ford had also played for Tottenham Hotspur, Millwall and Carlisle United before coaching Rovers between 1955 and 1960. Thereafter, as manager, he had led Bristol City back into Division Two in 1965 before taking over a coaching job at Swindon Town and his son Peter had represented the England rugby side as a flanker in four international fixtures in the spring of 1964. At Eastville, Fred Ford attempted to cobble together a young side, starting with the introduction of Frankie Prince in April 1968, a team which would ultimately earn promotion to Division Two in 1973-74. Rovers’ 1967-68 FA Cup run began in Nottinghamshire, where Midland League Arnold were defeated 3-0. Even after their merging with Arnold Kingswell in 1988, this first of two appearances by Arnold in round one of the FA Cup is preserved in the record books for having attracted a ground record attendance of 3,390 to the King George V Playing Fields. After a 4-0 win at Southern League Wimbledon, Rovers were drawn to play Bristol City at Ashton Gate. A well-earned goalless draw before a crowd of 37,237 was followed by the disappointment of defeat at home in the replay. The future Rovers midfielder Alan Ball was in the Everton side defeated 1-0 by West Bromwich Albion in the FA Cup Final. Rovers were defeated 3-0 at Reading in the League Cup, which was won by Leeds United, the future Rovers player-manager Terry Cooper scoring the only goal against Arsenal in the final. He also won a Fairs Cup winner’s medal after Leeds defeated the Hungarian side Ferencváros 1-0 on aggregate in the final. On 26th May 1968, the famous Thirteen Arches railway bridge, which had commanded the local skyline, was demolished. 3,200 holes were drilled and when site supervisor John Turner pulled the plunger at the delayed time of 4.20pm, 6,000 spectators saw the viaduct collapse in ten seconds. It took forty lorries to clear up 4,500 tons of masonry and brickwork. In fact, only eleven arches fell at the first attempt and one shortly afterwards. The stubborn thirteenth pier was blown up at 7.00am on 13th June 1968.
1968-69
While the club’s youth policy had been the starting-point for much of Rovers’ post-war development, new manager Fred Ford appreciated that it represented the best hope for the future. With the backing of Douglas Mearns Milne, the new chairman after five years on the board, Ford added new vigour to the development of young local talent. Rovers fielded a particularly young side in 1968-69, yet reached an FA Cup fifth round tie at Everton. Although there were many knocks along the way, the production of the 1973-74 promotion-season side was under way. Ford encouraged his younger players to play a pivotal role in the club’s fortunes. Nineteen-year-old Larry Lloyd made his league début on the opening day against Watford and, regardless of results, played in the first 43 league matches of the season. He and a youthful Stuart Taylor, tall and dominating in defence, were fondly known as the “Twin Towers”. Taylor’s two league goals included an excellent headed winner after fifty-one minutes against Oldham Athletic in October. Other players who came through the ranks broke into the side: eighteen-year-old left-winger Peter Higgins, Bobby Brown, a forward who was a year older and goalkeeper Laurie Taylor. Glaswegian Tom Stanton, a signing from Mansfield Town, was just twenty, a year younger than the former Millwall utility player Trevor Rhodes, once a Wimbledon tennis junior finalist. Rovers lost the experience of Dave Stone and Ronnie Briggs, who both moved to Southend United, and Doug Hillard, who joined Taunton Town, while John Brown’s contract was reluctantly terminated as the talented inside-forward was increasingly required to work extra shifts on the family farm in Cornwall. At a meeting on 29th August 1968, the Supporters’ Club committee, including Eric Godfrey, chairman for twenty years, resigned en masse as a protest aginst the continued losses of the social club. There was a new twist, too, to the continuing development of Eastville Stadium. After much consultation work involving Freeman, Fox and Partners, the M32 motorway was to be constructed to link the city centre with the conveniently close interchange of the north-south M5 with the M4 to London and South Wales. This new 105- foot-wide “Parkway” superhighway, or “Hambrook Spur”, announced at a cost of £15,000,000 by city engineer James Bennett on 3rd April 1964, had led to the demolition of 200 houses. The Minister of Transport Barbara Castle (1910-2002) had allowed work to start on 17th May 1968 on a 2 ¾-mile stretch from Muller Road to Hambrook at a cost of some £3,263,000. On 14th March 1969 a £7,500,000 second phase was agreed, which would overlook Eastville Stadium. This development finally obliterated the remains of the Baptist Mills Brass Works, a major feature of the area following its inception in 1702 by the Quakers on the site of an old grist mill. A Stapleton merchant, Nehemiah Champion, who had patented granulated copper in 1723, had been a founder. Abandoned in 1814, all traces now lie forever hidden beneath Junction Three of the M32. The final buildings and a pear tree appertaining to the Baptist Mills Pottery, a source of great employment in nineteenth-century Eastville, also vanished for eternity beneath the new construction. There were also more direct implications as far as Eastville Stadium was concerned. An elevated section of the motorway was to cut across the corner between the South Stand and the Muller Road terraces and the hard-shoulder was to attract a steady supply of cars with mysterious ailments on match-days. “Follow the Rovers”, the folk band The Bollards would sing years later, “under the shade of the M32”. Eastville’s dubious distinction of being the closest league ground to a motorway meant that the noise level became increasingly intrusive. The highlight of the league season was a large home victory over Mansfield Town in March. Rovers had defeated Gillingham 5-1, with the indefatigable Ray Mabbutt scoring twice, and recorded 4-2 home wins against both Barrow and Barnsley. However, Mansfield’s visit to Eastville was to culminate in the first 6-2 win in Rovers’ league history. There was a four-goal flurry in six minutes midway through the first-half, starting with Ken Ronaldson’s eighteenth minute opener. No sooner had Malcolm Partridge equalised than Harold Jarman and Larry Lloyd, with the only goal of his Rovers career, gave the home side a 3-1 half-time lead. Bobby Brown added a fourth goal after fifty-four minutes and when Johnny Petts also scored, eight minutes later, victory was sealed. Although Jim Goodfellow pulled a goal back after seventy minutes, Jarman added his second of the game ten minutes from the end to complete a comprehensive victory. By means of contrast, the heaviest defeat of the season was a 6-1 defeat at the hands of unfashionable Crewe Alexandra at Gresty Road. Gordon Wallace, a former Liverpool inside-left, put the home side ahead after half an hour and Keith Stott doubled the lead moments before half-time, only for Wayne Jones to fire an instant reply. As the second-half started, Kevin McHale added a third and the home side provided three more goals before the end. John Regan’s goal twenty-two minutes from the end was followed by two in the final six minutes, an own goal from the unfortunate Lindsay Parsons and a second goal from Regan. Crewe were relegated at the end of the season and Rovers’ next visit to Gresty Road was to be in the 1989-90 Third Division championship season. While Rovers lost on their travels to each of the bottom three clubs in the division, they also defeated Swindon Town, destined for promotion to Division Two at the season’s end. Rovers never won three consecutive league games, but lost four in succession in the spring, including a 4-2 defeat at Barnsley. Only the visits of Swindon Town and Orient drew five-figure crowds to Eastville, where the season’s average attendance was 7,118. Of 23 players used, Taylor and Jarman missed just one league game each, with the latter top-scoring with fourteen league goals, four more than Bobby Jones. Ray Mabbutt’s appearance as centre-forward at Oldham Athletic on Boxing Day, in which he scored Rovers’ goal in defeat, was the final one of almost 400 in which this highly dependable player had figured. The England international goalkeeper Eddie Hopkinson was in Bolton’s side which met Rovers in January 1969. In November, towards the end of the convincing 4-2 home victory over Barrow, Ronaldson became the first Rovers substitute to score in league football. Just five days later, Kit Napier’s (1943-2019) hat-trick, the only one conceded all season by Rovers, earned Brighton a 3-1 victory at the Goldstone Ground. Rovers swiftly got into the habit of losing at regular intervals and by narrow margins. At no point in the season did the club put together a run of more than four consecutive matches without defeat, yet all but nine of the nineteen league defeats were by a single goal. This record was tarnished somewhat by the fact that, once clear of relegation worries, Rovers lost both their last two matches 3-0 away to sides destined to lose their league status within a decade. Towards the end of the season, two former Rovers trainees who had never made the first-team at Eastville, returned to haunt their former club. John Tedesco scored for Plymouth Argyle, who drew 1-1 at Eastville, while Laurie Sheffield claimed one of three goals Luton Town put past Rovers at Kenilworth Road. When the Bedfordshire club visited Eastville twelve days later, Rovers had Alex Munro sent off but held out for a goalless draw. Phil Sanderock of Torquay, aged eighteen years 39 days, became the youngest man ever to concede an own goal against Rovers in the League. In a late flurry of matches, Rovers won twice in a week against Stockport County and drew with promoted Swindon Town before a crowd of over 20,000 at the County Ground, before crashing to a heavy defeat at Holker Street, Tony Morrin scoring twice for Barrow. A Swansea Town side inspired by the veteran Mel Nurse won 2-0 at Eastville to knock Rovers out of the League Cup where, in the final, Swindon Town shocked the footballing nation by defeating Arsenal, whose consolation goal was scored by the future Rovers player and manager, Bobby Gould. The Gloucestershire Cup Final was disastrous from a Rovers point of view, with five Bristol City players scoring a second-half goal apiece at Eastville to inflict the club’s heaviest defeat in the tournament since a 7-1 thrashing at Warmley in February 1892. All this was forgotten, though, as Rovers enjoyed a run of seven FA Cup games, losing only to a solitary goal at Everton in the fifth round. As is often the way, a stuttering cup run slowly gathered momentum as it progressed. Peterborough United were beaten 3-1 at Eastville and Rovers held out for a goalless draw at Bournemouth, before scraping through in a replay through a solitary Graydon goal. The same player saved Rovers with the club’s equalising goal in round three as non-league Kettering Town held on to a 1-1 draw at Eastville. It was with some trepidation that Rovers went to Rockingham Road, where league sides had struggled before, but despite going a goal down and relying on Laurie Taylor to save a sixty-fifth minute penalty, victory was secured when Kettering player-manager Steve Gammon conceded a very late own goal. Rovers were drawn away to Second Division Bolton Wanderers, and fell behind to Gareth Williams before two goals from substitute Wayne Jones brought an unexpected win and a snow-delayed fifth round tie before a crowd of 55,294 at Goodison Park. Everton, beaten finalists in 1967-68, fielded Alan Ball, later a Rovers player, and Ray Wilson, both World Cup winners with England in 1966, and won through a Joe Royle goal after thirty-three minutes, set up by Ball’s astute through pass. One side-effect of the long FA Cup run was national attention on a number of players in the young Rovers side. The Liverpool manager Bill Shankly watched the Everton Cup-tie and was to pay Rovers a club record fee of £55,000 for Larry Lloyd before the season was out. Although Lloyd had appeared in only 51 League and Cup games, Shankly had no hesitation in putting his faith in the centre-half’s potential. Lloyd was to share in much of the success experienced on Merseyside in the 1970s, winning European Cup winner’s medals with Liverpool and Nottingham Forest as well as playing for England. The profit from his sale was swallowed up by the club’s overdraft.
1969-70
On the eve of the new season, manager Fred Ford left Rovers after eighteen months to accept the vacant post of manager at Swindon Town. This was a blow to Rovers, whose youth policy, inspired by their former coach, was developing further. Ford was to coach at Torquay United and Oxford United, continuing to instil his football experience in his young protégés up to his death in October 1981. In a surprising yet highly effective move, the Rovers directors appointed Bill Dodgin from within. The fifty-eight-year-old former Rovers wing-half had managed Southampton, Fulham and Brentford, though he had not held a full-time job as manager for twelve years. His appointment, temporary at first, was made permanent on 19th December 1969 and he stayed in the job until July 1972. Rovers’ supporters were in for some exciting years, for Dodgin’s football philosophy was attack-minded and Rovers managed top-six finishes in each of his years in charge. Rovers started the new season with three new faces, Bristol-born goalkeeper Dick Sheppard, a free transfer from West Bromwich Albion, wing-half Gordon Marsland, who arrived in a £6,000 deal from Carlisle United and the £10,000 centre-forward Robin Stubbs, a legendary figure for many years at Torquay United. Stubbs was top scorer for two seasons, scoring fifteen league goals in 1969-70, though Ray Graydon, Harold Jarman and Carl Gilbert all reached double figures. Another new name was Phil Roberts, a nineteen-year-old former Rovers apprentice, who was to win four Welsh caps after his high-profile move to Portsmouth in 1973. Some more familiar faces had left, with Ray Mabbutt joining Newport County, Joe Gadston Exeter City and Trevor Rhodes Bath City. Dick Plumb was to become the second highest goalscorer in Yeovil Town’s history. After Rovers had lost 1-0 to Gilbert’s fiftieth-minute goal at Gillingham in September, the twenty-one-year-old striker moved to Eastville in an exchange deal which saw Ken Ronaldson make the opposite journey. At this stage, Rovers also found £4,000 to attract the experienced Bristol City full-back Tony Ford to move across the city. Dodgin’s intention was to build a side capable of returning to Division Two and, in truth, his team came very close to achieving this aim. Rovers adopted white shorts from the summer of 1969 to their otherwise all-blue kit. At the start of the season, Rovers hosted the American touring side Dallas Tornado, coached by the former Portsmouth centre-forward Ron Newman. A crowd of 4,313 saw Stubbs and Bobby Jones score in the five minutes prior to half-time and a further burst of goals, from Harold Jarman and Stuart Taylor after sixty-five and sixty-eight minutes respectively, earned Rovers a comfortable 4-0 win. This form was carried over into league action, where Rovers opened with a goalless draw at Southport, where they had suffered a heavy defeat in their previous game. Rovers dropped just two points in their opening five league matches and suffered only three defeats in the first sixteen. By the end of October, the club was riding high in Division Three and promotion looked a realistic proposition. In the opening fourteen league fixtures, Rovers scored at least three goals on eight occasions. Stubbs scored twice in a 3-0 win against Tranmere Rovers, when Bryn Jones was given a league début, and there were identical wins against Brighton and at home to Rotherham United. Rovers drew with Mansfield Town, who lost Jim Goodfellow with a fractured jaw after a collision with Lindsay Parsons. There was also an astonishing 3-3 draw at Eastville in the first ever league meeting with Rochdale, Tony Buck scoring a hat-trick for the visitors and still not ending up on the winning side. Rochdale followed up this result with eight consecutive league victories, still a club record run, yet drew their first four meetings with Rovers. However, Rovers’ largest win of the season came at Reading where, in a forerunner to the fixture in January 1999, they won 5-1. Rovers led 3-0 after eight minutes, through Ray Graydon, a Colin Meldrum own goal and Bobby Jones, with Graydon adding his second of the game two minutes before half-time. Stubbs put Rovers 5-0 ahead after forty-eight minutes with Les Chappell, who also scored at Eastville in the return fixture, adding a consolation goal eighteen minutes from time. The good run could not last, however, and Rovers won just the once in their final nine league games of 1969. In each of the last eight league matches of the calendar year, bizarrely, Rovers scored exactly one goal. This run was finished by a convincing 4-1 home win against Mansfield Town, Frankie Prince, a product of the youth scheme, opening the scoring after ten minutes from Bryn Jones’ pass and Jarman adding a solo second a minute later. The third goal was an own goal attributed to Sandy Pate, who also put through his own goal at Eastville in March 1972, thus becoming the only opponent to score twice in the league for Rovers. Thereafter, Rovers were able to record 4-2 and 5-2 wins over Bradford City and Bournemouth respectively to finish the season with eighty league goals to their name, the highest total for five years. After Christmas, Rovers drew four consecutive away matches. One of these was a goalless draw at Millmoor, whereby Rotherham United set a club record as it was their eighteenth game undefeated since they had lost at Eastville in October, the first six matches in this run having resulted in draws. At the same time, Rovers embarked on a run of six consecutive home league victories, which propelled the side towards the top of the division. The first of these was a 3-0 win against Luton Town, in which both Rovers’ full-backs, Ford and Alex Munro, scored penalties, the first occasion that two Rovers players had done so in a league game, a feat equalled in 2005 by Junior Agogo and Richard Walker. This match acted as a form of revenge as Luton Town, promoted at the end of the season, had exacted a 4-0 defeat in September, with the future England centre-forward Malcolm MacDonald scoring one of their goals. Going into the final few games, Rovers had not conceded three goals in a league game since mid-December. Back-to-back 2-1 wins over Barrow, for whom Jim Mulvaney scored in both meetings with Rovers, and Torquay United, for whom Alan Welsh did likewise, as did Stubbs, against his former club, and Gilbert for the Pirates, left Rovers in a strong promotion position. The situation was further enhanced by two astute signings in March. Dodgin bought as player-coach Don Megson, the veteran Sheffield Wednesday captain, who rapidly emerged as the man being groomed to succeed in time as manager, and Sandy Allan, a proven goalscorer in European football with Cardiff City. Promotion was now a realistic target and a crowd of 22,005, the highest at Eastville, local derbies with Bristol City apart, since October 1959, saw a first-minute Gilbert goal earn Rovers victory over the leaders Orient. This was followed by three straight draws, but another huge crowd saw Allan’s twenty-fourth minute goal defeat already relegated Stockport County 1-0 and leave Rovers still in the promotion frame. With two games to go, Rovers had 56 points, sitting two points behind Orient and one ahead of Luton Town, both of whom had three matches left including home fixtures with Southport, who desperately needed the points themselves in their battle against relegation. Two victories would, in all likelihood, earn promotion to Division Two. As it was, a frustrated crowd of 18,978 saw Rovers attack with huge spirit but lose 2-1 at home to Gillingham. A 5-2 defeat at Tranmere Rovers, where Frank Gill, who had previously scored only once all season, scored a hat-trick, represented a hugely disappointing end to a season of great promise. Both their rivals beat Southport, who were relegated by one point and Rovers, with only themselves to blame, finished in third place on 56 points, behind Luton Town on 60 and Orient with 62. Nonetheless, the enthusiasm with which Dodgin’s attack-minded side had pushed for promotion gave enormous hope for the years to come. Young Stuart Taylor, the only ever-present, was developing into a pivotal figure at the heart of a side with vast potential. In the FA Cup, a convincing win at Telford United was followed by defeat at Aldershot, who fielded the veteran Jimmy Melia and for whom Jack Howarth scored twice. The future Rovers player-manager Terry Cooper was in the Leeds United side which lost the 1970 FA Cup final to Chelsea in an epic replay. Participation in the League Cup was even more short-lived. Ted McDougall, later a Manchester United striker, scored twice as Rovers lost 3-0 at Bournemouth. He also scored twice when Rovers drew 2-2 at Dean Court in October and once when Rovers recorded a 5-2 win at Eastville in February, though the Dorset club was relegated to Division Four. For a fourth consecutive year, Rovers were unable to win the Gloucestershire Cup.
1970's
1970-71
Heartened by the previous season’s success, Bristol Rovers approached 1970-71 with vigour and enthusiasm. Bill Dodgin’s side harboured real belief in its capabilities and, perhaps, sixth place, nine points away from promotion, represents a disappointing return. The first-team squad had barely changed. Gordon Marsland spent time on loan at Crewe Alexandra and Oldham Athletic before joining Bath City at the end of the season. Tony Ford was forced to retire after rupturing his spleen in the game at Preston North End in August. While Rovers received £4,000 insurance compensation, Ford carved out a career in coaching at Plymouth Argyle and Hereford United. Slowly but surely, a team worthy of promotion to Division Two was being constructed. Stuart Taylor, once again an ever-present, Lindsay Parsons, Frankie Prince and Bryn Jones would all star in the temporarily all-conquering 1973-74 side. They were joined by two free transfer recruits, Walsall’s Kenny Stephens and midfielder Gordon Fearnley, previously a team-mate of player-coach Don Megson at Sheffield Wednesday. In the meantime, the side was built around the goalkeeper and centre-backs, the only three to play in every match. Seven players missed fewer than seven league games each and only 21 players were used in total. By the season’s end, Dick Sheppard had played in goal in the previous 82 competitive matches. In front of him, Phil Roberts, Megson, Taylor and Parsons were a sturdy defence, with Prince joined by at least one Jones - Bobby, Bryn or Wayne. Ray Graydon, scorer of thirteen goals from the right, and Harold Jarman, who contributed twelve from the left, provided the crosses for seventeen-goal top scorer Robin Stubbs. Sandy Allan had a poor season by his standards, scoring only twice, while Carl Gilbert joined Rotherham United in mid-season. Once again, relative success brought good crowds to Eastville, the second highest being 18,875 for the visit of Fulham in February, while 25,836 watched the January visit of Aston Villa, the highest ever crowd for a Third Division game at Eastville. Bruce Rioch, on the threshold of a successful career which won him many Scotland caps, scored the winning goal in this, the fourth meeting of these two clubs this season and, astonishingly, the one watched by the lowest attendance of the four fixtures. Off the field, Eastville Stadium was undergoing further change. Increasingly hemmed in by developments, it now had the M32 “Parkway” motorway crossing the corner of the ground between the Muller Road End and the South Stand. With the £7,500,000 second stage now operating past the ground, the “superhighway” was officially opened by John Peyton (1919-2006), the Conservative MP for Yeovil and Minister of Transport, on 18th July 1970. Progressively, as traffic levels increased, the incidence of apparent breakdowns on the eastbound hard-shoulder during home matches grew dramatically and Rovers’ games were played to a background din of traffic. Rovers scored four times in a league game on five occasions. Four second-half goals at Oakwell over New Year, where Stubbs opened the scoring before Stephens, Graydon and Wayne Jones all scored in the final fourteen minutes, helped defeat Barnsley 4-0. Reading and Bradford City were beaten 4-0 and 4-2 in consecutive games in November. Four different scorers saw off the Royals, while Jarman scored his first hat-trick in a decade with Rovers to see off Bradford City, for whom Bruce Bannister, later such a pivotal figure at Eastville, scored twice to accompany his goal in the return fixture. There were also two 4-1 away victories, at Shrewsbury Town, where Stubbs scored twice in the final three minutes after Graydon had twice put Rovers in front, and at Gillingham, where Stubbs scored all Rovers’ goals, the first occasion that a Rovers player had scored four goals in an away league match. In fact, Jarman was Rovers’ star man, as the Pirates overcame a half-time deficit following Kenny Pound’s excellent thirty-fifth minute goal after a one-two with Andy Smillie. Stubbs scored four second-half goals with his right foot, after forty-six, fifty-eight, seventy-eight and eighty-two minutes, set up on each occasion by Jarman. Gilbert, a summer signing from Gillingham, replaced Graydon as a substitute against his former club, who were relegated. In fact, Rovers were to complete a league double over three of the four relegated clubs. On the other hand, relegated Bury beat Rovers 1-0 at Eastville, with the former England winger John Connelly scoring two minutes before half-time, and 3-0 at Gigg Lane. Connelly scored in both games and Terry McDermott, later a key name at Newcastle United and Liverpool, also scored in the away fixture. Rotherham United’s Neil Hague scored both his side’s goals in their 2-0 win at Eastville in February and a thirty-fifth minute opener when the sides drew at Millmoor. Rovers claimed a point off champions Preston North End before the BBC “Match of the Day” cameras, but lost both fixtures with equally promoted Fulham and ultimately finished well in arrears of both clubs. Despite starting the season with an impressive fourteen-match run, where the only defeat had been at the hands of Preston at Deepdale, Rovers never seriously challenged for a place in the top two. The decisive blow came in the form of an eight-match winless run in the New Year, which included the 3-0 defeat at Bury and a 4-1 deficit at Mansfield Town, where Parsons conceded an own goal. Finishing the season with straight defeats, Dodgin’s side had not achieved its pre-season aspirations in terms of league football, but the League Cup was to provide enormous excitement, as Rovers reached the fifth round for the first time in the club’s history. Rovers had been knocked out of the League Cup in the first round in consecutive seasons, so there was considerable satisfaction when Graydon’s fifty-sixth minute goal helped defeat Brighton 1-0 in the opening round. A home-tie followed with Newcastle United, evoking the vivid memories of Rovers’ epic 1951 FA Cup matches. The attraction of a major First Division side, boasting household names in Frank Clark, Bobby Moncur and Pop Robson, drew a crowd of 16,824 to Eastville. The many Rovers supporters were not disappointed, as the veteran Bobby Jones scored twice and the Magpies were defeated 2-1. Jones scored again in the next round, as Rovers drew at Carrow Road against Second Division Norwich City. The Canaries held Rovers in the Eastville replay until extra-time, when Rovers opened up a 3-1 lead. In addition to one First Division side, Rovers knocked three Division Two sides out of the 1970-71 League Cup. The third was Birmingham City when a total of 22,189 spectators gathered at Eastville as Cup fever gripped the Rovers camp. There was every possibility that Rovers could make real progress in the competition and a dominant display in round four left many believing in Rovers’ potential. Following an own goal from centre-half Roger Hynd (1942-2017), a nephew of the celebrated Liverpool manager Bill Shankly, Gilbert and Stubbs both scored to give Rovers an apparently comfortable 3-0 lead and send them into the quarter-finals for the first time in this tournament. It was, of course, ironic that, having progressed so far, Rovers would be locked in an all-Third-Division clash with Aston Villa. However, the weather dictated much of the play at Eastville, where a draw was a fair result and brought about a replay at Villa Park. If a crowd of 28,780 at Eastville had been considerable Rovers, who were by now in a run which would see them lose only three times in thirty games in all competitions, now held Villa for eighty-nine minutes before 36,483 spectators, as both sides played very well in a spectacular game. Then, in the final seconds, Pat McMahon, who had scored in the first meeting, claimed the decisive winning goal to end Rovers’ dreams. With Brian Godfrey, a Rovers midfielder from the end of the season, captaining the side, Villa reached the final before losing to Tottenham Hotspur, who had defeated Bristol City in the semi-finals. In the FA Cup, high-flying Fulham were beaten by two Gilbert goals, manager Dodgin masterminding victory over the side controlled by his son, Bill junior, but, having drawn at Aldershot, Rovers were brought down to earth in the replay, the veteran Jimmy Melia among the goalscorers. Larry Lloyd, a former Rovers centre-half, played for Liverpool in the FA Cup Final, his side losing to Arsenal despite taking the lead early in extra-time. Two future Rovers players were winners, Kenny Hibbitt in the short-lived Texaco Cup, where Wolverhampton Wanderers defeated Heart of Midlothian 3-2 on aggregate in the final and, on a more international scale, Terry Cooper, a member of the Leeds United side which won the Fairs Cup Final, defeating the Italian side Juventus on the away goals rule. A Stephens goal from Graydon’s pass after sixty-seven minutes and a drawn Gloucestershire Cup Final ended Rovers’ losing streak in that tournament, while in May goals from Ian Hamilton and Alfie Biggs enabled Rovers Old Players to defeat City Old Players 2-0. In May 1971, Rovers’ Wayne Jones earned a full international cap for Wales in a 1-0 European Championship victory over Finland in Helsinki.
1971-72
A very similar Rovers line-up experienced a feeling of déjà vu for, as in 1970-71, Rovers reached a quarter-final and finished sixth in Division Three. The main absentee was Ray Graydon, whose move to Aston Villa set him on the way to three League Cup Final appearances and ultimately a successful career in management. Alex Munro, who had appeared in nine consecutive seasons, emigrated to South Africa in the summer of 1971, while Don Megson retired as a player to concentrate on his full-time role as coach. Graydon’s place was taken, through an exchange deal with Villa, by the highly experienced former Welsh international midfielder Brian Godfrey, while Mike Green, Rovers’ captain in the 1973-74 promotion season, appeared in the side following his summer move from Gillingham. A number of other players appeared in occasional games for Rovers. Three young goalkeepers, Malcolm Dalrymple, Richard Crabtree and loan signing Allen Clarke, as well as twenty-two-year-old forward Malcolm John each made a league début and another product of the South Wales nursery organised by Stan Montgomery (1920-2000), seventeen-year-old Peter Aitken, made his way into the squad as an unused substitute. As the season progressed, manager Dodgin improved his hand with the signing of two strikers who were to see Rovers into Division Two. Bruce Bannister had built up an excellent reputation at Bradford City as a brave, busy forward and it took a club record £23,000 fee to bring him to Eastville in November. Three months later, in exchange for Robin Stubbs, who had not scored all season, Rovers signed the vastly experienced John Rudge from Torquay United. Once again, it was the League Cup that sparked Rovers’ season into life. A relatively straightforward three-goal victory at Exeter City was followed, for the second consecutive season, by three wins against Second Division opposition. Sandy Allan and Billy Hughes exchanged penalties in two mid-second-half minutes as Rovers defeated a strong Sunderland side, FA Cup winners in 1973, by 3-1 at Eastville. Then Stuart Taylor and Harold Jarman scored to put out Charlton Athletic. When Jarman scored again to earn a draw at Queen’s Park Rangers, for whom Rodney Marsh scored and both Terry Venables and Gerry Francis played, a crowd of 24,373 was attracted to Eastville to see an Allan goal, driven home after a three-man move twelve minutes from time, earn Rovers a second consecutive League Cup quarter-final. These remain the only two seasons that Rovers have progressed so far in this tournament. The quarter-final tie drew a crowd of 33,634 to Eastville, Rovers’ highest ever for a home League Cup-tie. Rightly so, for Stoke City brought a star-studded side, the First Division club including most notably Gordon Banks (1937-2019), a World Cup winner in 1966 and believed by many to be the best goalkeeper in the world. Banks was kept busy early in the game, but once the veteran George Eastham stamped his authority on the game, Stoke began to dominate. The visitors ran up a four-goal lead, with Jimmy Greenhoff, an FA Cup winner with Manchester United in 1977, and the future Bristol City manager Denis Smith among the four goalscorers. With the job done, the visitors relaxed and both Stubbs and Godfrey, the latter from a penalty, were able to score past Banks. Once more, though, Rovers had shown their qualities as Cup fighters. Rovers prepared for the new season with the usual flurry of friendlies. One game prior to the 1971-72 season was Rovers’ 1-1 draw with Hereford United at Edgar Street on 2nd August, Green scoring for Rovers five minutes before half-time and Billy Meadows equalising nine minutes from the end. This game marked the Hereford United début of David Icke, who saved well from Wayne Jones and Allan, a competent goalkeeper and national television sports anchorman who courted national fame in March 1991 by declaring himself to be the son of a “Godhead”. A spokesman for the Green Party at the time of their relative success in the 1989 European Parliament elections, he has since written a number of books about the meaningfulness of man’s existence. It did not take Rovers long to post warning of their goalscoring potential. After victory over Tranmere Rovers, Bradford City were the second league visitors to Eastville, fielding in their side Terry Owen, whose son Michael was to achieve huge success in later years with Liverpool and England and whose son-in-law Richie Partridge would appear for the Pirates. Rovers were a goal up in the first minute, five ahead inside twenty-five minutes and scored seven in total for only the eighth occasion in the Pirates’ league history. Godfrey it was who opened the scoring early on and his hat-trick in the opening twenty-five minutes included two stunning long-range volleys. Although the visitors scored before the break, a 5-1 half-time lead was a healthy return and the 7-1 victory was Rovers’ largest since March 1964. Bruce Bannister, in the Bantams’ attack, was to finish the season as Rovers’ top scorer, whilst the return fixture saw Bradford give a début to David Bairstow, later England’s wicketkeeper. Yet, just a week after the 7-1 victory, two Jim Fryatt goals condemned Rovers to defeat at Oldham Athletic. There was a flurry of penalties at Eastville. Both Allan, against Tranmere Rovers, and Bannister, when Rovers beat Blackburn Rovers 3-0, joined a select band of seven Rovers players to have scored two penalties in a league game. When York City visited in October, John Mackin became only the fifth visitor to convert two penalties in a league fixture with Rovers. A crowd of 6,876 witnessed an extraordinary game which featured six goals before half-time. Kenny Stephens and Jarman put Rovers 2-0 up in nine minutes and Jarman’s second left Rovers 3-1 ahead, but Mackin’s first penalty, awarded on the stroke of half-time for a foul by Lindsay Parsons, left the scores level at the break. Stephens put Rovers ahead again after fifty-seven minutes and, four minutes later, Jarman completed the second hat-trick of his Rovers career to put the Pirates 5-3 ahead. Rovers held on for victory, despite a second Mackin penalty after handball against Bobby Brown, in his penultimate start before a transfer to Weymouth, eighteen minutes from time. After a few initial concerns, Rovers put together some good runs of results. Between November and February, there was a nine-match unbeaten run, while Rovers also ran up convincing victories over Barnsley, Allan scoring twice in a 3-0 win, and Rochdale, where a 5-2 win included a brace from Bannister. Perhaps crucially, there were just four away wins, enabling Rovers to do the double over Tranmere Rovers, Blackburn Rovers and Chesterfield. Aston Villa, for whom Willie Anderson’s goal at Eastville sent his side to the top of Division Three, and Bournemouth completed doubles over Rovers, Phil Boyer, an FA Cup winner with Southampton in 1976, scoring in both games for the latter. Kevin Randall, having scored in both the first ever meetings between Rovers and Chesterfield, also scored in the third as Rovers won 3-1 at Saltergate. Defensively, Rovers gave little away. From October on, there was no league game in which three or more goals were conceded. Roberts, Taylor, Lindsay Parsons and Frankie Prince were ever-presents, while Bannister’s two final-day goals made him the club’s top goalscorer. Roberts scored an own goal for Notts County in September to match one he was to score for them on Portsmouth’s books in February 1974. Five straight wins in March, with only two goals conceded, gave a hint of a late promotion challenge. The key fixture was the Easter Monday trip to leaders Aston Villa, where Rovers selected, in an injury crisis, apprentice goalkeeper Crabtree just a few weeks after his seventeenth birthday. The crowd at Villa Park was 45,158, the second highest for a league game including Rovers but, despite an inspired performance from the young goalkeeper, Rovers lost 2-1. Even after winning the final four matches, Rovers finished well adrift of second-placed Brighton. After convincing 3-0 wins at home to Telford United and Cambridge United, Rovers played an FA Cup third round tie at Elland Road. Before a crowd of 33,565, Leeds United scored three times in seventeen first-half minutes and defeated Rovers 4-1, with Peter Lorimer scoring twice and creating two goals for Johnny Giles and household names such as Terry Cooper, Billy Bremner, Joe Jordan and Norman Hunter also playing. Cooper, a future Rovers player-manager, won an FA Cup winner’s medal as Leeds United beat Alan Ball’s Arsenal in the Wembley final. With Stoke City winning the League Cup, Rovers had thus been knocked out of both major cup competitions by the eventual victors. The Gloucestershire Cup Final was drawn. Kenny Hibbitt, later a Rovers midfielder, was in the Wolverhampton Wanderers side which lost to Tottenham Hotspur on aggregate in an all-English UEFA Cup Final. The new M32 motorway overhanging the corner of Eastville Stadium was closed for a week after a fire on April 14th on the Eastville slip-road; a ten-year-old boy and his twelve-year-old accomplice were suspected, although charges were not pressed. Of more immediate concern to Rovers was that, in July, manager Bill Dodgin handed over the reins to his coach Don Megson. While Rovers had not achieved immediate success, the bricks were in place for future Rovers triumphs and progress in League and League Cup football had given time for the younger players to mature. Dodgin remained as chief scout until 1983, keeping a watchful eye on tomorrow’s stars through the twilight years of his career, and retained a healthy interest in Rovers’ fortunes up to his death, at the age of 90, in October 1999. The former Rovers manager Brough Fletcher, who had “discovered” young talent such as Harry Bamford and Geoff Bradford in his time in charge of the club either side of World War Two, died in Bristol on 12th May 1972, aged 79. 1972-73
In July 1972, with Bill Dodgin reverting to his post as chief scout, Rovers appointed from within to make Don Megson the new manager. A relative youngster at 36, the former Sheffield Wednesday full-back had displayed considerable talent as a player and it was hoped he could translate his expertise into good management. Rovers were not to be disappointed. After Andrew Wilson, Brough Fletcher and David McLean, he was the fourth Wednesday player to become manager at Eastville. Megson brought a touch of class to Rovers. He would gather the team for a pre-match lunch at a motel outside Bristol prior to every home game to generate a greater feeling of team spirit. Unlike his predecessor, Megson believed in solid defending and quick counter-attacking, believing in the merit of 1-0 victories, and despite his critics, he succeeded in overseeing the return to Division Two in 1974 and establishing Rovers in this higher division. Yet, while new hope arose at Eastville, there was considerable mourning for Bert Tann, who died in Bristol on 7th July 1972. Tann had managed Rovers between 1950 and 1968, during which time he gained widespread recognition for his shrewd tactical awareness. In 1971, the Football Association had awarded him a medal to commemorate 21 consecutive years with Rovers, in which period he had masterminded the club’s first spell in Division Two. A key figure in the history of the club was gone. Megson had an early opportunity to test his managerial ability in the pre-season Watney Cup. Ironically for a tournament designed to reward the top-scoring non-promoted sides from the previous season, there were just four goals in Rovers’ three matches. Rovers strolled to apparently easy 2-0 victories at home to First Division Wolverhampton Wanderers and away to Burnley who, with the future Rovers manager Martin Dobson controlling midfield, were destined to be Division Two champions that season. Bruce Bannister scored in both games. A crowd of 19,380 gathered at Eastville in sweltering heat for the final between Rovers and First Division Sheffield United. The visitors fielded teenage goalkeeper Tom McAlister, later a Rovers player himself, and his fine display kept the final scoreless, though many felt Rovers had deserved to win. The match went to a penalty shoot-out, the first thirteen penalties were scored and, with Dick Sheppard saving a crucial spot-kick from the veteran Ted Hemsley, a survivor of Shrewsbury Town’s 7-2 win over Rovers a decade earlier, Rovers recorded a 7-6 win. In only his third game in charge, Megson had led the club to its first major cup competition success since 1935. On the back of this pre-season success, Rovers embarked on a third successive giantkilling run in the League Cup. Two Second Division clubs were beaten, Cardiff City in a replay after Rovers had grabbed a 2-2 draw at Ninian Park, and Brighton. This second-round 4-0 win, in which four different players scored, gave Rovers ample revenge, for it was only four months since the Sussex club had beaten Rovers to the second promotion place. More immediately, victory earned Rovers a prestigious home tie against Manchester United. The attraction of high-profile names such as George Best and Bobby Charlton drew a crowd of 33,597, the highest ever for a League Cup-tie at Eastville. John Rudge’s goal after an hour earned a 1-1 draw and the opportunity of a replay at Old Trafford, secured only by United through Willie Morgan’s equaliser three minutes from time. Rovers faced a team including nine full internationals in the Old Trafford replay and the veteran winger Bobby Jones was recalled to add experience to the Third Division side. After Sheppard had saved well from Bobby Charlton, Rudge put Rovers ahead after thirty minutes, when he headed home a corner taken by Lindsay Parsons. Midway through the second-half the home side was awarded a controversial penalty, when Ian Storey-Moore fell under a challenge from Frankie Prince, but Sheppard saved George Best’s kick. Good fortune could not last forever, though, and substitute Sammy McIlroy headed an equaliser from a Morgan corner with ten minutes left. Sensationally, four minutes later, a third header from a corner, Bannister’s goal created by Kenny Stephens gave Rovers one of the greatest victories in the club’s history. With the impossible achieved, Rovers did not reach the League Cup quarter-finals for a third consecutive season. The 4-0 defeat at Molineux was as comprehensive as the result suggests. Jim McCalliog, an FA Cup winner in 1976 with Southampton, scored twice as Wolverhampton Wanderers, orchestrated by the future Rovers player-coach Kenny Hibbitt, exacted revenge for their earlier Watney Cup humiliation. Nor was there any place to hide for Rovers in the FA Cup. Just five weeks after victory at Manchester United, Rovers suffered the indignity of losing at Isthmian League Hayes. The Middlesex side fully deserved the victory obtained through Bobby Hatt’s goal nine minutes into the second-half and the infamous maverick Robin Friday, then a twenty-year-old on the verge of a highly entertaining career, stood out as a player to watch. While a Rovers player-to-be, Terry Cooper, was in the Leeds United side unexpectedly defeated by Sunderland in the FA Cup final, a former Rovers centre-half Larry Lloyd, won a UEFA Cup winner’s medal, as Liverpool defeated Borussia Mönchengladbach to secure their first European trophy. It was the unlikely figure of Danish-born midfielder Preben Arentoft who set Rovers on their way in 1972-73, his own goal sealing Blackburn Rovers’ 3-0 opening-day defeat at Eastville. Whereas many of the leading sides lost when they visited Bristol, where only unfancied Southend United and York City recorded victories, Rovers’ away form was poor. Ultimately, Rovers finished only four points behind promoted Notts County, but the side had lost away to many of the challenging group. Indeed, a paltry figure of three league wins away from home, which did not even hint at promotion potential, enabled just two league doubles, over two relegated clubs, Scunthorpe United and Swansea City. The defeat at Grimsby Town featured four disallowed “goals”, two for Alan Gauden and one for Stuart Brace for the Mariners, as well as one for Bannister for Rovers. Strangely, the former Pirate Carl Gilbert scored twice and conceded three as an emergency goalkeeper, as Rotherham United lost 7-2 to Bournemouth. However, Rovers were able to score freely at home. Bannister scored twice in a 5-1 win against Shrewsbury Town and Stuart Taylor twice as Scunthorpe United were beaten by the same score. Rovers also defeated Halifax Town and Port Vale 4-1 and recorded two 3-0 wins. Bannister scored from the penalty spot in both fixtures against Rotherham United. While Rovers through the winter recorded eight straight home wins, five away fixtures ended in goalless draws. Both matches with Rochdale were goalless, Stuart Taylor being sent off on Rovers’ visit to Spotland, as was Southend United’s 1,000th home league fixture, when Rovers played at Roots Hall on a Friday night in November. Dick Sheppard’s thirty-fifth minute own goal gave Brentford victory in September while Stuart Houston, on the verge of a long and successful career, scored the Bees’ consolation goal in the return fixture. This match at home to Brentford in November, marked the end of Wayne Jones’ promising career. A knee injury was revealed to be a rare bone condition which forced the Wales Under-23 international midfielder to retire from playing the game. Just two months later, goalkeeper Sheppard’s career was effectively ended when he suffered a depressed fracture of the skull, diving at the feet of Tranmere Rovers’ Eddie Loyden, with Tom Stanton finishing that particular game in goal. Megson made just one major signing, procuring his former Sheffield Wednesday colleague, the erstwhile England Under 23 winger Colin Dobson on a free transfer as player-coach. Now he was forced to strengthen Rovers’ squad and the two highly astute purchases he made ensured Rovers would be serious promotion contenders in 1973-74. Goalkeeper Jim Eadie and striker Alan Warboys, who had experienced European football together at Cardiff City, were to be essential ingredients in Megson’s successful cocktail. Warboys, a former team-mate of Rovers’ manager at Wednesday, became the club’s record signing as his move from Sheffield United cost a reputed £35,000. Suddenly, Rovers’ promotion aspirations once again flickered into life. Eadie did not concede a goal in his first five games. All realistic hope disappeared, however, in the space of three days in mid-March as Rovers crashed 4-2 at Shrewsbury Town and 4-3 at Walsall. In the latter game, Rovers trailed to a ninth-minute Bobby Shinton goal at half-time but, after Bannister and Warboys, with his first goal for the club, had put Rovers ahead, a second Warboys goal appeared to seal a 3-2 victory. Referee Jim Whalley of Southport, though, added on seven minutes of injury time. Chris Jones, scored his second goal of the night after ninety-two minutes, while Barnie Wright’s header five minutes later condemned Rovers to a further season in Division Three. However, four wins in the last five games left Rovers in a morale-boosting fifth position. Parsons, the only ever-present, had now appeared in 135 consecutive league matches, while Bannister’s 25 league goals was the most by a Rovers player since Alfie Biggs in 1963-64. A late flurry of goals, Warboys and Bannister both scoring in four league games and the Gloucestershire Cup Final, which was lost to Bristol City on a penalty shoot-out, ensured qualification again for the Watney Cup. Rovers’ prospects for 1973-74 looked highly encouraging. The final home game also marked the farewell appearance of the North Enclosure’s favourite son, the winger Harold Jarman, who had appeared in well over 400 league matches for Rovers since his début in 1959, and had attained cult status in his later years at Eastville; Jarman was rewarded with a testimonial game against Liverpool and he joined Newport County along with Brian Godfrey. As he left, so too did Phil Roberts, a club record £55,000 sale to Portsmouth, where he won four full caps for Wales, and Sandy Allan, who emigrated to South Africa. Bobby Jones, who had also surpassed 400 league games for Rovers, retired in May 1973 and was justly rewarded for his long and loyal service with a testimonial game against West Ham United.
1973-74
On the evening of Friday 19th April 1974, Rovers drew 0-0 at Southend United to regain Second Division status. Over a thousand Rovers supporters had made the journey to Roots Hall for this game and the resultant pitch invasion reflected the sense of relief and pride at the club’s achievement. Don Megson, building on the groundwork of Bert Tann, Bill Dodgin and Bobby Campbell, had generated a team spirit which would guide the homely club back out of Division Three. Rovers had also reverted to blue-and-white quartered shirts in 1973 and these old, trusted tops restored the golden years to Eastville with instant effect. Much of the success was due to the stability of Megson’s side. Ever-present goalkeeper Jim Eadie improved on his feat of the previous season by playing a club record 707 minutes in the autumn without conceding a goal. In fact, Rovers conceded only five goals in the opening sixteen league matches. Dependable left-back Lindsay Parsons, whose missed games in March ended a run of 167 consecutive league appearances, was partnered by Phil Roberts’ replacement, the tough-tackling former Bristol City right-back Trevor Jacobs. Ever-present Stuart Taylor and captain Mike Green were dominant centre-halves, while Frankie Prince and another ever-present, Tom Stanton, were forceful figures in midfield. On the wings, Kenny Stephens and Colin Dobson created the opportunities on which forwards Alan Warboys and Bruce Bannister were able to thrive. Beyond these eleven players, only John Rudge and Gordon Fearnley enjoyed extended runs in the side. Megson’s influence on the side was primarily to tighten Rovers’ defence. Only 33 goals were conceded in 46 league matches, fewer than any other Third Division club and overtaking the club record 36 in 42 league games in 1922-23. With a strong defence, Rovers could embark on a long unbeaten run. In attack, player-of-the-year Warboys, top scorer with 22 league goals, was muscular and strong, while Bannister was quick, the pair becoming known nationally as “Smash and Grab”. Indeed, when Warboys was sidelined in the spring with a hamstring injury, Rovers began losing games, though it would be wholly unjust to blame his highly competent replacements, Rudge and David Staniforth, a £20,000 March signing from Sheffield United. The new season opened with a Watney Cup-tie against West Ham United, when Rovers outplayed their First Division opponents, yet had to rely on victory in a penalty shoot-out after a 1-1 draw. Disappointingly, Hull City then won by a single goal in the Eastville semi-final, while a solitary Harry Redknapp goal at Bournemouth knocked Rovers out of the League Cup. Kenny Hibbitt, later a Rovers player, scored in the final for Wolverhampton Wanderers, who beat Manchester City 2-1. Division Three, though, presented an entirely different proposition, as Rovers swept all before them, remaining unbeaten for the first 27 games of the season. This achievement equalled a record for the division, set ironically by Rovers in winning the championship in 1952-53. It would, however, be just to accept that Rovers had set a new record in remaining undefeated for 32 matches between 31st March 1973 and 2nd February 1974. On the opening day of the season, Rovers played away to Bournemouth, whom many believed would be promotion candidates. A morale-boosting 3-0 victory, with Warboys and Bannister both on the score-sheet, set Rovers on track for the success which was to follow. Although Hereford United, Port Vale, York City and Grimsby Town held out for draws at Eastville, Rovers looked increasingly awesome. There were three consecutive 2-0 victories in September, Tom Stanton scoring twice against Halifax Town. Two Warboys goals helped Rovers towards an impressive 4-2 win over Plymouth Argyle on Boxing Day. The machine kept rolling as Rovers, into the New Year, held out for draws at Charlton Athletic and Halifax Town, ran off another 3-0 victory over Bournemouth, Bannister and Warboys both scoring again, and won 3-2 at Aldershot in the first Sunday Football League game in which Rovers participated. Rovers hit a purple patch just before Christmas. Warboys scored a hat-trick to beat Southport 3-1 in mid-November, the first of three hat-tricks he claimed in four weeks. The Pirates then arrived at Brighton for a 2pm kick-off on 1st December, an hour earlier than usual to save electricity during the Miners’ Strike. Rovers had a poor track record at the Goldstone Ground, but the league leaders were facing a side knocked out of the FA Cup only three days earlier by Walton and Hersham. However, few could have predicted an 8-2 win for Rovers, a club record victory and the only occasion two Rovers players had scored three times or more in the same league fixture. To follow this up, Warboys scored three more goals and Jacobs his first for the club as Rovers demolished Southend United, for whom the future Rovers assistant manager Dennis Booth played in midfield, 4-0 at Eastville seven days later. The Brighton win, broadcast on national television, was a demoralising blow to their young manager, Brian Clough. Bannister put Rovers ahead after four minutes, following an excellent move involving Parsons, Dobson and Warboys. Fearnley put Rovers 2-0 up eight minutes later and, though the Welsh international Peter O’Sullivan pulled a goal back, Rovers were 5-1 ahead by the break and Bannister had already completed what was to be the only hat-trick of his Rovers career. After half-time, Warboys took over, adding three more to his first-half goal to become only the second Rovers player to score four goals in an away league game. He could have had more, too, had he not been forced to leave the field at one stage to have stitches inserted in a cut above his eye. Ronnie Howell’s eighty-seventh minute consolation goal could not deprive Rovers of a record league win, on the day the reserves won 6-1 against Bristol City reserves. No other Division Three fixture has ever finished in an 8-2 win for the away side. Once February arrived, Rovers’ dreams of going undefeated for an entire season were shattered. Indeed, the Aldershot game in January, a club record seventeenth consecutive unbeaten away league game, which left Rovers seven points clear at the top, marked the last time until August 1976 that Warboys and Bannister had both scored in the same league fixture. A single-goal defeat at Wrexham, to Arfon Griffiths’ strike a minute after half-time, was followed by a 3-1 loss at Port Vale, when Green ended the match in goal after Eadie had been stretchered off with concussion. Although two Jacobs goals helped defeat Blackburn Rovers 3-0, the defeats continued, the first at home coming at the hands of Walsall. Stephens and Walsall’s Doug Fraser had both been sent off when Rovers visited Fellows Park in November and now in March two Alan Buckley goals inflicted a first loss at Eastville since March 1973. Rovers played at second-placed York City on 16th March in blustery conditions. Chris Jones had put York ahead seven minutes after half-time and, when Bannister was sent off nine minutes from time, overreacting to a Chris Topping foul, it looked all over for Rovers. Remarkably, four minutes later, Stephens equalised with a low left-wing cross shot, but he was then also sent off for disputing a penalty five minutes into injury time with which Ian Holmes gave the home side victory. Referee Jim Whalley had crucially also allowed seven minutes of injury time at Walsall twelve months earlier, while York’s first goalscorer, Chris Jones, had ironically scored twice in the Walsall game. The upshot was that York now stood just three points behind Rovers with a game in hand, and the pressure was back on Rovers. The worst setback of all, however was a 2-1 defeat on Easter Saturday at home to promotion rivals Oldham Athletic. Rovers’ healthy seven point lead had been whittled away as the Latics had won ten consecutive league games. Oldham had beaten Southport 6-0 just twenty-four hours prior to their game at Eastville. Then a long-range shot from George McVitie and an opportunist goal from top scorer Colin Garwood earned a crucial victory over Rovers. Oldham Athletic, promoted when they beat Huddersfield Town 6-0 a week later, were champions with 62 points, just one point ahead of second-placed Rovers and York City, both promoted under the new “three-up” rule. The point gained at Southend not only ensured promotion, but enabled Rovers to claim a club record, equalled only in 1989-90, as only five away games had been lost. A happy crowd of 19,137 at Eastville in the final match saw Rovers recover from Lammie Robertson’s nineteenth-minute goal to draw with Brighton, Bannister converting a penalty five minutes from time after Prince had been fouled by Ron Welch. “Megson’s Marvels” had held out, despite growing pressures, and Rovers were to return to Division Two after an absence of more than a decade. It had been a season of hard work and of numerous club records, most notably the 32-match unbeaten league run. Moreover, many early-season points had been ground out week by week to form a platform for success. It was also a season of milestones, for the draw with Port Vale in October had been Rovers’ thousandth home league game and the draw against York City seven days later Rovers’ two thousandth match in the Football League. Yet, what many observers regarded as one of the best performances came in the FA Cup. Rovers had won confidently at Bideford, who fielded only two players who experienced league football, namely the Exeter City pair of Steve Morris and Graham Moxham, and subsequently at Northampton Town, whilst their 4-3 defeat at Nottingham Forest, for whom Neil Martin scored twice and the future Rovers player Miah Dennehy played a key role, showed the club could compete with higher division sides. There was much of a positive nature to gain from season 1973-74 and Megson’s next challenge would be to maintain the club’s newly regained Second Division status.
1974-75
By the turn of the century, many clubs greeted promotion by splashing into the transfer market and forking out millions of pounds on strengthening their squad. The return to Division Two after twelve seasons away saw no such reaction from Don Megson’s Rovers. Despite the sale of captain Mike Green to Plymouth Argyle, where he repeated his success by helping the Pilgrims up from Division Three in his first season, the Rovers manager stuck with his successful side. Perhaps this attitude was reflected in Rovers’ season-long struggle to avoid relegation, a situation repeated almost annually until the relegation season of 1980-81. The previous season’s success was rewarded with a summer tour of Australia, New Zealand and Thailand. It was a largely familiar-looking Rovers side which took a point off Notts County before what was to be the largest opening day crowd for a home game until 1999. There was a brief honeymoon period, Rovers remaining unbeaten for three games with Gordon Fearnley scoring against his former club at Hillsborough and also in the home win over Hull City. Reality soon struck, however, as Rovers faced the long trip to Roker Park, where a rampant Sunderland side scored five times. A hat-trick in that game from Billy Hughes was the first conceded in the league by Rovers for over four years. Rovers responded with a fine home victory over a strong Aston Villa side. Phil Bater, a débutant at full-back, subdued the former Eastville favourite, Ray Graydon, and two first-time shots from Alan Warboys, set up by Peter Aitken on fifty-four minutes and by Gordon Fearnley five minutes from time, brought about a memorable victory. There followed sufficient heavy defeats for Rovers to spend the remainder of the season looking anxiously over their collective shoulders at the relegation zone. Bolton also scored five times, with John Byrom only denied a hat-trick when his manager Ian Greaves credited his third goal to Stuart Lee, and Rovers lost 3-0 to York City, Southampton and Portsmouth. In the game at The Dell, all the goals were scored by England international forward Mick Channon, who was to play for Rovers briefly during 1982-83. He and Joe Riley remain the only two players to have appeared in league football for Rovers and scored a league hat-trick against them. Southampton also won at Eastville, when Eadie pulled back a misdirected Channon lob, sixteen minutes from time, into his own net. A tough season is always made harder by marginal decisions. Single-goal defeats at home to Southampton and in four tough away games, notably at Villa Park, reflected the fact that results were not going Rovers’ way. When Fulham won 2-1 at Eastville in March, Colin Dobson, in his first home league appearance of the season, missed a penalty. Rovers won a right-wing corner in the dying seconds of the goalless draw at home to Orient in November, but the final whistle was blown before substitute John Rudge’s flying header hit the goal net. The long-awaited local derby at Eastville proved to be a disaster from Rovers’ point of view. Having lost three consecutive games in the run-up to the match, Rovers were also deprived of the services of the ever-reliable goalkeeper Jim Eadie. His absence through injury after 84 consecutive league games enabled a one-match recall for Dick Sheppard, who had not played for almost two years since his sickening injury against Tranmere Rovers. Rovers, in fact, led at half-time through Fearnley, before being buried by an avalanche of City goals past the beleaguered Sheppard at the Muller Road end. That relegation was ultimately avoided came about as a result of several well-earned victories. After considerable pressure, it took a last-minute header from the dependable Stuart Taylor, following a corner in front of the Tote End, to beat Oxford United in February. Nottingham Forest, European Cup winners within five years, were beaten 4-2 at Eastville, while two Alan Warboys goals defeated Sunderland, FA Cup winners as recently as 1973. Rovers also completed a memorable double over old rivals Oldham Athletic. In a remarkable game at Boundary Park, not dissimilar in excitement level to the match there in 1997, Rovers won 4-3 after a goalless first-half and a bizarre final forty-five minutes. Jeff Coombes gave Rovers a forty-sixth minute lead and, within twenty minutes, the visitors were 3-0 ahead. Once Ian Robins and Maurice Whittle, from a penalty, had cut their lead, Rovers were grateful for Gordon Fearnley’s second goal of the game, five minutes from time, which gave them a cushion which Robins promptly halved. Rovers have appeared in other league games featuring seven or more second-half goals, but never after a scoreless half-time. Five weeks later, goals from Warboys and Taylor brought victory in the return game. The introduction of two new faces in March, in young Bristol-born centre-back Graham Day, replacing the injured Taylor, and experienced midfielder Wilf Smith, brought a string of more positive results. Dobson and the ever-combative Frankie Prince both scored in consecutive fixtures in April. Rovers drew four of their final five away league matches, including the local derby at Ashton Gate courtesy of a thirty-third minute own goal when Dobson’s high cross deflected in off Gary Collier’s shoulder. Manchester United visited Eastville at Easter, having suffered the ignominy of relegation from Division One twelve months earlier. Rovers, having lost 2-0 at Old Trafford in September, gained a point through substitute Bruce Bannister’s last-minute close-range equaliser. Although able to field a side predominantly unchanged from 1973-74 and largely stable through the season, Rovers undeniably struggled on their much-awaited return to Division Two. Warboys, clearly top scorer for the club with twelve league goals, and the versatile Peter Aitken both played in every league fixture. Yet, Warboys and Bannister never once both scored in the same game. For an attacking partnership which had yielded so many goals - both players had scored in seven different league matches the previous season, indeed both scored hat-tricks at Brighton -, this year was a great disappointment. The following season brought little further joy and it was August 1976 before both scored in the same match again. Rovers players past and future featured, at least nominally, in both major domestic cup finals. Bobby Gould, a Rovers player by 1977, was an unused substitute for West Ham, who beat Fulham 2-0 in the FA Cup Final. The only goal in the League Cup Final was scored by the former Rovers outside-right Ray Graydon as Aston Villa defeated Norwich City. Graydon had also scored the winning goal after an hour on Boxing Day, capitalising on Taylor’s misdirected back pass, as Rovers lost narrowly at Villa Park. In contrast to these players’ achievements, Rovers were not able to feature largely in cup competitions. A solitary Warboys drive four minutes from time disposed of Plymouth Argyle on aggregate in the League Cup, before Luton Town defeated Rovers at Kenilworth Road. Second Division status meant Rovers did not enter the FA Cup before the third round and victory at Blackburn gave Rovers a first appearance for six years in the fourth round. Third Division champions-elect Blackburn Rovers had proved easy prey, but reigning League champions Derby County beat Rovers comfortably through a goal from Kevin Hector and a Bruce Rioch penalty. The crowd of almost 28,000 at the Baseball Ground was bettered all season only by the 30,000 who saw the local derby at Ashton Gate and the remarkable 42,948 which witnessed Rovers’ first league visit to Old Trafford. Rovers retained the Gloucestershire Cup by defeating Bristol City 2-1 with goals from Prince and Warboys. On 25th February, an Eastville crowd of 3,000 saw England Youth draw 1-1 with Spain Youth in a Youth International qualifying match. The English side contained three future full internationals in Bryan Robson of West Bromwich Albion, Ray Wilkins of Chelsea and Peter Barnes of Manchester City.
1975-76
Second Division football was proving tough for Don Megson’s side. A difficult season in 1974-75 was followed by another of struggle and ultimate success in avoiding relegation. Once again, with limited funds available, the only new names were those nurtured carefully in the club’s rapidly growing South Wales nursery. John Rudge’s departure was offset by the continued emergence of David Staniforth, of whose five league goals four earned Rovers a point. The average home crowd, despite dropping to 10,022, was nonetheless the final five-figure average attendance at Rovers’ home matches in the twentieth century. Defeat at Oldham Athletic on the opening day, when Peter Aitken scored an own goal, marked the league débuts of two of the new influx of young Welsh players. One was David Williams, initially a left-back, later an accomplished midfield general and ultimately player-manager and the holder of a very belated Welsh cap. The other was Andrew Evans, who showed immense promise on the left-wing before an exciting career was cut cruelly short by injury in 1977. Tony Pulis, Wayne Powell and Paul Lewis were not far behind. Pulis made his league début in the cauldron of a local derby at Ashton Gate, where he was later manager. Powell became the first Rovers player to score as a substitute on his league début, as Rovers recorded a second consecutive 4-2 win over Nottingham Forest, while Lewis deputised for Jim Eadie in the final match of the season. Eric McMordie’s 57th-minute own goal earned victory over York City and, after two creditable draws, Alan Warboys scored both Rovers’ goals in a 2-0 victory over Fulham at Craven Cottage, a first away league win since December 1974. Rovers were to record a league double over the previous season’s beaten FA Cup finalists. After a promising start, a relegation dogfight was not high on the club’s list of expectations. Most surprising of all was that, after his goals at Fulham, Warboys was not to score again in the league until the final game, his tally of three being a highly disappointing return from such a proven goalscorer. In November, Rovers drew five consecutive league games, thus equalling a club record set in 1966-67, starting with a 1-1 draw with Blackburn Rovers, who thus established their own club record of five consecutive league draws. The most remarkable of these draws was at Roker Park, where Rovers belied their poor record at Sunderland and earned a point through David Williams’ first goal for the club. The crowd of 31,356 was the largest at a Rovers game all season. At this stage, after a twelve-match unbeaten run, Rovers had in fact only lost two of their opening eighteen league matches. Ten of these games, however, had been drawn and the loss of points through the club’s inability to turn good performances into victories was to prove a major factor as the season progressed. In the spring, four consecutive away games were lost 3-0 as Rovers looked over their shoulder at the trapdoor back to Division Three. Rovers failed to score in five consecutive league games away from Eastville prior to the now customary victory at Blackburn Rovers. Mick Channon, later a Rovers player, and Bobby Stokes, scorer of the winning goal in that season’s FA Cup Final, were among Southampton’s scorers at The Dell. Derek Hales scored twice for Charlton Athletic, while one of three scorers for Plymouth Argyle, led by the former Rovers captain Mike Green, was Paul Mariner, later an England international striker. The Plymouth game marked the final appearance in a Rovers shirt of Colin Dobson, who became youth coach at Coventry City prior to working in footballing circles in the Middle East. Three consecutive wins in October, against Sunderland and at Portsmouth and Blackpool, proved the highlight of the season. Bruce Bannister scored in all three and the fine 4-1 win at Bloomfield Park also saw Fearnley’s first two goals for almost a year and Smith’s first league goal for the club. Thereafter, it was to be December 1976 before Rovers next won two consecutive league games. From November to the end of the 1975-76 season only five further league games were won and only two of those by two clear goals. Martyn Britten’s eighteenth-minute goal, his first for the club, paved the way for a 2-0 victory over Portsmouth, while Southampton were defeated at Eastville by two Frankie Prince goals. Ultimately, Rovers’ final four away games of the season resulted in heavy defeats. What made Rovers’ continuing struggle all the more galling was the success experienced across the city at Ashton Gate. Excitement levels rose as the season progressed and a lone goal from Clive Whitehead in April was enough to defeat Portsmouth and propel Bristol City, with West Bromwich Albion and Sunderland, into Division One. Top-flight football had returned to Bristol after an absence of 65 years. Yet, this merely emphasised the gulf between the haves and the have-nots. Before, during and after season 1975-76 Don Megson was unable to delve into the transfer market to strengthen Rovers’ squad. Another summer’s inaction was to be followed by the mid-season sale during 1976-77 of both Warboys and Bannister, the very names which had brought the club to where they were. They were to be replaced, ultimately, not by new signings, but by home-grown talent in the form of Paul Randall and Steve White. Three future Rovers players were appearing on larger stages as the season drew to a close. Mick Channon won an FA Cup winners’ medal as unfancied Southampton, beaten at Eastville three weeks earlier, defeated Manchester United in the final. Stewart Barrowclough’s Newcastle United side lost to Manchester City in the League Cup Final. Even the Anglo Scottish Cup Final, where Middlesbrough beat Fulham 1-0 on aggregate, saw Rovers representation, with Boro’s Terry Cooper adding to his already impressive list of domestic and European honours. A crowd of over 35,000 saw Rovers earn a highly creditable 1-1 draw in the third round of the FA Cup at Stamford Bridge. Peter Bonetti, Charlie Cooke, Ray Wilkins and Ron Harris were among Chelsea’s star names and it took a Bill Garner equaliser from Wilkins’ thirty-fourth minute free-kick to earn a replay after Warboys’ eighteenth-minute header from a Williams cross had given Rovers an unlikely lead. Forty-eight hours later, a solitary Kenny Swain goal handed Chelsea a 1-0 replay victory. There was more success in the League Cup. Cardiff City were disposed of in the first round, with Warboys and Bannister, free from the shackles of Division Two expectation, both for once getting on the score-sheet in the away leg. Substitute Gordon Fearnley’s 83rd-minute goal at The Dell, after Mick Channon had shot wide from a penalty, brought a third round tie at home to Newcastle United. Rovers had chances to win, but were taken to a replay which was lost in front of a crowd of over 25,000 at St James’ Park to the eventual finalists. Irving Nattrass and Tommy Craig, from a penalty, scored the replay goals, with considerable help from the instrumental Stewart Barrowclough, later a Rovers player. An exciting Gloucestershire Cup Final was lost 3-2 at Ashton Gate, despite goals for Rovers from David Williams and Stuart Taylor. The implications of the 1975 Safety of Sports Grounds Act led to £70,000 being invested in Eastville Stadium. However, this served simply as a reminder to Rovers that their lease of the ground was due to expire in 1979. With hindsight, it is easy to see what steps could have been taken at this stage concerning the club’s future in Bristol.
1976-77
As Bristol City embarked on their much-heralded return to top flight football, Bristol Rovers attempted to steady the ship and attain at least mid-table status in Division Two. Yet, it was difficult to see how this could be achieved. With the exception of emerging young Welsh talent, a struggling team was now ageing. Without the arrival of new faces, it was clearly going to be another long, hard season. It had been a hot, dry summer, the driest in living memory and, according to Dominic Sandbrook in “Seasons in the Sun”, “there was a slight outbreak of the old Roman custom of bottom-pinching against women shoppers in Bristol” (Daily Mirror, 25.6.76). The players who appeared in the Rovers side on the opening day of the season constituted, broadly speaking, the side which had won only five of its final 29 league matches in 1975-76. Blackpool were the visitors to Eastville and, with Bob Hatton scoring twice, they ran out comfortable 4-1 winners, Warboys scoring his first goal at home in sixteen months. However, Megson had few options in team selection. Money was still not available for buying new players and all he could attempt was a reshuffle. Wilf Smith, David Williams and Peter Aitken were all tried in defence and midfield and young full-back Phil Bater was recalled on the right and later on the left. In comparison with certain seasons earlier in Rovers’ league history, there were no disastrous results. It was just as well, for goal average had replaced goal difference, as a means to calculate league tables. By their own standards, though, Rovers were dealt several crushing blows. Blackpool scored four times when Rovers visited Bloomfield Road and another 4-0 defeat, this time at Oldham Athletic, featured a hat-trick from Vic Halom. In addition to the FA Cup defeat, where losing was no embarrassment but the one-sided score-line was, Rovers were also crushed by Wolves at Eastville over Christmas. The Wolves side, heading for the Division Two championship, was certainly a strong one, but to go five goals behind before David Williams’ last-minute consolation goal indicated the extent of work required on the team. On a positive note, Rovers won their first away game, with both Alan Warboys and Bruce Bannister scoring at Cardiff. For “Smash” and “Grab”, a partnership which had terrorised defences at will during the early part of 1973-74, this represented the first time since January 1974, a period of over two-and-a-half years, that both had scored in the same league match. A huge win over Notts County in September, where both David Staniforth and the recalled Gordon Fearnley scored pairs, their first goals of the season, was the biggest victory at Eastville since October 1972. A significantly comfortable 3-0 win against Hull City in November featured a first Rovers goal for the highly promising Andrew Evans, after six minutes, and Alan Warboys’ hundredth league goal just two minutes before half-time. The home fixture with Hereford United in November summed up, in many ways, the intense frustration of the season. Both Warboys and Bannister were able to score very early on, with Rovers leading 2-0 inside ten minutes. It was the first-ever league meeting of the clubs and newly-promoted Hereford seized their opportunities to lead 3-2 after just eighteen minutes, with Steve Davey scoring twice, even affording the luxury of a missed penalty from Dixie McNeil, whose shot four minutes from time, following a foul by Taylor, went wide of the post. Although a Wayne Powell goal, after David Staniforth’s shot seventeen minutes from time had been blocked, earned a draw at Edgar Street, Rovers never gained the opportunity for revenge, as Hereford were relegated that season and never returned to Division Two. Bannister’s goal proved to be his last for the club, as the old guard from 1973-74 was dismantled. Two mid-season sales were to alter radically the make-up of Rovers’ side. Bruce Bannister had scored only four goals in eighteen games and was sold to Plymouth Argyle in December in a deal which brought Jimmy Hamilton to Eastville; Hamilton was to score just once in his Rovers career. Alan Warboys left for Fulham, his sixth league club, in a deal worth £30,000. The pair met up again later at Hull City before both embarked on successful business careers, Bannister’s sports shoe manufacturing company in Bradford proving particularly lucrative. By the season’s end, when Jim Eadie joined Bath City and Kenny Stephens moved to Hereford, only the ever-reliable Stuart Taylor was left from the promotion season. These players were not replaced by experienced footballers, but by teenage stars-in-the-making and, at least in the meantime, Rovers were destined to continue to struggle in Division Two. There was, though, some hope. Seventeen-year-olds Martin Thomas, who replaced Eadie in goal for January’s game at Charlton Athletic, and Vaughan Jones, who was to captain Rovers in the 1989-90 championship season, both made their first league appearances. Rovers regularly fielded five young Welsh-born players in the side, products of the club’s nursery system. On the other hand, they were not ready to deal with some of the more experienced names in football. Chelsea, Nottingham Forest and Southampton all brought big-name players to Eastville. The legendary maverick Robin Friday was in the Cardiff City side which drew 1-1 at Eastville in January, while George Best scored the only goal of the game, with a first-minute mishit shot, when Fulham defeated Rovers at Craven Cottage in September. At least the season finished on a high note, with Rovers reaching fifteenth place in the table following a late seven-match unbeaten run. Young Wayne Powell, belatedly recalled to the side, scored six goals in this run. His eighty-fifth minute far-post header at home to Sheffield United completed a memorable hat-trick, the first in the league by a Rovers player since December 1973. He had been given just one league start in 1975-76 and this spell in the spring of 1977 represented the high-point of his Rovers career. With Rovers safe from relegation, there was a final 2-2 draw with Bolton Wanderers, who were reduced to ten men by the sending-off of Paul Jones. Special mention should also be made of late wins at Hull City and Carlisle United, the latter through substitute Hamilton’s sole league goal for the club after Rovers had earlier trailed 2-0. There were many changes through the season. No player appeared in every game. Top-scorer Warboys and his sidekick Bannister had left the club. However, Rovers did for a third consecutive season survive relegation, achieving league doubles over Hull City, Sheffield United and Carlisle United along the way. Elsewhere, former Rovers player Larry Lloyd, in the Anglo Scottish Cup Final, and Ray Graydon, in the League Cup Final, were achieving greater success. Rovers’ scouts were busy monitoring the progress of young Paul Randall, whose mid-season transfer from Glastonbury to Frome Town had brought him goalscoring success. On his shoulders much of Rovers’ immediate future was to rest. Once again, cup competitions brought little joy for Rovers. Larry Lloyd’s Nottingham Forest were held to two 1-1 draws but Rovers capitulated in the second replay at Villa Park. Forest scored six times without reply, with England international Tony Woodcock scoring twice. Four other household names, Viv Anderson, Ian Bowyer, John O’Hare and Peter Withe also featured on a decidedly one-sided score-sheet. At this point, Rovers conceded fourteen goals in a run of three league and cup matches. In the League Cup, Warboys and Bannister both scored penalties against Cardiff City, one in each leg, but Rovers were eliminated 6-5 on aggregate after Tony Evans had scored all the visitors’ goals in an exciting 4-4 draw at Eastville. Rovers had led 4-2 on the night and 5-4 on aggregate with just over twenty minutes remaining, before Evans headed past Eadie to complete his hat-trick. His fourth goal, eight minutes from time, sealed the visitors’ overall victory. No other opponent has scored four goals in a League Cup-tie against Rovers. Bristol City won the Gloucestershire Cup Final with a single goal victory at Eastville.
1977-78
It was the form of teenage striker Paul Randall which stood out in season 1977-78. The summer signing from Frome Town scored twenty goals in 28 (plus three sub) league matches, the first Rovers player since Alan Warboys in 1973-74 to break into the magical seasonal tally of twenty league goals. Yet it was not simply the goalscoring which marked Randall out, but his all-round contribution to the team. With him in the side, despite some heavy defeats, Rovers were to finish the season in eighteenth place in Division Two. Promoted Cardiff City were Rovers’ opening day opponents. Rovers fielded just the one new face in Randall, though Martin Thomas, Eadie’s long-term successor in goal, had only one league match under his belt. Randall’s début goal at Ninian Park was one of four in his opening five games. After drawing the first three games, Rovers were not to win until the ninth, when David Williams scored twice against a Mansfield Town side which featured Colin Foster, whose son Steve was to play such an integral part in the Rovers side a quarter of a century later. Randall’s absence from that match meant that he was not on the winning side in a league fixture until Guy Fawkes’ Day. As the new season unfolded, Don Megson entered the transfer market in search of big-name players to bolster his side. With Bristol City temporarily on top of Division One, it was clearly time to build up Rovers’ stature. The experienced former Crystal Palace full-back Tony Taylor arrived on trial and quickly gained a regular place in the side. Mike Barry joined Rovers from Carlisle United in an exchange deal which took Jimmy Hamilton to Brunton Park, while the former Birmingham City footballer Paul Hendrie arrived on a free transfer. The biggest-name signing, however, was the highly experienced forward Bobby Gould, who joined Rovers, his seventh league club, for a £10,000 fee the day before Rovers were due to meet Blackburn Rovers at Eastville. It was very much a new-look Rovers side which opposed Blackburn on 15th October. Eighteen-year-old Glyn Jones was in goal, Taylor, Barry and Hendrie all played and, in the absence of Randall, Gould made his club début. It was an opening game to remember; Gould scored a first-half hat-trick, after three, thirteen and thirty-five minutes, and David Staniforth added another midway through the second-half as Rovers ran up a convincing 4-1 win. Only Joe Riley and Jimmy McCambridge, in Rovers’ long Football League history, can match Gould’s achievement of three goals on his début. Rovers, it was said, had turned the corner and the tough away fixture at White Hart Lane seven days later was anticipated with relish. Tottenham Hotspur’s relegation to Division Two meant a first-ever league meeting with Rovers and television cameras were there to record the game. It turned into a living nightmare for Rovers, who crashed to their heaviest post-war defeat. For all the pre-match optimism, Rovers were three goals behind by half-time, with the former Bristol City striker Colin Lee opening the scoring after five minutes, conceded four goals in a nine-minute spell and ended up beaten 9-0. Lee scored four goals and Ian Moores three in twenty-six second-half minutes, only the third occasion that two opponents had scored hat-tricks in a league game against Rovers. Future England international managers scored in the last minute of each half, Peter Taylor on the stroke of half-time and Glenn Hoddle the soul-destroying ninth in the dying seconds. One player who was singled out for praise was goalkeeper Jones, who was largely credited with keeping the score down to single figures. He played again on the same pitch only nine days later, this time helping the reserves to a 1-1 draw. It took Rovers just seven days to recover sufficiently to manage a goalless draw at home to a strong Southampton side and to return to winning ways, once Randall was back against Millwall. The Southampton game, though, marked the end of winger Andrew Evans’ career. Just days after his twentieth birthday, Evans broke his right ankle in this game and a career of great promise was brought to a sad and premature end. Nor were Rovers able to shake the Spurs defeat wholly from their collective systems. Sunderland put five goals past the recalled Martin Thomas, Steve Taylor scored a hat-trick in Oldham Athletic’s 4-1 win and three goals from Malcolm Poskett led Rovers to an embarrassing 4-0 home defeat at the hands of Brighton. For the first time in fifteen years and the last time in the twentieth century, Rovers had conceded four league hat-tricks in a season. The 77 league goals conceded in finishing eighteenth in Division Two also constituted the club’s worst defensive record for a decade. The major after-effect, though, of these results was the departure in November of manager Don Megson, who took over at Portland Timbers in the North American Soccer League. Rovers promoted from within, with the former Scottish international Bobby Campbell, the club’s trainer since May 1961, being swiftly appointed manager, a post he held for two years. He was the third Scottish international footballer to manage the club. Under his leadership results improved to a certain degree. There was a morale-boosting 3-2 home win over Sunderland, featuring Stuart Taylor’s first goal in almost two years and Rovers put three goals without reply past Crystal Palace. Late-season 4-1 wins over Sheffield United and Stoke City, for whom Garth Crooks scored in both meetings with Rovers, saw Randall and his fellow teenager Steve White score three times between them in each game. White weighed in with four goals in his first eight league appearances. Randall, however, was not to be outdone. A rich vein of goalscoring through the spring saw him score in eight consecutive league games in which he played. From late December until early April, he was to score in thirteen out of fourteen league appearances. This included a goal in an exciting 2-2 draw with Charlton Athletic, when Bobby Gould converted an eighty-seventh minute penalty and the visitors had Phil Warman sent off; the following season’s home game with Charlton was to produce even greater drama. Randall also scored in a 3-1 victory over Millwall in a match played at Fratton Park as The Den had been closed following crowd trouble. It was significant that Randall should score the only goal of the final game of the season in a victory at Hull City to give an element of hope for Rovers’ prospects in the forthcoming season. Short-lived participation in the League Cup was compounded by the fact that Phil Bater contrived to score own goals for Walsall in both legs of a 3-1 aggregate defeat. The former Rovers centre-half Larry Lloyd was in the Nottingham Forest side which won this trophy for the first of two consecutive seasons. There was an attendance over 20,000 at every one of Rovers’ four FA Cup-ties. Rovers were drawn to play Sunderland at Roker Park, only weeks after their 5-1 defeat there. Despite missing David Williams, Bobby Gould’s twenty-first minute lobbed goal after Staniforth had flicked on Day’s free-kick earned an outstanding 1-0 win. Southampton were the visitors to Eastville in round four and a memorable pair of goals from Paul Randall brought a comprehensive victory. When Ipswich Town visited snowy Eastville in February, two David Williams goals seemed to be leading Rovers to a third-ever FA Cup quarter-final appearance. However, deep into injury time, Robin Turner equalised to break Rovers’ hearts. Ipswich won the replay at Portman Road with ease and went on to win the Cup that season for what remains the only time in the club’s history. Bristol City retained the Gloucestershire Cup, a crowd of 10,178 at Ashton Gate witnessing their comfortable three-goal victory over Rovers. There was also a 3-1 defeat on the same ground in the Anglo-Scottish Cup, in which competition Rovers also lost to a single goal at home to Plymouth Argyle and drew with Birmingham City to find themselves eliminated at the end of the group stage. A Rovers Old Players side defeated Bristol City Old Players 1-0 on February 28th, thanks to a Geoff Bradford goal. This was an era of social unease, characterised by a tale recounted in a lecture on “Law and Order – is this the End?” given by James Pennant and reported in the Bristol Evening Post on 20th April 1978 (and printed in Christopher Logue’s “Bumper Book of True Stories” two years later), in which a car driver, stopping to spend a penny in Bristol, had his pocket picked and the tape of his grndmother’s funeral was stolen from his car. The introduction of speedway to Eastville, where meetings were held between 1977 and 1979, meant the pitch was necessarily reduced to 110 x 70 yards, making it, with those of Halifax Town and Swansea City, the smallest in the Football League.
1978-79
Bobby Campbell’s pre-season plans, like those of so many managers before him, were heavily restricted by the absence of spending power. For all the major transfer fees ahead - Barrowclough’s fee in 1979 was to remain a club record until Rovers were back in the Second Division over a decade later -, Campbell’s structuring was slow and quiet. Youngsters such as Vaughan Jones, Gary Clarke, Gary Mabbutt and Paul Petts were allowed to develop and break into the league side. The only significant summer signing was that of the former Eire international winger Miah Dennehy, a £20,000 signing from Walsall at the end of July. He had scored the first-ever hat-trick in an Irish Cup Final, when playing for Cork Hibernian against Waterford in 1972, but he did not manage a goal in his first season at Eastville. Before the season could begin in earnest, Rovers participated for a second consecutive year in the Anglo-Scottish Cup. Dennehy and Clarke both played in a 1-0 home victory over Cardiff City and young striker Alan Hoult replaced goalscorer Paul Randall near the end. Rovers then lost embarrassingly 6-1 at Bristol City, Tom Ritchie scoring a hat-trick, and 2-1 at Fulham and were eliminated. The League Cup followed a similar pattern, with Peter Aitken scoring a rare goal with a twenty-five-yard drive as Rovers led Hereford United, who featured Wayne Powell in their side, 2-0 and missed a penalty in the first round first leg, before conceding a late strike and then crashing 4-0 at Edgar Street to lose 5-2 on aggregate. Revenge over Fulham was swift as Rovers, with Dennehy making his league début and six Welsh-born players in the side, defeated the Cottagers 3-1 at Eastville. The first goal was scored after a quarter of an hour by Paul Randall who was to enjoy continued early-season success. Bobby Gould scored in the first two league matches before joining Hereford United as player-coach. A run of two early away defeats was arrested by a confidence-boosting 4-2 home win over Cardiff City; a sixth-minute Steve Grapes own goal from Mike Barry’s inswinging corner put Rovers on their way, with Paul Randall scoring and David Staniforth adding two close-range finishes. John Buchanan scored a penalty in both fixtures for Cardiff City against Rovers. The 3-0 defeat at Charlton Athletic in August had marked Stuart Taylor’s 487th league appearance for Rovers, surpassing Harry Bamford’s club record. His 500th game, a 2-1 home win over Sheffield United, came just seven days after the extraordinary return tie with Charlton. Rovers had won all seven of their home games prior to the London side’s visit, including an impressive victory over Blackburn Rovers 4-1, with Randall scoring his first league hat-trick and over Newcastle United 2-0, when Randall claimed both goals. A winning goal from Staniforth had defeated a strong Orient side featuring, in Tunji Banjo and John Chiedozie, two Nigerian international midfielders. Equally, Charlton boasted an unbeaten away record, but nothing indicated the ten-goal thriller which was to unfold. After Dick Tydeman had put the visitors ahead on fifteen minutes, Randall responded with two quick goals so that Rovers led by the half-hour mark. In the four minutes leading up to half-time, though, Keith Peacock created goals for Martyn Robinson and Mick Flanagan and Rovers trailed 3-2 at the break. Flanagan put Charlton two goals ahead after forty-nine minutes and, though David Williams, shooting through a ruck of players eight minutes later, narrowed the gap, Robinson’s second goal, after sixty-three minutes, restored the visitors’ two-goal lead. After Peter Aitken’s shot was saved just three minutes later, Randall completed his hat-trick and Williams equalised from the penalty spot after a sixty-eighth minute foul on substitute Paul Hendrie. Rovers’ second 5-5 draw in league football, the first being against Exeter City in November 1934, had seen ten goals in a frenetic fifty-three minute spell in the middle of the match. December, however, brought a turnaround in fortunes. A 5-0 defeat at Roker Park, where Wayne Entwhistle grabbed a hat-trick, was followed by a dramatic end to Rovers’ unbeaten home record. Full-backs Brian Chambers and Nick Chatterton both scored penalties as Rovers lost 3-0 at home to Millwall. Rovers were to win only two more home league games all season. It was time for action on the transfer front and Campbell, having earlier secured Norwich City’s eighteen-year-old winger Phil Lythgoe on a month’s loan, succeeded in buying the midfielder he required in Gary Emmanuel. The nephew of a former Rovers trialist, Emmanuel commanded a club record fee of £50,000 as he joined Rovers from Birmingham City. At the end of December, to the major disappointment of Rovers fans, Paul Randall was sold to Stoke City for a club record fee of £180,000. He had scored 33 goals in 49 (plus three sub) league matches over an eighteenth-month period and was not easily replaced. Steve White scored twice at Luton and twice more in the win at Millwall, the latterly ironically by the same 3-0 margin as the Eastville fixture, yet the goals no longer flowed so freely. Prior to the Burnley game, where Vaughan Jones, from the penalty spot after thirty-five minutes, recorded his first league goal for Rovers, the side had gone four matches without a goal. It was to be a year after Randall’s departure before Rovers next scored four times in a league match. Relegation was staved off, by Rovers’ immediate standards, with great ease. Sixteenth place in Division Two reflected much of the early-season success. The reserves, meanwhile, finished ninth in the Football Combination, their highest final position since 1968-69 and a height never again attained in the twentieth century. After three straight defeats, Rovers rested Stuart Taylor for the final game of the season, leaving Martin Thomas and David Williams as the club’s only ever-presents. Williams scored the only goal at Wrexham in the final game of the season, with a 20-yard drive from Keith Brown’s pass twelve minutes from time, to end as the club’s second highest scorer behind Randall. This last match saw Rovers field the youngest side in the club’s history. Brown, Martin Shaw, Dave Palmer and Mike England were given first full league appearances; England was to wait over six years for his second league match. Gary Emmanuel, at twenty-five, was the oldest player in a side with an average age of twenty. Larry Lloyd, Alan Ball and Tony Sealy, all Rovers players at some point in their careers, appeared in the League Cup Final. Lloyd was also a European Cup winner for the first of two consecutive years, as Nottingham Forest beat Malmö 1-0 in the final. Tim Parkin, a Rovers player in 1981, was in the Malmö squad and went on to play in the World Club Championship match as the Swedish side stood in for Forest, only to lose 3-1 on aggregate to the South American champions, Olimpia from Paraguay. In October 1978, Rovers’ oldest supporter, Albert Moody had died at the age of 102; Albert William Poynter Moody had been born in Clifton on 12th May 1876, the son of Henry Albert Moody (1840-1910) and Sarah Anne Pointer (1839-1908) and had helped club secretary John Gummow with FA Cup administration in the 1950s. The FA Cup saw Rovers record 1-0 wins at Swansea City and at home to Charlton Athletic before losing at Portman Road to Ipswich Town for a second consecutive season. Steve White scored in all three matches. Charlton had defeated Southern League Maidstone United in round three despite floodlight failure in the replay, after their strikers Mick Flanagan and Derek Hales had been sent off in the initial tie for fighting each other. Rovers’ round four victory was to be Flanagan’s only appearance for Charlton in the second-half of the season. The crowd at the fifth round game, 23,231, was the largest to watch Rovers all season, and spectators saw Rovers overwhelmed by an Ipswich Town side destined to finish sixth in Division One. The Cup holders won with two goals from Alan Brazil and one each from Arnold Muhren, Paul Mariner, Mick Mills and substitute David Geddis. Rovers also hosted testimonial games at Eastville for midfielder Frankie Prince, 0-2 against Bristol City, and goalkeeper Dick Sheppard, which West Bromwich Albion won 3-2. The most unusual match, though, was against the touring Zambian national side on 24th October. A crowd of 4,000 saw Rovers beat Zambia 4-1 at Eastville, with goals from Paul Randall, Phil Lythgoe, Miah Dennehy and David Williams.
1979-80
Two highly experienced players were signed in the summer of 1979 to add strength to the Rovers side. At the end of July, Bobby Campbell paid £100,000 to Birmingham City for the services of Stewart Barrowclough, a former Barnsley and Newcastle United winger who had won five England Under 23 caps. This figure represented a record fee spent by the club and was to remain unsurpassed until 1991. Two weeks later, Terry Cooper arrived from Bristol City as player-coach. Cooper had won twenty England caps while on Leeds United’s books and was to be Rovers’ manager before the season was out. Within days of Cooper’s arrival, Rovers had let an away lead slip, to be knocked out of the League Cup on aggregate by Torquay United. League form, however, appeared more consistent. Two consecutive home wins were followed by a highly creditable draw at Birmingham City. The speedy and dependable Barrowclough scored from the penalty spot in three consecutive league games, a club record later equalled by Ian Holloway in October 1990, and scored six penalties in all the season, including one in each game with Orient. All illusions, however, were shattered by a heavy defeat at Cambridge which set Rovers on a run of poor results through the autumn. Floyd Streete gave the home side a first-minute lead and Lindsay Smith and Alan Biley added goals either side of half-time. Although David Williams pulled a goal back after an hour, Cambridge United’s 4-1 victory was sealed nineteen minutes from time, when Steve Spriggs was left unmarked following Biley’s overhead kick. Spriggs stood just five feet two inches tall, and only Fred Le May in 1930-31, amongst Rovers’ league opponents, was shorter. This was the first of nine defeats in fourteen games which sent Rovers tumbling down the table and ultimately lost Campbell his job. While Bobby Campbell stayed in Bristol, working outside professional football, Rovers appointed youth coach Harold Jarman as his temporary successor. Not only was Jarman the first Bristolian to manage the club, but he was also a figure who had gained huge respect in his fourteen years as a Rovers player. Within days of his arrival, successive home wins over Oldham Athletic and Swansea City led the side to believe it could pull clear of relegation. Under his guidance, Rovers beat Chelsea 3-0 and secured enough points to avoid Third Division football. It was, therefore, scant reward for Jarman when, with just two matches remaining, his application for the full-time manager’s job was turned down and Terry Cooper was appointed. In October, an easily distinguishable character in English football, Brian Kilcline, had appeared at Eastville on his league début. His first professional club, Notts County, won this particular game 3-2. Kilcline’s most famous day was perhaps that of the 1987 FA Cup Final, where he and Spurs’ Gary Mabbutt, who was in the Rovers side against Notts County, both got on the score-sheet. Three days later, Rovers were undone by Bob Hatton, who scored a first-half hat-trick as Luton Town won 3-1 at Kenilworth Road, Gary Emmanuel’s only goal of the season reducing the deficit after half-time. It was Luton who paid £195,000 on Christmas Eve for the signature of Rovers’ exciting young forward, Steve White. It was a club record transfer fee received by Rovers but the two main strikers had now been sold in the space of twelve months. The future Rovers assistant manager Kevan Broadhurst played for Birmingham City against Rovers in January 1980. No sooner had White left, than Rovers ironically ran up their largest win of the season. Swansea City were beaten 4-1 at Eastville with the Welshmen’s Alan Waddle, a cousin of the England international Chris Waddle, scoring for both sides either side of half-time before Miah Dennehy, set up three times by Barrowclough in 34 second-half minutes, scored a memorable hat-trick. They were to be the mercurial winger’s last three goals for the club for, after a trial with Cardiff City, he began the 1980-81 season at Trowbridge Town. Frankie Prince, who had won four Welsh Under 23 caps during a long association with the club, played his last game for Rovers in the heavy defeat at bottom-of-the-table Charlton Athletic, while centre-half Stuart Taylor made the last of his club record 546 Football League appearances in the 3-3 draw with Preston North End at Eastville in March. There were six goals in twenty-nine second-half minutes, as Rovers, 2-0 up just after the hour mark, dropped a point thanks to Peter Aitken’s own goal three minutes from time. Young Tony Pulis, who scored Rovers’ third goal against Preston after eighty-two minutes, also scored in the victory over Chelsea. In a fine team performance, where Aitken was outstanding, Shaun Penny grabbed two goals to give Rovers a convincing win. This victory, however, was marred by the disgraceful behaviour of some spectators at the Chelsea end, who pushed down a wall supporting the Muller Road terraces. Bobby Campbell had taken an untried teenager, Noel Parkinson, on loan. Jarman’s approach was to go for experience and thirty-year-old Chic Bates arrived at Eastville in March. He played in the final eleven league games of the season and scored in consecutive home draws with Sunderland and Leicester City, two of the promoted clubs. Youth was also given a go, as the season drew to a close, with Paul Petts and Mike Barrett being offered league experience. The former was the son of an Eastville favourite, Johnny Petts and, like his father, was an England Youth international. The latter was a natural ball-playing wingman, whose close control and ability to beat opponents was to endear him to an adoring Eastville public. New manager Cooper gave débuts to two young Welsh players, Mark Hughes, a cousin of the England defender Emlyn Hughes, and Ashley Griffiths, in the meaningless final game of the season at home to West Ham United. The Hammers treated the game as a warm-up for the FA Cup Final seven days later where Trevor Brooking’s thirteenth-minute header proved enough to defeat Arsenal. Martin Thomas in goal had played a key role in maintaining Rovers’ Second Division status. Rovers only conceded four goals in a game twice and Thomas was able to keep five consecutive clean sheets in early spring until finally beaten by a Teddy Maybank goal at Fulham. Thomas was one of a number of Welsh players in the side; indeed, eleven out of the twenty-five players used in League Football during 1979-80 were born in South Wales. Bristol-born goalkeeper, Phil Kite, was given his club début in the Gloucestershire Cup Final, whilst the unfortunate Andrew Evans, was granted a testimonial game against Southampton at Eastville. Prior to Geoff Merrick’s testimonial game at Ashton Gate on May 12th, Rovers Old Players played out a goalless draw against Bristol City Old Players. The former Rovers defender Larry Lloyd was in the successful Nottingham Forest side which retained the European Cup when John Robertson’s goal defeated SV Hamburg in Madrid and set up a World Club Championship Final against Nacional of Uruguay. He missed the League Cup Final, where Forest lost 1-0 to a Wolverhampton Wanderers side containing two future Rovers players, Kenny Hibbitt and Paul Bradshaw. Rovers were to experience no joy in any of the Cup tournaments. Goals from Gordon Cowans and Gary Shaw earned FA Cup success at Eastville for a very talented Aston Villa team, while Les Lawrence scored in both legs as a struggling Torquay United side put Rovers out of the League Cup. It was the same story in the Gloucestershire Cup, where Rovers, having lost the first two games under Cooper’s management, lost to a second-half goal from Howard Pritchard at Ashton Gate. A temporary extension to Rovers’ tenancy at Eastville enabled the club to remain in east Bristol into the 1980s. However, fears continued to grow for the long-term future and what the club could not afford was to suffer as disastrous a season as the one which now lay ahead. In the meantime, along with all other Second Division venues, the stadium was brought, under the provisions of the 1975 Safety of Sports Grounds Act, the brief of which was now extended beyond the top division. This act specified that all grounds with a capacity exceeding 10,000 were to be “designated” and therefore hold a safety certificate issued by the local authority. Eastville Stadium fell into this bracket and, amid spiraling costs and falling attendances, a late 1970s phenomenon, Rovers were forced to comply with legal requirements. This the club clearly did not, for Rovers were later fined £200 for making unauthorised changes to the layout of the stadium.
1980's
1980-81
It was a season of record lows. Only five league wins all season, only four wins at Eastville in any competition, just 34 league goals, including twenty-one at home; all these were unwanted club records. It was Valentine’s Day before Rovers had recorded their second win of the season. The previous victory had been the first in seventeen matches under Terry Cooper. Overshadowing this was the South Stand fire in August and Rovers’ enforced absence from Eastville. Relegation, after seven seasons in Division Two, became an inevitability. Rovers finished seven points adrift of Bristol City who were also relegated. There were huge restrictions imposed on Cooper as he attempted to convert his vast playing experience into managerial success. Funds were being used to develop the Hambrook training ground and there was no money available for the much-needed introduction of new players. Meanwhile, the directors were unable to forge an agreement with the Bristol Stadium Company over the lease of Eastville. A new licence for the stadium to comply with the Safety of Sports Grounds Act was to reduce the ground capacity from 30,000 to 12,500. Repercussions from the ill-advised sale of Eastville in 1940 were now placing Rovers in the downward spiral that would lead to the move to Twerton Park in 1986. The long-serving club secretary Peter Terry retired on 5th October to be replaced by Marjorie Hall. Self-made businessman Barry Bradshaw joined the board and, over the summer, youth team development officer Gordon Bennett became Chief Executive, in which role he would make a huge contribution to staving off bankruptcy over the next few years. Bennett had donated his prize of £1,000, after being named Britain’s top football fan in 1968, to the club to enable the establishment of a youth side and he had undertaken a series of fundraising events across the years. Now he was able to put into action much of what he believed. The next major blow to Rovers was not too far away. Overnight, following Rovers’ opening day draw with Orient, David Williams and John Chiedozie scoring in the opening sixteen minutes, a mystery fire badly damaged the South Stand at Eastville. The club’s administrative offices and changing rooms were destroyed. Nonetheless, there had been no loss of life; stands burnt down at Rovers, Brentford, Brighton and Norwich down the years, the first fatalities occurring when Bradford City’s stand at Valley Parade burnt down in May 1985 with the loss of fifty-six lives. Eastville was left as a shell, with seating only in the North Stand and the traffic noise from the M32 motorway now increasingly evident. It was a depressing situation. Cooper’s young, inexperienced side was forced to play three league games and two League Cup-ties at Ashton Gate and, when they returned to their damaged home in October, were so deeply into their club record run of twenty league games without a win that relegation appeared the only possible outcome. Exile at Ashton Gate was fraught with problems. The thought of playing on “enemy territory” put off a number of spectators and only 3,808 saw the game with Oldham Athletic and 3,047 the League Cup game with York City. Even the potentially lucrative visit of fallen giants Newcastle United drew only 5,171 to the borrowed stadium. Rovers drew all three league games there and the only League Cup win was as a result of an own goal. Indeed, own goals accounted for two of Rovers’ miserly three goals at Ashton Gate. Kevin Moore of Grimsby Town, who scored in the first game there, was later a Rovers player and his goal against Birmingham City in October 1992 was therefore his second for the club, after a gap of over twelve years. One other aspect to the Rovers story may have its roots in this era. Although it came into regular use in 1986-87 after Rovers’ enforced exile at Twerton Park, several Rovers supporters mention the 1980-81 season as when they recall first being described as a “Gashead” and the club being referred to as “The Gas” in deference to Eastville Stadium’s historic proximity to the Gasworks. Steve Slade recalls a Bristol City fan Andy Johnson calling him a “Gashead” as he waited on Redcliffe Hill for a bus in 1980 and regulars in the Princes Bar and Wheatsheaf pubs remember the term “Gas” in popular usage in the same year. Whilst Rovers made temporary use of Ashton Gate, the phrase “no Gasheads” was scawled above one of the turnstiles and certainly the popular song “Proud to be a Gashead” was sung from the first match in Bath. At Wrexham in April 1981, Rovers supporters sang “You’ll never get rid of the Gas” and Trevor Francis apparently wrote an article for a football magazine in 1979, in which he described Eastville as the worst ground he had ever played at, on account of the pervading smell of gas. The Evening Post first used the word “Gashead” in 2001 and Harper Collins approved the word “Gashead”, meaning “people dwelling north of the River Frome in Bristol, supporter of Bristol Rovers Football Club” for its various dictionaries from February 2005. Cooper signed three experienced players in Aiden McCaffrey, Donnie Gillies, for two seasons of dependable play and Bob Lee. McCaffrey, a one-time pupil of the Olympic athlete Brendan Foster, had represented England Youth while on Newcastle United’s books and, following a £50,000 move from Derby County, was promptly made Rovers’ captain. Though a centre-back, he was the club’s top scorer with five league goals, level with the defensively-minded Gary Mabbutt, who had scored his first goal for the club in the 3-1 defeat at Notts County in October. Mabbutt was one of a vast number of young players who were being blooded in Division Two. Vaughan Jones and Mark Hughes were claiming places in the side on merit and young Geraint Williams became increasingly essential to Rovers’ midfield cause as the season progressed. Mike Barrett scored his first league goal for Rovers in an eventful 3-3 draw with Sheffield Wednesday at a subdued Eastville in October. Each side scored in the opening six minutes and Barrett’s seventy-fifth minute equaliser followed, two minutes later, by a Chic Bates goal put Rovers ahead, only for David Grant to equalise for Wednesday after eighty-four minutes. Stewart Barrowclough contributed just two league games and returned to his home town club Barnsley at the end of February. On 4th November, Rovers finally ended their club record run of ten home league games without a victory. This first win of the season, 3-1 over Watford, where Rovers were 2-0 up inside twenty-seven minutes, and Mabbutt added a third nine minutes after the interval, brought little respite for it was followed by another run of fourteen league matches without a win. John Ward, later Rovers’ manager in two stints, scored for the Hornets in the return fixture. At this stage, too, Ian Atkins and Steve Cross, two future Rovers managers, both scored for Shrewsbury Town against Rovers. Through December, Rovers picked up just one point in eight league games. This was achieved at home to Notts County when, with a sixty-fifth minute equaliser to Iain McCulloch’s goal, Steve Williams became, at seventeen years and 236 days, Rovers’ youngest post-war goalscorer in league football. It was the only goal he ever scored for Rovers. Another of Ronnie Dix’s pre-war records was challenged but remained unsurpassed, as Neil Slatter made his début in the home game with Shrewsbury Town, at the age of sixteen years and 216 days. Amid these runs of poor results, Rovers never quite suffered the humiliating defeats which threatened. West Ham United, Second Division champions, won just 1-0 and 2-0, the latter before a crowd of 23,544 at Upton Park. Only Queen’s Park Rangers, Sheffield Wednesday and Luton Town scored four goals in a game. The Hatters won 4-2 after Christmas at Eastville with their South African-born striker Brian Stein scoring the last hat-trick to be scored on the ground before Steve White in January 1986. His younger brother, Mark Stein, was to play against Rovers for the first time an astonishing eighteen years later, when he appeared for Bournemouth in October 1998. The big news on 29th January was that the crowd’s favourite, Paul Randall was returning to Rovers. The out-of-favour Chic Bates had moved to Shrewsbury Town and supporters clubbed together to help raise the £50,000 required to bring Randall back from Stoke City. He returned in time for the local derby with Bristol City, which drew the season’s only ten-figure crowd to Eastville for a second successive goalless draw with the equally struggling rivals. The Mabbutt brothers, Kevin and Gary, who played in both derby games this season, remain the only pair of brothers to oppose each other in matches between Rovers and City. A collection was made at the next home game, in mid-February against Bolton Wanderers, no doubt boosted when Randall scored a first-minute goal and later added a second in Rovers’ second win of the season. He scored again, from Penny’s pass a minute before half-time, at Cambridge United, as Rovers ended a run of 23 away league games without a victory, second only to the 29 winless away matches between March 1929 and September 1930, and Rovers also beat Chelsea and Preston North End. Randall’s arrival was followed by the departure of winger Stewart Barrowclough, who returned to his first club, Barnsley. Chelsea was one of the clubs involved in the battle developing above the two Bristol clubs for the third relegation spot. Two sides managed by World Cup winners played against Rovers in 1980-81 and, while Jack Charlton’s Sheffield Wednesday scored seven times in two games, Geoff Hurst’s Chelsea side was less successful. It had taken sixty-eight minutes at Stamford Bridge before Chelsea took the lead, when Rovers’ striker Bob Lee, who scored just twice for the Pirates in an entire season, scored a spectacular thirty-yard own goal. A minute later, Clive Walker had secured a 2-0 victory. Chelsea’s single-goal defeat at Eastville in March was the first of nine consecutive league games in which the Pensioners had failed to score and, as Chelsea hovered precariously above the relegation drop, wags inevitably pointed out that they were saved only by a pair of drooping Bristols. As it was, Preston North End, albeit on goal average, was the third club to drop into Division Three. Rovers somehow contrived to play six League Cup-ties. Exeter City were beaten on penalties and York City on the away goals rule before Rovers lost in a replay at Portsmouth, Steve Perrin and David Gregory scoring the goals which took Pompey through to the fourth round. Bristol City were Gloucestershire Cup Final winners through an extra-time goal from Kevin Mabbutt. In the league, the only ever-present was the ever-improving Gary Mabbutt, with McCaffrey and Hughes also regulars. A late substitute at Wrexham in April was débutant Ian Holloway, beginning a long and fruitful association with the club. He had become Britain’s first Associate Schoolboy when he signed for Rovers on his fourteenth birthday. The real excitement came in the FA Cup where Rovers, on 3rd January, with only one league win all season, found themselves 4-0 up by half-time at Preston. Rovers were two goals ahead inside six minutes through Mabbutt and Stewart Barrowclough, with Barrett adding a third after thirty-eight minutes and Geraint Williams a fourth on the stroke of half-time. Graham Houston and Alex Bruce pulled goals back and, when Dublin-born substitute Paul McGee made the score 4-3, it left débutant seventeen-year-old goalkeeper Phil Kite and his defence nervously seeing out time. With this remarkable away win behind them Rovers, with 4,000 travelling fans supporting them, lost 3-1 at Southampton in the fourth round.
1981-82
A combination of events had led to Rovers’ future at Eastville becoming the major talking-point in the summer of 1981. New safety regulations, which had seriously reduced the ground capacity, financial problems within the club and belt-tightening in the aftermath of the devastating South Stand fire were all critical factors. In July 1981, the Stevens family, which had been key shareholders for forty years, lost control of the club to Martin Flook and Barry Bradshaw, who had been able to benefit from the directors’ £75,000 new-share issue. At the same time, Rovers were taking the decision to go to the High Court regarding compensation for losing their rights as tenants at Eastville. Discussions over a new lease had broken down and Rovers demanded £700,000 from the Stadium Company if they were to accept a move from their established “home” since 1897. Rovers also wanted a twenty-one year lease on a sliding scale. The Stadium Company offered £100,000 compensation and a three or five-year lease involving profit-making schemes through gate receipts and takings from the bars and car parks. At the High Court in London in November 1981 Rovers were awarded £280,000, a figure which the club’s directors reluctantly accepted. The impending loss of a home base, a departure in fact delayed until 1986, sparked a renewed search for a stadium elsewhere. The Rovers chairman Martin Flook offered Bristol City £450,000 to buy Ashton Gate, an apparently audacious bid which, given City’s perilous financial state as the club plummeted towards Division Four, was not as outrageous as it would at first appear. However, the creation of Bristol City (1982) plc on 15th February scuppered Flook’s plans. As the season drew to a close, Rovers were investigating a £45,000 ground-sharing scheme at Ashton Gate and were, indeed, offered a similar scheme with Bath City at Twerton Park at an annual rent of £15,000. As it was, Rovers’ directors finally worked out a five-year lease for £52,000 with their landlords at Eastville. Financial problems, however, though minimal in comparison to those experienced at this time at Ashton Gate, would not disappear entirely. Rovers recorded a loss for the year of £335,146, a figure partly attributable to transfer fees and the introduction of several expensive player contracts, while gate receipts continued to fall. The club had also purchased, in March 1982, an artificial pitch for the Hambrook training ground for £125,000, albeit with some aid from Sports Council grants. Rovers approached their centenary year with a great deal of uncertainty hanging over their immediate future. On the pitch, a largely unchanged side faced the first season back in Division Three. Two new faces were the experienced Brian Williams, once the youngest player to appear for Bury and now signed from Swindon Town, and the Melksham Town striker Archie Stephens, a relatively late entrant to League Football at the age of twenty-seven. Another was the former Blackburn Rovers centre-half Tim Parkin, who had played for Malmö in the World Club Championship final and who, to comply with Swedish transfer regulations at that time, was technically an Almondsbury Greenway player for half-an-hour during his £15,000 move to Eastville. With three Williamses controlling the heart of the team, young Phil Kite commanding in goal and a burgeoning attacking partnership in Stephens and Randall, ably supported by Mike Barrett, Rovers got off to a good start. Stephens scored twice on his full début at home to Burnley and followed this up with two more at Reading seven days later. There were also wins at Preston and Exeter. Therefore, it came as some surprise when, just days after the death of the former Rovers manager Fred Ford, whose funeral attracted many celebrated names to St Bernadette’s Church, Whitchurch, the latest holder of this post, Terry Cooper, was dismissed on 19th October, following a defeat at home to Swindon Town and replaced temporarily by Rovers’ Chief Scout, the former Chelsea and Exeter City full-back Ron Gingell (1930-89). Cooper signed for Doncaster Rovers as a player before, at the season’s end, becoming manager of Bristol City. The new permanent manager was another high-profile former player, Bobby Gould, who had signed for Rovers as a player four years earlier and had latterly been on the books of Aldershot. He retained Cooper’s squad and began to work it into the side which would achieve significant on-field success in the autumn of 1982. Yet one major problem was home defeats, six in total in 1981-82 including one in December against Carlisle United, to a goal scored after eleven minutes by the former Rovers striker Bob Lee, playing alongside the future Rover Paul Bannon, in what was to be player-coach Gary Pendrey’s only league game for the Pirates. By the end of the season, Rovers had secured a mid-table finish. Randall was the club’s top scorer with twelve league goals, Stephens and David Williams contributing eleven each, while Brian Williams was the sole ever-present. Following Ford’s death on 16th October, three other key figures in the history of Bristol Rovers were to die during the season. Dr Douglas Mearns Milne, who passed away on 14th January at Abbots Leigh, aged 65, was a thoracic surgeon at Frenchay and had served on Rovers’ board from 1962 and as chairman from 1968 to 1978. At a meeting of directors on the 22nd July, his 5,404 shares in the club were devolved to his son Alastair. On 19th March, at the age of 87, goalkeeper Jesse Whatley, who had played in a club record 246 consecutive league games between 1922 and 1928 and in 386 in all, died in Chipping Sodbury. Forty-eight hours later, Bert Williams, Rovers’ groundsman in 1918 and long-time trainer from 1920 to 1962, died in Bristol at the age of 80. The board of directors resolved on 25th March to donate £50 in regard to Williams to the Friends of Frenchay Hospital and £50 in Whatley’s memory to Dr Barnardo’s. There were some ponderous games - forty free-kicks were awarded in the first-half as Rovers ground out a 1-0 victory over Chesterfield at Eastville in January, thanks to Randall’s goal ten minutes after half-time, but generally the season was far more positive. Rovers recorded some well-earned victories, most notably the doubles recorded over Exeter City and Huddersfield Town. For the 3-2 home win against the Grecians, Rovers introduced a seventeen-year-old midfielder Steve Bailey and it was his appearance which led to the club being deducted two league points. An oversight meant that he had not been registered with the league and the loss of these points, though not seriously affecting the club, slightly distorted Rovers’ league standing by the end of the season. March saw a succession of unusual events. At Swindon Town, having earlier lost 4-0 at both Burnley and Plymouth Argyle, Rovers crashed to a 5-2 defeat, the Robins thus totalling nine league goals in two games past Phil Kite. Tim Parkin became only the fifth Rovers player to score for both sides in the same game, while the future Rovers midfielder, Roy Carter, from a penalty and Paul Rideout, scorer of Everton’s winning goal in the 1995 FA Cup Final, added a goal apiece. Three days later referee Tony Glasson of Salisbury abandoned the game with Oxford United on a waterlogged Eastville after sixty-four minutes, shortly after Keith Cassells had equalised Paul Randall’s first-half opener. It was the first home game abandoned since February 1951. Only four days later, despite losing Kite injured, Vaughan Jones playing in goal, Rovers defeated Huddersfield Town 2-0, their first win at Leeds Road since April 1960. Earlier in the campaign, Chester’s Alan Oakes scored against Rovers three days short of his thirty-ninth birthday, the fourth oldest League scorer against the Pirates since 1920. Two of Rovers’ opponents this season were to feature in England’s semi-final defeat against Germany in the 1990 World Cup Finals in Italy. Trevor Steven was in the Burnley side defeated by two Stephens goals at Eastville in September, while twenty-year-old Peter Beardsley was to reappear against Rovers in the Fulham side in November 1998 after a record gap of almost seventeen years between league appearances against Rovers. Bristol City’s goalkeeper for the local derby in December was the Swedish international Jan Möller. At the opposite end of the spectrum, David Smith played in the final ten minutes of the 2-1 win against Walsall in April to record the shortest league career of any Rovers player. In the League Cup, aggregate victory over Crewe Alexandra was followed by defeat against Northampton Town, who scored five times over the two legs. Tony Mahoney scored his first ever goal for the Cobblers, while left-back Alex Saxby scored for the first time for more than a year. The FA Cup brought no joy, either, with two goals from Dean Coney earning Fulham victory at Eastville. The future Rovers player Gary Waddock was a losing FA Cup finalist with Queen’s Park Rangers. There was, however, a ray of hope from the unlikely source of the Gloucestershire Cup Final, where Aiden McCaffrey’s far-post goal, after Barrett’s forty-eighth minute centre had been flicked on by Gary Mabbutt, brought what was the first of four consecutive victories over Bristol City in this competition. The season concluded with the high-profile transfer of Martin Thomas to Newcastle United, where the genial goalkeeper was to earn a well-deserved full international cap with Wales.
1982-83
An air of uncertainty hung over Eastville as Rovers approached their centenary year. Amid groundsharing talks with both Bristol City and Bath City, the board of directors made another concerted attempt to buy Eastville back from the Stadium Company. It was an audacious bid, given Rovers’ perilous financial state, and one promptly dismissed. The Eastville site was one with huge commercial viability for developers, standing so close to the M32 motorway and thus within easy access of the M4 and M5, and the case put forward by Bristol Rovers was deemed relatively insignificant. With hindsight, there was little hope that the club could remain at Eastville beyond the end of the current lease in 1987. Attention was now turned to a green-belt site at Stoke Gifford, to the north of the city, where Rovers’ directors now began seeking planning permission for a £10 million sports complex including a football stadium. Yet, on the pitch, the tide was turning. In the wake of relegation in 1980-81, new manager Bobby Gould was now building a side which could realistically challenge for a return to Division Two. Extra revenue was generated through a shirt-sponsorship deal, Great Mills DIY becoming the first name emblazoned on Rovers’ tops. The team made a successful pre-season Scottish tour, winning at Partick Thistle, Falkirk and Ayr United. Yet the side would have to battle without Gary Mabbutt, a Rovers favourite like his father before him, whose £105,000 move to Tottenham Hotspur preceded sixteen England caps during a hugely successful career. Once the season got underway, a series of large wins, incredibly six league and one League Cup victory before Christmas being by four-goal margins, considerably raised the level of excitement around Eastville. Gould added to this shrewdly by adding some high-profile names to his close-knit and largely locally-based squad. Arguably, the two biggest footballing names to have, albeit briefly, graced the Rovers side were signed by Gould. In October, the highly experienced forward Mick Channon was signed from Newcastle United. He had won 46 full caps for England, scoring 21 goals and had enjoyed a hugely successful career, largely with Southampton, where he remains the all-time record aggregate goalscorer. His infectious enthusiasm for the game inspired the Rovers side, but his trademark windmill goal celebration was never seen at Eastville for, kept out of the side by Ian Holloway, he departed goalless in December, to join Norwich City. Red-haired Alan Ball, who arrived in January, ended a momentous career with seventeen league appearances and two memorable goals for Rovers. The winner of 72 full England caps, he had once attracted a record British transfer fee, when he moved from Everton to Arsenal in December 1971 for £220,000 and was an eminently recognisable figure on the football circuit. “I’m not a believer in luck”, he is credited as saying, “but I do believe you need it”. His position in midfield in England’s 1966 side meant that he is the only World Cup winner to have played football for Rovers. Ball’s tremendous thirty-yard goal, following a left-wing throw-in, to defeat Huddersfield Town in April was a wonderful way to end a twenty-one-year professional playing career and the final League goal scored by any of England’s 1966 side. Rovers enjoyed an astonishingly successful first half of the season. Despite a crushing opening day defeat by Brentford at Griffin Park and a potentially demoralising home defeat against Lincoln City, the string of good results through the autumn gave very real hopes of promotion. Two 4-0 wins in Devon, in the League Cup at Torquay United and the league at Plymouth Argyle, set Rovers scoring seemingly at will. Despite the sending-off of the veteran Roy McFarland at Eastville, Bradford City would not have anticipated a 4-1 defeat, Randall scoring a brace of goals for the second consecutive game. Later the same month, Rovers defeated Wigan Athletic and Millwall 4-0 each and Reading 3-0 as well as winning 5-1 at Orient. It was an awesome display of firepower. The first-ever visit of Wigan Athletic to Eastville marked the return of the former Rovers centre-back Larry Lloyd. Sadly for him, he and his team-mate Alex Cribley were both sent off, the first time two opponents had been sent off against Rovers in a league game. Graham Withey, a £5,000 summer signing from Bath City, became the first Rovers substitute to score twice in one game, a club record subsequently equalled in May 2001 by Mark Walters. Indeed, Withey proved to be a real thorn in Wigan’s side for, recovering from a mid-season ankle injury, he and Paul Randall both scored twice, once each either side of half-time, in February as Rovers won 5-0 at Springfield Park to record what remains the heaviest home defeat in Wigan’s league history. Randall and Withey both scored in three minutes midway through the first-half, and the latter’s second goal in the final minute sealed a memorable victory. It remained the Latics’ worst league defeat of all time until Carl Saunders inspired Rovers to a 6-1 victory at Twerton Park in March 1990. Perhaps the most encouraging result was the 5-1 home victory over a Portsmouth side heading for the Third Division championship. In a totally one-sided encounter, five Rovers players, sequentially shirt numbers five to nine, were to score before Billy Rafferty’s very late consolation goal. The players wore black armbands to the memory of Jimmy Dickinson, the Portsmouth legend who had died four days earlier. This match highlighted clearly Rovers’ potential, even against stronger opposition. The side was also devastatingly ruthless, as illustrated by the three goals in three minutes on the hour which helped defeat Wrexham 4-0 in December. Three players called Williams scored in this game, emulating the feat of three Keetley brothers for Doncaster Rovers against Durham City in Division Three (North) in April 1927. As Bristol City slipped temporarily to the foot of Division Four, it appeared Rovers were destined for great things. However, inconsistency set in and, ultimately, seventh place in Division Three was an acceptable final league position. At Cardiff City, Brian Williams was sent off and Rovers lost a televised game 3-1, despite a goal from the veteran Les Bradd, still Notts County’s all-time record goalscorer, in his sole league appearance on loan from Wigan Athletic. Young Keith Curle, a major discovery, scored against Millwall after only twenty-five seconds, but was then sent off and Rovers drew 1-1. As a gesture of goodwill by the Rovers Board of Directors, free coach travel was arranged to take Rovers fans to Walsall in April, only for the side to lose 5-0. Rovers also played eighty-five minutes of the game at Bradford in February with an orange ball, then conceded two very late goals when a flatter, white ball was substituted, to lose 2-0. The defeat at Bramall Lane in May, despite being Sheffield United’s ninth consecutive home league victory, was watched by the lowest post-war league crowd at that ground. Rovers also conceded eight goals in three days after Christmas. The 4-2 defeat at Oxford United was a psychological blow against promotion rivals, while the eight-goal draw with Exeter City at Eastville was quite simply a dropped point. Bristol-born Peter Rogers had twice put the Grecians ahead, but Paul Randall’s second equaliser, five minutes before half-time, followed swiftly by a goal from Ian Holloway and a Keith Viney own goal gave Rovers a commanding 4-2 half-time lead. However, Exeter were let off the hook as George Delve, after fifty-one minutes, and Stan McEwan, twenty minutes from time, earned the visitors a draw. The first-half of this game had featured a mercurial display from Mike Barrett, whose fine run and shot, saved by Len Bond, had rebounded into the net off Viney on the stroke of half-time. The unfortunate defender was himself to play for Rovers, in a loan spell in September 1988. In fact, Rovers won a number of key games in the spring, but the impetus for promotion had been lost. The big win at Wigan was the first of three consecutive victories, Randall scoring a first-minute goal against Orient and Withey scoring five times in this run to end up as second highest scorer with ten goals. Top scorer Randall scored his twentieth of the season in a storming second-half display as Rovers swept aside Preston North End at Eastville in April. Rovers crushed Chesterfield 3-0, the side’s only ever-present Phil Kite keeping a clean sheet. Despite the consistent form of individuals in key positions, Rovers never challenged seriously for promotion and manager Bobby Gould resigned in May 1983 to rejoin one of his other former clubs, First Division Coventry City. There had been limited success in Cup competitions. Nick Platnauer, a close-season signing from Bradford Town, then managed by Bobby Gould’s brother Trevor, had scored on his début as Rovers beat Torquay United 4-0 at Plainmoor, before losing a League Cup second-round tie on aggregate to Swansea City. Despite the high-scoring league form, a solitary Archie Stephens goal defeated non-league Wycombe Wanderers in the FA Cup. Rovers then lost in a replay to Plymouth Argyle, over whom they were to complete a league double. Ian Holloway’s curling right-wing strike retained the Gloucestershire Cup, while Spurs won 3-2 at Eastville in April’s centenary match. One footnote to 1982-83 is that Rovers used a substitute in 43 league games, an English record for all clubs in the era, 1965-87, when only one replacement per team was allowed each game.
1983-84
As Rovers’ directors continued negotiations regarding the club’s long-term home, the centenary year was rounded off by the first months in charge for a new manager. Bobby Gould was succeeded from within the club, by David Williams. In fending off the applications of Alan Ball, who became coach at Portsmouth, and Larry Lloyd, who joined Notts County, Williams became at 28 the league’s youngest manager. He appointed Wayne Jones as his assistant and retained much of the squad which had served Rovers so well in 1982-83. Graham Withey, Nick Platnauer and Errington Kelly rejoined their former manager at Coventry City, where Bobby Gould’s appointment had led to Rovers receiving £30,000 compensation. Jeff Sherwood moved to Bath City on a free transfer. Williams initially brought just one new player to the club although, as the season progressed, the experienced goalkeeper Ray Cashley joined from Bristol City and Carlisle United’s Paul Bannon was signed in an £8,000 deal. The “new” player was an old hand, Steve White, who returned to Eastville from Charlton Athletic in a deal worth £35,000. So it was that a very recognisable Rovers side lost the first game of the new season at Newport County. Archie Stephens, who scored a consolation goal in this match after coming on as a substitute, was initially out of favour but became the club’s seasonal top scorer with thirteen league goals. Once again, a successful pre-season tour of Scotland prefaced a promising opening to a new season. Rovers were unbeaten against Airdrieonians, Hamilton Academical and Kilmarnock but lost 2-0 at Morton to goals from Bobby Houston and Mungo MacCallum. As the league season got underway, Rovers won ten of their opening sixteen fixtures and gave promise of a return to the previous season’s form. Indeed, although the goals never flowed at the rate seen the previous autumn, Rovers were to finish fifth in Division Three and were in fact to lose only three of forty-six home league games under Williams’ management. In stark contrast to 1982-83, Rovers scored four goals in a game on only three occasions. Newport County were convincingly defeated 4-0, but Rovers required own goals to beat Scunthorpe United and Walsall. The latter game was notable for the unlikely fact that both sides’ player-managers scored, Williams contributing Rovers’ second, with Alan Buckley replying for the Saddlers. On the other hand, Rovers conceded four goals in only two league games, at Lincoln City, where the future England international John Fashanu grabbed a hat-trick and, at the season’s end, after a goalless first-half, at promotion-bound Sheffield United. What bore an uncanny resemblance to the previous season was how Rovers’ form crumbled in December. Yet again, it was defeat at Oxford United over Christmas which was a huge psychological blow. In this instance, though, it followed hot on the heels of a first home defeat of the season, in which Hull City could afford the luxury of Brian Marwood’s missed penalty and still beat Rovers 3-1. This defeat finally shattered all illusions of Rovers’ invulnerability, which had been strengthened earlier by the convincing nature of the side’s performance in defeating Burnley and enhancing their growing early-season reputation. Rovers endured one late-winter run of four league games without a goal, but were nonetheless more consistent across the season. However, whilst home form was undeniably strong, the team lacked a certain cutting edge in away matches. Six away league wins was no poor record, but equally was not one which suggested a promotion challenge in earnest. These away wins came in pairs. There were 1-0 wins at Orient and Bournemouth at the end of September, the latter after Phil Kite had saved a penalty from the future Rovers striker Trevor Morgan. There were 2-1 wins in January at Southend United, where the veteran former England forward Trevor Whymark was making his début for the Shrimpers, and Exeter City, where Rovers supporters invaded the pitch, six policeman were injured and there were 24 arrests. Finally, late wins at Gillingham and Bradford City, through Archie Stephens goals, brought Rovers to a seasonal total of four league doubles. Rotherham United’s Mick Gooding became only the sixth opponent to score two penalties in a league game against Rovers. He had put his side ahead at Millmoor in the second minute, but the game was to finish 2-2 with Rovers’ only ever-present and unlikely candidate as second highest scorer, Brian Williams, also scoring from the spot in a match of three penalties. Rovers’ winning goal at home to Wigan Athletic in March was a 52nd-minute headed own goal by Steve Walsh, who was to give loyal service into the new millennium to Leicester City, who featured a certain Gary Lineker on the goalscoring list when their reserves defeated Rovers reserves 5-3 in November. One huge disappointment was Randall’s inability to follow up his twenty league goals with a meaningful contribution in 1983-84. He scored just six goals in the league, while Steve White was also unable to reach double figures. Stephens was never consistently in Rovers’ starting line-up, while the side grew to depend increasingly on Mike Barrett. Not only did Barrett contribute nine league goals, but his presence was hugely important to those around him and his rare ability to beat even the most dogged defender enthralled the crowd. In the last home game of the season, Millwall had led 2-0 before Barrett had inspired a comeback and scored a sensational last-minute winning-goal himself. In defence, Rovers possessed a developing star in full-back Neil Slatter. He had earned a first full international cap for Wales against Scotland in Cardiff in May 1983 and was to play on ten occasions for the full Welsh side while on Rovers’ books, and 22 times in all. His full-back partnership with Brian Williams flourished both through the reliability of both players and a good tactical understanding. Rovers conceded just 54 league goals, the fewest since the 1975-76 season. In the League Cup, Rovers defeated Bournemouth 4-3 on aggregate, despite Brian Williams scoring a penalty and an own goal in the home leg. It is rare indeed for Rovers to win at Dean Court, but this season the feat had been achieved in league and cup before the end of September. Second Division Brighton were stretched in round two, with the influential Barrett scoring in both legs as Rovers clawed back a 4-2 deficit to take the tie into extra-time. Sadly from Rovers’ point of view, the only goal added in this period was scored by the visitors’ Terry Connor, later on Rovers’ coaching staff. Rovers avoided a potential banana-skin in the FA Cup by drawing with non-league Barnet at Underhill, before a comfortable replay victory set up a mouth-watering tie with Bristol City. It was the first meeting of the sides in this competition since 1968, but the Fourth Division side snatched victory at Eastville through Tom Ritchie’s eighty-eighth minute winning goal. Rovers also participated in the newly-formed Associate Members Cup, winning three times before losing at Bournemouth. The early disinterest in a tournament designed for lower-division clubs is apparent in the attendances. For instance, only 1,480 turned out to see Rovers win at Southend United on a Tuesday night in April, but they witnessed dramatic events, as Aiden McCaffrey swallowed his tongue in an accidental collision with Phil Kite. His life was saved by the prompt action of the club physiotherapist, Roy Dolling. This competition was used as a vehicle for blooding new talent, with Paul Vassall and Wayne Noble playing against Port Vale and Mike Adams, who headed the winning goal six minutes after half-time, and Carl Metcalfe at Southend. November saw a testimonial at Eastville for the unfortunate Steve Bailey, whose career had been cut short by a knee injury. Bobby Gould’s Coventry City supplyied the opposition and the former Rovers striker Graham Withey scored the winning goal. The following month Rovers returned to the scene of their first fixture to play a centenary game against Wotton Rovers, which Rovers, in distinctive Black Arabs shirts with a yellow sash, won 4-0, Barrett scoring twice. Two days later, Newcastle United visited Eastville for another centenary match, Randall’s hat-trick leading Rovers to a 5-4 victory. Meanwhile, the former Rovers player Gary Mabbutt ended the season with a UEFA Cup winner’s medal with Tottenham Hotspur. On 4th February 1984 the supermarket chain Tesco announced plans to start work on an 82,000 ft² outlet on eighteen acres at the sie of the stadium, including parking for 1,200 vehicles, this deal including the construction of a new road and bridge from Muller Road to the store.
1984-85
That player-manager David Williams’ side was consistent and settled is abundantly clear from the paucity of close season transfer deals. Mark Hughes and Tony Pulis joined South Walian sides, the defender on a free transfer to Swansea City and the midfielder moving to Newport County for £8,000. Until events on the eve of the new season sadly rendered it inevitable, the manager did not venture into the transfer market for new players. Off the pitch, the promotion of Gordon Bennett to managing director on 25th June 1984 was a significant advance, as it was he who steered the club into financially less choppy waters towards the end of the decade. Just days before the new season, however, the club was rocked by tragic news. Mike Barrett was dead. Rovers’ inspirational winger had struggled in pre-season training, entered hospital for tests and died of cancer on 14th August, aged only 24. The entire Eastville camp shared the grief felt by his pregnant wife and his funeral six days later was well-attended. Rovers swiftly organised a game against Aston Villa for the benefit of his family, goals from Tim Parkin and David Williams giving Rovers a 2-1 win. From the angle of team selection, the player-manager delved hurriedly but wisely on the transfer front to sign Mark O’Connor from Queen’s Park Rangers for £20,000. O’Connor, despite the unenviable task of stepping into Barrett’s shoes, played at least a part in every game of the season and contributed eight league goals. Rovers started the season as if on a mission to secure promotion at the earliest possible opportunity. Of the opening seven league games, six were won, whilst Rovers also gained a creditable goalless draw at Burnley. Archie Stephens and Paul Randall, forming a productive forward partnership, appeared to be scoring goals frequently enough for Rovers to mount a serious challenge. An autumnal blip saw Rovers draw three consecutive home matches and lose three in a row away, the worst being 3-0 before a seasonal best league crowd of 18,672 at Ashton Gate, with Glyn Riley scoring twice for Bristol City. However, still unbeaten at home, Rovers hit a golden patch in December. The Randall-Stephens partnership was flourishing and, once O’Connor started to score too, Rovers won four consecutive games in the league. O’Connor scored in all these games and Randall in all but one. It may have been the first away win since September, but the 4-1 win at Orient was achieved through a masterful team display and was followed by comfortable home victories over Newport County and Swansea City. When Rovers went 3-0 ahead at Brentford on Boxing Day, O’Connor, Randall and Stephens having scored, the side appeared in absolute control, but was about to hit a brick wall. Stephens was involved in an incident with the home side’s Steve Wignall and both players were sent off. Bizarrely, this event seemed to set off a chain of events. Following the victory at Griffin Park, Archie Stephens’ final league goal for Rovers could not prevent the side crashing to a 4-1 defeat at Gillingham. Soon out of favour, Stephens moved to Middlesbrough in March for £20,000. Despite the efforts of his replacement, Paul Bannon, there was no return to the pre-Christmas form. Rovers lost four consecutive league games in the New Year and won only one of the final seven matches of the season. While only Bolton Wanderers and Orient, clubs Rovers had beaten on their travels, won at Eastville, Rovers conversely won just one away game after Boxing Day. It was the lack of success away from Eastville which led the promotion charge off the rails, Rovers finishing in sixth place. This sole away win in the latter half of the season came at Cambridge United, where defenders Tim Parkin and Neil Slatter both scored, watched by the lowest crowd since January 1935 at a league game involving Rovers. It was the second of four consecutive wins, a beacon of hope as the season drew to an end. At this time, goalkeeper Ron Green, on loan from Shrewsbury Town, kept five consecutive clean sheets. Indeed, it was his eighth home game before Orient’s Ian Juryeff, after fifty-two minutes, became the first opponent to score past him at Eastville. Bristol City were beaten in a gale by a twentieth-minute Ian Holloway goal in front of the last five-figure crowd ever to watch league football at Eastville. The next time Rovers attracted a crowd of over 10,000 to a home league game was to be on Boxing Day 1999. Burnley were defeated 4-0 for Rovers’ largest league win in fifteen months. Brentford conceded two penalties at Eastville, both converted by Brian Williams, only the fifth Rovers player to achieve such a feat in the league, and many observers considered Rovers unfortunate not to be awarded a third penalty late in the game. Goalkeeper Jon Hallworth and midfielder Paul Raynor, both of whom went on to enjoy long footballing careers elsewhere, appeared briefly on loan. At Newport County in May, where Brian Williams, who later missed a penalty, scored his side’s first goal in 315 minutes, Rovers gave a full league début to Gary Penrice, a home-grown talent who was to serve Rovers well for many years. It was Penrice who scored with a strong twenty-sixth minute header in the 1-1 draw with York City on the final day of the season and he was to become in due course the only player to score for Rovers on four home grounds. Winger Chris Smith, who had represented the Gloucestershire Youth XI, was granted a solitary league appearance in the York game. David Williams, chaired off the field despite gifting the visitors an injury-time equaliser in that game, moved to Norwich City within weeks for £40,000 where he was to appear in First Division football and won a first full Welsh cap against Saudi Arabia in February 1986. Rovers had survived a relatively successful season with a largely unchanged side. Cashley and Green had shared goalkeeping responsibilities, Vaughan Jones had returned to his first club from Cardiff City and was to play a momentous role in Rovers’ near-term future, and the influential Geraint Williams had joined Derby County for £40,000. A solid defence, with Brian Williams again the club’s only ever-present, had conceded only 48 league goals, the lowest since the 1973-74 promotion season. Williams’ hundredth consecutive league game was Rovers’ 2,500th match in the league, a 2-1 win at Walsall in March, where Randall’s two goals, prior to a seven-match goal drought, took his seasonal league tally to eighteen. In the League Cup, two goals each from Randall and David Williams gave a forceful Rovers side a 5-1 lead from the away leg against Swindon Town, a very safe margin despite an unconvincing and ultimately disappointing second-leg display. This set up a lucrative tie with Arsenal, for whom the legendary Northern Ireland goalkeeper Pat Jennings played in both games. A crowd of over 28,000 at Highbury saw a first leg in which Rovers’ hopes were killed off by three goals in the final quarter of an hour, even though Steve White’s goal a minute after half-time earned a draw when the return leg drew over 10,000 to Eastville. Cashley conceded an unfortunate own goal after twenty minutes when Tommy Caton’s header rebounded to him off the crossbar, but redeemed himself by saving a Tony Woodcock penalty after sixty-six minutes. Mick Channon, on Rovers’ books just two seasons earlier, was in the Norwich City side that beat Sunderland 1-0 in the Wembley final. An apparently straightforward first-round FA Cup-tie with King’s Lynn nearly turned disastrous. Four minutes after half-time, the Linnets took a shock lead when Richard Johnston’s shot rebounded off the crossbar for Clive Adams to score. It took four minutes for David Williams to equalise, but the winning goal took a long time to materialise. Four minutes from time, Brian Williams’ cross was turned into his own net by the unfortunate Adams to nullify his earlier goal. This set up a second-round tie before a crowd of 19,367 at Ashton Gate, where Rovers gained ample revenge for the previous season’s result by beating Bristol City 3-1. O’Connor scored Rovers’ first and Randall added two more before half-time to complete a noteworthy victory. First Division Ipswich Town were the visitors in round three and, despite a volleyed goal from Ian Holloway, ran out worthy winners. Participation in the Freight Rover Trophy ended promptly, as a result of Geraint Williams’ own goal from a Chris Marustik cross four minutes prior to half-time and substitute Dean Saunders’ 53rd-minute penalty for Swansea City. A fourth consecutive Gloucestershire Cup Final victory was secured when Rovers scored twice in extra-time. White’s goal had put Rovers ahead by half-time, only for Bristol City to equalise through an Alan Walsh penalty. Nineteen-year-old Nicky Tanner, on as a substitute for his club début, scored an astonishing thirty-yard extra-time goal before the revitalised Paul Bannon added a third in his final game for the club. An October 1984 charity game for the Mike Barrett Fund saw Rovers defeat Shirehampton Sports to the tune of 11-2. At the close of the season, just weeks before a £80,000 move to Oxford United, Neil Slatter played in his tenth international for Wales, marking the occasion with an own goal in a 4-2 defeat in Norway, to set a record for international appearances by a player on the books of Bristol Rovers, which was to stand until 2001.
1985-86
The previous two seasons had been successful and, but for an inconsistent away record, Rovers might have found their way back into Division Two. Nonetheless, manager David Williams decided his job was done and moved to Norwich City and later Bournemouth as a player. Away from Eastville, his playing career hit new heights and he was rewarded with five full international appearances for Wales in 1986 and 1987. Williams was replaced by Bobby Gould who, in his two years away from Eastville, had struggled to create a team to his liking at Highfield Road but had even so kept Coventry City in the First Division. Gould’s reappointment was the last major decision made by club directors Martin Flook and Barry Bradshaw. Both men had provided Rovers with loans at crucial times since taking control of the club in the summer of 1981, but resigned when pleas to build a new stadium at Stoke Gifford finally collapsed. Discussions about a multi-sports complex on this site had dragged on for two years, but Rovers had faced considerable opposition from residents as well as the local authority planners. The decision not to proceed was to leave Rovers with little option but to leave Eastville and ground-share with Bath City from the end of the season. The Popplewell Report, delivered in January 1986 (Command Paper 9710) in the aftermath of the Bradford fire and Heysel tragedy, ordered that Twerton Park should be incorporated within the stadia covered by the 1975 Safety of Sports Grounds Act. Geoff Dunford and Roy Redman bought up chairman Flook’s shareholding in the club and held, at times through 1985-86, three board meetings a week simply to keep the club afloat. The Stadium Company frequently placed injunctions on Rovers playing at Eastville and, on one occasion, this was lifted only on the Friday evening prior to a Saturday fixture. Not only did Rovers approach the new season with new directors and a restored manager but, in order to tackle the ever-increasing losses, many of the more experienced players were released. A squad of considerably younger players reduced the wage bill but led to a tougher season on the pitch. Rovers finished the season in sixteenth place in Division Three. Fifteen of Rovers’ twenty-three home league games were played before crowds of under 4,000 and these attendance figures fell away as the club recorded just two victories in the final nineteen league games of a miserable season. The season opened with a misleadingly exciting six-goal draw with Darlington at Feethams. Rovers were giving club league débuts to five players, two of whom, Steve Badock and Byron Stevenson from the penalty spot, were able to mark the occasion with a goal. The full-back pairing of Andy Spring and Ian Davies, the latter once Norwich City’s youngest ever player, did not last long. Phil Bater, an own goal scorer against all-conquering Reading, was given a run in the side, as were promising young defenders John Scales and Nicky Tanner. Mike England, back in the side in September, over six years after his only previous game in a Rovers shirt, ended the season at left-back. Tim Parkin completed another successful season before moving to Swindon Town in a deal worth £28,500 in June 1986. It took Rovers seven league games to record their first win of the season and it was October and the fifth home game before Rovers scored a league goal at Eastville. That first victory, an astonishing 4-3 victory over Wolverhampton Wanderers on a Tuesday night at Molineux, was achieved through two Badock goals, his final ones for the club, after Paul Randall and Steve White had both put their names on the score-sheet against the future England goalkeeper Tim Flowers. Indeed, Rovers also won at Swansea City before recording the elusive first home league victory. As the season unfolded, Rovers tried and rejected a number of players. John Vaughan came on loan from West Ham United in goal, while Allan Cockram, Tony Obi and Richard Iles made just one appearance each in the league. Other players with a role to play in years to come made their league bows. David Mehew and Tim Carter were joined by Gary Smart, Wayne Noble and Darren Carr. Two new signings, however, stood out from the pack. Gerry Francis, the former England captain and the holder of twelve full international caps, joined as a non-contract player in September 1985 and his influence in 28 league appearances undoubtedly helped Rovers retain their Third Division status. Trevor Morgan, a £15,000 buy from Francis’ former club, Exeter City, was the architect of Rovers’ late autumn revival in fortunes. It was Morgan’s goal, a far post header from Gary Penrice’s eighty-third minute free-kick, which brought about victory at Swansea City in his first full appearance. Thereafter, a purple patch of seven goals in three games endeared Morgan to the Rovers supporters and began to restore some belief in a youthful side’s ability. His convincing hat-trick against Rotherham United in mid-October brought the long-awaited first victory at Eastville and this was followed up by two first-half goals at Doncaster Rovers seven days later. Indeed, on the stroke of half-time at Belle Vue, as Gary Smart, on as an early substitute for his début, rounded goalkeeper Paul Allen, it appeared Rovers might be about to repeat their prolific goalscoring of the previous week. As it happened, Smart hit the side-netting, the goal for which he would forever remain a hero in Rovers’ hearts would not be scored until New Year’s Day 1987. Clearly, the season was saved by a run of ten wins in sixteen league games between mid-October and February. White’s hat-trick against Darlington in January was the first by a Rovers player at Eastville since Boxing Day 1979 and his goal seven minutes before half-time from Mark O’Connor’s centre against Doncaster Rovers completed a league double. Severe weather conditions meant Rovers played no away league games between Boxing Day and February 4th, when they won at Bolton Wanderers. Yet this more positive mid-season spell also included a 6-1 defeat at Bournemouth and a 4-0 loss at Wigan Athletic. Rovers were to lose 4-0 at York City and in the FA Cup at Luton Town as well as 6-0 at Walsall. The total of 75 goals conceded in the league was one only exceeded once since 1967-68. Rovers played nine games in March and won not one. April opened without Paul Randall, who joined Yeovil Town on a free transfer, but with a full league début for Phil Purnell, another player set to figure prominently in years to come. Despite his presence and a fifty-seventh minute lead over Wigan Athletic through Stevenson’s shot, an instant equaliser from a Graham Barrow header deprived Rovers of a much-needed victory. When Rovers did win it was at the unlikely setting of Derby County’s Baseball Ground, Morgan and White scoring after Alan Buckley had missed a penalty for the home side. Purnell scored twice at Lincoln City in the penultimate fixture when Morgan, easily top scorer with sixteen goals compared to White’s twelve, ended up in goal after Ron Green had been injured. White’s goal at Chesterfield in November had been expunged when the game was abandoned due to fog with the score 1-1 at half-time. When the game was replayed in April, it drew a crowd of 1,800, the lowest at a Rovers game all season, with Tony Reid and Phil Walker scoring for the home side, who won 2-0. The return game eleven days later was to be the final game ever played at Eastville. A crowd of only 3,576 saw Morgan’s goal earn a 1-1 draw, Brian Scrimgeour scoring for Chesterfield. Few of those present suspected that this really was a final farewell to Rovers’ home since 1897. A moment of history passed by and events over the summer led Rovers towards a decade of exile from the city of Bristol. The immediate effect of Rovers’ departure was that a fourth weekly greyhound meeting could be added to Eastville’s schedule, rendering it the busiest greyhound track in the United Kingdom. Twelve acres were sold to a supermarket chain for £2,000,000 plus an annual income of £150,000, leaving a once-glorious stadium a very sorry sight. The newly-sponsored Milk Cup saw Rovers defeat Newport County over two legs, before two Tommy Wright penalties at St Andrew’s helped ease First Division Birmingham City through over two legs. Randall scored in three of the four games in this tournament. The former Rovers winger Ray Graydon enjoyed a third success in this competition, this time as assistant manager to the victorious Oxford United side that beat Queen’s Park Rangers in the final. Early exit from the Freight Rover Trophy was coupled with defeat in the Gloucestershire Cup Final. Bristol City’s Steve Johnson did not score in the league all season for his club, but his second-half penalty at Ashton Gate in September enabled the Robins to regain the trophy. In the FA Cup, Gerry Francis scored his only goal for Rovers to seal a 3-1 victory at Brentford and a win at Swansea City was set up by Morgan’s first-minute penalty. Round Three brought First Division Leicester City and a 9,392 crowd to Eastville for the last big occasion the old stadium was to host. 44-year-old goalkeeping coach Bob Wilson came within a whisker of being called into the side, but it was a recognisable Rovers side that matched Leicester in an evenly contested first-half. Five minutes after half-time, after Tanner had been fouled by Russell Osman, later a Rovers coach, Stevenson fired in a thirty-yard free-kick to put Rovers ahead. Three minutes later, with the crowd still buzzing, Morgan scored a second in off a post and he repeated the feat sixteen minutes from time, rounding the goalkeeper after exchanging passes with Mark O’Connor. Despite Gary McAllister’s penalty, following a foul by Tim Parkin, Rovers had secured a major FA Cup victory, their first over top division opposition for twenty-eight years. Parkin, who played in more games than any other Rovers player in 1985-86, conceded an own goal as Rovers crashed out of the cup on Luton Town’s artificial pitch.
1986-87
In May 1986, to save the club an annual cost of £30,000 plus expenses to hire Eastville, Rovers’ board of directors took the historic decision to leave the club’s spiritual home. A groundsharing scheme was drawn up with Bath City, whereby Rovers paid £65,000 per year to play home matches at Twerton Park. This ground, constructed on recreation land donated in 1909 by Thomas Carr and opened as “Innox Park” on 26th June of that year, had been the hosts’ home since 1932 and was built on the side of a hill on the edge of the city, some fifteen miles from the traditional hotbed of Rovers support in east Bristol. Rovers by name, Rovers by nature, it appeared. It was a revolutionary move, in that a league club was sharing with a non-league side in a different city but, in 1986, it was an integral part of Rovers’ immediate survival. An emergency meeting of the Western League committee on 23rd July 1986 discussed the knock-on effects of the move, with Bath City reserves due to play at Hambrook, Rovers’ training ground, though they later began a ground-sharing scheme with Radstock Town. Rovers’ identity was questioned, support was down 25% on the previous season and financial hardships continued, but the club survived. Ultimately, success, as epitomised by the championship season of 1989-90, was to lead to the club’s return to Bristol after a decade of groundsharing. Bath, “that city of medicinal springs and homoeopathic winters” (Cohen), had enjoyed prosperity in Roman times and had been strategic enough to be selected by Dunstan as the site for King Edgar’s coronation in 959AD. “The resort of the sound rather than the sick”, as Daniel Defoe (c.1660-1731) described it, had risen to prominence in Georgian times, its population rising from some 2,000 in 1700 to 34,000 by 1800. To the west of the city, Twerton parish, previously owned by Queen Edith of Wessex (1025-75), the wife of Edward the Confessor (c.1004-66), had been under the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Coutances in 1086. A portion of the parish had been added to Bath through the 1868 Boundary Act and the entirety of the parish of St Michael, whose church was rebuilt in 1885-86 though its registers date from 1538, was added by the Bath (Extension) Order of 9th November 1911. The foundation stone of St Peter’s, Twerton had been laid on St Peter’s Day 1876 by Beatrice Buckle, the wife of a former vicar of the parish and the church had been consecrated four years later to the day, on the warm Tuesday morning of 29th June 1880, by Lord Arthur Charles Hervey (1808-94), Bishop of Bath and Wells. The population of the ecclesiastical parish of Twerton at this time was 13,807, having been 7,683 in 1893. Twerton, where the novelist Henry Fielding (1707-54) had lived, had been connected to Bath by the electric tramway, which opened on New Year’s Day 1904, to replace a previous horse-drawn system, and which offered a fleet of 36 double-deckers, six single-deckers and a water car with snow broom. Rovers rented Twerton Park from Bath City for an annual fee of £20,000 plus a percentage of gate receipts, while the club’s offices remained in Keynsham. Twerton Park was an unlikely setting for league football, with a stand of 780 black and white seats built into the hillside. Cliftonhill, home of Albion Rovers, was the only similar example in British first-class football. Fleetwood Mac had performed live at the venue on 23rd May 1970. “The views are spectacular and it is well worth the ...... walk up the steep Landsdown hill” (Fanny Charles, Blackmore Vale, 12.5.2000, p60). Towering above was Beckford’s Tower, a 154-foot italianate folly built in 1825-26 for the eccentric William Thomas Beckford (1760-1844) by his protégé, Henry Edmund Goodridge (1797-1864), and under which both men are buried, while residents in the aptly-named Freeview Road could watch home matches from their upstairs windows. It would take some getting used to. Bobby Gould’s side opened the season with a 3-0 win at Walsall. It was a poor indication of results to follow, as Rovers lost 21 league games, conceded 75 goals for a second consecutive season and finished in nineteenth place. Even Walsall were to gain revenge by defeating Rovers 3-0 in the return fixture. Four new faces appeared in the side for the opening day. Kenny Hibbitt, who scored the opening goal, and Tarki Micallef added experience to a side boasting many young players developed at Eastville, such as Tanner, Scales, Carter, Penrice and Smart. Other youngsters were given opportunities, Gerry Francis appeared just five times in the league and the only really consistent newcomer to emerge was Geoff Twentyman. Nonetheless, the first bricks for the 1989-90 championship season were being positioned. Twentyman, an August signing from Preston North End, missed only three league games, Gary Penrice only four, Vaughan Jones, Ian Alexander and Phil Purnell enjoyed protracted spells in the side, while seventeen-year-old Steve Yates made his league début on Shrove Tuesday at Darlington. As in the championship season, David Mehew was Rovers’ top scorer, his tally of ten league goals giving him two more than Trevor Morgan, who joined Bristol City in January. The start of the new season coincided with news of the death of George Endicott, at the age of 92, a well-respected club trainer through many generations of Bristol Rovers players. The first home league game at Twerton Park, or the “Azteca Stadium”, as Gould termed it, resulted in a 1-0 victory over Bolton Wanderers, despite the sending off of Nicky Tanner, to send Rovers briefly to the top of Division Three. A crowd of 4,092 saw Trevor Morgan, the scorer of the club’s final goal at Eastville, register the first league goal on the new ground from a seventeenth-minute penalty after he had been fouled by Mark Came. However, both the crowd and the result were misleading. Attendances dropped, Rovers lost seven times at Twerton Park in the league alone and survival was not assured until the final game of the season. In a bid to boost funds, the home game with Swindon Town over Easter was held at Ashton Gate and an inflated crowd of over 8,000 saw Rovers lead 3-1 shortly after half-time before losing, with the former Rovers striker Steve White and Dave Bamber, a competitor at the 1979 World Student Games, amongst the goalscorers. In moving to Bath, Rovers had lost a considerable proportion of the traditional support. Season 1986-87, amid poor on-field performances and before a new generation of supporters could be found in the new surroundings, marks the lowest point in league attendance in Rovers’ history. The seasonal home average of 3,246 remains the lowest the club experienced in the twentieth century. On their travels, only 1,206 saw the defeat at Doncaster Rovers in May, the lowest attendance at a post-war league game involving Bristol Rovers. There were also some crushing blows, with Port Vale, Gillingham and Wigan Athletic all emulating Swindon Town’s four goals. Rovers lost 5-0 at Mansfield Town in January, with Keith Cassells, who scored after three, nine, fifty-three and fifty-six minutes, becoming the eighth opponent to score four goals in a league game, and 6-1 at Blackpool, for whom Paul Stewart, a scorer for Tottenham Hotspur in the 1991 FA Cup Final, scored twice. A 2-2 draw with Newport County in December, Rovers’ fourth consecutive home draw in League and Cup, marked a new experiment, as it was Rovers’ first home league game on a Sunday. The attendance was 2,660 and this well-intentioned plan was soon scrapped. It survived long enough, however, for Rovers to beat York City through a Gary Penrice goal on a Friday night in January and to stage the Swindon Town game at Ashton Gate on a Sunday. The concept was to attract spectators at a time when there was no competition from Bristol City or the rugby clubs of Bristol and Bath. Not only did this imply Rovers were settling for second-best, something the 1989-90 season was to strive to contradict, but it was a scheme to which supporters did not readily respond. Only 2,597 saw the victory over York City and Rovers reverted to losing or drawing home matches on Saturdays. Rovers were involved in two league fixtures in the north-east within four weeks of each other in the spring. The game at Ayresome Park was won for Middlesbrough by the future England international Stuart Ripley’s sixtieth-minute goal, in a game where Boro’s full-back Brian Laws slipped in taking a penalty in first-half injury time, sending the ball shooting away for a throw-in and leaving him in a crumpled heap, out injured for the rest of the season. A 1-1 draw at Darlington on Shrove Tuesday featured two goals in a minute during the second-half. Rovers’ directors generously rewarded travelling fans with a half-time urn of tea. By the end of the match, the dregs in the plastic cups had frozen in the chill north-eastern wind. The Darlington game was one in which seventeen-year-old Steve Yates, a name for the future, made his league début in a side including experienced journeymen David Rushbury and Bob Newton. Undeniably the game of the season was at Ashton Gate in an early kick-off on New Year’s Day. Rovers were clearly underdogs and a strong Bristol City side pounded Tim Carter’s goal. City had eleven shots on target to Rovers’ two and, in addition, Paul Fitzpatrick and Steve Neville both hit the Rovers bar. To make matters worse, an injury to Carter meant David Mehew spent the final fifteen minutes of the first-half in goal as ten-man Rovers attempted to stem City’s flow. Then, incredibly, three minutes from time, Gary Smart’s twenty-yard shot dipped under the bar to give Rovers an unlikely victory. It was results such as this and the four wins in the last eight league games which kept Rovers in Division Three. The largest was 4-0 at home to Carlisle United, even though Jeff Meacham, a new signing from Trowbridge Town, who had opened the scoring with his first goal for the club, ended up in goal with the veteran Paul Bradshaw off the field injured. Meacham scored five goals to help keep Rovers alive, two of them at home to Chester City, when Rovers clawed back a 2-1 deficit to win after Graham Barrow, scorer of the visitors’ second goal had been sent off before half-time for a foul on Rovers’ matchwinner John Scales. Ultimately, Rovers required a point at Newport County on the final day to retain their Third Division place, a mission accomplished with Phil Purnell scoring the game’s only goal. For the second year running, Rovers drew Brentford in the FA Cup. This year, after poor weather saw the tie called off several times, Brentford won in a replay, the second of three meetings of the clubs in December, with Ian Weston becoming the first Rovers player ever to be sent off on his club début, a record matched by Wayne Carlisle in March 2002. A former Rovers player, Gary Mabbutt, scored for Tottenham Hotspur in their 3-2 FA Cup Final defeat at the hands of Coventry City. Reading put six goals past Rovers in a two-legged League Cup tie, with Trevor Senior scoring a hat-trick and substitute Dean Horrix once as Rovers crashed 4-0 at Elm Park. The Gloucestershire Cup Final was held over to the following season as fixtures piled up towards the season’s close, but Bristol City nonetheless effectively knocked Rovers out of the Freight Rover Trophy. Their 3-0 victory, through goals from David Moyes, Rob Newman and Alan Walsh, remains Rovers’ heaviest ever defeat in this competition.
1987-88
Three games into the new season, with Rovers sitting on top of Division Three, the trials and tribulations of 1986-87 seemed a thing of the past. Rovers won their first two home games of 1987-88, at Twerton Park, by convincing margins. By February, Rovers hovered precariously above the relegation zone. However, March saw the side’s first back-to-back wins of the season and nine victories in the final fourteen league matches saw the team rise from twentieth to the heady heights of eighth in the table. It had been a summer of significant change among the playing staff. In truth, Rovers could not afford the larger wage demands of more experienced professionals and the emphasis was very much on untried youth, especially as two substitutes were now required for every league game. While Kenny Hibbitt remained at the club, it was John Scales who left, joining Wimbledon in a £70,000 deal. Bobby Gould left the club for a third time, ending his second two-year spell as manager by moving back to the capital, taking Scales as an integral part of his Wimbledon side which would stun the footballing nation by winning the FA Cup. Gary Smart moved to Cheltenham Town and Wayne Noble, the last player released by Gould, joined Yeovil Town. Two veterans, David Rushbury and Bob Newton, the latter indirectly, transferred to Goole Town. The replacement for Gould was Gerry Francis, already a well-known face at Bristol Rovers. It was an inspired decision to appoint him, as he was to lead Rovers to continuing success. Under his guidance, there was to be the Third Division championship, a first Wembley appearance and a return of self-belief to the side soon known by elements within the media as “Ragbag Rovers”. Francis had a “fascinating style of management” (Roy Dolling) and is quoted as saying with regard to one particularly inept first-half performance, “what I said to them at half-time would be unprintable on the radio”. He inherited a side boasting the experience of Kenny Hibbitt and already featuring several key figures in the success to come, Vaughan Jones, Ian Alexander, Geoff Twentyman, David Mehew, Gary Penrice and Phil Purnell, to name a few. These were soon joined by midfielder Andy Reece, a smart acquisition from Willenhall. During August 1987, three masterstrokes from Francis altered the Rovers side considerably and paved the way for future glory years. First, he signed goalkeeper Nigel Martyn on a free transfer from the Cornish side St Blazey. The tall, confident Cornishman proved to be a shrewd acquisition and one of the most popular figures at the club. His transfer to Crystal Palace in November 1989 was to make him Britain’s first one-million-pound goalkeeper and he went on to play for England. Next, Francis paid just £10,000, initially as a loan from himself to the club, to bring Ian Holloway back from Brentford to his home club, where the influential midfielder was to play such a pivotal role in the club’s success. Finally, to fill the need for a goalscorer, Devon White arrived, a few days into the season, from Shepshed Charterhouse to make an immediate impression. White stepped into the breach at the eleventh hour, when Robbie Turner missed the train from his Cardiff home and scored the second goal as Rovers raced to a 3-0 half-time lead over Aldershot. His reputation was made. Even though Mike Ring pulled a goal back, Rovers’ second consecutive 3-1 home victory, and Penrice’s fourth goal in three games, put the side top of Division Three, above pre-season favourites Sunderland on goal difference. Indeed Rovers had already earned a draw at Roker Park and were to embarrass the eventual divisional champions still further in February. Devon White’s powerful, physical presence was to be a major factor in Rovers’ success. His goals against Bristol City in May 1990 to seal promotion and at Wembley against Tranmere Rovers were to earn him an undisputed place in Rovers folklore. Reality soon returned, of course, as Rovers lost 2-1 at Blackpool to be knocked off top perch. All three goals came in a four-minute spell midway through the second-half, the winner coming from a controversial penalty, calmly converted by the veteran Tony Cunningham for his second goal of the game. It was to be the side’s away form which produced greatest concern. Rovers managed to draw at Sunderland, Bristol City, Notts County and Walsall, all of whom were in the top eight at the time, but lost to a range of lower-table and apparently beatable opposition. It was not until March 5th, when goals from White, Purnell and Mehew earned an emphatic 3-0 win at Chester City, that Rovers recorded their first away win of the season. By then, though, the side was in twentieth place in the division and alarm bells were ringing. Rovers’ home form, on the other hand, was reasonably good. Fourteen out of twenty-three league matches, plus all three League Cup and FA Cup-ties, were won and Rovers remained unbeaten at “Fortress Twerton” from mid-December. The three sides automatically relegated were all beaten, Doncaster Rovers and Grimsby Town both conceding four goals at Twerton Park with Purnell and White on the score-sheet on both occasions. The leaders Sunderland visited Twerton Park and, in a game which altered the flow of Rovers’ season, were crushed 4-0. Manager Francis gave David Mehew a first league start and he scored the third goal. Holloway had rifled Rovers ahead six minutes before half-time and the top two scorers, Penrice and White, both also hit the target. The Rokerites were knocked off top spot and Rovers’ season was back on track. This game, however, was marred by a robust challenge from Sunderland’s Gordon Armstrong which broke Kenny Hibbitt’s leg and effectively ended his twenty-year professional career. Seven days after the visit of Sunderland, new leaders Notts County were held 1-1 at Twerton Park with Geoff Twentyman bizarrely scoring his only two goals of the season. He thus became only the fourth Rovers player to score for both sides in a league match. Early-season heavy defeats at Gillingham, Southend United, Bury and Aldershot now behind them, Rovers embarked on a glorious run of results to rescue their season. Twice, Nigel Martyn kept six consecutive clean sheets as Rovers conceded goals in only one of thirteen league matches between early March and early May. During this run, Rovers were able to complete league doubles over Doncaster Rovers, York City and Chesterfield. The victory at Saltergate was won through a Penrice goal created by débutant Christian McClean. Sadly, though, Chesterfield’s Dave Perry fractured his right knee in a collision with Purnell, an injury which was to end his career. Bury were in the middle of a five-match goalless spell when they earned a draw at Twerton Park. A forty-eighth minute Penrice goal, the penultimate of the eighteen which rendered him the club’s seasonal top scorer, was enough to beat Bristol City, with whom Rovers had shared six goals at Ashton Gate in mid-September. Behind Penrice and White, Rovers were competently served by eight goals each from Purnell and Mehew. While Purnell’s goals were predominantly early in the season, Mehew started only the final seventeen games of the season. His contribution to the run of victories and Rovers’ resultant surge up the divisional table should not be underestimated. Three of his goals came in the space of twenty-nine minutes during a highly convincing 4-0 victory at York City, watched by only 1,834, while a mere 1,311 saw the single goal victory at Doncaster, the lowest crowd of the season at a Bristol Rovers league match. By way of contrast, 19,800 were at Brighton on the final day of the season, where Billy Clark’s first league goal, toe-poking home an Andy Reece corner after 68 minutes, could not prevent the Seagulls gaining the win they required for promotion to Division Two. Stewart Phillips scored in successive 2-0 victories for Hereford United which knocked Rovers out of the Littlewoods Cup and Sherpa Van Trophy. The former Rovers defender Keith Curle won a winner’s medal as Reading defeated Luton Town at Wembley in the Simod Cup Final. Another player previously on Rovers’ books, Paul Bannon, meanwhile, scored a hat-trick on Valentine’s Day as Thessalonikis beat Lavadiakos 4-1 in the Greek First Division. Mark Walters, later a Rovers player, scored Aston Villa’s goal against Bournemouth in October 1987 to enable Villa to become the first club to score 6,000 Football League goals. In the FA Cup, Rovers recorded their largest win since 1900, when a Penrice hat-trick helped defeat Merthyr Tydfil 6-0. It took two attempts, but Rovers eventually beat VS Rugby with ease, before losing 2-1 at Second Division Shrewsbury Town, for whom a former Eastville favourite Brian Williams scored a second-half winning goal. It was a major surprise when Bobby Gould, only months after leaving Rovers, led Wimbledon to a 1-0 victory over Liverpool in the FA Cup Final, with Scales appearing as a late substitute for Terry Gibson. Despite a goal from Andy Reece after sixty-eight minutes, Rovers lost the Gloucestershire Cup Final, held over from 1986-87, 2-1 at home to Bristol City. Three months later, Rovers lost again, when the 1987-88 final was also won by City. Marco Carota, who never appeared in league action for Rovers, scored a consolation goal nineteen minutes from time, after City had run up a 3-0 lead before half-time.
1988-89
A position in the Division Three play-off final and missing out on promotion by one goal offered, with hindsight, a glimpse of what was to follow the previous season. In many respects, the promotion push had begun in earnest in March 1988 and Rovers’ form through 1988-89 reflected that of the latter stages of 1987-88. Gerry Francis stuck largely to this side, which was beginning to gel as a unit capable of great success. Gary Penrice scored twenty league goals and, alongside ever-presents Nigel Martyn and Geoff Twentyman, five other players appeared in at least 42 of Rovers’ 46 league fixtures. Nigel Martyn once again proved what a crucial figure he was to Rovers’ success. Promoted sides excepted, no Third Division side conceded so few league goals, whilst defeat at Bramall Lane in September 1988, when Ian Bryson scored twice for Sheffield United, was the last time until February 1992 that Rovers conceded four goals in a league game. Although Simon Stapleton appeared in the opening game, converted winger Ian Alexander recovered from swallowing his tongue in an FA Cup-tie against Fisher Athletic to form a strong full-back partnership with captain Vaughan Jones. First Billy Clark and later the consistent Steve Yates, his wages paid by the Rovers’ President’s Club in Rovers’ perilous financial situation, appeared alongside the dependable Geoff Twentyman in central defence. Mehew, Holloway, Reece and Purnell continued as the midfield quartet, each supplying a regular supply of goals, with Penrice partnering Devon White in attack. If one cog was missing from the success story to come, it was perhaps Devon White’s good luck in front of goal. His five league goals were not a fair reflection on his commitment to the side’s cause and it was significant that his stand-in, Christian McClean, fared no better at first. White and McClean, both well over six feet tall, complemented perfectly the style of Penrice and latterly loan signing Dennis Bailey, who scored in eight of his first eleven league matches for Rovers. Rovers were trailing at half-time in their first four league matches, yet lost just one of these. Penrice, White, Reece and Purnell scored twice each in home matches as, by mid November, Rovers had won six out of eight home league games and lay fourth in the table. Bizarrely, no Rovers player was to score twice in a game at Twerton Park for the remainder of the season, though only Brentford, Bury and Cardiff City recorded away victories on the ground. The fixture against Bury featured a Reece own goal as well as two goals for the Shakers from their thirty-year-old striker, Steve Elliott. This remains the only occasion Bury have won an away league game against Rovers. Reece also scored an own goal early in the home game with Aldershot. A successful season is perhaps best illustrated by matches played against mid-table Huddersfield Town and divisional champions Wolverhampton Wanderers. Rovers recorded their largest win of the season, 5-1, against the Terriers at the end of October and fought their way to a goalless draw with all-conquering Wolves at Twerton Park on Boxing Day. Once the return fixtures were played, Bailey had arrived on loan from Crystal Palace and he scored twice as Rovers, overturning a half-time deficit, beat Huddersfield 3-2 at Leeds Road. Wolves scored 96 league goals in winning the championship by an eight-point margin and had scored sixteen times in their last four games at Molineux. Yet, when Rovers visited on Easter Monday, Rovers kept at bay Steve Bull and Andy Mutch, with thirty and eighteen league goals respectively already to their names, and became the only club to win at Molineux all season. It was a superb turn and shot after forty minutes from Bailey, on the day his Palace team-mates were awarded four penalties at home to Brighton, which earned Rovers perhaps their greatest result of the season. On-field success, quite naturally, led to an increase in attendances. An average home crowd of 5,259 took note of an attendance of 8,480 on Boxing Day and 8,676 for the local derby, while over 20,000 watched Rovers’ 1-0 victories at Ashton Gate and Molineux. Penrice’s goals in both derby games against Bristol City earned four points, as Rovers repeated, though less dramatically, the New Year exploits of two seasons earlier at Ashton Gate. At Twerton Park, City’s Rob Newman saw his well-struck penalty saved by Martyn, who continued to prove his worth in Rovers’ goal. In addition to Huddersfield Town, Rovers also completed league doubles over Chester City, Chesterfield and Gillingham. At Priestfield, Rovers trailed at half-time to a Steve Lovell penalty before recovering to beat Gillingham 3-2. A home victory over Swansea City in April, Rovers’ ninth consecutive league game without defeat, was achieved against opposition fielding the former Rovers player Paul Raynor and using, as a substitute, Stewart Phillips, whose goals for Hereford United had knocked Rovers out of two cup competitions the previous season. Rovers also recorded a 2-1 victory away to then high-flying Northampton Town, with Paul Smith, an able and bustling stand-in for David Mehew, from a Keith Viney pass, scoring his only goal of the season. Viney was appearing in his first game for the Pirates on loan from Exeter City, in whose colours, in December 1982, he had scored an own goal in Rovers’ favour. It speaks volumes for Rovers’ consistency that a five-match winless run and no goals in the final four league games of the season did not prevent the Pirates from reaching the promotion play-offs. Their rivals in the play-offs, a system into its third season devised to increase late season mid-table interest, would include Fulham and Port Vale, both of whom played Rovers during this last barren run. A second-half Penrice goal was all Rovers had to show from a semi-final first-leg at Twerton Park, but this slender lead over Fulham was ample. At Craven Cottage four days later, four second-half goals earned Rovers a convincing 5-0 aggregate victory. Clark, Holloway, Bailey and Reece all scored against a Fulham side boasting future Rovers midfielders Ronnie Maugé and Justin Skinner. Rovers were left to face Port Vale over two legs for promotion to Division Two. A record Twerton Park crowd of 9,042 saw Penrice score again, as Rovers led 1-0 at half-time in the first-leg against a side which had finished the season with ten points more than Rovers. However, Robbie Earle, later the scorer in 1998 of the first World Cup Finals goal ever scored by Jamaica, scored a crucial second-half equaliser to leave the Pirates with a mountain to climb. Earle had scored for Vale in both league fixtures against Francis’ side and his second-half far-post header before a crowd of 17,353 in the second leg at Vale Park consigned Rovers to a further season in Division Three. Nonetheless, the seeds of hope had been sown and were to come to fruition over the forthcoming twelve months. Cup competitions brought Rovers little joy in 1988-89. Eliminated early from the Littlewoods Cup, through Trevor Aylott’s second-half goal in the first leg at Bournemouth, Rovers also suffered the humiliation of an FA Cup defeat at Kettering Town. A comfortable win over Fisher Athletic, who fielded a young Ken Charlery, set up a tricky away tie which, after a goalless first-half, Rovers lost 2-1 at Rockingham Road. All Rovers had to show for their efforts was an Andy Reece consolation goal after seventy minutes. Kettering featured several experienced players, including Lil Fuccillo and Ernie Moss, and the former Peterborough United and Brentford striker Robbie Cooke scored both their goals. Nonetheless, it was a demoralising and embarrassing result in front of the BBC “Match of the Day” cameras. The Sherpa Van Trophy at least gave a hint of Rovers’ Cup run of 1989-90. A first-half Reece goal saw off Bristol City, and Cardiff City were also beaten before Rovers fell to Mark Loram’s goal for Torquay United in the quarter-finals. The Gulls, with Ian Weston and Paul Smith in their side, were to lose the Wembley Final 4-1 to Bolton Wanderers, for whom the former Rovers striker Trevor Morgan contributed the final goal. Two second-half Mehew goals and a third in the final minute from White brought Rovers a 3-0 victory over Bristol City in the Gloucestershire Cup Final, the club’s most convincing victory in this tournament since the game against Staple Hill in January 1898.
1989-90
Thirty-seven years after topping Division Three (South), Rovers were crowned Third Division champions in 1989-90 with a club record 93 points. It was a momentous achievement for Gerry Francis’ “Ragbag Rovers” at their temporary home outside Bristol. The elusive promotion was achieved on a glorious if tense Wednesday night when Bristol City were defeated at Twerton Park. Then, with the championship secured, Rovers could enjoy the icing on the cake provided by the club’s first-ever appearance at Wembley Stadium. The side which earned this success was largely that which had shown such potential already. Francis stuck with the tried and tested formula, bringing in Ian Willmott, New Zealand international Paul Nixon and Tony Sealy to play sporadic but crucial roles. Sealy scored twice in the win at Shrewsbury Town in November which took Rovers back to the top of the table, while Nixon’s five goals included the final one as Rovers sealed the championship at Blackpool in May. It was, however, the experienced hands which held the side together. Twentyman, Mehew, player of the year Holloway and captain Vaughan Jones were all ever-presents, while Alexander, Yates, Reece and White appeared in over forty league matches. In securing the Third Division championship, Rovers remained unbeaten at home for the only season in the club’s history. There were scares, of course, with Sealy’s last-minute equaliser earning a November draw with ten-man Blackpool and Rovers trailing to Cardiff City before two injury time goals earned an unlikely 2-1 victory. Rovers lost just five times in 46 games, a Division Three record, and equalled the club’s tally of 26 league victories in 1952-53. There were 27 clean sheets, as opposed to the thirty achieved during the 2006-07 season. Yet, it was achieved the hard way. Rovers, in fact, trailed at half-time in three games and only once scored more than three goals in a match. The exceptional game was a 6-1 victory over Wigan Athletic in March, where Carl Saunders, a February signing from Stoke City to replace Gary Penrice, scored the first league hat-trick seen at Twerton Park. This was the Latics’ record league defeat, eclipsing the 5-0 loss suffered when Rovers visited Springfield Park in February 1983. An August Gloucestershire Cup Final victory over Bristol City set the tone for the season. On a hot August afternoon, David Mehew’s thirty-seventh minute goal defeated Brentford and Rovers followed this up with a first post-war league victory at Field Mill, the first of a club record eleven away league wins. Three first-half goals against Notts County in a third narrow victory sent Rovers to the top of Division Three. In the next home game, when Preston North End visited Twerton Park, three more first-half goals sealed a comfortable victory, with Twentyman heading the opener against his former club. Bristol City were hovering ominously close and the sides met at the end of September with two points separating them in the league. The highest crowd to see Rovers all season, 17,432, witnessed a goalless draw, as Francis’ side held on with ten men following the dismissal of Alexander eleven minutes before half-time. Nigel Martyn’s impressive goalkeeping displays were beginning to attract the attention of larger clubs. This burgeoning reputation was enhanced still further by a run of 645 minutes without conceding a goal, just short of Jim Eadie’s club record 707 minutes set in 1973-74. The run ended with Mark Kelly’s eightieth-minute equaliser for Cardiff City at Twerton Park in mid-October, in a match in which Ian Holloway missed a penalty. The following game epitomised the season for, trailing 1-0 at half-time to an ultimately relegated Northampton Town team, for whom Steve Brown had scored the first goal of his career, Rovers were 2-1 down with eleven minutes to play. Then Nixon grabbed an equaliser, Holloway converted a penalty and the unfortunate Trevor Quow put through his own net to give Rovers a 4-2 victory. With Gary Penrice moving to Watford for £500,000, Rovers were further depleted when Nigel Martyn became Britain’s first million-pound goalkeeper, his transfer to Crystal Palace smashing Rovers’ club record. Before the season was out, he appeared for his new club in the FA Cup Final where his near-namesake Lee Martin, himself a Rovers player in 1996, smashed a rising left-foot volley past him in the replay to win the cup for Manchester United. Martyn was to break his own transfer record in a move to Leeds United in July 1996, which led to international recognition with England. In exchange, Palace’s reserve goalkeeper Brian Parkin moved to Bristol to appear in the final thirty league games of the season and kick-start a career which saw two Wembley appearances with Rovers even before an unlikely comeback in the 1999-2000 season. Early promotion rivals, Birmingham City, with Dennis Bailey and the future Rovers manager Ian Atkins in their side, were the Boxing Day opposition for the first imposed all-ticket game. Rovers then saw off the threat of Tranmere Rovers, but only after David Fairclough had been stretchered off. Rovers gave a trial to Sunday football, playing three home games on spring Sundays, won at Preston North End, where Mehew’s goal after an hour gave the side its only win in four league matches played on artificial pitches and faced, in Swansea City’s forty-two-year-old Tommy Hutchison, the fourth oldest opponent in the club’s league history. The real threat, however, came from Ashton Gate, where Bristol City had put together an impressive run of results and had claimed top spot in the division. Rovers, with a game in hand through the spring, were waiting for City to slip. Even the calmest of Rovers supporters was put on the emotional treadmill as the side, with the scent of promotion in its nostrils, recorded six consecutive 2-1 victories in the run-up to Easter. Devon White’s two goals earned victory at Craven Cottage, even after Fulham had equalised sixteen minutes from time, when Clive Walker’s shot deflected in off Yates, Jones and a post. In the next five games, Rovers went a goal down each time, but won them all. Cardiff City, eventually relegated by a point, were perhaps the hardest done by, Rovers scraping home, after losing Sealy with a broken right leg, with two goals in eleven nail-biting injury-time minutes. In White’s absence, the unorthodox yet distinctive figure of Christian McClean scored decisive goals in each of the next three games. At Brisbane Road, Mehew’s goal earned a victory after Rovers had arrived at the ground only twenty minutes prior to kick-off. Rovers also recovered a two goal deficit, which would have been worse if referee Philip Wright had awarded a penalty at 2-0 for a clear trip by Willmott on Birmingham City’s Robert Hopkins. Instead, Rovers rallied to draw 2-2, with the former Eastville favourite Martin Thomas conceding an own goal. As Bristol City stuttered, the local derby on 2nd May assumed gargantuan proportions. If Rovers won to preserve their unbeaten home record, promotion to Division Two would be assured, but defeat would hand the championship to City. It was certainly not a night for the faint-hearted. A glorious two-goal display from White, one in each half and a late Holloway penalty sealed the promotion push and Rovers were back in Division Two. First, White put Rovers in front after twenty-five minutes when Andy Llewellyn’s slip allowed Mehew to cross the ball, then he doubled the lead after Saunders beat Rob Newman to cross; then, when Llewellyn handled Purnell’s shot after 62 minutes, Holloway sent Ron Sinclair the wrong way from the penalty-spot. A night of high drama before a record home crowd for a game at Twerton Park, 9,831, will live long in the memory. Yet, to ensure that Bristol City, also promoted, could not steal the championship away, victory was essential at already-relegated Blackpool in the final game. Over 5,000 Rovers supporters made the trip to Bloomfield Road, where a second successive 3-0 victory, with Phil Purnell scoring in the final minute of the first-half and substitute Paul Nixon in the final minute of the second-half, saw Rovers secure the championship in a carnival atmosphere. Vaughan Jones was able to lift the trophy at his own testimonial game a week later. Early exits from the Littlewoods Cup, at Portsmouth, and FA Cup, to Reading, for whom Trevor Senior scored a seventy-first minute winning goal in a first round second replay, merely highlight the club’s success elsewhere. A draw with Torquay United and victories over Exeter City and Gillingham earned Rovers a Leyland Daf Cup quarter final meeting with Brentford. This was won in a penalty shoot-out, as was a semi-final with Walsall, Brian Parkin saving three kicks in each shoot-out. Rovers now faced Notts County over two legs for the right to meet Tranmere Rovers in a Wembley final. A fifty-eighth minute header from David Mehew in the first leg and a strong rearguard action at Meadow Lane, as well as County having a last-minute “goal” controversially disallowed, earned Rovers a first-ever visit to the Twin Towers. Mehew’s eighteen league and three cup goals had, bizarrely, all come in separate matches. There were some 32,000 Rovers fans at Wembley in the 53,317 crowd on 20th May and, despite the result, it was a wonderful day of celebration. A veterans’ warm-up game saw Rovers and Tranmere draw 1-1, Alan Warboys and Frank Worthington scoring the goals in a show which also featured George Best, Bobby Moore OBE, four members of the pop group Spandau Ballet and the England rugby international Wade Dooley and which was refereed by the veteran Jack Taylor (1930-2012). Just ten minutes from the start of the final, the former Rovers defender Mark Hughes crossed and, from Chris Malkin’s flick-on, Ian Muir scored. Six minutes after half-time, substitute Nixon’s cross found White who, at the second attempt, shot right-footed high into the net for the equaliser. However, seventeen minutes from time, Jim Steel’s header consigned Rovers to defeat. Nonetheless, it was a major achievement for a club of the stature of Bristol Rovers to reach a Wembley final. The season had brought much greater success than any realistic Rovers fan could have dreamed of.
1990's
1990-91
It is perhaps typical of Bristol Rovers that the long-awaited return to Division Two should be overshadowed by events off the field. The all-conquering side of 1989-90 understandably found the going considerably harder in the higher division, but a final league placing of thirteenth, the club’s highest since 1959-60, was commendable. However, the actions of arsonists and further rebuffs to Rovers’ hopes of a move back to Bristol provided many of the overriding memories. The continued search for a stadium nearer Rovers’ fan base in east Bristol was still encountering problems. With the proposal for a move to Stoke Gifford rejected, much emphasis had been placed on a potential move to Mangotsfield. With the huge success of the 1989-90 season, the club now appeared more likely to interest the local authorities, who seemed keen to jump on the bandwagon, given the on-field success and aspirations of both Bristol clubs. Suddenly Bristol was being touted as a sporting city. Yet, disappointment was to strike on two fronts in September 1990. First, the plans for a stadium at Mangotsfield were rejected and secondly, a week later in the early hours of 16th September, a serious fire damaged the Main Stand at Twerton Park. There was little doubt as to the perpetrators of the stadium fire. Seven so-called “supporters” of Bristol City, returning from a 2-1 defeat at West Bromwich Albion, went back to the scene of their side’s disappointment in May, attempted to burn down the stand and, in court, were found guilty of arson. Repair costs to the Main Stand were to run to £800,000, although Rovers did receive financial aid from Bath Rugby Football Club as well as a £300 donation from Sheffield Wednesday supporters following their visit in October. Moreover, there was a pre-arranged commitment to a £90,000 family stand, which opened in December. Yet again, precisely at the point when Rovers promised on-field success, politics and finance interfered in the club’s affairs. At the same time, Rovers were obliged to comply with the increasing legal requirements imposed following the tragedies at Bradford, Hillsborough and Heysel. The 1985 Sporting Event (Control of Alcohol) Act had prevented those being suspected of drunkenness gaining access to the ground and the 1986 Public Order Act enabled clubs to impose exclusion orders for “hooligan related offences”. This was followed by the 1991 Football Offences Act, which banned obscene and racially offensive chanting and forbade spectators from entering the field of play. Why make alterations to a winning side? Apart from the departure of stand-in Peter Cawley and the arrival of the exciting Tony Pounder, it was largely the championship-winning side which attained a perfectly respectable mid-table finish. Some argued it was a return to the halcyon days of the 1950s, with Rovers’ paltry financial clout virtually necessitating a return to the “no buy, no sell” policy which dictated the early post-war years. Others argued that the club stood to suffer almost immediate relegation if, in this era of huge spending, a number of key positions were not filled by expensive signings. As it was, “Ragbag Rovers” retained their Second Division standing with relative ease. If life in a higher-division was to prove difficult for Rovers, as many claimed, there certainly was little sign of it. A narrow defeat at Leicester City, with Ian Alexander contributing a bizarre own goal and Vaughan Jones scoring the club’s first goal back in Division Two, was followed by victory at home to Charlton Athletic, the visitors’ eighth in a club record run of ten consecutive league defeats. Devon White, on sixteen minutes, and David Mehew after forty-nine minutes put Rovers ahead before Robert Lee scored for the Addicks four minutes from time. As early as mid-October Rovers won back-to-back away games at Swindon Town and Middlesbrough. Ian Holloway scored from penalties in both games and coolly converted another after forty-two minutes of a 1-0 home victory over Oxford United. He had equalled Stewart Barrowclough’s club record from 1979 of scoring penalties in three consecutive league matches, but Holloway never scored again from the penalty-spot for Rovers. On a Wednesday night in September, Blackburn Rovers recorded a 2-1 victory at Twerton Park to end Rovers’ proud run of 34 home league matches unbeaten. Three days later, Sheffield Wednesday also won at “Fortress Twerton”. On 6th October, Rovers only avoided dropping into the relegation zone, reorganisation having meant only two clubs would be relegated, because of the three second-half goals Oxford United conceded at Barnsley. Nonetheless, by the first week in December Rovers lay in ninth place in the table, the highest placing in an encouraging season. At this stage, the club was in the middle of a morale-boosting nine-match unbeaten run, which ended abruptly when Jimmy Quinn scored West Ham United’s sixty-eighth minute winning goal on New Year’s Day. However, enough had been done to satisfy the claim that Rovers were in this division by right. As the season wore on, Francis recalled Willmott, briefly, and Billy Clark who, after many substitute appearances and missing the entire promotion season through injury, played in his first games since October 1988. Clark first played in March in the cauldron of a local derby and, before the month was out he had contributed an own goal, one of five conceded all season by Rovers defenders, in a 2-1 defeat at Hillsborough. Adrian Boothroyd and Gavin Kelly both broke into the league side and, two years on, Dennis Bailey enjoyed a second if less prolific loan spell with the club. Over Easter, Rovers’ Jekyll and Hyde character came to the fore. Goalkeeper Parkin was sent off in a 3-1 defeat at home to Brighton, with stand-in Ian Alexander saving the subsequent penalty from John Byrne, who missed another penalty against Rovers in September 1992, when on Sunderland’s books. Forty-eight hours later, before a crowd of 17,509, second-half goals from Devon White and Tony Sealy earned a notable 2-0 victory at Newcastle United. Rovers then finished the season with demoralising 3-1 defeats at Oxford United, where Vaughan Jones’ second own goal of the season left Rovers three down by half-time, and Portsmouth, for whom John Beresford opened the scoring after only thirty-eight seconds. In depriving West Bromwich Albion of a final day win, Tony Pounder contributing his third goal of the season nineteen minutes from time following Jones’ near-post corner, Rovers effectively relegated the Hawthorns club. Osvaldo Ardiles, a World Cup winner with Argentina in 1978, was the manager of Rovers’ opponents in three of Rovers’ league victories. Pounder’s first goal for the club helped Rovers record a 2-0 victory at Swindon Town in October. A 2-1 win against the same opposition completed the first of Rovers’ two league doubles, but only after Nestor Lorenzo, a member of the Argentinian side which lost the 1990 World Cup Final, had hit a Twerton Park post. Shortly afterwards, Ardiles took over the reins at Newcastle United in time to suffer a third defeat at the hands of Gerry Francis’ side. Once again, relative success was based on a consistently settled side. Twentyman, Holloway and Reece were ever-presents, but in truth the team virtually picked itself for much of the season. Parkin proved himself an adept goalkeeper and an experienced defence was not in the habit of shipping goals regularly. Carl Saunders, after enjoying a mid-season purple patch of nine goals in ten league matches, finished the year as the club’s top goalscorer with sixteen goals in league action. David Mehew’s two goals in a 3-2 home victory over Bristol City in January 1991 constituted the first occasion since November 1988 that the talented midfielder, top scorer in 1990-91, had contributed more than one in a league game. There was disappointment in the FA Cup. Third Division Crewe Alexandra won 2-0 at Twerton Park, with the former Rovers defender Darren Carr scoring one of the goals. Bob Bloomer had been forced into goal once Parkin was carried off the field injured, but this is no excuse for a humiliating experience. Another former Rovers defender, Gary Mabbutt, now an England international, captained Tottenham Hotspur to victory over Nottingham Forest in the 1991 FA Cup Final. There was also an early exit from the Rumbelows Cup where, although full-backs Alexander and Twentyman both scored, Rovers lost on aggregate to Third Division Torquay United. One side-benefit of being in Division Two was qualification for the Zenith Data Systems Cup. Rovers played in just two games in this tournament, taking a half-hour lead through Tony Pounder before losing to Crystal Palace who, with the former Rovers goalkeeper Nigel Martyn in their side, went on to win the Wembley Final. Bristol City scored twice in each half, Nicky Morgan contributing half their goals, as Rovers were beaten 4-1 in the Gloucestershire Cup Final.
1991-92
After the disappointments regarding proposed stadia in Stoke Gifford and Mangotsfield, Rovers at last appeared on the verge of finalising plans for a move nearer its spiritual home in east Bristol. The new site was at Hallen Marsh, a seventy-acre site in close proximity to the proposed M49 motorway which was due to open in 1996. Good road and rail links would, of course, be essential, as Rovers attempted to build on the fact that Bristol boasted two Second Division sides. The new stadium was also seen as a means to attract major national and international sporting events to a West Country arena. Plans to develop the Hallen Marsh site into a multi-sport complex were drawn up by Severnside Sportsworld, an organisation effectively run by the Rovers directors Denis and Geoff Dunford. Spectator, a leading American facilities management company, was called in to advise and by December 1991 the local authorities appeared to be in favour. Yet, the Bristol Rovers story is not so straightforward. No sooner were plans being tabled than it was revealed that the site was too close to a chemical plant to satisfy safety regulations. The deal was off, the Dunfords had lost an alleged £300,000, already invested into the scheme, and Rovers’ increasingly desperate search for a new Bristol home continued. It was inevitable that Gerry Francis’ success at Rovers on a shoestring budget should lead to interest from larger clubs. Sure enough, he left Rovers in the summer of 1991 to become manager at Queen’s Park Rangers. While at Loftus Road, he accumulated a number of players who had served him so well at Twerton Park, Ian Holloway, Dennis Bailey, Devon White, Gary Penrice and Steve Yates all rejoining their former manager. On the other hand, a large number of Queen’s Park Rangers players were to make the opposite move, untried youngsters such as Graeme Power and Steve Parmenter as well as record signing Andy Tillson. For his part, Francis was later manager at Tottenham Hotspur before returning for a second spell as manager at Loftus Road, the ground where he had made his name as a player. The new manager was Martin Dobson, an erstwhile classy midfielder with Burnley, for many years, Everton and Bury and the winner of five full England caps. He had been manager at Northwich Victoria and had spent five years in charge of Bury prior to his arrival at Twerton Park. While Holloway followed Francis to London in a £230,000 deal, Rovers also lost Tony Sealy to Finnish football and the distinctive Christian McClean, who joined Swansea City prior to many years as a peripatetic striker in Essex non-league circles. Dobson was able to call upon the services of two experienced signings in Fulham’s Justin Skinner and Derby County’s Steve Cross. While Richard Evans and the former Manchester United midfielder David Wilson started in the side, it was Lee Maddison and Gareth Taylor who, both selected by Dobson, began careers which would bring success with Rovers and beyond. In starting the season temporarily without the suspended Carl Saunders, Dobson also unleashed the talents of eighteen-year-old Marcus Stewart, already the winner of twelve England Schoolboy caps, who had worked his way up through the youth system. After a header and a left-foot volley in a meeting with Ipswich Town, in which Ian Alexander saw his forty-seventh-minute penalty saved by Craig Forrest, Stewart scored twice at Tranmere Rovers in his second game, becoming in the process Rovers’ youngest penalty scorer when he converted a last-minute equaliser. Over the coming seasons, Stewart established himself as one of the brightest prospects produced by Rovers in recent years. His excellent first touch and ability to take on opponents soon drew the attention of larger clubs, but Rovers were to retain him long enough for him to score the side’s goal at Wembley in the 1995 play-off final. Yet Dobson’s side lost six of its first nine league games and the manager’s brief tenure was over. He later returned to football as Youth Development Officer at First Division Bolton Wanderers. The one victory, 2-1 at home to Oxford United, marked the first game of the season for captain Vaughan Jones. His return lasted all of sixty seconds before he suffered a broken leg which ruled him out for a further fourteen months. Coach Dennis Rofe was quickly elevated to the post of manager on 10th January 1992. He too enjoyed a long professional career, winning one England Under 23 cap and enjoying almost a decade as Leicester City’s left-back after making his league début as a goalscoring substitute in Orient’s 2-0 win at Rovers in April 1968. The season had started dramatically with Rovers repeating their feat of February 1939 by recovering a three-goal deficit at home to Ipswich Town. As on the previous occasion, the centre-forward scored twice, Devon White’s brace of goals earning an unlikely point after Ipswich had led 3-0 with twenty-six minutes left. In the next home game, Justin Skinner scored a last-minute consolation goal after coming on as substitute for his début. He was a £130,000 club record signing from Fulham, a transfer deal finally exceeding the fee paid for Stewart Barrowclough as long ago as 1979. The Rovers midfield now added the craft of Skinner to the efforts of Mehew, Reece and Pounder. There were some high-scoring games at Twerton Park, notably a 3-3 draw with Port Vale and a second consecutive 3-2 victory over Bristol City. A similar win at home to Millwall came courtesy of Devon White’s last-minute winning goal. Away from home, Rovers lost 1-0 at Portman Road in Ipswich Town’s 2000th league game and 1-0 at Derby County, for whom the most-capped England international, Peter Shilton, played in goal. At 42 years 151 days, he is the fifth oldest opponent to face Rovers in league football. Amid all the changes, no single Rovers player appeared in every league game. The heaviest defeat of the season, indeed Rovers’ worst loss since February 1987, came at the Abbey Stadium on a Friday evening in February. Cambridge United, who scored four goals in an eleven-minute second-half spell after half-time, went second in the table by beating Rovers 6-1. Earlier, Cambridge had earned a draw at Twerton Park in December, when the future England international Dion Dublin and his fellow striker John Taylor had both scored equalisers. At the Abbey Stadium, five opponents scored against Rovers, Neil Heaney became only the third opponent to score for both sides in a league game and for the first time against Rovers, both the opposition’s substitutes scored. One of these substitutes was John Taylor, later Cambridge United’s all-time top goalscorer, but at that stage struggling to score regularly. Within weeks, Taylor was a Rovers player and a very astute signing he proved to be, his eight goals in as many appearances leaving him just behind Saunders and White on ten, with Mehew on nine goals. Taylor scored twice against Southend United and three times against Brighton as Rovers recorded two 4-1 victories in April. His goals were to prove invaluable the following season, despite Rovers suffering relegation. Rovers’ cup games in 1991-92 were certainly not dull. The season began with a Gloucestershire Cup Final defeat at Ashton Gate, where two Rovers defenders, Ian Alexander and Geoff Twentyman, were sent off. All the goals in a 3-2 defeat were scored before half-time. In the League Cup, the sides met again and, having lost the Twerton Park leg 3-1 to Bristol City, Rovers appeared dead and buried. However, at Ashton Gate, a crowd of 9,880 saw Rovers score three times in a strong second-half display as they won 4-2 to defeat the local rivals on the away goals rule. On a night of typically high passions, old heads White and Mehew scored twice each. Despite fears of a rerun of the 1977 FA Cup-tie, Rovers lost just 2-0 in the next round to a Nottingham Forest side featuring Stuart Pearce and Teddy Sheringham. Two goals from Ipswich Town’s David Lowe sent Rovers out of the Zenith Data Systems Cup at the first hurdle, while a former Pirate Kevin Moore scored for Southampton as they lost the Wembley Final in March. In the FA Cup, Ian Alexander gave Rovers an early lead in the third round tie with West Country rivals Plymouth Argyle, who featured in their side Rob Turner and Steve Morgan, both Rovers players at some point in their career. Then Carl Saunders took over, scoring two minutes before half-time and adding a second-half hat-trick. His feat of four goals in twenty-seven minutes was the first occasion since Jack Jones in November 1901 that a Rovers player had scored so many in an FA Cup-tie and it was Rovers’ largest win in this tournament since 1987-88. Rovers thereby earned a plum home game with Liverpool and a then ground record of 9,484 watched a thrilling 1-1 draw, players called Saunders scoring for both clubs. Dean Saunders, however, hit the headlines after receiving a three-match ban for elbowing Alexander, an offence missed by the referee but captured by television cameras. Extraordinarily, Carl Saunders’ powerful long-range right-foot volley gave Rovers an interval lead at Anfield but, before a 30,142 crowd, Liverpool won through goals from Steve McManaman and Dean Saunders and progressed to beat Paul Hardyman’s Sunderland side in the final.
1992-93
Amid the disappointment of continued rebuffs in their attempts to return to a home ground in Bristol, Rovers lost their position in the newly renamed First Division, relegated with Cambridge United and Brentford. The nomenclature is deceptive. This apparent first season for Rovers in Division One came as a result of a renaming process, stemming from the creation of a Premier Division, first won in 1992-93 by Manchester United. In reality, Rovers continued their slow nomadic bounce between the old Second and Third Divisions. Rovers began the new season without Adrian Boothroyd, who had joined Heart of Midlothian and Bob Bloomer, now with Cheltenham Town. However, the side bore a strong resemblance to that which had finished mid-table in 1991-92 and attacking options looked exciting, with John Taylor, Carl Saunders and Marcus Stewart all in contention for places. Taylor and Stewart scored fluently early in the season, but Saunders, starting as first choice, only got onto the score-sheet in October, after being relegated to substitute. Goalscoring was not a problem for Rovers. The side relegated in 1980-81 had scored only 34 times in the league, whereas 55 goals were scored this time round, Taylor contributing fourteen of them. The real problem in 1992-93 was the frequency of league defeats. Rovers lost a club record 25 league games in being relegated and the total of eleven home defeats equalled the tally set in 1947-48. In the first home game of the season, having previously been unbeaten in sixteen matches at Twerton Park, Rovers conceded four goals for the first time on that ground. Then, on 3rd November, Rovers lost 5-1 at home to Barnsley, the heaviest home defeat since December 1976. This was followed by a 5-1 defeat at Wolverhampton Wanderers, Rovers conceding five goals in consecutive games for only the third time in the club’s league history. They were staring relegation in the face. Another worrying feature of the early part of this season was the club’s propensity for conceding penalties. There were five penalties given away in the first four league games. During the third match, in which Rovers recorded their only win in the first thirteen league fixtures, Brentford were awarded two, Gary Blissett scoring from one seven minutes after half-time before Mickey Bennett squandered the second, nineteen minutes from the end. At Watford, Jason Drysdale, whose father Brian had played against Rovers for both Hartlepool United and Bristol City, scored a penalty after only five minutes. Gavin Kelly, replacing Brian Parkin in goal, saved penalties, one from Dean Saunders at Villa Park and one from Ray Houghton at Twerton Park, in each of the FA Cup-ties with Aston Villa. John Byrne, who had missed a penalty for Brighton against Rovers eighteen months earlier, missed another as Rovers scrambled a 1-1 draw at Sunderland. Julian Dicks, Bristol-born, scored penalties for West Ham United in both their league games against Rovers. Dennis Rofe had suffered a traumatic start to the season as Rovers manager. Rovers conceded four goals in four of their twelve opening games and also suffered a demoralising 3-0 home defeat to Grimsby Town. West Ham United’s visit to Twerton Park saw hapless Rovers lose 4-0 and Paul Hardyman, a summer signing from Sunderland following a Cup Final appearance, was sent off as the first was conceded. Clive Allen, the scorer of Tottenham Hotspur’s opening goal in the 1987 FA Cup Final, created one goal and scored the fourth five minutes from time, after Mark Robson’s shot had rebounded off the crossbar. After only seventeen wins in 53 league games, Rofe’s tenure came to an end, and he subsequently worked as a coach to Stoke City and Southampton. He was succeeded from within the club by a man initially appointed to work alongside him. On Tuesday 10th November 1992, as a last throw of the dice, Rovers appointed a larger-than-life figure as the new manager. If Albert Prince-Cox had been the figurehead for the 1930s revival, so too could Malcolm Allison in the 1990s. During a long playing career, he had played on eight occasions against Rovers in league football. Amongst the litany of achievements with the many clubs he had served as manager, the 1967-68 league championship with Manchester City stood out. He is the only Rovers manager who has led a club to this honour. Allison’s side was strengthened by two players signed shortly before his arrival, Gary Waddock and the club’s new record signing for £370,000 Andy Tillson. Both players had joined from Queen’s Park Rangers just hours before the 5-1 defeat at Molineux, in which they had appeared. Initially, Allison’s arrival instigated a change in Rovers’ fortunes, Vaughan Jones returned to the side after an absence of over a year. A run of four straight victories without conceding a goal offered fresh hope. During the first three of these, recent arrival Justin Channing, a £250,000 signing, contrived to scored in the twenty-fifth minute of each game, his only three goals of the season. The third was easily the brightest moment of a gloomy season, as Rovers won 4-0against a Bristol City side boasting the future England striker Andy Cole. City also fielded Danish international central defender Bjørn Kristensen and the thirty-year-old Polish international Dariusz Dziekanowski. Three goals in thirteen second-half minutes helped Rovers to record their largest victory in a local derby since December 1963. However, this great run ended at Fratton Park, where Portsmouth beat Rovers 4-1, the first of three straight wins. In scoring all Pompey’s goals, Guy Whittingham became only the twelfth opponent to score four or more times in a league game against Rovers. It was a record-breaking season for Whittingham, who set a club seasonal record with his 44th goal of a productive season, scored at Twerton Park in April. Then Stan Collymore inspired Southend United to victory at Twerton Park after Ian Alexander had been sent off. By then, though, despite a 3-0 win at Brentford and a creditable goalless draw with champions-elect Newcastle United, before a crowd of 29,372 at St James’ Park, Malcolm Allison had left, ending a long, largely successful and enigmatic association with Football League management. Coach Steve Cross, who had appeared in his last game as a player in October, took temporary charge for three games, prior to the appointment on 15th March 1993 of John Ward. It was too late to prevent the inevitable relegation, but it was a positive move. A player himself of great experience, Ward had spent sixteen months as manager at York City and had served as assistant to Graham Taylor at Watford, Aston Villa and England, and soon proved himself to be a progressive and enthusiastic leader. Over the next three years, under Ward’s leadership, Rovers were able to re-establish themselves as a force in Second Division football and return to Wembley in 1995. With relegation apparent, he took the opportunity to blood young talent, with Gareth Taylor, Andy Gurney and Mike Davis among those promoted to the first-team squad before the season was over. Under Ward, at first, there was little change. A dull goalless draw in driving rain with Leicester City, where the visitors’ David Lowe had hit a post before his thirty-fifth minute red card, was followed by derby day defeat at Ashton Gate, with Ian Alexander sent off again. Despite taking a second-half lead at Upton Park in April through Billy Clark’s first goal of the season, defeat against West Ham United saw Rovers relegated for the third time in the club’s history. There was frenetic action nine points above Rovers on the final day, with all sorts of relegation permutations possible before Brentford and Cambridge United finally dropped with Rovers. In 1920, Rovers had appeared in the first league game at the Den and now they appeared in the last, spoiling Millwall’s final day at their old ground with a 3-0 win. The game was twice held up by pitch invasions before Mike Davis, on as a substitute for his début, registered Rovers’ last First Division goal. Rovers’ only season in the short-lived Anglo-Italian Cup saw only matches in this country against Southend United and West Ham United, with the club being eliminated by virtue of a toss of a coin, conducted over the telephone. The Gloucestershire Cup Final, by contrast, was won through Marcus Stewart’s last-minute goal, after the future England striker Andy Cole had given Bristol City a half-time lead. In the League Cup, Rovers held out for a goalless draw at Maine Road but, despite the hilarity of the Manchester City substitute Flitcroft being announced as “Gary Flipflop”, were defeated at Twerton Park by the First Division side, Lee Maddison conceding an own goal. Likewise, in the FA Cup, a well-earned draw at Villa Park, before a crowd of 27,040, earned a lucrative home replay. Rovers, though, collapsed under pressure and Aston Villa could even afford the luxury of a missed penalty in running out 3-0 winners.
1993-94
The return of Second Division, or former Third Division, football to Twerton Park renewed the call for a new stadium in Bristol. Having lost out, in recent years, on proposed sites at Stoke Gifford, Mangotsfield and Hallen Marsh, the search was becoming increasingly intense. Several other league clubs, Brighton and Chester City being arguably two examples, played home matches in towns other than their own but, as Rovers approached a decade’s tenancy at Twerton Park, fears grew that the club would have lost the support of a whole generation in east Bristol. The clamour for such a move became embodied in the work of the Bristol Party, a political group which formed in October 1993. There had been a precedent, for the Valley Party, which stood for elections in May 1990, had helped hasten Charlton Athletic’s long-awaited return to their spiritual home. The Bristol Party, lent support by Tom Pendry, the Labour Party’s Shadow Minister for Sport, strove to recreate in Bristol the perceived superior leisure facilities of other cities. Partnership with housing and community organisations was demanded in order to restore a sense of pride in all aspects of Bristol life. In the local elections of May 1994, the Bristol Party polled 4,000 votes and won no seats, although its call for a healthier political attitude to sports as well as Rovers’ return had been heard loud and clear. In December 1993, as the party’s work grew, Rovers expressed interest in a fourth potential site for a new stadium. The proposed spot comprised sixty acres within the ICI complex at Pilning, again within easy access of the planned M49 motorway. A stadium here could house 20,000 spectators, as well as offering a greyhound track, that recurring leitmotif through the Rovers story since 1932, an exhibition centre and a School of Excellence. Discussions began to the backdrop of the increasingly politicised demands for Rovers’ return to the Bristol area. Such a call from the club’s supporters was one which would not go away. On the field, the season opened with a disappointing single-goal victory at home to Bournemouth. Unbeknown to the crowd, this was to be the final Rovers appearance for Steve Yates, who rejoined Gerry Francis at Queen’s Park Rangers shortly afterwards in a deal worth £750,000. Three other key members of the 1989-90 championship side, David Mehew, Andy Reece and Geoff Twentyman, had slipped out of League football over the summer. It was also the first time Nationwide League sides had been able to use up to three substitutes. Rovers selected a substitute goalkeeper for every league game and this paid off in the return game at Bournemouth. The home side, very convincing at times, had led by three first-half goals before the highly controversial sending off of Rovers’ goalkeeper Brian Parkin. Rovers promptly took off Gary Waddock, replacing him with Martyn Margetson, so that, although a man short, they at least played on with a recognised goalkeeper. After five games, Rovers had scored four goals, all by John Taylor. He was to score 23 league goals, including goals in a run of four consecutive matches in the autumn. This spell included a first-minute goal which led to victory over Cardiff City at Ninian Park and goals in exciting home victories over Burnley and Bradford City. Burnley found themselves three goals in arrears when Worrell Sterling, an exciting and skilful winger signed in the close season for £140,000 from Peterborough United, created the second before scoring the third with a spectacular 35-yard volley on the stroke of half-time. This game also featured a new centre-back partnership between débutant defender Ian Wright and Ian McLean, a Scottish-born player who scored his first goal for Rovers that day and won his first full cap for Canada in January 1995, while on Rovers’ books. Against Bradford City, Rovers trailed 3-2 before two late penalties by Marcus Stewart gave the home side an unlikely victory. He thus became the sixth Rovers player to convert two penalties in a league match. In September, Rovers lost 3-0 at Hull City, all of whose goals were scored by Dean Windass, only the third league hat-trick conceded by Rovers since 1983. Astonishingly, Brentford players managed to score hat-tricks in both games against Rovers, equalling the achievements of Northampton Town in 1929-30 and Derby County in 1961-62. In January, Denny Mundee scored all Brentford’s goals in a game at Griffin Park which Rovers won 4-3. Only three other opponents had previously scored a hat-trick against Rovers in the league and ended up on the losing side. Joe Allon then became the first opponent to score a hat-trick at Twerton Park. Rovers’ captain Gary Waddock suffered a broken nose in the build-up to the first goal but the side was easily defeated by a Brentford side which ran up three first-half goals before Allon ran through a ragged defence after half-time to complete his hat-trick. In November, the former Rovers goalkeeper Tim Carter was in the first Hartlepool United side to meet Rovers since the 1968-69 season. His side almost left Twerton Park with a win, too, denied only by Justin Skinner’s last-minute equaliser. In their next league game, Rovers travelled to top-of-the-table Stockport County and left Edgeley Park with a fine 2-0 win. John Taylor and Lee Archer were Rovers’ scorers, while Jim Gannon missed a penalty, found the referee ordering it to be retaken following an infringement and promptly missed again. County fielded six foot seven inch striker, Kevin Francis, the tallest player ever to appear against Rovers in league action. Rovers drew with Reading in January, thanks to Billy Clark heading in off the crossbar before half-time from Justin Skinner’s free-kick, in a match which saw Marcus Browning sent off after forty-nine minutes and the visitors’ Uwe Hartenberger after sixty-seven minutes for violent conduct, just four minutes after his arrival as a substitute. A series of fine end-of-the-season results eased Rovers into a comfortable final league position of eighth. A run of five straight defeats was halted when relegation-bound Barnet came for their sole league visit and were despatched 5-2. Justin Channing had, until a week earlier, gone fifteen months without a goal, but contributed a hat-trick to defeat the Bees. Worrell Sterling’s first-minute goal was enough to defeat Blackpool. Tony Pounder’s first two goals for over a year helped defeat Wrexham 3-2, while Taylor’s brace against his former club, Cambridge United, gave Rovers a convincing away victory on the final day of the season. The process of rebuilding the side had begun. Lee Maddison was a consistent performer at left-back and the acquisition of Telford United’s right-back David Pritchard offered the prospect of another solid full-back partnership. Justin Skinner and Marcus Browning were developing as reliable midfielders, while Taylor’s goals had brought relative success. There were still changes to be made, however. Wright and McLean never started again in the same side while, following Carl Saunders’ mid-season move, Taylor joined Bradford City in a £300,000 summer move. Rovers needed a new striking partner for Marcus Stewart. Off the field, Rovers lent weight to the “Let’s kick Racism out of Football” Campaign, run by the Commission for Racial Equality, the Professional Footballers’ Association and the Football Trust. Meanwhile, the old Eastville Stadium suffered another fire on 13th February 1994, caused by a mouse gnawing through wire, necessitating 100 firefighters and four months of repair work. Rovers retained the Gloucestershire Cup, 5-3 on penalties after a 1-1 draw, the winning kick being taken by Browning. A goalless ninety minutes had been followed by extra-time, in which Clark, from Stewart’s cross, scored for Rovers and Matt Bryant, whose brother Simon later played in the Rovers side, equalised for Bristol City four minutes from the end. Kit man Ray Kendall was also granted a testimonial at the end of the season, when a 1,500 crowd raised £4,000. Rovers, with Pounder and the substitute Sterling scoring, drew 2-2 with Premier League Coventry City, whose goals came from Julian Darby and Peter Atherton. That success in the major cup competitions was not forthcoming is a major understatement. Home defeats at the hands of West Bromwich Albion and Wycombe Wanderers brought Rovers’ interest to a swift conclusion. Albion’s convincing 4-1 League Cup first round first leg win at Twerton Park, Kevin Donovan scoring two second-half goals, rendered the second leg practically meaningless. Third Division Wanderers ended Rovers’ FA Cup aspirations with Dave Carroll’s second-half winning goal earning them a home tie with Cambridge United. After victories over Torquay United and Cardiff City in the Auto Windscreens Shield, Rovers drew 2-2 at home to Fulham, Lee Maddison conceding an own goal and were eliminated from the tournament after a penalty shoot-out.
1994-95
Ultimately, a season has to be assessed on achievement. Rovers appeared at Wembley Stadium in May 1995, for the second time in the club’s 112-year history. Though they were unsuccessful in their attempts to regain the First Division place lost two years earlier, a positive feeling about Rovers’ on-field potential was beginning to return. Moreover, by the end of the season, Northavon District Council was showing signs of being in favour of the club’s proposed move to Pilning. So, despite the disappointment of final-day defeat against Huddersfield Town in the play-offs, hopes were high in the Rovers camp. The one major addition to the Rovers squad was Paul Miller, an experienced striker signed from Premier League Wimbledon for £100,000 in August. Miller added a cutting edge to the side, contributing sixteen league goals to finish the season as the club’s top scorer. The extra-time goal at Crewe Alexandra which took Rovers to Wembley was not his best of the season, but was arguably his most crucial. Tom White and goalkeeper Marcus Law came through the youth scheme to make first-team appearances, while Carl Heggs’ loan spell included a Tuesday night consolation goal at Bradford City in February. Andy Collett arrived in a £100,000 move from Middlesbrough on transfer deadline day in March to act as goalkeeping cover for Brian Parkin. The relative success of 1994-95 was achieved despite the absence, for long stretches of the season, of the highly influential Marcus Stewart. In one purple patch through the winter, he scored twelve goals in ten league matches and scored in eight consecutive League and Cup games in which he played between November 1994 and Valentine’s Day 1995. It is also fair to record that, prior to an eleven-match unbeaten run, starting in March, Rovers stood in eleventh place in their division. Player-of-the-year Worrell Sterling was the club’s only ever-present, and scored his only goal, with a forceful left foot drive from twenty yards, in a 1-1 draw at Huddersfield Town’s new Alfred McAlpine Stadium in February. Although Rovers were unbeaten for the first eight league matches of the new season, they found themselves in seventh place in Division Two. Five of these games had been drawn, three of them being goalless draws, while Rovers had beaten York City 3-1, Rotherham United through three first-half goals at Millmoor and Wrexham. The Welsh side put up a strong fight at Twerton Park before succumbing to a 4-2 defeat. Billy Clark’s second-minute header from Justin Skinner’s corner and Gareth Taylor’s first goal for the club had twice put Rovers ahead, only for Wrexham to equalise both times. However, Karl Connolly’s eighty-fifth minute goal served only to spur Rovers on, with another Clark header and Miller’s burst through the Robins’ defence giving Rovers all the points. Indeed Clark, with six league goals in the season, more than doubled his career total with the club. When the unbeaten record went, in the ninth game, Shrewsbury Town’s Ian Stevens, a customary scorer against Rovers, scoring the winning goal before half-time, it was to the first goal conceded away from home all season. Rovers’ bubble had burst and, despite recovering a two-goal half-time deficit at home to Crewe Alexandra, Taylor scoring twice, the heaviest defeat of the season was to follow. With Marcus Law an unlucky débutant in goal, Rovers found themselves 2-0 down at Griffin Park after only five minutes, Brentford’s Nicky Forster’s two early goals leading Rovers to a 3-0 loss. Brentford were to finish second in the division, while Rovers, from this lowest seasonal placing of fifteenth, slowly climbed the table into a play-off position. A run of seven wins and a draw between 5th November and 4th February began to propel Rovers back up the table. The first win, 4-0 against Bradford City, showed the potential of a revitalised Rovers side, Marcus Stewart scoring twice in this game and twice again in three of the next four matches. Four straight home matches either side of Christmas were won, Lee Archer scoring twice in a 3-0 victory over Chester City on New Year’s Eve. In poor weather, the only league fixture honoured in January was an exciting 3-2 victory over Oxford United, who had led through Mark Druce goals after twelve and fifteen minutes. The arrival of Taylor as substitute sparked Rovers into life and his seventy-third minute goal was the first of three in seven minutes, Miller and Stewart helping Rovers snatch an improbable victory from the jaws of defeat. The sad news in Rovers circles at this time was the death on 30th December 1994 of Geoff Bradford. Although more than a dozen players have represented their country while on the books of Bristol Rovers, Bradford remains the only one to have appeared for England. His name became synonymous with the club through the halcyon days of the 1950s, when he scored for Rovers in two FA Cup quarter-finals and helped establish the club as a force in Second Division football. His career total of 242 league goals remains a club record and, in his 461 league appearances for his only club, he scored a Rovers record twelve hat-tricks. It is highly unlikely that, as the image of football continues to develop with the years, any player will quite capture the hearts of Bristol Rovers supporters as Geoff Bradford was able to do. After four consecutive home games, all five fixtures in February took place away from home, the only victory coming at Brighton. March brought a second 4-0 home victory, with four different players getting on the score-sheet against Shrewsbury Town. Following defeat at Stockport County, Rovers were to lose just once in the last fifteen games of the scheduled season. Among nine victories in this run, Rovers completed league doubles over Rotherham United and Leyton Orient and recorded commendable wins at Blackpool and at Cardiff City. Orient’s defeats were part of a series of nine in succession that led to the London side’s inevitable relegation; they fielded in their side Kevin Austin, who was to join Rovers from Cambridge United in the summer of 2002. There was almost a victory over a strong Birmingham City side to add to this list, after Rovers led at half-time through an own goal from Chris Whyte, whose gentle backpass had trickled bizarrely past goalkeeper Ian Bennett. Birmingham, who won the only automatic promotion slot as champions, equalised seventeen minutes from time when substitute Steve Claridge headed home a cross from Portuguese winger José Dominguez. With Rovers and Brentford already assured play-off places, the Pirates thanks to Stewart’s eighty-seventh minute goal at Cardiff after Miller’s header had thudded against the bar, the sides played out an exciting 2-2 draw, including a towering headed goal from Taylor, his second of the game, before a seasonal best home crowd in regular league fixtures of 8,501. Even more saw the goalless draw with Crewe Alexandra at Twerton Park in the play-offs and, with the aggregate score remaining goalless, the second leg at Gresty Road went into extra-time. The stakes were high, a game at Wembley against Huddersfield Town, who had beaten Brentford on penalties, with the winners promoted to Division One. Substitute Darren Rowbotham put Crewe ahead in extra-time, but Miller’s scrambled equaliser saw Rovers through on the “away goals” rule. On 28th May 1995, before a crowd of 59,175, the second highest, after the FA Cup-tie at Newcastle in February 1951, to watch a Rovers game, the club made the second Wembley appearance in its history. Behind to an Andy Booth goal, Marcus Stewart’s equaliser just seconds before half-time offered renewed hope. Stewart also hit the bar with a 35-yard shot and Andy Gurney hit his own crossbar while Gareth Taylor missed an open goal, but it was Chris Billy’s diving header which brought Huddersfield Town victory. Rovers were to remain in Division Two for the time being, but in an exciting game, they had performed well. Gurney and Pritchard, in particular, had formed a powerful full-back partnership and Lee Maddison’s £25,000 transfer to Northampton Town therefore came as little surprise. Although initially leading through Andy Tillson’s goal, an early Coca-Cola Cup exit against Port Vale included a goal in each leg from Lee Glover. Likewise, after draws with Oxford United and Bournemouth and four goals against Cambridge United, Rovers were knocked out of the Auto Windscreens Shield in a penalty shoot-out at Leyton Orient, youngster Martin Paul missing the vital kick. The former Rovers defender John Scales was a Coca-Cola Cup winner with Liverpool, while Devon White scored the winning goal at Wembley as Notts County defeated Ascoli 2-1 in the Anglo-Italian Cup Final. Rovers won the Gloucestershire Cup Final for the final time in the club’s history, defeating Bristol City 11-10 on penalties after a goalless draw at Twerton Park. The FA Cup threw up an intriguing tie, with Rovers drawn to play away to their landlords Bath City. Stewart put Rovers ahead after eighteen minutes via a post, after Justin Channing’s shot had hit the crossbar. Bath, who fielded former Rovers players in Vaughan Jones and Gary Smart, had Grantley Dicks sent off for a foul on Pritchard, before Miller scored four goals in twenty-three second-half minutes, registering with a header and shots with both feet. Miller’s goals, emulating those of Carl Saunders three years earlier, gave Rovers a convincing 5-0 victory. Two Stewart goals defeated Leyton Orient and only a John Hartson goal prevented Rovers winning at First Division Luton Town in the third round. The Hatters, with Gary Waddock in midfield against his former club, won the Twerton Park replay through a second-half Dwight Marshall goal.
1995-96
Hopes had been high that Rovers could be successful in 1995-96, but high achievement was not forthcoming. After reaching Wembley through the play-offs, a final league placing of tenth in Division Two was a relative disappointment. A second route to Wembley, the Auto Windscreens Shield, turned abruptly into a cul-de-sac when Rovers, requiring essentially only a draw at home to Shrewsbury Town in order to return to the Twin Towers, inexplicably lost to the Third Division side. More humiliating by far was the FA Cup exit at Hitchin Town, the type of banana-skin all league clubs dread. In addition, local government reorganisation meant the proposed stadium site at Pilning was now in the administrative district of South Gloucestershire and the new councillors were not in favour. As with numerous schemes before it to bring Rovers back home to Bristol, the plan was reluctantly shelved. At the end of an exhausting if demoralising season, John Ward left Rovers for the first time after three years as manager. Under his guidance, the club had won 64 out of 149 league matches, re-established itself in Division Two, played in the Southern Final of the Auto Windscreens Shield and reached a play-off final in May 1995. Within a year of leaving Rovers, Ward was to return to management with Bristol City, leading the Robins to promotion to Division One in 1997-98 and was later assistant manager at Wolverhampton Wanderers. His successor as Rovers manager, in the summer of 1996, was to be a very familiar face and Ian Holloway’s return coincided with Rovers’ reappearance in Bristol. Eight players made a Rovers début in 1995-96, yet only one, Peter Beadle, could claim to be a regular in the side. Josh Low appeared in the team in four consecutive seasons, Jon French and Matt Hayfield in three each, yet none was picked consistently by Ward, nor indeed by Holloway. Three players, of whom Damian Matthew and Steve Morgan had both played top division football, arrived at Twerton Park on loan. Beadle, a £50,000 signing from Watford, joined Rovers in the aftermath of the Hitchin Town débâcle and became the tall target man Rovers had missed since the departures of Devon White and John Taylor. His two goals at Ashton Gate secured a significantly confidence-boosting 2-0 victory over his future club Bristol City in January. Twice in the opening five home league games, Rovers’ opponents found themselves reduced to nine men; only once before had two members of the opposition been sent off in a league game. However, Rovers could only draw 2-2 with Swansea City after Steve Torpey, later of Bristol City, and the former Rovers striker Carl Heggs had both been sent off. Then, with Martin Paul scoring on his first start of the season, Rovers defeated Brentford 2-0, with the visitors having centre-backs Martin Grainger and Jamie Bates sent off. Rovers also suffered an uncharacteristic 4-1 home defeat at the hands of Swindon Town, for whom Kevin Horlock scored a hat-trick. The only other opponent to score a hat-trick at Twerton Park had been Joe Allon on the previous occasion Rovers had conceded four goals in a league match. The Cameroonian international Charlie Ntamark was another recipient of a red card, when Rovers met Walsall in February. On 29th September 1995, Gareth Taylor, with four goals to his name already, was sold to Crystal Palace for a club record £1,600,000. He was replaced in November by the prolific Beadle, who was to score in four consecutive league matches in the spring. Of greater immediacy was Marcus Stewart’s renewed goalscoring form. He scored after only twenty-six seconds of the home game with Hull City and added a goal in eight of nine consecutive games in the spring to compile an impressive seasonal total of 21 league goals to end the year as the highest individual goalscorer in Division Two. It was no surprise when, after a career total of 57 goals in 137 (plus 34 sub) league appearances for Rovers, Stewart joined Huddersfield Town in a £1,200,000 deal at the end of the season. Rovers used their full allocation of substitutes for the first time when they visited Brighton in October. Ian McLean, Martin Paul and Tom White all played their part, but Rovers lost 2-0 after conceding a farcical goal to George Parris after fifty-one minutes. Goalkeeper Andy Collett, who gradually ousted Brian Parkin from his long-held position, had not seen Parris waiting by the goalpost as he shaped to take a goalkick. The Brighton player waited for Collett to ground the ball, tackled him, rounded him and scored a perfectly justifiable goal. At this stage, following an excellent win at Bradford City, Rovers endured a run of seven matches without a win. This ended when Stewart scored twice in a 2-0 victory over Oxford United, which set Rovers off on a club record 23 consecutive league matches in which the side scored. Although there had been 26 consecutive games between March and December 1927, this spell constituted the longest run within a season. There were three games of note in a ten-day patch in mid-February. Rovers celebrated the club’s 3,000th Football League fixture since election to Division Three (South) in 1920 with a 3-1 win at Hull City, Marcus Browning after 63 minutes joining the ubiquitous Beadle and Stewart on the score-sheet. Seven days later Rovers scraped a single-goal victory at home to Rotherham United, even though the visitors, bereft of injured goalkeeper Matthew Clarke, had played the entire second-half with full-back Gary Bowyer in goal. The following Tuesday, Andy Tillson’s first goal for fifteen months was not enough as Rovers lost 3-2 at Wrexham. Some records debit Justin Channing with two own goals and he would certainly be the only Rovers player to have achieved this feat. The first, after twenty-five minutes, resulted from Barry Hunter’s header, which pinballed off both Clark and Channing, while the second, thirty minutes later, was a more clearcut diversion of Peter Ward’s cross. “Two were own goals attributed to.... Channing” (Kevin Fahey, “Rovers’ own goal horror”, Western Daily Press, 21,2.96), “[Rovers] contributed to their downfall by conceding two own goals” (Mark Currie, “Battle of Nerves”, Daily Post, 21.2.96), reported the press. Yet, the national papers, Wrexham FC and the general consensus of opinion awarded the first goal to Hunter. Despite a late flurry of victories, including six 1-0 wins in the New Year, five in a run of seven home matches, Rovers lacked the consistency to challenge seriously for a play-off place. A 4-2 defeat at home to Bristol City proved particularly demoralising and four goals were also conceded at Notts County. Ultimately, all play-off hopes were killed off in a 2-0 defeat at Stockport County where John Jeffers, later to score in the first game at the Memorial Ground, created both goals. The final position, tenth, though commendable, was not enough to hold on to Ward or Stewart. However, the summer of 1996, heralded a new era in the history of Bristol Rovers, the return of the prodigal son Ian Holloway on 13th May as manager, a return to an east Bristol home and the prospect of prosperous days ahead. In the Coca-Cola Cup, a first-minute Stewart goal helped Rovers towards a 4-2 second leg and 5-3 aggregate victory over Gillingham. Stewart completed his hat-trick, while the visitors’ opening goal was scored by Dennis Bailey against his former club. In the second round, a single first-half John Moncur goal gave West Ham United victory at Twerton Park, before three second-half goals at Upton Park saw Rovers eliminated 4-0 on aggregate. Exit from the FA Cup was far more nightmarish. As if being drawn away to Hitchin Town was not enough to strike anticipatory fear into the mind of any Rovers supporter, the ICIS Premier Division side took the lead through a Steve Conroy header after only forty-seven seconds and went further ahead when Lee Burns chipped an outstanding second in the ninth minute. Rovers were able to pull one goal back, through Lee Archer, but it was clearly an afternoon to forget, as Hitchin Town held on for a thoroughly deserved victory. While the former Rovers player John Rudge led the Port Vale team, of which he was manager, to the Anglo-Italian Cup Final at Wembley and a 5-2 defeat at the hands of Genoa, Rovers were themselves only minutes from a third visit to Wembley. Elsewhere, victory over Brighton, Cambridge United and Bournemouth earned Rovers a tough tie at Fulham. The Auto Windscreens Shield had adopted the “Golden Goal” rule, whereby the first goal scored in extra-time would be the winner, and Stewart’s second goal of the night proved just that. His penalty then defeated Peterborough United and Rovers just had to overcome Shrewsbury Town over two legs to reach Wembley. After Damian Matthew’s goal at Gay Meadow, a goalless draw would have taken Rovers through. However, Stewart’s fifty-sixth minute penalty was saved by Paul Edwards and, seventeen minutes from time, Ian Reed crossed for Ian Stevens, who also scored in both League fixtures against Rovers, to notch the goal which killed off Rovers’ hopes.
1996-97
The history of any football club involves a series of crossroads at which the future direction is determined. One of the crucial moments in the history of Bristol Rovers came in the summer of 1996. The ten-year wait for a return to a home base in north Bristol was at a dramatic end. The prodigal son returned to manage his former club. No fewer than fourteen players were to make a Rovers début in 1996-97, while the prolific Marcus Stewart was sold. It was a moment of great anticipation and hope. Bristol Rugby Football Club, operating at the Memorial Ground in Horfield, was running into ever-deeper financial waters. In April 1996 it became a Limited Company but only 278 of its 2,000 founder shareholders invested further. In a desperate situation, the rugby club offered Rovers the opportunity to buy half the ground for £2,300,000. It was the moment Rovers’ dreams of moving back to Bristol came to fruition. The ground, bought by the rugby club in 1921 for £26,000, had seen some development, though much more would be necessary in order to house League Football. The pitch, at 101 x 68 metres, was the smallest in the Football League and there was room for only 740 away supporters on the Centenary Stand Terrace, a figure increased to 1,161 by August 1998. The Centenary Stand, constructed in 1988 and then rebuilt at the constructors’ expense following renewed fire safety regulations in the wake of the Bradford fire, represented merely a first step in the redevelopment of the stadium. The Cambridge United website “Moosenet”, in reference to The Mem, announced “its quaint architecture unique in that it boasts one stand that would look more at home at Newmarket racecourse [and] one temporary effort … more suited to polo”. Ever since, discussions have raged as to Rovers’ next step, with stadia in various locations being mooted down the years. As discussions mounted with regard to stadia to host the 2012 London Olympics, one John Hart of Sunderland wrote a letter to The Observer criticising “building a new national stadium for a couple of thousand Bristol Rovers fans and some rugby-loving farmers out of geographical tokenism” (The Observer, 25.2.07, Sports letters, page 20). John Ward’s successor as Rovers manager in May 1996 was a hugely popular choice. Ian Holloway epitomised the spirit of the club. A local player, returning for a third spell with a club with which he had experienced triumph and despair, Holloway now brought his vast resources of enthusiasm and commitment into his first management job. The inevitable sale of Marcus Stewart, who joined Huddersfield Town in a £1,200,000 deal, injected much-needed cash into the club and was to generate a further £260,000 when the player moved on to Ipswich Town in February 2000. Of Holloway’s recruits, the greatest impact was made by Jamie Cureton, a Bristol-born striker who arrived from Norwich City and soon acquired the knack of scoring Second Division hat-tricks. Transfer fees apart, Rovers were able to announce a turnover of £1,374,000 for the 1996-97 season. Over the summer, a once prolific Rovers goalscorer, Vic Lambden, died in Bristol. Lambden had served his only league club with distinction, scoring on his début in the first post-war game in 1946 and remaining an integral part of the side until 1955. Latterly a very successful foil for the indispensable Geoff Bradford, who predeceased him by eighteen months, Lambden scored 117 goals in 269 league matches before spending six free-scoring seasons in Western League football with Trowbridge Town. He remains the fourth highest goalscorer in the club’s history. The opening game of the season, billed as the first game back in Bristol, proved instead to be the last one in Bath, with Andy Gurney’s eleventh-minute strike earning all three points. Peterborough United, in this game, fielded one former Rovers defender in Aidy Boothroyd and future strikers in Giuliano Grazioli, who signed for Ray Graydon’s Rovers in the close season of 2002, and Scott McGleish who joined Rovers in the summer of 2011. This game marked the first appearance, as Keith Valle’s successor, of long-term match-day announcer Nick Day. The long-awaited return to Bristol took place a fortnight later, when Stockport County were the visitors. Although Lee Archer’s goal put Rovers ahead after twelve minutes, an equaliser seventeen minutes from time by John Jeffers ensured that, as in the final Eastville game a decade earlier, the match finished 1-1. The first victory in a home match in Bristol since April 1986 was to follow, as Rovers clawed back a half-time deficit to defeat Bournemouth 3-2. With new-signing Cureton scoring twice against Chesterfield on his home début and following this up with further strikes, Rovers moved slowly up the table. In early October, a 2-0 home victory over second-placed Crewe Alexandra, with long-range second-half goals from Cureton and Gurney, put Rovers into ninth place, which was to be their highest placing of the season. The fact that the side recorded just two wins in the following seventeen league games explains why Holloway’s first season in charge brought no immediate success. In one of these games, captain Andy Tillson was booked after only twenty seconds for a foul on Richard Cresswell, from which Nigel Pepper put York City ahead from the penalty-spot. One of these two victories, however, followed Marcus Browning’s goal two minutes after half-time in farcical circumstances, when Brentford goalkeeper Kevin Dearden reacted to a phantom whistler in the crowd, while the other was an extraordinary 4-3 success at home to Bury in November. Peter Beadle scored a nine-minute hat-trick shortly before half-time, only for Bury to pull back two goals in first-half injury-time. Billy Clark’s only goal of the season, just seconds after the interval, was the sixth goal inside sixteen minutes. Bury were Second Division champions this season, this defeat being the only league game in which the Shakers conceded four goals. Yet, three days later Rovers lost tamely to a Walsall side inspired by Sierra Leone international John Keister. Rovers also squandered a 3-1 lead at home to Wycombe Wanderers. The visitors’ players had been told by manager John Gregory, prior to the game, that they faced a fine for any shots from outside the penalty area, but three long-range goals steered them to a 4-3 win. On 19th October 1996, for the first time, Rovers and the rugby club played home matches on the same day. At 3pm, Rovers took on Blackpool, with a crowd of 5,823 witnessing a goalless draw. With the posts hastily changed, Bristol RFC were able to kick-off at 7.30pm, in a European Conference Group B game which was lost 18-16 to Narbonne, before a crowd of 2,000. In the early days, the longer grass required for the fifteen-a-side game drew some criticism from opposition managers, but six sides, including relegated Rotherham United, recorded league wins at the Memorial Ground. The new £2,000,000 West Stand, which increased the ground capacity to 9,173, was opened prior to Bristol’s game with Auckland Blues in February and reopened forty-eight hours later before an extraordinary game with Luton Town. Tony Thorpe, later a Bristol City player, was fouled after ten minutes by Tom White and converted the penalty himself. Midway through the first-half, seconds after Paul Miller’s equaliser for Rovers, the Bulgarian international Bontcho Guentchev, who had played as a substitute against Italy in a 1994 World Cup semi-final in New York, was sent off for a foul on David Pritchard. Andy Tillson and Ian Holloway gave Rovers a commanding lead, before Gary Waddock pulled a goal back against his former club ten minutes from time. There were some excellent Rovers performances, giving optimism for the task ahead. In particular, Rovers played astonishingly well to hold table-topping Brentford to a goalless draw in a hugely entertaining match at Griffin Park in January. However, when Rovers lost at Watford that March, a Watford website commented that the Pirates “appear to be cack on a scale that only people who bought the St Winifred’s School Choir single can really comprehend” (Ian Grant). Yet, there were also unsavoury moments, such as the crowd disturbances at the derby match in December, with pictures being broadcast live on Sky Sports. With Rob Edwards sent off, ten-man City appeared to be holding on for a single-goal victory until Beadle’s last-minute equaliser sparked a confrontation between rival supporters on the pitch. It was generally appreciated that the action of Rovers fans had been predominantly celebratory, but Bristol City, for the lack of adequate crowd control, were handed a suspended two-point deduction. If the Ashton Gate crowd of 18,674 was more than double any other attendance all season at a Rovers game, the 8,078 for the return fixture constituted an embryonic football record at the Memorial Ground. Sadly, Rovers were two goals down to Bristol City before Julian Alsop scored with nine minutes remaining, Beadle becoming the first player to miss a penalty in a Bristol league derby and hovered one place above the relegation zone. Consecutive victories over Preston North End, Peterborough United and Wrexham averted the danger and enabled Holloway to look to the future, with Tom White, Frankie Bennett, Josh Low and Lee Zabek making appearances. In an unsettled side, Holloway himself was the only player to start both the first and last games of a disappointing season. While Beadle and Cureton scored twelve and eleven league goals respectively, the final league placing of seventeenth owed much to the lack of goalscoring support. After his heroics of 1995-96, Miller scored just twice, as did regular midfielders Skinner, Archer and Marcus Browning. At Luton Town in November, where Rovers lost to a last-minute Tony Thorpe penalty, Jason Harris, on loan from Crystal Palace, became only the fourth Rovers player to score a début goal as a substitute. He scored past Ian Feuer, Luton’s American-born goalkeeper who, at six foot seven inches, emulated Kevin Francis in 1993-94 as the tallest opponent at that time to face Rovers in League Football. Rio Ferdinand played in the Bournemouth side on Boxing Day at the start of a long career in top-flight and international football. A first round exit from the Coca-Cola Cup at the hands of Luton Town, for whom David Oldfield scored in both legs, mirrored Rovers’ early departure from the Auto Windscreens Shield, beaten at home by Brentford. Likewise, the FA Cup brought scant consolation for Rovers, who lost at home to Third Division strugglers Exeter City, who had scored twice in the second-half before the Rovers substitute Steve Parmenter pulled a goal back in the dying seconds. The former Rovers defender Darren Carr was in the Second Division Chesterfield side which led 2-0 before losing in a replay in an FA Cup semi-final against Middlesbrough. Two years after the penultimate game, the 99th and last Gloucestershire Cup Final was decided in August in Bristol City’s favour by substitute Shaun Goater’s second-half goal.
1997-98
Rovers’ second season back in Bristol saw the side qualify comfortably for the play-offs, but not regain First Division status. In an eventful year, Rovers scored 70 league goals, a figure the club had not exceeded since the championship season of 1989-90 and higher than that scored by any other club in the division, and were involved in several high-scoring matches. Ultimately, the reward of a visit to Wembley for Ian Holloway’s side came within reach before disappearing entirely in an uncharacteristic display in the play-off second leg at Northampton Town. The vastly experienced Billy Clark moved to Exeter City and Paul Miller, after only two league goals in a disappointing 1996-97 season, joined Lincoln City, whom he helped to promotion from Division Three. With the enforced retirement of Lee Martin and Lee Archer’s belated transfer to Yeovil Town, Holloway needed to strengthen the side prior to the new season. This was achieved primarily on 20th May 1997, when the club spent £150,000 on Woking Town’s Steve Foster and £200,000 on Barry Hayles from Stevenage Borough. Rovers had purchased two of the most talented players on the non-league circuit. Hayles’ control, strength and powerful running were a key factor in the club’s success and he scored 23 goals in his first season. Foster brought a calm authority to the defence, where he ably replaced Clark alongside club captain Andy Tillson. Holloway also recruited the combative and highly experienced Cardiff City full-back and captain Jason Perry on a free transfer. On the opening day of the season Graeme Power dislocated his shoulder during the 1-1 draw with Plymouth Argyle at the Memorial Ground, and was out of first-team football for six months. This was the start of a season’s toils to fill the troublesome left-back position. Rovers fielded seven different players in the apparently jinxed number three shirt during the season, including Luke Basford, who made his début in a disastrous 4-0 home defeat against Grimsby Town just weeks before his seventeenth birthday. In a bizarre way, Power’s unfortunate injury reflected that of Jack Stockley, also against Plymouth Argyle on the opening day of the season, who had been out of the game for eight months some 76 years earlier. Rovers were involved in a number of high-scoring games. In September, they were 3-0 down at Oldham Athletic after twenty-four minutes, Stuart Barlow scoring twice, before Peter Beadle scored a couple of goals in three minutes and created an equaliser for Barry Hayles on the stroke of half-time. After such an outstanding first-half, Oldham’s fourth goal was cancelled out by Jamie Cureton’s penalty three minutes from time, after handball by Scott McNiven, for a 4-4 draw. There were also six first-half goals when Rovers won 4-2 at Luton Town in December and, eight days later, Rovers again scored four goals before half-time in beating Bournemouth 5-3. Beadle, who completed a first-half hat-trick in this game with a fine thirty-yard shot, also scored three goals in eleven minutes when Rovers defeated Wigan Athletic 5-0 in April. Bournemouth’s Steve Robinson became only the fourth opponent to score a penalty in both league games against Rovers, one in the 5-3 defeat and one in a 1-1 draw at Dean Court in September preceded by a two-minute silence in memory of Diana, Princess of Wales, who had died in Paris two days earlier. Sendings-off proved to be a talking-point of the season. Millwall’s Brian Law was sent off in both league games against Rovers and the Lions had players dismissed in both fixtures in 1998-99. Basford, at seventeen years 87 days, became the youngest Rovers player to receive a red card in a league game, late in the 1-1 draw with Gillingham, who had taken the lead through Iffy Onuora after only thirty-eight seconds. However, nothing could prepare Rovers for the five red cards issued on a frosty evening in Wigan in December by referee Kevin Lynch. David Pritchard received a second yellow card only seconds before half-time and was promptly joined by Jason Perry, Andy Tillson and Wigan’s Graeme Jones for alleged pushing while the resultant free-kick was about to be taken. These decisions were viewed by many as harsh, as was Josh Low’s second-half dismissal for a second booking, in a game generally considered fair and clean. Nonetheless, seven-man Rovers, only the second league club to suffer this fate, after Hereford United in November 1992, made the headlines for all the wrong reasons. Gary Penrice, back in the side after a popular summer transfer from Watford, became the only Rovers player to have scored a league goal on all four of the club’s home grounds. His goal in a 3-1 victory over Carlisle United in August was his first for the club since October 1989, a gap between Rovers goals only exceeded by Ray Warren and Wally McArthur. Amongst the good wins were some poorer results. Ian Stevens, for instance, whose goal in 1996 had deprived Rovers of a trip to Wembley, scored a hat-trick when Carlisle United gained revenge by beating Rovers 3-1 at Brunton Park in January, while Carl Heggs played well against his former club in March, a foul on him by David Pritchard leading to the second goal in Northampton Town’s 2-0 victory. As Rovers moved towards the play-offs, David Whyte arrived on loan and Lee Jones, destined for many games in Rovers’ goal, joined as cover for Andy Collett. In addition to his consistent goalscoring, Hayles missed just one league game, the demoralising 2-0 local derby defeat at Ashton Gate before the highest crowd, 17,086, to watch Rovers in league action all season. It was a fifth consecutive league defeat for Rovers. No Rovers player appeared in as many games this season as Hayles. Cureton scored in five consecutive league matches early in the New Year and he and Beadle both scored highly respectable seasonal goal totals. Ultimately, Rovers needed to win at home to Brentford on the final day to relegate their opponents and secure a play-off place. These targets were achieved, even though Penrice was sent off early in the match and despite the fact that Cureton broke a leg late on. Amid great tension, the reliable figure of Barry Hayles scored a winning goal six minutes from time in front of a record ground attendance at the Memorial Stadium. Even more spectators, 9,173, who produced record takings of £74,952, saw Beadle and Frankie Bennett give Rovers a two-goal lead inside thirty-seven minutes of the play-off semi-final second leg. When Hayles added a third just seconds after half-time, Wembley beckoned but, crucially, Northampton Town grabbed a late John Gayle goal. In the second leg, Rovers’ dreams fell apart as the Cobblers scored three times, the first by Carl Heggs, for a 4-3 aggregate win. After a goalless draw at Ashton Gate, Rovers crashed out of the Coca-Cola Cup to Junior Bent’s extra-time winner for Bristol City at the Memorial Stadium. Victories over Cambridge United and Exeter City counted for nothing as Walsall’s French striker Roger Zokou Boli scored a “Golden Goal” just seconds into extra-time to knock Rovers out of the Auto Windscreens Shield at the quarter-final stage. In the absence of the now defunct Gloucestershire Cup, Rovers fielded a reserve team in the county Senior Challenge Cup, a tournament dating back to 1936, beating Mangotsfield United but losing 6-0 to Bristol City reserves in a semi-final in which Colin Cramb scored all the goals. In the FA Cup, Rovers required an eighty-seventh minute equaliser at home to Gillingham before winning the replay comfortably in Kent. Having to travel to Wisbech Town in round two brought back uncomfortable memories of Hitchin Town in 1995. However, Rovers were better prepared and won professionally through goals from Beadle, seven minutes after half-time, and Hayles, eleven minutes from the end, against a side fielding a thirty-nine-year-old in Jackie Gallagher. The third round draw paired Rovers with Ipswich Town, who fielded the popular former Rovers midfielder, Geraint Williams. Rovers might have beaten their First Division opponents in a gale and hailstorm at the Memorial Stadium, leading from Beadle’s thirty-sixth minute goal, but Mick Stockwell grabbed a deserved equaliser nineteen minutes from time. David Johnson’s low shot three minutes before half-time in the replay at Portman Road ended Rovers’ FA Cup aspirations for another year. The former Rovers chairman Herbert Brown (1908-97) died in October and the National Football Programme Directory voted Rovers’ match-day magazine as the best in Division Two. As an eventful season drew to a close, dramatic developments ended Rovers’ fifty-eight year wait for a home of their own. Their hosts at the Memorial Ground, Bristol Rugby Club, had forged a deal early in January 1998 to sell the ground to the parcel carrier firm Amtrak for just over £1,000,000, a good deal less than the £2,200,000 at which it had been valued in 1996. Rovers would continue to pay an annual rent of £90,000. Then, when the buyers withdrew their offer, the rugby club was placed in receivership on 17th April 1998 and Rovers invoked a buyout clause which enabled the twelve-acre ground to be bought up for £100,000. A newly-formed Memorial Stadium Company made the purchase in the names of both clubs but, since Geoff Dunford was chairman of the new organisation, it was abundantly clear Rovers held the upper hand. While it was obvious that considerable work would be required on improvements to floodlighting and cover, as well as seating at the South End, both clubs were quick to point out their future could lie elsewhere. Plans for a multi-sport stadium near Pilning were rejected at the end of April by landowners ICI, with developers valuing the newly renamed Memorial Stadium at £6,000,000. Shortly before these momentous events, Eastville Stadium, Rovers’ home between 1897 and 1986, finally closed. The last greyhound meeting on October 27th 1997, where entry fees were sentimentally waived, signalled the end of the road for a ground so integral to the club’s history. Eastville was “now sadly obliterated by a sprawling furniture store [replacing] the smell of gasholders which loomed, grimly but somehow hospitably” (Ivan Ponting, The Independent, 7.5.12). The arrival on site in March 1999 of furniture giants Ikea did, however, have one saving grace, for the Swedish firm often uses a tall local landmark to advertise its store and a solitary floodlight was left standing as a poignant reminder of the good and bad memories the old stadium would forever hold.
1998-99
A side which promised much, lacked consistency and, after hovering a little lower in the table, finished in thirteenth place in Division Two. Rovers were without Jason Perry and Graeme Power, who had moved to Lincoln City and Exeter City respectively, and Tom Ramasut, who joined several clubs on trial before signing in November 1998 for Merthyr Tydfil. On the eve of the new season, Peter Beadle made a surprise £300,000 move to John Rudge’s Port Vale, while November saw Fulham pay Rovers £2,000,000, a record fee received, for Barry Hayles. This income helped outweigh an operating loss of £664,791 in the year to June 1999 and leave Rovers with a £1,014,784 profit. Nonetheless, supporters were left to wonder where the side would find sufficient goalpower. They need not have worried. At one stage over New Year, Rovers scored twelve goals in three games. Jamie Cureton, whose three league hat-tricks were all registered away from home, scored 25 goals in the league and Jason Roberts, a Grenada international who overcame the tag of being a “replacement” for Hayles, added 16, in addition to a record-breaking seven in the FA Cup. Rovers also made a large number of other summer signings, notably Marcus Andreasson from Swedish football and Cameroonian Guy Ipoua from Spain. Ipoua, whose elder brother Samuel had played for Cameroon in the 1998 World Cup Finals, contributed just three league goals, plus the only goal when Rovers unveiled Mangotsfield United’s Cossham Street floodlights in March. Frenchman Stéphane Léoni, Trevor Challis, Rob Trees, Jamie Shore and Michael Meaker all made significant contributions, as did mid-season signings David Hillier, a league championship winner with Arsenal, and seventeen-year-old striker Nathan Ellington, the Surrey county high-jump champion. After conceding a second-minute goal to Andy Payton in the opening day defeat at Burnley, Rovers overcame Reading 4-1, Meaker scoring against his former club and Cureton converting one of two penalties. Controversy struck at Gillingham, where both sides were reduced to nine men. Goalkeeper Lee Jones was sent off with Challis and the home side’s Barry Ashby and Adrian Pennock as referee Matt Messias of York dealt with a 21-man injury-time flare-up. Mark Smith made his début in that game and, astonishingly, Rovers were reduced to nine men in each of his first three league appearances. Roberts and Trees were sent off as Rovers held on for a 1-0 home victory over Bournemouth in October, followed seven days later by Meaker and Challis in defeat at Northampton Town, for whom Carl Heggs was again on the score-sheet. Lee Thorpe,a future Rovers striker, was in Lincoln City’s side against Rovers that September. By Christmas, Rovers lay seventeenth in the table, with just five home wins to their name. A first away win should have been forthcoming at Wycombe, where Wanderers brought on a last-minute substitute, Dannie Bulman, for his league début and the nineteen-year-old scored an equaliser after being on the field for just twenty-six seconds. He was to score the goal in May 2001 which consigned Rovers to basement division football for the first time in the club’s history. A single-goal defeat at champions-elect Fulham saw Rovers face the former England international, Peter Beardsley, who had previously faced the Pirates a club record sixteen years 232 days earlier, while on the books of Carlisle United. It was not until 28th December that Rovers recorded the first of their five away league victories. Home form could be suspect, too. Three second-half goals saw off struggling Lincoln City, but Macclesfield Town drew 0-0 at the Memorial Stadium in the sides’ first ever meeting, yet were to lose nine of their next ten league matches. David Gregory, who had scored for both sides in a chaotic first-half against Stoke City seven days earlier, earned Colchester United a share of the points with a last-minute penalty. Rovers also threw away a two-goal half-time lead for a 2-2 draw with Preston North End, who were becoming, after Notts County, only the second club to appear in 4,000 league games. Strangely, an identical score-line in the return game at Deepdale meant Preston were the first league club to draw 1,000 league matches. Both Walsall and Burnley won 4-3 at the Memorial Stadium. Rovers led Walsall 2-0 after only four minutes through Cureton and Hayles, but were pegged back by half-time, Mark Smith conceding an own goal. Andy Rammell and the Icelandic midfielder Bjarni Lárusson both scored in the last ten minutes with Rovers a man short after Trees had been stretchered off. Burnley, on the other hand, took the lead four times, with all three Rovers equalisers arriving before half-time. It was only the tenth time in the club’s league history that as many as six goals had been scored in the first-half of a league game involving Rovers. In December, Rovers drew 0-0 at Maine Road before a crowd of 24,976 in the first league meeting with Manchester City. This was followed by the first away victories of the season, a convincing 3-0 win against Colchester United and apowerful 6-0 success at Reading. Rovers also dominated Stoke City to record a memorable 4-1 victory at the Staffordshire side’s newly christened Britannia Stadium and came from behind for wins at Blackpool and Macclesfield Town. With Roberts scoring freely in the FA Cup, Cureton, the side’s only ever-present, hit a rich vein of goals in the New Year. He hit four second-half goals at Reading and a hat-trick after half-time at Walsall who, under manager Ray Graydon, a former Rovers player, had led 2-0 and were heading for promotion to Division One. On the final day of the season, his third hat-trick of the season brought Rovers a win at Macclesfield Town, where they had trailed 3-1 just two minutes after half-time. The most incredible result was, undeniably, the victory over Reading in the new Madejski Stadium. Eighth-placed Reading had just beaten Wrexham 4-0 and gave a début to the former Rovers player Andy Gurney. A crowd of 13,258 saw a goalless first-half before Rovers scored six times without reply in the space of forty-one minutes for their largest away win since December 1973. The irrepressible Cureton scored the first four in twenty-one minutes, only the eleventh occasion that a Rovers player had scored as many in a league match, while Roberts added two goals in the final couple of minutes. Rovers had scored ten goals in the season against Reading, a figure only previously achieved against Doncaster Rovers in 1956-57, while Cureton’s penalty, his second goal, made him the sixth Rovers player since 1920 to score from the penalty-spot in both fixtures against the same opposition. Lior David, a nephew of the celebrated paranormalist Uri Geller, scored twice as a substitute for Swansea City reserves, as they defeated Rovers reserves 4-2 in a South West Trophy game in September. Rovers’ reserves gave trials that month to the Nigerian international Ben Iroha, who later joined Watford, and Icelandic U21 goalkeeper Ólafur Gunnarsson, though neither made the first-team. The reserves also lost to a goal in each half at Forest Green Rovers in the Gloucestershire Senior Challenge Cup. Rovers’ match-day programme was nominated the best in the division by Programme Monthly magazine and in the League Programme of the Year survey commissioned by the Wirral Programme Club. The former club director Hampden Alpass, a one-time Gloucestershire cricketer, died on 16th March 1999 at the age of 92. Rovers’ FA Cup exploits more than made up for early exits from the Worthington Cup, to an extra-time goal for Third Division Leyton Orient from substitute Mark Warren, and the Auto Windscreens Shield, where Rovers threw away a two-goal lead at Walsall before losing in a penalty shoot-out. The FA Cup was an altogether more successful competition from a Rovers perspective. A second-half Roberts hat-trick saw off the challenge of non-league Welling United and Rovers twice equalised at Exeter City before demolishing the Grecians 5-0 in a one-sided replay. Three goals in ten second-half minutes, two by Shore, set up a comfortable victory with Roberts scoring the fifth, a goal his supreme performance merited. Léoni’s first goal for the club, after a swift interchange of passes with Roberts on the stroke of half-time, brought victory in a potentially awkward third round tie at Rotherham United. As the FA Cup campaign gathered pace, so did expectations. Matt Lockwood was in the Leyton Orient side Rovers were expected to brush aside in the fourth round. Revenge was gained for the Worthington Cup defeat, but it was a real struggle before a capacity crowd and it was only after Roberts broke the deadlock with fourteen minutes remaining that Rovers visibly relaxed to run out 3-0 victors. Of all the possible fifth round opponents, Barnsley might have offered Rovers the easiest passage to a third quarter-final, but Craig Hignett scored a sparkling hat-trick and Rovers crashed to a 4-1 defeat. Roberts’ consolation goal, seven minutes from time, made him the overall top scorer in the 1998-99 tournament, the first Bristol Rovers player ever to achieve this feat. No Rovers player had scored as many FA Cup goals in a season since Jack Jones in 1901-02.
1999-2000
It was a very bitter pill to swallow but, at the close of an eventful, topsy-turvy season, Rovers let a clear opportunity of promotion slip, sank through the play-off places and finished seventh in Division Two. Ultimately, a late run of only six points out of a possible thirty was to undo all the positive early-season form. Yet the side bore great similarity to that of 1998-99. Despite Guy Ipoua joining Scunthorpe United, Ian Holloway retiring from playing to focus on management and Jamie Shore out all season to undergo pioneering knee surgery, Rovers’ side retained a familiar appearance. Four international players were welcome additions to the side, while promising youngsters Bobby Zamora and Simon Bryant, the latter being the club’s youngest post-war débutant, broke into the team. The Latvian international captain, Vitalijs Astafjevs, and former England midfielder Mark Walters were to prove inspirational mid-season purchases. Nigel Pierre, a Trinidadian striker, showed promise until his application for a work permit was rejected on the grounds that Jack Warner, who owned his former club, had tried to bribe governmental officials in return for the promise of his vote for England’s bid to host the 2006 World Cup. Early in the season, Ronnie Maugé proved to have been an astute signing, but the experienced midfielder broke a leg playing in a Gold Cup match for Trinidad and Tobago against Mexico in February and his absence precipitated Rovers’ late-season demise. Early season success engendered great optimism in north-east Bristol. A pre-season testimonial for Lee Martin drew a ground record of 10,534 to the Memorial Stadium to see Rovers draw 2-2 with European champions Manchester United, with David Beckham and Paul Scholes in midfield, after falling behind to an Ole Gunnar Solskjaer strike. The best opening-day crowd since 1974, 8,514, watched Rovers’ 800th league draw, a match in which Brentford, whose central defender Hermann Hreiðarsson was sent off for a “professional foul” two minutes from time, set a club record of seventeen league matches unbeaten. Danny Boxall, who was to sign for Rovers in the summer of 2002, was in the Bees’ side, alongside Ijah Anderson and Rob Quinn. On Boxing Day after a lunchtime kick-off, Rovers’ sixth consecutive victory was watched by the first five-figure crowd at a home league game for fourteen years. The highest of four such attendances was the 11,109 to witness the draw with Wigan Athletic in March. Amid such optimism, a £100,000 roof at the Blackthorn End, formerly the clubhouse terrace, was opened prior to a convincing 3-0 victory over Luton Town in November, after man-of-the-match Andy Thomson and Walters, with a glorious free-kick, had put Rovers two goals ahead after only nineteen minutes. There was a player sent off in each of the first six league games to add to one at Macclesfield Town on the final day of 1998-99. Ronnie Maugé after twenty minutes at Priestfield, the third consecutive season a Rovers player was sent off at Gillingham, and Trevor Challis against Burnley were dismissed in August, but Rovers received no further red cards. By contrast, no fewer than ten opponents were sent off. Slowly but surely, Rovers climbed the table, with Jason Roberts scoring freely and victory at Notts County left the side top of Division Two through much of October. Surviving a stutter in late autumn, a run of six straight victories, Walters’ first six appearances for the club, left Rovers positively placed at the turn of the millennium. The side had kept seven clean sheets in the first ten away league fixtures. After Jamie Cureton had scored the club’s first goal of the New Year, Rovers’ tightly-knit defence with Thomson, Steve Foster and captain Andy Tillson prominent, fell apart in an extraordinary game at Layer Road. A goal up after eleven minutes, when Roberts took five attempts to force the ball over the line, Rovers conceded an equaliser to Colchester United before half-time. When Titus Bramble, on loan from Ipswich Town, fouled David Pritchard, this injury effectively ending the pugnacious full-back’s career, Cureton’s fifty-seventh minute penalty put Rovers 3-1 up. Seven minutes later, Cureton could have sent Rovers into a 4-2 lead, but missed from a second penalty. Instead, Karl Duguid scored twice in three minutes, only for substitute Nathan Ellington to equalise for Rovers when Robbie Pethick’s cross rebounded off the crossbar with four minutes remaining. In the dying moments, home substitute Lomana Trésor Lua-Lua, a Zairian striker who had scored Colchester’s consolation goal in Horfield earlier in the season, burst through the Rovers defence for a dramatic winning goal. In the league, Rovers played just twice away from home during January, but both games produced great excitement. The 5-4 defeat at Layer Road was followed by a 5-0 win at Oxford United as Rovers echoed the Madejski Stadium performance of twelve months earlier. Cureton scored either side of half-time and, after Pethick and Ellington had scored in the space of sixty seconds, he completed another away hat-trick ten minutes from time. Pethick’s first goal for the club matched the achievement of Challis against Wigan Athletic and that of Rob Trees when Rovers defeated Wrexham in January to return to the top of Division Two. Perhaps more unexpected was David Pritchard’s winning goal at Chesterfield in November, where he became bizarrely the first Rovers midfielder to score all season. The unlikely sight of this first Football League goal from Pritchard led nineteen-year-old Ben Davies to honour a promise to walk home from Saltergate, being accompanied on his 154-mile walk by Ralph and Sue Ellis, Mike Bullock, Paul Thomas and John Spilsbury. This charity walk, which raised £3255.70 for MacMillan Cancer Research and the Supporters’ Club “Raise the Roof” fund, reached the Memorial Stadium in time for the return fixture in which Chesterfield, with Steve Blatherwick sent off, were comfortably defeated to leave Rovers in late March seven points inside the promotion places and fourteen points inside the play-off places. Rovers were playing devastatingly well. Consecutive 4-1 victories at Luton Town and Oldham Athletic merely illustrated the power of the side, Cureton and Roberts scoring twice each after Luton had scored inside a quarter of an hour. Rovers’ first win at Boundary Park since December 1974 was a foregone conclusion once two Cureton goals and one for Astafjevs had put the side 3-0 up after only eleven minutes, although the Latvian was stretchered off before half-time. Later, Rovers were to record a highly committed and hugely impressive first derby win at the Memorial Stadium. This followed a goalless draw in October at Ashton Gate, where Bristol City fielded the Hungarian Vilmos Sebők as substitute, just twenty-four hours after the death of Bill Dodgin, a pre-war Rovers player and successful club manager from December 1969 to July 1972. From being so ensconced in the promotion places, Rovers’ fall from grace was dramatic. Even the final home programme of the season contained messages of hope that Rovers could avoid the play-offs, by gaining automatic promotion, but few thought they could do so by slipping up so severely. Lowly Reading achieved a league double over Rovers, who also lost at relegated Blackpool and Cardiff City. John Macken’s forty-first minute goal, after Paul McKenna had hit a post, enabled Preston to win at the Memorial Stadium. Had Rovers defeated the champions-elect, they would have retained their fate in their own hands with just four games to play. With only already-relegated Cardiff City to play, Rovers still stood in a play-off position, requiring just a victory. A win at Reading on 22nd March would have put Rovers top of Division Two; defeat to Scott Young’s twenty-seventh minute header from Mark Bonner’s right-wing corner at Ninian Park left them two points adrift of the play-off places. Cureton, the club’s only ever-present, had scored 22 league goals, to finish the season as joint top-scorer with Roberts. Whilst there had been injuries, with Shore out all season and Maugé and Pritchard missing the run-in, Rovers’ sharp decline was inexplicable. Half of the twelve league defeats all season came in those fateful final ten games, in which Rovers won just once, a morale-boosting Easter Saturday victory over a Bristol City side which included the Moldovan international Ivan Testimetanu. Only eleven games were drawn in Division Two all season, the most exciting being the home fixture with Stoke City in April. A goal down after ten minutes, Rovers twice led only to draw 3-3, with the visitors’ Peter Thorne completing a well-taken hat-trick. It was the first hat-trick conceded in the league by Rovers since February 1994 and the sixth occasion an opponent had scored three times and not ended up on the winning side. Sadly, two spectators raced onto the pitch in an attempt to attack the visiting goalkeeper Gavin Ward and were rightly arrested and subsequently banned by the club. This incident led to an FA enquiry, held on 30th June, at which Rovers were found guilty of failing to control their supporters and given a suspended sentence of one docked league point and a £10,000 fine. This punishment would only be imposed if a similar offence were to occur within twelve months. After Roberts had seen off Luton Town, Rovers were knocked out of the Worthington Cup by Birmingham City. Likewise a slick Preston North End side put paid to hopes of a repeat of the 1998-99 FA Cup success. On-loan midfielder Shaun Byrne scored the winning penalty, after Brian Parkin, in his first start for almost exactly four years, had saved one in a penalty shoot-out following a goalless draw at Northampton Town in the Auto Windscreens Shield. Rovers went out tamely at home to Reading in the next round. In the Gloucestershire Senior Challenge Cup, a Rovers reserves side lost to Bristol City reserves, Simon Clist scoring ten minutes from the end of extra-time. The former Rovers goalkeeper Nigel Martyn was in the Leeds United side which reached the UEFA Cup semi-finals. Meanwhile, Rovers’ match-day magazine was voted Division Two programme of the year by the National Programme Directory for the second time in three years. Despite turnover at the stadium rising from £1.79 million to £2.32 million, Rovers reported an overall loss of £885,531 on the year to 30th June 2000, largely through spiralling operating costs and wages. The Memorial Stadium hosted an England Under 15 international against Holland in March. Before a crowd of 5,344, Blackburn Rovers’ Andy Bell headed the winning goal shortly before half-time for an England side boasting Bristol Rovers’ full-back Neil Arndale. In May, Sue Smith of Tranmere Rovers scored ten minutes after half-time to give England a 1-0 victory over Switzerland at the Memorial Stadium, before a crowd of 2,587, in a qualifying game for the women’s Euro 2001 tournament. Twenty-four hours later, on the same ground, 7,775 spectators watched Leicester defeat Bristol 30-23 to secure rugby union’s Allied Dunbar League championship.
2000's
2000-01
A season which opened with great optimism ended in tears on a Wednesday night in May, as Rovers slipped into the basement division for the first time ever. Relegation ended Rovers’ proud record of being the only club never to have played in either the top or the bottom division of the Football League. Requiring at least a point at home to Wycombe Wanderers, Rovers conceded a seventy-third-minute deflected shot from the future Rovers defender Danny Senda and a spectacular volley from Dannie Bulman five minutes later. A spirited revival, kickstarted by a goal from substitute Kevin Gall, did not produce the late equaliser Rovers needed to keep their hopes alive. Only six minutes into the season, at a warm, sunny Memorial Stadium, Jamie Cureton was fouled by Bournemouth’s Stevland Angus and stroked home the resultant penalty past French goalkeeper Mickaël Ménétrier to give Rovers an early lead. Rovers were unbeaten in their opening twelve league and cup games and recorded comprehensive victories at Brentford and at second-in-the-table Cambridge United. However, the warning signs were already there and Rovers, in particular, had not yet won at home. Jason Roberts had commanded a club record fee of £2,000,000 to move to West Bromwich Albion, but the sales of influential defender Andy Tillson for just £10,000 to early leaders Walsall whom he captained to promotion via the play-offs and, after the opening game, of Cureton to Reading were regarded by supporters with disbelief. Rovers had sold four forwards, in Roberts, Cureton, Bobby Zamora and Lee Zabek for a profit of just over two million pounds. Zamora was to be the top scorer in all four divisions, as Brighton were Third Division champions, while Cureton and Roberts scored thirty and sixteen times respectively. In their place, Nathan Ellington was top scorer but was never able to count on a reliable attacking partner, Vitalijs Astafjevs’ five goals rendering him an unlikely second highest scorer for the season. Rovers failed to score in nineteen of their forty-six league fixtures. Moreover, new signing Martin Cameron was ruled out for much of the season following an ankle injury sustained in the closing minutes of the large victory at Griffin Park, while new club captain Andy Thomson broke his foot in September. Nick Culkin, a season-long loan signing, one of seven loan players, was an inspirational goalkeeper, his fifty-sixth-minute penalty save from Richard Hughes being a pivotal moment in paving the way to a morale-boosting victory at Bournemouth in February, while Player of the Year Steve Foster also missed few games. Beyond these two, however, few players could lay claim to a regular place in the side, although Astafjevs and Ellington appeared often alongside the new generation of Rovers players in Simon Bryant and Lewis Hogg, The club’s Young Player of the Year, Hogg made his league début as an opening day substitute and scored his first two goals at Brentford. New signings Che Wilson and Scott Jones, alongside Marcus Bignot early in the season, were also pivotal figures, but Rovers used a seasonal total of thirty-five players. The long unbeaten run ended at second-placed Bury in October, where the home side recorded their 1,500th league win. Bury’s goalkeeper Paddy Kenny was booked after hauling down Ellington, as was Jason Jarrett for a foul which forced Culkin to leave the field, but Rovers lost Foster to a red card for retaliation. The substitute goalkeeper was Brian Parkin, who thus set a post-war club appearance record for a goalkeeper. Culkin was also unable to finish the game at Wycombe, following a foul which earned Andy Rammell a sending-off and caused Rovers to be fined £10,000 after alleged comments from the bench were reported by the fourth official, Mike Tingey. There was also controversy at Meadow Lane where, after Ellington had missed a penalty, Notts County equalised in the last minute in bizarre circumstances. With Foster injured, Culkin kicked the ball out of play but, rather than returning the throw to Rovers as is customary, Craig Ramage threw to Richard Liburd whose cross was turned in by Mark Stallard. In the ensuing confusion, Ramage was sent off for threatening Bignot. All in all, eight Rovers players and eight opponents were sent off during the 2000-01 season. Controversial events were also seen at Wigan, after which referee Bill Burns rang Rovers to apologise for not awarding a penalty following a blatant second-half foul on Ansah Owusu by goalkeeper Derek Stillie. The attendance at Wrexham, some 2,575 souls, was the lowest to watch a Rovers league game since the journey to Shrewsbury Town in November 1996. Early in the season, Rovers could rely on goals from a variety of sources. Marcus Andreasson fired home from ten yards for his first goal for the club, one of three goals in twenty-three first-half minutes at Swindon Town in October, where 2,400 Rovers supporters saw Mark Walters star against his former club. Bignot scored with his left knee after just twenty-seven seconds on the Friday before Christmas, but Rovers lost to three second-half goals at Ashton Gate, including one headed home by the former Rovers player Peter Beadle, four minutes after coming on as a substitute. Then, following a dramatic Boxing Day draw with Reading, in which Hogg was sent off for a foul on goalscorer Neil Smith and Trevor Challis followed for retaliation, in a game which also marked the official opening of the Family Enclosure roof, Rovers went an astonishing 576 minutes without a goal in league or cup football. This run, which included defeat to Cureton’s right-foot drive three minutes before half-time at Reading, and celebrations which led to repercussions, was to end when Astafjevs scrambled the ball past French goalkeeper Lionel Pérez to give Rovers a thirty-third-minute lead over Cambridge United. This goal, coupled with substitute Ellington’s header a minute after half-time, finally gave Rovers their long-awaited first home league win of the season. They were the last league side to do so and the winless run since Easter Saturday had finally stretched to thirteen home league matches. Ultimately, Rovers’ six home league wins equalled the total of away league victories, and matched the six home wins of the 2010-11 relegation campaign; twelve wins in total was the same tally as in the relegation campaign of 2013-14. Success at Dean Court for a second consecutive season was, though, the only victory away from home after the first week in November and Rovers lost their final six away matches. Only on one occasion in the season were consecutive league fixtures won and Rovers recorded ten draws at home and fifteen in all, eight of them goalless. Three points from any one of these, for instance the local derby where a seasonal highest home crowd of 9,361 saw Bristol City earn a point when Steve Phillips saved Scott Jones’ penalty deep into injury time, one of four penalties Rovers squandered all season, would with hindsight have prevented relegation. A run through the winter of twelve league games without a win cost manager Ian Holloway his job on 29th January. He subsequently succeeded the former Rovers manager Gerry Francis at Queen’s Park Rangers, taking Bignot with him, but was unable to prevent the West London side’s eventual relegation from Division One. Promotion from within saw Garry Thompson, a former Coventry City striker who had served Rovers in a coaching capacity since 1997, appointed as caretaker manager. Rovers crashed to a 4-1 defeat at Stoke City, for whom full-back Mikael Hansson scored with two shots in the opening fifteen minutes, and suffered three-goal defeats at both promoted sides, Millwall, where Dwayne Plummer and goalscorer Tim Cahill were both sent off, and Rotherham United, as well as at home to both Potteries sides. Stoke City’s visit in December featured the first occasion since Bob Hatton in 1979 that Rovers had conceded a first-half hat-trick. Peter Thorne, in scoring after two, twenty and forty minutes from two sidefoots and a header from Bjarni Gudjohnsen’s cross, became only the fifth opponent to have scored hat-tricks against Rovers in two separate league matches and the first to do so twice on Rovers’ home ground. Scott Jones and Stoke substitute Ben Petty were both sent off in the second half. On three occasions, Rovers recorded league victories by four clear goals, a margin never suffered in defeat in the league. A comfortable 6-2 win at Brentford was only the second time the club had won by this score in the Football League, a third such occasion duly arriving when already-relegated Oxford United visited in April. From a goal behind, Rovers scored five second-half goals including three in the final ten minutes and Mark Walters contributed two in the last four minutes to equal Graham Withey’s feat, accomplished in October 1982, of scoring twice as a substitute. Oxford goalkeeper Richard Knight was sent off eleven minutes from the end, with Phil Wilson saving the resultant Plummer penalty with his first touch in senior football. Wilson was himself booked in conceding a second penalty in the last minute which Walters, who had also set up the third goal for the impressive Astafjevs, successfully converted. It was the first time since Alex Munro and Tony Ford against Luton Town in February 1970 that Rovers had used two penalty-takers in one game and, following Peter Beadle in November 1997, Walters was only the second Rovers substitute to score from the penalty-spot in league football. A goalless draw with Notts County in February sent Rovers into the relegation zone, from which, as games-in-hand were frittered away, escape was only sporadic. Dave Savage, later a Rovers player, scored a penalty for Northampton Town as Rovers lost 2-1 in March. In April defeats came thick and fast, with two Monday evening losses at the hands of a rejuvenated Port Vale side especially damaging. Tony Carss of Oldham Athletic, Port Vale’s Marc Bridge-Wilkinson and Wycombe Wanderers’ Dannie Bulman all scored spectacular long-range goals to consign Rovers to defeat. Three straight losses led to relegation on 2nd May, eleven years to the day since promotion had been achieved from the same division. With hindsight, only a point had been required from consecutive home fixtures and a seventh home league defeat sent Rovers through the trapdoor, just a point below Swindon Town. Final-day victory over Wrexham, where Walters doubled his seasonal goal tally after two first-half mistakes by Lee Roche against opponents who had Danny Williams and Lee Trundle sent off, left Rovers with a minus-four goal difference. Denis Lawrence in the Wrexham side was, at six feet seven inches, as tall as any opponent the club had faced. The match-day programme once again won the divisional Programme of the Year award. Once Cameron and Bignot had registered their first goals for the club to see off Plymouth Argyle, Rovers enjoyed a hugely successful Worthington Cup run. A crowd of over 25,000 at Goodison Park, which included over three thousand from Bristol, saw Premier Division Everton, who fielded the veteran England midfielder Paul Gascoigne as a substitute, stunned by Hogg’s volleyed equaliser three minutes from time. Then, on an emotional night at the Memorial Stadium, Bignot’s fifty-eighth-minute goal, after Ellington’s initial shot had been saved, took Rovers into a penalty shoot-out where Plummer despatched the decisive kick to give the home side a memorable scalp. Sunderland then attracted a new record attendance of 11,433 to the ground, only for Don Hutchison’s second goal of the game, off a post three minutes from time, to earn the Black Cats a 2-1 victory. Rovers lost at Cirencester Town in the Gloucestershire Senior Challenge Cup and, after two victories over Devon opposition, at Southend United in the LDV Vans Trophy. The first round of the FA Cup saw Rovers revisit the theatre of the previous May’s end-of-season disappointment. Following a Sunday lunchtime kick-off to suit live coverage on the satellite television channel, Sky Two, Rovers took an eighth-minute lead through an own goal by Cardiff City’s débutant defender, Andrew Jordan, a former Bristol City player, before being destroyed by four second-half goals, with the Zambian-born teenage midfielder Rob Earnshaw scoring a thirty-one-minute hat-trick for the Third Division side.
2001-02
Any promotion hopes that Rovers supporters may have entertained prior to the club’s first ever season in the league’s lowest division were dashed as Rovers struggled through an unrewarding and at times difficult campaign. A season which began with great optimism turned into one of the low points of the Pirates’ long history. Ultimately a final Division Three placing of twenty-third was only achieved thanks to the forlorn struggle of Halifax Town, whose second direct relegation from the Football League was confirmed by Sergio Ommel’s late, scrambled winning goal for Rovers against Kidderminster Harriers in April. Nathan Ellington’s fifteen league goals made him clearly the club’s top scorer in league football, despite his March move to Wigan Athletic and goalkeeper Scott Howie was the only ever-present in the side.The new manager was unveiled as Gerald Charles James Francis, the very man who had led Rovers to the Third Division championship in 1989-90 and had rebuilt the side in preparation for the long-awaited return to Bristol. On this occasion, however, he was not able to make many changes in personnel, though the experienced goalkeeper Howie signed on a free transfer. Rovers also acquired three of Francis’ former protégés at Queen’s Park Rangers in Alvin Bubb, Ross Weare and Rik Lopez. Mark Smith made a welcome return to first team action at Carlisle United in October, his first start for the side since December 1998. Robbie Pethick moved to Brighton, where he won a Second Division championship medal alongside former Rovers team-mates Michel Kuipers and Bobby Zamora, while Marcus Andreasson returned to Sweden to join Bryne FK.The firework display which greeted the Rovers side and its returning manager for the opening day encounter at home to Torquay United proved a false dawn. An enthusiastic and patient crowd of over 10,000 saw the Gulls’ Tony Bedeau hit the post after only two minutes from Eifion Williams’ right-wing cross before the first of four consecutive league and cup victories was earned. On the evening of August 25th, Rovers sat proudly on the top of the table. However Gerry Francis, reappointed to much acclaim in the close season, was never able to recapture the glory years of a decade earlier and stood down for personal reasons on Christmas Eve. The second Francis era was marked by a goal drought of worrying proportions. Martin Cameron’s crisp downward header five minutes from the end of a televised defeat at home to runaway league leaders Plymouth Argyle in October, the first Rovers game for over a decade shown live on terrestrial television, was the club’s first for 491 minutes since the same player’s fourteen-yard shot a minute before half-time at home to Oxford United. The next goal was 509 minutes away, Cameron’s 54th-minute penalty being Rovers’ first away goal for 646 minutes, shattering a previous worst run of 580 minutes set in the spring of 1986. Defeat at Darlington was down partly to a spectacular last-minute save by the former Rovers goalkeeper Andy Collett from substitute Bubb’s header. Other former Rovers players were to score decisive goals, Julian Alsop providing Cheltenham Town’s 70th-minute winning goal on their first league visit to Bristol and Martin Phillips sweeping the ball home from a second-minute left-wing corner when eventual champions Plymouth Argyle were the visitors. The Pilgrims scored after only twenty-nine seconds in the return fixture, Marino Keith shooting home right-footed after Steve Adams’ shot had rebounded off the post. Scott Partridge, a former Bristol City striker, scored in the first minute of each half of Rovers’ first ever league encounter with Rushden and Diamonds, for whom the Jamaican international Onandi Lowe scored in both one-sided meetings. The former Rovers club captain Andy Tillson was outstanding in the Northamptonshire side’s decisive 3-0 win at the Memorial Stadium in March. Drewe Broughton scored in both Rovers’ first Football League encounters with Kidderminster, for whom midfielder Sam Shilton, whose father had appeared against Rovers as a forty-two-year-old in 1992, hit the crossbar in the fixture at Aggborough with a lob in the closing stages. On 6th October, whilst England and Greece fought out a crucial World Cup qualifier, Rovers played at Brunton Park in the only 3pm kick-off in the Nationwide League. The game was lost to Steve Halliday’s eleventh-minute goal from Mark Winstanley’s left-wing cross before an understandably paltry crowd of 1,849, the lowest at a Rovers game since the fixture at York City in April 1988. There were six red cards accumulated by Rovers players during the season, five of them in Division Three with Mark Walters, dismissed ten minutes from time at Exeter City in October, becoming the oldest ever Rovers recipient. When Rovers lost after leading at Swansea, both Astafjevs and Mike Trought were sent off in the closing four minutes. Nottingham referee Frazer Stretton dismissed three Kidderminster players at the Memorial Stadium on April Fool’s Day. Abdou Sall was sent off after only four minutes for the foul which led to James Quinn’s penalty, Rovers’ first goal for 301 minutes, and was followed by goalkeeper Gary Montgomery and Ian Foster, with Rovers’ substitute Sergio Ommel, who had earlier hit the crossbar, scoring the winning goal two minutes from time. Equally bizarrely, York City’s Graham Potter became only the fourth opponent to score for both sides in a league encounter, his quickly taken seventy-fourth-minute free-kick from the edge of the penalty area being cancelled out ten minutes later when he steered Ellington’s cross past his own goalkeeper to give Rovers a late lead.The new manager was Garry Thompson, who had worked as Rovers’ coach since 1997 but whose temporary tenure of the post twelve months earlier had seen Rovers relegated. He had enjoyed a long career with many clubs and had won six England Under-21 caps whilst appearing as centre-forward for Coventry City. Thompson’s time as manager opened with an impressive series of performances and some high-scoring and high-profile victories. Responding to a change in leadership, Rovers crushed Leyton Orient in a highly entertaining Boxing Day fixture at the Memorial Stadium. Ellington’s first hat-trick for the club, one of three in less than a month, all came from low drives, two in three first-half minutes and a third after seventy-three minutes to register Rovers’ 3000th home league goal. With the former Rovers defender Matt Lockwood on as a half-time substitute, Orient rallied with three second-half goals of their own and Rovers ran out 5-3 winners. After the phenomenal result in the Third Round of the FA Cup, Ellington also grabbed three goals in a deceptively easy 4-1 victory at home to Swansea City in January, before Rovers endured a dismal run of results through the spring.After the initial honeymoon period, Rovers lapsed into their losing ways. One particularly poor run in the spring of six consecutive defeats, just one short of the club record set in 1961, was halted by Ellington’s right-footed sixty-fourth minute equaliser at Hartlepool United, his final goal for the club. One cause for optimism was the goalscoring form of Dutch-born Ommel, a foil for Ellington signed on a free transfer from Icelandic football, where he had played alongside Moussa Dagnogo at KR Reykjavik, and was to end the season as Rovers’ second highest goalscorer. Another overseas-born player was Carlos López Sánchez, who joined Rovers in February from the Madrid side Getafe. Thompson left the club after a run of one win in thirteen games and, with Phil Bater temporarily guiding Rovers through the final three defeats, Rovers appointed their former winger Ray Graydon to the post of manager on 26th April 2002.Away from the pitch, too, there were rumblings of discontent. On the last Friday in October, the club was temporarily put up for sale by the majority shareholders, Ron Craig and Geoff Dunford. The latter succeeded his father as club chairman and there were further additions to the board of directors in the spring. New floodlights to an American design were installed at a cost of some £150,000 and first used for the convincing victory over Swansea City in January. The older floodlights were dismantled on 28th June 2002 and transported by a Bridgwater firm to their new home at Aldershot Town’s training ground. Yet it was the frozen pitch which caused the abandonment after only twelve minutes of the home game with Hartlepool United in mid-December, the first Rovers home game to be abandoned since March 1982.The oasis in the desert that was the 2001-02 season was Rovers’ FA Cup run. A hesitant pair of games with Ryman Premier Division side Aldershot Town was decided only when Astafjevs’ eighty-fourth-minute deflected shot brought a replay victory, with the visitors’ Richard Gell later sent off. Visibly growing in confidence, Rovers then earned a deserved draw at high-flying Plymouth Argyle, where Mark Walters’ fifty-ninth-minute equaliser made him the second oldest scorer in the club’s FA Cup history. An enthralling replay saw Rovers’ 2-0 lead clawed back by a powerful visiting side, before Ellington struck the winner with a rasping drive three minutes from time to set up a Third Round tie away to Premier Division Derby County.Since the establishment of the Premier Division in 1992, no top division side had lost to one from below Division Two. The achievement of Bristol Rovers in winning away to Derby County ranks alongside the greatest of the club’s successes. It was the seventh occasion that Rovers had won an FA Cup-tie against top division opponents but, given Rovers’ league status, it was a most memorable occasion. Moreover, the only other away victory over a club of this stature had been at Burnley in 1958, when Rovers were in the old Division Two. A ground record of 6,602 away supporters were amongst the 18,000 crowd at Pride Park on the first Sunday in January to witness the biggest shock of Round Three. Mart Poom, with seventy-seven full international caps for Estonia, played in goal for Derby, with Argentinians Horacio Carbonari and Luciano Zavagno in front of him and two highly experienced Italians in the side in the shape of Fabrizio Ravanelli and Benito Carbone. After just fourteen minutes Rovers took the lead when Howie’s long kick was headed over the advancing goalkeeper by Ellington. The same player added a second five minutes before half-time with a right-foot shot after a mazy run had taken him past François Grenet and the former Lens defender Youl Mawéné. Astonishingly, with a goal that would have graced any occasion, Ellington completed his hat-trick after sixty-two minutes with a cracking right-foot volley and there was even time for Mark Walters to hit a post late in the game. Even a scrambled consolation goal, two minutes from time from the White Feather himself, Ravanelli, could not mar the occasion for the Rovers players and supporters. Incredibly, it was the first time ever that a Rovers player had scored three goals in an away FA Cup-tie. Then, armed with the knowledge that a trip to play the eventual FA Cup winners at Highbury awaited the victors, Rovers were outplayed at Gillingham in Round Four, losing to a side which included former Rovers players Marcus Browning and Guy Ipoua when Ty Gooden’s right-footed free-kick after thirty-two minutes was headed into his own net by the unfortunate Ronnie Maugé.Meanwhile, the Worthington Cup brought a degree of revenge, for Rovers, in orange shirts and socks after their black and grey quarters were deemed to constitute a colour clash, were able to win at Wycombe Wanderers, the club whose victory in May had condemned Rovers to Division Three. The single goal came from an unlikely source, as experienced midfielder David Hillier struck his first goal for the club, left-footed after sixty-five minutes. His second goal came at home to Luton Town four days later. Andy Johnson and Michael Johnson were both on the score-sheet as the 2001 beaten finalists Birmingham City were comfortable winners at the Memorial Stadium in the second round. The LDV Vans Trophy also ended in a 3-0 defeat, this time at Ashton Gate, but only after victories over non-league opposition. Michael McIndoe’s cross-shot from the right had given Tom White’s Yeovil Town the lead, but he was to miss the decisive kick as Rovers won the penalty shoot-out 5-4 and Ellington’s first two goals for over three months paved the way to a comfortable victory over Dagenham and Redbridge.Kevin Gall represented the Welsh Under-21 side as a substitute against Belarus in October, while Astafjevs won the latest of his impressive tally of Latvian caps in playing against Scotland on the same night, en route to a European record of 167 international caps. Neil Arndale, a final-day débutant for Rovers had represented England in the European Under-17 championships earlier in the season. Former Rovers players Bobby Zamora and Stuart Taylor were in the England Under-21 squad for the European championships held in Switzerland in May 2002 and goalkeeper Nigel Martyn travelled to the Far East as part of the England squad for the 2002 World Cup finals. Finally, Rovers hosted the international on Mothering Sunday between England Under-18 and their Lithuanian counterparts, which the home side won by four clear goals.
2002-03
With fifteen minutes to go in the penultimate game of the season, Wayne Carlisle curled his right-footed twenty-metre free-kick past Darlington’s former Rovers goalkeeper Andy Collett to secure Rovers’ third consecutive victory and ensure the Pirates’ continued status as a Football League club. Such a nail-biting conclusion to the season had tried the patience of even the most confident supporter and had seemed implausible at the start of the campaign. Newly appointed as manager, the former Rovers outside-right Ray Graydon and his assistant John Still, a former manager at both Barnet and Peterborough United as well as the captain of the Bishop’s Stortford side which defeated Ilford 4-1 in the 1974 FA Amateur Cup Final at Wembley, had recruited a number of players for the 2002-03 season, which the club approached in a positive frame of mind. Graydon instilled in his players a greater sense of discipline and this certainly had a bearing on the eleventh-hour escape from the clutches of relegation. However, twenty-one débutants were amongst the thirty-three players used as the manager’s first season at his home town club proved tougher than he had envisaged. The Mansfield Town defender Adam Barrett, who had experienced promotion from the basement division in 2001-02, was joined in the centre of defence by the untried former Sheffield Wednesday and West Ham United youngster Anwar U’ddin, whilst Brentford’s former Eire Under-21 international Danny Boxall accompanied them at full-back. A decade of Football League experience had hinted that Kevin Austin could become a pivotal figure in the Rovers story, though the powerful former Cambridge United defender’s Rovers début was delayed through injury until late September. Oxford United’s Rob Quinn, another former Eire Under-21 international and erstwhile colleague at Crystal Palace of Danny Boxall, joined Wayne Carlisle, now signing for Rovers on a permanent basis, in midfield. Two new strikers, in the form of Paul Tait, who had fallen out of favour at Crewe Alexandra, and the influential Swindon Town player Giuliano Grazioli, gave early promise of their goalscoring potential. Grazioli had been given his first break in the professional game by John Still at Peterborough and, once Still had moved to Barnet, had scored five times against his former manager’s side when the two clubs met in a Third Division game at Underhill in September 1998, Peterborough winning 9-1. With six débutants in the side, Rovers took a fifth-minute lead at Plainmoor on the opening day of the 2002-03 season, Grazioli scoring the first goal recorded in the Third Division that season. However, succumbing to a Torquay United comeback, Rovers discovered that further struggles lay ahead. Tait, who had not scored a league goal for two-and-a-half years, missed a forty-first-minute penalty at Carlisle and was sent off on the stroke of half-time at Darlington in October. Grazioli missed a second-half penalty at home to Exeter City. Rovers were two goals behind at both Scunthorpe, where a point was rescued by Wayne Carlisle’s successful last-minute penalty kick, and before the Sky television cameras at Macclesfield. Rochdale, who arrived without their kit, borrowed Rovers’ third choice of black and stone quartered shirts and proceeded to hit the bar twice before half-time en route to a victory at the Memorial Stadium which confirmed Rovers’ worst start to a season since 1985-86. The future Rovers midfielder Bo Henrikesn scored Kidderminster Harriers’ 75th-minute winner at The Mem that September. By this stage, Rovers were also out of the Worthington Cup, defeated at home by Boston United, who were to find themselves four goals behind to Cardiff City by half-time in the next round. By dint of their poor league placing in 2001-02 and the fact that Ipswich Town had been given a bye thanks to their UEFA Cup success, Rovers were obliged to play off for a once-automatic place in the first-round draw. Having staged the first-ever League Cup tie in 1960, Rovers had now also hosted - and lost - the first preliminary round tie in the history of the competition. Yet, good times lay around the corner. Tait’s long-awaited first goal, a fifty-second-minute header in the home win over Swansea City, after which he hit the crossbar with an audacious forty-yard lob, proved the break he needed. The former Everton trainee was to score in four consecutive home games in the autumn. His striking partner, Grazioli, scored in each of his first two games in a Rovers shirt and added a hat-trick in the space of thirty minutes at Shrewsbury Town in September, when Rovers hit a purple patch. The 5-2 victory at Gay Meadow, coming as it did on the back of a hard-fought home win over Bury, helped propel Rovers away from the now-customary penultimate position towards mid-table safety. A settled side and the promise of better days to come was bolstered in the autumn with renewed talk of converting the Memorial Stadium into an all-seater complex capable of holding 20,000 spectators. Furthermore, plans for a multi-million-pound sports development project, backed by South Gloucestershire Council, were drawn up to include a 10,000m² purpose-built sports complex, floodlit all-weather pitches, laboratories, a gymnasium, indoor theatres and studios and the promise of vocational and educational courses being on offer. As Christmas approached, Rovers hit the bottom of Division Three for the first time, after a club record run of eight consecutive league defeats that followed York City’s Stephen Blackstone’s last-minute equaliser at Bootham Crescent. During this disastrous run, there was a four-game spell in which Rovers failed to score, the worst result coming at home to Wrexham, who managed nineteen shots on target to Rovers’ two. The record-breaking eighth defeat in a row was a 3-1 loss at Cambridge in December, in which Sonny Parker conceded a début own goal after seventeen minutes, to emulate the feat of John Hills who, in August 1961, had scored for Liverpool after 65 minutes of his first appearance for Rovers; Bob Harris scored an own goal at Port Vale on his first Rovers appearance in February 2017. Combined with Boston United’s emphatic 6-0 win at home to Shrewsbury Town, this result left Rovers at an all-time low. However, the process of rebuilding had already started. Graydon’s ability to search far and wide for extra players began to reap its rewards as seven players arrived on loan. Of these, Adrian Coote and Chris Llewellyn, whose two goals at Wrexham brought Rovers back from 2-0 down only for the side to lose to a Carlos Edwards goal two minutes from time, both offered international experience, while David Lee had played for Hull City against Rovers in November 2001. Six highly experienced players were signed as the season progressed and they had major roles to play as the relegation battle developed. Bradley Allen was a brother of the England international Clive and the son of Les, a League and FA Cup double winner with Spurs in 1960-61; Graham Hyde, sent off at Cambridge, had appeared in FA Cup and League Cup finals whilst on the books of Sheffield Wednesday; Ijah Anderson, Kevin Street and Lee Hodges possessed vast experience of life in the lower divisions; whilst the former Manchester United youngster Andy Rammell had scored Barnsley’s opening goal when Rovers were defeated 5-1 at Twerton Park in November 1992 as well as being sent off when Rovers defeated Wycombe Wanderers at Adams Park in September 2000. The loosening of the club’s purse strings by chairman Geoff Dunford and his supportive board proved to be highly significant in Rovers’ ultimately successful battle against relegation to the Conference. Nevertheless, Rovers had an intense battle on their hands to retain their 83-year-old Football League status. In three consecutive home games around New Year, Rovers trailed, Wayne Carlisle scored and defeat was averted. Moreover, in the third of these, Rovers’ first home win in three months, Scunthorpe actually led 1-0 after 86 minutes. Ben Futcher, at six feet seven inches as tall as any opponent in Rovers’ long history, deflected a Mark McKeever shot into his own net after seventeen minutes of the game at home to Lincoln City and then scored his side’s winning goal at Sincil Bank. After four straight draws, an unexpected but thoroughly deserved win at Bury, Rovers’ first at Gigg Lane since March 1956, was earned when Rob Quinn waltzed through the home side’s defence after 65 minutes. A revitalising run of seven games without defeat offered hope but was shattered abruptly by a spectacular long-range goal from York City’s Darren Edmondson after the former Rovers trialist Jon Parkin had struck a first-half penalty against a post. Rovers also took early leads against the top two sides in successive home games in the run-up to Easter, Hartlepool United who featured the former Rovers goalkeeper Anthony Williams and Marcus Bignot’s latest side, Rushden and Diamonds. Vitalijs Astafjevs returned to the side to score crucial goals in three consecutive matches in the spring and leave the veteran Latvian international captain as an unlikely second highest scorer at the club, behind eleven-goal Grazioli. Beneath Rovers, the maelstrom gathered momentum – for the first time, two clubs would be automatically relegated to the Conference and there was so little to choose between a multitude of sides. Rovers were bottom of the table again after the draw at Southend United in February and were only out of the drop zone on goal difference as late as April 19th. At home to the other struggling sides, Rovers gained few points, losing disappointingly to Carlisle United and drawing with Boston United, Exeter City, Macclesfield Town and Shrewsbury Town. The final season before World War Two notwithstanding, Rovers were now in the most perilous position in the club’s Football League history. Back in 1939, re-election was secured without any great worries. Between 1931 and 1951 only one club – Gillingham in 1938 – had failed to be re-elected and they swiftly returned to the league after the war. The trap door to Conference football was, by 2003, proving to be something of a chasm. For six consecutive seasons, from 1996-97, the relegated side had never yet returned to league action and the Conference contained eight former league sides in 2002-03. As Bristol Rugby Club teetered on the brink of financial ruin and faced being swallowed up by their arch-rivals Bath, dropping a division, both in footballing and in financial terms, was not a viable option for Rovers. As it was, figures released for the year to June 2002 showed that Rovers had made an overall loss of £608,402, compared with a deficit of £174,000 over the previous twelve months. Yet, Rovers could count on considerable support, taking some 2,876 away fans to Oxford, 1,711 to Torquay, 1,582 to Exeter and 1,286 to Bournemouth. On the final day of the season, Kidderminster’s highest home crowd of the season was partly explained by the presence of 1,591 away supporters who were able to cheer Tait’s 71st minute header from Llewellyn’s right-wing corner on a ground where Rovers have still not won since Easter Monday 1898. Rovers’ average home league attendance for 2002-03 was 6,934, greater than fifteen Division Two clubs and three sides in Division One. Consequently, the directors gave their full backing to December’s launch of the Share Issue Scheme, the long-term aim of which was to bring some £3,000,000 to the club. This involved establishing a holding company that would include all shareholders, the largest of which would be the Supporters’ Club, whose 700,000 shares effectively gave them the casting vote in any major future decision-making process. Celebrities such as the boxer Jane Couch soon signed up and the club was already assured of over £10,000 per month by the season’s end. Moreover, this scheme funded the signing of Andy Rammell, whose four goals in three games over Easter secured Rovers’ immediate Football League future. A distinct lack of success in the LD Vans Trophy and League Cup was barely bettered in the FA Cup. Rovers required extra-time in a replay at Runcorn and, after Barrett had conceded an own goal, only won through after the home side’s Lee Parle had been sent off for a second bookable offence. Following a home draw with Rochdale, an exciting replay was lost by the odd goal in five at Spotland. Premier Division side Leicester City were the visitors in May for a testimonial game for Roy Dolling, whose 38 years with the club in many capacities had ended upon his retirement in 2001. An all-conquering Rovers women’s side, managed by Tony Ricketts, won its first eight Premier League Southern Division games of 2002-03, the seventh being a comprehensive 13-0 victory over Barking, Trudy Williams scoring six times and Stef Curtis five. Williams scored seven times in the Gloucestershire County Cup Final in May in which Rovers, courtesy of a 10-1 victory over Forest Green Rovers, secured the trophy for a fifth consecutive year. The “Gas Girls” were promoted to the Premier League in the spring and reached the semi-finals of the FA Cup, where they lost 7-2 to a powerful Fulham side which included Rachel McArthur, whose paternal grandfather Wally had served Rovers so loyally either side of World War Two.
2003-04
For a third season in succession, Rovers flirted with the trap door to Conference football, playing under five managers and using 33 players in the process. Loyal supporters had hoped for better, but Ray Graydon’s side found the going difficult. Only 37 goals had been scored by mid-March and the side had lost as many as seven League matches at the Memorial Stadium by early April. Ultimately, as York City and Carlisle United, the former as a result of a final run of twenty games without a win, lost the battle for survival, Rovers completed the season in fifteenth place in Division Three. Remarkably, after all the scares as the season progressed, victory over Lincoln City in May took Rovers temporarily into the top half of the Third Division table. Adam Barrett, an inspirational captain, missed just one League game and reliable goalkeeper Kevin Miller two, whilst Paul Tait was top scorer, seven of his twelve goals being scored from within the six-yard box. Rovers’ third season in the basement division began in sweltering heat. An opening day victory at Scunthorpe, where Lee Hodges scored the winning goal two minutes from time against his former club, was played out in a temperature of 90° Fahrenheit, as hot as at the home game with Northampton Town in September 1908. Six new faces appeared in this game, four permanent signings and Calum Willock, who joined on loan from Fulham. Goalkeeper Kevin Miller could claim well over 500 appearances in the Football League and had played against Rovers for Watford in 1996-97 and for Exeter City in 2002-03. Christian Edwards, from Nottingham Forest, had won a Welsh cap in the centre of defence, while Oxford United’s midfielder Dave Savage, the winner of five caps with Eire, had scored a penalty for Northampton Town against Rovers in March 2001. The loss of top scorer Giuliano Grazioli to Barnet was part of a swap deal that brought the exciting striker Manuel “Junior” Agogo to the Memorial Stadium. Ghanaian by birth and fluent in two African dialects, Agogo had enjoyed spells with six separate league clubs as well as two top North American sides. Into April he still had just three goals to his name, but a change in management appeared to bring out the real Agogo as the season drew to a close. The new squad also included veteran Andy Rammell who, after scoring four important goals to secure Rovers status as a league club, had to miss the start of the season due to two knee operations and subsequently, after becoming only the third Rovers substitute to score twice in a game, his headers at Darlington proving to be his only goals of an injury-ridden season, was forced to retire from the game. Two first-half goals in five minutes from Wayne Carlisle, appropriately at Carlisle’s Brunton Park, and an excellent right-foot winner from Hodges after seventy minutes against Kidderminster brought early season success and Rovers even recovered to draw after trailing 2-0 inside fourteen minutes, Ijah Anderson conceding an own goal, at home to Macclesfield Town. Carlisle’s goals included a calmly accepted twice-taken penalty to defeat Scunthorpe United and he was to score all three of Rovers’ goals as they completed the double over his Cumbrian namesakes. John Ward’s Cheltenham Town side was also defeated home and away. Promoted Hull City were defeated in Horfield at the end of November, the winning goal coming from Ryan Williams, who was on loan to Rovers from the Humberside team. Sonny Parker’s excellent 52nd-minute header to equalise at home to Torquay, as Rovers recovered from conceding two goals in the opening seventeen minutes to their future striker Jo Kuffour, was one highlight of the season, as was the accomplished start to eighteen-year-old Lewis Haldane’s professional career, his five goals being exemplified by an astonishingly good second-half volley to give Rovers the lead in the home game against Bury. Yet, Rovers were only to achieve two consecutive wins in Division Three on two occasions in 2003-04. In September, Simon Bryant was shown a red card only seven minutes after taking to the field at York as a substitute, the first Rovers player to be sent off as a replacement. A similar fate befell Yeovil’s Jake Edwards at the Memorial Stadium, a fourth substitute, after Reading’s Uwe Hartenberger in 1994, Millwall’s Steven Reid in 1999 and Stoke City’s Ben Petty in 2000, to be sent off in a League encounter with Rovers. Both games against Orient featured goals from the East London side’s substitute Jabo Ibehre, the first time this feat had been achieved by a substitute in Rovers’ history, and both games also included a red card for Ijah Anderson. Kevin Austin and Graham Hyde, the latter in the opening 23 minutes of both the two heaviest defeats, each received two red cards as well during the course of the season, Rovers players being shown nine red cards in league and cup action. Hugo Rodrigues, who played in both Rovers’ games against Yeovil Town became, at 6’8’’, the tallest opponent to face Rovers, whilst 6’7’’ Ben Futcher scored for Lincoln City in both their fixtures against Rovers. Richard Walker, whose goals at Wembley in 2007 were to see Rovers promoted, scored an eighty-sixth-minute winner for Northampton Town, who also fielded Chris Carruthers and the future Rovers manager Paul Trollope, when they won in Horfield on Boxing Day. Andy White appeared against Rovers in the colours of Boston United and Mansfield Town as well as being an unused substitute for Kidderminster Harriers when Rovers visited Aggborough three days after Christmas Day. Southend United contrived to miss two penalties in December, the first time since 1935 that any side had missed two in a game featuring Rovers. Mark Gower after 24 minutes and substitute Drewe Broughton, eight minutes from time, were the culprits. Enjoying a season free from concerns would not, though, have been Rovers’ style. In the autumn, five matches were lost out of seven at one stage. A further run of ten games without a win over New Year helped enable Cambridge, Northampton and the two newly promoted sides, Doncaster and Yeovil, to complete league doubles over Rovers. Five separate players scored against Rovers for both Yeovil and Doncaster. Relegated York City defeated Rovers at Bootham Crescent, whilst lowly Darlington recorded a morale-destroying 3-0 victory at the Memorial Stadium. For the first time in the club’s long Football League history, three first-half goals were conceded in consecutive games as Mansfield Town, with the future Rovers midfielder Craig Disley scoring twice, and Doncaster Rovers imposed heavy autumnal defeats on Graydon’s side. At Belle Vue, Michael McIndoe’s hat-trick helped consign Rovers to their first four-goal defeat since 1997. Worse still, many felt, was the débâcle at Yeovil Town’s Huish Park in February. Having lost the first ever League meeting with the newcomers, Rovers were lucky to escape from Somerset with only a four-goal defeat and, within days, a rescue package was being formulated to prevent the club from sinking into the mire at the foot of the division. Ray Graydon’s mid-season departure had appeared increasingly inevitable and, after his assistant John Still had departed on December 13th, later to reappear as the manager at Dagenham and Redbridge, the former Rovers winger himself left the club on 19th January. The popular Youth Team Coach, Phil Bater had been promoted from within at the start of the season to the post of First Team Coach and he at first took temporary control of a struggling team. Tony Ricketts, a highly qualified coach and manager of Rovers’ women’s team, was given the role of assisting Bater but, despite their best efforts, Rovers were not to achieve better results on the pitch. As relegation to the Conference became a distinct possibility, two experienced football practitioners were drafted in on 22nd March to steady a sinking ship. The former England centre-back Russell Osman had played in the Leicester City side that Rovers knocked out of the FA Cup in January 1986 before later managing Bristol City, while Kevan Broadhurst had appeared against Rovers in January 1980 in the all-yellow away kit of Birmingham City. Their brief, as joint managers, was to preserve Rovers’ Football League status. A flurry of transfer activity led to the arrival of Gary Twigg, Lee Thorpe, who renewed a striking partnership with Agogo he had earlier forged at Lincoln City, and five further débutants in the crucial home fixture with York City at the end of March. With survival assured Ian Leslie Atkins, the scorer of the first of Shrewsbury Town’s three goals against Rovers in November 1980, took the reins at the Memorial Stadium on Monday 26th April. His initial appointment on 19th March, though, had caused upheavals at his previous club, Oxford United, whose chairman Firoz Kassam’s claims of an illegal approach in March were rejected by Rovers. At that stage, on 21st March, Geoff Dunford had reportedly offered to resign as Rovers’ Chairman. As Oxford fell dramatically from an automatic promotion place to missing out on the play-offs, Atkins had been released and replaced by caretaker manager Graham Rix. He was therefore in place at Rovers for the final two matches of an anxious season. The five new faces on transfer deadline day were not unknown to Rovers supporters. Two signings from Kidderminster Harriers were Bo Henriksen, who had scored against Rovers in September 2002 and remains the only Harrier to score twenty goals in a Football League season, while Danny Williams, a former Welsh Under-21 midfielder who had been a Liverpool apprentice with Michael Owen and Steven Gerrard, had been sent off at The Memorial Stadium whilst on Wrexham’s books in May 2001 and had hit the bar when Rovers travelled to Aggborough in April 2003. A pair of Stockport County midfielders arrived in Aaron Lescott, the recipient of a red card at Ashton Gate in January 2003, and Ali Gibb, who had played against Rovers on four occasions in the Football League for Northampton Town. “It would be nice to look back after my career has finished”, Gibb remarked “and be able to say I kept Bristol Rovers up”. John Anderson, a tough Scottish-born central defender with eight years’ experience north of the border, arrived from Hull City, for whom he had played twice against Rovers during the 2002-03 season. On the morning of 27th March, Rovers were three points above the bottom two clubs and had played one game more. The key fixture at home to York was won by three clear goals, Danny Williams opening the scoring on his début with a low shot after just seventeen minutes. Rovers then won two games through Agogo winners after the side had trailed to a first-half goal and league survival had been at last assured. An early exit from each of the three cup competitions merely served to underline Rovers’ precarious position. It did take some spectacular goals to knock Rovers out, though, with ten-man Brighton securing League Cup success at the Memorial Stadium through Chris McPhee’s overhead kick and Mark Gower’s excellent extra-time shot sealing Rovers’ fate in the LDV Vans clash at Southend. A potentially lucrative end-of-season game against the Iraqi national side in May, designed to commemorate fifty years since Youri Eshaya had appeared for Rovers reserves, the only Iraqi national to perform to this level in Great Britain, had to be cancelled at short notice amid fears for security. On the other hand, Rovers’ women’s team not only preserved their hard-won Premier League status, but also reached the semi-finals of the FA Cup before losing to a highly talented Arsenal team to two second-half goals in a minute, the first from Julie Fleeting, whose hat-trick helped Arsenal defeat Charlton Athletic 3-0 in the final. Marcus Stewart, a Rovers player at the start of his career, played as a substitute for Sunderland in an FA Cup semi-final. Vitalijs Astafjevs, who had returned to Austrian football in 2003, earned his 100th cap for Latvia in a game against Slovenia in Celje in March; he subsequently captained his country to the 2004 European championships, the first major tournament to feature any of the Baltic nations, where they gained an honourable goalless draw with Germany. No summary of a Rovers season could be complete without a further twist to the question of their home ground. In September 2003, South Gloucestershire Arenas proposed a 30,000-seater sports complex on a 220-hectare site near the A49 at Easter Compton, some six miles from the Memorial Stadium, to include a stadium for football, rugby and greyhound racing with provision for 10,000 spectators. By 2008, Geoff Dunford concurred, both Bristol’s professional football clubs could be sharing these facilities. On 6th January 2004, with 85% of local residents reported to be opposed to the proposal to build on that site, the Severnside Stadium plan was scrapped. Support, though, did not dwindle and Rovers took 1,600 spectators to both Yeovil and Cheltenham, almost 1,500 to Hull and over 1,200 to Torquay and Oxford, whilst the highest home crowd was that of 9,812 for the visit of Yeovil in December. An average home crowd of 7,141 put Rovers in third place in their division and ahead of seventeen sides in Division Two as well as two in Division One.
2004-05
Armed with a new manager and his hand-picked side, Bristol Rovers shot out of the starter-blocks and were top of the newly-renamed League Two by the end of August. Thereafter, a deluge of draws ensured that the club completed the season in twelfth place, thankfully well clear of the dreaded trap-door that saw Cambridge United and Kidderminster Harriers plunge into Conference football, but also well short of the anticipated play-off berth. In losing just once in the league at home, a record only bettered in the 1989-90 championship season, Rovers also scored 39 times at the Memorial Stadium, more than in any season since 1997-98; only Orient, Yeovil and Scunthorpe, who each put four goals past Rovers, registered more home goals in League Two. Having seen at first hand, at the tail end of 2003-04, what was required, new manager Ian Atkins set about building a side he felt could challenge for promotion to League One; having enjoyed a modicum of success elsewhere, Atkins brought in a plethora of players who had played under him at Northampton Town and Oxford United. Of these, James Hunt, Richard Walker, Jamie Forrester and Paul Trollope, the winner of nine full Welsh caps, figured strongly in the first-team. Midfielder Craig Disley was an inspired signing from Mansfield Town, whilst Robbie Ryan, an Eire international at Under-21 level, had just appeared for Millwall in the 2004 FA Cup Final, where he had marked Cristiano Ronaldo. Grimsby Town’s former Scotland Under-21 international Stuart Campbell strengthened the midfield further, whilst Kidderminster’s Craig Hinton, and Steve Elliott, a former England Under-21 international previously with Derby County and Blackpool, played key roles in defence. Having, for the third successive year, sold their leading scorer, Rovers depended on the early-season form of Junior Agogo and on the strike rate of Walker, a signing from Oxford, as the season progressed; Agogo finished the season with twenty League Two goals and Walker, who had not scored in the League until the end of January, with eleven. No one appeared in every game. Hunt and Elliott were both sent off twice, as Rovers accumulated nine red cards in League and cup action. Rovers also offered trials to a series of players, from the former Real Madrid midfielder Pedro Matias, to goalkeeper Keita Karamoko, through the former Viktoria Aschaffenburg midfielder Thorsten Dinkel to striker Blair Sturrock and the exotically-named central defender Exodus Geohaghan. In shattering the club’s long-standing highest total of draws in a season, Rovers also lost significantly on the points that might have secured a promotion or play-off place. Indeed, champions Yeovil Town lost more League matches than Rovers during the season. Twenty-one League draws bettered the previous highest total of seventeen, whilst twelve home draws constituted one more than in the record 1988-89 season. There were goalless draws, 1-1 draws and scores of 2-2, 3-3 and even 4-4. On four occasions, Rovers clawed back a two-goal deficit to claim a point and a two-goal half-time lead was lost at Chester City, in a match broadcast live by a cable television company in Thailand. Rovers won three consecutive League matches in August and lost all three League Two matches they played in November, but otherwise and most remarkably never won or lost two games in a row. Darlington scored after just 54 seconds, through Craig Russell, when they claimed a point at the Memorial Stadium on Easter Monday. Mansfield Town led 4-2 in March before being held to what was the eighth 4-4 draw in Rovers’ League history, both Walker and Agogo converting controversial penalties. If this was the second time, following the victory over Luton Town in February 1970, that two Rovers players had converted penalties in a League game, it must be added that the club had been awarded two more in the home draw with Bury, Forrester converting one and spurning the other on his home début. However, the most unlikely of draws was the product of a tempestuous home local derby with Yeovil Town in October. After dominating early play, Rovers had fallen behind to a deflected Paul Terry goal. In injury-time at the end of the first-half, the visitors’ Gavin Williams, later a Rovers midfielder, crashed to the floor and Rovers’ Dave Savage, who had clearly lashed out, though without making contact, was sent off by referee Phil Crossley. Within a minute, Steve Elliott became the second Rovers player to be dismissed as the atmosphere turned sour. Swiftly 2-0 down, nine-man Rovers then staged a comeback of epic proportions, as first Hunt and then, with four minutes remaining, man of the match Agogo completed Rovers’ unexpected yet, on the basis of their second-half display, well-merited recovery. Seven captains were employed during the season. Kevin Miller, the experienced goalkeeper, whose 600th League appearance of a long career had come in that Yeovil clash, opened the season by shaking hands with another goalkeeper called Kevin, Mansfield’s captain Kevin Pilkington. Lescott, Forrester, Hunt, Lee Thorpe, John Anderson and Elliott all captained the side at some stage. The referee at Mansfield had been Clive Oliver and it was his son Mike Oliver who took charge when Rovers visited Darlington. Jarnail Singh, who awarded Rovers two penalties in the home fixture with Bury, was the first turbaned referee to officiate a Rovers game. When Southend United visited at the tail end of August, an 86th-minute goal from player-of-the-season Hunt earned Rovers victory and put the club, for twenty-four hours at least, on top of the table. A crowd of 9,287 had observed an impeccable one-minute’s silence that evening to the memory of Jackie Pitt, the stalwart Rovers wing-half of the immediate post-war period, who had passed away earlier that month. In a bizarre symmetrical twist, Rovers’ 2-0 defeat at Southend, again on a Friday night, put the Essex side top. Adam Barrett, returning to old pastures, was one of several former Rovers players to play well against their old club. Wayne Carlisle masterminded Orient’s three goals in eight minutes at Brisbane Road. Andy Gurney, Lee Thorpe and Kevin Austin all played for Swansea against their former club. When Rovers’ line-up was unexpectedly and by chance numbered one to eleven for the visit of Shrewsbury Town, the opposition fielded Scott Howie, Trevor Challis and Kevin Street. On the other hand, the Rovers party that travelled to Northampton included two of the Cobblers’ former managers and six of their former players, whilst the future Rovers striker Scott McGleish scored a brace for the Cobblers. In that game, Hunt, a former Northampton midfielder, was sent off for a foul on Josh Low, a former Rovers midfielder. When the sides met in Horfield, Agogo’s appearance as a seventh-minute substitute for the injured Savage, rendered him, with Bruce Bannister’s first-minute arrival against Fulham in January 1976 being the first, the fourth earliest substitute in Rovers’ League history. Ryan Williams, at home to Grimsby Town, became the first Rovers substitute to score before half-time. Richard Walker’s late-season goalscoring form was sparked by a last-minute goal at Oxford, his former club; coming in the final days of January, this was his first League goal for Rovers. Oxford included two South Americans in their side, in Uruguayan Mateo Corbo and Argentinian Lucas Cominelli. Grimsby’s Stacy Coldicott, bleeding from an early injury, wore three differently-numbered shirts in the first nine minutes of the game in February, chronologically 9, 27 and 20. Bury became the first opposition to field two players with double-barrelled names, Brian Barry-Murphy and Colin Kazim-Richards both appearing as second-half substitutes. Kidderminster Harriers were fined £6,000 after they had fielded the ineligible James Keane, a loan signing from Portsmouth who enjoyed many years of football in Sweden, in their game at the Memorial Stadium. On the final day of the season, Rovers defeated a Wycombe Wanderers side for whom the future Rovers goalkeeper Lance Cronin was making his sole appearance in goal. As the Cambridge United website “Moosenet” reported in January 2005, “Atkins’ talk of a promotion push resembled a Pukka-Pie in the sky on this mediocre evidence”. Heavy defeats were few and far between. More frustratingly, Rovers twice lost to twice-taken disputed penalties, converted eventually by Swansea’s Lee Trundle and Oxford’s Lee Duxbury. Yeovil Town inflicted a comprehensive defeat on Rovers for the second year in succession. A staunch away following of 1,508, bettered only by the 1,686 who travelled to Cheltenham at Christmas, helped ensure that a new ground attendance record for a League fixture at Huish Park could be set, 9,153 spectators watching Craig Disley’s excellent early goal give Rovers the lead. Inspired by Phil Jevons, whose hat-trick after 26, 53 and 63 minutes was the first conceded by Rovers for sixteen months, Yeovil ran up four goals for the second consecutive year in this fixture. Scunthorpe, promoted alongside Yeovil at the season’s end, scored seven times in the two fixtures against the Pirates, running in two in each half late in April in a game that saw Disley sent off for a challenge that broke Richard Kell’s leg. Hope for the future ran high, especially in the success experienced by Rovers at junior level, the Under-18s finishing in second place in the Merit Division. The most tangible reward was the arrival on the scene of Bath-born striker Scott Sinclair, who became Rovers’ youngest post-war League player and the youngest at the club since Ronnie Dix’s prodigious start in 1928. Aged fifteen years and 276 days, Sinclair made his début on Boxing Day, when Rovers played with ten men for 85 minutes, Ryan’s fifth-minute red card for handball being the second fastest in the club’s history, behind Carl Saunders’ third-minute dismissal against West Bromwich Albion at Twerton Park in May 1991. A reserve side lost 2-0 to Yate Town in the Gloucestershire FA Cup Final. Rovers’ women’s team finished another highly successful season in fifth place, their highest-ever showing in the Premier League. Fielding players from Canada, USA, Guam, the Netherlands, Wales and Ireland, Rovers could also call on England Under-19 international Louise Hutton. Trudi Williams scored a hat-trick when Doncaster Belles were defeated 5-0 and she added the opening goal of a 12-0 drubbing, through eight separate scorers, of Cirencester Town in the Gloucestershire FA Women’s Challenge Cup, setting up a 2-0 final victory against Bristol City, Williams and Stef Curtis both scoring in the opening twenty-three minutes. Both the women’s and men’s sides were able to benefit from extensive links with Filton College. The establishment of Club Rovers, a unique initiative which would combine supporters, local companies and the local community, offered much hope. With an average seasonal home gate of 7,077, plans for a new 5,500 all-seated stand to replace the Blackthorn End represented the first of three steps towards creating a 17,000 all-seated arena. The club’s match-day programme once again won the top honours nationally, winning the three categories of Best Read, Best Value and Best Programme for the division. An April Fool’s Day hoax on the club website was swiftly taken on board and Rovers agreed to issue a limited edition of a pink club shirt; over Easter 2005, Rovers announced an ambitious four-year sponsorship deal with the Italian sports giants Errea from Parma. Cup tournaments brought a mixture of success and disappointment. An improbable win at Brighton, two divisions higher, was followed by League Cup exit, in honourable circumstances, at Premier League Norwich City where Rovers, down to ten men after Elliott’s dismissal, lost by just one goal, scored in first-half stoppage time with a low thirty-yard drive by Moroccan midfielder Youssef Safri. As they had done for games at Cardiff in February 1934 and at Newcastle in April 1991, Rovers chartered a flight to transport players and supporters to Carrow Road. In the FA Cup, Brazilian Magno Vieira’s headed goal from a Chris Lumsdon cross after 109 minutes of the replay, saw Rovers crash out of the tournament at Conference side Carlisle United. It was only the fifth occasion, since Rovers’ admission into the Football League in 1920, that the club had been eliminated by a non-league side. Four straight wins in the LDV Vans Trophy, the last through a ninetieth-minute Lewis Haldane shot after the side had trailed at Orient, left Rovers just a two-legged tie away from a final at the Millennium Stadium. Succumbing to defeat with a makeshift side in the home leg, Rovers drew 2-2 at Southend to be eliminated by just one goal, despite a stunning volleyed goal from Agogo, described by many as his best ever for the Pirates. Chris Llewellyn and Danny Williams, the latter as substitute, played for the Wrexham side that defeated Adam Barrett and Che Wilson in the Southend side in the final. England lost 2-1 to Russia in a women’s international match staged at the Memorial Stadium in August. On Monday 2nd May, as the season drew to a close, Rovers played National Division One champions Bristol Shoguns at the Memorial Stadium in a thirty-minute football, thirty-minute tag rugby encounter refereed respectively by former player Geoff Twentyman and rugby World Cup Final referee Ed Morrison. A goalless draw at football preceded a 17-7 defeat at the oval-ball game, Edwards’ late try being converted by Williams.
2005-06
Amidst the ashes of the 2005-06 season lay the hope that Rovers could have pulled out of the basement division at the fifth time of asking. Early season hopes and the eternal optimism of ardent supporters were not ultimately rewarded and a final placing of twelfth was a fair reflection on what proved to be an average campaign in terms of performance and results. Rovers took to the field for the new season with just one new face in Scott Shearer. He arrived a fortnight before the new season, as Ryan Clarke had been allowed to join Conference side Forest Green Rovers on a year-long loan to gain first-team experience. Shearer, a former Coventry goalkeeper had been credited in some quarters with a goal for Albion Rovers against Queen’s Park in February 2003 and had been debited with an own goal when he played at the Memorial Stadium in Rushden’s colours in April 2005. Despite criticism in some circles, Shearer was a regular and dependable keeper and only 67 goals were conceded in the League. He almost scored, too, sending a last-minute header from a corner wide of the post in an eventful 3-2 defeat at home to Peterborough in August, after Rovers had clawed back a 2-0 deficit against ten men. Loan arrival Michael Leary’s first two games of 2005-06 were away wins at Brisbane Road, first with Luton Town and subsequently with Rovers, for whom he was booked in three of his first four appearances. Alongside loan signings, two young local players emerged, in the shape of Darren Mullings and Chris Lines, whose presence offered significant hope for Rovers’ future. Despite the loss to Chelsea of the prodigious talent of sixteen-year-old Scott Sinclair, Rovers’ youth policy appeared to be bearing fruit. Goalkeeping coach and sometime reserve goalkeeper Steve Book played just once, when the otherwise ever-present Shearer missed the Notts County game, Book becoming in the process, at 36 years 247 days, the seventh oldest man to make his club début. Shearer, Steve Elliott, a strong figure in defence, and Richard Walker missed only occasional games, whilst Walker and Junior Agogo spent much of the season bracketed amongst the division’s top scorers. Craig Disley was an able contributor of goals from midfield, his seasonal tally of eight being a personal best. Walker was the first Rovers player since Jamie Cureton in 1999-2000 to score twenty League goals in a season, finishing ahead of Agogo’s fifteen. Mid-season reports highlighted the issue of crowd control at the Memorial Stadium. In 2004-05 Rovers had registered the highest number of arrests at a League Two club, some 34 in total, fifteen at home games and nineteen away, of which 26 had been for “public disorder” offences. Although up from the thirty recorded in 2004-05, this figure still fell below the total at Bristol City, where there had been 68 arrests in 2004-05 and 43 in 2005-06. A figure of 2,725 arrests at all Football League matches in 2004-05, from a total attendance of 29.2 million indicated the lowest ratio per spectator apparently since 1980 and there had been no arrests whatsoever at 67% of all fixtures. Rovers, meanwhile, continued to initiate plans to develop the Memorial Stadium further. Proposals put forward in June 2005 had provoked 600 letters of complaint from local residents, yet October saw the club come forward with a £16 million plan to create an 18,000 all-seater stadium, funded by 114 student apartments within the ground. Bizarrely, Rovers found themselves 2-0 down in five consecutive games in August. This included the League Cup exit at Millwall, for whom the former Rovers striker Barry Hayles opened the scoring ten minutes after half-time and Sammy Igoe, on loan at the club later in the season, played in midfield. This run also encompassed an exciting comeback at Torquay, where Rovers scored three times in the final sixteen minutes, including a potential “Goal of the Season” from Agogo, to record a memorable victory. Indeed, two goals in the last three minutes led to victories over both Torquay and Wrexham and Richard Walker’s penchant for ninetieth-minute goals kept Rovers in the play-off hunt until the end of April. One last-minute goal accounted in January for Rushden, who included in their side sixteen-year-old Lee Tomlin, one of only twenty-two players to appear against Rovers in the League prior to their seventeenth birthday, whilst another completed a comeback from 2-0 down in a 3-3 draw with Mansfield, for whom seventeen-year-old Nathan Arnold got on the score-sheet. When Rovers visited promotion hopefuls Cheltenham Town in January, the home side took an eighty-seventh-minute lead, only for Rovers to snatch a late victory, substitute John Anderson recording his only goal of the season in the dying seconds to secure victory. As the season drew to a close, Rochdale’s Rickie Lambert, later a celebrated Rovers striker, missed the opportunity to become only the seventh opponent to score two penalties against Rovers in a League game, Shearer saving his second spot-kick of the game. Rovers had also been awarded two penalties in the home game with Orient, Agogo missing and Walker scoring, in a match in which the London club were indebted to two goals from substitute Jabo Ibehre. Indeed, nine substitutes scored against Rovers in a demoralising fourteen-match spell through the spring, Stockport County’s Adam Le Fondre also contributing a brace, and the ability of other clubs to alter their play through tactical substitutions may have been a factor in Rovers’ failure to reach the play-offs. Only twice in 46 League matches did a Rovers substitute score. Two goalscorers at the Memorial Stadium were 6’ 7” players, Wrexham’s Denis Lawrence, who played in that year’s World Cup finals with Trinidad and Tobago, and Torquay’s substitute Morike Sako. Glynn Hurst, who also scored a winner against Rovers for Shrewsbury, scored after only 52 seconds when Rovers visited Notts County; Aaron Lescott was sent off in that game, as were captain James Hunt at Rushden, Junior Agogo at Peterborough and Craig Hinton at Rochdale. On the positive side, Rovers contrived to win away to five of the top six sides in the division. Carlisle, deserved champions at the season’s close, were comprehensively defeated 3-1 at Brunton Park in October. On that occasion, two own goals helped Rovers on their way, only the fourth time that two opponents have scored for the club in the same League fixture. Danny Livesey diverted an Ali Gibb cross into his own net after 57 minutes to score the 5000th goal recorded by Rovers since entry to the Football League in 1920 and Zigor Aranalde added a second own goal 25 minutes later before Agogo completed the scoring late on with a delightful lob. Long-time divisional leaders Wycombe Wanderers were also crushed 3-1 at home in a strong Rovers performance over Easter; they fielded the former England midfielder Rob Lee in their side, one of only twenty-two players who have appeared against Rovers in League action after their fortieth birthday. Chris Carruthers’ first goal for Rovers defeated high-flying Grimsby Town away from home. The Pirate, Rovers’ match-day programme, was named divisional Programme of the Year for the third consecutive season. Why, then, did Rovers not secure a play-off berth as the season drew to a close? Initially under Ian Atkins’ management, Rovers slipped steadily down the table, reaching nineteenth spot on two occasions, both coincidentally after crushing 4-0 defeats. The first came at Chester in September, when Rovers took just 163 away supporters, two of whom famously spent the second half with their backs to the action in protest, facing a brick wall at the back of the stand, and which precipitated Atkins’ departure. The second was a demoralising loss at Northampton, who were to be promoted at the season’s end. Despite a steady improvement after that point, consistency was clearly lacking and a mid-January run proved the only occasion that the side won three League games in succession. Not once all season could the team score four goals in a game and no League doubles were completed, though Macclesfield Town, Rochdale and Notts County, by no means high fliers, all beat Rovers both home and away. Rovers also lost at home to relegated Rushden as well as strugglers Torquay; indeed, on four occasions Rovers lost at home to the side currently at the foot of the table. Defeat at home to Torquay represented the Gulls’ first away victory over Rovers since Boxing Day 1947. After mid-March there were four fairly tepid 1-0 defeats and these cost Rovers dear. Just when the play-offs were in sight, the controversial red card received by Agogo at Peterborough led to a three-match ban; Rovers lost all three games and hopes of success were effectively dashed. Rovers came close, yet actually no League table ever showed the club in the play-off zone, eighth place being the highest recorded all season. Ian Atkins’ tactics and player management attracted increased criticism as the season progressed and he was relieved of his duties on 22nd September. He had already used twenty players in an ever-changing side, with Jefferson Louis, Michael Husbands and Matt Somner appearing on a non-contract or temporary basis, as the manager appeared uncertain of his line-up. In Atkins’ place, the club appointed Paul Trollope from within as First Team Coach with John Anderson to support him for nine games. After that, the Directors created the role of Director of Football for Lennie Lawrence, an experienced manager with Charlton Athletic, Middlesbrough, Bradford City, Luton Town, Grimsby Town, Plymouth Argyle and Cardiff City. “What he has got is legs”, Lawrence had once been quoted as saying about a player, “which none of the other midfielders have”; he also bemoaned Rovers’ ill-fortune, “[the] last time we got a penalty away from home, Christ was still a carpenter”. After an impressive honeymoon period, in which Rovers won four out of five League and Cup games, the momentum could not be maintained. The three straight victories accumulated at this point represented in many ways the high point of the season. Optimism was high, following the arrival of the new management team and exciting victories at Rushden and Cheltenham were followed by a tough win at home to Chester. Yet, frustratingly, excellent form was shown by Ryan Williams, when on loan at Aldershot, and Jamie Forrester, when on loan at Lincoln, as Rovers missed out on the play-offs. Continued support is illustrated by a seasonal best away following of 1,999 at Oxford and an average home crowd of 5,989, the second highest in the division, the highest home crowd being the 7,551 who witnessed the Boxing Day victory over Shrewsbury Town. One severe mid-season loss to the club was the death on Christmas Eve 2005 of Ray Kendall. His fifty years’ service to the club had seen him undertake a plethora of jobs, from kit man to PA announcer, from steward to working in the club shop, and he was viewed by many as “Mr. Bristol Rovers”. He was always a true gentleman, and his memoirs, “An Away Game Every Week”, published in 2001, have proved an indication of the dedication he showed to the club. His funeral, at St John’s, Keynsham on 5th January, was attended by many former players from across the fifty years he had been involved with the club. A speedy exit from the League Cup was mirrored by the early defeat, albeit after extra time, at Peterborough in the LDV Vans Trophy, Richard Logan coming on as substitute to score the winner just as he had in the earlier League meeting between the sides. The FA Cup saw victory at Grimsby, though the encounter was like “two bald men fighting over a comb” (Richard Butcher) and a late lead held at Vale Park through Ali Gibb’s rare goal before Port Vale won the second round replay at the Memorial Stadium through a goal from Trinidadian World Cup midfielder Chris Birchall. Agogo’s positive end-of-season form earned a call-up to the full Ghanaian international side in May, whilst Bo Henriksen, a Rovers player in the spring of 2004, played in the Icelandic Cup Final in September 2005, his blue-shirted Fram side losing 1-0 to his former club Valur, and the former Rovers striker Bobby Zamora played for West Ham in the 2006 FA Cup Final.
2006-07
Just before five o’clock on the last Saturday in May 2007, Sammy Igoe collected the ball on the edge of his own penalty-area at the newly-reopened Wembley and made the most significant run of his footballing career. “Sixty yards, two look-ups and a slight swerve to the right later, he let go a shot that, by the time it rolled in, had secured the fourth promotion of Rovers’ 87 years in the Football League” (Jamie Jackson, “The Observer”). There was a brief moment, as the ball trickled accurately and gently towards the goal-line, during which the largest ever assembly of “Gasheads”, some 40,000 or more contributing to a Wembley crowd of 61,589, the second highest total ever at a game featuring Bristol Rovers, held its collective breath – would it or wouldn’t it? – and then came the most explosive eruption of sound. Igoe disappeared beneath a mound of players, the crowd became ecstatic, “Goodnight Irene” was sung by the collected masses and Rovers had returned to League One, so ending a dismal six seasons entrenched in the basement division. Steve Phillips, whose penalty save as a Bristol City player from Scott Jones in 2001 had gone some way to relegating Rovers, ended his season as Player of the Year by making a breathtaking save from Derek Asamoah with fourteen minutes left to play. Earlier in this play-off final Shrewsbury Town had taken a third minute lead through Stewart Drummond, only for two left-foot strikes from top scorer Richard Walker to give Rovers an interval lead. Just as Rovers and Chelsea were the two sides to appear at the Millennium Stadium and Wembley in the same season, so were Didier Drogba, Walker and Igoe the only three players to score at both. Reduced to ten men following Marc Tierney’s late dismissal, the Shrews had thrown goalkeeper Chris MacKenzie forward for an injury-time corner in search of an equaliser and left the way clear for Igoe’s breakaway goal that sealed promotion. Rovers’ success came courtesy of “two picture-book goals by the much-travelled Richard Walker and a late curiosity by Sammy Igoe” (Colin Malam, “Sunday Telegraph”). Thirty-four-year-old First Team Coach Paul Trollope and experienced Director of Football Lennie Lawrence earned just reward for their work this season, as their side progressed from seventeenth place on the morning of 17th March to secure an unlikely play-off berth on the final pulsating day of the regular season. An enthralling run of six wins and two draws in the final eight games propelled Rovers into the play-off mix, as the campaign drew to an exciting close. Substitute Sean Rigg’s first senior goal earned a 1-0 win at lowly Macclesfield, a ground on which Rovers had experienced a poor return down the years, before a stunning thirty-yard volley from Rickie Lambert, which was voted goal of the season by the fans, defeated Swindon Town at home to push Rovers, for the first time all season, into the play-offs with one game remaining. Rovers had to visit Hartlepool United, who required a win to become divisional champions, and equal or better the score achieved by Stockport County at Darlington. Whilst County ran up a 5-0 win, their largest away from home since September 1965, Rovers trailed to Joel Porter’s low shot after thirty-two minutes at Hartlepool. Nine minutes after half-time, man of the match Craig Disley was fouled by Willie Boland and Walker kept his head to equalise from the penalty-spot. With just four minutes remaining and Rovers outside the play-offs by a point, Ryan Green’s cross from the right was met by a nonchalant header from Lambert and Rovers had secured an improbable victory and their place in the play-offs at the expense of Stockport County. The first leg of the play-off semi-final attracted an enthusiastic crowd of 10,654, as Rovers took on Lincoln City, who were in the play-offs for a fifth consecutive season. Indeed, Rovers got off to a wonderful start, as they took the lead through a powerful downward header from Disley after nine minutes. Walker’s calm finish from Steve Elliott’s swiftly-taken free-kick early in the second-half then secured a first-leg victory after The Imps had equalised through a direct free-kick from the Northern Irish international Jeff Hughes, a future Rovers player. At Sincil Bank, Stuart Campbell’s astonishing thirty-yard strike saw Rovers ahead after just two minutes and, with Lambert putting the side 2-0 up with only ten minutes on the clock, the team coasted to a 5-3 victory, Walker and two substitutes, Igoe and Rigg, both scoring. It was the first time since September 2002 that Rovers had scored five times in a match and, ironically, the goals had come when a goalless draw would have sufficed to take the club to Wembley for the third time in its 124-year history. “This has happened before”, purred Spencer Vignes in The Observer – “the side who make it into the play-off positions at the last minute end up being the ones who make the jump, fuelled by a winning streak and positive vibes”. On 1st April 2007, Bristol Rovers played at the Millennium Stadium for the first, and quite possibly only time in the club’s history. Amid the rebuilding of Wembley Stadium, the smart stadium in the Welsh capital was being used to host domestic finals and, having progressed through the rounds of the Football League Trophy, now known as the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy, Rovers faced Doncaster Rovers in the final. The road there had been smooth, five games and five clean sheets. If Byron Anthony’s last-minute header to defeat Torquay United had been crucial, one of the defining moments in Rovers’ recent history had been the semi-final against local rivals Bristol City. A hard-earned goalless draw at Ashton Gate ignited belief that was justified when Lambert crashed home a twelve-yard volley 25 minutes from time at the Memorial Stadium to earn Rovers a place in the final and, more importantly in the eyes of many, secure victory in the local bragging rights for the time being. Victory over City is always sweet, yet it tastes better still when the stakes are so high. Having not conceded a goal in 450 minutes in the tournament, Rovers took more than 37,000 supporters to Cardiff. The total crowd of 59,025 represented the fourth highest ever to watch a game featuring Rovers, but this was the highest number of “Gasheads” ever to assemble in a ground and watch their side play. The game was billed by the Doncaster Rovers side as “the friendly final” and so it was, a game brimming with excitement and epitomizing all that is good in lower league football. A goal behind to Jonathan Forte’s shot inside 45 seconds, Rovers were 2-0 down inside five minutes, as Paul Heffernan, a Rovers player in the 2009-10 season, capitalized on another uncharacteristic error. As The Kaiser Chiefs’ “Ruby” blasted across the modernistic stadium at half-time, the Pirates found themselves two goals in arrears on arguably their biggest day out for many years. Rovers were spurred into action and, roared on by their vociferous support, pulled a goal back four minutes after half-time when Walker converted a penalty following a foul on Igoe. Then Igoe himself equalised after 62 minutes, after good work from Lambert and the strains of “Goodnight Irene” reverberated around the stadium. Efforts from Lambert and Igoe went close but, unable to make their increased pressure tell, Rovers were forced into extra-time, where the game was lost to a powerful header from the Doncaster captain Graeme Lee from Sean Thornton’s left-wing corner. Nonetheless, Rovers and their huge support had done themselves proud. Such end-of-season excitement appeared a million miles away as Rovers trailed by three clear goals after thirty-five minutes on the opening day of the season. This 4-1 defeat to Peterborough United was to be the heaviest suffered by a side that improved exponentially as the campaign progressed. Sure, four goals were conceded at Grimsby, but the 4-3 defeat there came after Rovers had led 2-0 inside twenty minutes, with the former Pirate Ciarán Toner contributing the home side’s fourth before Disley’s second goal of the game arrived in injury-time. Rovers also trailed 2-0 inside five minutes at the Millennium Stadium and inside seven minutes at Boston in March, where Albert Jarrett converted a second-minute penalty awarded for handball against Rovers’ on-loan defender Samuel Oji. It was certainly an inauspicious start for what had appeared to be a strong Rovers side. The two major new signings had seemed to be that of goalkeeper Steve Phillips from Bristol City, where he had played in over 250 League games, and future England striker Rickie Lambert, a £200,000 arrival who had previously scored against Rovers for both Macclesfield Town and Rochdale. They were joined by left-winger Andy Sandell from Bath City, central defender Byron Anthony, a former Cardiff City player and full-back Ryan Green, the holder of two full caps for Wales, whose goal in May 2006 had elevated Hereford United back to the Football League after an absence of nine years. Stuart Nicholson, a Geordie supporter of Rovers, arrived on loan from West Bromwich Albion and impressed with his speed of movement up front, whilst Joe Jacobson, a left-sided player, had scored for Wales Under-21 against Northern Ireland just weeks prior to his arrival on loan. Briefly in the autumn, Rovers had two Walkers in attack, whilst Sean Rigg and Chris Lines were the two young players pushed through the ranks, with Tom Parrinello and Darren Mullings being unused substitutes. Junior Agogo played in just the first three games, before leaving for Nottingham Forest in a deal worth £150,000. Without doubt, much of the success of the 2006-07 season was a result of the dependable form of goalkeeper Phillips, who bridged the divide between the two Bristol clubs and was deservedly named Rovers’ Player of the Season. From his début in July, when six separate scorers enabled Rovers to defeat Clevedon Town 6-0, he impressed with his fine saves and excellent positional play. He appeared in 57 of Rovers’ 62 games in all competitions. Igoe, Disley and Walker were also regular players in the side all season, the last-named finishing as the club’s top scorer with twenty-three goals, twelve of them in League Two proper. With Aaron Lescott and Steve Elliott regulars in the defence in front of him, Phillips conceded only 41 goals in 44 League matches, a total which included 22 clean sheets, equalling a club League record set in the 1973-74 promotion season. Indeed, in all tournaments, Rovers did not concede a goal in thirty fixtures, better than the previous club record of 27 in the Third Division championship and Leyland Daf Final season of 1989-90. That apart, the campaign barely resembled previous promotion seasons. In 1952-53 and 1989-90, Rovers had won 26 League fixtures; this time the side won twenty. Ninety-two League goals in 1952-53 contrasts with forty-nine in 2006-07, whilst 93 points accumulated in 1989-90 exceeded significantly the 72 this time round. The 1952-53 and 1973-74 seasons included 27-match unbeaten runs and the latter one run of conceding no goals in 707 minutes; the 2006-07 campaign was not like that at all. Having won just two of their opening ten League games, Rovers gradually moved up the table. Two goals in a minute, midway through the second-half, brought about a hard-fought home win over newly-promoted Hereford United. New captain Stuart Campbell, who took over from James Hunt, a long-term loanee to Grimsby Town, struck a glorious last-minute winner from a free-kick to secure a 3-2 win at home to Peterborough United, after a two-goal lead had been squandered. The 2-0 win at Gigg Lane in November ended Bury’s run of six consecutive wins. A 4-0 win in the first-ever home League game against Accrington Stanley proved the largest of the season, with Rovers scoring three times in the opening twenty-six minutes. Yet, given that Torquay United lost their eighty-year League status in the spring, the goalless draw at Plainmoor must be seen as two points dropped, especially since television replays were to show that Walker’s speculative lob in the second-half had crossed the line before being spectacularly cleared by the former Rovers player Lee Thorpe. Walker himself missed a penalty at Rochdale, whilst Rovers also conceded last-minute equalisers against both Darlington and Accrington Stanley. The home game against struggling Macclesfield Town remained goalless, even though Rovers recorded fifteen shots to their visitors’ four, whilst struggling Wrexham completed a League double over Rovers with Jeff Whitley’s very late winner in Horfield over Easter leading to Rovers’ only defeat in their final eleven League fixtures. Several notable opponents played against Rovers during the course of the season. Forty-one-year-old Andy Hessenthaler, the thirteenth oldest opponent since 1920, was in Barnet’s side in November, older still than Grimsby’s forty-year-old Peter Beagrie in August. Bury’s David Worrall, aged sixteen, became the first opponent born in the 1990s to feature against Rovers, whilst a seventeen-year-old, Lukas Jutkiewicz, scored for Swindon Town in December. Carl Muggleton played in goal for Mansfield Town in November, almost nineteen years to the day since he had appeared for Chesterfield at Twerton Park, the fourth longest such gap, whilst Grimsby Town’s John McDermott had now played against Rovers over an eighteen-year period. Oliver Allen, Barnet’s substitute at Underhill in the spring, was the eighth member of the Allen family to play against Rovers – his uncle Bradley was once on Rovers’ books and Oliver’s father Clive and grandfather Les have also opposed the club in League action. Rovers also faced opponents from three new countries, in Tamika Mkandawire, a Malawian at Hereford, Benin international Romuald Boco of Accrington Stanley and Drissa Diallo of MK Dons and Mauritania. Representative honours came the way of Lewis Haldane in September, who won his first cap for the Welsh Under-21 side as a second-half substitute against Turkey at Ninian Park. Whilst the former Rovers prodigy Scott Sinclair furthered his future international claims at Chelsea and on loan to Plymouth Argyle, others gained international honours. Calum Willock won his first caps for St Kitts and Nevis, while Louie Soares (Barbados), James Quinn (Northern Ireland), Junior Agogo (Ghana) and Chris Llewellyn (Wales) all represented their countries; Vitalijs Astafjevs played his 131st full international game for Latvia in their defeat at the hands of Hungary in February. Off the field, chairman Geoff Dunford stepped down on the day of the JPT Final after years at the helm of the club he has always supported; his years in charge had seen the club survive relegation and begin to rebuild at their new home and his input into the club, both in terms of finance and in terms of time, should not be underestimated. Under new chairman Ron Craig, Rovers faced a period of time away from the Memorial Stadium as redevelopment work gets underway from Christmas 2007. The club received a major boost with the approval of plans to increase the capacity of the ground from 11,724 to become an all-seater stadium for 18,500 spectators. These plans, to include 120 accommodation units to house 674 people, shops, offices and parking facilities, were given the green light on 17th January 2007, through a vote of 8-3 after a three-and-a-half hour council meeting, in what Geoff Dunford described as “a proud and historic moment” and “the start of a new era for Bristol Rovers”. With the all-seater requirements stipulated in the 1989 Taylor report now becoming legally binding for League Two clubs and the government’s 1991 all-seater policy becoming more stringently implemented, Rovers were to redevelop their new home with the full support of Sport England, the Football Association and Lord Brian Mawhinney, the chairman of the Football League. The season also saw the tragically early deaths of Angela Mann, aged only fifty-six, a long-serving employee of the club in a variety of roles, and of Alan Ball, a World Cup winner with England in 1966 and a Rovers player in 1983, who was accorded a one minute’s round of applause prior to the final regular home game of the season. The award-winning match-day programme was named Programme of the Year for the division for the eighth time in ten years. Rovers drew a crowd of 11,530 for the home tie against Bristol City in the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy, whilst the League Two game at home to Swindon Town drew an attendance of 9,902; the average home gate for Rovers’ home Division Two fixtures was 5,475. Through the cup competitions, Paul Trollope’s side was able to offer great excitement for its supporters. The early exit in the League Cup came only through a penalty shoot-out, after Rovers had held Luton Town, from two divisions above them, to a draw. The excitement of the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy run, as previously highlighted, was almost matched by an enthralling run to the fourth round of the FA Cup. The drama began at Barrow’s Holker Street ground in November when Rovers almost let slip a 3-0 lead, conceding twice in the final twenty minutes in a gale. This match, though, will be remembered longer for the unprovoked left hook from Barrow’s James Cotterill that broke eighteen-year-old Sean Rigg’s jaw – the punch was captured by BBC “Match of the Day” cameras and Cotterill, immediately released from his contract by his club, was given a four-month prison sentence for grievous bodily harm. Richard Walker scored in each of Rovers’ first four FA Cup-ties, as Bournemouth, fielding three seventeen-year-olds over the two games as well as the experienced former England midfielder Darren Anderton, were defeated at Dean Court and Hereford were beaten in Horfield. This victory set up a trip to Derby County’s Pride Park for a repeat of the famous game in January 2002, when Nathan Ellington’s hat-trick had secured victory on one of Rovers’ glory days. With Paul Trollope and Steve Elliott both being former Derby players and the memories of 2002 playing on the minds of their hosts, Rovers visited the Championship leaders for this fourth-round FA Cup-tie with good reason for optimism. The club’s approach was sensed by independent reporters – these “passions … reflected throughout (the) side, who were backed by a vociferous following”, noted Arindam Rej in “The Observer”. Rovers took 5,808 supporters to Derby which, though not the 6,602 of five years earlier, represented a significant segment of the crowd of 25,033. Support all season was high, with Rovers taking 2,872 to Ashton Gate for the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy semi-final and 2,134 to Swindon Town in League Two. Rovers certainly gave a good account of themselves and were unfortunate to see Andy Sandell’s headed strike disallowed on the stroke of half-time. The perhaps harsh sending-off of Aaron Lescott after 69 minutes left the side short in defence and Canadian substitute Paul Peschisolido scored a well-taken goal eight minutes from time to knock Rovers out of the tournament. However, Rovers “embraced the grand old lady of football competitions and their 6,000 supporters joyously serenaded them”, as Derick Allsop reported in the “Sunday Telegraph”.
2007-08
Amidst the excitement of Wembley and Rovers’ last-gasp dash to promotion from League Two in 2006-07 was the realisation that avoiding immediate relegation had to be the priority for Bristol Rovers in 2007-08. This was achieved relatively comfortably, though not without a late glance over the proverbial shoulder, whilst a hugely impressive FA Cup run to the club’s first quarter-final in half a century added a touch of gloss to the season. The management team of Paul Trollope and Lennie Lawrence had achieved their aims and the process of consolidation in League Two had begun. Prior to the side’s first season in the third tier of English football since 2000-01, there was the small matter of building up a side capable of holding its own at this level. Trollope and Lawrence held onto the shape and personnel that had taken the club to this point, adding in a few players in key positions. First, the signing of left-back Joe Jacobson was made permanent and the young Welshman continued to impress, captaining his country at Under-21 level during the season. Midfielder David Pipe, striker Andy Williams and strong central defender Danny Coles were added to the squad and all had significant roles to play as the season progressed. A brief Scottish tour that followed a 5-2 victory over Bath City saw the team remain undefeated against Dunfermline Athletic, Cowdenbeath and Airdrie United, Richard Walker scoring in all three games north of the border. Yet, though he and Sammy Igoe had both scored at the Millennium Stadium and again at Wembley, neither was to score from open play in 2007-08 and Igoe left on loan to Hereford United in the spring. If survival was the primary concern during the season, it is one that Rovers achieved with the minimum of fuss. Though three Yorkshire sides completed a League double over Rovers – Leeds United, Huddersfield Town and Doncaster Rovers -, as did Swindon Town, Leyton Orient and relegated Bournemouth, this was achieved in turn over both Oldham Athletic and Millwall, who were both defeated by last-minute goals at The Memorial Stadium. Rovers took four points off promotion favourites Carlisle United, for whom the future Rovers player Joe Anyinsah appeared in the Brunton Park fixture, and drew both games with the former European champions Nottingham Forest, who were promoted on the final day. The side rode its luck on occasions, securing victory over Millwall twice through injury-time goals and scoring five minutes into stoppage time to earn a point at home to Yeovil Town. However, Rovers were unbeaten in their first five League games of the season, a run which stretched to sixteen matches undefeated if the tail end of 2006-07 and the play-offs were taken into consideration, and there was another run of eleven matches unbeaten in all competitions from Boxing Day until the trip to Doncaster in mid-February. With club captain Stuart Campbell controlling midfield and Aaron Lescott playing with renewed vigour at full-back, the side had greater shape. The two Craigs contributed greatly to the goals-for column, with Disley achieving a personal highest seasonal goals tally of six League goals and Hinton, who had not scored at all in over 100 games for the club, hitting a purple patch with two League goals and, astonishingly, three more in the FA Cup. However, there were tell-tale signs that League One was to be a tougher proposition to all that the club had experienced in recent years. Luton Town equalised and held on for a point at The Memorial Stadium, even though they were playing with only eight men. At relegation-threatened Gillingham, Rovers led 2-1 with five minutes remaining, only to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, with the future Rovers striker Chris Dickson scoring the Gills’ winning goal. Southend United scored an injury-time equaliser for a point in Horfield and Forest recovered a 2-0 deficit to escape from the Memorial Stadium with a point. Three of the four relegated sides escaped from Horfield with at least a point, Bournemouth defeating Rovers three times during the campaign, with their striker Jo Kuffour, later a Rovers player, scoring against Rovers in both the League and the Johnstone Paint Trophy. Indeed, in an alarming run that hinted at the 2000-01 relegation season, Rovers had not won at home in the League until mid-November, their eleventh home match in all competitions, and there was a slump either side of the FA Cup quarter-final, when Rovers secured one point in five League encounters and did not win in ten League matches. Indeed, there was just one League win in the final fifteen games of the campaign. At this point, Trollope and Lawrence acted in the loan market and brought in two experienced campaigners, striker Wayne Andrews and midfielder Jeff Hughes. Andrews lasted just seventeen minutes at Yeovil before injury brought his Rovers career to a premature end and Hughes did not even make the team, receiving an injury in a reserve game that prevented him from getting onto the pitch at all; he was to give Rovers sterling service, though, in seasons to come. One highlight of the League season was Rickie Lambert’s astonishing goal at Luton that was voted second best in the division by an independent panel. Just 67 seconds into Rovers’ 2-1 victory at Kenilworth Road in September, he volleyed home from a full thirty-five yards past goalkeeper David Forde for a spectacular goal. The same game also featured a thrice-taken penalty, as the referee continued to spot infringements as the kick was taken – to his credit, Luton’s Matt Spring scored on all three occasions and the goal eventually stood. When the sides later met at The Mem, Luton became only the second side ever to have three men sent off against Rovers, with Chris Coyne, Steve Robinson and Tony Grant all seeing red; Grant’s unorthodox form against Rovers continued when he scored own goals in the Pirates’ favour in both fixtures against Southend United in the 2009-10 season. Rovers themselves received only two red cards all season, yet these were both in a controversial close to the single-goal defeat at Swindon, when Richard Walker and Steve Elliott were both dismissed in mystifying circumstances along with Swindon’s future Rovers defender Jerel Ifil; their substitute Sofiane Zaaboub was also sent off, just two minutes after coming on the pitch. The red card to Swansea’s Febian Brandy at The Mem took to six the number of opposition substitutes ever sent off in League action against Rovers. Walker became only the seventh player to score twice from the penalty-spot in a League fixture, in giving Rovers a 2-0 lead at home to Orient in September, a lead that was squandered as the east London side came away with all three points. Doncaster Rovers also scored from two penalties when Rovers lost 2-0 at The Keepmoat, Brian Stock and substitute Paul Heffernan, later a Rovers player, converting the spot-kicks. That match included the entire, yet brief Rovers career of Anthony Pulis, the son of a former Rovers stalwart, who appeared as a late substitute, picked up a yellow card and conceded the second penalty. Byron Anthony’s first League goal for Rovers was followed three minutes later by an own goal, inadvertently diverting a free-kick into the net off his head, at home to Nottingham Forest in September, as he became the fifth Rovers player to score for both sides in a League match. This first season back in League One had enabled Rovers to attract an average home attendance in the League of 6,937, almost one-and-a-half-thousand more than in the promotion campaign twelve months earlier. Rovers finished the season in sixteenth place in League One, having scored just 45 goals in 46 League encounters and secured just five home victories in the League. Goalkeeper Steve Phillips and captain Stuart Campbell were both ever-presents, whilst Rickie Lambert, though substitute on four occasions, featured in every League fixture as well as top-scoring with thirteen League goals in addition to his six Cup strikes. Rovers also supplied the opposition when Cheltenham Town fielded their oldest ever League player, Jerry Gill being 37 years 190 days, whilst Alan Wright, who played alongside him, had also been in the Blackpool side that opposed Rovers in April 1989. Millwall’s Ali Fuseini came on as a fourth minute substitute at The Mem and his goal, timed at seven minutes 49 seconds, is the earliest in a Rovers game from a substitute. Cup competitions were of critical importance to Bristol Rovers in 2007-08. Whilst the Johnstone Paint Trophy did not bring the success of the previous campaign, Rovers bowing out meekly at home to a Bournemouth side that included the former Bristol City player Rob Newman, now aged 43 years and 300 days, success lay elsewhere. First, victory over Championship side Crystal Palace in a dramatic League Cup penalty shoot-out set up a home tie with Premier League West Ham United. A narrow 2-1 defeat was marred by the broken leg suffered by England winger Kieran Dyer in a tackle from Joe Jacobson. Then, the FA Cup took over Rovers’ season, though the side had almost been eliminated in the First Round at Orient. As the cup run gained momentum, Rovers began to draw the attention of the national press and, by the beginning of March, Rovers were “unquestionably the Cinderella team of the FA Cup” (Dave Rogers). In becoming this, they had defeated teams from each of the top five tiers of English football. For only the third time in the club’s 125-year history and the first time since 1958, Rovers found themselves in the quarter-finals of this famous old competition. Struggling through to defeat nine-man Orient in a penalty shoot-out at The Memorial Stadium, Wayne Corden and Jabo Ibehre having been sent off, Rovers recovered from trailing to an early wind-assisted long-range goal from Rushden’s Marcus Kelly to defeat their Conference opponents 5-1 in atrocious conditions in Round Two. This victory earned a trip to Craven Cottage where “it was sometimes hard to tell who were the Premier League team” (Simon Burnton, The Guardian, 7.1.08). With “the euphoria … (and) pride of Rovers’ travelling band” (Oliver Brown, The Telegraph, 7.1.08) behind them, Rovers twice took the lead through central defenders, Craig Hinton and Danny Coles both seeing their goals cancelled out by Fulham equalisers. Tenacious and determined, and cheered on by a partisan crowd, Rovers were “vastly superior in terms of both adventure and endeavour (on) a famous night for Rovers” in the Horfield replay (James Corrigan, The Independent, 23.1.08). Rovers triumphed 5-3 on penalties, with Disley, as he had against Orient, converting the decisive spot-kick. A single Lambert goal at Barnet set up a fifth-round tie at home to Southampton, the 2003 finalists but uncharacteristically vulnerable near the foot of their division. Live on the BBC, Rovers ground out a barely pretty but wholly effective 1-0 victory, Lambert having one headed “goal” disallowed before marking his 26th birthday with a famous goal from a free-kick with six minutes remaining, his shot deflecting in off Jermaine Wright. “If anyone questions the magic of the FA Cup”, wrote Andrew Warshaw, “they should have been down in this part of the West Country” (The Sunday Telegraph, 17.2.08). Rovers were through to their first FA Cup quarter-final in half a century and, having been given a home tie against non-Premier League opponents, there was a very real hope that the side could reach its first-ever semi-final. Alas, further FA Cup success was not to be. Before a fiercely vocal record attendance of 12,011, Rovers were undone by a slick and effective West Bromwich Albion side that played with great skill and showed clinical finishing. The margin of defeat – 5-1 – was harsh on a Rovers side that competed well, but reflected the power of an Albion side who were top scorers in the four divisions of English football. Ishmael Miller, a cut above everyone else on the day, scored a hat-trick, only the second opponent ever to do so at The Memorial Stadium. For some time, after Coles’ scrambled goal on 31 minutes from Campbell’s right-wing corner had cut the score to 2-1, Rovers were in the tie, but “Miller, retreating from an offside position” (Russell Kempson, The Times, 10.3.08) put the Baggies 3-1 ahead with twenty minutes remaining and the efficiency of Tony Mowbray’s side ultimately proved too strong for the Pirates. Nonetheless, a quarter-final had been beyond Rovers’ pre-season aspirations and Coles could lay claim to being only the second Rovers player, following the late Geoff Bradford, to have scored for the club at this stage in the competition. A good deal of positives could be taken out of the 2007-08 season. The management team continued to add stability to a side that had chopped and changed through the roughest years of the basement division. A regular line-up now played with greater consistency and only there games were lost by more than a single goal in the League. Youth was allowed to flourish, with Chris Lines given an extended run in midfield and both Sean Rigg and Josh Klein-Davies playing and scoring in attack. Charlie Reece, Tom Parrinello, Matt Groves and seventeen-year-old Charlie Clough, the first 1990s-born Rovers player, were given brief cameo roles. The club continued to attract positive support, taking 2,781 fans to Leeds and a total of 6,976 to the FA Cup game at Fulham, this figure representing more than half of the 13,634 crowd. It was said that no top division side had ever been so outnumbered by a lower-league side in its own ground. “The Pirate” was voted Programme of the Year for League One by Programme Monthly, who said it offered “unbeatable value for money and a tremendous service for supporters”. Finally, the go-ahead for the redevelopment of the Memorial Stadium was given the green light on 2nd April, when Bristol City Council, heeding the persuasive argument of community liaison officer Carl Saunders, a former Rovers striker, voted 7-1, with one abstention, to agree to the original plans. The number of student flats was to be reduced from 105 to 99, hotel bedrooms from 112 to 97 and hospitality boxes from 28 to 20, but this plan would otherwise follow closely that already agreed, with the result that the pitch would be enlarged from 100×64 m to 100×66m. A long-anticipated announcement of Rovers’ temporary move to play home fixtures at Cheltenham Town’s Whaddon Road was made public as the season drew to a close, the curtain apparently coming down on the Old Mem in a disappointing 2-0 defeat at the hands of Brighton in a meaningless end-of-season anticlimax.
2008-09
Doom-mongers in certain quarters had predicted a season of struggle and that the spectre of relegation would hang over the Memorial Stadium in the spring of 2009. Indeed, some speculated that a West Country quartet could be relegated back to the basement division. However, whilst Hereford United, a side Rovers dismantled twice this season, and Cheltenham Town, who might have been Rovers’ host club had the financial situation internationally been different, suffered relegation, both Yeovil Town and Rovers survived. Indeed, it was more than survival for Paul Trollope and Lennie Lawrence’s side, who finished the season in a highly commendable eleventh place in the table, having secured 63 League points. Prior to the start of the campaign, Rovers had signed two new senior professionals in the shape of Darryl Duffy, a former Swansea City striker who had briefly experienced Champions League football whilst with Rangers, and the Northern Ireland international midfielder Jeff Hughes, who had scored three times for Lincoln City against Rovers in the 2007 play-offs, as well as taking on the promising West Ham United youngster Ben Hunt. Sammy Igoe joined Bournemouth, Richard Walker moved to Shrewsbury Town on loan, and the young pairing of Lewis Haldane and Andy Williams spent season-long loans at Oxford United and Hereford United respectively. A string of pre-season games around the country sandwiched a four-day tour to Sweden, in which Rovers lost 3-2 to FC Copenhagen before beating both Malmö Anadolu, with Josh Klein-Davies scoring all the goals, scoring in nineteen, 59, 80 and 83 minutes, in a 4-0 victory and Limhamn Bunkeflo through Duffy’s curling shot after half an hour. The only home game before the start of the season resulted in a 3-2 defeat at home to a strong Dutch side, ADO Den Haag. Three weeks into the new campaign, Jo Kuffour was signed from Bournemouth to add extra emphasis to the Rovers attack. Much touted as a potential signing, he had scored for both Torquay United and Bournemouth against Rovers in previous years. Led by captain Stuart Campbell, Rovers’ midfield was more creative than in recent years, with Hughes, Chris Lines, David Pipe and Craig Disley playing regularly. Behind them Aaron Lescott was superb at full-back, supported by Ryan Green or Joe Jacobson on the other flank and with a central defensive pairing comprising Steve Elliott, Byron Anthony, Craig Hinton or, until his season was prematurely ended by a knee injury, Danny Coles. Behind them, Steve Phillips in goal was the only player to start every game all season. All this took place at the Memorial Stadium, as talks of refurbishment and a spell away at Cheltenham had fallen through. Goalscoring might have been a failing of the Rovers side over the past few seasons, but there were precious few signs of it this time round. With Kuffour and Duffy supporting the prolific Lambert, the side ran in 79 goals in League action, thirty more than in the 2006-07 promotion season. For the first time since 1997-98, three separate Rovers players reached double figures in their individual tally of League goals. Five goals at Walsall in March and six at home to Hereford showed that the team could score at will when the opportunity arose. Thirteen players scored in the League, which represented a fair sharing around of the goals, though in fairness the lion’s share fell to the prolific Rickie Lambert. To start with, the free-scoring striker scored in each of Rovers’ first five League matches of the season. When Geoff Bradford set the club seasonal record of 33 League goals in the 1952-53 season, 24 of his strikes had come in home matches; though Rovers scored forty times at home in the League in 2008-09, Lambert himself contributed seventeen at home and a further eleven in away games. In scoring 29 times in the League, Lambert ended as the equal highest goalscorer in all four division of English League Football with Swindon Town’s Simon Cox. In fact, Lambert had led the Golden Boot list for much of the season and his form earned him a place in the prestigious Professional Football Association League One XI for 2008-09. Almost inevitably, he was voted Rovers’ Player of the Year. It was the first time that any Rovers player had scored so many times in one League season since Alfie Biggs had hit thirty in the 1963-64 season. It is difficult to put a finger on any moment that in itself could define Lambert’s free-scoring grip on Rovers’ on-field success. The 7,055 crowd for the home game with Southend United in October, however, was treated to a vintage display from the striker, who scored all Rovers’ goals in a 4-2 victory. Three goals ahead at the break, with two headers and a shot after ten, sixteen and 33 minutes, Lambert headed home Stuart Campbell’s free-kick after 55 minutes to put Rovers four goals up, a lead that was reduced late on by the visitors’ Peter Clarke and substitute Francis Laurent. A further hat-trick followed in March, with two first-half shots and a 59th-minute penalty at Edgar Street, as Lambert single-handedly saw off a Hereford side staring relegation in the face. He also scored one of the three goals, a powerful 25-yard free-kick, through which local rivals Yeovil Town were comfortably despatched 3-0 in February. Two more Lambert goals also helped Rovers to four first-half goals against Millwall in April, a game that was eventually won 4-2 after Rovers had scored three times in the final thirteen minutes of a glorious first period. Early season form certainly converts sceptical fans and Rovers were fortunate to have the good fortune to play at home to Hereford United in the third game of the campaign. A 6-1 victory before a crowd of 6,735 showed what could be achieved. Duffy and Lambert both scored in the opening six minutes and registered two apiece, with Hughes crashing home an unstoppable shot from the edge of the area just seconds into the second-half and Lines scoring the sixth with a thirty-yard free-kick in off the crossbar two minutes from time. “You’d be hard pressed to see a better collection of goals anywhere in the country”, purred First Team Coach Paul Trollope. Rovers’ inauspicious start of one point in their opening two games heralded, in fact, a consistent run of form through the campaign. Only the three top sides in the division – champions Leicester City, Peterborough United and MK Dons – were able to complete a League double, whilst Rovers achieved this feat over three sides themselves – Hereford United, Orient and play-off hopefuls Oldham Athletic. Rovers also won 2-0 away to high-flying Scunthorpe United, after Phillips had saved Paul Hayes’ second-half penalty. There was one September run of three consecutive defeats, which temporarily took Rovers into the bottom four, but otherwise Rovers retained a balanced and unchanging side that played with great consistency. Incredibly, prior to Charlie Reece’s inclusion for the 4-1 demolition of Hartlepool United in a meaningless final game of the season, only sixteen different players had started a League match for Rovers. Trollope instilled a sense of fair play in his charges that resulted in a low number of cards being shown, as had also been an element of Rovers’ play in previous seasons. In League football, Lines was sent off for an over-exuberant goal celebration after his last-minute equaliser at home to Swindon and defenders Anthony and Elliott also saw red against Walsall and Millwall respectively; three red cards and 45 yellows, fewer than one booking every League game all season, represents a degree of self-control that epitomised Rovers’ mid-table displays. Although champions Leicester City completed a League double, Rovers could consider themselves unlucky, particularly on their visit to the Walkers Stadium. On the back of a seven-game unbeaten run, Rovers led through Kuffour’s superbly-executed volley from Lambert’s flick after 61 minutes, only to concede two in the final couple of minutes and lose 2-1. Rovers performed well against other high-flying sides, drawing twice with Leeds United, these 2-2 draws attracting both the highest crowd at the Memorial Stadium all season – 10,293 to see Kuffour claim a last-gasp equaliser for Rovers – and the highest on Rovers’ travels – 21,046 at Elland Road in the autumn. A stunning long-range strike from Lambert helped defeat promotion hopefuls Oldham, who fielded the future Rovers left-back Daniel Jones in their side, in an enthralling home game in October which, along with another 2-0 home win, this time over Tranmere Rovers, represented perhaps the most professional display of the season. Even more exciting, though, was the televised game at Peterborough United’s London Road the previous month. Craig Mackail-Smith scored a hat-trick for the home side, who led by two clear goals on four occasions. Much as Rovers could not be finished off, the Pirates were also unable to conjure an equaliser let alone a winning goal in an extraordinary match which was lost 5-4. Aaron McLean and substitute Scott Rendell, a future Rovers striker, also scored for the Posh, whilst Elliott, Hughes, Lambert and a Shane Blackett own goal proved all in vain for the visitors. Craig Davies was the only other opponent to register a hat-trick against Rovers during the season. The Stockport County striker scored after 27 minutes, and then again in the final seconds of each half, as Rovers were defeated 3-1 at Edgeley Park a week before Christmas. Having lost at home to Walsall, Rovers exceeded expectations by recording a 5-0 victory at the Banks Stadium in March on the occasion of Paul Trollope’s 200th match as Rovers’ First Team Coach. Pipe set up Duffy for the first goal after only three minutes and Disley doubled the lead three minutes later. Just nineteen minutes in, Rovers were three goals ahead as Lescott hit a low left-foot shot home for his first goal in 174 League matches for Rovers. After Duffy had added his second of the game and Lambert had hit the bar, Lescott astonished all those present by doubling his own tally eleven minutes from time, to leave Rovers supporters puzzled as to why it had taken him so long to score at all. Remarkably, Lescott scored again on the final day of the season, when Rovers led 2-0 after just four minutes and defeated Hartlepool United 4-1 at the Memorial Stadium. Many supporters believed that, though there had been wealth of astonishing goals from Lambert’s boot, the best goal seen at the Memorial Stadium in the 2008-09 season was Anthony Pilkington’s seventieth-minute equaliser at the end of March, as Huddersfield Town came from a goal down to defeat Rovers 2-1. When Colchester United drew in Horfield in January, their substitute Anthony Wordsworth was booked for putting off Campbell as he shaped to take a corner at the Blackthorn End just before half-time; Wordsworth never did get on the pitch. In addition, “The Pirate”, the match-day publication, won Programme Monthly’s coveted Programme of the Year award for the division for the sixth consecutive season. The average home crowd for 2008-09 was 7,171, a 4.7% increase on the previous campaign. As Rovers’ season drew to a close, Ryan Green, Craig Disley, Craig Hinton, Richard Walker and Joe Jacobson were all out of contract. The former Rovers manager Bobby Campbell died on 3rd May 2009 at the age of eighty-six. Following the astonishing run to the FA Cup quarter-finals in 2007-08, Rovers were unable to live up to their new billing as a successful cup side. Early exits from all three competitions was a disappointment, Rovers losing to their future striker Will Hoskins’ goal two minutes from time at Watford in the League Cup and then crashing out of both the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy and the FA Cup, after Anthony had been dismissed, at Bournemouth’s Dean Court. Sammy Igoe, so recently a Rovers hero when he scored at both the Millennium Stadium and Wembley in the spring of 2007, tucked home Josh McQuoid’s low cross after 67 minutes of the 3-0 JPT defeat to help knock Rovers out of a tournament they had come so close to winning just eighteen months earlier.
2009-10
The third season back in League One under the management team of Paul Trollope and Lennie Lawrence proved as successful in terms of the League position, though frustrating at times for the club’s supporters, expectant as they were of ever-increasing success. Rovers were to register a four-goal away victory as well as suffer a four-goal defeat at home, a feat previously only encountered by the club in the League during the 1948-49 season. Such inconsistency was reflected in defeats against several struggling sides and a run of victories over play-off hopefuls. However, the reality was that, under this management duo, the team had consolidated its position in the upper middle reaches of the third tier of English football, whilst several contemporaries from the early years of the twenty-first century had slipped out of League football. From the old guard, Rovers were bereft of the 2008-09 top scorer Rickie Lambert who, after adding his 52nd League goal for the Pirates on the opening day of the season, left for fellow League Two side Southampton, where he scored a further thirty League goals in 2009-10, and of goalkeeper Steve Phillips who played on loan at Shrewsbury Town and Crewe Alexandra. Sean Rigg, Lewis Haldane and, later in the season, Darryl Duffy, also left the club in long-term loan deals. In their place, Rovers signed three former Milton Keynes Dons players in Carl Regan and Mark Wright, team-mates in the Dons’ League Two championship season, and midfielder Dominic Blizzard. Appropriately named for a player in a season dominated by weeks of midwinter snow, Blizzard is the scorer of Stockport County’s earliest ever goal in a League match, having scored against Hereford United after just fourteen seconds in January 2009, but had to wait until February to notch his first goal in a Rovers shirt. Rhys Evans returned from Bradford City, his game at Wycombe in September, when the future Rovers striker Chris Zebroski was in the opposition, being his first for the club in nine years and six months, a club record gap. Following a disciplinary discretion, David Pipe’s Rovers career drew to a close, initially by being sent on a loan spell to Cheltenham Town. Trollope also gave several younger members of the squad a first taste of League football, notably left-sided midfielder Ben Swallow, who appeared sporadically throughout the campaign, and promising striker Elliot Richards. Charlie Reece was given more time to begin to emulate the career of local boy Chris Lines, on whom Rovers became increasingly dependent in the engine-room of the team as the season wore on. The side was supplemented by three loan signings of international footballers, in Geordie goalkeeper Fraser Forster, at six-feet-seven-inches the club’s tallest ever player and a future England cap, his replacement in goal, the reliable Denmark Under-21 international Mikkel Andersen, and Ghanaian international striker Chris Dickson, who scored twice before half-time on his début at Brentford. Pat Baldwin, whose almost 200 League appearances for Colchester United had helped propel the Essex club into the Championship, was also at The Mem on loan, conceding an own goal off his shin at Millwall with his final touch in a Rovers shirt. Later in the campaign, Fulham’s Wayne Brown, the Wolves full-back Daniel Jones, and Doncaster Rovers’ record signing Paul Heffernan, who had scored their second goal against Rovers in the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy Final at the Millennium Stadium in April 2007, also arrived on loan. Once again, the midfield pairing of Lines and ever-present captain Stuart Campbell proved critical in Rovers’ on-field success. Aaron Lescott was a reliable figure in defence, adding to his uncharacteristic goal flurry at the end of 2008-09 with early-season strikes at Hartlepool and Brentford, before a hip injury led to a loan spell at Cheltenham Town, whilst Steve Elliott, Danny Coles and Byron Anthony vied for places at centre-back. Anthony’s confidence was boosted pre-season when he was able to score twice as Rovers defeated a Liverpool XI 4-3 in an inspiring game at the Memorial Stadium and he came close to a sensational goal at Exeter in March, when his dipping forty-yard strike rebounded back off the underside of the bar. Jeff Hughes, aided by a reliable spot-kick record which was to equal Ray Warren’s club seasonal record, set in the 1948-49 season, of seven in the League, was a consistent goalscorer and finished the season with twelve League goals, just two short of top scorer Jo Kuffour; Hughes took over as the regular penalty-taker after Duffy had missed from the spot against Aldershot Town in the League Cup and in the home League game against Huddersfield Town. Kuffour’s pace up front produced many openings, though his partner was to vary considerably, from Lambert to Heffernan, Duffy to Andy Williams. One highlight of the season was a stirring 3-2 win away to Southampton achieved, after the Saints’ Lambert had hit the bar against his former club, by a stunning individual goal from Williams five minutes into added time. This result, coming as it did in “a quality game” (Paul Trollope) after a run of seven wins in nine League matches through the autumn, temporarily sent Rovers into second place in the table, a position they were unable to match later on. Rovers were also 2-0 up inside eight minutes at Stockport in August – “that was a pretty disastrous start”, commented County’s manager Gary Ablett – and three goals ahead in 34 minutes at home to Swindon, inside 45 minutes at both Yeovil and Swindon and in 41 minutes at Brentford. Last-minute goals helped defeat Oldham Athletic in September, Kuffour slotting home from Coles’ through ball, and Carlisle United in November, when Rovers had trailed 2-1 after 82 minutes to a side featuring the future Rovers player Joe Anyinsah. Another encouraging display, including Heffernan’s first goal for his new club, had helped defeat promotion hopefuls Charlton Athletic 2-1 at the Memorial Stadium in a Monday night game in front of television cameras in February; this game was marred by a serious injury endured by the Addicks’ Grant Basey after just 26 seconds, in a challenge for which Blizzard could consider himself fortunate to receive only a yellow card. On the other hand, sceptics would point to a disastrous run of away games, in particular away scoring, from Lines’ goal after 54 minutes at Charlton in November. The next away goal did not arrive until 25 minutes into the match at Swindon in March, after a club record gap of 689 minutes, though Kuffour’s strike proved to be the first of four in a 36-minute purple-patch as Rovers demolished play-off-finalists Swindon 4-0 on their own patch before winning the next away game 3-0 at Yeovil. During this goalless run, Rovers had come close to scoring on many occasions, in particular when Lines hit the bar at Tranmere. The run began after a 4-2 defeat at Charlton, when Rovers had fought back to 2-0 having trailed by two goals inside sixteen minutes. The Latics’ second goal was a Deon Burton penalty – “I thought the decision was a bit harsh”, said an aggrieved Pat Baldwin. Rovers also conceded four goals at home to League leaders Leeds United, though Campbell had hit the bar when Rovers were just one goal down. Jermaine Beckford scored after nine and 65 minutes, Sam Vokes after 55 and substitute Trésor Kandol with three minutes left on the clock. Heavier defeats still came at Norwich City and Orient and at home to Southampton, for whom Lambert scored twice. At Carrow Road, Jamie Cureton was on the score-sheet for Norwich, who led 4-1 after forty minutes; Rovers have still not conceded as many as five first-half goals since the visit to Swansea over Easter 1922; at Brisbane Road, Rovers fell apart, though Andersen was unlucky to concede an own goal, when the future Rovers striker Scott McGleish’s penalty after 62 minutes came back off the post, hit the goalkeeper’s head and rebounded into the net – Rovers were “woefully inept” (Waltham Forest Guardian), as Orient recorded their largest League victory for almost a decade. The goalless draw at home to Walsall in February was described as “an instantly forgettable first-half followed by an equally turgid second” (Wolverhampton Express and Star). In the games at both Norwich and Charlton, both sides scored from the penalty-spot. Over 180 minutes Rovers failed to score against struggling Tranmere Rovers. In addition, Rovers conceded last-minute goals at home to Colchester United and away to Millwall, Brighton and Exeter City as well as losing at home to several sides they might have expected to beat, amongst them Walsall, after missing a penalty, Yeovil Town, for whom Jonathan Chiedozie Obika, a cousin of the singer Lemar, scored just seconds after coming on as a substitute, and Wycombe Wanderers. Brighton’s game in Horfield in September, in which the future Rovers defender Adam Virgo was sent off, also featured a first-ever League goal for James Tunnicliffe, who was to become a Rovers player on loan at the end of the campaign. That home fixture against Wycombe was an unexpected result, coming as it did in the midst of a spectacularly good run of home results through the winter and spring. It also featured two penalties to the visitors, duly converted by the Matt Harrold, Rovers’ top scorer in 2011-12, and Alex Revell, only the ninth occasion in a League match that Rovers had conceded two goals from the penalty-spot – Rovers themselves were awarded two penalties in the League Cup tie at home to Aldershot Town and the League fixture against Huddersfield Town. Ian Harte then despatched a brace of penalties as Rovers lost 3-1 at Carlisle in April. Wycombe’s winning goal was scored by Stuart Beavon, whose father and grandfather had both also appeared against Rovers in League football; by a happy coincidence, Beavon’s team-mate Adam Hinshelwood was also the son and grandson of former opponents of Rovers in League action down the years. Promoted Norwich City and Leeds United, relegated Wycombe and mid-table Orient and Southampton thus completed League doubles over Rovers, whilst Rovers themselves defeated Stockport County, Hartlepool United and Swindon Town at home and away. Promotion-hopefuls Swindon Town were despatched 4-0 on their own ground, but Rovers gained only one of a possible twelve points against relegated Wycombe Wanderers and Tranmere Rovers. Astonishingly, Southend United’s Anthony Grant scored not once but twice for Rovers. Sandy Pate had twice conceded own goals whilst playing for Mansfield Town against Rovers in the 1970s, but these had not been in the same season. Having scored against his own club in the Roots Hall fixture, Grant conceded an injury-time own goal in Horfield at the end of March as Rovers completed a remarkable 4-3 victory over the Shrimpers, having trailed 2-0 after just twelve minutes. Grant had been one of three Luton Town players sent off at the Memorial Stadium on Boxing Day 2007. Overall, Rovers were to use a total of 28 players during the League campaign. Support was consistent, with an average home crowd in the League of 7,043, which featured a highest attendance of 11,448 for the demoralising home defeat against Leeds United. The final home fixture, against champions Norwich City in May, was preceded by a foiled attempt to break the world record number of “pirates” in one place, an event controlled by representatives from “The Guinness Book of Records”. There were 38,234 spectators at Elland Road in May, when Rovers, despite taking the lead against ten men, could not secure the point that would have denied the Yorkshire outfit promotion, this attendance representing the second highest ever to watch Rovers play in a third-tier League match. Rovers took 2,872 to Southampton for the fixture there in September, but only 126 to the goalless draw at Huddersfield Town in January. In addition, there were only 970 hardy souls at Hereford United, where Rovers’ early exit from the JPT Trophy mirrored their inability to progress in the League Cup and FA Cup, where the home tie with Southampton had promised a re-run of the Fifth Round-tie of 2008. Ultimately, Rovers finished in eleventh place, as in 2008-09, level on points with the ninth-placed club but with a relatively poor goal difference of minus-eleven. One oddity about the 2009-10 season was the severe paucity of draws. A fifth draw, in the penultimate home fixture, finally banished the spectre of equalling the tally of just four League draws achieved in the 1927-28 season, yet Rovers were to start the 2010-11 season on the back of an astonishing 37-game run without a score draw. A large number of former Rovers players appeared against the club, one who received a particularly warm welcome being Marcus Stewart, who came on as substitute for Exeter City in December against the club for whom he had made his League début in August 1991. When Stockport County visited in March, referee Dean Whitehouse was injured during the game and replaced at half-time by Andy Bennett. In addition, there was a real dearth of red cards in matches featuring Rovers in 2009-10; only five opponents were sent off at The Mem, three of them in the ninetieth minute, and no one, for Rovers or for the opposition, saw red in any League or cup game away from home until Hughes’ dismissal after 55 minutes at Carlisle in April; later that month, Rovers’ Coles and Brighton’s substitute Glenn Murray were both sent off at The Withdean and Leeds United’s Max Gradel at Elland Road. Indeed, prior to Hughes, no player had been sent off in a Rovers match away from Horfield over an eighteen month period since November 2007. Rovers’ players picked up a total of just 61 yellow cards, Anthony leading the way with ten. Early in December 2009, the club was saddened by the news of the death of Ron Craig, a long-term Director of Rovers and club Chairman for the promotion period from April 2007. Gordon Pearce, a long-term supporter and founder member of the 92 Club, a group which aims to watch League fixtures on every host ground, died on 29th April 2010 at the age of sixty-six. Whilst football violence was no longer a hot potato in political circles, a comment can be made here about the contemporary state of affairs within Football League stadia. From overall attendances exceeding thirty million at all Football League matches in 2009-10, there were 2,507 arrests, the figure for League One falling from 458 in 2008-09 to 393 in 2009-10. Twenty Rovers “supporters” were arrested, mainly outside the ground and predominantly for public order or alcohol-related offences. Of four arrests in the division all season for racist chanting, one was at the Memorial Stadium and Rovers had imposed nine banning orders during the season, taking the tally of those excluded from home matches to 23. Continued talk of redeveloping the stadium moved no further forward during the campaign, though it was prudent to stem financial outlay in the ongoing economic climate. Money from the sale of Rickie Lambert was used to offset accumulated debts of an estimated £4,000,000 as Rovers kept their head above water, unlike other clubs around the country. Portsmouth’s move into administration helped relegate them from the Premiership, Southampton would in all likelihood have been promoted from League One were it not for their pre-season handicap of ten points for financial issues and Chester City, who had played Rovers as recently as 2007, disappeared altogether from the English footballing map.
2010's
2010-11
Despite a late-season flurry that offered Rovers supporters a faint glimmer of hope, the Gas lost their League One status, secured on a warm May afternoon at Wembley in 2007, and tumbled into the basement division of the Football League for only the second time in the club’s long history. Ultimately, too many important mid-season games had been lost and even the commitment of the fourth manager of a tumultuous season was insufficient to prevent relegation. The visit of Sheffield Wednesday for the final home fixture drew a seasonal highest home crowd of 8,340, surpassing the 8,226 for the August visit of Southampton, but a penalty apiece in the opening twelve minutes was not enough to prevent Rovers’ relegation, all but certain as rivals Walsall and Dagenham both recorded crucial victories, to the fourth tier of English football; final-day defeat at Colchester United left Rovers in twenty-second place in the table. Will Hoskins top scored for the club with seventeen League goals and the average home attendance in the League was 6,253, down almost a thousand from the previous campaign. Even the most optimistic of Rovers fans had afforded an uneasy glance over his shoulder as the team finished the 2009-10 season with an unhealthy run of one point in their final six League games. It was critical that the side should come out of the starters’ blocks with a positive start to the season. Instead, Rovers conceded three second-half goals at London Road on the opening day of the new campaign, though Peterborough’s home record was to prove excellent all season. Rovers followed this up with an embarrassing 6-1 defeat at League Two Oxford United in the League Cup, where débutant goalkeeper Mike Green conceded four goals in an eleven minute spell before half-time on “an embarrassing and very poor night” (Paul Trollope), which proved a precursor to a dismal season in cup football. The FA Cup ended before it began, as Rovers were defeated 2-1 at non-league Darlington, only the sixth time since 1920 that the club has been eliminated by a non-league side and, despite an encouraging start to their cup run in the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy, in which Jo Kuffour, getting “his reward for playing with real energy and drive” (Paul Trollope) and Wycombe’s future Rovers striker Scott Rendell both scored hat-tricks in Rovers’ 6-3 win at Adams Park (only on two occasions have both sides in a Rovers League game featured a hat-trick scorer) prior to Ben Swallow’s stunning last-minute strike, Rovers bowed out in the southern semi-final against Exeter City in December, with Byron Anthony conceding an own goal and missing a penalty in the subsequent shoot-out. This result, following on from conceding six goals at Hillsborough and Rovers’ consequent drop into the relegation zone, precipitated Paul Trollope’s departure after over five years in charge of the club, a period that included promotion and an FA Cup quarter-final. Trollope had overseen 106 wins and 107 defeats in his 284 League matches as the second longest serving Rovers manager. However, it was Rovers’ League form rather than their cup exits which were brought sharply into focus as the season progressed. Having released Andy Williams to Yeovil Town and Aaron Lescott to Walsall, Rovers loaned out Mark Wright to Shrewsbury Town and Darryl Duffy to Hibernian, whilst Steve Elliott joined Cheltenham Town and Ben Hunt left to sign for Dover Athletic. Rovers suffered poor goalkeeping luck, as loan signing from West Brom Luke Daniels was injured in the warm-up to a pre-season friendly and returned to his parent club. Mikkel Andersen returned on loan from Reading, later followed by both Daniels and Leicester City’s Conrad Logan on loan. Tall defender James Tunnicliffe, who had scored for Brighton at The Mem in September 2009, and Plymouth Argyle’s Gary Sawyer joined the club, as did striker Will Hoskins, whose goal for Watford in August 2008 had knocked Rovers out of the League Cup, and inexperienced midfielder Harry Pell from Charlton Athletic. At the heartbeat of the side were old hands in captain Stuart Campbell, Jeff Hughes and Chris Lines. The new-look side, though, lost 3-0 at Peterborough on the opening day of the season and followed this up with a 4-0 home defeat against Southampton, Rickie Lambert scoring against Rovers in the League for the sixth time, and a 3-0 loss at home to Orient. Bizarrely, the Saints sacked their manager Alan Pardew after their four-goal victory, though “we didn’t play well enough and Southampton tore us apart” (Byron Anthony). As the campaign progressed, there were positive moments. Anthony, ably supported in defence by Tunnicliffe and Danny Coles, came to the fore with a last-minute winning goal at home to Yeovil Town, with a rising shot from the edge of the area into the top left corner of the goal, as well as a ninetieth-minute equaliser at Hartlepool as Rovers rallied from two-down. Another last-minute goal, this time a rising volley from the indomitable Hoskins, forging a partnership with Kuffour, earned a 1-0 win at promotion hopefuls Huddersfield Town, whilst a first ever League fixture against Dagenham and Redbridge resulted in a 3-0 away win for Rovers, Jeff Hughes registering all three goals past 41-year-old goalkeeper Tony Roberts, in a match challenged by the rival attraction of Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to London. In November, Rovers drew successive matches away from home against the top two sides in the division. First, a last-minute Elliott Bennett own goal from Stuart Campbell’s corner earned Rovers a 2-2 draw at champions Brighton, a well-merited result in a game when Hughes scored an own goal and Rovers target Chris Wood converted a penalty on his début; the Argentinian Agustín Battipiedi was in the home side’s line-up; it was the first time ever that both sides had benefitted from an own goal in a League fixture involving Rovers. Three days later, second-placed Charlton Athletic were held to a 1-1 draw, when Wayne Brown scored his first goal for the club, cashing in on a through-ball from Swallow, even though Charlton registered twelve shots to Rovers’ three. However, the tide was turning against Rovers and there had been a series of disappointing performances and results. Although Rovers dominated early on, defeat to two headed goals followed at relegated Swindon Town. After dominating for 87 minutes at home to Carlisle United, Rovers conceded a late equaliser and were dependent on Andersen saving Gary Madine’s injury-time penalty to preserve a point. Orient’s first away win of the season came at The Mem as Rovers’ poor performance was compounded by Carl Regan’s first-half red card for a shocking foul on Orient captain Stephen Dawson. Seventeen-year-old Dale Jennings scored lowly Tranmere Rovers’ winning goal at The Mem in first-half stoppage time and, though sixteen-year-old Jack Stephens was in their side alongside a future Rovers favourite in Jim Paterson, struggling Plymouth Argyle also won in Horfield, their late winner proving to be the last goal conceded by on-loan Danish Under-21 international goalkeeper Andersen. In December, as Britain was covered with snow, Rovers crashed 6-2 at Sheffield Wednesday and Paul Trollope’s managerial career at Rovers was over. This result saw Rovers drop, for the first time that campaign, into the bottom four and it was also the first time that six separate opponents had scored in the same fixture, a tally that could have been higher had Clinton Morrison and Daniel Jones not missed decent chances. To rub salt into the wounds, the sixth goal was scored by the former Rovers striker Paul Heffernan. Under Trollope, Rovers had won five and lost seven of their opening nineteen League fixtures, but had a minus-eleven goal difference. Initially, Darren Patterson was promoted from within but, after two uninspiring defeats, the latter when Rovers let slip a 2-0 lead inside eleven minutes to lose at home to Plymouth Argyle, Patterson was replaced by the former Doncaster Rovers, Darlington and Oldham Athletic manager Dave Penney, with the experienced Martin Foyle joining later as his assistant. In Penney’s first game in charge, Rovers conceded a late equaliser at home to relegation rivals Walsall, with Aaron Lescott returning to haunt his former employers; that 2-2 draw felt like points dropped, but far worse was to come. Through the winter months, Rovers won just two and lost nine of Penney’s thirteen League games in charge, scoring just twelve and conceding a horrific thirty goals; Rovers were only not propping up the table because of the lifeline thrown to all relegation candidates when Plymouth Argyle were docked ten points as a result of going into administration. Despite several loan signings, the new manager was unable to prevent the long unsuccessful run from continuing. Dave McCracken, who had played for MK Dons against Rovers, and young, talented Cian Bolger bolstered the defence, whilst the Yeovil pair of Jean-Paul Kalala, who had been sent off against Rovers in August, and Gavin Williams as well as Reading’s Scott Davies strengthened the midfield. René Howe was an experienced striker, who had partnered the former Rovers forward Lee Thorpe at Rochdale, but he managed just one League goal, a critical close-range winner at home to Oldham Athletic. Conrad Logan ultimately proved an excellent goalkeeper, adept at saving crucial penalty kicks, whilst Danny Senda was an able full-back, being paid on a match-by-match basis after eighteen months out injured, whose goal for Wycombe Wanderers in May 2001 had relegated Rovers to League Two. Sadly for the new manager, all these signings made only minimal impact at first, as Rovers stumbled from heavy defeat to embarrassing débâcle. Loan signing, striker John Akinde from Bristol City, did not score in his fourteen League appearances in a Rovers shirt. Carlisle United defeated the Gas comfortably 4-0, with James Berrett becoming the eighth opponent in Rovers’ League history to convert two penalties in a game, both for fouls committed by Sawyer. Rovers crashed to an embarrassing 6-1 defeat at bottom-placed Walsall, the Saddlers’ largest League win since defeating Rovers 6-0 in 1986; the future Rovers midfielder Matt Gill scored one of the goals. Rovers conceded nineteen goals in five matches at this stage and hit twenty-fourth place in the table on 12th February. Despite being reduced to ten men, MK Dons then won 2-1 in Horfield, with the future Rovers defender Dan Woodards in their side, having taken the lead after just forty-five seconds. Rovers took a second-minute lead before conceding four goals at home to Brighton in a match that featured three disallowed goals, crashed 3-1 before a seasonal lowest crowd of 2,372 at Rochdale to two goals in stoppage time, and then lost at home to both Colchester United and Dagenham and Redbridge, games they should have been expected to have won. Having conceded an own goal against Brighton off his back, Bolger was then sent off at Rochdale and his loan spell came to a close. Orient’s Harry Kane scored twice as substitute, only the third opponent to achieve this feat against Rovers, an achievement later repeated by Daniel Nardiello of Exeter City. Jerel Ifil joined the club from Aberdeen and was promptly sent off against Dagenham, for whom his brother was playing; it was the player’s tenth red card of a combative career and he became the first player to have been sent off whilst playing both against (for Swindon Town in November 2007) and for Rovers in the League. Dagenham’s keeper Tony Roberts became, at 41 years 213 days, the eighth oldest opponent ever to face Rovers in League action. Losing this six-pointer left Rovers six points inside the relegation zone and, with most of their rivals having at least a game in hand, relegation looked inevitable. One final throw of the dice saw the removal of Dave Penney, with captain Stuart Campbell stepping up to the mark on 7th March 2011 as the manager entrusted with the job of rescuing Rovers’ League One status. Under the new manager, Rovers began to string together not only a few victories but also, with Logan in fine form in goal, a few clean sheets. The club seasonal record of 95 League goals conceded in 1935-36, which had looked under threat at one stage, was never again challenged. Within twenty-four hours of Campbell’s appointment, Chris Lines’ goal had earned an invaluable win at Tranmere, the club’s first win in midweek for over twelve months. Rovers then won 1-0 at fellow strugglers Notts County where, for the first time in Football League history, all four match officials were from the Army. After Anthony had conceded another own goal, Rovers held free-scoring Peterborough to a 2-2 draw, in a match where the delightfully-named Reginald Thompson-Lambe, who had scored four times in one game for Bermuda against St Martin when only sixteen, was given his League début. Two more victories and clean sheets followed, Gavin Williams’ first goal for his new club defeating his former employers Yeovil Town at Huish Park, after Rovers had withstood a concerted onslaught on their goal and Jeff Hughes’ 33rd-minute penalty seeing off a Bournemouth side who had 21 shots as compared to Rovers’ six. Rovers had won four games out of six and, on the morning of 9th April, sat in nineteenth place in the table. As Rovers temporarily eased out of the bottom four, there was light at the end of the tunnel, a glimmer of hope snuffed quickly by a run of one point in three games at the end of April. First, a seasonal highest attendance of 23,647 at Southampton, exceeding the 19,242 at Sheffield Wednesday just before Christmas, saw Rovers lose to a goal six minutes from time from the Brazilian Guilherme do Prado Raymundo, after Campbell had bravely flung on two seventeen-year-old substitutes in the highly promising Lamar Powell and Ellis Harrison. Then, visitors Charlton Athletic had two men sent off at The Mem, Kyel Reid and José Semedo, before Rovers, for the second time in the campaign, clawed back a two-goal deficit to claim a dramatic draw. Two days later, the Easter Monday trip to Bournemouth saw Rovers lead for eighty minutes, Wayne Brown scoring for the second match in succession, before conceding two late goals in heart-breaking circumstances to the home side’s substitutes. The winning goal was scored by Steve Fletcher whose first goal against Rovers had come in August 1993; this gap of over seventeen years between League strikes against the Gas constituted a new record, surpassing the 16 years 22 days previously set by Terry Paine. So, why was the club relegated back to League Two? Changing managers is always a risky business and the experiment of using Dave Penney, especially with such a high influx of new players, did not work. Under his tutelage, Rovers gained just eight League points from a potential 39. Rovers lost ten League matches at home and only at the very start and finish of the campaign were able to string together successive League victories. The goals-against column was of concern all season, save perhaps the first matches under Stuart Campbell and a goal difference of minus-34 was effectively a one-point difference compared to the other relegation candidates; Rovers were the only side to concede six goals in two separate League One fixtures. Significantly, the side also conceded sixteen goals in the final ten minutes of fixtures. Rovers managed just eleven League wins all season, though this was significantly more than the nine achieved by Swindon Town. The club used 35 players in League action, exactly the figure used in the 2000-01 relegation campaign, but only eight of these had scored a League goal prior to Elliot Richards’ final-day consolation goal. Only Lines, Hughes and Hoskins started forty of the forty-six League fixtures, though Kuffour played some part in most games; the only player in every match-day squad was reserve goalkeeper Green, who spent the majority of the campaign on the bench. Lines hit the woodwork six times, yet scored only three League goals. Significantly, though Rovers drew at champions Brighton and won away to play-off side Huddersfield Town, the side also lost at home to three relegation rivals in Tranmere, Dagenham and Plymouth and the very late Walsall equaliser at The Mem proved highly costly at the end of the season; doubles were competed over Notts County and Yeovil Town, but five sides, most crucially fellow relegated side Plymouth Argyle, defeated Rovers both at home and away. Rovers lost several key defenders through suspension, all seven of the club’s red cards, Coles receiving two, being defensive players; Rovers picked up only 72 yellow cards in the League all season, Sawyer and Lines receiving eleven each; nine opponents received their marching orders, including Graeme Lee of Notts County, who had scored Doncaster Rovers’ winning goal against Rovers at the Millennium Stadium in April 2007. Whilst Rovers lost 22 games in the 1961-62 season and only twenty in 2013-14, the club lost 23 League fixtures in 2010-11; only 24 goals were scored at home, as compared to the 21 when relegation followed in 1980-81; and there were six home wins, exactly as in the relegation campaign of 2000-01. The club’s paucity of draws continued, and to the summer of 2011, Rovers had drawn just 17 of their last 112 League fixtures. As the season ended in the disappointment of relegation, several former Rovers players enjoyed football-based success elsewhere. Tony Pulis, a fine midfielder during the Eastville era, led his unfashionable Stoke City side to the FA Cup Final, Bobby Zamora earned an England call-up late in his career and Vitalijs Astafjevs concluded his long career with a European record 167th cap in Latvia’s single-goal defeat to China in November 2010. Marcus Stewart, a Rovers legend in his day, ended his career at The Mem as his Exeter City side recorded a 2-0 victory, whilst the former Rovers manager Malcolm Allison, “the flawed genius in a lucky fedora” (The Week, 23.10.10), passed away on 15th October 2010 at the age of eighty-three. The Rovers match-day programme was once again named Programme of the Year in its category.
2011-12
Pre-season favourites to return immediately to League One football, Rovers endured an interesting season in two instalments. First, Paul Buckle was installed as the new manager, bringing with him a raft of new faces but minimal on-field success. Then, the vastly experienced Mark McGhee succeeded him in this post and guided Rovers to a series of better performances, including no home defeats in 2012 and a more acceptable mid-table final position in League Two. Thirteenth place in the table with 57 League points was explained by the season of two halves and aided by twelve goals scored in the final two home League fixtures of the campaign. There was no great success either in cup football, though Rovers reached the third round of the FA Cup and entertained Aston Villa before live television cameras at the Memorial Stadium. Rovers took to the field at Kingsmeadow for the televised early kick-off on the opening day, fresh from an encouraging 2-0 victory over Championship side Burnley and with ten new faces in their starting line-up. The cameras were present for AFC Wimbledon’s first Football League fixture, yet recorded a memorable Rovers performance as the Pirates sped to a two-goal half-time lead and won 3-2 through an 85th-minute penalty converted by Adam Virgo. The ten new faces were but part of the sixteen signings prior to the end of September, as new manager Paul Buckle attempted to stamp his mark on the club. Buckle, who had played in League action against Rovers for both Colchester United and Exeter City, had led Torquay United to the play-offs in League Two in three of the previous four seasons, so his acquisition as manager was seen as a positive step towards lifting Rovers out of the basement division at the first attempt. He brought with him from Plainmoor goalkeeper Scott Bevan, the only player in the League with only one kidney, the legacy of an accident sustained whilst playing for Tamworth against Forest Green Rovers in January 2006, and Chris Zebroski who, like Matt Harrold from Shrewsbury Town, had played against Rovers whilst at Wycombe Wanderers. Gambian-born Mustapha Carayol joined from Lincoln City, who had just surrendered their Football League status, whilst Joe Anyinsah, a former Bristol City trainee who had played for Carlisle United against Rovers, joined from Charlton Athletic and Danny Woodards, who had played three times each for MK Dons and Crewe Alexandra against Rovers, strengthened the defensive line. He was supported there, until his season was curtailed by injury, by Adam Virgo from Yeovil Town, who been sold by McGhee when at Brighton and had joined Celtic for £1,500,000 and had been sent off against Rovers whilst with Brighton in September 2009 as well as scoring at The Mem with Yeovil in August 2010. Buckle’s emphasis on experience was epitomised by the signing of Orient’s Scott McGleish. A veteran of 551 (plus 112 as substitute) League matches and 202 goals with eight clubs prior to his arrival, McGleish had played for five separate clubs against Rovers in the League and sat on the committee of the Professional Footballers’ Association. Only five players in Rovers’ history had appeared in a greater number of League matches, Alan Ball topping the pile with 743 games. A goal on his début, as Rovers’ seventh oldest débutant, prefaced a season in which he became Rovers’ seventh oldest player ever and the third oldest goalscorer. Alongside McGleish was new Rovers captain Matt Gill, a signing from Norwich City who had scored for Walsall when they defeated Rovers 6-1 in January 2011, and had, as an Exeter City player, become the first player sent off at the renovated Wembley in 2007 for a head-butt on Morecambe’s Craig Stanley, who now joined him in Rovers’ combative midfield. Scott Rendell, who had scored Peterborough’s winner in a nine-goal thriller against Rovers at London Road in September 2008 and a hat-trick for Wycombe Wanderers against Rovers in the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy in November 2010, joined in a brief loan deal. Early-season form, though, did not go exactly to plan. True, victories at Wimbledon and Morecambe, where Rovers came back from a 2-1 deficit in a game that featured four goals in fifteen second-half minutes, as well as a point gained at Bradford City, who relied on Michael Flynn for two equalisers from the penalty-spot, the ninth opponent to convert a brace of spot-kicks in a League fixture, indicated success. On the other hand, Rovers drew at home to struggling Hereford United and Macclesfield Town and lost at home to Torquay United, Aldershot Town, Barnet and Cheltenham Town, all fixtures the side would have realistically expected to win. After the defeat at Underhill, Eric Hitchmo wrote on a Barnet website: “Monday's laborious victory over Bristol Rovers, as two dreadful teams took to the field in an attempt to be worse than each other. Goodness me, it was a chore.” Rovers were two goals down inside half an hour at Accrington Stanley. In addition, a calamitous 4-1 defeat at League newcomers Crawley Town followed by a three-goal defeat at Oxford United was the proof many Rovers supporters feared that success in League Two was to be no walkover. One moment when Rovers’ fortunes appeared to be turning came on a Friday night in October, when Rovers scored five times against Rotherham United at The Memorial Stadium. Two early McGleish goals paved the way towards a 3-0 lead after which, though pegged back twice, Rovers progressed to a 5-2 win, Anyinsah’s thirty-yard strike two minutes from time securing a memorable victory. This, though, proved to be a false dawn. Disastrously, Rovers crumbled to a 3-2 defeat at home to bottom club Plymouth Argyle on Boxing Day, having led by two clear goals after only half-an-hour. This stoppage-time defeat was the second successive season in which the Pilgrims had won in this way at The Mem; it was followed by a demoralising 5-2 drubbing at home to Crewe Alexandra, where Jay Leitch-Smith gave the visitors the lead after sixty-nine seconds (the same player scored after 72 seconds in the return fixture) and Rovers, trailing 4-1 at the interval, brought on three half-time substitutes, including replacement goalkeeper Lance Cronin and signed two further loan players within hours. When relegation rivals Barnet completed a League double in front of just 2,537 hardy supporters at Underhill, Buckle was dismissed as Rovers’ manager and the side faced an FA Cup third round fixture against Premier League Aston Villa with caretaker manager Shaun North at the helm, loan signing Michael Poke in goal and Australian defender Aaron Downes due to make their home débuts against the Premier League side. Four goalkeepers used in the League nonetheless constituted a lower figure than that for 1998-99. However, tellingly, Rovers had won just six League games under Buckle’s tutelage. Having recorded the first victory in almost three months – a 2-1 win at Hereford United – and kept the first clean sheet in that period, at home to table-toppers Crawley Town, caretaker North’s brief tenure came to an end and the highly experienced Mark McGhee was unveiled on 18th January as Rovers’ sixth manager in thirteen months. McGhee, a former Scottish international forward who had helped Aberdeen win the European Cup Winners’ Cup in 1983, had previously managed five League clubs south of the border and two in Scotland. Prior to McGhee’s first game in charge, a fixture at Cheltenham Town, who had not lost in ten matches, his opposite number Mark Yates stated “I am not bothered about Bristol Rovers in the slightest”; Rovers won 2-0 through goals from Zebroski and Elliot Richards as the new manager fielded the same side as in the previous fixture. Having played for Plymouth Argyle against Rovers in January 2011, Jim Paterson signed on as a Rovers player, after experiencing Europa League football with Shamrock Rovers, and was joined by loan signings Matt Lund from Stoke City and another tall, young defender from Leicester City in Tom Parkes – “we believe he is a great option for us”, said his manager. McGhee’s honeymoon period continued, as the side pulled clear of relegation worries with a string of strong performances and encouraging results, epitomised by the last-minute winning goal at Rotherham United as well as victories over Morecambe and Bradford City. For a brief moment, the unrealistic thought that the side could emulate that of the 2006-07 season flashed across the minds of the ever-optimistic Rovers supporters. However, the possibility of winning ten of the final twelve League fixtures predictably proved too great a challenge, Rovers never quite showing the consistency to accumulate the required points. Symptomatic of this was the way the side fell three goals behind inside twenty minutes at bottom-of-the-table Northampton Town, before almost reclaiming a point, trailed 2-0 after five minutes at Crewe’s Gresty Road and conceded 90th-minute equalisers at home to Gillingham and at Plainmoor, where Torquay United recovered from a two-goal deficit to claim an unlikely, though probably well-merited point. Indeed, fixtures against Torquay proved of great interest, not just because of Paul Buckle’s recent history, but also with Rovers fielding a bevy of former Plainmoor heroes, amongst them Zebroski who scored perhaps the club’s goal of the season on his own former ground, whilst René Howe scored for The Gulls against his former side. Gradually, the season fizzled out, with Rovers content to settle for a mid-table position, initially disdained but later to be viewed as probable success after the start to the campaign the club had endured. However, supporters’ burgeoning faith in manager McGhee was rewarded in mid-April as Rovers, unbeaten at home under his tutelage, scored seven times in a League game for the first time since December 1973. A goal shortly before half-time from Carayol heralded six more after the interval as Burton Albion, on their first visit to The Mem, were swamped 7-1. Twenty-year-old Richards scored three times, the fourth youngest hat-trick scorer in Rovers’ League history and Paterson added his first for the club, as Rovers scored a club-record five times in a twenty-minute spell and seven times in 38 minutes. Following the game at home to Brighton in November 1952 and the win at Reading in January 1999, it was only the third occasion that the side had scored six goals in one half of League football; in inflicting the heaviest defeat of the Staffordshire club’s brief League history, Rovers also compiled the highest score in the Football League that day. Rovers followed this up with a 5-1 home win over Accrington Stanley, Lund becoming the fourth substitute to score twice for the club in a League fixture, to complete the season unbeaten at home since December and having scored an incredible twelve goals in the final 138 minutes of home League action. Jason Price, in scoring for Morecambe in September, was appearing against Rovers for his seventh separate Football League side, whilst Rotherham United’s Alex Revell was playing against the club for his sixth team. Michael Smith, a half-Canadian Northern Irish Under-23 international full-back, came on as a substitute for the injured Woodards after only eighty-eight seconds of the home defeat against Cheltenham Town, who featured three former Rovers players in Steve Elliott, Josh Low and Darryl Duffy. Ryan Green and Harry Pell reappeared in Hereford’s colours, as did Joe Jacobson, Carl Regan and Mark Wright for Shrewsbury and Ryan Clarke in goal for Oxford, whilst René Howe scored for Torquay when they won in Horfield in August. England star Ashley Young’s younger brother Lewis appeared at The Mem the same month for Northampton Town. Ricky Shakes, who had made a solitary appearance for Rovers in February 2005, became after Matt O’Mahony Rovers’ second double-international when, having played for Trinidad and Tobago in March 2006, he appeared for Guyana against Barbados in a World Cup qualifier in October and scored against Bermuda four days later. Meanwhile, Max Gradel, who had played for both Bournemouth and Leeds United against Rovers in recent seasons, played for Ivory Coast in the final of the 2012 African Cup of Nations in February, a game Zambia won on penalties, to become the first player who has appeared in a League match featuring Rovers to also feature in the final of this tournament. During the course of the League campaign, Rovers completed doubles over Morecambe, Rotherham United and AFC Wimbledon; both games against divisional champions Swindon Town were drawn. On the other hand, Barnet, Aldershot, Port Vale and Crewe Alexandra, the last-named side scoring eight times against Rovers, all completed a League double over the Pirates. With eighteen goals to his name in all competitions, sixteen of them in League Two, Harrold was a popular top scorer for the club in 2011-12, Gill being credited with eight assists. Woodards started the highest number of League fixtures, 39 in all, though Lee Brown played a role in 42 and Harrold in two fewer. Red cards were at a premium in Rovers’ fixtures, with Bolger and Downes the only Pirates sent off in the League, Zebroski receiving twelve yellow cards, whilst Rotherham United’s future Rovers defender Guy Branston, Peter Murphy of Accrington Stanley, Hereford United’s Benoît Dalibord and Bradford City’s Rob Kozluk were all also dismissed. The 2011-12 season represented the first occasion in Rovers’ history that four separate players had scored from the penalty-spot in the Football League, Virgo, Harrold, McGleish and Lee Brown all being successful. Nine successful spot-kicks in the League equated to a club seasonal record, whilst the six conceded included two each in a game from Bradford City’s Michael Flynn and Gillingham’s Danny Kedwell, the striker then missing a first-half penalty in Horfield on Good Friday, thereby eschewing the chance to equal Len Emmanuel of Swansea’s long-standing record from 1947-48 of three League penalties against Rovers in one season. No fewer that twenty-four players made their first League appearance for Rovers during the 2011-12 League season, with others appearing on the bench and in cup-ties; Rovers used thirty-two players in the League in all, fewer than the 35 used in 2010-11. Young players coming through the ranks included Shaquille Hunter, a regular on the bench as winter approached, young Jordan Goddard, who featured as a very late substitute in the FA Cup victory over Corby Town in November and Under-18 Player of the Year Mitch Harding, whose début on the final day of the season was overshadowed by Brian Woodall’s hat-trick as Rovers crashed 4-0 at Dagenham and Redbridge. Darren Jefferies appeared briefly in the FA Cup against Totton, whilst goalkeeper Matt Macey made it onto the substitutes’ bench in March. Scott Sinclair, a former Rovers favourite, scored for Team Great Britain in the 2012 London Olympics, as the national side reached the football quarter-finals. One indication as to how the season progressed is that the 8,427 crowd for the opening home fixture remained the highest of the campaign in League games, Rovers’ average home crowd in the League being 6,035; there were crowds of 10,023, 9,645 and 9,291 for the matches at Bradford City, Swindon Town and Oxford United respectively. Dagenham and Redbridge brought just seventy away supporters for the game in Horfield at the end of October, a very low tally partly explained by their neighbours Redbridge FC’s heroics in the FA Cup on the same afternoon. There were only 1,643 hardy souls at the Fraser Eagle Stadium when Rovers lost to Accrington Stanley on Guy Fawkes’ Day, and 1,865 at Macclesfield; only 771 witnessed the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy defeat at Wycombe Wanderers. One of a series of fundraising events around the Bristol area on behalf of the Wow! Gorilla campaign to celebrate 150 years of Bristol Zoo was the appearance of the monkey Irene, who sported Rovers’ colours; her stint at the foot of Zetland Road ended in September as Bristol Zoo auctioned off all their monkeys for a combined figure of £427,300 for charity, Irene raising £6,000. On a more serious note, the former club chairman Denis Dunford, who had helped save Bristol Rovers from extinction during his tenure and who had been Club President since 5th January 2005, died on 4th January 2012 at the age of eighty-nine and a minute’s applause was held prior to the FA Cup game at home to Aston Villa later that week. Another one-minute memorial was held prior to the home game against Barnet to the memory of Alan Lacock, who had died the previous morning, a supporter of long standing who had not missed a home fixture in over fifty years. A similar show of respect was held, prior to the final home game of the season, for Alfie Biggs, Rovers’ second highest goalscorer of all time, who died in Poole on 20th April. At the club’s annual meeting on 13th February, the shareholders were presented with the news that Rovers had suffered operating losses of over £3,400,000 for the previous year, this figure including a £2,100,000 build-up for the proposed redevelopment of the Memorial Stadium. With directors’ loans to the club rising from £1.94 million in 2010 to £3.2 million, Rovers had an underlying operating loss for 2011 of £1,939,141. Further to this, developments continued apace towards the creation of a new stadium in Bristol, with the proposed UWE stadium said to be ready for 2014 at a cost of £40,000,000. Cup competitions brought minimal success, least of all the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy, in which Rovers lost to Stuart Beavon’s hat-trick in an opening tie at Wycombe. The League Cup brought victory in a penalty shoot-out at home to Watford, two leagues Rovers’ seniors, with Carayol converting the decisive penalty, before Rovers lost to Jamie Cureton’s Orient side in the next round. In the FA Cup, Rovers just about saw off plucky non-leaguers Corby Town, who featured a thirty-nine-year-old goalkeeper Chris MacKenzie who had last played against Rovers for Shrewsbury Town at Wembley in 2007; two late goals before a disappointing home crowd of 3,787 sealed a 3-1 win which was not as straightforward as it sounded, despite Rovers’ tally of twenty shots to the visitors’ four. Rovers’ reward was a Second Round trip to Evo-Stik Premier League side AFC Totton, who had put eight goals past Bradford Park Avenue in Round One, the first occasion since World War Two that a non-league side had scored as many goals in a tie in the competition proper. Live on ITV, Rovers scored three excellently-created goals in a five-minute purple patch early on and, with substitute Richards notching a brace, cruised to a 6-1 victory, in spite of a red card for Ben Swallow, just five minutes after entering the field as a late substitute, to set up a home tie against Premier League Aston Villa. Despite live television coverage, a bumper crowd of 10,883 turned out for this game and Howard Webb, who had refereed the 2010 World Cup Final between Spain and Holland, took charge. Rovers, however, never threatened a Villa side including international names such as Darren Bent, Emile Heskey and Gabriel Agbonlahor as well as Stilyian Petrov, holder of over one hundred full caps for Bulgaria. The visitors treated the game like a training-ground exercise, though substitute McGleish’s ninetieth-minute goal, lobbing American goalkeeper Brad Guzan, and even later penalty miss threatened to spark the 3-1 defeat into life. Rovers were left with a serious fight on their hands to avoid relegation out of the Football League 92 years after their election to Division Three, a battle which, to the relief of all Bristol Rovers supporters, was comfortably secured.
2012-13
As with Rovers’ first post-war Football League campaign, the 2012-13 season can be neatly summarised in two halves. With Rovers having lost ten games in an eleven-match run through the autumn of 1946, victory over Crystal Palace on 4th January 1947 proved to be the first of thirteen in eighteen games as the club climbed the Third Division (South) table to finish in fourteenth place. Under manager Mark McGhee Rovers struggled to find success though the autumn of 2012, crushing defeats at Gillingham, Port Vale and York City leaving the club rooted to the foot of the Football League at Christmas, before returning manager John Ward, “a stickler for shape, discipline and defensive resilience” (James McNamara), making a number of astute signings, restored the players’ self-belief. An astonishing run then took the club within shouting distance of an unexpected play-off berth. Spring success enabled Rovers, despite not winning any of their final four fixtures, to complete their second campaign back in the basement division in fourteenth place. Undefeated at home in 2012, Rovers approached the new season with realistic optimism. Mark McGhee had signed new playing staff and Seanan Clucas, FA Youth Cup winning goalkeeper Sam Walker and former Bristol City player David Clarkson all made their club débuts at Ipswich in the League Cup. Rogvi Baldvinsson, a Faeroe Islands international, played in the pre-season fixtures before returning to Norway for personal reasons, but several other players were soon to appear in the side. Garry Kenneth, a rock at the heart of the defence and a veteran of two Scottish Cup Finals at Dundee United, was ruled out initially following a calf injury sustained whilst warming up for his début at Barnet; Neil Etheridge, a Filipino international, was a useful and efficient goalkeeper; Derek Riordan, the third highest scorer in the Scottish premier League, played for the club before returning goalless to Scotland; Tom Eaves proved a useful loan signing in a struggling side; and squad member Fabian Broghammer, a German midfielder, soon accrued popular status amongst the Rovers following. However, illusions were swiftly shattered as the club’s unbeaten home record under McGhee crumbled 2-0 against Oxford, the visitors bringing 1,019 supporters for the opening day fixture, a seasonal highest; Morecambe brought just 47. A fortnight later, Rovers dropped into the relegation zone when the second home fixture was lost 3-0 to Morecambe. Suddenly, from the jaws of a potential promotion campaign, Rovers were clutching at the ashes of a proposed relegation dogfight. Three goals behind by half-time at champions Gillingham, “toothless Rovers” (Football League Paper) crumbled 4-0. Defeat at Vale Park by the same score, Rovers taking just 132 hardy supporters, included a hat-trick by Tom Pope, the 94th time the club had conceded three goals in a League fixture to one individual player, young hopeful Tom Parkes departing early from that game with what appeared to be a serious leg injury. Three goals were conceded in fourteen first-half minutes at Wimbledon, three in fifteen minutes before the interval at Port Vale and four in a disastrous twenty minutes before half-time at York. Rovers were in December the only side in the division to have received six red cards, both Elliot Richards and Kenneth being dismissed in the defeat at Rochdale. The side only managed a point after three times taking the lead at home to Bradford City and only 1,794 spectators turned up when Rovers visited Barnet. When the first victory appeared on the cards, Rovers’ game at Wycombe was controversially abandoned after 63 minutes; leading 3-1 in a storm with Richards having registered a brace, Rovers found the game called off not by the referee or the police, but by the home side’s Health and Safety Officer and, when the fixture was re-played, crashed to a 2-0 defeat with Matt Lund being sent off. The subsequent irony that a Wycombe victory combined with Rovers losing at home was to end Rovers’ Football League tenure in May 2014 was not lost on Rovers’ supporters. More than this, Rovers appeared to be having a very poor run with injuries. Top scorer from 2011-12 Matt Harrold had contributed just one goal when he suffered a cruciate ligament injury at Gillingham and Kenneth also underwent knee surgery. In addition to this, Matt Gill, Scott Bevan and Adam Virgo were long-term absentees with injury, even before Clucas suffered a serious knee injury at Morecambe in February. Dan Woodards also suffered a cruciate knee injury in April which threatened to keep him out of football for nine months. Encouragingly, Harrold returned to the side on the final day, his late substitute cameo appearance including a headed equaliser three minutes into injury-time. Yet, amidst the gloom there were a few burgeoning positive signs. Despite the early season poor results, Rovers contrived to pick up four points from their two September trips to Devon, victory at Exeter paving the way to a League double, though former Rovers striker Jamie Cureton, aged 37, became the seventeenth oldest opponent to register a League goal against the club, striking on the stroke of half-time at St James’ Park. Before injury took its toll, new signing Clarkson proved he had an eye for goal and Lee Brown also indicated he was reliable from the penalty-spot; his tally included a twice-taken effort at Oxford, though former Rovers keeper Michael Poke saved his spot-kick at Torquay on the final day of the season. A morale-boosting 3-1 home victory over Northampton in October featured first goals for the club for Eaves, Man of the Match Kenneth and young Oli Norburn; Eaves, impressively scoring seven times to become the club’s seasonal highest scorer despite the side’s failings around him, added two goals as ten-man Torquay United were defeated 3-2. Two former Rovers men, René Howe and Aaron Downes, both scored for the Gulls in that game, the former thereby equalling a club record by scoring in his seventh consecutive League outing. When Rovers staged a November book signing of Geoff Bradford’s long-awaited biography, pleasingly against his namesake club Bradford City, loanee central defender Guy Branston scored after 79 seconds with his first touch in a quartered shirt. As Christmas approached, Rovers had won just four of their 22 League fixtures and relegation from the Football League appeared a distinct possibility. Shortly before Christmas, Rovers trailed 4-1 before half-time at York and McGhee was removed from his managerial duties; the inspirational Scot took on the role as assistant manager of the Scottish national side. Rovers, for their part, moved swiftly to re-appoint John Ward, whose previous spell at the helm had seen Rovers reach a Wembley play-off final in 1995, and within days the club’s fortunes appeared to change for the better. Christmas Day saw Rovers propping up all four divisions of the Football League, but Ward re-instilled the self-confidence to succeed. Swift work on the transfer front saw the arrival of experienced goalkeeper Steve Mildenhall, effectively strong defender Mark McChrystal, tough midfielder John-Joe O’Toole, efficient striker Ryan Brunt, giant central defender Clayton McDonald and youthful front-man Tom Hitchcock. On New Year’s Day, a hard-fought 2-1 home victory over relegation rivals Plymouth set the tone and was swiftly followed by two excellent away performances. First, play-off hopefuls Fleetwood were brushed aside 3-0 on their own pitch, Ellis Harrison starting for the first time and Tom Lockyer making his début from the bench; “Fleetwood put up little fight as they were rolled over at home by strugglers Bristol Rovers”, reported the Blackpool Gazette. Then, with Claud Davies sent off before half-time on his Rotherham début, Rovers won 3-1 at another play-off side, Harrison chipping in with his first League goal, a long mazy run seven minutes after the interval ending with a fierce right-footed shot. Still bottom of the table on 26th January, Rovers appeared in the top half of the division on 6th April, when Hitchcock’s late winner defeated AFC Wimbledon. Even when Rovers did not win, play-off hopefuls Cheltenham were stung by an astonishing thirty-five yard goal in stoppage time from the ever-improving Norburn, the best goal scored by the club all season, which earned Rovers a welcome if unexpected point away from home. Rovers had regained their self-belief. As supporters began to understand the club had been transformed, the crowds gradually flocked back. The opening day attendance of 7,451 which had looked like being a seasonal best, was almost broken by the 7,332 for Ward’s first game in charge and fell when 8,527 came to see a third consecutive League victory, as Brunt’s 93rd-minute goal defeated Barnet at The Mem on a freezing Friday evening, the visitors including their veteran player-manager Edgar Davids, once of Barcelona and both Milan clubs, in their midfield. Under McGhee, Rovers had averaged 5,479 spectators at home fixtures; under Ward the figure was 7,069, rendering a seasonal average home League crowd of 6,309. The impressive spring run had included, at one stage, ten consecutive League goals scored by different players, yet Brunt soon emerged as the goal-scoring star of the side. His winning goal at home to Wycombe was followed by a first-half brace as Rovers outplayed second-placed Port Vale at home in mid-March. An official count of 1,932 Gasheads supported the side at Oxford, a game which was won 2-0, whilst 1,416 had travelled to the fixture at Cheltenham and 1,147 to Exeter; 1,534 were at Plainmoor on the final day of the campaign. By the middle of April, Rovers had lost just four League fixtures out of the twenty played with Ward in charge; this run included four consecutive home victories against strong opposition in the spring and encompassed eight clean sheets. Rovers won consecutive League fixtures on five separate occasions during the second-half of the season. Defeat at Bradford in mid-April brought the unbelievable outside chance of a play-off appearance to a close, indicating as it did the gulf between those who could press for promotion and those clubs still a step away, yet underlining how far Rovers had come since the start of the calendar year. As the season drew to an ultimately satisfying close, Rovers’ supporters could sense that the future held a degree of promise. Winning 3-1 at Carlisle to secure the League and Cup double, the Under-18 side offered hope of positive things to come; from this side, Alefe Santos and Tom Lockyer both featured in the League squad. Richards, a product of the system, enjoyed good runs in Rovers’ side, was called up to the Welsh Under-21 squad and finished the season with six goals, the joint second highest scorer in Rovers’ League campaign; with 41 League appearances to his name, he also played in more fixtures than any other player, narrowly ahead of Young Player of the Year Parkes, a captain at twenty-one, Lee Brown and Michael Smith. Ollie Clarke, who had also worked his way up the ranks, enjoyed a first start when Rovers lost to Accrington’s Lee Molyneux’s 69-second stunning thirty-yard free-kick in the final home fixture of the season. Goalkeeper Conor Gough had now appeared in two League fixtures for Rovers, both times playing away to Dagenham and Redbridge. Exciting full-back Smith was deservedly voted the club’s Player of the Year, whilst Brunt gave clear indication that goals could follow later in his career. During the autumn, nine players were dismissed in League fixtures involving Rovers, just one being sent off after Christmas. Rovers had accumulated six red cards under McGhee’s management; there were no Rovers players sent off at all that campaign under Ward’s tutelage. This greater sense of discipline served to help the side surge up the divisional table. In addition to Davids, opponents included Barnet’s Anthony Edgar, a cousin of England striker Jermain Defoe, Fleetwood’s Youl Mawéné, who had been in the Derby side defeated by Nathan Ellington’s hat-trick in 2002, and two sons of West Ham’s 1980 FA Cup winning side. Gareth Ainsworth’s goal for Wycombe in December rendered him the second oldest opponent ever to register a League strike against the Gas. Ryan Jarvis, in the thrilling 3-3 draw at Plainmoor on the final day, against a Torquay side requiring a point to guarantee retaining their League status, became the fifth opponent since 1920 to score for both sides in a League encounter. Rovers used thirty-five players in the League, exactly the same figure as in the relegation campaigns of 2000-01 and 2010-11, whilst sixteen former Rovers players re-appeared against the side, amongst them Chris Zebroski, who struck Cheltenham’s winning goal at The Mem, and Justin Richards, who played against his former club with both Burton Albion and Oxford United. Phil Taylor, the last surviving player from Rovers’ campaigns before World War Two, died in December 2012 at the age of ninety-five, and two club favourites from the halcyon days of the 1950s, Bill Roost and the mercurial George Petherbridge, both passed away in the spring. Ever popular club kit-man Roger Harding passed away on 19th June 2013, and journalists Robin Perry and Colin Howlett, whio had reported Rovers’ fixtures for many years, both died over the summer. As all too often in the Rovers story, cup campaigns were perhaps better forgotten. A 3-1 defeat at Ipswich Town in the League Cup, after Smith had given the Pirates a first-half lead, was followed by a 2-1 home defeat against Sheffield United before an FA Cup crowd of just 4,712. Possibly more worryingly, the side crumbled to a 3-0 defeat in the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy, even though visitors Yeovil Town had their captain Jamie McAllister sent off. As the season ended, a Rovers Legends side lost on penalties after drawing 5-5 with Bristol City Legends, and was then defeated 3-0 by Rovers’ Under-18 side in Lewis Haldane’s testimonial game. Alongside John Ward’s on-field success, Rovers enjoyed spring cheer in the hunt for a new ground. On 19th July 2012 South Gloucestershire Council had approved plans, by a 12-1 vote, for a proposed 21,700-seater stadium next to the University of the West of England at Stoke Gifford with building work commencing in the summer of 2013. On 16th January 2013, Bristol City councillors approved the plan to build a Sainsbury’s supermarket on the site of the Memorial Stadium, the suggestion being accepted 6-3; this would fund Rovers’ move but result in the demolition of the old stadium and the construction of 65 houses and apartments as well as the superstore. Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government Eric Pickles approved the plans on 12th March and Rovers appeared on course for their latest new home.
2013-14
Shortly before five o’clock on the first Saturday of May 2014 Rovers’ ninety-four year tenure of Football League status came to a dismal and sudden, if ultimately temporary close. Needing simply a draw at home to mid-table Mansfield Town, Rovers fell behind to Colin Daniel’s low volley off a post nine minutes before half-time and, despite producing eighteen shots to the Stags’ four, disappeared off the League radar. Yet, just a week earlier, there had been jubilation as, with sixteen minutes left on the clock at Adams Park in the penultimate match of a turbulent season, David Clarkson had swept a loose ball home from close range. As the weeks had gone by, Rovers had slipped from a poor position into a precarious one but had not quite slipped into the two relegation places. Lee Brown’s eleventh-minute free-kick had put the Pirates ahead away to Wycombe Wanderers, who were just above Rovers on goal difference, only for the Chairboys to equalise nine minutes later through Matt McClure’s back-flicked volley. Results elsewhere indicated that the other five clubs in the bottom seven places were all winning; the Gas had temporarily dropped to second from bottom and ultimately Football League survival appeared to hinge on securing victory in Buckinghamshire. With time ticking away Clarkson, the villain of the piece when the sides had met in Horfield earlier in the season, was on the spot with the goal which rescued Rovers’ spirit and relegated Torquay United to Conference football. Just a week later, Rovers joined the Gulls in fifth-tier football, finishing in twenty-third place with fifty points and just forty-three League goals to their collective name. Manager John Ward had made just two summer signings, but what signings they were! Reinforcing the spine of the side, he acquired on a permanent basis goalkeeper Steve Mildenhall and influential midfielder, top scorer John-Joe O’Toole, who had both featured in the side the previous campaign. In addition, Mark McChrystal’s contract was extended and he was to play a key role in Rovers’ defensive formation. Therefore, in stark contrast to August 2011, when Rovers had fielded ten débutants on the opening day at Wimbledon, the only player making his first appearance in the side at Exeter in August 2013 was young substitute Shaquille Hunter. He was one of a handful from Rovers’ successful youth side to break into League reckoning. Mitch Harding started on the opening day, Rovers’ squad opening the new campaign with twelve players out of action through injury, and Alefe Santos and Young Player of the Year Tom Lockyer very quickly established themselves as integral cogs in the Rovers machine, whilst Pat Keary and Jamie Lucas also broke into the side. Salisbury City manager Darrell Clarke, a former Hartlepool United midfielder, joined the club, working alongside Development Coach Marcus Stewart as Ward’s assistant manager. A youthful Rovers side picked up just one point from the opening three League fixtures, perhaps an ominous sign of the struggles ahead through the campaign, before kick-starting the season with back-to-back wins at home to York City and Northampton Town. Clarkson scored twice in the opening 32 minutes in the former, Lockyer after just 96 seconds, from Lee Brown’s cross, in the latter. Both York and Northampton had a man dismissed, York’s Ryan Bowman, sent off only five minutes after his arrival, becoming the first substitute ever in a Rovers match to receive a red card before half-time. An early-season addition to the side was the arrival of midfielder Andy Bond, who had previously opposed Rovers in the FA Cup with Barrow and in League fixtures whilst with Colchester United. In September, Rovers avoided a home defeat against hapless Hartlepool, thanks to John-Joe O’Toole’s last-gasp equaliser, after eighteen-year-old Luke James had scored twice for the visitors in nine first-half minutes. Keary’s first League appearance, as a substitute at Mansfield Town in October, saw Rovers field their youngest back four since the 1967-68 season, with a combined age of 85 years 216 days, including club captain Tom Parkes. This could not compete with the 84 years 164 days of Rovers’ back four against Shrewsbury Town at Gay Meadow in October 1968 or the 84 years 291 days at Wrexham in May 1979. Thereafter, as the anticipated victories failed to materialise, Ward dipped into the loan market and signed Will Packwood from Birmingham City, the first United States-born player to don a Rovers shirt, and Manchester City’s left-sided midfielder Alex Henshall. However, the pair made their Rovers bow in the depressing home defeat against Wycombe Wanderers, Rovers playing the final 65 minutes a man short after Clarkson received a straight red card for a foul on the Chairboys’ Josh Scowen, the first Rovers player dismissed in any game since December 2012 and the Scottish player’s only card of the campaign. Much appeared to hinge on the Tuesday night trip to winless, bottom-placed Accrington Stanley; a goal up in four minutes, Rovers lost 2-1 to be drawn apparently inextricably into a relegation struggle. As the season progressed, Rovers never quite stumbled into the relegation zone, yet also never appeared immune from the dangers posed by the drop-zone yawning cavernously beneath them. A revival of sorts was kick-started when O’Toole’s penalty nineteen minutes from time earned Rovers an unexpected 1-0 victory at top-of-the-table Oxford United just before Guy Fawkes’ Night. However, both on-loan Chris Beardsley and O’Toole were then sent off as Rovers crashed to defeat at Burton Albion and moved to within a point of the relegation zone; the Brewers’ Jimmy Phillips was also sent off in a game Albion won through Robbie Weir’s 58th-minute strike. It was the eleventh time that two Rovers men had received red cards in the same League fixture. Burton had fifty-year-old Kevin Poole, a reserve goalkeeper, unused on their bench. With these two key figures missing, Rovers conjured up their largest victory of the season, defeating Wimbledon 3-0 before a Memorial Stadium crowd of 5,860, the visitors having Sammy Moore dismissed eight minutes from time. Suddenly, late winners abounded, a last-minute FA Cup winner at Crawley being followed by O’Toole’s last-gasp goal to secure a 2-1 home victory at home to Exeter City in January, the first time since 2011 that Rovers had come from behind to win in the League. In the next home fixture, loan débutant Kaid Mohamed scored against his former club, Newport County, as Rovers ran up a 3-1 victory and precipitated a series of home wins and clean sheets in spring, with new signings Alan Gow and Steven Gillespie briefly able to contribute; in stark contrast to a run of nine League fixture without a win in the autumn, Rovers were unbeaten in six League matches through February and March. However, there were too many lacklustre performances and goals were sparse, Rovers hitting April with only ten away League goals to their name. On 28th March, with Rovers languishing just three points clear of the relegation zone, manager John Ward was moved upstairs to a Director of Football role, with Darrell Clarke taking control of the day-to-day running of the side. Just the following day, a Mohamed goal four minutes into stoppage-time defeated Morecambe and paved the way for Rovers, with McChrystal captaining the side in Clarke’s first game in charge, to attempt to effect an end-of-season escape from the potential perils of relegation to the Conference. The venture was not without its twists and turns, though, as Rovers lost three successive fixtures over a frenetic and nerve-tingling Easter period. Inexplicably this run started with a 2-1 loss at home to a Torquay side already staring relegation to the Conference in the face. As a disappointing season moved towards a nerve-wracking climax, Rovers scored twice away from home for first time all campaign in an astonishing game at Portsmouth over Easter, when Harrold’s brace twice brought the Pirates level in a frenetic first-half. Despite taking an early lead, Rovers lost at home to Rochdale on Easter Monday, substitute Joe Bunney scoring just fifty-four seconds into the second-half before the former Rovers player Matt Lund popped up with a winning goal that left Rovers’ Football League status hanging by a thread. That thread snapped when only a home draw was required on the final day of the season, in front of The Mem’s highest crowd of the campaign. Tellingly, Rovers lost their final three home fixtures when, with hindsight, a draw in just one of them would have sufficed. Perilously close under Rovers’ feet, the gaping exit to Conference football was proving something of a one-way door. Fourteen former League sides plied their trade in fifth-tier football in 2013-14, including former opponents such as Grimsby Town and Wrexham. Twenty-one former Football League clubs, during their present or previous incarnations, were in the three Conference divisions during 2013-14, including recent rivals Stockport County, one of five former Football League sides plying their trade in the Conference North. Since 2004-05, of eighteen teams to lose their League status, only Oxford United, Torquay United and Mansfield Town had returned to the League fold; a fourth side, Luton Town, supported by greater financial backing than Rovers were likely to attract, were Conference champions in 2014, though Torquay again dropped out of League Two. It had become self-evident that, as Rovers dropped out of the Football League, the return journey would prove long, dangerous and quite possibly unattainable. Clarkson’s late winning goal at Wycombe had appeared to pave the way for Rovers’ ultimate escape from the jaws of non-league football, only for the final day of the season to prove a slap in the face. Little were supporters to know that this unprecedented disaster would spur the club on to successive promotions. A frustrating season, Rovers could not complete a League double over any opponents, though unfashionable Fleetwood, Accrington, Rochdale and Dagenham all defeated the Pirates both home and away. Indeed, the lowest home crowd was the 5,303 who witnessed the defeat against Fleetwood, twelve of the home League attendances being under 6,000, though a final day 10,594 brought the seasonal home League average up to 6,412. John-Joe O’Toole was top scorer in League action, with thirteen of Rovers’ 43 League goals, Lee Brown supplying seven assists. Of thirty players used, stalwart goalkeeper Mildenhall started every match, Parkes, Player of the Year Michael Smith, Brown and O’Toole missing just the occasional fixture. O’Toole picked up eleven yellow cards and one red, having apparently committed 66 fouls in the League; he also had more shots on target than any other player, his twenty-four exceeding Clarkson’s tally by one. Meanwhile, former Pirates Fraser Forster and Rickie Lambert won international recognition ahead of England’s 2014 World Cup Final campaign in Brazil. Rovers faced nineteen former players as the season progressed, amongst them René Howe, who played for both Burton Albion and Newport County, scoring for the Ambers as Matt Lund did for Rochdale. Oxford fielded three former Rovers players, the Pirates taking 862 supporters to boost a crowd of 6,374 in November for Rovers’ solitary away victory prior to the dramatic events on the penultimate Saturday at Wycombe, where there were 1,953 Gasheads amongst the crowd of 6,752. There were 2,009 Gasheads amongst a 17,998 crowd for the relegation six-pointer at Fratton Park on Easter Saturday; amidst a crowd of 8,631 at Plymouth were 1,273 Rovers supporters. Only 1,423 in all attended the defeat at Dagenham in September, when Matt Harrold missed a penalty, 1,514 were at Morecambe and 2,302 were at Burton; however, the 1,101 at Accrington was the lowest to watch a Rovers Football League encounter since 1933. At £500 a head, Rovers’ adult season tickets for 2013-14 were the highest-priced in League Two. One notable supporter, Malcolm Norman, has not missed a home Rovers fixture since February 1966. An impressive attendance of 8,158 experienced the Easter Monday collapse at home to promotion-chasing Rochdale; previously, 7,537 had watched the encouraging 2-0 victory over Portsmouth in December, the opposition featuring Johnny Ertl in their side, the only Austrian international to face Rovers in League football, whilst 7,288 witnessed the exciting 3-1 home victory over Newport the following month. Once again, cup competitions brought minimal joy for Rovers. A predominantly Italian Watford side saw off Rovers with three well-taken goals in sixteen first-half minutes, their team containing players who had represented Italy, Switzerland, the Czech Republic, Jamaica and Sweden at international level. An enthralling draw saw Rovers travel to Ashton Gate in the opening round of the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy where, in front of a crowd of 17,888, containing an official figure of 2,429 Gasheads, the only cheer was McChrystal’s first goal for the club, a headed effort after half-time, as Bristol City emerged 2-1 victors. Wes Fletcher scored a last-minute equaliser as York City drew 3-3 at The Mem in the FA Cup and then hit two goals in sixty seconds as Rovers, 3-0 up in fifty minutes, held on for a 3-2 victory in the first-round replay, Beardsley scoring for the Pirates in both fixtures. York featured in their side Sander Puri, the second Estonian, after Derby County’s Mart Poom in January 2002, to oppose Rovers in a competitive fixture. In the following round, the replay at Crawley was abandoned after seventy-four minutes in a deluge by referee Stuart Attwell; for a few hours Rovers held out hope of a potential fourth round tie at home to beleaguered reigning champions Manchester United, only for the Red Devils to be knocked out by Swansea. Two goals in the final seven minutes of the re-arranged fixture at Crawley enabled Rovers to win their second-round replay and progress to a third-round tie at Birmingham City. Supported by an official figure of 2,900 travelling Gasheads, Rovers conceded two very late goals to Chris Burke which embellished the Championship side’s ultimately comfortable 3-0 victory. After many years of effort and despite the disappointment of relegation, it appeared as the season drew to a close that Rovers could face an imminent move to a new home of their own. The construction of a 21,700-capacity stadium on 3.3 hectares of land at the University of the West of England at Stoke Gifford had been delayed by a local campaign, opposing the erection of a Sainsbury’s supermarket on the Memorial Stadium site. Rovers required the sale of the land in order to fund their new ground. Sainsbury’s had been given permission on 4th May 2012, this being approved by Bristol City Council on 16th January 2013, to build a superstore on the site, where the 9,000m² supermarket would be joined by 65 dwellings and a public open space, to be poignantly named Memorial Square. The whole enterprise was intended to create 350 potential jobs amidst an investment of some £200 million in all. Building Rovers’ new ground would also lead to the construction of 500 new houses and 100 extra-care units and the £100 million raised by the sale of the UWE land would be invested in university business and media centres as well as teaching and accommodation blocks. At the hearing of 13th March 2014, Mr Justice Hickingbottom over-ruled the objections raised on 4th September 2013 by the local group, TRASHorfield, who had gathered over a thousand signatures, and the diggers soon moved in to the proposed site. Ominously, though, in January 2014 Rovers announced pre-tax losses of £781,911 for the year to June 2013, a significant increase from the losses of £353,219 in the year to June 2012; turnover had dropped by 17% to £3,800,000.
2014-15
At ten to five on the third Sunday in May 2015 on a Wembley pitch resembling a bowling green, Lee Richard Samuel Mansell placed the ball on the penalty-spot and calmly drilled it past the despairing dive of Grimsby Town’s James McKeown to restore Bristol Rovers’ Football League status after a one-year absence. It had been an eventful afternoon beneath the Wembley Arch, as “two evenly matched, tenacious, well-drilled sides slugged it out in a match that gave us a thrilling first half, a slightly below-par second and a surprisingly open last half-hour.” (Tom Davies, The Guardian). Falling behind to Lenell John-Lewis’ scrambled opener after just ninety-nine seconds on his twenty-sixth birthday, Rovers equalised after 29 minutes, when Ellis Harrison fired the ball home, left-footed, after the Mariners had not cleared Jake Gosling’s right-wing corner. An estimated 30,000 Gasheads waited tensely and nervously in a Conference play-off record 47,029 crowd as extra-time proved goalless and a place in the League hinged on the lottery of penalties. Well-drilled by manager Darrell Clarke, Rovers scored all five of their attempts, with Jon-Paul Pittman’s missed kick proving critical as Mansell’s strike saw Rovers through 5-3 on spot-kicks. A below-key Wembley performance had produced the desired result; earlier, two play-off semi-finals against Forest Green had seen Matty Taylor’s stunning sixteenth-minute opener at The New Lawn being followed by Harrison’s late red card, before Rovers eased comfortably home in the second leg with Taylor again on the score-sheet, followed by Chris Lines’ first goal since his return to Rovers. Manager Clarke was therefore able to cast away the demons of 3rd May 2014 against Mansfield Town, when Rovers had meekly surrendered their League status. Ollie Palmer, who had started for Mansfield Town in Rovers’ final Football League fixture in May 2014, played for Grimsby in the Wembley tie. Rovers had won in quartered shirts at Wembley twice in eight years, Craig Disley, now Grimsby’s captain, appearing in both games. Rovers were back in the League Cup and Johnstone’s Paint Trophy draws for 2015-16, whilst Rovers and Bristol City, relegated together in 1981, had both experienced promotion in 1990, 2007 and 2015. More than this, the club had somehow emerged from the world of non-league football intact and more alert now to the dangers attached to losing Football League membership; more than this, though, the head of steam which had enabled promotion would now see the club push for successive promotions between 2014 and 2016. When Gasheads awoke to the new season in August, following uneasy dreams, they discovered that in the night to their horror their side had been transformed into a non-league team. Rovers were to remain two divisions below Bristol City and Yeovil Town, they would not be participating in the League Cup or the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy and they would need to play in a qualifying round of the FA Cup; devotees of Fifa 2015 found out that Rovers did not feature on the latest version of the game. It was essential that this situation be rectified as soon as possible and Clarke appeared the perfect man for the job, with Marcus Stewart as his assistant. It was widely recognised that the trap-door to Conference football rarely allowed for swift re-entry. Indeed, Carlisle United, in 2005, had been the last club to be promoted straight back after losing Football League status, whilst Darlington in 1990 had been the most recent side to return as Conference champions. It is “difficult … for any club to halt that downward spiral, if they are unfortunate enough to experience it. One bad season can catapult into another and another” (Steve Mildenhall) Over the past eight seasons, only four out of sixteen clubs had returned to the Football League fold, Torquay after two years away, Oxford after four and Mansfield and Luton after five each. Adjusting to life outside the Football League, manager Clarke invested in a wise combination of those with extensive League experience and those with the know-how to deal with the reality of Conference football. Into Rovers’ set-up came strikers Taylor and Jamie White, joined later by Nathan Blissett, initially on loan, and the vastly experienced Welsh international Jermaine Easter, whose younger brother Jamal had been with Rovers during the 2006-07 promotion campaign. A talented midfield was to include the enormous experience of Torquay captain Mansell and Clarke’s erstwhile Hartlepool colleague Andy Monkhouse, alongside Gibraltar international Gosling and Colombian Ángelo Balanta. They were joined by the extensively-bearded Stuart Sinclair, who took on immediate cult status amongst a Gas following searching for a new hero. Defensively, Rovers retained the back line that had served well, adding Daniel Leadbitter, Neal Trotman and goalkeeper Will Puddy. Loan dealings brought to the club Adam Cunnington, Fabian Spiess, Lyle Della-Verde, Bradley Goldberg, Alex Wall, Dave Martin and the talented Adam Dawson, whilst Lines returned to the fold as Rovers’ promotion push gained momentum. Martin was to end the campaign in the League Two play-offs, one of five former Rovers players who started the second-leg between Southend United and Stevenage. The pre-season visit of Coventry City was supposed to kick-start Rovers’ push for an immediate return to the hearth of League football. Instead, the season began disastrously. Rovers won two and lost three of the first seven League fixtures, the nadir being an embarrassing 2-0 defeat at Braintree in early September. However, Clarke appeared to have his finger on the pulse and the club embarked on an astonishing run, which deservedly earned Clarke the divisional Manager of the Month award for three separate months. Following the Braintree game, Rovers were to lose only twice all season. Going into the play-offs the side had lost two out of 38 League games, which included a twenty-game unbeaten run over Christmas, and Rovers set a club record tally of just three away defeats all season in remaining undefeated in their final nineteen away fixtures of the regular campaign. A club record run, this also equalled a Conference record. It has to be said that Rovers produced an exciting and riveting season’s football. There were times of great anxiety and, for the most part, victories were fought for, unlike long-term leaders Barnet, whose record third Conference title came following a series of large, high-profile wins. Rovers, if battling, though, produced a sensational run of results after the start of September and there were clear signs that the Gas could mount a serious promotion challenge. Leadbitter’s solitary goal for the club preceded a 2-2 half-time score-line at Lincoln, Harrison arriving with the last-minute winner. Indeed, Rovers took the lead in the opening quarter of an hour in four consecutive fixtures in September. A last-minute début goal for substitute Balanta defeated table-topping Barnet at The Mem in November and Sinclair contributed a hugely popular winner after Gateshead had twice led in a televised match in December. Rovers led 2-0 at both Lincoln and Torquay and were the only club in the top five divisions of English football not to concede three goals in a League fixture all campaign. On the other hand critics, whilst admiring Rovers’ long unbeaten run, were quick to point out the fact that too many games were being drawn. Dover Athletic, for instance, recorded very late equalisers in both fixtures, Tom Murphy’s goal at The Mem being echoed by Ricky Modeste’s heart-breaking strike in late April. Another draw at Wrexham came after the Dragons’ Rob Evans had been sent off, with captain Mark McChrystal replacing the injured Mildenhall in goal for more than half the match; loan striker Wall struck the bar, but Rovers had dropped two points. Blissett, who had scored for Kidderminster at The Mem, added one for Rovers just seven days later, but two goals conceded in three second-half minutes meant Rovers left Chester with just one point after leading 2-0. Some argued that Taylor’s “goal” had been controversially ruled out in the goalless draw at Woking, whilst Rovers only drew at two relegated sides, Alfreton and Dartford. As the promotion race gained momentum, Rovers began to claw back the eleven-point lead Barnet had built up at the head of the table. There were plenty of other sides in the mix, Rovers demolishing one of them, Macclesfield, by four clear goals at The Mem, whilst Lockyer’s only goal of a constructive season earned three points at Grimsby in a Valentine’s Day six-pointer. Although Barnet had retained top spot for most of season, Rovers briefly went top at the end of February as, after Braintree’s Matt Paine had been sent off, Young Player of the Year Harrison scored a winning goal seven minutes from time. The same player scored the club’s Goal of the Season at Halifax, Rovers ground out a critical 1-0 victory at Gateshead and the Gas and Barnet matched each other result-for-result as the season wore on. With other rivals falling by the wayside, Grimsby with two hurdles to go, Rovers and Barnet went head-to-head for the title. On the penultimate day, the Bees went a goal down at Kidderminster, where Rovers had just won 3-0, and secured a late equaliser; Rovers would have gone top, but a scrambled eighty-eight-minute goal from Dover Athletic’s Ricky Modeste meant the Pirates had to settle for just a point, the destiny of the title remaining in Barnet’s hands. On the final day, a Conference record crowd of 11,085 gathered at a heaving, buzzing Mem, to witness a demolition job on Alfreton, who were relegated as a result. As Rovers ran in three first-half goals, six players scoring in a 7-0 crushing of the Derbyshire side, news filtered through of two Barnet goals to secure the title, Rovers on a mighty 91 points trailing the Bees by a solitary point. Oddly, two Rovers goalkeepers conceded own goals, Spiess at Torquay and Mildenhall at Dartford, whose keeper Jason Brown, a former Welsh international, was the victim of racial abuse which saw Rovers work closely with the police to apprehend the perpetrator. Aldershot’s Jordan Roberts was sent off in an October fixture which featured a penalty for each side. Unusually, Rovers wore yellow shirts for home match against Lincoln City, whose Hamza Bencherif is one of only three Algerian-born opponents to face Rovers. In addition to Spiess for Rovers, German-speaking goalkeepers proliferated, from Wrexham’s Daniel Bachmann to Benji Büchel (Liechtenstein and Welling United), Raphael Spiegel (Barnet and Switzerland) and Nick Hamann (a German at Braintree). South African international Matty Pattison scored for Gateshead in a televised game in December in which Mansell was booked for kissing JJ O’Donnell, an action designed to avoid “doing something silly”. Richard Hill, Eastleigh’s manager, was formerly at FC Kairat in Kazakhstan. Kitty Thorne from Trowbridge celebrated her 100th birthday by supporting Rovers against Altrincham in the spring. Early season sendings-off for Sinclair at Altrincham, Mildenhall and Ollie Clarke at Eastleigh, Leadbitter at home to Forest Green and Monkhouse at Telford preceded Rovers not receiving a red card in the regular season after 21st November. This increased focus and burgeoning maturity no doubt helped contribute to the side’s surge up the table. Crowds returned in droves to The Mem, three figures of over 8,000 being easily surpassed against Alfreton on the tense final day, with 6,630 being the average home crowd for the 23 regular Conference matches. Coincidentally, just 880 hardy souls had been at the reverse fixture at Alfreton, whilst the lowest home gate, the solitary one beneath five-thousand spectators, was 4,861 for the visit of Nuneaton; Grimsby officially brought 452 away supporters to The Mem, Braintree only 23. Rovers’ away support was stunning, the highest being the 2,619 who completely outnumbered Kidderminster’s home following over Easter. Tom Parkes, the Supporters’ Club and President’s Club Player of the Year, was the side’s only ever-present, a remarkable achievement for a central defender in this age of increased yellow- and red-card use; Parkes and the quietly effective McChrystal received only five and six yellows respectively all season, Lee Brown, constructive and forceful at left-back and responsible for eight assists, picking up none at all. Mansell received ten bookings, whilst Taylor was the club’s top scorer, with seventeen Conference goals; his 52 shots included three which hit the woodwork and he also scored in the FA Cup and in the play-offs. It was in defence that Rovers excelled. 34 goals were conceded in 46 Conference matches, the fewest in that league and the fewest the club had conceded since 1973-74. The goal difference was the highest by Rovers since the 1952-53 Third Division (South) championship season. Rovers kept more clean sheets than anyone else, 22 in 46 matches, had not scored as many as 73 League goals since 2006-07, whilst 25 League wins and a total of 91 points were the club’s best figures since the 1989-90 promotion campaign. In addition, Rovers equalled a club record of just five League defeats in the regular season and scored against all the other 22 clubs. Incredibly, for the first time since 1994-95, no side had achieved a League double over Rovers, a feat not repeated in the 2015-16 promotion campaign. It was announced that, over the previous financial year, Rovers had lost £566,408, a more significant deficit only allayed by bonuses from sell-on clauses with regard to Rickie Lambert’s 2014 transfer to Liverpool. Turnover was up to £4,328,341 from £3,819,633, as the wage-bill rose from £3,200,000 to £3,500,000; this was largely because the club had “lost central funds of just short of £500,000 as a result of the relegation” (Toni Watola, finance director). Yet, late-season success, included an estimated £600,000 payment through promotion to the Football League, indicated an upturn in financial aspirations. Of former Rovers players, Barnet’s John Akinde and Danny Coles of Forest Green both scored against the Gas in Conference football, whilst David Pipe, Craig Disley, Steven Gillespie, Aaron Downes, Scott Rendell and Matt Glennon all appeared in the opposition; Eliot Richards was in the Tranmere side which knocked Rovers out of the FA Cup. Indeed, cup participation was brief, Max Power’s penalty at Prenton Road seeing off a Rovers side which had scored seven at Dorchester in the previous round, Harrison adding a second-half hat-trick to Rovers’ 2-0 interval lead. Bath City won 2-0 in the FA Trophy, Rovers’ participation in this tournament lasting just ninety minutes.
2015-16
With just seconds remaining at a heaving Memorial Stadium on the final day of the campaign, left-back Lee Brown side-footed the ball right-footed into the net to earn Rovers promotion to League One, just twenty-four months after the side had dropped out of the Football League. Double promotion had been won in a dramatic finale to an astonishing season hewn out of the building blocks of the Conference campaign. New club owner Wael Al-Qadi was carried down Gloucester Road on supporters’ shoulders on one of the more astonishing evenings in the Bristol Rovers story. Having been fourteen points adrift of third-placed Plymouth Argyle at the start of March, Rovers put together a run of just one defeat in the final fourteen matches, gradually closing in on the second and third automatic promotion places. In hindsight, the last three matches all had to be won and either Accrington or Oxford had to drop points at some stage if Rovers were to be promoted. On the final day, as Stanley stuttered to a goalless draw in their final fixture, The Gas laboured hard to defeat relegated but stubborn Dagenham. The visitors had not read the script and took an early lead through Matty Cash, Billy Bodin cancelling this out as he slalomed through the Daggers’ defence to draw The Gas level. Rovers were awarded seventeen corners and had thirty-five shots, but the score remained 1-1 after ninety minutes, Matty Taylor having had a shot deflected onto the bar late on. As the seconds ticked away, Tom Lockyer had also cleared a rare Daggers shot off the goal-line. Desperate supporters fell into two camps: those who believed a goal could come at any moment; and those resigned to a play-off slot. With two minutes of stoppage time played and a goal required for promotion, Rovers attempted one last attack. Good work from substitutes Jermaine Easter and Jake Gosling set up Taylor, whose shot cannoned off the inside of the post to Brown; calmly, the side’s only ever-present slotted home to trigger a wave of noise and jubilation around the ground and in Rovers households around the world. Not since the 1981-82 season had the fourth-placed side in this division reached as many as 85 League points, and plucky Accrington lost out on promotion on goal difference. It was an enthralling, exhausting, topsy-turvy end to an increasingly dramatic season. Rovers were attempting to emulate the Carlisle United side which had lost its Football League status in 2003-04 only to gain successive promotions in 2004-05 and 2005-06, such that, two years after dropping into the Conference, they had returned to third-tier football. Having been the first side in a decade to return to the Football League at the first attempt, an achievement mirrored in 2016 by Cheltenham Town, Rovers made an audacious bid to retrieve the League One status last held in the spring of 2011. Taylor’s 27 League goals left him, certainly at the time of the Dagenham game, as the top scorer across England’s top four divisions. He was ably supported by Billy Bodin, whose tally of thirteen League goals from midfield, including one at Newport voted as Goal of the Season, was highly impressive. Rovers managed a club-record-equalling eleven away League wins and nine consecutive home League wins, shy of the club record ten in succession in the spring of 1935. Eight separate League fixtures were won by three clear goals, 26 League matches were won, 36 goals were scored away from home (the third highest tally in the club’s history) and eight League doubles were completed, more than in any other season. Having lost six of their first nine home League matches, Rovers had secured 43 out of 45 available points in all home games since the visit of Stevenage in November. With thirty different players used, Brown was the only outfield player in League Two to play in every minute of every one of their club’s matches, Lockyer was Young Player of the Year and Taylor Player of the Year. All of this was achieved in a season when the club was not awarded a single penalty at home. For many supporters, the mere fact that Rovers’ eighty-eighth Football League season existed at all was cause for relief; the exertions of the previous months had taken their toll. Back where many felt the club deserved to be, amongst the lower echelons of the League, the club set about establishing itself at League Two level. Manager Darrell Clarke had made no bones of the fact that he wished to return an air of success to Horfield and the heart of the previous side’s successful squad was retained, Neal Trotman, Ángelo Balanta and Andy Monkhouse being those who left. Alongside Chris Lines, who signed permanently for his boyhood club, Rovers picked up attacking midfielder Billy Bodin, dependable and assured defender James Clarke and winger Cristian Montaño to increase team-selection options. Veteran goalkeeper Steve Mildenhall, central defenders Tom Parkes and Mark McChrystal and the midfield pairing of Lee Mansell and Stuart Sinclair before, for the second consecutive season, the bearded maestro missed the all-important run-in through injury, also offered the side a great deal of stability. A home defeat to Northampton Town, before a crowd of 8,712, for a long time the highest home attendance of the campaign, was not what many had envisaged for Rovers’ first game back in the League fold, but it was to be the first of five defeats in the opening six home League and cup games. This run included home defeats to Portsmouth and Oxford, which precipitated the loan signings of two goalkeepers, first the giant Aaron Chapman from Chesterfield, whose six-feet-eight-inch stature rendered him Rovers’ tallest player of all time, and later of Lee Nicholls from Wigan Athletic. If defeats at home appeared commonplace, Rovers’ 2-0 loss at Orient in August was for a while the club’s only defeat away from home in over a year of Conference and Football League excursions, this loss following a run of twenty-one regular League fixtures away from home, or twenty-three if the two play-off games were to be counted. Very late goals at both Yeovil and Luton, Daniel Leadbitter’s pace offering early-season hope, secured deserved victories on the road and set the season off in a positive way. As doom-mongers congregated following three straight defeats in September and two goals in a cataclysmic 66 seconds at Crawley in November, Rovers responded in style. An impressive, free-flowing 3-0 victory at Hartlepool, an exciting 4-3 victory at Morecambe and a twelve-minute second-half hat-trick from in-form striker Taylor against Wycombe were amongst the highlights; he scored three more when Hartlepool visited Bristol. At Plymouth, Morecambe and again at Oxford, Harrison converted penalties as a substitute, a feat previously only achieved by Peter Beadle and Mark Walters in a Rovers shirt; at Morecambe, two substitutes scored penalties in the final nine minutes, the home side’s Paul Mullin joining Harrison on the score-sheet. The match at Cambridge at the end of October was brought forward by a day to the Friday night before the weekend’s Rugby World Cup Final at Twickenham, prompting many supporters to query the reasons behind the switch, other League Two clubs continuing to play on the Saturday afternoon. “I have a vision of thronging Cantab-types, in gowns and mortar-boards, parking their bicycles in a rack of thousands outside the ground or punting up the Cam with their football scarves on, heading for the match... doodling mathematical equations on their programmes at half-time or filling in their Latin crosswords as they await the kick-off”, said Rovers fan Mark Ash on the Gaschat forum. As it was, Rovers recovered a half-time deficit to record a 2-1 win, Taylor coming off the bench to create one goal and score the other in Rovers’ fourth consecutive away victory. Some had warned that the continuing poor home form would end up in disaster and so it indeed proved in November, as Rovers lost at home to a non-league side in the FA Cup for the first time in the club’s history. Seventh-tier Chesham United sat 75 places below Rovers at the start of play, but fully deserved their victory at The Mem. Nicholls saved Dave Pearce’s penalty just before the half-hour mark but turned from hero to villain when he let Ryan Blake’s long-range strike slip past him thirteen minutes from time, the Generals holding on for a famous victory. They had not reached the second round since 1980 and had only won once away from home in ten months, but were spurred on by the former Rovers striker, Barry Hayles, who appeared as a substitute and created Blake’s goal; in so doing, Hayles at 43 years 205 days became the oldest player ever to face Rovers in the FA Cup. As in 2014-15, there was renewed optimism as the season wore on. The club signed two highly experienced players mid-season in the former Republic of Ireland midfielder Liam Lawrence and Rory Fallon, whose goal against Jordan had taken New Zealand to the 2010 World Cup Finals. Rovers had two red cards rescinded, so in effect received no reds all season, although the opposition accumulated nine. In addition, Rovers were evolving into a side who were incisive and ruthless after half-time. This was borne out by the fact that the club went over a year without losing the second-half of any League match. Of Taylor’s 27 League goals in 2015-16, an amazing 23 came after half-time, including all of his hat-trick goals against Wycombe in December. Through the spring, the striker scored in eight consecutive Football League matches to equal Dai Ward’s club record set in 1955. Chris Lines, with eight, recorded the most assists during the season. As automatic promotion became increasingly plausible, some supporters blamed the team selection for the goalless draw at Stevenage in April; others felt the late goals conceded at home to Plymouth and at Exeter would come back to haunt the side; still others believed that defeat in four of the first five home League fixtures would ultimately prove too large a hurdle to overcome. In reality, though, Rovers had an astonishing run of late goals scored in the club’s favour; on seven occasions Rovers scored a winner after the 87th minute and, in the game at champions Northampton, contributed an equaliser, whereas only Plymouth and Exeter scored against The Gas so late in a match, both times being equalisers. One angle to view the season shows that four of the top six clubs in the division won League fixtures at The Mem and, indeed, Stanley and Pompey both completed a League double over The Gas. Just as newly-promoted Rovers began to feel need for fresh impetus, this arrived in a most unexpected manner. On 19th February, Nick Higgs stepped aside as chairman, as a Jordanian family whose significant wealth stemmed from the tourism and banking industries bought up 92% of the club. Forty-six-year-old father-of-four Wael Al-Qadi, the third son of Abdulkadir Al-Qadi, founder of the Arab Jordan Investment Bank, became President of the club, announcing that he was drawn by the “amazing heritage and loyal fan-base”. He promised to re-pay debts, push hard for the new stadium and retain both Rovers’ progressive manager and traditional quartered shirts, thus allaying fears of supporters impressed by Darryl Clarke and concerned at what had been seen to happen with other clubs. Nick Higgs, Barry Bradshaw, Ed Ware, Chris Jelf and Colin Sexstone (a former director of Bristol City and Plymouth Argyle, who had joined the board in September 2015) stood down from the board and Steve Hamer, Swansea City’s chairman between 1997 and 2000, arrived as Chairman, hailing it a “momentous day in the history of Bristol Rovers Football Club”. Ken Masters and Brian Seymour-Smith remained on the board. Twenty-four hours later, Rovers recovered from a half-time deficit to defeat Morecambe and end a run of three games without a win. Two days later, Lee Atkins, a forty-six-year-old accountant with significant experience working alongside the Al-Qadis was brought onto the board. Meanwhile, the experienced Harry Redknapp, who had played for Bournemouth against Rovers in the early 1970s, was appointed by the Al-Qadis as manager of Jordan. The appeal over the long-running dispute with Sainsbury’s had caused a delay in the potential £40,000,000 land development at the University of the West of England. Having looked since 2005 at a potential move to a 21,700-seater stadium, Rovers were now hoping to move to a new ground in two years’ time. The loss of the Sainsbury’s appeal effectively cost the club £1,500,000. On 17th March, Lord Justices Sir John Laws, Sir Richard McCombe and Sir Christopher Floyd upheld the decision made by Lord Justice (Dame Sonia) Proudman and turned down Bristol Rovers’ appeal against that judgement. After a year’s enforced absence from the competition, Rovers returned to League Cup action briefly, defeated 2-1 at home by a Birmingham City side two divisions higher in status, the closeness of the final score showing Rovers in a positive light. Rovers crashed out of the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy at Southend, after beating Wycombe at home. In scoring a late consolation goal in his nation’s 8-1 defeat in Poland in September, Gosling became, with two goals to his name, Gibraltar’s highest scorer in their brief international career. Incredibly, fourth-tier Rovers were to postpone one League fixture in October with three men out on international duty, Gosling being one whilst Lockyer and Ellis Harrison were appearing for Wales at Under-21 level. Harrison scored from the penalty-spot in November, as the Welsh side defeated Armenia in Bangor. On-loan striker Oli McBurnie scored for Scotland Under-21s over Easter against their Northern Irish counterparts. The former Rovers full-back Michael Smith earned due reward for a series of fine performances with Peterborough by winning his first Northern Irish international cap in March, in a 1-0 victory over Slovenia at Windsor Park. Cambridge’s Zela Ismail was the first Albanian-born opponent to face Rovers in the Football League, Luís Pedro of Carlisle only the second Angolan to do so, Alie Sesay of Cambridge was the fourth Sierra Leone international to appear against Rovers, Wimbledon’s Lyle Walker the fifth Montserrat cap to do so and Magnus Okuonghae of Luton the eleventh Nigerian-born player to play in League action against The Gas. There were rewards aplenty as the season drew to a close, with Eric Kingscott commended by Football League for his work as groundsman, Scott Sinclair named as an “unsung hero”, Taylor named as Divisional Player of the Month and Darrell Clarke, with successive promotions in his first two full seasons at the club, as Manager of the Month. With an average home attendance of 8,096, five home attendances topped 10,000, including the last three, with 11,130 for the final day drama against Dagenham being the highest; there were 2,863 Gasheads in a crowd of 17,808 at Fratton Park in February. On the other hand, only 1,712 watched the victory at Morecambe in October and Accrington brought just 48 away supporters the previous month. A number of former Rovers players appeared against the club, including three at Mansfield (Scott Shearer, Reggie Lambe and Chris Beardsley) as well as three at Crawley Town (Andy Bond, Lyle Della-Verde and Matt Harrold). Two forty-year-old goalkeepers were in the opposition – Mansfield’s Brian Jensen and Chris Day of Stevenage; on the final day of the season, the former Rovers striker Jamie Cureton became the 25th opponent to face Rovers in a League fixture after their fortieth birthday. Even Rovers’ distinctive kit made headlines: it was stated that, whilst an average replica shirt in the Football League cost £42.18, Rovers sold the home shirt for £29.99; and following a vote on the Football League facebook page which attracted 24,000 votes, Rovers’ home kit was selected as the favourite home kit of League Two supporters, as supporters, reassured that they had got back “their Bristol Rovers” looked forward to a new era of League One football.
2016-17
Once Cody McDonald’s injury-time brace at Gillingham had effectively ended any outside hope of The Gas securing a play-off berth, Rovers’ supporters could reflect on a positive season. The side had gained maximum League points at home to each of the bottom nine teams in the division and completed a League double over the other three promoted sides. On their return to League One after a six-year absence, Rovers finished in tenth place, the highest since 1999-2000. However, poor away form could be surmised from the fact that three or more goals had been conceded in ten separate away League fixtures. Top scorer Matty Taylor had scored sixteen League goals, nineteen in all competitions, before his controversial transfer across the city on deadline day in January. There had been the bonus of a rare trip in the League Cup to Stamford Bridge, but Rovers had been knocked out of the FA Cup at home to a non-league side for the second successive season. Of the victorious promotion side, central defender Tom Parkes joined Orient, who were to lose their League status in April 2017, whilst the remainder of the squad remained, despite Taylor’s drawn-out contract proceedings. As a result, the backbone of the side was in place, with the dependable Lee Brown, Tom Lockyer and Stuart Sinclair contributing continuity to the team and Chris Lines a force in midfield alongside the ever-improving Ollie Clarke, the Supporters’ Club Player of the Year. The former Torquay United manager Chris Hargreaves arrived as manager of Rovers’ Under-21 side, whilst Keith Graham, a chartered physiotherapist, headed up a newly-formed medical department. The season opened with Rovers boasting two new signings with extensive lower-league experience in defender Peter Hartley and winger Byron Moore, as well as three long-term loan signings in Luke James, Kelle Roos and Connor Roberts. Having had two games called off, one postponed and one abandoned, by half-way through the home fixture with Rochdale the Gas stood bottom in League One. However, manager Darrell Clarke had by then strengthened with the loan signing of combative midfielder Hiram Boateng, whilst the young Chelsea pair of Charlie Colkett and Jake Clarke-Salter also arrived on loan. One feature of Rovers’ early-season form was that, whilst an ever-changing side struggled to find form, Taylor continued where he had left off in 2015-16. The Football League’s top scorer that campaign had five goals to his name by the middle of September. His penalty against Walsall during that run was the first Rovers had been awarded at The Mem in the Football League since the game against Exeter City in January 2014, although it only earned one of four consecutive autumnal draws which preceded victory at Swindon through two very late goals in the space of a minute. Victories soon followed at home to Port Vale and, impressively, at high-flying Northampton Town, where Colkett’s stoppage-time winner imposed the Cobblers’ first home defeat in seventeen League matches stretching back ten months. Through the autumn, Rovers conceded the first goal of nine successive League fixtures, but incredibly only lost one of these games. This astonishing never-say-die team spirit was perhaps best epitomised at MK Dons, where Rovers twice trailed by two goals before two very late goals earned a 3-3 draw, Taylor scoring a second-half hat-trick. Red cards followed for Jermaine Easter at Sheffield United and Daniel Leadbitter at Millwall, where ten-man Rovers crashed to a 4-0 defeat, the heaviest setback since March 2014; Stuart Sinclair was later sent off in the defeat at Bury. As the wheels appeared to fall off Rovers’ season, Charlton scored five times at The Mem as Rovers’ formation was dismantled, Clarke-Salter leaving the field with a fractured elbow, and four more times in the return fixture, Northern Irish international striker Josh Magennis scoring a hat-trick. In reality, though, on only one occasion, the defeat at bottom-of-the-table Shrewsbury Town in December, were Rovers actually very poor. There were six consecutive away defeats across New Year. However, Rovers re-grouped and, with the aid of some exceptional home form, secured their mid-table standing. Billy Bodin overcame some early season loss of form to strike an emphatic left-footed second-half hat-trick as Rovers defeated Coventry City 4-1 on Boxing Day, having put four goals past Bury in the previous home fixture. In some respects, the 2-0 win over a strong Wimbledon side on New Year’s Eve was the best of these performances, victory assured through Taylor’s second-half brace. Of 24 League matches played at The Mem in the calendar year of 2016, Rovers had astonishingly won seventeen, even taking into account a 5-1 thrashing at the hands of Charlton Athletic and only Liverpool, of clubs in the top four national leagues, had scored more League goals during the year. The New Year opened with a 5-0 demolition of a Northampton side featuring two former Rovers midfielders in Boateng and John-Joe O’Toole, Ellis Harrison becoming only the thirteenth Rovers player to score four times in a League match, his tally including a seven-minute first-half hat-trick. It was the first time since before World War Two, 1932-33 to be exact, that three Rovers players had completed a Football League hat-trick in the same season. For many supporters the January transfer window, coming as it did in the midst of some exceptional home form and a terrible run of away results, would give some indication of the intent from manager Clarke and club owner Wael Al-Qadi. Defender Ryan Partington, Eastleigh’s club captain, Queen’s Park Rangers’ impressive young goalkeeper Joe Lumley and Stoke City’s rock-solid teenage defender Ryan Sweeney all joined the Gas at this time. They were followed by the signings of Middlesbrough defender Jonny Burn and Glaswegian Bob Harris, who had played for Queen of the South in the Scottish Cup Final of 2008; Luke James, who had scored twice for Hartlepool United against Rovers in September 2013, played up front. However, the loss of Taylor on the final day of January threatened to overshadow all of the signings, not just for his departure but because he was moving across the river to Bristol City, this transfer creating an atmosphere of despondency, angst and despair in some circles. On paper, February’s fixtures looked to be the hardest run of the season, but Rovers responded with six consecutive draws, to exceed a club record set in both 1967 and 1975, these games featuring own goals on successive Saturdays from defenders Harris, on his club début, and Lockyer. The sixth draw saw Rovers outplay Bolton Wanderers on their own pitch, all a far cry from trips to places like Braintree and Nuneaton two seasons earlier. Towards the close of the season, a 2-0 victory at Oxford, remarkably a fourth consecutive League victory at the Kassam, stands out amongst a string of positive results. Rovers’ ongoing successful home form began to suggest that an unprecedented third promotion could be an outside possibility via the play-offs. However, two straight victories were followed by a defeat at Gillingham which effectively ended this outside chance, all mathematical options being extinguished as Peterborough ran in four goals in 51 minutes in the final away fixture. Rovers conceded eleven goals in the final three matches, four each in the final two as the season finished with a seven-goal thriller in front of a crowd of 11,750 at The Mem (the highest at home in this division since October 2009), Millwall securing their play-off place with a winner five minutes from time. Rovers also contrived to score in the first minute of successive home fixtures in March. Just a few weeks later, Moore’s goal at Wimbledon, striking home after Lockyer’s long ball was nodded down by Harrison, came after just 12.5 seconds; this was the fastest goal ever scored by Rovers in a League encounter, beating Alfie Biggs’ fifteen-second effort against Bury in March 1968. Rory Gaffney’s late brace at Peterborough made him the fifth Rovers substitute to score twice in a League encounter. Lockyer was Rovers’ only ever-present, Brown and Lines being the only other two players to feature in forty or more League matches; behind Taylor’s sixteen, Bodin was Rovers’ second highest league scorer with thirteen goals, ahead of Harrison on eight. Veteran goalkeeper Steve Mildenhall, at 38 years 99 days when he last appeared in the League for Rovers, at Southend United in August, was the fourth oldest player ever to appear for the club in the Football League. 33 players were used in the Football League, the most since 2012-13. There was a crowd of 17,489 at Bradford in September for a match bizarrely interrupted when the appearance of a drone caused referee Andy Haines to halt proceedings temporarily in the second-half. Unusual though it may be for an August fixture not to be completed, the game at Swindon was abandoned during the second-half in torrential rain; the replayed game caused some degree of controversy, the Robins not allowing those who attended the first game free admission to the replayed fixture, as convention often suggested. In the League Cup, Rovers’ dramatic extra-time victory over former manager Paul Trollope’s Cardiff City earned a high-profile Round Two tie at Stamford Bridge. Chelsea put out a strong side, twelve of their fourteen players having international caps to their names; as the second-half drew on and Rovers had pulled the score back to 3-2, Eden Hazard, John Terry and Oscar were thrown on to shore things up, an indication as to how well Rovers were performing. The Football League Trophy saw Rovers in a group with Pompey, Yeovil Town and the Reading Academy side, the format of the competition having controversially been altered, although Rovers’ hierarchy had opposed the change, to include development teams from sides in the top two divisions. The home fixture with Reading, as a result, attracted a miserly crowd of 1,418. Matt Harrold scored one of two equalisers for Crawley Town in the FA Cup at The Mem, as Rovers eventually defeated their League Two opponents after extra-time in a replay to earn the right to host Barrow in round two. Disastrously, Rovers were knocked out of the FA Cup by the Conference side 2-1, Byron Harrison scoring once in each half as Barrow deservedly secured their first away win against a League club in this competition since 1966. A number of former Rovers players reappeared against the club, notably goalkeepers Luke Daniels at Scunthorpe and Neil Etheridge for Walsall; Adam Barrett played at Southend, John-Joe O’Toole for Northampton Town and Matty Lund with Rochdale; so too did Michael Smith for Peterborough United, Chesterfield’s Dan Jones and Charlie Colkett with Swindon Town, whilst Cian Bolger scored for Fleetwood Town; Lennie Lawrence and Paul Trollope were in charge of the Cardiff City side which played Rovers in the League Cup, Matt Harrold scored for Crawley Town in the FA Cup. Mark Walters’ nephew Reece Wabara played for Bolton Wanderers against Rovers in February. Qamaruddin Maziar Kouhyar of Walsall was the first player born in Afghanistan to oppose Rovers in the League and indeed the first such player to appear in the Football League, whilst Bradford City fielded Haris Vučkić, the first full Slovenian international to play against The Gas. Eoghan O’Connell, who scored Walsall’s opening goal in January, is a first cousin of the former Irish rugby captain Paul O’Connell. Rovers recorded an average home attendance of 9,302, the highest such figure since 1976, and took an average of 1,074 supporters to away fixtures; the club took 4,069 supporters to Coventry in March. The wage-bill for 2015-16 was quoted as being £3.6 million, with the club making an overall loss of £750,000. Muted plans for the new stadium at UWE continued to be acted on behind the scenes, Rovers hoping to move into their projected 21,700-capacity all-seater stadium before too long. With Rovers’ first team training since 2012 at The Lawns, a fifteen-acre site in Henbury, plans were revealed in November 2016 to move to a twenty-eight-acre site at Colony Farm on Hortham Lane, Almondsbury, close to the site of Hortham Hospital, which had been opened in April 1933 at a cost of £215,000 but closed in 1991. When the hospital had first been proposed in 1924, the site had been purchased for just £4,788 and Roman artefacts found there can be seen to this day at Bristol City Museum. This land was purchased in early February 2017 by Dwane Sports, an umbrella company run by Hani Al-Qadi, the eldest brother of Wael Al-Qadi, for a proposed development to include medical facilities, a fitness centre and a base for a projected Gas Girls football side, and planning permission was granted. The new chapter appeared ready to begin.
2017-18
Following the excitement of successive promotions in 2014-15 and 2015-16, it was perhaps inevitable that a period of consolidation would be necessary. So it has proved, it would appear, as Darrell Clarke’s side ensured a second consecutive mid-table finish in the third tier of English football, finishing in thirteenth place. Prior to the season starting, Gasheads expected an influx of signings and, to a certain extent, they were not disappointed. Two goalkeepers with League One experience, in Adam Smith and Sam Slocombe, were joined by creative midfielder Liam Sercombe and, for a reputed £350,000, striker Tom Nichols, four players of the calibre the club required. A surprise signing was Tom Broadbent, who had spent many seasons in the British Army and proved a formidable central defender, whilst Peter Hartley left for Blackpool and later Motherwell and Cristian Montaño joined Port Vale. Defender Ryan Sweeney returned from Stoke City on loan, bringing young striker Dominic Telford with him and Arsenal loaned out full-back Marc Bola. After losing the first two League fixtures, Rovers propped up the divisional table, but thereafter it was a comfortable season, in which the side rarely challenged for the play-offs yet never looked in danger of relegation. Six games in, Rovers had won three, lost three and fielded three different goalkeepers. A seasonal highest position of ninth followed the 1-1 draw at home to Northampton Town in early March. Solid when required, the lack of a cutting edge may go some way to explain how Rovers managed to lose away to every side which completed the season in the top nine in the division. Early on in the campaign, the side appeared to depend on the goals of winger Billy Bodin, whose form was beginning to attract larger clubs. Ellis Harrison was scoring too, but the side was underachieving, losing five out of the first seven League games in September and losing six in a row in all competitions through November. Bodin left in January to join Preston North End, Rovers losing their top scorer in the January window for the second year in a row, and won a first Welsh cap against Uruguay in the China Cup in March 2018. The side was strengthened at this time with the acquisition of experienced central defender Tony Craig, as well as exciting attacking options in Bernard Mensah and Kyle Bennett. In fact, Bodin had left the field injured when Rovers recorded their most remarkable victory of the campaign. Struggling Northampton Town were swept aside 6-0 on their own pitch in October, Bodin scoring the only first-half goal against his former club, but had gone off before Nichols missed a penalty. After the interval Harrison added two goals in five minutes, with Rory Gaffney, Sercombe and Telford also scoring. It was only the third time in the club’s history that a Football League match away from home had been won by six goals. Such was Rovers’ form, though, that this unlikely score-line preceded three straight defeats, Rovers slipping from twelfth place in the table to eighteenth over the next eight weeks. When Nottingham Forest drew for the first time in the season, away to Preston North End shortly before Christmas, this left Rovers as the solitary League side without a League draw to its name. It was the goalless Boxing Day trip to Walsall which was to put an end to a run of 34 League games without a draw, a run dating back to February 2017, when Rovers had astonishingly drawn six matches in succession, and this run was the second longest in the club’s history. Rovers themselves, with 37 games in 1947-48, are the only side to go so long in the League since World War Two, Villa holding the record with 51 consecutive matches in 1891. Unsurprisingly, after the game at Walsall Rovers drew again just four days later. Home draws, though, were proving more elusive, the 1-1 draw with Scunthorpe in February proving the first in 364 days since an identical score-line against the same opposition. And then, incredibly, apparently inconsistent Rovers drew six of their final seven home League matches by the same 1-1 score-line. In truth, Rovers struggled against the perceived stronger sides in the division, picking up just seven of a possible 36 points against the top six sides. Peterborough won 4-1 at The Mem in the first home fixture, Jack Marriott completing his hat-trick in the final minute and Charlie Wyke scored three times in sixty minutes of a rare Sky TV broadcast, as Rovers crumbled 3-1 at Bradford City in September. Four separate Shrewsbury scorers in twenty-nine minutes put their side four goals ahead before half-time as Rovers lost 4-0, whilst Harrison’s late penalty miss would only have been a consolation as Rovers crashed 3-0 at ultimately promoted Wigan Athletic. Rovers conceded three or more goals in a match on ten occasions in all competitions prior to Christmas. Yet, deep down there was a resilience to Rovers’ side, a fact borne out by the five goals scored by the side in the ninetieth minute, one by the influential Chris Lines and two each by Sercombe and Harrison. After the eightieth minute, Rovers contributed 24 goals through the League season, conceding just thirteen, this figure including two consolation goals from Bury as they were defeated 3-2 at Gigg Lane in August. Sometimes it appeared as if the side did not know when it was beaten. Notably, promotion candidates Blackburn were hit by a very late equaliser at The Mem and Portsmouth lost to an injury-time Sercombe winner. More than this, four of the first seven games in the calendar year of 2018 saw Rovers trail 1-0 before eventually winning. Between January and March, The Gas conceded first in nine of their matches, but six of these games were eventually won. This included Sercombe’s dramatic late goal to earn a 2-1 victory over Pompey on New Year’s Day after Rovers had trailed with six minutes to play. Earlier in the season, Rovers had trailed after just four minutes to a strong Doncaster Rovers side at the Keepmoat, but turned the game round with three goals from Sweeney, Gaffney and the indefatigable Harrison to record a 3-1 victory. No other club in the Premier or Football League won as many League matches in 2017-18 as Rovers after being a goal behind. On the other hand, an Achilles heel was apparently Rovers’ perceived ability to concede penalties at will. In truth, this facet of the game evolved late in the campaign, yet Blackburn, were awarded a penalty in both fixtures, experienced Scottish international Charlie Mulgrew converting both, Oldham, Bradford and Doncaster were all awarded spot-kicks and both Plymouth and Gillingham were awarded two. Whilst Plymouth converted one of their pair, en route to a 3-2 victory at Home Park in March, Rovers were spared a little on their December trip to Gillingham; Mark Byrne scored twice, but also contrived to miss two penalties, as Rovers trailed by four goals before Sercombe’s last-minute consolation goal made the score-line marginally more respectable. Another weak spot in Rovers’ psyche was an inability to see off weaker opposition. A prime example of this was at home to relegation-haunted Oldham Athletic in September, where Rovers scored twice in the final seven minutes to equalise, having trailed 2-0, only to then concede a late headed winner to Eoin Doyle. A beleaguered defence contrived to keep only two clean sheets at home in the League and, bizarrely, four away from home. Up front, Nichols found it impossible to replicate the goal-scoring form he had previously shown elsewhere, hitting the post against Bradford, Plymouth and Gillingham, missing a penalty at Northampton and scoring just once in the League. The signs early on had been bright; he scored a late winner in the pre-season friendly against West Bromwich Albion (who fielded twelve full internationals, this fixture also serving as a testimonial game for former player Peter Aitken) and he added a Football League Trophy goal. However, his only League strike came eighteen minutes from the end of the 2-0 victory at home to relegated MK Dons in October. Club captain Tom Lockyer was seen by many not to be fulfilling his early potential, but he was a regular in the side, playing 37 times in the League, and earned a first full Welsh cap in the spring. Indeed, Wales completed the game against Uruguay in Nanning in March with Lockyer, Bodin and the previous season’s loan signing Connor Roberts all on the field. The future of the club, equally, looked to be in good shape, with the Development Squad securing their League title and a number of the team breaking into the League side, albeit briefly – Kenan Dünnwald, Alexis André, Michael Kelly, Luke Russe, Mo Baghdadi and Rollin Menayese all played, whilst Alfie Kilgour, Cameron Hargreaves, Kule Otudeko, James Spruce and Rhys Kavanagh all made the bench for League fixtures. Supporters’ Club Player of the Season Harrison made the most League appearances (41+3) and was the club’s top scorer with twelve League goals, although these began to dry up as the season wore on. Veteran Lee Brown, in his final season with the club, Welsh international Lockyer, Club Player of the Year Sercombe, Ollie Clarke, Joe Partington, Lines, Nicholls and Gaffney all appeared in more than thirty League fixtures, whilst Bodin (nine) and Sercombe (eight) also contributed goals efficiently. Harrison was on the field for the most League minutes (3,495), with Ryan Broom (40), Baghdadi (33), goalkeeper André (28), Kelly (13) and Dünnwald (11) the fewest. With an average home League attendance of 8,933, Rovers took 2,174 supporters to Charlton on the opening day and over a thousand to Oxford, Plymouth and Walsall as well as Wolves in the League Cup. The 10,029 to watch Blackburn in April was the highest home crowd, whist Fleetwood brought just 91 away supporters to The Mem in August. In an inconsistent season, League doubles were completed over the bottom two sides, Bury and MK Dons, whilst promotion hopefuls Shrewsbury Town, thanks to Alex Rodmans’s eighty-eighth-minute cross-shot at The Mem and, oddly, relegation-threatened Wimbledon were the two sides to beat Rovers both home and away. Former players returned with varying degrees of success. Notably, goalkeeper Joe Lumley was Man of the Match when Rovers drew at Blackpool in January and Nathan Blissett scored for Plymouth in September. Respected former club chairman Geoff Dunford died at the end of October 2017 and a minute’s applause was held prior to the game with MK Dons. Two World Cup winners opposed the side early in the campaign; Fulham’s Steven Sessegnon had played for England’s Under-17 side and England Under-20’s Dean Henderson, on loan from Manchester United, played for the Shrews. Ollie Clarke’s ten bookings made him comfortably the most cautioned player in the side, even prior to his final-day red card at Southend. Five opponents were sent off, including Charlton’s Lee Novak just six minutes into the new season; three other Rovers players received red cards during the League campaign, Lines at Fleetwood, Sweeney at Wigan and goalkeeper Slocombe at home to Walsall. In addition, Lockyer was dismissed for a foul on the former Rovers trainee Donovan Wilson, as Rovers lost in the League Cup at Wolves. Having defeated Cambridge United 4-1, Bodin scoring twice, Harrison’s twelfth-minute goal at Craven Cottage had given the side a notable scalp in Fulham, pushing for promotion to the Premier League. Championship leaders Wolves were then held for ninety minutes at Molineux, Rovers losing eventually to an extra-time goal. In the FA Cup, Rovers led 2-0 at Notts County before losing to opponents boasting the experienced forward line of Shola Ameobi, Jon Stead and the former England striker Alan Smith. The Football League Trophy saw weakened Rovers side lose two games, although Telford and Ryan Broom both scored twice, before a miserly crowd of 1,132 in a 5-1 win at Wycombe Wanderers.
2018-19
Ultimately, avoiding relegation proved a successful conclusion to a disappointing season, Rovers’ third back in third-tier English football. On the evening of 3rd March, as Rovers celebrated a 4-0 victory at home to Blackpool, the largest of the campaign, the side still languished five points inside the relegation zone. However, three of the clubs in the bottom four that evening were to extricate themselves from this position, as thirteen clubs battled to survive one of the tightest relegation battles in living memory. Southend, in thirteenth place on 3rd March, only survived the drop by beating play-off-bound Sunderland on the final day, whilst Plymouth and Scunthorpe, in 15th and 16th places respectively at that stage, played each other on the final day and both were relegated. Wimbledon nine points inside the bottom four with eleven games to play, avoided relegation, with Rovers as high as fifteenth in the table after a final-day home victory over promoted Barnsley. Ahead of the new season, manager Darrell Clarke brought in a raft of new signings, each aimed at strengthening perceived weaker areas of the squad. Midfielders Sam Matthews from Bournemouth and Ed Upson of MK Dons were due to add creativity and gravitas to the heart of the side, St Mirren’s Gavin Reilly could add goals and Tareiq Holmes-Dennis, from Premier League side Huddersfield Town, would contribute panache and a touch of class. The signing of Holmes-Dennis proved a lasting asset left behind when Clarke left, adding skill and creativity to a side bolstered from January by the signing of Jonson Clarke-Harris, who almost single-handedly rescued Rovers from the throes of relegation with his spring flurry of goals. Shrewsbury’s excellent 2017-18 campaign having not quite earned the Shropshire side promotion, Alex Rodman and Stefan Payne joined The Gas, to be joined later by Abu Ogogo, who arrived via Coventry City, whilst two early-season loan signings saw goalkeeper Jack Bonham and young striker Alex Jakubiak arrive from Brentford and Watford respectively. On the other hand, the old guard was beginning to leave. Full-back Lee Brown, whose goal against Dagenham had earned final-day promotion in 2016, left for Portsmouth, for whom he scored in a penalty shoot-out in the Football League Trophy Final, the second time he had scored in a Wembley shoot-out. Top goal-scorer Ellis Harrison was sold to Ipswich Town, with whom he experienced the disappointment of relegation, and Rory Gaffney joined aspiring non-league side Salford City. Clarke himself was to follow these players out of the club in December, after the campaign had begun to follow a different path from that which had been anticipated. As the season drew to a close, rumours were rife that both club captain Tom Lockyer and longest-serving player Chris Lines were due to leave. Indeed, the season had begun poorly. Despite the excitement of a 2-0 victory at FC Eindhoven on the club’s Netherlands tour, Ollie Clarke scoring ten minutes before half-time and Kyle Bennett adding a second two minutes from time, the pre-season matches offered a hint of troubled times ahead. Most evidently, as Rovers stumbled to a 4-0 home defeat at the hands of League Two side Exeter City, former player Hiram Boateng scoring the third goal, it was clear that goals were at a premium and that defensive frailties could prove a liability. As it was, Matt Godden scored for Peterborough United in the opening minute of the first League game; Rovers lost four of their opening five League fixtures. What slowly evolved over the campaign was one of the tightest relegation battles in recent memory, as thirteen clubs were still in very real danger of relegation deep into April. Rovers’ first home win of a troubling campaign came towards the end of October, the 2-0 victory coming against a Wimbledon side which had looked dead and buried by Christmas before enjoying a remarkable revival. Rovers dropped in and out of the bottom four, stooping as low as twenty-third on occasions. Amidst the enthusiasm which greeted Rovers’ largest victory, a 4-0 thrashing of Blackpool in March, was the realisation that the club was still five points inside the relegation zone, albeit with a game in hand. Rovers’ League goals tally of 47 was the second worst in 2018-19 in the division, yet the defensive partnership of Craig and Lockyer, aided by the reliable Bonham in goal, ensured that only fifty goals were conceded in the League, a figure bettered by only three clubs. Conceding late goals was part of the issue. Accrington Stanley, Portsmouth, Walsall and Burton Albion all scored very late winning goals, whilst Peterborough equalised in the final seconds of the 2-2 draw at The Mem in January. However, as Rovers’ form improved through the season, the late goals began to swing in the club’s favour: Gavin Reilly glanced home a very late equaliser in the draw at Plymouth in March; after Ched Evans had been sent off at The Mem, James Clarke’s goal four minutes into stoppage time earned a dramatic 2-1 victory at home to Fleetwood Town; and Alex Rodman struck Rovers’ final day winner against Barnsley deep into time added on. Rovers’ goals appeared to come in bursts: the side was 2-0 up in twenty minutes at Wycombe in August, full-back James Clarke and central defender Tony Craig both scoring; the team scored three goals in sixteen first-half minutes at home to Coventry City; and captain Tom Lockyer’s third League goal of the season enabled Rovers to lead 2-0 just ten minutes into the Boxing Day match at Walsall. On 13th December, following a run of seven losses in ten matches in all competitions, Rovers took the decision to part with Darrell Clarke, their most successful manager of recent years. The double promotion feeling distant, the manager left with the club four points inside the relegation zone. Initially replaced from within by defensive coach Graham Coughlan, a run of three victories in five matches under the caretaker manager took the side out of the relegation zone, at which point, on 6th January 2019, Irishman Coughlan, whose lengthy playing career had seen him play for Plymouth Argyle against Rovers, was appointed manager on a two-and-a-half-year contract. He brought in Coventry’s Abu Ogogo and Jonson Clarke-Harris, a midfielder and striker respectively, signings viewed initially with some scepticism but which proved master-strokes. The latter, whom Coughlan had known from his coaching days at Southend, scored nine goals in his first nine League matches in a Rovers shirt, lifting the side clear of the relegation trap-door and scoring a hat-trick in the March demolition of Blackpool. It was Clarke-Harris whose stoppage-time winner in April defeated relegated Bradford City and eased Rovers to safety, aided by Players’ Player of the Year Ollie Clarke’s late equaliser six days later at Wimbledon which took Rovers to the mythically safe fifty-point mark. In fact, Blackpool proved the most popular side to play in 2018-19. Rovers had won 3-0 at Bloomfield Road in November, Ollie Clarke’s two second-half goals coming either side of a Craig volley. The return match at The Mem in March was the day Clarke-Harris proved he could lead Rovers’ attack, adding goals as no striker had done since Harrison’s departure; he scored after six, thirty-seven and sixty-eight minutes for his first ever hat-trick, before Liam Sercombe scored Rovers’ fourth in stoppage-time. On the other hand, Doncaster proved tough adversaries. In a division dominated by the strength of Luton and the wallowing big names of Sunderland, Pompey and Charlton, Donny were easily the most devastating opposition the club faced, scoring four times in each match. Apart from the 3-1 defeat at Charlton in November, when Karlan Grant scored the third goal in the final seconds, and a 2-0 home defeat against play-off finalists Sunderland, Rovers lost no League fixtures all season by more than a goal, except against Donny. A 4-0 thumping at The Mem was followed by a one-sided 4-1 defeat at The Keepmoat, in which James Coppinger’s two goals in the opening twelve minutes made him, at the age of thirty-eight, the second oldest opponent to score twice in a League fixture against the club. Rovers’ club record number of home League defeats, 11 both in 1947-48 and during the relegation season of 1992-93 was equalled in the Easter Monday 1-0 home loss to fellow strugglers Rochdale. The former Rovers midfielder Matty Lund scored relegation candidates Scunthorpe’s winner at The Mem in November. In fact, Rovers lost at home to Southend United, Walsall, Scunthorpe United, Gillingham and Wycombe Wanderers, yet won away to all five. With just six home League wins all season, marginally better than the four home wins enjoyed in the 1980-81 relegation campaign at Eastville, Rovers clearly struggled on their home patch. The much-improved state of the pitch at The Memorial Stadium was reflected in Rovers’ staff being awarded the Grounds Team of the Season award for League One; and yet home performances were regarded as consistently poor. However, Rovers’ reliance on Young Player of the Year, goalkeeper Bonham is best illustrated by the fact that he kept fifteen clean sheets in League One alone, despite his side spending a great deal of the season hovering around the relegation trap door. Yet, Rovers recorded a sixth successive away victory at Oxford United, the first time the club has ever won away to any single side in six successive League visits. One indication of Rovers’ woes was that, until late March, Chris Lines had been the only substitute to score. In fact, Lines’ goal against Pompey, came from the penalty-spot, this being the sixth time a Rovers replacement had converted a League penalty, and moments later he became the fifth Rovers substitute to be red-carded. Another player sent off was loanee Joe Martin, who was to score a stunning volley at Charlton, but who lasted just seventy minutes at Shrewsbury on his first appearance, equalling a dubious record set in 2002 by Wayne Carlisle; Rovers led at the time, but drew 1-1, Daniel Leadbitter conceding an own goal to add to own goals given away in other fixtures by Craig and James Clarke. Clarke-Harris took two penalties at Portsmouth, scoring one and missing the other; another penalty-taker was Tom Nichols, the striker’s only goal of the campaign coming from the spot after eight minutes of the fixture at home to his former club Peterborough United in January. The following month, Shrewsbury’s Dave Edwards contrived to come on as a substitute replacing another substitute, and then get sent off. As British football continued to become more cosmopolitan, a plethora of players from a range of nationalities appeared against Rovers. Charlton’s Igor Vetekele was the second Angolan international to oppose Rovers in the League; Bryan Oviedo of Sunderland was the first Costa Rican to do so and Doncaster goalkeeper, Marko Maroši the third Slovakian; Bevis Mugabi, who played for Yeovil Town in a Football League Trophy game, was the first Ugandan international to oppose Rovers in any competition, and Swansea, in the same tournament, fielded teenager Jordi Govea, the first player from Ecuador to play against The Gas. In finishing the season in fifteenth place, Rovers completed a League double over Blackpool but had the double completed over them by champions Luton and play-off sides Sunderland and Doncaster. With an average home League attendance 8,320, Rovers’ highest home attendance was 10,009 for the visit of Sunderland; 28,971 saw Rodman give Rovers an eleventh-minute lead at the Stadium of Light, this figure dwarfing the 2,301 at Rochdale three days later when Rovers were unable to score, despite Dale’s goalkeeper Magnus Norman being dismissed before half-time. Ollie Clarke was named Players’ Player of the Year, with Craig being the side’s only ever-present and Jonson Clarke-Harris’ eleven League goals making him the club’s top scorer. Besides Craig, two Clarkes, James and Ollie, goalkeeper Bonham and club captain Lockyer all featured in at least forty League matches. Three celebrated former Rovers defenders sadly died during the campaign, Kevin Austin and Joe Davis in the autumn and in April full-back Lindsay Parsons, who had played in 167 consecutive League matches for Rovers in the early 1970s. An embarrassing FA Cup exit at the hands of non-league Barnet was the third time Rovers have lost at home to a non-league team since the side first gained admission to the Football League in 1920. Surviving Stuart Sinclair’s seventh-minute red card to earn a 1-1 draw at The Hive, Rovers lost 2-1 at home in the replay. Former manager Paul Trollope was assistant manager of the Brighton side which reached the semi-finals. A League Cup victory over Crawley Town, whose substitute Dominic Poleon was sent off at The Mem, preceded a 3-1 defeat at Championship side Queen’s Park Rangers, for whom Polish international Paweł Wszołek scored the second goal. Cup success came in the Football League Trophy, where group stage victories over West Ham United Under-21s and Yeovil Town preceded wins against Swansea City Under-21s in front of 371 fans, Northampton Town and Port Vale. Jakubiak scored three goals in this competition for Rovers. Early season disinterest – only 873 watched the 2-0 defeat at Exeter City in November, in which sixteen-year-old Zain Walker, born in January 2002, became the first twenty-first-century-born player to represent The Gas – led to disappointment, as Sunderland won 2-0 at The Mem with Rovers within ninety minutes of a Wembley final.
2019-20. Even the most creative minds might have struggled to come up with the story engendered by Rovers’ fourth successive campaign in League One. The Gas consolidated their position in the play-off places for a potential return after twenty-seven years to second-tier football and indeed briefly reached an automatic promotion position on Boxing Day. Manager Graham Coughlan, having masterminded this unexpected success, left abruptly in December, after which Rovers endured a fourteen-match winless run in League and cup action. Ultimately, with the relegation places virtually filled, Rovers’ enormous fall from grace did not endanger the side’s third-tier place. Yet, the season did not even finish, as the worldwide coronavirus pandemic caused it to be stopped early, with the Pirates safely in fourteenth place in the table. Over the summer of 2019, several mainstays of the Rovers side had left The Mem. Club captain Tom Lockyer, who had won full Welsh international honours whilst a Pirate, joined newly promoted Charlton Athletic. Chris Lines had enjoyed two spells with the club, becoming in the process the only player in the club’s history to be promoted three times in Rovers’ colours, whilst Stuart Sinclair, Daniel Leadbitter and James Clarke had all contributed hugely to recent successes. Both recognised goalkeepers, Sam Slocombe and Adam Smith also left, as did Joe Partington and Stefan Payne. Gavin Reilly, despite scoring a nine-minute hat-trick at Yate in pre-season, left initially on loan, as also did Bernard Mensah. In their places, Rovers appeared to sign well in defence but lack creativity or attacking options. Mark Little, who had gained promotion from League One with the Robins from Ashton Gate, Tom Davies, Josh Hare and Luke Leahy (who had played for Falkirk against Inverness Caledonian Thistle in the 2015 Scottish Cup Final) all added stability to a back line, in front of two more goalkeeping options in Finnish international Anssi Jaakkola and giant Dutchman Jordi van Stappershoef. As the season was about to begin, Sheffield United’s Tyler Smith and Victor Adeboyejo from Barnsley both arrived on loan. On the opening day at Blackpool, before 1,536 travelling Gasheads, Jaakkola became the first Finnish-born player and Adeboyejo the first Nigerian-born player to represent Rovers, the keeper conceding a penalty just twenty-eight minutes in as Rovers lost 2-0. Indeed, it took Rovers until the fourth League game to score. Jonson Clarke-Harris opened scoring, seven minutes shy of half-time from Hare’s cross before Tyler Smith 88th-minute pen finally saw off nine-man Tranmere Rovers, for whom Corey Blackett-Taylor and Ollie Banks were both sent off. Clarke-Harris scored a sensational bicycle kick, one of his two goals in the 3-3 home draw with ten-man Accrington Stanley in September. Marcus Forss, the grandson of Norwegian international Rainer Forss, scored and was sent off as Wimbledon threw away a 1-0 lead, Rovers winning 3-1 at Kingsmeadow in September; his team-mate Nesta Guinness-Walker is the great-grandson of actor Sir Alec Guinness (1914-2000). Luke Murphy and his namesake Daryl Murphy both scored when Rovers lost at home to Bolton; the veteran striker Daryl was to score in both matches against Rovers in 2019-20. Dennis Politic, his team-mate at Bolton, became the first Romanian-born opponent to play against Rovers in League action. A dramatic last-minute Craig MacGillivray own goal earned Rovers an unexpected point at home to Pompey in the autumn. Thereafter, though, even with Clarke-Harris out injured, the goals did not dry up, as many had feared. Indeed, Shrewsbury conceded four times at home to a rampant Rovers side, including Abu Ogogo scoring a very late winner away to his former club. The following week Rovers trailed 2-0 at half-time to relegation-threatened Southend United before producing four unanswered second-half strikes. Goals were beginning to flow and it, quietly and without any fuss, Rovers were stealthily climbing the League One table. Perhaps the zenith was the 2-1 victory at Portman Road against a strong Ipswich Town side, Rovers’ first League win on that ground since Boxing Day 1958. Overcoming the setback of having Ollie Clarke sent off, Rovers secured victory with Tom Nichols scoring and assisting. It proved to be his final goal for the Club in what proved to be a disappointing career goal return of just four goals in 94 league appearances. Towards the end of that game, Lucas Tomlinson became the first player born after New Year’s Day 2000 to represent Rovers in the Football League. By means of contrast, two players born in 2001 were to score when Rovers crumbled to defeat at relegation-haunted Southend United in March. The Ipswich game, meanwhile, had been Rovers’ fourth consecutive League win and the side’s eighth victory in twelve League One matches; what could possibly halt the side’s success? However, that evening it was announced that Graham Coughlan would be leaving, with Rovers fifth in table and with a game in hand. Two days before Christmas, the new manager was announced as Ben Garner, a former coach at Crystal Palace and West Bromwich Albion, who had most recently been working as assistant manager at ATK in the Indian Premier League. Many clubs enjoy a honeymoon period with a new manager in place; with Rovers it was quite the opposite. True, at half-time on Boxing Day, Clarke-Harris’ penalty briefly put Rovers in the top two, but The Gas gained just one point from Garner’s first three games in charge, including a mauling at relegation-haunted MK Dons, and promotion aspirations were swiftly forgotten, Rovers supporters reverting to their annual post-Christmas pastime of gauging how many more points were needed to avoid relegation. After four winless League matches in charge, Garner was given “extended leave” in mid-January, with a close relative seriously ill, assistant Kevin Maher picking up the reins. Equally, on New Year’s Day Rovers suffered a body blow when reliable keeper Jaakkola was forced off the field injured at MK Dons. Indeed, at twelve minutes, this was the earliest goalkeeping substitution in a century of Football League matches including Rovers, van Stappershoef replacing the Finnish shot-stopper. From the perspective of managerial changes and long-term injuries, January’s transfer market was viewed as critical and, uncharacteristically perhaps, Rovers acted decisively, signing Reading’s midfielder Josh Barrett, James Daly from Crystal Palace and Swansea City’s highly-rated defender Cian Harries, as well as picking up three attack-minded players on loan, in Jayden Mitchell-Lawson, Josh Ginnelly and Timmy Abraham, brother of the England striker Tammy Abraham. One further loan deal saw Chelsea goalkeeper Jamal Blackman arrive at The Mem to become the regular custodian for the second half of the campaign. However, after Clarke-Harris’ Boxing Day penalty, Rovers equalled a club record 560 minutes without a League goal until the same player tapped in from Alex Rodman’s right-wing cross after 63 minutes of the 1-1 draw at Bolton. During this period, the striker had also missed a late penalty which could have secured a home win against Fleetwood. It was remarkable that this constituted exactly to the minute the length between League goals during an equally barren spell ninety-eight years earlier. Rovers suffered 3-0 defeats in successive away games, at MK Dons and at Rotherham, before conceding three first-half goals in another defeat at Wycombe, as the side plummeted down a table it had previously climbed with caution. Another 3-0 defeat followed at Sunderland, after Rovers had held on for an hour prior to Ogogo’s dismissal following a tussle with Chris Maguire. Eleven matches without a win (the first eleven of Garner’s tenure) and fourteen in all competitions ended in Storm Dennis at The Mem in mid-February, when Alfie Kilgour’s thirty-yard effort and Ginnelly’s close-range finish secured a dramatic late victory over ten-man Blackpool. Fortunately for Rovers, the sad demise of Bury and an insurmountable points penalty imposed on Bolton Wanderers left just two relegation slots up for grabs and Southend United’s form was incredibly poor too. This took the pressure off Rovers’ disastrous mid-season run, the spectre of relegation never truly haunting the club. Then, inexplicably, Rovers produced their best team performance in some time in defeating promotion hopefuls Sunderland 2-0 on a March Tuesday night under floodlights at The Mem, Clarke-Harris regaining lost form and scoring both goals. Tony Craig was awarded a trophy by the club for his 600th career appearance after the match. On 13th March, the Football League was suspended just 24 hours before a much awaited home match against Ipswich, as the coronavirus pandemic swept through every layer of society and, with eleven matches left to play, Rovers’ season was over; by the end of May, more than 50,000 people had died in the United Kingdom. Although the club was initially keen to complete the season if at all possible, eventually projected costs of over £500,000 to enable matches to proceed proved too great a theoretical obstacle. On 9th June, the division voted to end the season, a points-per-game system ensuring final positions, the Black Cats missing out on the play-offs by dint of that final defeat at The Mem. Rovers finished fourteenth, with 45 points from 35 matches, twelve wins, fourteen defeats and a minus-eleven goal difference. In a bizarre season, captain Tony Craig appeared in 34 League games and his defensive partner Kilgour in 33; Clarke-Harris’ thirteen League goals made him by a huge margin the club’s top scorer, ahead of Smith and Ogogo on three each. Ed Upson, Liam Sercombe and Ogogo formed the strength of Rovers’ central midfield. Completing the double over no opponents, Rovers lost both home and away to Doncaster Rovers and eventual champions Coventry City. Bury’s expulsion and Bolton’s points deduction had left few worries about relegation; most concerningly, though, Rovers had only gained one point over two matches against a struggling Bolton side. Rovers also mourned the deaths in October of giant central defender Stuart Taylor (1947-2019), whose tally of 546 League matches for the club is unlikely to be surpassed and, in August, of striker Junior Agogo (1979-2019), who scored 41 League goals in his three seasons at the Mem. With the Euro 2020 competition delayed, Jaakkola’s injury had not ruled him out of contention, following Finland’s qualification and he could yet appear in their squad when this tournament is held, as expected, in 2021. Cup competitions have not been Rovers’ forte in recent years. A last-gasp goal saw the side lose to Brighton in the League Cup. Meanwhile, an extended run in the Football League Trophy, came to a surprising end in the fifth match, at home to relegation-haunted League Two side Stevenage. The FA Cup also added to a mid-season fixture pile-up, Rovers drawing in each of the first three rounds, securing 1-0 away victories at Nationwide League Bromley and League Two Swindon Town before crashing out of the tournament at League One Coventry City. Rollin Menayese had been sent off in the closing stages of Rovers’ home second-round tie with Plymouth Argyle, the visitors scoring one and missing one penalty in the final moments of a 1-1 draw; at home to Coventry in the next round, Craig contrived to become the first Rovers player to score for both sides in an FA Cup fixture. A Rovers Ladies XI played its first fixtures, with Hannah Thompson scoring the first goal early in an opening 5-0 victory over Abbeymead Rovers at Lockleaze, with the reserves defeating Cotswold Rangers 5-2 on the same day. By the time the season was abandoned, the team had won all eleven of its Gloucestershire County women’s League Division One matches. Jasmine Bull and Georgia Vandries scored four goals each as Cotswold Rangers were defeated 12-0 in the Gordon Perrett League Cup. Constantly buoyed by the promise of a new stadium, Rovers were interested in land at the former Fruit Market where they could build a 20,000-seater stadium with leisure facilities. A UK-based consortium was said to have been in discussions about purchasing an eleven-acre site to the east of Temple Meads station. This purchase, it was claimed, could lead to a full takeover of the club from the Al Qadi family, whose tenure had overseen annual losses in the region of £3,600,000. Lord Mayor of Bristol, Marvin Rees, stopped short of promising a deal, but came out fully in support of enabling Rovers to thrive in the current economic climate. The spring of 2020 saw work begin on a proposed training site near the M5 at The Colony, a twenty-eight-acre Almondsbury site bought by Dwayne Sports in 2017, with an eye to having it ready for the 2020-21 campaign. Contractors MJ Abbott were appointed to install training pitches, a gym, medical areas and offices. Stadium redevelopment was also a political hot potato at Rovers’ former home, Twerton Park, where plans to replace the grandstand, install a 3G pitch and add flats and 356 student beds were shelved in March 2020, much to public consternation.
2020's.
2020-21 Following a dramatic season in three parts, Rovers’ five-year stint in League One came to an end and the side was relegated back to the fourth tier of English football, bottom of the table. To some observers, this tied in neatly in an historical sense, the club having been relegated in 1981, 2001, 2011 and now also 2021. A poor start to the season under manager Ben Garner had been followed by inactivity in the January transfer window and under Paul Tisdale, and then by an inability to get sufficient reaction from the players from Joey Barton, Rovers ending a campaign under four managers, including caretaker manager Tommy Widdrington, in twenty-fourth place with 38 League points. Ultimately, the club’s performance, both on the field and through its management structure, led to a hugely disappointing season and the realisation that League Two football was returning to Bristol. Had it not been for the relegation scrap, perhaps the 2020-21 season would be best remembered as one hugely affected by the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, which had curtailed the previous campaign and now left all clubs in the lower tiers of the Football League suffering economically, amidst questions about the sustainability of many teams. Rovers’ official attendance at virtually all home and away matches this year was zero (the exception being the Football League Trophy game at Orient, where a minimal number of spectators was admitted and an unofficial crowd of just over five hundred was given), supporters being denied the opportunity to watch their club, with tough social distancing measures in place; perhaps this lack of the usual vociferous vocal support from the terraces contributed to a very poor showing on the field. As it was, a lack of goal-scoring strikers and a failure to sign attacking players in the January transfer window, all of which highlighted defensive frailties, was to cost the club on the field. Just as tentative and ill-conceived plans for a European Super League made controversial news headlines in the footballing world, Rovers lost at home to MK Dons to effectively tumble out of third-tier English football. A flurry of new signings had heralded the possibility of an exciting period ahead. Zain Westbrooke, in particular, had impressed in a very strong Coventry City side which had won the League One title in 2019-20, whilst Max Ehmer, a solid central defender on several occasions against Rovers, joined from Gillingham as captain. Jack Baldwin offered strength in defence, whilst the signings of Josh Grant, David Tutonda, Ali Koiki, Ben Liddle, Pablo Martinez and the exciting crowd-pleaser Sam Nicholson implied creativity. Questions remained up front,despite talented young strikers Brandon Hanlan and Jonah Ayunga joining the club, as neither had scored regularly before at League One level. Rovers'supporters, however, were understandably enthusiastic about the loan signings of ErhunÖztümer, who had previously scored a wonder goal for Walsall at The Mem, and Chelsea’s hard-working midfielder Luke McCormick. Despite teenager Zain Walker’s two first-half goals at Bristol Manor Farm, the side had struggled in pre-season against Cardiff, Newport and Exeter. Tom Davies was sent out on loan to Barrow, as was Kyle Bennett to Grimsby Town and Michael Kelly to Yeovil Town. Jonson Clarke-Harris was the pre-season top scorer and he was sold to Peterborough United before the League campaign could get underway, where he was League One top scorer for the season.By May 2021, Clarke-Harris had scored more League goals in the 2020-21 season alone than all three of Rovers’ strikers had in their combined Football League careers. Even a season which opened with Luke Leahy’s third-minute goal for the Gas at Sunderland’s Stadium of Light caused concern from the off. In spite of Leahy’s goal, Rovers did not win at Sunderland, even when the home side was reduced to ten men with George Dobson’s red card. Club captain Ehmer conceded an own goal in the first home fixture, a 2-0 loss at the hands of Ipswich Town and 4-1 losses to Doncaster and Fleetwood followed. A goal up in the second minute at home to Hull City, Rovers lost 3-1 with three second-half substitutes all scoring, Keane Lewis-Potter, Regan Slater and the former Rovers striker Tom Eaves; the first time two substitutes had scored against Rovers in the same game had been when Chris Leadbitter and the future Rovers striker John Taylor scored in Cambridge United’s 6-1 victory in February 1991. Wigan Athletic’sThalo Aasgaard became the first player alphabetically to oppose Rovers in any competition throughout the club’s history. Ched Evans, towards the end of Joey Barton’s Fleetwood’s 4-1 win at The Mem, became the fifth substitute to score a penalty against Rovers in a League match. This fixture, in which Callum Camps scored twice, proved to be the final one of Ben Garner’s tenure as Rovers’ manager, with Rovers in eighteenth place after twelve points in eleven League fixtures; the club had won six out of 33 matches during his spell in charge. Oxford United, as a point of reference, found themselves in the bottom four at this stage but made the play-offs. Under caretaker manager Tommy Widdrington, Rovers recorded an exciting 4-3 victory over the Chelsea Under-23 side in the Football League Trophy, Josh Hare scoring his first goal for the club with a powerful downward header in stoppage time to defeat a side which included former Premier League winner and England international Danny Drinkwater. The following day, on 19th November 2020, Rovers appointed Paul Tisdale as manager, a 47-year-old football manager born in Malta, who had previously spent twelve years in charge at Exeter City. Tisdale’s tenure started with two poor performances in the League before an FA Cup goal glut against Darlington, Rovers scoring four times in the last sixteen minutes of the first-half and six times in twenty-nine minutes to run out comfortable 6-0 winners at The Mem. Both full-backs were amongst the five goalscorers, Luke Leahy becoming, after George Dennis in 1931, the second Rovers player to score two penalties in an FA Cup-tie. This was followed by two hugely impressive wins, scoring four at Wimbledon to pull Rovers out of the bottom four, Nicholson and Hanlan claiming two apiece, and beating Plymouth Argyle 3-0 at home, Alfie Kilgour, McCormick and Westbrooke scoring. It proved the only occasion all season when Rovers won back-to-back League fixtures. However, a very poor run of defeats through January and February left Rovers “sleepwalking into relegation” (Sam Frost). Just one signing in the January window, solid defender George Williams, who had worked under Tisdale at MK Dons, plus the loan acquisition of Cardiff’s goalkeeper Joe Day, indicated Rovers would not or could not address the issue of a lack of a goal-scoring threat. By means of contrast, Burton Albion had been eight points into the relegation zone and nine behind Rovers, having played two games more, after their 5-1 defeat at home to Oxford United on 2nd January, yet they made seven permanent signings and picked up a further five players on loan, won six games in succession and comfortably avoided relegation. Just as the club was not making any attacking signings during the January transfer window, performances on the pitch were also deteriorating. By the end of January, Rovers had scored in only four of the previous eleven League fixtures and yet no strikers or attacking players had joined the club and this was ultimately to cost Tisdale his position with Rovers. Bizarrely, Rovers’ solitary point in a six-game run through late Januarycame away to high-flying Peterborough United. Having gained just one point in November, this coming against bottom-of-the-table Wigan Athletic, this latest run was disastrous. Rovers did score at Crewe, clawing back a two-goal deficit only to lose 3-2, and crashed 6-1 at Accrington on a depressing Tuesday night in a match delayed by half-an-hour because of snow, with Dion Charles scoring a hat-trick. The combined goal-scoring tally on Stanley’s shirt numbers amounted to 144, easily surpassing the previous highest of 108 from the visit to Luton Town over Easter 1936. With Rovers having lost eight of their first twelve home League fixtures, it was announced on 10th February 2021 that the club had parted company with manager Paul Tisdale. Seeking a third permanent manager in a few months, Rovers made the perhaps controversial appointment,on 22nd February, of the former England international midfielder Joey Barton. As manager of Fleetwood, he had crossed swords before with The Gas, being sent off at The Mem on one occasion and at Fleetwood on another; he had served a prison sentence for affray in 2008 and, on his appointment, a court case was hanging over him. Yet what he did offer was passion, drive and focus;Barton termed his arrival as “The Great Reset”. However, those anticipating a New Manager Bounce were disappointed, as the club then lost five matches in succession at the end of March to drop into the relegation zone. Amid a palpable lack of self-belief on the pitch, Rovers appeared to plunge headlong into relegation back to the fourth tier after five years away.Reliable defender Leahy took over from out-of-favour Ehmer as captain, his regular supply of goals proving a real bonus alongside Rovers’ shot-shy strike-force. There were a handful of hugely positive results. Principally amongst these was a 2-1 victory away to top-of-the-table Lincoln City in October, goals from Daly and Hanlan threatening to kick-start Rovers’ campaign. Likewise, victory over Accrington in March, a 4-1 home win almost avenging the disastrous trip to Lancashire in February, was viewed as a glimmer of hope, as Barton’s reign began to kick in. However, it was followed by a run of one point in five matches, Rovers failing to score in four of those as they slumped into the relegation zone. Catastrophically, the side lost at home to relegation rivals Swindon Town and Wigan Athletic at this stage in the season, dropping points against most clubs in and around The Gas in the table. Rovers failed to score in a club seasonal record 22 League matches, sixteen of them since the start of 2021; defender Luke Leahy was top scorer with eight (he also scored two penalties I the FA Cup and a bizarre own goal against Ipswich town after just forty-seven seconds), ahead of Hanlan on seven, with McCormick and Nicholson both on six. Creativity dried up when Rodman and Nicholson were missing through injury, whilst Öztümer was never the same player after contracting Covid. Then as the Fratton Park clock behind him showed exactly twenty-six minutes played, Ronan Curtis, the youngest of Marie Curtis’ eleven children, fired home right-footed to give Pompey a 1-0 victory over Rovers in April, a result which mathematically confirmed the relegation which had become inevitable through the spring. Supporters, perhaps clutching at straw a little, bemoaned a disallowed “goal” at home to Swindon Town, where the wrong player had been deemed offside, a penalty at Northampton which was perceived as a touch fortunate and even Ed Upson’s harsh red card against Lincoln.Under Barton’s management Rovers lost without scoring in ten separate League matches. Ipswich scored only two goals in an eight-matchspell in the spring; both were against Rovers.Yet the reality was that investment had been inadequate, the defence conceded unnecessarily and goals were at a premium, following an apparent lack of appropriate investment in strikers. An untimely injury to reliable shot-stopper Anssi Jaakkola had led the club to field three goalkeepers behind a shaky defence. Westbrooke, Hanlan, Grant, Ehmer, Nicholson, McCormick, Kilgour, Harries and Baldwin were all regulars in the side, but the absence of an ever-present highlights an air of uncertainty and instability. 32 players were used in League One, including youngsters Jed Ward and Tom Mehew on the final day.Ten League games were lost to the exact score of 2-0, including both fixtures against Gillingham and MK Dons, Rovers having lost six League fixtures by exactly that score in the truncated 2020-21 campaign. Cup competitions offered little respite in a poor on-field season. Rovers crashed out of the League Cup 3-0 at a strong Ipswich Town, Freddie Sears scoring in both halves, and lost their Football League Trophy encounters on penalties against Walsall and Oxford United, the Saddlers being captained by former Gas defender James Clarke and managed by his namesake Darrell, Rovers’ manager in recent years. Oxford’s goalkeeper Jack Stevens saved three Rovers penalties, one in the match and two in the shoot-out which followed. Victories over Chelsea Under-21 and Orient preceded a demoralising home defeat to Wimbledon. In the FA Cup, Rovers defeated Darrell Clarke’s Walsall and trounced Darlington before falling gallantly to Premier League Sheffield United, twice equalising in a 3-2 defeat at The Mem after Day had conceded an own goal on his début. A large number of former Rovers players appeared against their former club during the campaign, both Gillingham’s John Akinde and Oxford’s Matty Taylor scoring a brace, Jonson Clarke-Harris, Matty Lund and Tom Eaves also scored, whilst Joe Martin was sent off when Northampton visited The Mem in October, the eleventh player to appear for The Gas and also be sent off against the club in their careers. Former Rovers keeper Sam Walker managed to play twice in twelve days at The Mem for different clubs in January, in the League with Blackpool and the Football League Trophy with Wimbledon. Three opponents were sent off in the opening five League fixtures and four in all, plus one in the Football League Trophy. Conversely, the first Rovers red card of the campaign came when McCormick was sent off for a second yellow card at Burton and this was followed by goalkeeper Day’s last-minute sending-off at Charlton, where Rovers let a two-goal first-half lead slip and lost 3-2, and Upson’s first-half dismissal at home to Lincoln City. MK Dons fielded a sixteen-year-old, Lewis Johnson, when they faced Rovers on Boxing Day; though only twenty-six, Swindon’s Jack Payne was playing for his sixth different club against Rovers in the League. Charlton’s Johnny Williams was replaced by Paul Smyth who lasted just eighteen minutes before being substituted by Alex Gilbey; Rovers have substituted a substitute in five League games, but this is nonetheless an unusual occurrence. Champions Hull, Oxford, Gillingham, Charlton, Ipswich, MK Dons, Creweand relegation rivals Swindon all completed League doubles over Rovers, whilst The Gas beat Shrewsbury Town home and away. Ehmer, Baldwin and Day all conceded own goals – indeed there were two own goals in the first-half of the Trophy game at Orient – and James Daly became the first footballer born after New Year’s Day 2000 to score a League goal for The Gas. The Football League Trophy game against Wimbledon saw Rovers, following a change in the rules, use five substitutes in a match for the first time. Veteran James Coppinger scored Doncaster Rovers’ goal at The Mem in the spring to become the oldest player to score against The Gas in the Football League and only the second man to do so after his fortieth birthday. Goals proved to be a real issue, with the club inching past the record low 21 goals at home of the 1980-81 campaign.Tellingly, Rovers and Northampton Town scored fewest goals in the division and both were relegated.Marauding full-backLeahy was top scorerbut the side floundered when Jaakkola, Nicholson and Rodman were out injured. Full-back Tareiq Holmes-Dennis had also been forced to announce his premature retirement with long-term injuries. Up front, Ayunga played with real passion, yet his only two League goals came in a ten-minute first-half burst at home to Pompey in the spring. Critically, Rovers picked up just eight points in the ten games against their principal relegation rivals, losing at home to each of Swindon, Wigan and Rochdale after New Year. Fourteen home League games were lost, a club record surpassing the eleven in both 1946-47 and 1980-81, and twenty-eight League defeats exceeded the previous club record set in 1992-93. Having suffered only three relegations in the entire twentieth century, Rovers had now been relegated for the fourth time in the twenty-first century. Whilst several unwanted club records tumbled, the run of five successive home defeats in 1946-47 remained intact. Rovers were sad to hear of the passing of the club’s former Chief Executive Gordon Bennett on 18th September 2020 at the age of seventy-four and of experienced central defender Graham Day, who died on 8th February 2021 aged sixty-seven. Positively, the Rovers story continues unabated despite the global pandemic, with the club staving off the threat of financial ruin. Much of this stemmed from club president Wael Al-Qadi’s decision to capitalise over £18 million in loans owed by Rovers to his company Dwane Sports and write off £2 million in interest, to leave the club “substantively debt-free”, vowing to cover losses incurred during the global coronavirus pandemic. Of 42,679 deaths nationally attributable to coronavirus by mid-October 2020, some 256 had died in Bristol and the number of pandemic-related deaths in the city had risen to 468 by the start of April 2021. On a more positive note, Alex Rodman won the League One Player in the Community Award, a national achievement for his work in education during the crisis, and the club’s Community Trust was declared regional winners for their work within the community. Yet, perhaps against all odds in a sea of sadness, confusion and concern, Bristol Rovers Football Club, albeit now in a lower division and under a new manager, lived to see another day.
2021-22.
Few who were present on a bright, sunny May afternoon at The Mem will ever forget the raw emotion of a quite extraordinary occasion as Rovers gained promotion back to League One at the first attempt. Needing to beat relegated Scunthorpe United and overturn a five-goal deficit to overtake Northampton Town in the League table, events unfolded with a wonderful sense of dramatic irony. Prior to the final match of the season, both teams stood on seventy-seven points. The Cobblers, on a long trip to Barrow, scored twice early on, meaning Rovers would need a hatful of goals to stand any chance. Eighteen minutes in, débutant Oliver Lobley fired past his own goalkeeper to put Rovers ahead and, within four minutes, Connor Taylor had added a second. News filtered through that Northampton were three-up, yet Barrow’s consolation goal on the stroke of half-time from Josh Kay offered a glimmer of hope. 3-1 ahead, Northampton stopped scoring, yet Rovers produced a second half for the ages. Aaron Collins and Antony Evans scored twice each before the latter’s deep cross, five minutes from time, was headed powerfully home at the far post by Elliot Anderson. A 7-0 victory equalled Rovers’ highest ever in the Football League and earned promotion, not on goal difference, but on goals scored. Rovers were only in the top three for five minutes all season, yet they made their way up to third-tier football. And this is only part of the story. Following a poor start to the season, Rovers’ charge up the table had resulted in several crucial fixtures. In particular, a goal down inside two minutes at Vale Park on Easter Monday, Rovers had stormed back to beat Darrell Clarke’s Port Vale 3-1. Prior to this game, Vale had lost just one of their previous nineteen matches and the game was played before 10,840 spectators, including a rounded 2,222 Gas fans, Vale’s highest home crowd since the visit of Wolves in 2013. Rochdale had lost only one of their previous sixteen home League matches before Rovers travelled there for the penultimate game and Luke Charman’s first two career goals put them 2-0 up inside seventeen minutes. Rovers went on to score four second-half goal, Collins equalising in the final minute and then scoring the winner deep into stoppage time to complete his own hat-trick. Having been outside the play-offs with twenty minutes to play, Rovers approached the final game with a glimmer of hope and a suitcase-full of self-belief. It had not always been that way, though. As autumn drew in, the new season opened with a certain degree of pressure on manager Joey Barton. He had two court cases hanging over him, whilst Rovers had finished bottom of League One in 2020-21 on a poor run of results. Understandably there was a mass overhaul of players as well as staff, with assistant Clint Hill departing at the start of the campaign. The previous season’s top scorer Luke Leahy joined Shrewsbury Town, whilst Ed Upson and Abu Ogogo, who had both given sterling service to The Gas, joined Newport County and Southend United respectively. Nineteen players who had appeared for Rovers in the Football League left the club (two each to Gillingham and Eastleigh), whilst two others left on loan, Ben Liddle to Queen of the South and Zain Walker to King’s Lynn Town. Rovers looked toothless in attack in pre-season, until new eve-of-season signing Brett Pitman came off the bench to score twice in a 3-2 home victory over Oxford United, which gave huge cause for hope as the season approached. Supporters anticipating a fresh season after the disruptions caused by the covid pandemic were able to welcome a new set of faces amongst the playing staff. Seventeen new signings offered hope of a new dawn: goalkeeper James Belshaw was joined by a raft of defenders in Nick Anderton, Mark Hughes, Trevor Clarke, Junior Brown, plus teenager Connor Taylor on loan from Stoke City. The midfield contained plenty of experience, in Paul Coutts, Sam Finley and especially 91-cap Irish international Glenn Whelan, alongside Harry Anderson, Antony Evans and two loan signings in Barnsley’s Luke Thomas and Siôn Spence from Crystal Palace. Aaron Collins, Harvey Saunders and the experienced pair of Brett Pitman and Leon Clarke offered attacking options. That said, a series of early season injuries wreaked havoc with the manager’s plans. Leon Clarke (hamstring), Trevor Clarke (groin), goalkeeper Anssi Jaakkola (Achilles), Alex Rodman (broken foot in training) and Mark Hughes (Achilles) were all out injured, as was Finley for a while. Question marks hung above the club as to whether Leon Clarke’s career was over, Hughes left for Plymouth in the New Year for a coaching position, and Rovers brought in striker Ryan Loft from Scunthorpe, before giving first appearances to sixteen-year-old Max Edwards-Stryjewski and on-loan James Connolly in the FA Cup-tie at Peterborough in January. Former QPR central defender Clint Hill, once Barton’s assistant at Fleetwood, came in as assistant manager, promptly left and joined rivals Hartlepool United in the same capacity. Supporters’ concerns with regard to manager Barton focused on two impending court cases and a perceived inability to get the best out of his players. As the season commenced, a series of increasingly bizarre comments to the press drew negative attention, notably his use of the word “holocaust” following a defeat in October at the hands of Newport County. There was at this time a perceived lack of a clear game plan and questions over game management. However, on 6th December Barton was found not guilty of charges of assault against the then Barnsley manager Daniel Stendel in April 2019, and Rovers’ fortunes appeared to climb from around that point. Any pre-season hopes of a rapid return to League One appeared to evaporate at Field Mill on the opening day, as Rovers fell to a last-minute penalty at Mansfield, with captain Coutts sent off on his début, the first of two red cards he picked up this season. Worse was to follow as The Gas conceded four goals in the opening twenty-four minutes in August, away to an Exeter side which had not registered a goal all season, and three in the first-half at home to Orient the following month. It was after the Exeter débâcle, with Rovers having lost at that point ten of their previous thirteen League fixtures, that Barton told incredulous reporters: “I know we’re going to get promoted. I have no doubt about that.” Amidst a sea of defeats, rare victories were single-goal home wins over struggling Oldham Athletic and Crawley Town. When lowly Stevenage visited The Mem, it was the former Rovers favourite Chris Lines who opened the scoring on his old stomping ground, Rovers crumbling to a forlorn defeat. At least Cian Harries’ spectacular goal at Mansfield ended a club record run without a League goal, 584 minutes having passed since Luke Leahy had scored at Northampton Town. In the early stages of the campaign, silver linings were all supporters had to cling to. Rovers had not enjoyed an away win in any competition during 2021 until two late goals secured victory at Walsall, Spence scoring moments after entering the field on his first appearance. In October, Evans scored Rovers’ tenth League goal of season and became the club’s tenth different scorer, his left-foot strike shortly before half-time inspiring a 3-0 home victory over Carlisle United; the following week he assisted both goals, as Pitman’s last-gasp sublime header earned an unexpected point at Bradford City, before a seasonal highest crowd of 16,664. Three days later, Rovers were reduced to nine men at Colchester United, Harries and Trevor Clarke being sent off late on alongside the home side’s seventeen-year-old defender Junior Tchamadeu, the youngest opponent ever to receive a red card against Rovers; a few weeks later, Whelan became the oldest Rovers player to receive a red card in any competition and Harries and Finley were both dismissed in a home defeat to Port Vale in December. Martyn Starnes, Rovers’ CEO since July 2018, stepped down from the rôle in November 2021 and was replaced by Tom Gorringe, who had been the club’s commercial director since 2017, and erstwhile Director of Football Tommy Widdrington left the club the following month, returning to the game as manager of National League side King’s Lynn Town. Thereafter came a series of moments when it appeared Rovers’ fortunes had turned. Anderton’s first League strike in a Rovers shirt earned victory on The Gas’ first ever visit to Harrogate Town and high-flying Northampton were defeated at The Mem, ten-man Rovers coming from a goal down to secure victory. One sign that expectations amongst supporters had grown was the despair with which a point gained at Salford City was greeted, the home side having equalised in stoppage time despite being down to nine men, Matty Willock and substitute Ashley Hunter both having been sent off. Rovers’ ability to put four goals past Rochdale twice and beat both Harrogate Town and Carlisle United 3-0 at home indicated the side’s potential. Into the New Year, Rovers were unbeaten in their first six matches, three of these featuring Rovers goals in the final five minutes, as the side gelled more and a potential if unlikely promotion push gathered momentum. And indeed, as the phrase of the season dictated, “The Gas are coming”. Having received eight red cards before the end of January (Harries received two of them), improved discipline saw no more issued beyond that point until Coutts was dismissed in the dying seconds of the penultimate game. With this, the club began to play inspired football and results began to flow. Eighteenth after the home defeat to Newport County at the end of October, Rovers hit fourth place with a victory at high-flying Northampton Town in mid-March and a genuine promotion push emerged. This defeat of the Cobblers came courtesy of Harry Anderson’s goal after just thirty-eight seconds. By the end of March, having won eleven of their past seventeen League fixtures, Rovers had gained more points in 2022 than any other club in the Football League. Following a defeat at Oldham, The Gas subsequently kept eight clean sheets in the next eleven matches, The Mem becoming a fortress where fourteen League matches were won. It was little coincidence that this renewed form came after Rovers secured the signing of veteran Ipswich midfielder Jon Nolan and the loan acquisition of the precocious talent of Newcastle United teenager Elliot Anderson. “The Geordie Messi” drew favourable attention from several larger clubs, not just for his seven League goals, each a gem in itself, but for his exciting all-round play. As the season drew towards a dramatic finale, Rovers fielded a very settled side and this certainly aided their rise up the League table. This line-up involved the reliable Belshaw playing behind a solid back-four of Hoole, Taylor, Connolly and Anderton, captain Coutts patrolling the space in front of the defence, with a four-man midfield of two Andersons, Evans and Finley supporting lone striker Collins. Numerous options off the bench included the vast experience of Whelan and Leon Clarke with, as described by local reporter Sam Frost, “a battering ram in Loft and a pacy threat” in Saunders offering very different attacking impact options. Josh Grant was able to cover in a wide range of positions throughout the season. One impressive return was the 4-0 win at Stevenage’s Lamex Stadium in February, thanks to goals from Finley, both Andersons and Collins, whose sixteen League goals (despite not scoring a League goal until December) left him as the club’s top scorer for a campaign in which thirty-three players appeared in the League and eighteen scored; forty-three players were used in all competitions, of which twenty-two were making their début for the club. The Stevenage game was one of a commendable nine away League victories. There were, of course, precedents of clubs who had achieved dramatic promotions and, indeed, Bolton Wanderers in 2020 had also finished bottom of League One and immediately gained promotion in third place. However, the manner of Rovers’ success was extraordinary and gained a great deal of attention in the national press. Similarities with the promotion gained through a final-minute goal against Dagenham in 2016, six years to the day before the Scunthorpe game, were also clear to see. Rovers had accumulated just 45 points in the whole of 2021, yet 54 points from January to May 2022. Two long-term friends and opponents, Oldham Athletic and Scunthorpe United dropped through the trap door out of the Football League, The Iron playing their final fixture at The Mem in May. Their starting side that day had an average age that day of just 20 years 249 days (Rovers’ side at Wrexham in May 1979 had an average age of 20 years six days), and they included as a substitute Anthony Grant, who became the first opponent ever to play in the League against Rovers for eight separate clubs. In defeating them 7-0 to reach 71 League goals for the campaign, Rovers had scored ten goals past The Iron this season, equalling club record seasonal totals against Doncaster Rovers in 1956-57 and Reading in 1998-99. League doubles were achieved over Walsall, Harrogate, Crawley, Northampton, Rochdale and Scunny, whilst only Newport County completed a League double over Rovers. Rovers’ defence kept four clean sheets during the first half of the season and thirteen in the second, including four in a row in February. There were no ever-presents, but Collins played in 45 League games, with Player of the Season Belshaw, club captain Coutts, Young Player of the Season Taylor and Harry Anderson all also appearing in forty or more. Pitman, Evans, Collins and Coutts all scored from the penalty-spot in League and Cup. Numerous former Rovers players appeared against The Gas during the campaign. Bereft of the suspended Ed Upson for their late October visit to The Mem, Newport County nonetheless fielded four former Rovers players in Timmy Abraham, Joe Day, James Clarke and Dom Telford (who scored twice in a 3-1 win), whilst veteran striker Kevin Ellison’s brief cameo appearance as a late substitute meant that, at 42 years 242 days, he became the third oldest opponent to face Rovers in the Football League. Oldham Athletic’s Davis Keillor-Dunn scored against Rovers at Boundary Park in February after just forty-two seconds. Former manager Darrell Clarke returned to win at The Mem in December with his Port Vale side, whose captain Tom Conlon is the great-great-grandson of Albert Pearson (1892-1975), who had played for Llanelli against Rovers’ reserve side in the Western League during the 1922-23 season. Crawley’s goalkeeper Glenn Morris played against Rovers, having also appeared against The Gas with Orient in 2002, the fifth longest gap of any opponent between their first and last appearance in the League against the side. Similarly, Tranmere opposed Rovers in April, starting with two players aged over forty (the first time Rovers have ever played a side including two opponents past their fortieth birthday). Having used two experienced substitutes, Tranmere ended this match with an average age on the field of just over thirty, the highest in years but well short of the Ipswich Town side of December 1948, whose average age was over thirty-four. Whelan was Rovers’ fourth oldest League debutant and became, on the final day, Rovers’ fourth oldest League player ever, whilst Leon Clarke and Spence became only the sixth and seventh players to score as a substitute on his first Rovers appearance. Referee Nick Dunn was replaced by Lee Swabey, because of injury, just before half-time at Crawley in March. Barrow’s Kgosi Ntlhe became the seventh South African international to play in the League against Rovers and Oldham’s Dylan Bahamboula the fourth who had represented Congo to do so. Barrow had a man sent off in both League fixtures against Rovers, seven opponents seeing red during the campaign. Luke Hendrie, who played in Bradford City’s 2-1 defeat at The Mem in April, is the great-nephew of former Rovers midfielder Paul Hendrie. The late-season derby against Forest Green Rovers, whose well-earned point secured their first ever promotion to third-tier football, was watched by a crowd of 9,690 and one hundred more, the highest home attendance of the season, watched the final-day demolition of Scunthorpe. Conversely, only 889 saw Cheltenham’s Football League Trophy visit and there were just 1,740 at Salford City, when Rovers played there in November. Boosted by enormous, raucous and expectant crowds for the final two games of an exhilarating campaign, Rovers’ average home League attendance for the season was 7,512. Meanwhile, Rovers’ women’s side was hugely successful, earning promotion as champions of the South West Women’s Regional League Division One North, a title secured through four second-half goals against Weston Mendip Ladies at Lockleaze in February. Amongst several eye-catching scores was an 8-0 victory over Weston-super-Mare in which Laura Curnock and Zoë Fielden-Stewart scored four goals each. On April 23rd, the men’s team and women’s team both played at home, in a historic double-header. Sadly, Audrey Butler (1941-2021), who dressed as Captain Gas for many years to entertain the crowds prior to home fixtures, died in the week between Christmas and New Year. Two classic cup-ties saw Rovers defeat higher-tier Oxford United in the FA Cup first round. First, two equalisers, the second being a late penalty from Evans, earned the Gas a draw at the Kassam Stadium; then Rovers recovered from 3-1 down with ten minutes to play, substitutes Spence (two) and Collins scoring in a sensational 4-3 victory, Matty Taylor having scored against his former club in both games (his penalty in November being the final one Rovers conceded all season) and fellow former Pirate Billy Bodin also scoring in the replay. Many viewed Rovers’ extra-time recovery as a critical turning-point in a dramatic season. Rovers subsequently defeated Sutton United at home, before losing to Peterborough United in the third round, the winning goal coming twenty-seven minutes from time from a mazy run by Posh substitute Bali Mumba. Crashing out of the League Cup at home to Cheltenham Town, Rovers managed just one shot on target. Former Rover Andy Williams played for Cheltenham as Rovers gaining some degree of revenge, the Robins being defeated in the Football League Trophy. What a remarkable season!
2022-23
Whatever pre-season fears supporters may have harboured, Rovers’ first season back in third-tier football ended in the relative comfort of mid-table obscurity. The club, the players and staff and the fans were spared the near perennial anxieties which the typical April promotion or relegation dogfight had brought in recent years. It was a season when Rovers started well, fell apart either side of the New Year and, after a brief flirt with the fringes of a relegation scrap, re-established themselves in the middle of the division. Flamboyant and occasionally controversial manager Joey Barton and his wife, Georgia McNeil, welcomed their son Etienne in August, their third child; two months later he was found not guilty of assault against her and remained as Rovers’ manager. He was sent off when his former club Fleetwood visited The Mem in November, just as he had previously been sent off on the same ground when visiting as manager of the Cod Army. With Barton found not guilty, his assistant Andy Mangan was then charged with use of homophobic language aimed at a member of the Plymouth Argyle set-up at half-time during the sides’ League meeting. Following a club trip to Portugal, Swansea City and Stoke City offered quality pre-season opposition, the latter fielding Phil Jagielka just eighteen days shy of his fortieth birthday. New signings arrived aplenty: midfielder Jordan Rossiter, defender James Gibbons and the experienced striker John Marquis, plus James Connolly, who had been on loan the previous season. Jerry Lawrence came through the youth ranks to make his first League appearance in August. Later in the season, many more players were signed: Lewis Gordon, Lewis Gibson (who was out injured when his elder brother Liam played for Morecambe in both fixtures) Josh Coburn, Sylvester Jasper and Bobby Thomas, who scored Rovers’ second equaliser at home to Morecambe on his club début. Two former players returned to the fold in midfielders Luke McCormick and Scott Sinclair, whose appearance as a substitute at home to table-topping Plymouth Argyle in October was his first for a club record seventeen years 196 days. Blackpool’s Grant Ward and Stockport’s reserve left-back Calum MacDonald arrived in the January transfer window, alongside the loan signing of promising Liverpool central defender Jarell Quansah, Dutch midfielder Lamare Bogarde and goalkeeper Ellery Balcombe. It was certainly not the immediate start to the season Rovers had hoped for. Fellow promoted side Forest Green Rovers, who were to finish bottom of the table, started the campaign with victory at The Mem despite Aaron Collins’ goal against his former club and Trevor Clarke, Zain Westbrooke and veteran Alex Rodman all finished a traumatic week on the transfer list. However, that Saturday Rovers scored four first-half goals in the sunshine at the Pirelli Stadium after Burton’s Conor Shaughnessy had been sent off with just thirty-four seconds on the clock. Indeed, Rovers also led 4-0 at half-time at Cheltenham, Collins scoring a brace in both matches. Victory over Oxford United, by dint of the 12.30pm kick-off, in the hottest temperature in which the club has ever played, put The Gas briefly and proudly top of league One for a few hours. Ryan Loft found long-awaited goalscoring form, scoring in three consecutive League matches in the autumn and adding a critical last-gasp equaliser against Exeter City at St James’ Park. There were three straight victories, including a mauling of Cheltenham Town at Whaddon Road, Collins regained his scoring touch and the side playing much more attractive football. Following this, Rovers recovered from two goals down at half-time to draw 2-2 with table-topping Plymouth Argyle in an enthralling fixture at a sold-out Memorial Stadium. However, there were signs that the good times might not last forever. With Connolly, Gibson, Gordon and Coburn out injured and both Coutts and Rossiter suspended, the latter for an incident unseen by officials during a feisty early-season home fixture with Shrewsbury Town, Rovers were almost down to the bare bones. The club’s only two fit central defenders, Bobby Thomas and Alfie Kilgour, were both sent off in the dying moments of the already-lost match at Portman Road, the latter’s red card being later rescinded, (Rovers received five red cards in League fixtures, their opponents two), and Rovers faced the visit of Lincoln City without a recognised centre-half on their books; this was the fourteenth occasion in the Football League that Rovers had suffered multiple red cards in one fixture. As a result, Rovers crashed 6-3 at The Mem, Lincoln scoring four times in a sixteen-minute spell, Jack Diamond claiming a hat-trick and the club conceding six times in a home League fixture for the first time since 1957. Indeed the game could have easily featured more goals: Rovers themselves had fifteen shots and nine corners that day. In the autumn, Rovers lost only once in a run of twelve League fixtures, even though this list included trips to Charlton, Derby, Sheffield Wednesday and Bolton. Rovers won away to Charlton in the League, thanks to two goals from substitute Marquis, for the first time since 1958 and lost at home to Exeter in the League for only the second time in 91 years. There were some unusually big names in League One during the 2022-23 and Rovers could enjoy visits to more illustrious venues. The Gas came from behind to secure a draw at Hillsborough against a rampant Sheffield Wednesday side in front of a crowd of 22,006, then travelled three days later to Derby. Before an even larger crowd (27,841), Rovers were involved in a six-goal first-half for only the eleventh time in their League history, David McGoldrick becoming the twelfth opponent to score a first-half hat-trick against The Gas in the Football League, with goals after five, 24 and 40 minutes; Derby County won 4-2. Bizarrely, both Derby’s scorers, James Collins and McGoldrick missed penalties against Morecambe in their next fixture. It did not immediately appear any more positive for Rovers, as the side conceded four at home to Exeter at Christmas, recovering from 2-0 down at half-time to take the lead before succumbing in stoppage time. Then in January Rovers embarked on a run of four straight defeats, the club’s only goal in a dismal five-game run being a last-minute consolation strike in a 5-1 massacre at Morecambe. At the same time, the club slipped out of the Football League Trophy and did not make the significant purchases required in the January transfer window. Several players left the club at this stage, amongst them Bobby Thomas who departed ship en route to a fixture, in time to sit on the bench that day for Barnsley, a club he later represented at The Mem. As struggling sides Accrington, MK Dons and Burton Albion all defeated The Gas, Rovers’ supporters looked nervously at the daunting closing run of fixtures against huge names from the English game, Derby County, Sheffield Wednesday and Bolton Wanderers amongst them, fearful of where the relevant points for League One survival might be gained. Indeed, Rovers scored just once in a run of seven consecutive home fixtures at the start of the calendar year. Nerves were settled with a resounding 3-0 victory at Oxford United on the final Saturday in February, a deserved point at home to promotion-chasing Barnsley and victory at bottom-of-the-table Forest Green, allaying fears of a relegation dogfight. Even then, in the grand scheme of things, Rovers made it comfortably across the line to League One safety. Two wins over the Easter weekend secured Rovers’ League One status, substitute Marquis’ penalty defeating Charlton at The Mem before Gibson and Grant Ward both scored their first goals for the club in a comeback victory at Fleetwood. This meant that, despite an April run of three consecutive defeats, Rovers survived the drop with ease. With the early-season fixture against MK Dons having been initially postponed because of the death on 8th September 2022 of Queen Elizabeth II (1926-2022), the campaign finished with a home midday fixture against Bolton Wanderers, delayed by a day because of the coronation in London of King Charles III. Sixteen-goal top scorer Aaron Collins, “The Severnside Salah” to accompany “The Teesside Messi” Coburn, was touted by some as a potential name in the Welsh squad for their first World Cup Finals in sixty-four years, but he did not make the cut. Two former Rovers players, Connor Roberts and Tom Lockyer, did travel to Qatar as members of the Wales squad. Collins, though, did earn the title of League One Player of the Year, a remarkable achievement for a player at a mid-table side, but one justified by being the only man in the division, at the time of selection, to have hit double figures for both assists and goals scored. Antony Evans, Marquis and Sinclair all scored penalties in the League, Rovers achieving a League double over Charlton, Cheltenham and the Boat Race pairing of Oxford and Cambridge, losing both fixtures to Accrington, Lincoln and Portsmouth. It was difficult, though, to escape the conclusion that Rovers’ poor home record, losing ten home League matches, including against relegated Forest Green and Accrington, went some way towards explaining why the side finished in seventeenth place in League One. No side in the top seven completed a League double over Rovers, but relegated Stanley did. As the season drew to a close, Rovers failed to score in nine of the last eighteen games. In total 35 different players were used in all competitions, 32 in the League including fourteen débuts, and four players appearing in just one game. Collins was the only ever-present, although Evans was to miss just two League fixtures. Former players returned to haunt their previous employers too, Brandon Hanlan scoring for Wycombe when set up by Gibraltarian international Tjay de Barr, Luke Leahy heading home at Shrewsbury (in a match where Rovers, for the first time in their League history, made a quintuple substitution -they made seven on the final day of the campaign against Bolton) and Ellis Harrison adding a goal for Port Vale. Towards the end of the campaign, popular wing-back Nick Anderton announced his retirement from football. He had been diagnosed with cancer and received enormous support from fans as well as his team-mates, who took part in a January head shave to raise funds for charity, whilst manager Barton ran the Manchester Marathon to offer his support. The summer of 2023 appeared also to mark the end of the playing career of player-coach Glenn Whelan, whose brief cameo appearance as a late substitute and captain against Bolton in May, aged 39 years 114 days, enabled him to surpass the ninety-five-year-old club record set by Jack Evans as the oldest player ever to appear for the club in a competitive fixture. The club’s oldest surviving former player, Josser Watling, approaching his ninety-eighth birthday, suffered a broken hip in a fall but is continuing his recovery. Historically Rovers have not fared spectacularly well in cup competitions and this season proved no different. The Gas departed the League Cup 1-0 at League Two Crawley Town in August, in front of a crowd of 1,860; Tony Craig played against Rovers and Crawley’s captain Tom Nichols scored the only goal. Scott Sinclair’s first goal in a Rovers shirt saw off Rochdale in FA Cup round one, the visitors fielding fifteen-year-old Oscar Kelly, the Gas’ youngest ever opponent in any cup fixture, only for Rovers to crash out of the competition at home to impressive non-league outfit Boreham Wood. There was a long run in the Football League Trophy, Kilgour being sent off with Rovers four goals ahead in the quarter-final against MK Dons, but Rovers lost meekly at home to Plymouth Argyle in the regional semi-finals with a potential Wembley trip beckoning. As ever, the club lost some great names from the past. Manager Don Megson, who had played for the club before leading the side to Division Two in 1973-74, his flying winger Colin Dobson, 1960s stalwarts Micky Slocombe and David Hudd, as well as 1980s striker Franny Joseph all died during the season. So too did Clive Middlemass (1944-2022), Terry Cooper’s assistant when Rovers were relegated from the second tier in 1980-81. A former Rovers youth player, Takayo Nembhard, reinvented as a rapper known as TKorStretch, died after being stabbed at the Notting Hill Carnival in August. Brian Harding, a hugely popular programme seller from 1970s Eastville, known to one and all as “Oscar”, died on 22nd November 2022, aged eighty-two, whilst former club director Colin Sexstone (1948-2023) died at the end of February. Off the field, the former Rovers defender Geoff Twentyman, who had been the backbone of local football coverage on BBC Radio Bristol, retired in May 2023 after thirty years with the corporation, whilst Rovers’ club secretary David Sams stepped down in November after twenty-one years in the position. England’s national rugby side was captained in the spring by Ellis Genge, the first Rovers supporter to be given this prestigious position. The season closed in May to a charity match at The Mem to raise money for Motor Neurone Disease, after former Rovers striker Marcus Stewart announced he was suffering from this disease. Following recent legislative changes, the ground capacity at The Mem, which had recently been 11,796, was reduced for the 2022-23 season to 9,832. Rovers’ average home crowd for the League campaign was an impressive 8,907, with every crowd exceeding 8,000. Some away League attendances were seriously higher, notably 22,209 at Portman Road and 22,006 at Hillsborough, with the highest being the 27,841 at Pride Park in October, whilst only 2,510 hardy souls saw Rovers crash at Accrington in January. Under manager Nathan Hallett-Young, the Gas Girls won thirteen of their eighteen matches in the regional South-West League in 2022-23, midfielder Abi Todd top-scoring with twenty-two goals. In November “Her Game Too”, an innovative organisation established by Rovers supporters Caz May and Lucy Ford to promote the participation of women in football, was deservedly presented with the Gold Award at the Football Content Awards. Rebecca Welch, who ran the home fixture with Wycombe Wanderers in March, was the first female referee at a League fixture at The Mem.
2023-24
Rarely is it straightforward being a Bristol Rovers supporter and the 2023-24 season offered proof of this assertion. Pre-season optimism gave way to transfer deadline day despair, before a controversial manager left the club, followed by a mini-revival, then a goal drought of Biblical proportions which threatened to convert mid-table apathy into a relegation struggle, leaving supporters feeling insecure despite a reasonably positive FA Cup run. Confusing, isn’t it! Ultimately, Rovers settled for fifteenth place in League One, the mid-table position many supporters had predicted prior to the season starting. An outspoken manager had been replaced by a calmer, gentler one; a cup run had seen Rovers falter within touching distance of a trip to Anfield; and topsy-turvy results saw the Gas lose at home to struggling sides such as Fleetwood and Burton and yet win away to play-off hopefuls Bolton and Stevenage, taking four points off champions Portsmouth, as well as completing a League double over Charlton. As ever, the season opened with a string of new faces in quartered shirts. James Wilson had won the third-tier title with Plymouth Argyle in 2022-23 and Rovers’ supporters hoped he could repeat this feat in Horfield. Exeter striker Jevani Brown, described by his partner as “gentle, calm and quiet” and yet fined in court after admitting assault, was joined by returning players in Luke Thomas, Lamare Bogarde and Connor Taylor. Ryan Woods became the thousandth player to represent Rovers in the Football League and was joined by experienced heads in Jack Hunt and George Friend, not to mention Scotland international Chris Martin. Two goalkeepers, Matt Cox and Matt Hall, joined the ranks, whilst Chelsea youngster Harvey Vale and young Brentford defender Tristan Crama added youth to this mix. Harry Anderson joined Stevenage, Calum Macdonald went to Mansfield, whilst Paul Coutts moved to Highland League football and both Glenn Whelan and Alex Rodman retired. Pre-season friendlies had started with six unanswered first-half goals at Melksham and included victory over Swansea City and Brentford B, whilst John Marquis scored a brace to defeat Chesterfield. Rovers opposed a Cardiff City side featuring Mahlon Romeo (Antiguan international and son of Jazzie B from SoulIISoul) plus international players for Nigeria, Greece, Canada and Gambia. There was also a last-minute loss 3-2 against Braga in Portugal, the opposition featuring five players who have played for the Portuguese national side, as well as internationals from Sweden and Uruguay. On the eve of the new season, Kuwaiti investor Hussain AlSaeed purchased 55% of the club, with Wael AlQadi retaining 40.5% and remaining President, and Samer AlQadi retaining 4.5%. Hussain AlSaeed, regional head of the Ahli United Bank, was appointed as Chairman of Bristol Rovers whilst Abdullatif AlSaeed was appointed as Executive Vice-President. One immediate effect was that work began, ahead of planning permission, on a 3,425-seater South Stand with plans afoot to work on both the North and East Stands, whilst a long-term vision included that elusive new stadium; within weeks the proposed move to the Fruit Market had been ended once and for all with the new owners looking to redevelop three sides of the Memorial Stadium instead. In February, AlSaeed announced proposed improvements to training facilities at The Quarters and a suggested future 16,000 capacity at The Mem, with a stated goal of promotion to the Championship within three years. Rovers were to announce pre-tax losses of £3.9 million for the 2022-23 financial year. Any pre-season optimism off the field and suggested verbally by manager Joey Barton initially appeared to have some foundation. Having held the lead at Fratton Park on an encouraging opening day before conceding an injury-time equaliser to the eventual champions and having won at Charlton for a second consecutive season, this time through Luke McCormick’s winner eight minutes into stoppage time, the season opened brightly. However, successive fixtures were then lost to Cambridge and Wycombe and Rovers also lost at leaders Oxford, where Brown was sent off and the hosts received two injury-time red cards, issued to Oisin Smyth and Stan Mills, the twelfth time Rovers’ opponents had suffered two sendings-off in a League fixture. More dramatically, Rovers failed by minutes to re-sign goalscoring striker Jonson Clarke-Harris, an alleged transfer-window administrative blunder leaving Rovers short of goal-scoring power and leading to questions as to the manager’s future. Therefore, just thirteen League games into the season, with Rovers mid-table and not yet fulfilling the pre-season hype, the club parted company with manager Barton. His tenure from February 2021 to October 2023 had seen the remarkable 2021-22 promotion campaign in League Two, but his overall record in League One amounted to thirty-nine defeats and only twenty-one wins in 77 fixtures. Rovers had incredibly lost 22 times in the League at home during his time in charge. Barton’s final signing had been the experienced former Scotland international Chris Martin, whose superlative thirty-five-metre lobbed equaliser at home to Stevenage in October proved to be the final goal of the manager’s two-and-a-half-year tenure. An initially impressive run under caretaker manager Andy Mangan was ended by a narrow 2-1 defeat to Derby County at Pride Park, a game which Rovers were unlucky to lose, especially after Martin’s smart header from an excellent free-kick; Nathaniel Mendez-Laing, who scored the winning goal, was the first Guatemalan player to opposed Rovers in the League, and County also fielded Tyrese Fornah, who had been sent off against Egypt six days earlier whilst playing for Sierra Leone. Rovers were relying heavily at this point on the guile of Sam Finley in midfield, especially with Jordan Rossiter out injured long-term. No Tunisian international had opposed Rovers prior to this season, but two did so at this point in the campaign, namely Omar Rekik of Wigan Athletic and Orient’s Idris El Mizouni; Rovers conceded own goals in these consecutive November fixtures. Former Exeter City and Rotherham United boss Matt Taylor was appointed as Rovers’ new manager on the last day of November. He had played for Exeter against Rovers in the League, had been a team-mate of Friend (at Exeter), Marquis (at Cheltenham) and Aaron Collins (at Newport) amongst players on Rovers’ books and had managed Brown in the successful Grecians side promoted to League One alongside Rovers in 2021-22. Remarkably, Taylor led Rovers to victory over both the top two sides in the division in December, winning 2-1 at Bolton Wanderers and, on Boxing Day at The Mem, defeating table-toppers Pompey, who fielded two Australian internationals in their side, through a dramatic stoppage-time finish from Thomas; the former Rovers caretaker manager Shaun North returned as the visitors’ kitman. Three days later, in another extraordinary finish, substitute Martin’s second goal, again four minutes into stoppage-time, earned Rovers a second consecutive 2-1 home victory. Mid-season signings were designed to build on this promise. Kamil Conteh, with eight caps for Sierra Leone, was joined by promising youngster Harry Vaughan on loan, Elkan Baggott (who had opposed Rovers in the League Cup in August and was just back from international duty in Qatar at the Asian Cup with Indonesia) and the mercurial Brandon Aguilera, who had played in all three of Costa Rica’s matches at the 2022 World Cup Finals. Indeed, whilst on Rovers’ books, Aguilera was to start for Costa Rica in their international fixture against world champions Argentina in Los Angeles in March 2024. On the other hand, Collins, voted Player of the Season for League One in 2022-23, left for Bolton Wanderers and was not replaced, heralding a goal drought. In response to a poor run of results in January, Taylor changed his team around, Jed Ward was put in goal (he was voted Young Player of the Season), new signing Conteh strengthened the midfield and, with an altered formation, Rovers defeated Oxford United 3-1. Having added three new faces, The Gas won 1-0 at Exeter, débutant Aguilera striking an excellent winner from twenty yards which was later voted the club’s Goal of the Season. However, fluctuating results, as Rovers stumbled between mid-table obscurity and mediocrity, saw Rovers slip towards a potential relegation scrap. Orient had eighteen corners to Rovers’ two in March, and yet Rovers won 1-0 away from home; this proved to be the side’s final League goal in a club record 702 minutes prior to Scott Sinclair’s strike at Cheltenham. This run included a 5-0 thrashing at Lincoln City, for whom Joe Taylor became the first opponent in fifteen months to score a hat-trick. Port Vale had eleven shots on target to Rovers’ none, Baylee Dipepa, at seventeen years 77 days, becoming the seventh youngest opponent ever to score a League goal against Rovers. During the 2023-24 campaign, Rovers were never higher in League One than ninth place (after successive Christmas victories) and never lower than the seventeenth place they occupied after Woods had been sent off at Burton. The highest attendance was 26,623 at Derby and the highest at home 9,937 for the visit of Derby County, with an average home League attendance of 8,190. Martin was easily the top scorer for the season with sixteen goals in the League whilst, in the absence of any ever-present, Antony Evans appeared in more League matches than any other player and was named Player of the Season. League doubles were achieved over Charlton and Carlisle, whilst Wycombe, Burton, Peterborough and a very impressive Derby side all beat Rovers home and away. Bizarrely, only Evans against Northampton and Bolton substitute Aaron Morley scored penalties in the League; Rovers scored one of four penalties awarded in their favour in the League. Carlisle’s Sam Lavelle conceded an own goal in Rovers’ favour, whilst Hunt scored for Derby and Crama, in the final minute, for Orient. Rovers received six red cards in the League, as did their opponents. Rovers used thirty-four different players in all competitions during the campaign. Throughout the season, Rovers scored seven last-minute goals to gain seven extra points and conceded six which cost four points. By the close of the season, it was clear that the side’s home record would need some work, Rovers having played 133 League matches at The Mem in six years, winning 48 and losing 54, despite gaining promotion during that period, and scoring just 162 League goals at home. After Port Vale earlier in the campaign, it was only the penultimate home fixture, against Cambridge United, when Rovers kept their second clean sheet at The Mem all season and nine League matches were lost on that ground. East Anglian opposition ended Rovers’ season in cup competitions, Ipswich Town in the League Cup and Norwich City in the FA Cup. The side had seven different scorers as Rovers recorded a 7-2 home victory over Northern Premier League side Whitby Town in the FA Cup; with a large lead, the club had the opportunity to hand a first-team début to Ollie Dewsbury, aged fifteen years 255 days, the second youngest player ever in any competitive Rovers fixture. The Gas then recorded their first win under their new manager by defeating Charlie Colkett’s Crewe at Gresty Road in round two, racing into a four-goal lead before winning 4-2. Rovers gained a very creditable 1-1 draw at Championship side Norwich City in the third round, Grant Ward curling in a delightful equaliser as Rovers more than held their own before a crowd of almost 20,000 at Carrow Road. A packed Mem saw Rovers hold a half-time lead through McCormick before losing to the Canaries, whose reward was a trip to Anfield to play Liverpool in the fourth round. It was a replica of the January 1965 cup-tie with Stockport County, where Rovers lost the replay, knowing Liverpool awaited the winners in the next round. The 2023-24 season had seen more individual players score for Rovers in the FA Cup than in any preceding campaign. Meanwhile, James Gibbons had scored for both sides in a Football League Trophy win over Cheltenham Town before Rovers crashed out of the competition at Crawley Town. Plenty of former Rovers players reappeared in opposition line-ups, including Ali Koiki at Northampton Town, the Cheltenham Town pairing of Liam Sercombe and Matty Taylor, Peterborough’s Jonson Clarke-Harris, Ryan Loft for Port Vale and Fleetwood’s Ryan Broom, whilst Ryan Sweeney played against Rovers with Burton Albion, whose goalkeeper Max Crocombe became the fourteenth New Zealand international to oppose Rovers in the Football League. Burton’s substitute Kyle Hudlin, at six feet nine inches in height, became the tallest outfield player ever to oppose Rovers in any competitive fixture. Carlisle United, when they played at The Mem in February, fielded Fin Back, son of the former England rugby union captain Neil Back MBE, playing alongside Harry Lewis, whose grandfather Ken Mulhearn (1945-2018) had played for Shrewsbury Town against Rovers in the 1970s. Luca Hoole enjoyed the privilege of captaining the Welsh Under-21 side. The Gas Girls won the South West Regional Women’s League and gained promotion to the FA Women’s National League, coming under the umbrella of the Football Club itself from the start of the 2024-25 campaign. In December, Bristol Rovers celebrated the 140th anniversary of the club’s foundation, with the team wearing a replica Black Arabs shirt from 1883 for the fixture with Cheltenham Town.