popular STAND 71

EDITORIAL You are no doubt familiar with the saying “a week is a long time in politics”, it’s practically seven days worth of stuff. The same, as deftly illustrated by Rovers start to the new season, can be said about football.

Ahead of the season we were, if social media and forum comment were to be believed, set for a disaster. The board were telling lies, the squad isn’t big enough, the players in it not good enough, and the general prognosis was doom, doom I tell you, an all-out catastrophe... of finishing about ninth.

But then we beat Yeovil, convincingly, and the new players were impressive, and the manager deserved praise, and we look very capable, and we might surprise a few here, and what are the odds on going up?

Defeat to Port Vale soon put a stop to that talk. Now we’re going down, we’re not good enough, the squad is too thin, and Dickov has been labelled Dick-head again by the Oscar Wildes

of Facebook. If you garner feeling only by social media, then the prevailing mood of Rovers fans would appear to be akin to driving over a humpback bridge, every two minutes, for eternity. When we are up we are up, and when we are down we are down, and when we are only halfway up it’s not good enough, Someone Out! We’ll be down again soon, mark my words.

The reality is that with a much changed squad it will take time for things to pan out as hoped. It’s rare in football, as in life, that everything just clicks right away and so I’m happy to take on board Paul Dickov’s comments following the Vale loss; “The group has only been together for a short space of time and it’s going to take time for them to gel. We’re going to get days when we look good, and there’ll be days when we struggle.” Fair enough, we’ve more than 40 games to go, seems daft to get the pitchforks out now, besides, my flaming torch will have blown out before we’ve even kicked a ball in the FA Cup.

CONTENTS: ISSUE 71 05.

10.

11.

12.

13.

14.

16.

18.

22.

24.

The Bernard Glover Diaries The VSC and the ACV It’s the Donny R’sonists Who is Tomlinson?

Theo-logical Sounding Out the Belles Its All Gone Wrong Go Away!

Windmills of Your Mind My First Match

25.

26.

29.

30.

32.

34.

35.

36.

38.

39.

Laws of the Game Voice of the Pop Side DRSG: an Introduction Gary Brabin Memorial Lounge Jack the Miner’s Coal Face Memorable Memorabilia A Summer in Tweets From Beneath the Statue Reg Ipsa Flow-Rider

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Patience, though, remains a virtue lost on many. Back in January, when a particularly vocal supporter reiterated ‘Bramall Out’ on twitter we invited him to have a page of the fanzine to explain his argument. He declined with the following reply: “Give it a couple of months when we know the impact and I will do so.

Rather have more time to consider.

Want to right a well rounded piece together once with hear current communication from current board.”

He definitely wanted Bramall out, but as yet it seemed, wasn’t entirely sure why.

So when the same fan popped up on the eve of the season demanding Bramall Out once more, because ‘runs the club like a charity’, we again invited him to air his views in the fanzine and offer depth to his thoughts. Rovers won at Yeovil, and said fan inevitably disappeared for a week. Then Rovers lost to Vale, and back he bounced, demanding Bramall out once more, and so we extended our invite. This time we got a ‘when for’, but have heard nowt since. At last all this gives credence to his chosen online moniker; should we ever expect some substance to the knee-jerk rants of Martin Hall?

Norfolk ‘en chance.

Whilst we highlight one man’s idiocy, he is, in a number of ways representative of a number of fans of our club. Not idiots, God knows we’ve all fitted that label at some point – I used to take a trumpet to matches for one. No, an increasing number of people all too ready to make short, derogatory, inflammatory, accusational statements on social media and forums, yet not that keen to take any kind of positive action to give credence to their points.

Frankly, if you care that strongly, you’ve no excuse. The emergence of Doncaster Rovers Supporters Group (see page 29 of this issue), alongside the VSC, SLOs, Supporters Club, and us, mean you have more platforms than ever on which to make your points in relation to the club. You don’t have to hurl words into the void of social media if you truly want to be heard.

And last week you could have questioned those in charge face to face at a Meet the Owners event.

Where were the disillusioned then?

Those who demand Bramall leaves, or Dickov goes, or that Gavin Baldwin doesn’t know what he’s doing? Their absence is telling, and perhaps highlights something else; those who make all the noise online are but a small proportion of a regular Rovers fan-base of around 6,000, and far from indicative of the prevailing mood.

To look at it another way, here is a point raised in Dutch Uncle’s piece on page 22 that suggests statistically we are in our most successful ever period as a club.

Remember that when you’re next in the stands, and instead of halfarsedly, and pointlessly, protesting against the existence of a supporters’ trust, relax and enjoy what’s in front of you.

We’re a pub team having a laugh, not a global brand having a whinge, so can we not just accept our faults, brace ourseves for the up and down, and all sing daft songs about Curtis Main instead?

After all, we’ve never had it so good.

Viva Rovers!

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GW

THE BERNARD GLOVER DIARIES SPENT THE SUMMER IN A CAVE AVOIDING LIFE AND FOOTBALL? YOU LUCKY GETS! ANYWAY, HERE’S WHAT YOU’VE MISSED. SATURDAY 26 APRIL ROVERS 1-3 READING I bloody love Jamie Coppinger, now into his fifth century of Rovers appearances, the little fella pops up in the right place at the right time to put Rovers ahead – and seemingly safe – at half time. But of course we never beat Reading, never, and the status quo is duly restored late in the second-half. Having equalised from the penalty spot just after the hour mark, Reading swept in two late goals as Rovers capitulated like a newspaper in the rain, the dearth of capability encapsulated by a lazy swing of the boot from Richie Wellens that made the visitors’ centre-half Alex Pearce look like bloody Ronaldo as he walked through our midfield.

You spend weeks consoling yourself that it’ll be OK because there’s always one team who are dragged down into the relegation places at the last moment, and only now with a game to go does the damning realisation that club is most likely to be yours, properly sink in.

SATURDAY 3 MAY LEICESTER CITY 1-0 ROVERS Having gate-crashed a title-winning party Rovers match the home side, and had Jamie Coppinger been able to stretch onto Chris Brown’s return pass, could have taken the lead with

one of the greatest goals in club history; a move that began with a double nutmegs from the club stalwart. With Birmingham City losing at Bolton Rovers remain above the relegation zone even when the home side are awarded a penalty for a waft of James Husband’s leg just inside the area. But just as it looks like Rovers have done enough to join in the celebrations at the King Power Stadium news filters through that Birmingham have equalised in the sixth minute of injury time at Bolton to condemn Rovers to the drop.

Having not been in the relegation places since early January, Doncaster are relegated. At times such as this people like to use words like despair and heartache to some up fans’ feelings, but the disappointment at relegation is put into sharp perspective with the news that a member of the travelling Rovers fans collapsed late in the game. Sadly, despite the best efforts of paramedics, supporter Ray Dunning passes away.

FRIDAY 30 MAY Just when you think you’ve seen and heard all that Rovers have to offer, news filters through that John Ryan is back, and this time he has notable personnel. Ryan has teamed up with Louis Tomlinson in his latest annual attempt to take-over the club.

Inevitably, given Tomlinson’s profile,

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the story gained a large amount of coverage in the national press, with the pop-star’s ‘passion’ for his hometown club a recurring theme.

FRIDAY 20 JUNE After being held up by disputes over image rights – one presumes those of Louis’ not John Ryan, unless One Direction foresee a future in JR teeth gleam – the ‘John Direction’ takeover (as it’s dubbed by our own Tony Greenhall) is go, subject to ratification from the Football League.

With the two in position further details of the takeover are announced, including the launch of what looks to be an ambitious crowdfunder scheme to ‘help Rovers get to the Premier League’. Fans can pledge money and get anything from a thank you video from Paul Dickov to the chance to take a ‘selfie’ with Louis in return. Are we really trying to pitch our football club in the niche vacated by Smash Hits magazine? Well, as the saying goes, if you can’t beat them, come up with a really bizarre scheme.

FRIDAY 4 JULY Another key Rovers player bolts through the open door as David Cotterill follows Mark Duffy to Birmingham City. The departure of the two wingers comes after striker Chris Brown had departed to Blackburn Rovers last month, meaning Paul Dickov will be keen to bolster his remaining squad once the takeover is completed later this month.

SATURDAY 12 JULY LINCOLN CITY 2-0 ROVERS Forget the result for a moment, let us instead marvel at the idiocy of those who choose to take flares and smoke canisters to a game like this. No Pyro No Party you may preach, but I think it is fair to say that no amount of pyro on this earth is going to make a pre-season fixture at Sincil Bank feel like anything worth celebrating. Cut it out lads eh, it’s not even the school holidays yet.

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THURSDAY 18 JULY Ah, so it turns out you can’t fund a football club on the pocket money of teenage girls alone. With the John Direction crowdfunder project falling a significant way short of its £2million target a statement from the RT Trust announces that as a result Ryan will now not be able to pass FA regulations to take over the club. This is particularly noticeable as it implies the crowdfunder plan was not intended to give further financial support to the club’s activities – as had been suggested – but was actually a key aspect of the finance required for the takeover. Its failure means that the deal is off, and all and sundry move to distance themselves from blame, Tomlinson tweets that he has been poorly advised, whilst Ryan shifts the blame to the Football League – meanwhile Rovers have wasted another pre-season and Terry Bramall and Dick Watson, no doubt wearily, pick up the reigns once more.

TUESDAY 22 JULY GRIMSBY TOWN 0-4 ROVERS Whilst the off the field matters capture the headlines, there is some encouragement on it at least as Rovers notch a comfortable win away at Grismby. Paul Dickov only arrives at the game at half-time, causing much speculation as to where he is – boardroom talks? Scouting? Job interview? The truth for his late arrival of course is that Pleasure Island doesn’t shut until 7:30pm.

THURSDAY 30 JULY Some much needed movement on the squad front at last as James Husband finally moves to Middlesbrough after a week of dragged out speculation;

indeed it’s been the longest anyone has taken to get rid of a Husband since Demi Moore. Laboured jokes aside, Husband’s departure makes room for striker Curtis Main to come the other way from Teesside, and also enables funds for Rovers to offer and secure a new deal for the man, the legend, Jamie Coppinger. Aaaand relax. Also joining Rovers squad in the past week have been former Derby striker Nathan Tyson and full-back Cedric Evina we begin to form something that resembles a squad.

SATURDAY 2 AUGUST ROVERS 1-2 ROTHERHAM UNITED Pre-season comes to a disappointing end as Steve Evans appears at the Keepmoat. Rovers lose the game too, despite a late consolation strike from Curtis Main. Two of Rovers latest recruits are in action during the game, goalkeeper Jed Steer who joins on a three-month loan from Aston Villa and Reece Wabara.

TUESDAY 5 AUGUST I was away in North Wales at the weekend and whilst there briefly talked football with a local landlord.

When I mentioned I was a Rovers fan, his response was short and simple; “You should never have got rid of Brian Flynn”. We’ve still got him I boldly countered, but within a couple of days I was to be proved wrong as Rovers stated plans to put the focus on developing young talent hit something of a stumbling block with the little Welshman’s departure. Rob Jones will now take charge of the development squad, which seems a tough ask to combine that with playing for the 1st team, but here’s to a future of lads who’ll head absolutely anything.

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THURSDAY 7 AUGUST With both Paul Quinn and Richie Wellens having activated relegation release clauses in their contracts, Paul Dickov tells the press that he won’t consider selecting them until the transfer window has been firmly shuT. “It sends out the wrong message when you’ve got players who are working hard every day looking to get in the team. We need to be prepared and have people who are fully committed to spending the season with us.” Have we mentioned how much we like Paul Dickov, with his firm ways and his well kept hair and his principles and his well kept hair. Meanwhile Rovers do make additions to their existing lineup with Slovak under 21 goalkeeper Marko Marosi joining the club and Liam Wakefield finally putting pen to paper on a new contract.

SATURDAY 9 AUGUST YEOVIL TOWN 0-3 ROVERS All that we previously understood of football is blown apart as Rovers not only defeat Yeovil at Huish Park, but do so very convincingly too. Curtis Main sets the standard just eight minutes in as he breaks on to a beautiful slide-rule through ball to dink it over the Yeovil keeper and wheel away to the frankly disbelieving Rovers fans. In the second half Harry Forrester doubles Rovers’ advantage as he too is set clear of the home defence, rounding the goalkeeper, before chipping the ball over the man on the line. And in injury-time two substitutes combine to wrap up the points; Marc De Val dinking a lovely ball over the top for Theo Robinson to lift over the ‘keeper. 3-0 and all reasoned expectations are thrown out the window. What odds are we on promotion again?

TUESDAY 12 AUGUST YORK CITY 0-1 ROVERS A second game, a second win and a second clean sheet as Rovers followup Saturday’s league win with victory at York City in the League Cup. Paul Dickov’s changed line-up included starts for Jamie McCombe and Marc De Val, and looked comfortable and professional, despite being on the back foot to York for long periods of the game. What the match did offer was a showcase of Jed Steer’s abilities if nothing else, as the new ‘keeper made a number of competent and necessary saves to keep the game goalless. Then in injury time, Harry Forrester did a solid favour to all those who’d travelled up by train – staving off extra-time with a low drive from the edge of the box to wrap up the win.

THURSDAY 14 AUGUST A chance to meet the owners at the Keepmoat, and an opportunity for all those slinging mud in the direction of the owners and the manager to come and give them a due grilling.

Unsurprisingly many of the internet’s biggest gobs remained shut as Terry Bramall and Dick Watson give telling and engaging answers. Asked if they are in for the long-term Bramall answers; “We don’t really want to let the club go until we know it’s going to be in the hands of people who carry it on into the years we’re not going to be here.” You’ll do for me Terry.

SATURDAY 16 AUGUST ROVERS 1-3 PORT VALE Dickov out! Bramall out! Catering staff out! We’re doomed I tell you, doomed.

Rovers are dealt something of a yellow and black striped wake-up call as a Port Vale side described as ‘clinical, but

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dull’ by our online match reporter, find the net thrice in the first half. It can only get better in the second half and thankfully it does to a degree after Paul Dickov makes a double substitution at the break. One of those introduced is Kyle Bennett and he offers some hope when he finds the net from 25-yards with quarter of an hour to go. However, hopes of a come-back are dealt a significant blow just minutes later when Harry Forrester swings a boot when attempting to dribble the ball on goal, and is adjudged to have kicked out at the Vale ‘keeper. The result is a debatable red card and a petering challenge as the game comes to a close.

TUESDAY 19 AUGUST ROVERS 1-1 PRESTON NORTH END Ahead of the game Paul Quinn tweets he would ‘do anything for a game of football’. Our subsequent, inevitable question, ‘would you take a drop in pay?’ remains unanswered at the time of writing. Back in the real world, with the appeal of Harry Forrester’s red card unsuccessful Paul Dickov shuffles the pack and gives Marc De Val a start in a 4-3-3 formation. After just ten minutes Rob Jones is forced off with a reoccurrence of his neck injury leaving Rovers a back-four that boasts an average age lower than the cast of Hollyoaks – even if you take out that fella who used to be the desk sergeant in Touch of Frost. Despite this set-back Rovers take the game to the visitors and having created several chances are right to feel hard done by when Preston take a second-half lead. However, for the fourth time in as many games a substitute finds the net for Rovers as Nathan Tyson struck in injury-time to bring a much deserved point for Rovers and a touch more optimism among the club’s support.

GW

spotted!

TIM RYAN

At the Doncaster Sunday League Cup Final, having a bloody good laugh at the mass brawl on the final whistle

spotter: @TonyCSGreenall

LIAM WAKEFIELD

In Mambo nightclub after the England v Italy game. Wearing a suit but neither drinking nor dancing.

spotter: @JimmyDRFC

GEORGE FRIEND

In Boots at Teesside Park buying male cosmetics with (probably/hopefully) his girlfriend

spotter: @bedalerover

RICKY RAVENHILL

In Meadowhall carrying all the shopping bags, with his wife and kids. Looked to be struggling.

spotter: @KieranOMalley

JAMES HUSBAND & LUKE McCULLOUGH

Perusing kitchen utensils in Asda.

Do I smell a house share?

spotter: @Louis_Bailey_

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THE VSC AND THE ACV ONE INITIALISM WELCOMES ANOTHER TO THE KEEPMOAT. ROB WILLIAMS KINDLY EXPLAINS ALL As I write this the Roves have just won at Huish Park for the first time in over ten years, and some poor lad has lost £140 thanks to the third goal from Theo Robinson in the sixth minute of injury time. (I had actually suggested there might be a third, but felt bad for him when it happened.)

Anyway, this ACV malarkey. Thanks to a smart bit of legislation passed back in 2011, the Viking Supporters Co-operative was able request the Keepmoat Stadium be listed as an ACV (Asset of Community Value). This will mean that if our beloved stadium ever comes up for sale, the VSC will be able to gain six months to raise their own initial bid to purchase it. The ACV will be in place for the next five years and the VSC can apply for renewal in 2019.

The VSC Directors made the move to apply for ACV status for the Keepmoat to provide insurance against any future change of ownership with the club or a repeat of a previous hedge fund bid.

The ACV essentially means Rovers supporters will never wake up one morning to read in the paper that the Keepmoat has been sold, with no recourse. We know the stadium is of huge local importance to Rovers fans, the Dons, the Belles and the Athletics club; it wouldn’t be right if it could be sold from under their feet, and with this new status that cannot happen.

We’d like to thank Doncaster Rovers, Supporters Direct and Doncaster Council for their assistance and support throughout the whole process.

The Keepmoat is now in such company as Old Trafford, Anfield, the King Power Stadium and Nuneaton Town’s Liberty Way – a prestigious list of stadia I’m sure you’d agree?

What else has the VSC been up to over the summer? Well, we’ve been in regular talks with the club and have big plans to restart the In Rovers We Trust project (make sure you keep an eye out on our website for details, the address is at the foot of this page).

We’ve nominated our official charity for next twelve months and we’re delighted to say Firefly won the popular vote!

The Firefly shuttle, based in Doncaster, provides a free and vital transport service for patients undergoing cancer treatments at regional cancer centres.

Going forward, we’ll interview players who win our Man of the Match award each week and giving fans the chance to have photos with the winners, so be sure to vote for your favourite from each match on the Viking Chat forum.

We’ve also had a look at our aims and objectives and will be re-introducing a revised list to our members and wider Rovers fan-base soon.

Rovers ‘til we die www.drfc-vsc.co.uk

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RW

IT’S THE DONNY R’SONISTS LONG-RUNNING ROVERS SUPPORTERS’ TEAM, THE DONNY R’SONISTS, HAVE BEEN BUSY OVER THE SUMMER The first fanzine of the new season, usually heralds another weak firerelated pun as we salute the Donny R’sonists’ annual appearance at the WorldNET supporters’ team tournament. Not this year though, no. We’ve exhausted all the possible puns for one. And secondly we’ve two tournaments to look back on, not one.

On a sweltering day back in June, the R’sonists took a bare VI to the longrunning Chaos Cup in Walthamstow, London. Hosted by Orient fanzine the Leyton Orient Ear, the Chaos Cup is now in its 27th year and so we were rightly honoured to be invited to take part. And we started brightly too, beating Gillingham 2-1 before the heat and lack of substitutes began to take effect. Defeats to the Scottish lads of TFC Dynamo, and then to Orient Ear ‘B’ bunged us in the Plate competition where Worthing’s tellingly superior blend of youth and ability put us to the sword in the quarter finals.

Onto July then and our 17th consecutive appearance at WorldNET, an annual two-day 11-a-side supporters’ team tournament, held in Preston. As is customary let us begin by acknowledging the two R’sonists to have featured in each of those 17 tournaments; Alan Brown and Matt Smith, we salute you! Again. Wearily.

First up in Group A were our familiar foes from across the Dearne, Barnsley SFC. In front and bossing it thanks to a Keith Sanders goal the R’sonists duly crumbled after the break to go down 2-1. Things didn’t get much better in the next game either as an energetic Wimbledon ‘A’ side stuffed us 4-0. Thankfully, in the third and final group we were able to hold on to another Sanders goal lead and defeat RC Lens 1-0.

Pride restored we moved into Sunday’s Plate competition, and, for a second successive year, a knock-out game against Stoke Ramblers. Though we triumphed last time the sides met, this year it was Stoke’s turn as they notched a convincing 3-0 win to send the R’sonists back across the Pennines slightly earlier than hoped.

Donny R’sonists will be representing Rovers against like-minded supporters teams throughout the season ahead, and after opening the season against Portly Vale as this issue went to print they will play away at Barnsley and Walsall in September on the morning of the corresponding Rovers fixtures.

If you’d like to know more about the R’sonists and fancy donning the red and white hoops for them take a look at their website: www.donnyrsonists.wordpress.com.

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WHO IS TOMLINSON? JACK THE MINER SHARES HIS THOUGHTS ON THE MAN WHO WOULD BE CHAIRMAN What do I think of Tomlinson?

I’ve been asked that every day for weeks.

writers and performers? Star of the show my arse. Caroline Aherne, Sue Johnston and Dave Cash carried the useless Scouse lump for years.

It’s time to let my guard down, take the gloves off and have the courage to speak my mind.

(note from Ed...you’ve got the wrong Tomlinson mate. Unwind, relax and think again)

I can’t stand Tomlinson. There, I said it. One of the most over rated talents – if talent is the right word – this country has had to endure in recent years. I had hoped he’d had his day in the sun but just when you think it’s safe to turn the TV on, there he is, spouting his homespun lefty philosophy to the weary world.

Wrong Tomlinson? You mean the other Tomlinson? Am I supposed to get excited now?

How I have come to loathe that bulbous nose, greasy hair and the body that looks like a bin bag full of yoghurt.

And to think this scruffy specimen was allowed to pull on a Rovers shirt in front of the paying public.

Was there ever a better example of someone with such limited range being carried by superior

I dislike the ‘other’ Tomlinson just as much.

Has there ever been such so-called star of such limited range? It doesn’t matter what he’s in, he can only give you his standard dim-witted upper class twit performance.

Noel Coward reckoned he looked like ‘a very old baby’ and yet I hear that Rovers expect teenage girls all over the world to buy into the Tomlinson concept and pour their pocket money into Tomlinson merchandise. Are they quite mad?

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Isn’t it just a little bit creepy?

And surely John Ryan knows the man’s career is in decline? He was good in Mary Poppins but frankly, The Love Bug didn’t hit the same heights and Bedknobs and Broomsticks was as bad a film as Disney have ever made. What’s the song from the film? Bobbing Along At The Bottom of The Beautiful Briny Sea? He should be Bobbing Along and Bogging off and taking his bowler hat and silly moustache with him.

And to top it all he’s dead. What sort of business plan is that?

(note from Ed...you’ve still got the wrong Tomlinson) Got it. Sorry, but we’re not any better off are we?

I mean, the bloke isn’t the British Long Jump record holder any more, so what does he bring to the party exactly?

(note from Ed...Can I stop you there? It’s not Chris Tomlinson the long jumper.

It’s not David Tomlinson the upper class actor and it’s not the Royle Family’s Ricky Tomlinson, nor is it Charles Tomlinson the English poet, Robert Parkinson Tomlinson the politician, Ernest Tomlinson the composer or Sara Palmer Tomkinson. It’s Louis Tomlinson.

Louis. Get it? Louis. King Louis.)

King Louie? The king of the apes in Jungle Book? Fantastic. I like him. He’ll be great. The kids will love him. You should have said. Oh, we’ll be OK then.

JTM

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SOUNDING OUT THE BELLES EDITOR GLEN WILSON BRINGS YOU UP TO DATE ON DONCASTER ROVERS BELLES’ SEASON Rovers opening day victory at Yeovil may have come as a rare and welcome surprise, especially given our recent record against the Glovers, but it is worth noting that it was not the first time Doncaster had chalked up a victory in Somerset this year. Back at the end of May Doncaster Rovers Belles also returned from trip south west to take on Yeovil with three points.

Two headers from captain Leandra Little helped the Belles to a 2-1 win over Town’s female string; one of nine league games unbeaten, a record that unsurprisingly sees the Belles challenging for promotion from FA Women’s Super League 2.

Yep, that’s right, despite much rumour to the contrary, there is set to be promotion and relegation this season between the women’s game’s top flight and its newly created second tier.

However, as with many rulings and developments in the female game, this comes with a whacking great asterisk stuck on top of it, in the form of an FA caveat.

The top team in FAWSL2 will be promoted to FAWSL1, but only if they satisfy a number of other off the field criteria dictated by the governing body.

The FA do state that they are working with promotion candidates to ensure these criteria are met - primarily to avoid a repeat of last year’s protests but as with all things FA, it may pay to take that promise with a sizable pinch of salt.

But promotion or no promotion, there is still silverware up for grabs, and Belles are very much part of a clear two-horse race for the second tier title.

At the half-way point of their league campaign the Belles may be unbeaten, but they are still four points off the blistering pace set by Sunderland. The Black Cats have won all but one of their matches thus far, the 1-1 draw at the Keepmoat Stadium representing their only dropped points.

The Belles meanwhile, whilst impressive as at home, hitting seven against London Bees and putting five past third place Reading have struggled to break down teams away from home. Each of the two league matches played on the road since that Little inspired win at Yeovil have finished goalless, with both Millwall and Durham keeping the Belles’ front four at bay. Thankfully for the Belles, whilst they have struggled at times to score their defence has remained resolute, a key factor in which has been the performances of stalwart Lyndsey Cunningham, who speaks to us about the season thus far, opposite.

So will the Belles be able to catch Sunderland in the race for the title?

Don’t sit there wondering – get along and see for yourself by backing the Belles for their remaining games, particularly their next home match against Aston Villa on Thursday 4 September. Get down and make some noise for your town’s team.

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0 2 l y n d s e y c u n n i n g h a m

Are you happy with how the season has gone so far?

We started off the season really well, with some great results in the league as well as beating Manchester City in the Continental Cup. Every season has its ups and downs and recently we haven’t picked up the results that we would want. But hopefully we can build on our 7-0 victory over London Bees and keep pushing on.

How does it feel to be winning games regularly after a few seasons fighting at the wrong end of the top flight?

The previous seasons at Belles have been difficult, battling near the bottom of the table. It is nice to have that winning feeling. You can tell from the mood in the camp that everyone will agree with me on that. The team spirit this year has been second to none.

At home the Belles can’t stop scoring, but have found it hard to find the net away, why do you think this is?

I wouldn’t say it’s anything particularly to do with being away from home. We’ve scored some brilliant goals this season and a lot of them have been at the Keepmoat. Every game in this league is tough and we’ve faced teams that sit behind the ball. In the games, such as away at Durham and Millwall, where we dropped points, I don’t think we played to the best of our ability and found it difficult to break them down. It is something we have been working on in training and looking to improve.

FAWSL2 looks very much a two horse race now, can you see Sunderland slipping up in any of their remaining games?

I think it would be naïve of us to think that it is only between us and Sunderland in the race for the title. There are many strong teams in the league who are capable of taking points from each other. There are still nine games left to play with a lot of points at stake so it’s set for an exciting end to the season!

Do you think the Belles can catch Sunderland?

We still have to play Sunderland at their place and if we play to our potential then I feel we can come home with three points.

We will just be concentrating on ourselves and our own results to make sure we do our job.

Lyndsey Cunningham is sponsored by popular STAND during the 2014 FAWSL season.

The Belles next home game is Thursday 4 September vs Aston Villa.

7:45pm kick-off at the Keepmoat Stadium. Tickets are £6 for adults and £3 concessions.

Back th Belles!

GW

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ITS ALL GONE WRONG, WITH ME, PETE TONG FAMOUS DJ PETE TONG, AND DEFINITELY NOT MIKE FOLLOWS, RECOUNTS SOME FAMOUS MISHAPS Hi there, readers. I’m world renowned mixmaster DJ, Pete Tong and I like nothing more than a scheme gone wrong. If only I could think of a catchy bit of rhyming slang for my obsession, I’d be a happy man.

This summer when I’ve not been spinning some pumping Balearic house tunes on the decks at Pacha, Amnesia or Café Del Mar, I’ve been knocking back mojitos on the rocks of the White Isle with my iPad in hand, keenly following the proposed takeover of Donny Rovers by John Ryan and Louis Tomlinson. What an ambitious scheme it was to raise money from teenage girls all over the world. Of course, as an expert on hairbrained projects I wasn’t surprised when it all went tits up. Here are a few of my other favourite things that have all gone ding dong:

BRITIAN ALMOST LANDS ON MARS I’m no stranger to Space.

It’s one of my favourite venues on the idyllic Mediterranean island paradise of Ibiza. It’s guaranteed to be full of mad loons getting seriously mashed and throwing shapes all summer long.

But, in my list of ambitious plans that have all gone Janice Long it’s a different kind of space that I’m interested in. Outer Space. The final frontier. In space nobody can hear you mixing Greece 2000 into Zombie Nation.

“Is there life on Mars?” asked David Bowie. I’d love to know and I was totally gripped by the audacious attempt by a bloke called Colin Pillinger to get a robot he’d made in his shed onto the surface of the red planet. Blur had even recorded a track to be broadcast from the Beagle 2 when it landed but the signal never came back and there isn’t even a bootleg white label remix available to remind us of the mission.

NORTH KOREA’S MEGA HOTEL The RyugYong Hotel in North Korea was meant to be the world’s tallest hotel when construction started in 1987.

It would have comfortably taken the title, if it had been completed on time in 1989, but 27 years later, it’s still not finished. If they ever get round to opening it I’d love to spin some banging house in the revolving restaurant at the top of the tower.

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Initially intended to attract western investment, the project went all Shane Long when the Soviet Union came down in 1992. Construction restarted in 2008 with an Egyptian mobile phone operator bankrolling the project but it stopped again last year when Kim Jong Un seriously spoiled the vibe.

JOSEPH SMITH’S GOLDEN PLATES This is my all-time favourite scheme gone wrong, readers. Joseph Smith was an egotistical 19th century American with a big plan. He claimed to have been directed by God through an angel called Moroni to translate some golden plates which told the one true story of Jesus, including how he visited America. This ruse got him loads of devoted followers and he thought it would be a great idea to ask this crowd to fund his church.

He was actually really successful at first but then someone stole his translation and so he had to do it all over again.

Of course, if he really had got these magical plates it would be easy for him to write the translation word for word but this is where it all went ping-pong. He clearly couldn’t deliver on his promises so after a six month break, he came back for a second go at taking over the Christian religion with a banging remix which was, of course different to the first version.

The reason I love this scheme so much is that despite it being full of holes and exposed as a sham, there are still around 14million people who follow Joseph Smith’s religion and won’t entertain any criticism of him, no matter how rational or logical. Many of them even donate 10% of their wages to his church! Bizarre eh?

Anyway, I’ve got a sunrise party to get to on the San Antonio beach so I’ll wish you good luck for the season ahead and hope it doesn’t all go Hong Kong for you.

Laters.

MF

THIS ISSUE STEVE IS... ...finally succumbing to his own madness Nurse, he’s escaped again. a football fanzine for the likes of Doncaster | August 2014 | PS71 | 17

GO AWAY! New season, new opponents, new division. League One; the name alone is enough to send a chill down your spine. It is a different place, a darker place. Home to the unfamiliar (Fleetwood), and the all too close (Barnsley), it is a savage, foreboding environment into which we must stride purposefully and show no fear, because ultimately these towns and these teams are as frightened of us as we are of they.

To help you acclimatise to this unfamiliar environment popular STAND will be bringing you a guide to the towns to which Rovers will travel. That said, we begin with an all too familiar foe; Barnsley.

Built on coal and glass, Barnsley is a particularly flammable town in which you could quite easily cut your feet if you’re not careful. With the decline if industry there have been many attempts to revive the town; in 2002 architect Will Alsop submitted plans to remodel Barnsley in the style of a Tuscan village, with a wall of buildings encircling the Town Hall and a halo projected into the night sky. Alsop is believed to have found the inspiration behind his design in a particularly strong hallucinogenic, and a dare from a mate. The town’s motto, ‘spectemur agendo’, translates as ‘let us be judged by our acts’, so how you view the town depends largely on how you feel about Toby Foster’s Breakfast Show.

WHAT’S IT FAMOUS FOR?

It was famous for industry, but past Conservative governments have ensured there is bugger all of that to shout about any more. Instead Barnsley, like an old London cabbie boring the collective arse off of a greasy spoon’s clientele, have to rely on fleeting interactions with B-List celebrities for their credence; Michael Parkinson, Saxon, Darren Gough, and CJ off of Eggheads – like a chat-show conceived by The Producers.

Saturday 6 September

BARNSLEY

HOW TO BLEND IN

Stick on a flat cap, and settle down to sup a pint of Sam Smiths having first moaned about its price, naturally. Then, once comfy, spend your time complaining about how crap the football club is, as well as the decimation of local industrial heritage, the lack of jobs and the town’s significant number of illiterate and unmotivated youths. Basiclly, make yourself at home.

WHAT’S THE STADIUM LIKE?

Oakwell can be found perched high on a hill-top above the town, silhouetted against an industrial sky like a floodlit northern Castle Duckula. The ground has four distinct stands, the oldest of which is the West Stand, which is currently on loan from the Beamish Museum. The stand contains many original features from its construction in the early 1900s including seats, beams and Dickie Bird. Away fans are housed in the huge North Stand, the top of which offers a great panorama, or at least it would, were it not in Barnsley.

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Saturday 13 September

BRISTOL CITY

Bristol is one of only two places in the UK that is also, in its plural form, a slang word for breasts; the small Hebridean town of Nork being the other. The city owes much of its current standing to its maritime heritage. As early as the 14th century Bristol was trading with Spain, Portugal and Iceland, ships returning laden with fine wines, delicate lace, and 60-piece fried chicken party platters.

Two of Isambard Kingdon Brunel’s great industrial icons remain in the city today, the Clifton Suspension Bridge and the SS Great Britain.

With its huge stone towers, and great long heavy steel chains, it’s no surprise the ship sank on its maiden voyage. These days Bristolians refer to the city as The Capital of the West, a fairly empty boast when you consider that all that exists beyond it is a farmland, a few tea-rooms, and Oxbridge gap-year students claiming to be surfers.

HOW TO BLEND IN

Descend from a hot air balloon to spray paint a wall whilst wearing a stove-pipe hat, occasionally pausing for cider breaks.

WHAT’S THE STADIUM LIKE?

With plans to move to a new 42,000 capacity stadium on the outskirts of the city shelved due to the shear lunacy of the idea, Bristol City remain at cosy old Ashton Gate.

In the summer they flattened the ground’s old-school away end, prompting outrage amongst those odd-balls either who don’t own legs or revel in not being able to see a bloody thing. The ground is however two miles from Temple Meads station, so too far to walk, if you are a lazy get.

WHAT’S IT FAMOUS FOR?

Bristol boasts a creative side, home as it is to Wallace & Gromit animators Aardman and of course instillation artist Banksy, or as we’d acknowledge them up north; grown men dicking about with plasticine and defacing buildings. The Bristol Balloon Festival is the second biggest exponent of hot air in the country, Steve Evans still holds top spot, whilst the city is also home to the BBC drama Casualty, so be wary of anyone climbing a damp ladder in a suit of armour in order to fix a sparking electricity pylon, whilst boasting about how they foresee no imminent misfortune whatsoever. a football fanzine for the likes of Doncaster | August 2014 | PS71 | 19

GO AWAY!

CONTINUED FROM PAGES 18 AND 19 Saturday 27 September

WALSALL

Walsall is known as ‘the town of a hundred trades’, initially adopted as a tongue-in-cheek reference to nearby Birmingham’s moniker as ‘the town of a thousand trades’, it is now, in the wake of cuts by the current government, a sadly accurate reflection of the town’s latest employment figures. However, it should not be confused with ‘the land of a thousand dances’, which is of course, Wolverhampton. Despite being first mentioned in a document from 1002 Walsall isn’t referenced in the Domesday book, primarily because the publishers were keen on a happy ending.

WHAT’S IT FAMOUS FOR?

During the Industrial Revolution Walsall changed radically from a village of around 2,000 people to a thriving town producing, most prominently, leather saddles. As you would expect from a town of this traditional craft boasting a team called ‘The Saddlers’, to this day most of the local population choose to travel on horseback. As such it is important to watch where you step as you move around the town.

WHAT’S THE STADIUM LIKE?

The Bescot Stadium is one of the most ingenious of modern football stadia, having been adapted from a disused service station on the M6. The Stadium was opened by Sir Stanley Matthews in 1990, who’d stopped off for a pasty on his way back to Stoke and was somewhat bemused to find the place empty with a big green grassy rectangle where the crisps used to be. He eventually relented to the cheering crowds, cut a ribbon and decided to press on to the Stafford Road Chef for a sausage roll.

Away supporters are housed in the Extra Bet Stand behind the goal, which is an all-seater covered stand. Apparently it’s low, metal roof has enabled past sections of visiting supporters to create a real atmosphere, so our top tip is to leave the space-suit in the car for this one.

HOW TO BLEND IN

Saddle up your horse and head to the nearest saloon for a pint of Bank’s Bitter and a plate of Grorty Dick (note: ‘plate’ not ‘case’). Read the Express & Star and lament letting Ray Graydon leave.

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Saturday 4 October

SCUNTHORPE UNITED Commendably unafraid of shallow boasts, Scunthorpe proudly calls itself, ‘The Industrial Garden Town of North Lincolnshire’, a slogan chosen narrowly ahead of ‘The best town beginning with Scun in the local area’.

Since the decline of the steelworks on which it was built, several efforts have been made to boost the town, indeed the centre of Scunthorpe was demolished in the late 1960s, but unfortunately someone duly rebuilt it.

WHAT’S IT FAMOUS FOR?

In 2001,Ordnance Survey conducted in-dept research which revealed an area just north of Scunthorpe to be officially the dullest place in the UK. Unbelievable. They needed research?

The town also gives its name to a computing term for censorship overreach. The Scunthorpe Problem occurs, when wholly innocent words are blocked as they contain offensive language. The problem arose in 1996 when AOL’s obscenity filters would not permit use of the town’s name, because it contained a particularly offensive term; Scunthorpe.

HOW TO BLEND IN

Have you ever met anyone from Scunthorpe? No, me neither. In fact I don’t know anyone who has. So just sit perfectly still and try and fade into the background, maybe wear a welders’ mask, and never, ever leave.

WHAT’S THE STADIUM LIKE?

Like some kind of uber hipster immersive theatre experience, Scunthorpe have adapted a disused tin warehouse on the outskirts of town to serve as their ‘stadium’. So hipster is Glanford Park that it was an out of town way before all the other clubs started going out of town and before it became mainstream and polished – as the inside of the ground will show you.

United have channelled a true Shoreditch-style retro-vibe to their stadium, with old-school pillars in your view, and exposed brickwork throughout. If you ever make it to the home end you’ll find the terrace behind the goal has a bicycle and salvaged mirrors hanging on the back wall.

GW

a football fanzine for the likes of Doncaster | August 2014 | PS71 | 21

WINDMILLS OF YOUR MIND OUR RESIDENT STATISTICIAN DUTCH UNCLE TAKES A LOOK BACK AT LAST SEASON, AND CHRIS BROWN We all experienced a sad end to last season, followed by uncertainty and minimal clarity during the summer.

So with depressing, but perhaps appropriate, lack of creativity, for this issue I’ve compiled a statistical review of last season, with unsurprisingly more lowlights than highlights.

But let us begin at least with a couple of bright points of consolation. Firstly, Rovers again finished highest in the pyramid of all clubs to have played in the Conference since its inception in 1979. This was the sixth consecutive season in which that has happened.

And despite relegation, it is worth noting that this is still the longest in our history we have been out of the Football League’s basement division; 11 seasons now, the previous best being thenine seasons from 1950-51 to 195859 in old Divisions 2 and 3.

Also, to offer mild warmth, last season’s two away victories was not a club record. On 8 occasions Rovers have won only one away match (last time in 1997-98), and in 1904-05 we lost all of our 17 away matches. However with last season’s wins coming at Sheffield Wednesday and Leeds, it was the only time apart from 1904-05 we have failed to win a match outside of Yorkshire.

Also, the 39 goals scored is the second lowest for Rovers in a full 46 games season, behind only the 30 scored in 1997-98.

With his second spell at the club now having come to an end, it seems an apt time to reflect on Chris Brown’s achievements at the club. When the match at Charlton was abandoned Brown became the first player to have two ‘goals’ for Rovers annulled. Despite that brace not counting, Brown still finished as top scorer, the first time he’s achieved that in his career.

With 22 appearances whilst on loan at Rovers in 2003-04, and 36 appearances in 2012-13, Brown is only the sixth player in Rovers’ history to play in two Championship winning teams.

He completes a notable half-dozen with Sid Bycroft, Paull Todd and Bert Tindill, who each played in both the 1946-47 and 1949-50 Division 3 North title-winning teams, and Alick Jeffrey and Bob Gilfillan, the latter two having each played in the 1965-66 and 1968-69 Division 4 winning sides.

Indeed Brown is the only player in Rovers’ entire history to have played in Championship winning teams at two different levels.

Brown is also sits on three elite Rovers goalscoring lists. Alongside Jimmy Fletcher, Alick Jeffrey, Ron Walker, Greg Blundell, Paul Green, Mark Albrighton, and Steve Foster, he becomes only the eighth player to have scored for Rovers in three different divisions.

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He is only the fourth player to score in four different competitions in one season – doing so in 2012-13. The rest being Graeme Jones, Colin Cramb, Mark McCammon and Brian Stock.

He is one of only three players to have scored for the club in six or more different competitions (League tiers 2, 3 and 4, FA Cup, League Cup and what is currently the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy). Brian Stock has also struck in six, whilst Paul Green found the net for Rovers in seven different competitions.

Chris Brown’s last goal for the club, a penalty at Ipswich on 12 April 2014, came approximately 3,843 days after his first goal for Rovers, at Belle Vue against Bristol Rovers on 4 October 2003. Only Alan Warboys (5,719 days), Alick Jeffrey (5,608), Colin Douglas (4,141) and David Harle (4,005) have a longer span between first and last goals for the club in League or national cup competitions. Incidentally, if we were to count regional competitions then Glyn Snodin would be out on his own in this field with his goal against Brodsworth Miners’ Welfare in the 1999-2000 Sheffield Senior Challenge Cup coming approximately 7,990 days after his first league goal for Rovers, against Orient on 6 May 1985.

One last word on Chris then, and acknowledgement that he is one of very few Rovers players to have followed his father (Alan) in donning a Rovers shirt. Keith Ripley Snr and Jnr, Ernie and Barry Swallow, and Glyn and Lee Snodin are the only ones who otherwise come to mind. Since Alan Brown made nine appearances in Rovers’ promotion

winning side of 1983-84, Alan and Chris are thus the only father and son combination to have both won promotion with Rovers.

And from one rightly lauded Rovers player to another; James Coppinger.

Having ended the season with 360 league appearances, Coppinger is now fourth on Rovers’ all-time list behind leader Fred Emery (417), Colin Douglas (404) and Bert Tindill (401). Copps also ended the season with 406 appearances in all competitions, which again puts him fourth all-time behind the same three men; Colin Douglas (468), Fred Emery (438) and Bert Tindill (429).

As a final note, Coppinger’s appearance at Yeovil means his now only the third man to have played for Rovers in 11 consecutive seasons, having debuted in 2004-05. The feat is emulated by Fred Emery -12 seasons from 1924-25 to 1935-36 - Bert Tindill - 12 seasons from 1946-47 to 1957-58 - and Brian Makepeace - 1950-51 to 1960-61. Five others have achieved ten seasons; Ken Hardwick, Len Graham, Sid Bycroft, Colin Douglas and Glynn Snodin.

Of those, Bert Tindill played in the last two wartime league seasons (194445 and 1945-46) giving a total of 14 seasons playing at the club, whilst Ken Hardwick also played in one wartime season. However, the undisputed longevity king is Sid Bycroft who played during all 6 wartime league seasons from 1940-41 to 1945-46, as well as the aborted 1939-40 season for a theoretical total of 17 consecutive seasons playing for Rovers. So, some way for Copps to go yet.

BW

CAVEAT: No figures quoted in this article are official. Dutch Uncle uses many sources including club handbooks, Rothmans/Sky annuals, and the official Rovers history by Bluff & Watson. For definitive data the reader is referred to Tony Bluff and/or Barry Watson. a football fanzine for the likes of Doncaster | August 2014 | PS71 | 23

MY FIRST MATCH GLEN WILSON USES OUR NEW SERIES OF FIRST ROVERS GAME MEMORIES TO OFFER A CONFESSION New season, new slate. Time to come clean. I have a confession to make. I’m thirty-one years old. That’s not the confession, sadly the ravages of time and a fondness for ale mean that’s all too obvious. No, I say I am thirty-one, to paint a man tumbling head-first towards middle-age, old enough to see beyond the fairy-tale ideal of one life, one love. At different times in your life you will love different people – some work out, some don’t – and the same can be said of football clubs.

So, strained back-story safely instilled for the purpose of justification, I can tell you this. The first time I ever saw Doncaster Rovers play, they were the opposition. They were the others. The challenge. The scum. On my first Belle Vue visit I was in that far flung bufferzone of Main Stand; visitors’ seating.

It is Boxing Day 1990. I am seven years-old, and my team is MUFC; Maidstone United. Yes, Maidstone.

Home town of my mum, granddad, aunt and uncle, and it is with the latter two I go. United! United! I am even given the special honour of taking down my uncle’s ‘Don’t follow me, follow Maidstone United’ sticker from his back window, a lucky ritual he’d established after a trip to Scunthorpe the previous season – when the locals took umbrage to it and dented his door.

There’s a line in Fever Pitch where Nick Hornby explains his scepticism of quoted conversation in autobiographies.

I’m similarly wary of accounts of first

football matches; how many vivid memories do you truly carry forward from your single digit years? Truth is, I’ve no idea who scored, and nowt that happened on field engrained itself in me. Rovers won 3-0, but I had to look that up.

I got in for free. I remember that. A kindly policeman, for such a thing once existed outside cartoons, tapped me on the shoulder as we waited at the turnstile, and ushered me through an open gate to the stairs. “Why don’t you go and wait for your mum and dad up there,” he said. In an age before scandal and Yewtree, my reply of “they’re not my mum and dad” concerned him not a jot. I missed a goal, I remember that to. In the toilets, startled by a roar from beyond the wall, followed by the excited thumping and stomping, of Yorkshire size 9s on the wooden floor of the stand above.

Also in my mind’s haze is a bloke in front whirling a wooden rattle, and biblical rain up to kick-off as we traipsed round the back of the Rosso End trying to work out if Ken Avis’ voice on the breeze had said ‘The game is on’ or ‘off ’. However, each of these may have happened two years later instead when Maidstone again lost 3-0 at Belle Vue, again viewed as a visitor.

That second game would be United’s last ever league fixture. They folded that summer, my first love, left me. I’ve loved again, and things have panned out much better. Football follows life.

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LAWS OF THE GAME SCHOOLYARD EDITION 2014-15 LAW 1 - THE FIELD OF PLAY FIELD SURFACE

Matches may be played on natural grass – with the exception of goalmouths which should be worn to mud or gravel before the match commences – or artificial surfaces, namely concrete or tarmac.

FIELD MARKINGS

The field of play has no fixed shape.

The two boundary lines at right-angles to the goal are called touchlines. These are determined, on one side, by a wall or fence, which seperates the pitch from neighbouring gardens, or a road.

The other touchline is an arbitrary marking far off in the distance, defined by the point at which people get bored of chasing after your winger.

The other two boundaries are the bylines, these run in line with the goal, but are visible only to the goalkeeper who will yell if it’s gone behind, unless he or she cannot be arsed to fetch the ball in which case they will yell “Play on!” making the bylines arbitrary and allowing play to continue.

There are no markings at all on the field of play, with the exception of a disused hop-scotch grid on one wing.

DIMENSIONS

There are no fixed dimensions to the field of play, just so long as it fits within the boundaries identified above.

THE GOAL AREA

Goal areas (or ‘penno boxes’) may be marked either by an identified fencepanel on one touchline, or on the field of play by a particularly large stick, or piece of litter. Where goal area markings are not deployed goalkeepers must adhere to the ‘don’t take the piss’ rule when handling the ball.

GOALS

A goal must be placed on each goalline, much closer to the walled/fenced touchline than the other one.

One goal consists of two upright trees, between 6 and 10 yards apart, or alternatively a similar distance as marked by two fence posts. The other goal should be defined by a Chicago Bulls puffer jacket and a NaffNaff raincoat laid on the floor between 6 and 10 yards apart. The two goals should be roughly the same width as each other, though the one defined by clothing may be narrowed by the goalkeeper if his or her team are on the attack and he or she thinks they can get away with it.

There are no crossbars, the height of the goal is determined by how tall the goalkeeper is, or how ace a shot it was.

If the ball crosses over the posts marked by the jackets, it is the decision of the biggest boy or girl, or the owner of the ball as to whether it went ‘post and in’ or ‘wide’.

(with thanks to Ben Thompson) a football fanzine for the likes of Doncaster | August 2014 | PS71 | 25

VOICE OF THE POP SIDE WHAT DOES THE FUTURE HOLD FOR ROVERS IN LIFE AFTER JR? JOHN COYLE TAKES A LOOK For the second year running, Rovers pre-season preparations have been overshadowed by the possibility of a takeover. Last year it was the attempt

by Sequentia Capital to acquire control of the club, an attempt which stalled and ultimately failed because it did not gain the approval of Rovers’ majority shareholders.

This year, the best part of two months was taken up by another proposed buyout, this one featuring John Ryan and Louis Tomlinson. The TomlinsonRyan Trust’s bid, supported by a crowdfunding scheme which aimed to raise £2m, was given a favourable wind by the major shareholders, but ultimately foundered on the rocks of the Football League’s regulations.

These rules, introduced only recently for clubs in Leagues One and Two, had applied to clubs in the Championship for some time, so John Ryan’s surprise and anger when his bid was rejected suggested that he had been poorly advised. The failure of the crowdfunding scheme also made one suspect that perhaps there had not been sufficient attention to detail among those behind the takeover plan.

Ryan’s subsequent declaration that he is “finished with football” suggests that a significant chapter in Rovers’ history is coming to an end.

It would be remiss of me not to pay tribute to John Ryan, a man whose dynamism, energy and vision combined with a love of his home-town team, took Rovers on an incredible journey. The memorable matches- Stoke, Cardiff, Wembleywill remain as highlights for those who were there, but perhaps his greatest achievement was that Rovers have played five of the last six seasons in the second tier of English football, something they have not done since the 1950s. Under John Ryan’s leadership, Rovers continually punched above their weight.

If it really is the end for John Ryan and Rovers, what does the future hold? Rovers start the 2014-15 season in League One, itself an advance in status for those of us who remember the years in the 1970s and 1990s when the only way we seemed likely to exit the League’s bottom tier was downwards. However, the takeover has seriously delayed team building and even with recent additions, some funded by the sale of James Husband to Middlesbrough, Rovers look to have a much smaller squad than many of their rivals.

The owners, Terry Bramall and Dick Watson, appear to have placed faith in developing young players, a laudable objective but one that is not supported by the state of Rovers’ Academy.

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Although several products of the Academy are in the first team squad, the likes of Liam Wakefield, Alex Peterson and Harry Middleton are all players with potential rather than being the finished article. Although Rovers’ under-18 side has performed reasonably well in the last three years, they do not play in a League which stretches them sufficiently or pits them against young players of a higher calibre. (Hull City, who play in the same League, suffer similar problems of youth development.) In addition, the Elite Player Performance Plan (EPPP) allows bigger academies (generally run by Premier League clubs) to hoover up the best talent at smaller ones like the Rovers Academy.

We might, of course, be about to unearth another Ian Snodin or Brian Deane, but I wouldn’t put money on it.

Maybe a clue to the future lies in one of Ryan’s frequent fixations- the size of Rovers’ fanbase. Rovers’ average home League attendances have fallen from a high point of 11,964 in 2008-09, their first season in the Championship, to 9,041 last season.

The latter figure represented an increase of 14% on the figure for 201213, when Rovers won League One, though interestingly only 8% when

away fans are taken into account.

Perhaps the more important stat is that during a period when Rovers have enjoyed their highest League placings for over 50 years, gates have declined by an average of almost 3,000 a game.

There are lots of factors at work, including the fact that the UK has gone through one of the severest recessions in modern times, but it does beg the question as to whether Doncaster can support a Championship team. There are other factors to throw into the mix. The disparity between TV income for clubs in the Championship and League One has facilitated a rise in wage bills in the higher league while ensuring that relegated clubs experience a very hard landing indeed. The way in which Financial Fair Play is applied between the Championship and League One represents a significant difference too.

While Championship clubs are not allowed to run up excessive losses, those in League One are expected to base their spending (rather than losses) on turnover. The best way to increase turnover is to increase attendances, but for a club that has just been relegated this is unlikely to happen- quite the opposite, in fact.

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VOICE OF THE POP SIDE CONTINUED FROM PAGES 26 AND 27 All this suggests that any notion that Rovers, or indeed any other club, could “yo-yo” between the Championship and League One is not sustainable. To suddenly increase the budget to compete at Championship level and then cut it back to cope with the reduced income and constraints in League One might be done once (with difficulty) but can’t be done on an annual basis. That doesn’t mean that we should abandon hope of future success or settle for years of mediocrity. There is a way forward and I believe the strategy suggested by the owners shows that they are thinking in the right direction.

Rovers need to build a young team, giving those who have potential contracts of a decent length and aiming to get back in the Championship within three or four years. A young side, playing attractive football, could bring back some of the missing punters and even though some of those youngsters will be sold on at a profit, they will hopefully have other promising lads coming behind them.

contract, the big academies reject many more aspiring players. It is amongst those that Rovers must find their future stars.

Basically we need to adopt a similar model to the one that worked for Crewe Alexandra for many years. They produced a lot of good youngsters through their own Academy, of course, but some of their biggest successes came from player who had not quite made the grade at other clubs. David Platt and Robbie Savage, both released from Manchester United’s Academy, are perhaps two of the best examples. All we need now is someone who can go and find these rough diamonds. I did think that Brian Flynn might be the man to do it, carrying out a similar role to Dario Gradi at Crewe or Barry Fry at Peterborough.

However, Flynn and Rovers have now parted company and the club will need to look elsewhere for a starfinder. The prospects for success in the post-John Ryan era might not look too rosy in the short term, but a focus on youth may just offer us the prospect of a better long-term future.

The big question is where do we get our ‘bright young team’ from? It is doubtful that our Academy will produce them in sufficient numbers, so Rovers have to become known as the club that gives players a second chance.

For every lad earning a professional 28 | PS71 | August 2014 | a football fanzine for the likes of Doncaster

JC

DRSG: AN INTRO A NEW ROVERS SUPPORTERS’ GROUP HAS EMERGED OVER THE SUMMER, NEIL TAYLOR INTRODUCES YOU As I write it’s quarter to ten on Friday evening, I’ve comprehensively missed the initial popular STAND deadline and I’m up at half three in the morning to start the long trek from Newcastle to Yeovil - damn you to hell, Football League fixtures computer - so please don’t expect this article to reach the heights of literary excellence that this fine publication is known for.

So, that was quite the summer for little old Donny Rovers, complete with our now traditional botched takeover and players airing their grievances in public. I’ve often thought that if they ever made a film of our recent history it’d be laughed at for being too far-fetched. Bought by a pantomime villain and arch racing horse-tamperer, the botched arson attempt by ex-SAS members (leaving their mobiles at the scene of the crime, if that’s the level of competence our Special Forces are at I want better value for my taxes), sold to the local boy done good in John Ryan, the rise from fifth to second tier at a phenomenal rate, the cup wins, Millennium Stadium, Wembley, Brentford and, of course, the down swing, the experiment, SOD allegedly sacked by SMS, the two (count ‘em) botched takeovers, being on the front page of the Sun, boardroom splits and temper tantrums, the list goes on and on. To say it’s a roller-coaster ride

would be exaggerating the amount of twists and turns on the average theme park attraction.

Of course there has been one, maligned and ignored constant throughout all this; us, the fans.

Football fans are a fairly easily pleased bunch, as long as we’re winning we’ll usually accept anything in good humour but there is strength in numbers for those that want to see improvements, we at the Doncaster Rovers Supporters Group (DRSG) are growing faster than we ever expected.

We owe a massive thank you to you, the fans, for showing your support in helping us to be collectively heard.

We have already been making developments in how we can get your opinions through to the club, and are in the process of establishing a Supporters’ Panel to try to gauge what you love, loathe or think needs changing about your football experience at the Keepmoat. We are looking for participants from all ages and demographics so if you love Doncaster Rovers and would like to be involved then it would be great to hear from you.

Please get in touch with us via the contact form on our website doncasterroverssupportersgroup.org - or connect with us through our Facebook page.

NT

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THE GARY BRABIN MEMORIAL LOUNGE KERRANG! MAGAZINE EDITOR JAMES MCMAHON TELLS US ALL ABOUT THE NEW LOVE OF HIS LIFE It shames me to admit that there are members of my own family I don’t love as much as I love the new Doncaster Rovers away kit.

My first Rovers shirt came in 1992.

I was twelve and given the extent of my purchasing power at the time stretched little beyond a copy of Amiga Power and, sporadically, a bag of cola bottles, it was most likely a Christmas present.

It looked a little bit like a series of Soundcloud recordings pasted upon a tight, nylon white shirt.

Doncaster Free Press on the chest, the Matchwinner logo above and slightly to the right.

I cannot think of it without seeing Gary Brabin bursting out of the sleeves and neckline. I believe it eventually ended up as a duster in the McMahon household. The shirt, not Gary Brabin.

Aged fifteen I graduated to the more conventional blood red strip emboss with the cheery logo of the Doncaster Star and tiny white arcs of white on the shorts that looked a bit like it had pockets, or the shirt had fangs, depending upon your ability for fantastical escape.

Matchwinner remained the creator.

Oh the irony.

It was a design that stayed with minor adjustments until August 1997, from whence to May 1998, Rovers skulked around with shards of red geometric shapes on the arm.

It was a shirt worthy of relegation and of Prince Moncrieffe. Thanks to a burgeoning interest in cigarettes and Britpop, I didn’t buy this shirt.

Yet I still owned it, having picked up a discarded large on the Belle Vue pitch on the final day of the season.

No matter how many times I washed it, the words ‘F**k You Richardson You C**t’ just wouldn’t come out. That provided a talking point at university, I can tell you. As well as, ‘why don’t you have a sponsor?’ of course. ‘Well, there was this guy right, and he was our chairman, but he hated us, but he liked the land we played on, and he employed these guys and gave them some matches and petrol, and…’ Man, I was a hoot at parties.

And then we had hoops. Forever and ever and ever, we have had hoops.

And, given the wonders that have occurred since the dark days of the late nineties, to paraphrase the tuneful American R&B act En Vogue, it’s easy to propose that perhaps it’s the hoops that have dragged us back to life, back to reality, back to the hear and now, yeah – rather than, say, the money of John Ryan, Jamie Coppinger, etc.

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Which is odd really, given that it’s only a period of twenty years, starting in 1930, ending in 1950, with a brief revival in the early eighties, and of course, the avant garde take on them I sported as a twelve-year-old, that Rovers have sported said design.

I’m not sure we’re especially a team that plays in hoops, like say, QPR or Celtic are a team that play in hoops.

We’re the reds aren’t we? Except we once spent more than a decade playing in white. And the greatest moment of our recent history, away at Brentford, I’m sure you remember it, was played in green. And our first ever strip was blue, with a yellow cross and a lovely little blue hat with a red bobble on top (a Tam o’ Shanter to give the hat it’s correct 1879 name).

Yoooooou reeeeeeds?

Which is why it brings me no shame to say that the new Doncaster Rovers away kit is my favourite Doncaster Rovers kit.

Even if popular STAND editor Glen Wilson tells me, each Wednesday night that I pull said shirt on at 5-a-side, that ‘it’s not really a proper Rovers kit, it would be better in green’ before throwing himself around the floor like the mercurial, if leggy, goalkeeper he is.

Sure, I have basically been bewitched by ‘the sash’. But who doesn’t love a sash? From endless reruns of Sharpe on Dave to memories of coming third in the egg and spoon race at school, much of what is great about existence can be attributed to a sash. And doesn’t it look majestic parting the ocean of blue that the good ship One Call sails upon? I’ll answer for you.

Yes, yes it does.

But more than anything, the new Doncaster Rovers away kit is a question mark.

It has no past, it only has future, and, for a club with so many questions hanging above it right now, that seems strangely fitting. Who will pay the bills? Is Paul Dickov actually that small, or do the Football League Show make him stand in a gulley each week?

Are we a Championship club or have we found our level? Will Nathan Tyson ever score again?

The new Doncaster Rovers away strip is therefore less a shirt, but a metaphor.

As I will remind popular STAND editor Glen Wilson as I lash an inadequately pumped Sports Direct purchased football past his flailing arms on Wednesday night. ‘Less a shirt than a metaphor’. If anyone from the Rovers commercial department is reading this, you can have that.

JM

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JACK THE MINER’S COALFACE JACK THE MINER PUTS DOWN HIS PICK & SHOVEL TO GET TO GRIPS WITH SCHADENFREUDE Schadenfreude.

Dictionary definition... ‘One person’s misfortune is another’s happiness.’

The majority can’t pronounce it. Many can’t spell it. Some don’t know what it is, but most football supporters rely on it to get by, on depressing Saturday nights and gloomy Sundays.

So, whilst still feeling physically sick at what happened at Bolton deep into added time, am I one of those taking delight in the downfall of others?

Take Bristol Rovers. It’s not so many years ago they were pretty disgusted at losing to ‘a Conference side’ like Doncaster. I used to like Bristol Rovers as a kid. I loved the blue and white quartered shirts. A kit that seemed to hark back to an era where goalies wore thick roll-necked jumpers and players used a heavy, laced ball smeared with freshly applied dubbin.

Their dismissive attitude towards ‘the likes of Doncaster’ was in my mind when we played them in the Football League Trophy final at the Millennium Stadium and they went down further in my estimation that afternoon when around 40,000 of their fans left the stadium like lemmings at the full-time whistle, leaving just a few hundred of their supporters to applaud their heroes as they collected their runners-up medals.

And now they’re off to the Conference themselves. Does that lift my spirits?

Not really. Alan Warboys says the first results he looks out for are DRFC and Bristol Rovers. He had some special times down there and if Big Al isn’t happy, I’m not happy.

Perhaps I should take solace in Torquay’s demise as they return to the Conference? On our return to League football they were offended at the very thought of being on the same pitch as ‘a Conference side’ like Rovers. Does their return to the Conference for a second time lift my spirits? I have to say no. We beat them to the title that season and I can’t overlook the fact I once had a Torquay based teenage holiday fling with a Devon girl who worked on an ice cream stand. I had a free 99 and an extra flake every day for a week - and a smile so wide I could eat a banana sideways.

Of course, we’re not the only ones playing the schadenfreude game. I’m very conscious that certain opposition supporters have been dancing in the streets, ever since last season ended.

Brentford for example. They’ve had a busy year re-writing history and persuading the press to do the same.

The media took the line that it was a rightful outcome due to the ‘massive injustice’ they suffered at the hands of those northern oiks on the final day of the season twelve months earlier.

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The table, or so I’m told doesn’t lie.

The last time I looked it showed Rovers won more points than anyone else and that Brentford lost all the games that mattered. So, am I losing sleep over Brentford’s delirium at the not-so-beautiful symmetry of two very different late goals twelve months apart? Well, no. They lost without dignity and showed little of it in their moment of triumph but frankly I admire them for re-grouping after last season’s meltdown and doing well despite the loss of Uwe Rösler.

Brentford weren’t alone in dancing in the streets when Birmingham secured the late equaliser to send us down.

Bournemouth, it seems, are still a bit mardy-arsed about not getting ‘their’ trophy last season. A wrong has been righted, they say. All I can suggest is that they look at the Bournemouth players’ medals. They’ll probably find they say on the back, ‘League One 2012-13 Runners-Up’. Then, perhaps they can ask... I dunno... let’s say, James Coppinger, to show them the medal he was given last season. I’m thinking it probably says ‘League One 2012-13 Winners’. Or it might say, ‘League One 2012-13 Champions.’

I really couldn’t say, but it might bring some much needed clarity to the South coast. They seem a little confused.

Do I bear AFC Bournemouth any ill will? Of course not. The YouTube ‘We want our trophy now’ clip is a priceless thing of beauty to be treasured for all eternity and besides, their club doctor is my best friend’s brother-in-law. I couldn’t be petty about Bournemouth.

So why do I feel so mellow and forgiving? Is it age? Is it an acceptance that Sturgeon’s Law which says that everything is crap until proven otherwise - is spot on? Or is it the effect two bottles of Budgen’s sparkling Cava (usually £9.95 but on offer today for £7.49)?

Have I abandoned my reliable old friend, schadenfreude, for good? I’d like to think so. Argentina’s delight at Brazil’s semi-final demise was greater than the joy they took from their own semi-final victory. That’s sad and its ugly. It’s not a great way to go through my life; cheering every Tiger Woods missed putt, enjoying each misplaced Andy Murray backhand and checking the internet on a weekly basis to make absolutely certain that Rushden & Diamonds are definitely still playing at the Dog and Duck Ground in the United Counties League. It’s worth checking though. You need to be certain about these things.

JTM

Bernard Glover's

BELIEVE IT or NOT SINCE RETIRING FROM FOOTBALL, ONE-TIME ROVERS STRIKER, NEIL ‘GOALS’ CAMPBELL HAS ESTABLISHED A NEW CAREER AS AN INTERNATIONALLY RENOWNED HAND MODEL. a football fanzine for the likes of Doncaster | August 2014 | PS71 | 33

MEMORABLE MEMORABILIA CONTINUING OUR FEATURE ON FAVOURITE ROVERS ITEMS, RICH COLBY WITH A TREASURED PROGRAMME I’ve watched and loved football for twenty-three years. It has brought me happiness, sadness, euphoria and despair. During that time I’ve collected stacks of memorabilia.

Shirts, scarves, hats, programmes, books, videos and DVDs, pictures, badges, the list goes on and on. I even have a programme that has on its cover, the signature of a highly regarded member of the strikers’ graveyard; Justin Jackson.

When me and my now wife initially moved in together eight years ago, the look of fear on her face was a picture when she first saw the sheer amount of Rovers related ‘crap’ (her word, not mine) I had to bring with me. Sadly, she won that first battle and the aforementioned ‘crap’ has lived in my parents’ loft ever since.

When it comes to my favourite piece of Rovers memorabilia, it is no contest.

November 14, 1992, Doncaster Rovers versus Hartlepool United, FA Cup, Matchday Programme. I was eight years old, when my dad picked me up from school one Friday. He asked if I’d like to go and watch the football on Saturday. As all he banged on about at the time was his beloved Manchester United, I thought we were off to the Theatre of Dreams to watch Giggs, Robson, Sharpe etc.

“No, no no, we’re off to watch Rovers, Mike Jeffrey plays for them, they’re playing Hartlepool in the cup”.

To be entirely honest, my memory of the game itself is pretty much a blur. However, I do remember the whole excitement of just being in a

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real football ground. This wasn’t a game on TV, this was real. One of the best things of all is that it was bonding time with me and my old man. I asked the standard questions that every child voices at their first game; who’s that? What colour is our team in? Who’s that? How long is left?

Who’s that? Can I have a hotdog? And then the ultimate classic, how come there’s no commentator?

From this day, Belle Vue became like a second home to me for the next fourteen years, visits gradually increasing as I got older. I even used to sneak out to the home games every now and again when I was “too young to go on my own”. Amazing what you

can achieve when you save your dinner money for a couple of days and tell your parents you’re off down the park on a Saturday afternoon. Sorry mum and dad.

I look at this programme every now and again. It reminds me of that first visit and what I signed up for. The roller-coaster ride of Donny Rovers, the port-a-cabin club shop, getting in for a quid when you’re eighteen, the lottery of not stepping in a puddle in the Main Stand car park after a night game; the list goes on.

As for the game, we lost 2-1. And Mike Jeffrey - he didn’t even bloody play!

RC

A SUMMER IN TWEETS NOT ON TWITTER? DON’T WORRY, WE’VE GOT YOUR BACK WITH THE SUMMER’S HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE ROVERS PLAYERS THAT ARE Reece Wabara @ReeceWabara #dragonsden

Theo Robinson @theorobinson09 Go on @scottyarf lad boom haha

Cedric Evina @CeddyEvina Anyone else buzzing about game of thrones tonight like I am?

Harry Forrester @harry_forrester Lovely bit of salmon this is @sainsburys... Very well done Paul Quinn @quinny_14 dreading packing absolute hate it...

Cedric Evina @CeddyEvina Anybody have a clue what channel brazil are on later?

Reece Wabara @ReeceWabara Sheffield Jed Steer @JedSteer Chipped windscreen Raging

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FROM BENEATH THE STATUE ANOTHER SUMMER, ANOTHER FAILED TAKEOVER EDITOR GLEN WILSON PULLS THE SHORT STRAW Well, we made it to page 36, and still no-one has taken a stab at our second successive summer of failed financial flirting. Sadly, seen as the only article left between here and the back cover is ‘Reg Ipsa’, I’ll have to have a bash.

You see the problem is I try to forget about football over the summer. Each May I step outside the game, leave it behind and, blink into the light of a new world, like a freed hostage who’s just had the blindfold torn from their eyes as they emerge tumbling from the side door of a transit. Free from my captors I find I have new things; a reduced sense of pessimism, spare Saturday afternoons and more of my disposable income and so it seems a shame to waste all this sitting at a computer arguing about the syntax of a player’s latest tweet.

But this summer, despite my best efforts, I found my blissful ignorance disrupted. First, over the shoulder of a fellow commuter on the Tube, a glimpse of an Evening Standard and the One Direction lad in a Rovers shirt.

There he is again on the front page of a tabloid in the newsagents by the office. The ubiquitous presence of John Ryan, teeth gleaming, unavoidably in your vision like the glow of a light-bulb stared at by mistake. And then came snide remarks, about boybands, and teenagers, and fan-girls, and then the questions, because I’m the Doncaster fan they know; am I ok with it, what do I think. Well, what do I think?

I’m not going to bother with the usual ‘of course I’m grateful… but’ JR caveat here, because I’ve repeated it often enough and I think we’ve gone past the point of Ryan being afforded that grace. Because it’s a wonderful thing he did to push Doncaster to a point where we can determine whether we want to be a yo-yo club between second and third tiers, or a sustainable club (or a combination of both), but bloody hell has he made it hard to inspire anything other than annoyance in these last two years.

John Ryan loves Doncaster Rovers. You can’t argue with that statement. John Ryan is desperate to see Doncaster Rovers in the Premier League. You can’t argue with that one either.

But it’s the desperation which is the danger; it stands in front of reason. As the ever excellent John Coyle points out elsewhere in this issue the Football League rules on which his bid fell down, may have only been introduced recently for clubs in Leagues One and Two, but they had applied to clubs in the Championship for some time.

To not take that into account, before launching a high profile and well publicised takeover was perhaps a telling example of Ryan’s heart-overhead fanaticism for his home-town club.

The takeover by the TomlinsonRyan Trust - or ‘John Direction’ as excellently dubbed by popular STAND’s own Tony Greenhall – of

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course hinged as much on the popularity of Louis Tomlinson as the undoubted fandom of Ryan. This was made clear when the initial agreements were stalled by disputes over merchandise image rights.

Of course we could be wrong, and for all we know there could be a growing trend among kids to have Jamie McCombe pencil-cases and Paul Keegan loom-bands, and One Direction’s management wanted in.

But it is probably safe to presume not.

‘Louis’ Big Idea’; a Crowdfunder project to ‘help get Doncaster in the Premier League’, shone a greater spotlight on the manner in which the smiling face of a young handsome Doncastrian was key to this takeover. With the option to pledge £250 to ‘grab a selfie with Louis before the game’, the scheme seemed much more aligned to draw in fans of One Direction than those of the Rovers. Whoever the intended audience, the figures were clearly over ambitious, and it inevitably fell short by more than half its £2million target.

A professional football club, it turns out, cannot be financed on the pocket money of teenage girls alone. Who knew?

When it became clear that target would not be met, the takeover fell away like an over-dunked Digestive and went down with a final statement concluding that owing to the Crowdfunder project’s failure, Ryan was unable to meet Football League requirements. Bizarrely, within hours both Ryan and Tomlinson had distanced their self from the statement their own organisation had put out. On BBC Radio Sheffield Ryan labelled it ‘a complete fabrication’ which had ‘been put out by somebody wanting to cause trouble’. Tomlinson meanwhile took to Twitter: ‘I was explicitly told that

the deal to buy the club was not dependent on the money raised by Crowdfunding. Unfortunately I was misled.’

Ryan, as he’s a want to do, quickly shifted blame, this time onto the Football League, calling it a ‘scandal’, but when sentiment is removed you can’t really fault the League questioning a deal tabled on the back of finance that was only ever speculated. I think I’d be more concerned for the game if they’d let it go though.

The bizarre denouement of all this was an evening watching on as Doncaster Rovers trended on twitter. It’s the sort of exposure that a small club like ours could only dream of, well, so long as you didn’t look too closely at the content: ‘The Doncaster Rovers can go die,’ being fairly typical of the thousands of messages bouncing across the web. You see, hell hath no fury like a Directioner scorned.

So what has this second summer of big-on-promises, short-on-substance takeover talk ultimately given us?

A split supporter-base, angry teenyboppers, a disrupted pre-season, and a manager left with minimal time to prepare a cobbled together squad.

We’ve had better off-seasons.

So, what do I think? I feel sorry for Tomlinson, his heart seems to be in the right place, but he’s clearly been terribly advised. And as for Ryan?

Well, I don’t want to end up hating someone who once delivered so much.

So if he is, as he told Radio Sheffield, ‘done with football’, then for his sake as much as Rovers’ that is probably for the best, before his ambition finally does strip away the gloss of his genuine achievements.

GW

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REG IPSA: LEGAL BEAGLE OUR RESIDENT LEGAL ADVISOR IS ALMOST SOBER AND READY TO ANSWER YOUR QUESTIONS STAR LETTER WIGGING PEER Dear Reginald, My missus works on the bins and often gets mistaken for a bloke. I decided to treat her to a posh £3 hairdo at the training college. The only problem is that they haven’t done her sideburns and she now looks like Bradley Wiggins. The young lass who cut her hair was doing her best but we keep getting funny looks in the pub as we look like the Krankies.

Brian Beard, Highfields

REG RESPONDS Thanks for the photo Brian, I’ve added it to my collection. I would suggest a Rovers cap until it grows back. If she can carry a tune she could always get a job as a tribute act for Paul Weller down at The Leopard.

THE BRAG TRADE Reg, My old mongrel dog is on his last legs. He dribbles everywhere, is covered with matted fur with poo stuck to it. He is half blind and keeps walking in circles and bumping into things. The smell and damage is bad but we’ve grown to love him. Have you any advice ?

Winnie Lott, Rossington

THE BRAG TRADE Reg, My daughter has got a new bloke called Nigel. He is a cocky so and so and is always bragging about his jet set lifestyle and how he should be living in Monte Carlo. However I know he is really a drain clearer for the council. My daughter has invited me for a big birthday do at her house and I am worried I might have too much to drink and say something I should not. Any advice?

Dick Sprout, Cusworth

REG RESPONDS The Rovers have a similar dilemma; people close by, talking rubbish and thinking they are millionaires. We call them Blades. I suggest you treat Nigel the same way. Simply nod, show sympathy and then phone in to Radio Sheffield afterwards. I’m sure your daughter will get a whiff of his lies eventually.

REG RESPONDS It’s tough I know Winnie. What you need is a dog lover, who is fond of giving those that are well and truly past it one last, ill-advised, lease of life. With that in mind, I would suggest getting him an agent and seeing if Harry Redknapp will have him off your hands.

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HB