ISSUE 60
EDITORIAL Friends, Rovers, Doncastrians, Let me start by thanking you for bravely striding towards one of our band of frankly odd-looking fanzine sellers to purchase Issue 60 of popular STAND. You’d be surprised by how many people don’t, and the stilted communication of a fanzine sale is the only human interaction our sellers get outside of captivity. In monetary terms this transaction cost you just a pound. Just as it has done for the preceding 59 issues. Fifteen seasons without a single price rise; there can’t be much in football, if anything, which can offer a similar boast. You don’t need me to tell you modern football is expensive. You don’t need me to, but I’m going to anyway. But I’m not going to wax lyrical about a sepia tinted mythical age when we could go watch a match, have six pints and a fish supper on the way home and still have change from a shilling,
because I can’t. In my adult life I’ve never known attending football as anything other than a dear do. The key problem with football pricing – from tickets, to merchandise, to players even - is its insularity. Cost comparisons, assessments on value for money are only ever made in relation to other participants in an over inflated game. It’s like promoting your Faberge egg as a worthwhile purchase because it’s cheaper than another Faberge egg. Take ticket prices for example, clubs often boast that their match tickets are cheaper than other sides in the same division, but what comfort does that offer us? So what if we’re £2 cheaper than Colchester? Or £1 less than Oldham? It’s not like we’re shopping around for our football. We’re Rovers fans... we’re stuck here. What is considered reasonable pricing in the world of Faberge eggs, is still, in the real world, seen as a ludicrous price to pay for a jewelled orb you can’t even dip your soldiers in. And so it is with football. £20 is reasonable compared to the rest of League One, but in the real world that twenty could provide you much more than 90 minutes of twenty-two men
ISSUE 60 // CONTENTS 03. Editorial 06. Previously at the Rovers 10. What Are They Talking About? 13. Secret Lives of the Rovers 14. Voice of the Pop Side 17. Rotherham Lonely Hearts 18. Blowing My Own Trumpet
20. Windmills of Your Mind 24. To Lindum and Back 26. Seasons in Retrospect 29. Staying with the Rovers 30. Jack the Miner’s Coalface 32. Non-League Day 2012 35. Sing-a-long-a-Pop-Stand
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taking it in turns to try and con a fella with a whistle and his two mates.
Since last time: The Belles secure a point
But, like too many facets of modern football, it has just become accepted as the norm. Supporters make up the shortfall for players’ earnings. You have to pay £20 if you want your team to be competitive. Somehow we’ve just come to accept that it takes 6,000 people to cover the salaries of 18 sportsmen. And at the top level it is just another world. Did those who paid a minimum £62 to watch Arsenal against Chelsea the other week really get value for their money? League football is becoming less a hobby, or a habit, and more a day out or an occasion. Watch Match of the Day tonight, and when one of the six clubs that make up ‘the big four’ have a corner note how many of those spectators near the flag, rather than being caught up in the tension, are busy photographing said player on their camera phone. Fans at the top level have been replaced by spectators, by tourists; for whom it is less about the result
Since last time: Issue 59 Going on Sale
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and more about getting a good close-up of Gareth Bale to use as their Facebook cover photo. ‘Modern football’ and all that encapsulates is now the norm for most folk under the age of twenty. Their whole footballing lives have been lived between Champions League Group stages and Super Sundays. That’s what football is. It’s the Premier League. The rest doesn’t matter. That’s not football, there’s no ‘banter’ outside the top flight, that’s all just a sideshow; an oddity for the freaks and the geeks. Just last weekend I was watching the Football League Show, with the sound off naturally, whilst Clem took his own brand of overfamiliar music teacher mateyness to Stevenage for a feature. During the piece, inbetween Clem harassing the staff with nonsensical questioning like a mauve jumper clad Jim Henson creation that had gone sentient, there was footage of the players signing autographs for young fans in replica shirts. Not Stevenage shirts no, Manchester United ones. What message does popularSTAND // ISSUE 60 // OCT-NOV 2012
this send to the players? Can I have your autograph please as dad won’t take us to Old Trafford? That is what the hype of modern football has spurned; children who are the living, breathing manifestation of those shit ‘my other car is a Porsche’ bumper stickers’.
To end with a few words on these sheets of paper in your hand, this is now my ninth edition as editor and given that the only criticism of issue 59 came before it was even printed, I feel it’s safe to presume we are moving in the right direction with the ‘zine. Readers expect different things from a fanzine and so it can be a fine balancing act trying to merge what we feel it should be, with what you have said you want from popular STAND . Where possible we have listened to feedback when it has been offered; to that end we have made a conscious effort to up the percentage of what one reader termed ‘more obvious humour’. One example of where popular demand has outweighed popular STAND is Saunders P.I.; initially intended as a one issue filler piece, it turned out to be the most complimented feature in my editorship, so he lives on to fight further mysteries inside this issue. Alongside that we have further fantastic content from the usual suspects, as we continue to deliver you the best Doncaster Rovers related reading material around; a statement that I am pleased to say is as truthful as it is biased.
PAUL KEEGAN
Taking up both pumps at Bessaccarr petrol station with a 61 Black Merc.
spotter: @MichaelBurton94
SAM HIRD
Coming out of JJB Sports on Wheatley Hall Road, clutching a bag though not a JJB one. He was on his phone and looked contemplative.
spotter: @DarrenBurkeDFP
MARTIN WOODS
Walking out of Co-op in Cantley with bags full of shopping. Not sure what he’d bought. He went into his house on the corner
spotter: @mattyorange_
DAVID COTTERILL
Shopping in M&S. He was at the selfservice till providing the wonga and his better half seemed to be enjoying the M&S experience more
Enjoy the fanzine and the game. Viva Rovers.
GW
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spotter: @paulgoodwinDFP
SAM HIRD
At the Garden Centre I work at. He bought compost, pansies, geraniums and a pot. His girlfriend is fit.
spotter: @MichaelBurton94
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PREVIOUSLY AT THE ROVERS Been away recently? How was it? Did you have a nice time? Alright for some eh? Anyway, enough pleasantries, here’s popular STAND's regular diary feature to bring you up to speed on what you missed whilst you were away.
Saturday 25th August
Tuesday 28th August
Less double header, more double headache as the Keepmoat Stadium’s first duo fixture Saturday ends in defeat for both Rovers and the Belles. A decent half an hour for Rovers in which they had Crawley on the back front sadly tailed off into nothingness, with the visitors controlling the second half and snatching a frankly deserved winner late in the game. I spent the whole first half tying to remember just who Crawley reminded us of, and then it hit me, it was every side Rovers faced at home during 1998-99. Strong, solid, organised, frustrating and set up so as you knew that if Rovers didn’t score, they inevitably would snatch one. In the 6pm kickoff the Belles were soundly beaten by FA Women’s Super League leaders Arsenal; the Gunners proved just too strong for Donny en route to a 4-0 win. More disappointing was that just over 300 saw the Belles’ defeat - their average this season is nearer 600 - though it’s hard to say whether the poor afternoon for Rovers affected the attendance. A lot of men may have realised they had more pressing encounters involving their right boot and domestic pets, come 5pm.
Well, who’d of thunk it? Perhaps Saturday’s second-half surrender was all just a smoke-screen to encourage Hull, poor old Hull, to under estimate us... again. Only once have Hull triumphed in Doncaster since the introduction of colour, although they looked on course to rectify that early on in this game as they raced into a 2-0 lead inside the first ten minutes. But on the half hour mark Dave Syers brought Rovers back into it, with a great clunking challenge from James Husband soon after managing to both enthuse the home ground and rattle Hull. Rob Jones levelled things up on the hour mark and from then on there only seemed likely to be one winner especially after Paul McKenna was sent off with ten minutes to play; Syers striking the winner in the final minute to spark unfamiliar scenes of buoyant joy in the home sections of the Keepmoat. Unable to make the game I had a look on the VSC board to get a summary of the difference between Saturday’s performance and this one, the gist of the replies was “passion”... “lots more passion”... which is a hard thing to quantify, or picture. Presumably the players were getting down right and dirty up against corner flags, running the
Rovers 0-1 Crawley Town
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Rovers 3-2 Hull City
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length of the pitch into slow motion embraces on halfway, responding to every referee decision like a doctor in a US daytime soap star trying to come to terms with a lost patient. No wonder Hull couldn’t cope with us.
Thursday 30th August
With impeccable timing, in a week when some posters on Rovers messageboards have been arguing the case to encourage Willie McKay’s involvement in the club again, the agent lands himself in the press in typically understated style. McKay was pulled over by police for using his mobile phone whilst driving down Pall Mall. Having pulled him over the officers then discovered that McKay was also banned from driving, and carrying a bag of cocaine in his car. The agent was fined £6,115 in court which he paid immediately.
Friday 31st August
Something of an end of an era at Rovers as longest serving player Jamie Coppinger moves to Nottingham Forest on loan. Coppinger isn’t the only Rover reuniting with ex-manager Sean O’Driscoll either as Billy Sharp arrives at the City Ground on the same day from Southampton under a similar deal. Eight years Coppinger has been at Rovers, I wondered how many different team-mates he’s had in that time, so I checked. Turns out Coppinger has played alongside 137 different players in his spell at Rovers, a fascinatingly wide array of players from very different eras, incorporating everyone from Chris Beech to Habib Beye. The disappointment of Coppinger leaving is mildly tempered with a decent acquisition coming the other way in the form of Iain Hume; the experienced and talented winger
joining Rovers on loan from fellow League One side Preston.
Saturday 1st September Yeovil Town 2-1 Rovers
When I think Yeovil away, I think of hanging out of the attic window of a student house, trying to point my makeshift television aerial (metal coat-hanger on a wire) in the direction of the Yorkshire region so I could see Ricky Ravenhill’s winner on the late news. It’s probably a kind of aversion therapy, happy thoughts to dissuade from it being the only winning goal Rovers have struck at Huish Park in our last eight visits. We just don’t win in Yeovil; we’re the Hull to their Doncaster. What is it about that corner of Somerset that renders us incapable of taking three points? Perhaps we’re unable to cope with the humidity caused by the hot air from Gary Johnson’s boasts about his time in Latvia, perhaps it’s because their ground is named after the sound made by a bus stopping. I guess we’ll never know. Still, Billy Paynter got off the mark, so that’s something.
Monday 3rd September
Club Statement proclaimed the official website. Must be something important. Has a director left? A player? A manager even? Are we in debt? Oh wait no, it’s something much more serious, its John Ryan keeping hold of his Bentley after the press reported that he’d give the car to Kyle Bennett if he scored twenty goals. “Despite this being a bit of banter from Chairman to player, it has generated much media interested but John has been quick to point out that this was only a joke and he really meant that he would take him for a ride if he hit the target 20 times so he could impress his girlfriend.”
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fortnight without a game. David Cotterill opened the scoring for Rovers with a firmly hit shot from the edge of the box. Colchester equalised before the break, but then did the decent thing in the second half with Andrew Bond taking the initiative to head Cotterill’s cross into his own net to secure a win for Rovers and leave the table looking a lot healthier from a Rovers perspective... up to ninth.
PREVIOUSLY AT THE ROVERS // CONTINUED Saturday 8th September
No game for Rovers due to the volume of international callups from the Oldham Athletic squad; about as unforeseen as circumstances can be. The Belles are in action though, hosting Bristol Academy at the Keepmoat and continuing their recent upturn in form in the process; a Jess Sigsworth goal gives them a 1-1 draw, following up recent wins over Lincoln and Everton.
Thursday 13th September
Tuesday 18th September Sheffield United 0-0 Rovers
Rovers announce that the Keepmoat will be hosting a special charity match to raise money for Bluebell Wood Hospice, featuring One Direction star (it says here) Louis Tomlinson who his from Doncaster. The pop singer will bring his former team The Three Horseshoes to the Keepmoat for a game against a Rovers XI. In promotional material for the event Tomlinson is pictured wearing a Rovers shirt, which is nice, but would be nicer if during his last, much feted ‘homecoming’ he’d not been pictured kicking a ball about at the Keepmoat in a Manchester United shirt. Still, it’s bound to sell well, so the Stadium being involved is fully understandable. Just a shame it will probably be the first visit many of the town’s folk have made to the ground.
Saturday 15th September
Colchester United 1-2 Rovers
Always a relief to see a winnable away game won, especially after a
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To describe this as far from a classic would still perhaps be too gushing praise for a dour South Yorkshire stalemate. What pluses there are in the game belong to Rovers; this was after all a point gained at one of, if not the, most difficult away games in the division, and a clean sheet too.
Saturday 22nd September Rovers 1-1 Stevenage
A decent point for Rovers against one of the early pace-setters in League One, or a terrible afternoon on which Rovers fail to send nonleague clogging amateurs Stevenage back to the parks field they came from, depending on your general outlook in life. Rovers went behind to Stevenage and struggled for long periods to break their opponents down, with boos ringing out round the Keepmoat during one phase in which the side seemed content to work the ball backwards. A goal from Chris Brown ten minutes from time spared Rovers blushes/secured a decent point against one of the division’s better sides.
Wednesday 26th September Norwich City 1-0 Rovers
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Cup with a defeat at Norwich. The defeat drove Saunders to illness; “We have created 10 chances away from home, and have not scored. The killer instinct was missing. You have to be ruthless in front of goal. I am sick. I felt we could have won the game tonight because they were not at full strength. It was an upset waiting to happen.” Here’s how our own Jack The Miner reported on proceedings; “I’m pretty sure I watched Rovers at Carrow Road last night and saw us pump hopeful balls from deep in our own half to two patently unfit dwarves for the best part of 70 minutes but I’ve woken up to find that we crafted ten superb chances that went begging.”
EVANs WaTCH!
because you have to keep an eye on him.
Saturday 29th September Leyton Orient 0-2 Rovers
Another good away win for the Rovers as they race to a 2-0 lead inside the opening quarter at Brisbane Road and then see the scoreline out to the final whistle. Iain Hume put the Rovers ahead, following off some neat approach play from David Cotterill and Billy Paynter, with Cotterill adding the second, turning Syers ball home ten minutes later. Orient boss Russell Slade wasn’t particularly impressed with what he saw; “Doncaster did to us what we’ve done to teams in recent weeks. They played ugly and came with a game plan to play ugly.” You can add your own joke here about Rob Jones returning to the side. The victory puts Rovers 10th in the table, just three points off third place, and with a game in hand on all above them. Perhaps the season could bring more than the midtable meander that we’d hoped for. Who knows? But it certainly seems like those watching on the road are seeing a better season than those watching at home. GW
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Steve is currently... Feeling up an imaginary woman.
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WHAT ARE THEY TALKING ABOUT? Are your ears burning? Don’t worry Jack the Miner is here to tell all exactly what fans of other clubs are saying about us It was a surprise. I don’t expect to find politeness, respect, reasoned thinking and absence of malice on the fans’ forums. Perhaps the much talked about feel good factor of the Olympics is real after all. York’s fans were positively orgasmic about their return to league football at the Keepmoat. ‘Nice to be back and what a fantastic place to make our return. The new Donny feel like a different proposition. Not little old Donny anymore. Great facility. Great Donny fans and half decent game. Loved it all despite the result.’ Even Walsall’s fans were level headed despite their opening day defeat. ‘Absolutely typical. I buy into the idea of playing it on the deck and that O’Kelly might bring with him the on-pitch finesse he brought to Donny, only to get done over by the new Donny playing wham-bam old fashioned robust football.’
‘Bit stunned. We did nothing wrong but Donny took their chances. We didn’t. Simples. Still think we’ll come good with this total football stuff.’ And he’s been proved right about that. Their subsequent rise through the league marks shows what a great result it was. Sadly, the vibes from Olympic summer of celebration bounced off the East Yorkshire iron curtain and deprived Hull of its share of the love-in, as this
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pre-match prediction shows, ‘We absolutely skull f*** them due to them being s*** and us having a much better team.’ Predictably they took defeat badly. As they did last time. And the time before that. And the time before that, ‘And f*** off City. And f*** off Doncaster. F*** off virgins with drums. F*** off Tom Hark. F*** off walking out to Carly Rae F****** Jepsen. F*** off all those roadworks. Just f*** the f*** off.’
‘Presumably there will be an apology for last night printed on the City website today because losing to a team of lower league ****** is unforgivable.’ ‘Can’t believe we lost to this **** Conference side again. I feel sick.’ Despite their flying visit to the Premier League I reckon Hull have spent the bulk of the last 15 years within 20 odd league places of Rovers, so this sickness clearly isn’t being brought on by vertigo. I spent 8 very happy years living in Hull and have defended it on my travels ever since. It doesn’t smell of fish. The old town should be a world heritage site; some of its architecture is a match for anything I’ve seen in Paris and Rome. The sense of humour and warmth of the locals something I still miss and I bow to the rugby league fans for their
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knowledge and love of their code. But mounting a meaningful defence for the city’s football supporters has always proved impossible. Their self-delusion is staggering. I haven’t checked the Hull press recently but I’m fairly certain Steve Bruce is still moaning about James Husband’s tackle and using it as an excuse for defeat. He’ll fit in pretty well at the KC Stadium. Despite our sometimes bitter rivalry, Yeovil’s fans were more civil and considered in their post-game comments, although it’s always easier to be gracious when you’ve won.
‘We were playing a side that has just come down from the championship, had a ref that thought they should go straight back up again and still had more chances in the 1st half than they had throughout the game, admittedly we were better in the 2nd half but we had to work very hard for 3 points today.’ And they’re loving James Hayter down there, unanimously voted their best close-season signing on one of the forums... ‘He is such an intelligent player though and still managed to create the space for others to exploit... nice to see the Rovers fans applauding Hayer even when he scored...’ But the poor crowds at Huish Park are worrying one individual...‘We are towards the top of the league, playing some great football, the charismatic Gary Johnson back in charge and goals aplenty.....where are all the supporters?’ Hang on. Did he say the charismatic Gary Johnson? He must have meant to type asthmatic.
Wednesday, the Blades seem to have a reasonably grounded set of fans. I guess they’re only too aware of their horrendous record of falling at the last hurdle and I admire their refusal to play the blame game. By and large they’ve tended to be respectful of Rovers and, true to form, looked at themselves after the Bramall Lane stalemate.
‘Donny clearly came to park the bus in front of goal but we played right into their hands. Saunders got is spot on.’ Stevenage were feeling the love too, after their visit to the Keepmoat,
‘I have to say, from the various people I have spoken to today, they are a top bunch at Doncaster, really helpful, and the vast majority of fans (and fans of other clubs!) we met in Doncaster on Saturday were great too. Very different to the reputation and experience we had in the conference.’ ‘If I was offered a point at Doncaster at the start of the season I definitely would of (sic) taken it.’ How flattering. ‘I must say that whilst I don’t think we need a new stadium for the present apart from various improvements .I think Phil would of (sic) been licking his lips after looking at Doncaster’s new ground. I was really impressed with the set up.’ And then they went and spoiled it...’I think we should of (sic) won I , can’t understand why Smithy didn’t keep the same team that played against Walsall , unless Shroot and Freeman had knocks . My view was we let a very poor Doncaster side get back into it.’
Whilst Stevenage fans struggle with their English grammar (listen you Unlike their cross city rivals London overflow chaps it’s not would popularSTAND // ISSUE 60 // OCT-NOV 2012
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of, should of, could of, might of...it’s would have, should have, could have, might have...got it?), Norwich struggles with its history; or recent history to be precise. It’s as if they weren’t stuffed by James Coppinger not so very long ago and as if their stay in League One never really happened. Some of their fans blanked out their recent past and decided that the visit of little old Donny would be a confidence building goal-fest to put their ailing season back on track. ‘Even for a weakened City side, we should walk it. Holty will have too extra for a lower league outfit.’ Extra pounds around the waist perhaps. The ‘Holt for England’ campaign seems to have gone very quiet.
‘I predicted 4 years ago that Doncaster would struggle in the Championship so it’s not a great surprise to see they’re back in League One’ which is a bit of football punditry even Mark Lawrenson would be proud of. That surely has to be the equivalent of saying ‘mark my words
Man United will probably win the league again sometime in the next few years.’ In a poll a few years ago Norwich was voted the rudest place in the country. I expected them to be less than respectful but the London 2012 goodwill had travelled up the M11 and A11 and reached Norfolk.
‘Donny created more chances than we did and, but for profligate finishing, could have got a result which few could have quibbled with’...‘We got a bit lucky with them not converting. We were restricted to shots from outside the box all night. We’re the ones with issues. I fear we might be crossing swords with them in the league next season.’ It’s a bit quiet after the Olympics. So quiet that if you listen carefully you can still hear Steve Bruce going on about that tackle. Save your pity though. There’s always someone worse off, like the bloke who thinks Gary Johnson is charismatic. JTM
episode 5: the case of the scarpering scholar “I’ve spoken with Jeremy Frost, he tells me he didn’t abscond to france with his pupil megan sammers and I believe him... my investigations are still ongoing.”
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SECRET LIVES OF THE ROVERS
Mike Follows reveals there’s more to Shelton Martis’ injury record than meets the physio’s table It’s easy for casual Rovers fans to criticise the injury record of Shelton Martis but now due to files uncovered by Popular STAND we can exclusively reveal his time out of the first team is nothing to do with a lack of fitness – for Shelton leads an incredible double life as a SPY. You’ll no doubt be familiar with MI5 and MI6 but far more secretive is the little-known espionage network of MI (Martis Intelligence) 4. Operating out of a subterranean base in the Dutch Antilles, MI4 is at the forefront of protecting the world from threats like Nuclear proliferation in the Middle-East; terrorist training camps of the Tora Bora and the continued risk posed to the gardens of Britain by Japanese Knotweed. You may have been sitting in the stands bemoaning the fact that we’re paying wages to a centre-half who appears less frequently than Brigadoon, but if you knew the truth you’d be shocked. Shelton made his first appearance of the season at Norwich only 48 hours after escaping from East Timor where he has spent the last two months in the captivity of the Khmer Rouge. Stopping off en route only to disarm a supervillain operating out of Azerbaijan and nip into Homebase for a tin of Weedol, he played the full ninety minutes in a show of strength to deter any would-be enemies of the state sitting in the stands at Carrow Road. Bound by the Official Secrets Act we can’t share the exact details in the interest of national security, but we can tell you about some of the signals that Martis has
used to communicate secret messages to his espionage contacts in the past. Falling to the floor and lying motionless for upwards of a minute is a surefire sign that there’s trouble brewing in the Gaza strip. Clutching the left shin is a preliminary warning of an Al Qa’ida dirty bomb plot and most worrying of all is the coded get-up-holding-a-hamstring-andperiodically-reach-down-to-rub-it-for-thenext-five-minutes signal. This means ‘Start the car and make a helicopter ready for me at Robin Hood Airport, it’s all going to kick off in Siberia. Such is the level of threat to the UK at any given time that he scarcely makes it through 45 minutes before having to rush off to avert an impending international emergency. In the past popular STAND has published conjecture as to the contribution made to the club by Damian Plessis last season but according to emails we’ve seen, our speculation was wide of the mark. We now know that Martis needed an accomplice to go undercover with him posing as Somalian pirates to stealthily board a boat carrying enriched Uranium bound for Mahmood Ahmedinejad’s secret processing plant on the Turkmenistan border. Plessis was tragically eaten by a shark off the coast of Tanzania. So next time Shelton Martis goes missing for several months due to “injury” just remember all is not as it seems and thank him and his top secret team for keeping you and your family safe from the evil machinations of global terror. Next Issue: Tim Ryan’s Eco Warrior Past
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VOICE OF THE POP SIDE;
BRIEF CANDLES
From the forgotten to the fleeting Rovers players; John Coyle looks at footballers who had the briefest of spells in Doncaster. My favourite book of 2012 is probably one you haven’t heard of. Certainly it won’t be as famous as those on most people’s bestsellers lists, such as The Hunger Games or the Fifty Shades of Grey Trilogy. (Why is it that whenever E.L. James’ book is mentioned I think not of submissive sex but of Val Doonican and O’Rafferty’s Motor Car, which was, of course in forty shades of green?) No, my favourite book concerned the careers and lives of a group of cricketers who appeared in only one first-class match.* There was an Irishman, Emile McMaster, who toured South Africa with a scratch team and played in a match that was later given Test Match status (he was out first ball for a duck and didn’t bowl). There was Fred Hyland, of Hampshire, whose debut match was curtailed by rain and lasted a mere two overs, and Lancashire’s Josiah Coulthurst who, unlike the others, never actually set foot on the field of play. Fascinating stuff for a connoisseur of the obscure and absurd, such as yours truly! I thought of this book when I saw the former Rovers loanee, Ryan Mason, make what must have been one of the briefest debuts in football history the other week. With the clock running down in the 0-0 draw with Lazio, Mason was sent on for Mousa Dembele to make his Spurs debut. Play restarted with a throw-in and
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then the referee blew the final whistle. The BBC’s live text claims he was on the field for 52 seconds: in reality it was probably much less than that. A week later, Ryan Mason made his first start for Spurs in the Capital One Cup at Carlisle, but it got me thinking about who had the shortest senior career of any Doncaster Rovers player. It would be someone who appeared only once, as a substitute, and in the dying moments of a game. I narrowed the list of candidates down to five, as follows:
Paul Cygan 1989-90
A youth team product, Cygan was a defender who replaced the injured Steve Raffell in the dying minutes of the home game with Scunthorpe United in November 1989. Rovers lost the game 1-2. At that point they had won only two games out of 15, but the following week David “Bruno” Jones and Kevin Noteman joined the club and Rovers won six out of the next seven. Cygan was not seen again in a Rovers shirt and later played at Bridlington Town and Selby Town.
Tony Cullen 1993-94
A former Sunderland, Bury and Swansea winger, Tony Cullen was signed on a short-term deal at the
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start of the 1993-94 season and replaced Mike Jeffrey in the final minute of the Coca-Cola Cup first round, first leg tie against Blackpool. Rovers lost the game 0-1 and bowed out of the competition after a 3-3 draw at Blackpool in the second leg. By then, Cullen had left Belle Vue.
Grant Chalmers 1993-94
Rovers had a big turnover of players in 1993-94, their first full season under the control of Dinard Trading and their “football consultant” Ken Richardson. Two of them hailed from Guernsey, one being the ex-Brentford and Millwall winger Lee Luscombe, who made eight appearances. The other, also a former Brentford player, was Grant Chalmers. The striker’s only outing came when he replaced Paul Whitmarsh in the final minute of the
Autoglass Trophy First Round tie with Rotherham, which Rovers lost 1-2.
John Ryan 2002-03
For obvious reasons the best-known of these “Brief Candles,” Rovers chairman John Ryan was five days short of his 53rd birthday when he got the chance to fulfil a boyhood dream in Rovers’ final Conference match of the season at Hereford in April 2003. Gregg Blundell (another debutant that day) had put Rovers 4-2 ahead after 88 minutes and at the end of normal time Ryan replaced Paul Barnes. He was on the field for about three minutes (of stoppage time) and didn’t touch the ball. He remains the last player to wear the No. 28 shirt for Doncaster Rovers as it was ‘retired’ following this game.
Brief candles, from left to right: Grant Chalmers, John Ryan, Tony Cullen, John-Paul Pittman, Paul Cygan
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VOICE OF THE POP SIDE
BRIEF CANDLES // CONTINUED Jon-Paul Pittman 2006-07
American-born Pittman was signed from Bury by Rovers manager Sean O’Driscoll in January 2007 and was introduced in the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy Northern Semi-Final against Darlington that month. The combination of the novelty of the Keepmoat Stadium and the return of ex-Rovers boss Dave Penney, now managing Darlington, ensured a crowd of 8,009. Rovers won 2-0 with goals from Paul Heffernan and J.J. Price and Pittman made a brief cameo when he replaced Heffernan in stoppage time. That was to be Pittman’s only outing for Rovers, although after a spell with Crawley Town he returned to League football with Wycombe Wanderers. Two others who may have had similarly brief careers were Nicky Gallagher and Mark McKay, who both came on in the last five minutes of League games in the 1989-90 season and didn’t feature again, although I believe both had longer on the field of play than those listed above. The others who made a single substitute appearance for Rovers were Steve Daniels (197980), Neil Morris (1991-92), Darren France (1993-94), Kris Hoy (199495), Demis Ohandjanian (1996-97), Richard Powell, Robert Wild and Marc Ridley (all 1998-99), the late Mirsad Bubalovic (1999-00), Tomi Ameobi (2008-09) and Bradley Grayson and Ryan Burge (2010-11). Liam Wakefield also debuted as a substitute in this season’s Capital
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One Cup game against York City, but I feel sure he won’t remain a member of this exclusive club for long. Finally, in the spirit of Josiah Coulthurst, a man who never got onto the field of play, I ought to mention those players who were named as substitutes but were never called from the bench. At the start of this season there were an amazing 41 of these, and with clubs now being able to name up to seven substitutes it is a list which seems certain to grow longer as time passes. Many have been goalkeepers, and it is no surprise to find that the player with the most “unused sub” selections is one such, Tonny Nielsen, the lanky Dane who was on the bench 15 times during the 2005-06 season. By the time you read this his record may have fallen to Jon Maxted, the current back-up ‘keeper, who had been an unused sub 14 times after the Capital One Cup tie at Norwich. Perhaps the unluckiest of these players who were “called but not chosen” were Darren Reeves and James Taylor. Reeves was stripped and ready to come on in a game at Stockport in 1988-89 but the final whistle blew before he got the chance to enter the field. Taylor, a young goalkeeper, was ready to replace the injured Stuart Ford at Colchester in April 1994, but the limping Ford indicated to the bench he was able to carry on. Of course, had either player got on the field they would have definitely had the shortest first-team career of a Rovers player. And then, I wouldn’t have written this article!
*Brief Candles: McMaster, Hyland and Other One Match Wonders by Keith Walmsley ACS Publications, 2012, ISBN 978-1908165145
JC
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Rotherham Lonely Hearts
Brief Encounters
Helping you to discover fleeting loves in Rotherham To the woman in the Kappa tracksuit on the bus out to Rawmarsh. I took your seat when you got off. The cushion smelt intoxicating. I’d love to get to know you and your sofa. The man with the Racing Post I was the guy in Wetherspoons with my own teeth, you were the woman who punched the remaining few out. I think we have something special. The Guy leaving on a stretcher To the woman from Thryergh on Jeremy Kyle discovering the fathers of your five children via a succession of paternity tests. I saw you during our allotted television time and have been thinking about you ever since. Visiting hours are 2-4pm. Inmate No. 33678, HMP Ranby To PC 476 who arrested me for disturbing the peace whilst I was shouting at traffic from Maltby market. I love a man in uniform. Let me show you my Special Brew. The woman in Cell 4
You were the woman changing in the third window from the right on the seventh floor of Beeversleigh Tower Block on Clifton Lane. I was the man across the road with a pair of binoculars. Please open the nets as well next time. Desperate lonely man known to the authorities. To the guy who hangs around outside the bus station telling people you’re not being funny right, but you just need 30p to get the bus back to Greasbrough, I’ll always have change for you. The woman with the Rottweiler that has to make do with an empty coke bottle as a toy. You were the woman having an argument about visiting rights on your phone in the middle of Argos. I was the guy lingering over the pictures of the women in the sunbeds section. I like the way you curse. The drooling man in the corner
You were the attractive teen mother of four playing with your kids on Herringthorpe Playing Fields. I was the guy watching you from the bushes you called the police about. The man in the mac
To the young blond lady I see regularly on School Lane, Brinsworth. You look incredible in uniform. I’d like to get to know you better. The bloke who always hangs round the playground gates.
We met in the dole queue. You were the guy whining about his probation. I was the woman with the tag on her ankle. Let us get up to mischief together, but only in a three mile radius of Kimberworth. The girl with the shaved head
You were the woman at number 49. I was the man who’d moved in at number 43 who came to tell you I was on a register. I like what you wear in the garden. The bloke who looks the sort so you weren’t in the least surprised
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BLOWING MY OWN TRUMPET To approximate an Aldous Huxley line; you could spend your life in football and know nothing of humanity at the end. Here, editor Glen Wilson tries to wrap his head round two of the more inexplicable facets of the modern game. I love football. I love it just as much as I hate much of the murkiness caught in its orbit. It has become, for me, a consistent embodiment of the pleasure pain theory. For each great piece of individual skill that leaves you laughing in bewilderment there’s Cardiff City’s current madness. Stunning volleyed goal. Soccer AM. It goes on.
But I do love football, and I will, and have watched it anywhere and everywhere , from toddler to today, Harworth to Hong Kong. But still there remain footballing enigmas, unsolved mysteries, aspects of the game that I just cannot get my head around, and in as much a therapy session as an article I lay bare two of these sources of confusion for you.
1. LEAVING A GAME EARLY I have never, and will never understand the mindset of people who choose to leave football matches early. Why would you head off home before the most significant aspect of what you’ve travelled to see – the result - is resolved? You try telling folk that “it’s a results business,” when they’ve never seen a game reach its denouement. How can you live your life with so much uncertainly, so much greyness? Did these people adore the will-it-won’t-it suspense of the final scene of The Italian Job so much that they vowed to replicate it’s uncertainty in all they do? Can you imagine living your life by this blasé attitude to resolution? These are people who will have never experienced the whimsy of a news broadcast’s ‘And Finally’ section, a whole life lived without skateboarding squirrels and fat people inadvertently falling on burglars. They will have
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never seen the villain unmasked in a Scooby Doo cartoon, never realised it was just Mr Hopkins the Lighthouse keeper all along. They’ll be unaware Bruce Willis was a ghost; they’ll have never heard New York New York at a wedding disco. And their sex lives must be highly unfulfilling. When questioned of their morals, the go-to excuse of these match abandoners is that they are looking “to beat the traffic”. Do they think they’re better than us? What do these people have to rush back to that the rest of us don’t? How much traffic is there about to beat at 9:40pm after a Johnstone’s Paint Trophy tie? Now admittedly I don’t drive, so I guess I’ll never realise how much the satisfaction of negotiating White Rose Way without having to stop can outweigh the delight at seeing your team scoring a late, late winner. Though I suspect these people don’t
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arrive home to a huge ovation from the rest of the street and a pile-on by the corner flag from the wife and kids. A case in point is Geoff, the bloke who used to sit next to us at the back of the West Stand. I’ve mentioned him in the fanzine before; we christened him Geoff to protect his identity. His real name is Dave. Geoff leaves games early. All games. No matter how tense. No matter what the score. End to end, 3-3, firmly in the balance, no matter, 87 minutes is 87 minutes, off Geoff plods down the gangway. But as well as always leaving early Geoff would always arrive early; I took my seat for a nondescript night game at 7pm one.
night and Geoff was already there. I never understood why he couldn’t just do whatever it was he was rushed home for before leaving for the match I once had a conversation with Geoff about a recent away game I’d attended. “I listened to it on the radio,” he said, “but I turned off before the end”. That’s some commitment to your unfathomable habit, leaving a game early when you’re only listening from home. Where was he trying to beat the traffic to? His kitchen? I’ll have to get off; it always starts to bottleneck around the Welsh Dresser around five-o’clock.
2. APPLAUDING SENT OFF PLAYERS This should only ever happen in a single scenario; when a player unselfishly takes one for the team late in a match, denying a clear goalscoring opportunity, at the expense of only a free-kick to secure a result for his team. Think Ole Gunnar Solksjaer tripping Rob Lee at Old Trafford in 1998. Actually, on second thoughts, I’ve just remembered Barry Miller getting sent off for punching Jimmy Quinn at Northwich, which certainly deserved applause. However, the point remains, for some reason it has become de rigeur to applaud off any miscreant who happens to be in your colours, no matter how ludicrous their misdemeanour. I remember when this first started to irk me; it was when Lewis Guy got his marching orders during a defeat to Walsall for a ridiculously cynical foul late in the game. A completely unnecessary challenge that was as necessary as sign language for the blind yet he was clapped from the field as if he’d just batted a solid 45 in a Test match. More recently I was
amongst Wales fans applauding James Collins from the field after the lumping centre-half had singlehandedly scuppered another qualifying campaign. Why are you applauding these people? They’ve left you in the lurch; abandoned you short-handed in one game and ruled themselves out of helping you in future fixtures. Try placing the scenario in another context. You’re at work when one of your colleagues stands up, pulls out your office internet server, tucks it under his arm, and buggers off home for the rest of the day. I suspect your initial reaction wouldn’t be to clap him down the corridor. You’ve stopped off in the park with the kids on the way back from the shops when your wife decides to take the car to go and see her friends, leaving you two miles from home with two toddlers and a collection of shopping bags. Hearty round of applause as your Mondeo disappears down the High Street? Thought not.
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WINDMILLS OF YOUR MIND Our resident statistician Dutch Uncle looks at the Rovers players who loved it so much they came back for more. It is often said that one of the golden rules of life is ‘Never go back’. Fortunately for us several Rovers players have ignored this maxim and have returned to the club. In this article I describe some of my personal memories and feelings in regards to some of these returning Rovers. The idea for this article stemmed from Chris Brown’s goals in the opening games of the season which prompted a question on the VSC forum regarding players with the longest time-span between their first and last goals for the club. Chris was of course on loan with us for nearly all of our 2003-04 championship season, before returning in the summer of 2011. His first and last goals are currently nearly 9 years apart (approximately 3,250 days), a span which has probably only been beaten in competitive games by Alan Warboys (5,719 days), Alick Jeffrey (5,068), Colin Douglas (4,141), David Harle (4,005), Bert Tindill (3,802) , Syd Bycroft (3,556) and Fred Emery (3,260). The first four above fall into the relatively short list of Rovers returning heroes, which appears on the facing page. To appear on my list I will stipulate that signing on loan and then more or less immediately (or after a summer break) signing permanently does not count – therefore players such as Tony Brown, Mike Jeffrey, Simon Ireland, Kevin Horlock, Brian Stock, Neil
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Sullivan, Sam Hird, Matt Mills and Simon Gillett do not appear on the list. If the break between loan and permanent signing is long enough and contains appearances for other clubs in the meantime (e.g. Mark Wilson, Shelton Martis and Chris Brown) then I feel they do belong on the list. Also I will not count those who are here only on loan on two or more occasions such as Jonathan Forte. Like many, shall we say, more ‘mature’ fans I have some very special memories of many of the players above. However contrary to popular rumour, I do not remember Les Hargreaves, although he is indeed the only one on the list before my time. Albert ‘Yogi’ Broadbent was an early favourite of mine - I started watching Rovers in 1962 during his second spell. He could be both brilliant and frustrating. I can still picture one of my first memories from 1963-64; Rovers were a mere 9-0 up against Darlington at Belle Vue, just a couple of minutes left, and I was gradually making my way along the not particularly full Pop Side towards the Rossington End for a prompt exit at the final whistle. Albert Broadbent was strolling down the left wing with no real sense of urgency, showboating in front of the Main Stand, meandering towards the Rossington End... no danger I reckoned, so I sprinted up to the top of the Pop Side to get round the back of
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First Time Apps Goals J.Ashurst 1988-89; 1990; 1991 89 2 A.Broadbent 1959-61; 1962-65 112 23 C.Brown ** 2003; 2011-12 22 10 J.Buckley 1984-85; 1987 96 11 D.Cusack 1985-87; 1989 117 5 J.Dobbin 1983-86; 1997 74 14 C.Douglas 1981-85; 1988-92 245 57 B.Flynn 1985; 1987 30 1 S.Gray 1967-69; 1977 63 0 L.Hargreaves 1925-26; 1932 39 13 D.Harle 1979-81; 1983-85; 1989-91 69 3 G.Ingham 1993; 1997 1 0 A.Jeffrey 1954-58; 1963-68 80 38 N.Limber 1989-91; 1993-94 15 2 S.Martis ** 2008; 2009-12 5 1 S.Maxfield 1993-95; 1998-99 30 1 T.Meagan 1977-79; 1982 40 1 A.Mike 1996; 1997 5 1 K,Noteman 1989-91; 1995 127 24 D.Peacock 1975-79; 1982-85 225 0 P.Raven 1986-88; 1991 61 4 B.Richardson 2000-01; 2003 60 0 T.Ryan 1996; 2002-05 31 0 L.Sheffield 1965-66; 1969 66 41 I.Snodin 1979-84; 1998-99 213 29 G.Snodin 1976-84; 1998-99 344 62 L.Turnbull 1987-90; 1993 143 25 C.Walker 1982; 1985 12 5 A.Warboys 1966-67; 1979-82 44 11 G.Watson 1966-67; 1968-72 57 13 H.Wilcockson 1967-69; 1971-73 84 4 C.Wigginton 1981; 1982 14 0 R.Wilcox 1980-82; 1993-95 1 0 M.Wilson 2004; 2006-2011 4 0 ** Current Players data to 27 September 2012 (First 8 League Name
Seasons (e.g. 98=1998-99)
the wall and into the Rossington End and could you believe it, in those five seconds ‘Yogi’ had somehow managed to score our record breaking 10th, and I missed it. I never forgave him. Two seasons later I saw the same Yogi Broadbent in a far more attacking position at Bradford Park Avenue - we were 1-0 up with a couple of minutes left - but this time he dribbled the ball all the way back to his own keeper (keepers were allowed to pick up a back-pass in those days) - to boos from all around the ground. This was before the days of time-wasting and running the clock down, so maybe Yogi, rather like Martin Peters, was a player way ahead of his time. This is further evidenced in my memory by a penalty he took at Oakwell in a tense
Second Time Third Time Apps Goals Apps Goals 34 1 39 0 119 20 0 0 22 7 0 0 6 0 0 0 2 0 0 0 33 0 0 0 223 5 0 0 31 1 0 0 6 0 0 0 9 2 0 0 96 20 54 3 12 0 0 0 215 101 0 0 6 0 0 0 57 2 0 0 66 1 0 0 2 0 0 0 46 5 0 0 6 1 0 0 148 0 0 0 7 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 206 6 0 0 19 7 0 0 14 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 14 1 0 0 5 0 0 0 107 25 0 0 117 25 0 0 38 1 0 0 20 0 0 0 92 6 0 0 158 3 0 0 plus 3 Cup games 2012-13)
Total Apps Goals 162 3 231 43 44 17 102 11 119 5 107 14 468 62 61 2 69 0 48 15 219 26 13 0 295 139 21 2 62 3 96 2 42 1 51 6 133 25 373 0 68 4 60 0 237 6 85 48 227 29 345 62 157 26 17 5 151 36 174 38 122 5 34 0 93 6 162 3
blood and thunder League Cup replay, one with a home tie against Division 1 Burnley at stake. He hit it straight down the middle as the goalkeeper dived conveniently out of the way; like many others that night I had never seen that done before. Alick Jeffrey and Laurie Sheffield were and still are my favourite Rovers striking partnership of all time. As is well documented Alick’s first departure was a retirement due to serious injury; both club and player received significant compensation for his career ending injury while playing for England B at Ashton Gate in 1956. When he returned in 1963, probably the only player in Rovers history to come from Sydney’s Prague FC, the
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WINDMILLS OF YOUR MIND // CONTINUED FA (in conjunction with the Football League and insurance companies) ruled that the compensation did not need to be paid back so long as he stayed at Rovers and no transfer fee was accepted. It took 14 League and 2 FA Cup matches before Alick scored his first goal after his return... and again I missed it as I was on a family holiday in Wales. Alick and Laurie scored 50 goals between them in the Championship winning season of 1965-6, and looked set to continue terrorising defences in Division 3 the next season, with a goal apiece in each of the opening two League games. Chris Brown and Kyle Bennett achieved the same feat this season, but discovered, just as in every other time this has happened in Rovers history (5 times in all), neither player could score in the third game. In 1966-7 this was due to the tragic car accident which killed John Nicholson and injured Alick before that third league game of the season. Laurie’s first departure from the club a few weeks later was via a transfer to Norwich, which was extremely unpopular with Rovers fans. Laurie scored a hat-trick on his debut for Norwich in Division 2, leaving Rovers fans feeling distinctly hard done by. Alan Warboys, a raw centre-forward, was another who played for Rovers in the mid 1960s, before being transferred to Sheffield Wednesday. When he returned to the club in 1979 (the longest period between spells at the club of everyone except the Snodin brothers), he played most of his games
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Graham ‘ Willie’ Watson was a direct contemporary of Alan Warboys and made his debut in the same season 1966-7. Like Warboys he was transferred during the following campaign, but in a rather different sort of deal, seen by many as the best in Rovers’ history. The teenage Watson and Dennis Leigh were both transferred to Rotherham, then managed by Tommy Docherty, and in return Rovers received £8,000 plus three established 2nd Division players in Colin Clish, Chris Rabjohn and Harold Wilcockson, valued in excess of £100,000. They proved to be the excellent nucleus of the Rovers 1968-69 Championship team, while on the other hand Tommy Docherty left Rotherham after they were relegated in 1967-8, and Watson returned to Rovers during the 1968-9 season apparently for a nominal fee. One of those exchanged players, Harold Wilcockson, also had two spells at the club. His first spell had also ended in an exchange deal, this time with Sheffield Wednesday who gave Rovers Archie Irvine and Ian Branfoot for Wilcockson. The only player to have three distinctly separate spells at the club is David Harle (the periods between Jack Ashurst’s spells were very short although he officially had three spells). Harle, a local boy, famously scored the only goal in Rovers’ FA Cup 3rd round win over Division 1 opponents QPR in January 1985. Another player who had two spells is the legendary Colin Douglas. Like Alan Warboys he developed from a raw striker into canny centre-back over the 12 years between his first and last matches for the club. His 468 appearances were split almost equally
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This gives them the two longest times between first and last appearances for the club - in Glyn’s case approx 7,836 days between 2 April 1977 and 15 September 1998 and in Ian’s case approximately 7,160 days between 29 March 1980 and 6 November 1999. In addition Glyn played and scored in a Sheffield County Cup match on 11 November 1999, so if this were to be counted then he would far exceed Alan Warboys’ 5,719 days between first and last goals for the club with a colossal 7,990 days.
Returning heroes; Chris Brown (top) and Ian Snodin (bottom)
as a canny experienced centre-half. across his two spells (245 and 223), and notably only Douglas, Broadbent and Dennis Peacock made more than 100 appearances in each of two spells. Dougie’s 468 appearances in all competitions also constitute a club record and his tally of 404 League appearances puts him second only behind Fred Emery whose 417 League appearances were accrued between 1924 and 1936. Ian and Glyn Snodin are the two players with the longest time between spells at the club, namely 13 years. It is easily forgotten that when they returned as Manager and Assistant in 1998, they were also registered as players and indeed both played in the Conference, albeit in Glyn’s case just one sub appearance at Southport.
One final word about returning managers. There have been five men who have managed Rovers in two separate spells. Arthur Porter was manager in 1920-21 and 1922-23 and Jackie Bestall was manager from 1946-49 and temporarily from 195960. Dave Penney was joint caretaker manager with Mark Atkins in AprilMay 2000 before being appointed manager from December 2001 to August 2006. Then we have the late great Billy Bremner, manager extraordinaire from November 1978 to October 1985 and from July 1989 to November 1991, a total span of 3,353 days making him the longest serving manager in our history. The fifth manager (or should I say Fifth Columnist)? Well his two short spells were interrupted by the 43 combined days of Dave Cowling and Danny Bergara, and I shall simply say we have been recently linked with a goalkeeper of the same surname. Caveat - no figures quoted in this article are official. Dutch Uncle uses many sources including club handbooks, Rothmans/Sky annuals, and best of all the official Rovers history by Bluff & Watson. For definitive data the reader is referred to Tony Bluff and/or Barry Watson.
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TO LINDUM AND BACK Eighteen; not just the name of Paul Hardcastle’s lesser known first UK single, but also a significant number for our own Chris Kidd. Eighteen is a significant figure; not least by virtue of being the light at the end of the tunnel the long process of adolescence. Being eighteen years of age means one can watch a film produced and intended only to be seen by adults. For most, although it doesn’t seem to matter too much nowadays, it means that you can finally have an alcoholic drink with the freedom of knowing you can bloody well enjoy it without running the risk of a burly bloke dressed in black with an ear piece tapping you on the shoulder and turfing you out. Lower on the list of significant aspects of society bound together with this number, is the tie between it and a modern day, third tier football squad. Rovers have started the 2012/13 season with a squad of eighteen first team players, something that was common two decades ago, but in recent years, with the injection of money across the board in the football pyramid squad sizes have generally increased year on year. A gruelling fixture schedule, which will include 46 league matches and additional games in cup competitions - so far including three games in the League Cup - is sure to take its toll on a small group of blokes. A decent JPT run combined with reaching the third round of the F.A Cup easily takes us over the 55 game threshold. The more worrying fact is that five of
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the eighteen players have had longterm injuries or a string of different complications over the course of last season, with some even stretching back to the 2010/11 season. Martin Woods, Shelton Martis, Paul Keegan and Chris Brown barely featured last season so a great deal rests on their shoulders when the club suddenly expecting them to get the majority of 55 games under their belt over the course of the next seven months. It is only natural that the body will react to the sudden intensity of playing regularly after such a long period of being out with various problems. Yet after seeing over half a dozen short-term players exit over the summer and a further dozen longer term players pushed out, the concept of replacing these bodies has largely been ignored. Financial constraints have obviously played a huge part in the decision making process; let’s not forget that the wage bill was reportedly £9 million last season, we are led to believe it is nearer £4 million for the present season. Rob Jones is already one booking away from a suspension and it is easy to see that McCombe and Quinn could pick them up along the way. Bearing in mind the 60% rule which will be enforced soon it is mystifying how other League One clubs seem to have larger squads at their disposal. The only conceivable theory is that Rovers must be paying a lot more per player in a week; something which is
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probably not far from the truth when you consider the existing players that were kept on and the players that have come in, mostly with Championship experience.
objective should be met. There are some good games to look forward to including trips to Notts County and Hartlepool, two away day experiences that always rank highly.
Despite the lack of depth this band of eighteen intrepid footballers seems to be doing a job. The defence seems tight, midfield full of running and occasional creativity and forwards with plenty of goals in them. The attacking options are where this squad brims and bubbles, Brown, Paynter and Hume have much to offer between them with the supporting contributions of Bennett and Cotterill who have both started very inconsistently so far. Let’s not forget that the name of the game this season is to consolidate our position in League One; on current form that
But back to the number eighteen; we need to be scoring a lot more than eighteen goals, keeping eighteen clean sheets and certainly amassing more than eighteen points to make sure we finish above eighteenth position. It will be job done if Rovers manage to negotiate the season with the current squad and perhaps the odd addition on loan and finish in the top half of the table, a result that would enable the club to build on a solid foundation for the next season. Stick with the Rovers. COYR.
CJK
episode 6: the case of the promiscuous pop star “I’ve spoken to Shaggy and he tells me that he wasn’t creeping with the girl nextdoor, nor was he butt naked banging on the bathroom fLoor… and I believe him. My investigations are still on going”
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SEASONS IN RETROSPECT In the first of a five part series Ray Jest recalls the 1973-74 season The end of the 1972-73 season had seen the dismantling of the Rovers Junior team and a sad farewell to Malcolm Cook who had been at the club less than 18 months. The beginning of the 1973-74 season was no less controversial with the departure of the Rovers Chairman following what must have been one of the shortest AGM’s in club history. The actual AGM lasted just 7 minutes after which time the press were excluded. After the press had left the meeting a Rovers shareholder read out a prepared statement calling for the resignation of Mr. Ben Bailey (Chairman) and the removal from the board of Mr. Hubert Bates. Mr. Bailey told the meeting that due note would be taken of the shareholders comments. In an interview with the Doncaster Evenings Post’s Joe Slater, Mr. Bailey said that his decision to resign in no way followed the shareholders statement and that he had been thinking of resigning for some time now that he was living in Scarborough. Mr. Bailey had joined the Rovers board in 1965 and had taken over as Chairman from Mr. F J Wilson in 1970 following three years as Vice Chairman. His resignation shocked the Board of Directors and was totally unexpected.
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On footballing matters Rovers were hoping to sign Peter Woods from Southend United for a fee estimated to be around £8,000. Also on the radar were Peter Higgins a left winger with Bristol Rovers, and Keith Pritchard from Wolverhampton Wanderers who had been released on a free transfer, whilst Rovers had been asked to name their price by a third division club for Archie Irvine who had still not reached an agreement over a new contract. A major signing who would figure significantly in the coming seasons was Brendan O’Callaghan with Mr. Setters beating off competition from Leeds United, Rotherham and Bradford City to gain his signature. On the downside Rovers transferred Ian Branfoot to Lincoln City for £8,000. A fan favourite, Branfoot had been in dispute over his contract and negotiations had reached an impasse. Ray Ternent was a player coming in and had visited the ground with his wife although there were also two second division clubs vying for his signature. He eventually signed for Rovers for a fee of £8,000. Both Peter Wood and Peter Higgins had signed up along with Brendan O’Callaghan and another new boy Alan Murray. One of the former youth team players had also signed a professional contract, his name Terry Curran. Rovers had given free transfers to
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Glen Johnson, Brian Joy, Brian Usher, Stephen Briggs, Chris Rabjohn and Harold Wilcockson. For reference, Johnson had joined Aldershot, Joy had joined Exeter City, Usher and Briggs had gone to Southern League club Yeovil and Northampton were talking to Rabjohn. Rovers’ pre season friendlies would again feature both Leeds United and Stoke City. For some reason the Stoke City game was played behind ‘closed doors’ and resulted in a 4-1 defeat. The Stoke team featured Jimmy Greenough and Geoff Hurst amongst other names although Gordon Banks whose future was in some doubt was only a spectator at the game. Rovers’ goal was scored by new midfield man Alan Murray. Next it was the turn of Yorkshire Leagues Hatfield Main to face up to Rovers, and Rovers duly ran out 3-1 winners. In their next game Rovers faced the Midlands League side Sutton Town and although they won 1-0 they did little to impress and were out maneuvered on many occasions during the match. A headed goal from a free kick scored by Uzelac eventually saved Rovers blushes. The match did nothing to deter 9,067 spectators from turning out to watch Rovers take on Leeds United and what a difference in performances. Although they lost 2-0, Rovers received high praise from the Leeds manager Don Revie. Goals from Mick Jones and Trevor Cherry sealed the win for Leeds. After the game Mr. Setters said “We were playing against some of the best players in the world and I think we did extremely well”. Mike Sinclair writing in the local paper highlighted some of the players
who he thought would make the difference this season for the Rovers, pinpointing in particular Brendan O’Callaghan, Alan Murray, Terry Curran and Ray Ternent. In the same article Mr. Setters when asked about the changes to the playing staff said “several of the players had been here for some time and I felt a change would be good for the club”. In a further interview with Michael Morgan from the Express headlined ‘Things are growing better for Setters’ the manager stated that the Rovers, job was “looked upon as a graveyard for managers but I couldn’t see it, the club had come in for a lot of criticism and a lot of it they had brought upon themselves”. He went on to say “I told [the board] that I knew I was the 13th manager in 13 years but that I wasn’t superstitious – only ambitious. I knew when I arrived it would take two years to organise the club, we were just a football club then, now we are a professional football club. We’ve got one of the best set ups in the Fourth division, and it’s better than some in the 3rd division and 2nd division as well”.
“The public are just waiting to support a successful club, the trouble at the moment is they have been let down badly in the past by promises that were not fulfilled. I need patience and time from the fans; it could still be 5 years before Doncaster are successful. That’s why I am making no promises - promises I may not be able to keep”. The interview was prophetic in as much as Mr. Setters never did deliver success on a large scale. In a season that again saw Rovers flirt with the
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dreaded Re-election zone they would very rarely be out of the bottom four or five clubs, always watching over their shoulders for other teams results.
for his team. Peter Kitchen had his hat trick and it was English footballs first of the season.
The season got off to a mediocre start when Stockport County visited Belle Vue for the first league game of the campaign. The match resulted in a 1-1 draw; Rovers taking the lead after 25 minutes through Peter Higgins. The only noticeable thing from then on until Stockport equalised in the 80th minute was a half time bomb scare, although it only seemed to have an explosive effect on the visitors. One positive from the result was that at least Rovers were up and running in the points, unlike the previous seasons disastrous start. In the League Cup Rovers were drawn away to 2nd Division Notts County and it looked a book maker’s dream home win. It didn’t turn out that way though as Rovers shocked their illustrious neighbours with an attacking style of play that had County back peddling for long periods of the first half. County, striving to get back on terms after Kitchen’s shock 7th minute strike, stretched Book in the Rovers goal on several occasions but the Rovers defence held out. At half time Rovers led 1-0 and within 2 minutes of the re-start they were 2-0 up with a goal from Elwiss. County finally broke through in the 54th minute to reduce the arrears but 8 minutes later Kitchen popped up to re-gain Rovers’ two goal lead. County again scored just one minute later and then when they equalised on 76 minutes it looked all on a win for the 2nd Division side, but in the 90th minute Kitchen scored Rovers’ 4th goal and his 3rd to secure the win
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A fantastic cup tie had seen Rovers at their best, if they could carry this form into the league they would surely be a force to be reckoned with. After the game Mr. Setters said “Rovers biggest fight was with themselves and was connected to self confidence. I’ve been telling them now for weeks that they are too good for the fourth division. My big problem now is motivating them for our league game at Bradford this weekend”. A shock also came in the shape of Gateshead and a request for the League Secretary Russell Louden to cancel all future fixtures for the club until further notice. Financial difficulties had forced the club to release all their players. Exactly 43 years ago Gateshead had played their first Football League game against Doncaster. They lost 2-1 but a crowd of 17,000 had attended the game.
RJ
Can Maurice motivate his side for the league game with Bradford? Find out in Issue 61
Maurice Setters chalks up Kitchen’s hat-trick
popularSTAND // ISSUE 60 // OCT-NOV 2012
HOTELS THAT SOUND A LOT LIKE ROVERS PLAYERS
None of your cryptic headings here. No, if we have an idea for a feature we give it to you straight. Glen Wilson explains. Last month, ahead of a trip to Prague, I was in trawling the internet in hunt of a hotel in my price range when something caught my eye. There, verging on the edge of affordable was a familiar name, and though it was slightly over my budget, and a good two miles further out from the centre than I wanted to be something about this hotel spoke to me, and that something was its name. Situated on Prague’s west side, not too far from the airport, is the Hotel Fortuna West. Big, awkwardly positioned but unexpectedly effective it seems that the hotel has more in common with Leo than just two thirds of its name., I even found the following review of the place “Solid, unspectacular, yet oddly enchanting. Looks like it should go higher.” I joke of course. Had they a Leo suite they could have been assured of my custom, but alas no, I went for practicality over whimsy, but still, it got me thinking, are there any other hotels out there which sound like Rovers players? In the end, an exhaustive search during my lunch half-hour at work uncovered two additions; first up the particularly impressive Mauritius Hilton, not to be confused with one-time Rovers youth team graduate Maurice Hilton. Whilst the full-back made just ten appearances in professional football, the hotel has an arguably more significant presence on the landscape, on the coast at Flic-en-Flac, a place we’ve stored for a future series titled Beach Resorts that Sound like Swiss Children’s Watches And then, slightly more tenuous, is the Sutherland Inn, which appears to be far removed from the beaten track, but is still just three letters away from Sutherland, Colin. Well renowned in the local community for whisky and with a solid, unforgiving, stony frontage, Colin Sutherland played for Rovers for two seasons at the end of the last Millennium. He returned to his native Scotland in 2000, and that’s also where you’ll find the Inn, in Brora on the East of the Scottish Highlands.
GW
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JACK THE MINER’S COALFACE Jack the Miner recalls a chance encounter, the enjoyment of which was sadly all too brief. The first words I said when the final whistle went at Wembley were ‘No one can laugh at my team anymore.’ Even my Home Counties, Chelsea supporting colleague stopped looking down his nose at me. Pre-Wembley I had no idea how my world was about to change. I was in a taxi in Dublin and the Chelsea supporter – let’s call him Brian, because that’s his name – was jabbering away at the taxi driver about nothing very much in the way they do, down South. They find it impossible to sit in silence and are genuinely convinced that they are the most fascinating creatures on God’s earth and that the whole world can’t wait to hear what they have to say. Brian was hammering away about the Irish weather and how his Rumanians handyman and his wife don’t like the English weather either and how Petras hates driving him to the station in the morning in the rain and the problem with the stalling Irish economy is all down to the Euro, when the taxi driver thinks he has a way out and asks if we’re interested in football. Of course, being the supporter of a then third tier football team I have to be subservient because the guy up front needs to be told all about Chelsea and Lamps and JT and how Jose is a genius because it is so difficult building a team with money and
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God knows why people go on about the achievements of Brian Clough, because what he did was easy, because there was no pressure when he was building sides at Derby and Forest and having no money was really a blessing for him; and you see the problem with the Irish is that their expectations are too high now because of what Jack Charlton did and the great thing about Didier Drogba is his awareness in the box.... A weary looking taxi driver turns to me and hoping for respite asks;
“And what team are you supporting?” “Doncaster Rovers’” “Ah, Eddie Gormley’s club. He’s not long since retired and he’s coaching now y’know but you’ve got the lad Heffernan and yer man Hawkins he’s back over here now at Bohemians. But yer man Gormley, he was something else...” Brian astounded, sits in total silence as we chat about Colin Hawkins and how Rovers just might continue to rise and how Brendan O’Callaghan also used to play for Rovers and how he wasn’t really Irish but got a cap anyway. Stunned, Brian pays the man when we reach the airport and staggers off. The driver gives me a warm handshake and wishes me and my Rovers well. “I’ll be watching your results a bit more from now on.”
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Two years go by and after numerous solo visits to Dublin I’m back again. With Brian. He’s not been too keen to get back.
“Why would I want to? You can’t get a decent skinny frappuccino and the Polish barmen insist on putting slices of cucumber in the G&T’s. It’s just not right.” Yes...this man goes to Dublin and drinks gin. So, we’re half way down O’Connell Street and the heavens open. We hail a taxi and dive in.
“In town for business lads?” As the Northerner I am not allowed to speak. Brian responds; “Yes, but the place is going down the pan. It’s all down to the Euro loans. You see the Irish government got it all wrong when...” The taxi driver glazes over.
“Are you lads football fans?” Brian speaks. “Yes. Big Chelsea fan me....blah blah blah, JT: blah blah blah, Frank Lampard; blah blah blah José Mourinho: blah blah blah Abramovich...” The taxi driver spots me in his rear view mirror, swivels in his chair and turns to look at me.
Brian sits and sobs quietly. The Donny Rovers fan is the centre of attention. Magic. So, I was happy. My team were in the Championship, admired by all, and clearly we’d become a global brand sweeping all before it. So, three years later, I’m back in Dublin for the first time in a long while. I drink Guinness and Oyster Stout. Brian drinks G&T and vodka tonic. Some things never change. And neither does the weather and once more we seek the refuge of a taxi to escape the downpour. It’s been a long time but I can see it’s not our Rovers admiring driver.
“English papers on the back there if you’re interested in the football boys...” Brian steps in, “Yah, actually I’m a huge Chelsea fan...blah blah blah European Champions League...blah blah blah people misunderstood Ken Bates when he was at what we call ‘the Bridge’ ...blah blah blah...” The taxi driver turns up the radio until there is a momentary silence and takes the opportunity to ask me “and who’d your team be?”
“Doncaster Rovers,” I state proudly. “Oh, they’re a bit shite now aren’t they?”
He points a finger.
I sit in resigned silence.
“And you support Doncaster Rovers... they’ve done grand, like you said they would. Congratulations. And yer man Eddie Gormley is coaching down at Bray now...”
Brian takes over, “And the great thing about Roberto di Matteo...” Normal service is resumed. Well, it was nice while it lasted.
It’s a small world. popularSTAND // ISSUE 60 // OCT-NOV 2012
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GET YOUR KICKS ON NON-LEAGUE DAY Next Saturday is Non-League Day, and editor Glen Wilson encourages you to get behind the initiative. Saturday 13th October sees the third annual ‘Non-League Day’. The brainchild of QPR fan James Doe, Non-League Day was initially launched to encourage fans of Championship and Premier League to use the international break in their own club’s fixtures to get along and support their local grassroots sides instead. The initiative has proved a huge success, and though Rovers may no longer be in the top two tiers of the game, the fanzine is still happy to endorse the day, and encourage any of you not making the trip to Hartlepool to get your football kicks with a local non-league side instead. Of course the majority of Rovers fans should be no strangers to the non-league game, having watched Doncaster toil in the Conference for five seasons less than a decade ago. And though I applaud and fully support the ethos of NonLeague Day and its desire to get football supporters to appreciate the necessity of the game at a community level, there remains a danger of patronisation from those who have only ever experienced football in allseater stadia, or televised hyperbole. Haha, look that bloke’s brought his dog in… Hohoho the bloke on the gate is about 90 years old… hehehe half the programme has been printed upside down. Thankfully, amongst Rovers fans, thanks to those five years in the Conference the oddities
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of non-league football are more often enjoyed with a nostalgic leaning. Each year Rovers existed in the Conference was spent yearning to get out of it. This was not through a sense that we were better than those around us (the Steve Wignall years certainly disprove that notion), but due primarily to the circumstances which had led us to be there. Having previously retained the honour of hosting League football in the town for 75 years, negotiating financial woes and re-election bids en route, only for one crooked man to take away that privilege, we were striving not to leave non-league behind, more to reclaim what we had once had. Increasingly, as Rovers have edged up the football pyramid (and briefly back down it again) in recent years the game appears to have become more serious, more hard work, and well, less fun. The days of being able to decide to go to a game on a last-minute whim, and of being welcomed into opponent’s social clubs are increasingly distant, despite being only eight years ago. For two years during Rovers’ Championship adventure I lived in Worcester, and relished being able to relive all of the above on the terraces of St Georges Lane in support of Worcester City. It served a welcome escape from ‘come and get me’ pleas, and talk of people taking clubs as far as they can, being as it was, just football.
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So, if you’re not making the trip up to Hartlepool then realise that you can’t influence the game staring at the videprinter from your sofa and instead get out there and watch some live local football. Give your money to a club that will value your presence and won’t chuck your pounds at an agent’s hype. Enjoy football without the one-eyed partisanship, but with a Kit-Kat and a cuppa instead, and offer your support to a local non-league club, before it’s too late to do so.
just outside the play-off places, and they’ll be favourites to win against struggling Droylsden. Look out for familiar faces too with both Jan Budtz and Craig Nelthorpe on Trinity’s books.
Frickley Athletic
We practice what we preach here at Pop Stand towers, and so I’ll be hopping across to Leeds to Yorkshire Amateur’s Bracken Edge ground next Saturday. If you fancy embracing the spirit of non-league day too then why not go for one of the ties we’ve kindly picked out for you below.
v Stafford Rangers (Northern League – Premier Division) The one non-league side in the region to be name-checked in a Chumbawumba song, Frickley host Stafford Rangers at Westfield Lane, South Elmsall in the shadow of Frickley Colliery’s spoil tip. Athletic haven’t had a great start to the season, and had won just one league game as popular STAND went to print, but will have a decent chance of altering that against mid-table draw specialists Stafford Rangers.
Gainsborough Trinity
Askern Villa
v Droylsden (Conference North) If you’re in the east of the borough then this is the tie for you, especially as this looks set to be the last season Gainsborough spend at their historic Northolme ground. Trinity were one game away from promotion to the Conference National last season and notable Lincolnshire derbies with Lincoln and Grimsby, bust sadly lost 1-0 to Nuneaton in the play-off final. They’ve made a reasonable start to this campaign too currently sitting
v Albion Sports (Northern Counties East League Division One) Indifferent seems to be the best way to describe Asken Villa’s form in NCEL division one so far this season, as they’ve invariably followed victories with defeats. Managed by Belles Manager and ex-Rover John Buckley Villa will be hoping to chalk another game in the win column against Bradford side, and fellow midtable dwellers, Albion Sports.
Askern v Rossington; Non League Day 2011
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GET YOUR KICKS ON NON-LEAGUE DAY // CONTINUED Hemsworth MW
v Dinnington Town (Northern Counties East League Division One) Another NCEL Divsion One clash to consider for those in the North of the region, as Fitzwilliam’s finest host Dinnington Town in what on current form is something of a mid-table battle. If it’s goals you’re after then the Fitzwilliam Stadium could be the place to head; Hemsworth’s seven home league games to date have seen a total of 35 goals; five per match.
Thorne Colliery
v DFS Welbeck (Central Midlands League North Division) One step down the pyramid and Thorne Colliery are the region’s only Central Midlands League side currently scheduled to be in home action on None-League day. Colliery host DFS Welbeck at their Moorends Welfare Ground, and if you’re thinking of going along, do hurry, because the visitors must end this weekend.
On The Road
If you’re really embracing the NonLeague Day spirit, or you’re not in the Doncaster area, then you could always help to swell the travelling support of three of our local sides on the road; AFC Liverpool v
Armthorpe Welfare
(FA Vase 1st round) Leo Fortune-West’s Armthorpe have a long trip to the west coast as they
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face North West Counties side AFC Liverpool in the 1st round of the FA Vase. Leo has been donning his boots this season, and indeed found the net in Welfare’s previous tie in this competition against Squires Gate. And he’s not the only ex-Rover on target for them either, with Ben Muirhead also plying his trade at Church Street. The match will be played at Valerie Park, Prescot. Spalding United v
Retford United
(FA Vase 1st round) Also on the road in the FA Vase are Retford United as they head to Lincolnshire to face United Counties League side Spalding United at the Sir Halley Stewart Playing Fields. After winning the NCEL Premier Division last season, and being denied promotion to the Northern Premier League Retford have been having a tough league campaign this time round, and will be looking for some respite in the cup. Yorkshire Amateur v
Rossington Main
(Northern Counties East League Division One) This is where you’ll find at least one member of the fanzine team on non-league day as Rossington Main travel to Leeds for a league game with Yorkshire Amateur. Having lost a number of key players at the end of last season Main have been struggling somewhat this campaign, but following recent improved performances this game offer a chance to get some points on the board. Amateur’s Bracken Edge ground is north of Leeds city centre, just of Harehills Lane. For more on Non-League Day visit www.nonleagueday.co.uk
GW
popularSTAND // ISSUE 60 // OCT-NOV 2012