popular STAND 69

EDITORIAL Friends, Rovers, Yorkshiremen, Thank you once again for purchasing popular STAND. It hopefully hasn’t escaped your notice that the ‘zine betwixt your fingers is getting bigger.

We’re up to 40 pages now with more and more people offering to write articles for us of great quality as you will find within. I am obviously biased, but I say this with great conviction, you’ll not spend a more rewarding pound this month.

Save my own doom-laden look at football finances the overall tone of the content within this issue is also pleasingly upbeat. When I first began going to watch Rovers regularly, back in the late 1990s, it was above all else fun. The team may have been God awful at times, the football much the same, but the people around me at the match appeared to be much more intent on enjoying the two hours down the ground than folk of now seem to be. Don’t get me wrong, Belle Vue had its fare share of moaners and

whingers, but we seemed more able to have a laugh at our own expense too.

Memories of that sense of fun and interaction with the players came flooding back when I spoke with Barry Miller last month (see pages 20-23). Perhaps it was because the players then were much more down to earth, and, without this wanting to sound like the insult it does, less professional ? Maybe it was because post match communication was limited to speaking face to face to the other Rovers fans you knew rather than rehashed vitriol on social media and messageboards? Perhaps it was because we focussed more on the football and less on money and costs? I don’t know.

Last month of course saw a local pop star play for the Rovers reserves to a great amount of media coverage and much scorn across large swathes of football supporters, including our own.

Maybe I’m missing a wider social

CONTENTS: ISSUE 69 05. The Bernard Glover Diaries 08. Memorable Memorabilia 09. Easy for Dennis 10. Dick Watson: Private Eye 12. The Belles, The Belles 14. Jack The Miner’s Coalface 16. Voice of the Pop Side 19. Hitting the Bottle

20. Miller Time 24. A Thing About Rugby 26. Windmills Of Your Mind 30. Blowing My Own Trumpet 32. Reg Ipsa: Legal Beagle 33. Wayne Tomlinson’s Lucky Scarf 34. Just a Pub Team 36. Seasons In Retrospect

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implication but I saw it simply as a bit of fun to raise money for charity, not ‘the end of football’ or ‘embarrassing’. I don’t care for Louis Tomlinson’s music, I couldn’t name you a single One Direction song, but he’s a locallad keen to work with his local football club to aid local charities. Therefore he’s alright by me.

And yes the One Direction fans are a daunting bunch, indeed many of their tweets during Tomlinson’s game read like slogans at a communist rally. “You must win. You are the best” “Go Doncaster Go!” “Come on Doncaster. You have the power!”

But is this gleeful hero worship any different to our own fawning of Billy Sharp, given the things some of you were offering to do for him and to him after his winner against Watford the other night I would suggest not.

There was the one girl who flew from the USA to watch that reserve game.

‘Why travel a thousand miles to see someone nervously and uncomfortably play football?’ I thought and then remembered that I go to watch Wales play away quite regularly and was in no place to judge.

So my point is, if a pop star wants to play for the reserves and it will make a great swathe of people happy then ultimately does it matter? Football, from what I remember, is something we enjoy. Obviously sometimes, like Bournemouth away, it can be bloody hard to stomach but maybe if we lightened up a bit more then we’d enjoy it a whole lot money. Stop paraphrasing Bill Shankly, because it really is only a game.

DAVID CORK

(13 games for Rovers in 78/79, 79/80) working on the self-service checkouts at Morissons in Balby. spotter: @DrMuttley

LEO FORTUNE-WEST

Weekly in Doncaster station. I try to keep up, but just can’t match his four steps at a time on the stairs! spotter: @lewisward20

DAVE COWLING

Shopping with his mum in Edenthorpe Sainsburys last month. spotter: @NathanDRFC

SEAN McDAID

Having a game of ten-pin bowling with his family at Donny Bowl. spotter: @Kelvin_Defty

JOHN RYAN

On the BBC News Channel very early one morning talking about boob jobs.

Viva Rovers!

GW

spotter: @Louis_Bailey_ 04 | PS69 | March 2014 | a football fanzine for the likes of Doncaster

THE BERNARD GLOVER DIARIES WE WERE STAYING UP, THEN DESTINED TO BE RELEGATED IN A FIREY BALL, THEN STAYING UP AGAIN. TIME TO RELIVE JANUARY TO MARCH. SATURDAY18TH JANUARY ROVERS 3-0 WIGAN ATHLETIC Finally, finally it clicks. All the hard work and nearly moments are put to the sword as Rovers romp away to a 3-0 win over the FA Cup holders (and I never thought I’d type those words).

Chris Brown puts Rovers ahead in early on, and as Wigan waste a couple of chances before the break, Rovers step it up in the second half. First a comedy second goal goes in via the chest of a falling Richie Wellens before a Brown penalty wraps up three very joyous points.

TUESDAY 21ST JANUARY Grown men and women across Doncaster are given the all clear to descend into childlike glee as Billy Sharp returns to Rovers on loan.

The arrival of the talismanic striker, alongside the signings of Abdoulaye Meite and Gabriel Tamas, plus the long term securing of Richie Wellens proving collective one in the eye of those who had used Rovers start to transfer window action as another stick with which to inexplicably beat the board.

SATURDAY 25TH JANUARY BLACKPOOL 1-1 ROVERS Cometh the hour, cometh the man (to make a bold and unsubstantiated claim for a goal, despite his effort boasting about as much contact as WWE Wrestling). Sharp’s goal, or rather

Cotterill’s free-kick, five minutes from times cancels out a goal from Andy Halliday to nudge Rovers onto one of those ‘unbeaten run’s we’ve heard so much about from other teams.

TUESDAY 28TH JANUARY ROVERS 3-0 CHARLTON ATHLETIC Rain that off Charlton, you inclement weather embracing f**kers. A confident and assured performance from the Rovers does the trick, leaving Athletic to traipse off back to the mysterious sub-aqua world of london’s Atlantis district. First half goals from Meite and Brown blow Charlton away, leaving the Rovers to showboat their way through the remainder of the game before Mark Duffy lashes in a third from. The sort of giddy victory that leads you to start doing bold maths for the final play-off spot.

SATURDAY 1ST FEBRUARY ROVERS 0-0 MIDDLESBROUGH Three games unbeaten for Rovers becomes four with this goalless draw against ‘Boro. Rovers start brightly but peter out in the second half, though the point is enough to move Rovers out of the relegation places.

SATURDAY 8TH FEBRUARY BRIGHTON 1-0 ROVERS A disappointing day on the South Coast sees Rovers lose a bitty, scrappy game which was played out mostly in the

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central third of the field. Ulloa’s 75th minute goal separates the two sides, and Rovers misery is compounded with five minutes to go as Sharp gets himself sent off for lashing out at Gordon Greer.

SUNDAY 9TH FEBRURAY Doncaster Belles get their season off to a fine start with a 2-0 win away at Aston Villa in the FA Cup through goals from Tori Williams and Beth England. In the subsequent week Belles’ 2014 fixtures are announced, with Villa away first up for them again. Oddly the season will start midweek, the FA targeting the ‘new generation of fans’ with those child and family friendly 7:45pm school-night kick-offs. That said, the most eye-opening news from the fixture release is that Notts County have nicknamed themselves ‘the Lady Pies’, which just sounds like a euphemism used by someone afraid of saying the word vagina in public.

MONDAY 10TH FEBRURAY Behold the football story of the year thus far as Middlesbrough’s backroom team earn the wrath of a local volunteer for failing to pay £5 for some photocopying at Warmsworth Library.

Said volunteer, Mike Collison popped round the ‘Boro team hotel to ask club manager Aitor Karanka for the money in person. An argument failed to bring forth the money (Collison: “I have spent quite a lot of time in the north-east and that’s not what I would expect from anyone from there. I just stormed out - I didn’t give them a chance to pay even if they wanted to.”) and it ended with Karanka sending a letter of apology and inviting Mr Collison to attend a ‘Boro game for free. Mike we salute you, both for your actions and for your glorious reply of “I accept his apology, and thanks for the generous offer - but a cheque for £5 would suffice.”

SUNDAY 15TH FEBRURAY ROVERS 2-2 BARNSLEY A proper derby game in name and nature as Rovers and Barnsley play out an entertaining 2-2 draw at the Keepmoat. Nick Proschwitz puts the visitors ahead causing several members of the travelling Barnsley folk to spontaneously combust in excitement going by the amount of red smoke billowing from the away end. That joy was to be short-lived though, and not just due to the onset of a crushing realisation that in just over an hour they’d have to return to the bleak coal-dust shrouded existence of living in Barnsley, but also because Jamie Coppinger equalised. In the second half Coppinger struck again, but Barnsley eventually found a way past the impressive Sam Johnstone to equalise.

The Barnsley side featured big name Emmanuel Frimpong, you could tell he was a big name by the way he kept hitting the turf. He spent that much time horizontal rumour has it that he’s known as ‘The X Axis of the Ashanti’ back in Ghana. He really was terrible, all pong and no frim.

SATURDAY 22ND FEBRUARY YEOVIL TOWN 1-0 ROVERS Aided by free-travel paid for by the club, nine coaches of Rovers fans make the long trip to see a terrible game from both sides as Rovers and Yeovil try and recreate the spirit of the Conference by wanging a ball back and forth to each other from ever increasing distances.

The home side are deserving of their win - secured by a James Hayter penalty - simply for being less desperate than Rovers. Hopefully we can just write it off as a blip. Shit happens. Its just a shame that it always happens to us in Yeovil.

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WEDNESDAY 26TH JANUARY OH MY GOD! THERE HE IS! LOUIS! …LOUIS! …LOOK AT HIM! IN HIS SHORTS! ….LOUIS! AAAAGHHHH! ….LOUIS! times by five thousand, repeat for ninety minutes. Yep giddy One Direction fans and a sizable press contingent descended on the Keepmoat to yell at a young man as he made his debut for the reserves. Quote from the night comes from Paul Mayfield; “if only he passed the ball as often as he passed his fingers through his hair”. We’ve seen it described as everything from a ‘crass publicity stunt’ to ‘embarrassing’, but can we not just look at it for what it was? Local lad, joins local team to raise money for local charity. Job done then.

SATURDAY 1ST MARCH AFC BOURNEMOUTH 5-0 ROVERS We’re doomed! Doomed I tell you!

WEDNESDAY 5TH MARCH A bad week for Rovers gets worse as Bongani Khumalo suffers a knee injury, whilst playing for South Africa against Brazil, that will rule him out for the rest of the season, a fate already set to befall Harry Forrester who has had complications with the injury that has sidelined him. more positive news comes with the extension of Johnstone’s loan from Manchester United.

SATURDAY 8TH MARCH ROVERS 2-0 HUDDERSFIELD TOWN We won a game of football! And relatively convincingly too! Sharp claimed the first, turning in Gabriel Tamas’ header from a first half corner, and the lead was doubled in the second half when a neat passing move down the right ended with the much improved David Cotterill sweeping the ball into

the bottom corner. It wasn’t all plain sailing for Rovers mind and it needed the ever impressive Johnstone to make a couple of telling saves.

TUESDAY 11TH MARCH ROVERS 2-1 WATFORD The things a man will do when he reads those three little words; “Goal! Rovers!

Sharp!” I am a grown man. I’m in my thirties. But I am glad to discover, as I did at about 9:37pm this evening, that news of a late winning goal will still result in me screaming the sort of gleeful yelp that is only normally seen on adverts when six-year-olds get told they’re going to Disneyland. It looked a tough task for Rovers at kick-off, with Tamas unavailable due to a fractured cheekbone Coppinger slotted in at rightback and performed with such ease that, to quote one of our followers on twitter, “If Dickov stuck Copps in goal I’d back him to do a job”. Having benefitted from a first half sending-off and the non-award of a penalty when Johnstone elected to fireman’s lift Troy Deeney away from the ball, Rovers struggled to find a way through the Watford rearguard until right at the death when Sharp’s tap-in secured back to back wins for the first time this season.

SATURDAY 15TH MARCH NOTTINGHAM FOREST 0-0 ROVERS After Rovers’ last three away performances if you’d have offered me a point from the trip to Nottingham I would have snapped your arm off.

Luckily no limbs need be sacrificed as Rovers put in a drastically improved display, taking the game to their hosts in the second half in such a way that a win wouldn’t have been an unfair result.

As it is the draw gives Rovers an eight point cushion on the relegation places with ten games to go.

GW

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MEMORABLE MEMORABILIA WHAT WAS IT THAT BROUGHT BILLY SHARP BACK? ACCORDING TO ROB JOHNSON, DRUNK EBAYING. I am a 26 year old man. I shouldn’t really be aware of Match Attax football trading cards, let alone the proud owner of one. However, after a dark night of the soul culminated in me, surrounded by empty bottles of Heineken and pizza crusts, searching ‘Billy Sharp’ on Ebay the sight of such a card signed by the man himself was too much to resist.

Due to the state I was in I actually forgot I had ordered it until it arrived in the post a week later. I tore open the envelope expecting the new Los Campesinos album (as I actually remembered ordering that) to find instead Billy’s beautiful face staring up at me, accompanied by his signature.

Now for a bit of context, I think it is safe to say that everyone reading this loves Billy Sharp. But it goes deeper for me. From his first goal at Glanford Park to the glorious header against Wednesday, from THAT goal against ‘Boro to mixed emotions at the Amex on its opening day, I have loved Billy Sharp completely and unquestionably. He takes me back to my childhood. To the days when it wasn’t unusual to flat out worship another man (Colin Cramb, if you

were wondering). Even after he left Rovers I followed his career closely. I laughed at his ‘hot dog’ celebration for Forest against Blackpool and I shared his frustration at sitting on the bench at Southampton.

The reason this piece of memorabilia is important for me is because whilst I was embarrassingly excited to receive this in the post, at the time it was also tinged with sadness. We had just got beat 3-0 by Ipswich and we missed our former talisman more than ever. I thought Billy might return to us one day, but never did I dream that it would be this season. As ridiculous as this may sound I feel like my signed Billy Sharp Match Attax card was a harbinger of sorts.

A sign of things to come. I was at work when my friend sent me a text saying simply “You will be happy”, and somehow I just knew. I rushed home - having already had it confirmed by Sky Sports News that Billy had come home - opened my scrap book (again…

26 year old man) and smiled at Billy looking back at me. A Rovers player once more. Welcome home Billy.

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RobJ

WILL THIS THIS DKVDGJKG LSDJ SDNF VSJNFSVNSK ISSUE: GAME THEORY SDKLFSDKFS FASJNSDFJDS SFNSDKJSF SDFJNSKFJ

Na then, how’s tha’ doin’? Good? Aye, me and all to be honest. No escapes in six months at the prison and some decent beer on tap at the Three Horsehoes. Can’t complain.

Well, I say that, I’ve just clocked we’ve been inviting you lot to chuck your own requests for what I explain to you in this column. So this month I’ve now got to explain Game Theory to yers, after Andy Spiers asked for it, never mind though, it’s easy for Dennis.

Reet, so Game Theory then is a model of optimality taking into consideration not only benefits less costs, but also the interaction between participants. So basically Game theory attempts to look at the relationships between participants in a particular model and predict their optimal decisions. Imagine trying to predict where one of John Philiben’s clearances will go every time? Yep, it’s that hard.

Anyroad, I’ll have a bash at trying to give yers an example.

Suppose we’ve got two footballers accused of drunken behaviour whilst away on tour or something, let’s call them Tim R and Steve F. Both Tim R and Steve F are being interrogated separately by the gaffer, let’s call him Dave, and do not know what the other is saying. Both players want to minimize the amount of time they’re banished to the reserves and here lies the dilemma. The sentences vary as follows:

1) If Tim R pleads not guilty and Steve F confesses, Steve F will receive the minimum punishment of one week, and Tim R will have to train with the reserves for the maximum time of six weeks.

2) If nobody makes any implications they will both be banished to the stiff for two weeks.

3) If both decide to plead guilty and implicate their partner, they will both be away from the first team for three weeks.

4) If Steve F pleads not guilty and Tim R confesses, Tim R will receive the minimum punishment of one week, and Steve F will have to play with the reserves for six weeks.

So right, fessing up is the most attractive option, should the other player plead not guilty, as t’sentence is only one week.

But, if the other player also chooses to plead guilty, both will have to spend three weeks with the reserves. On the other hand, if both lads plead not guilty, they’d have to spend two weeks with the ‘ressies. So, the risk of pleading not guilty is six week stint with the seconds, should the other choose to confess.

So now you see, Tim R and Steve F need to deploy Game Theory and guess the other’s likely response if they want to get the shortest punishment for themselves .

Told you it were easy for Dennis.

Until next time. Ta ra.

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Dick Watson reclined in his threadbare office chair and despatched another ring of smoke towards the yellowed ceiling. He knew that the cigars were bad for him – his wife reminded him often enough – but Watson needed a vice to get him through the long days waiting by the phone. Dick by name, Private dick by nature and the best in town if his advert in the Thomson Local was to be believed, he lamented the quiet times that he’d endured for longer than he could remember.

If the lack of work went on much longer he would have to lay Judy off and the thought of doing that brought a lump to his throat. Judy was Watson’s secretary. A luxury he could ill afford but she had worked for him since she left school at sixteen back in the Summer of ’85. She had been a real looker in her heyday, a solid nine out of ten with big blue eyes and a pout that could melt a guy’s heart but she had never really been into dating like the other girls.

She needed someone to protect her from the junkies and scumbags on the tough streets of Bessacarr and in Dick Watson she found a perfect surrogate for the father who’d walked out on her when she was a baby.

Judy worried about Dick, but the thing that kept her awake at night was worrying about how much he worried about her. She kept telling him that she’d be fine if he let her go even though her heart broke a little bit more every time she said it. Middle age hadn’t dulled the sparkle in those blue eyes and they glistened with the precursor to a tear as she stared out of the dirt-streaked window in the Hallgate office but the pained gurgle of the decrepit coffee maker in the hallway snapped her out of her daydream. The sound had become so unfamiliar of late that she was a little startled to realise that someone was out there. Probably just the landlord coming over to collect the rent which was overdue again.

There was a crunch of a polystyrene cup being crushed then the rustle of a bin bag but the expected turn of key in lock never came. Then through the frosted glass emerged the silhoutte of a giant man, stooping to press the intercom buzzer.

A client!

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Judy straightened the papers on her desk, and took a moment to re-apply her scarlet lipstick before picking up the phone. “Watson Investigations” she purred in a silky voice with an accent that she had refined at the behest of the schmuck agent who had promised her a shot at TV presenting before fleecing her for three grand and disappearing. Dick Watson never admitted it but Judy knew that he had something to do with Billy McFly’s corpse washing up on Goole docks a few months later.

The office door swung open and in strode an ungainly man who took off his well-worn fedora to reveal a shaven head. He spoke with a hint of a North-Eastern accent but he had evidently been living in Yorkshire for some time. “I need to find someone.

Several people actually and I thought you might be able to help?” Judy gestured for the man to take a seat and informed him “Mr. Watson may be in a position to take on your case if you’d like to wait five minutes, Mr....”

“Jones”, said the man. “Rob Jones.”

He extended a shovel-like hand to Judy and gripped her slender fingers in a firm handshake. She breezed through the adjoining door leaving a delicate apparition of Chanel Number five in reception. Her taste for fine perfume had never been tempered by financial hardship and she had long since stopped feeling guilty for dousing herself in the samplers at Debenhams on her way into work every day.

Watson crushed out the stump of his Cohiba and made a token effort to brush the creases and ash out of his

suit as he ambled to the door. “Mr Jones, how can I help you?” he asked as he beckoned for the client to join him in his office. Rob Jones stepped uneasily into the room. Maybe it was the foul coffee making its way through his gut or the thick, smoky atmosphere that made him feel queasy. No. He knew the feeling. It was nerves. Not something that he was accustomed to in his career as a professional footballer but this claustrophobic office was some way outside his comfort zone of lush grass, fresh air and crowds of spectators.

Jones took a deep breath to compose himself and stifled the tickle of a cough in his dry throat, involuntarily glancing towards the sash window.

Dick Watson picked up an empty cigar tin from his desk and used it to jam the window open. A cool blast of air rustled through the Doncaster Free Press on Watson’s desk and the two men sat down facing each other.

“Sorry about the smoke.” Muttered Watson. “I hope you’re not from the council, are you?” he added, with a wheezy chuckle and a twinkle in his eye. “Now, what can I do for you?”

Jones cleared his throat and spoke softly at first then gathered pace as he felt the pressure running from his body. He had been silent for too long and once he started talking, the floodgates opened like the Scunthorpe defence. “I need to know what happened to some people. They went missing a few months ago and nobody seems to know where they went.

People seem too scared to even talk about them but somebody must know what happened to... The Vikettes.”

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THE BELLES, THE BELLES AFTER THE FA DICTATED FARCE OF LAST SEASON THE BELLES ARE READY TO LET THEIR FOOTBALL DO THE TALKING AGAIN IN 2014 As you will know – as an avid reader and follower of popular STAND – a lot was written about Doncaster Rovers Belles last season. Words upon words on their standing in the game, their history, and their spirit in the face of enforced adversity. Very little though was written about the actual football they played.

Within reason I suppose, given that their footballing endeavours were a seasonlong dead-rubber – but this is after all a football team, and so the big appeal for the Belles in 2014 will be a chance to return focus to the football once again.

The Belles season is already underway, thanks to the convoluted nature of two top tiers playing a summer sport whilst the rest of women’s football slogs through the winter, they will have played two, possibly three, FA Cup matches before

their league season has begun. And it started in encouraging fashion too with a 2-0 win in the 4th round against fellow FA Women’s Super League 2 side Aston Villa. Goals from Tori Williams and Beth England carried the Belles through on the artificial pitch at Sutton Coldfield to set up a 5th round tie with Copsewood Coventry which was played at the Keepmoat as this issue went to print.

Aston Villa will also be the Belles first league opponents too when the FA Women’s Super League gets under way on 16th April. Following last season’s demotion Doncaster will line up in the second tier this campaign against some new opponents; Durham, Sunderland, Watford, Oxford United, Reading, Yeovil Town, Millwall Lionesses and London Bees making up the newly created second

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tier. Though these teams are spared a drop out of the Super League set-up there is the chance for promotion to the top flight – something the Belles will be among the favourites for.

Playing outside the top tier for the first time in twenty-two years has not proved a deterrent to the Belles squad, many of whom are back for more. Sue Smith remains a Belles as too does influential skipper Leandra Little and long-serving defender Lyndsey Cunningham. Whilst the club have also been able to hold on to their young talent, the England agegroup internationals Millie Bright, Jess Sigsworth and Beth England are all in a squad that will expect to be giving the FA a headache over promotion criteria come the season’s end in October.

Though the playing squad remains largely intact, there have been changes on the bench, with the familiar Scottish bark of John Buckley no longer audible from the dugout - the former Rovers man stepping down after ten years as manager.. The man tasked with filling John’s shoes is Gordon Staniforth, an expro who played with York, Hull, Carlisle, Plymouth and Newport during the 1970s and 80s, who arrives in Doncaster having previously worked in youth football in North Yorkshire.

Looking forward to the new campaign Staniforth told the FAWSL website the long slog of last season can actually stand his young side in good stead. “The team may have had a hard time over the last couple of years but they can be all the better for that experience. It’s a new start but also it’s a way to learn from the past. It’s really exciting and I can’t wait to get going, there’s a lot of great teams but what we need to think about is Doncaster Rovers Belles. Sunderland, Aston Villa and Reading I’m sure will all ask questions – it’s going to be fantastic.”

09.02.14 16.03.14 13.04.14 16.04.14 19.04.14 26.04.14 27.04.14 01.05.14 04.05.14 15.05.14 18.05.14 25.05.14 28.06.14 06.07.14 12.07.14 26.07.14 03.08.14 09.08.14 24.08.14 30.08.14 04.09.14 07.09.14 14.09.14 20.09.14 04.10.14 11.10.14 26.10.14

2014 FIXTURES

Aston Villa Copsewood Coventry 5th round date Aston Villa Oxford United Reading Quarter Final date Mancheser City Durham Sunderland Watford Yeovil Town Millwall Lionesses Everton Liverpool Sunderland Durham London Bees Oxford United Reading Aston Villa Watford Yeovil Town Millwall Lionesses Sunderland Durham London Bees

A H A H H H A H H A A A A H A H A A H A H H A H A

FA Cup FA Cup FA Cup League League League FA Cup Cup Cup Cup League League League Cup Cup League League League League League League League League League League League League

Home Games: Adults £6 / Concessions £3 Fixtures subject to change. Check website www.doncasterroversbelles.co.uk GW a football fanzine for the likes of Doncaster | March 2014 | PS69 |13

JACK THE MINER’S COAL FACE SELECTIVE MEMORY AND PROFESSIONAL FOOTBALLERS; JACK THE MINER ON A MUCH MALIGNED ROVERS ‘HERO’ History is written by the victors and re-written in internet forums Future issues of popular STAND fanzine will be awash with James Coppinger tributes as he approaches his appearance record. And rightly so.

He’s been a mainstay of the re-born DRFC and at the very heart of the champagne moments we’ve witnessed in a glorious period for the club.

survived Bristol Rovers’ fight back and went on to pick up the Football League Trophy thanks to Graeme Lee’s late winner in extra time?

He was there, chasing everything, running the channels and helping to run the clock down. So, it’s not Neil Sullivan. And it’s not Paul Heffernan.

Of course, he’s not alone. One other player has put in a shift and has played shoulder to shoulder with Copps in all of those key games. He has helped create history.

Little over twelve months later he was there again on the biggest of stages; Wembley. Another day when the sun was shining and all our dreams came true and we shared in his joy as the champagne soaked players came to applaud the Rovers faithful.

Any guesses as to who I have in mind?

Paul Green? It must be.

Cast your mind back to those pivotal never-to-be-forgotten games... Go back to 2005 and that magical League Cup night against Aston Villa when Rovers ran riot and stunned David O’Leary’s side with a comprehensive 3-0 victory.

And fast forward to the quarter-final against a very lucky Arsenal side when Rovers were just seconds away from a semi-final place. He was there, doing his bit, under the radar fetching and carrying and feeding the Heff.

Another leap forward in the time machine finds us a few months later at the home of Derby County, our first game in the second tier for almost fifty years. Paul Green is on the pitch but he’s wearing the black and white of Derby, so we can exclude Greeny from our thoughts but our man was there; as he was too a few days later, in that first Championship home game at the Keepmoat against Cardiff City.

Who is it? Is it James O’Connor? No. I’m not thinking of Jimmy. And it’s not Michael McIndoe.

And who can forget that incredible day in the sunshine at the Millennium Stadium, Cardiff in 2007 when Rovers

I’ve cast aside some Rovers greats along the way. They were magnificent but they weren’t ever-present in this miraculous era. Some left too early and some arrived too late for inclusion.

So, a prize to all those that said Lewis Guy; the only player to stand alongside

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James Coppinger in the cherished games that will be the centre piece of Rovers history books over the next hundred years.

on YouTube - that he bagged against Luton Town in a 3-3 draw. Evidence that he really could find the back of the net.

No, don’t go...don’t turn the page looking for the return of Saunders PI. Stick with me...

But there’s another book, An Alternative Illustrated History of Lewis Guy. In this book he is viewed as a comic figure incapable of football basics, an habitual diver and reviled by many for being - thanks to one forum poster and universally accepted as gospel thereafter - a bit of a prat around town on a Saturday night....a bit harsh bearing in mind most football fans can give lessons in Saturday night dickheadery. The nail was firmly placed in his coffin by Sean O’Driscoll. Sean’s comments - no doubt meant to reassure the fans - left Guy as a permanent figure of ridicule. The words, “He’s really good in training” will go down in Rovers folklore.

I’m not trying to make a case for Lewis Guy as one of our all time greats. I’m merely presenting the facts. In the post-Conference universe, when Rovers made the world sit up and take notice and when legendary events have been carved in stone, he has been on the pitch.

A cynic might say that being on the pitch isn’t the same as making a contribution, but one version of The Illustrated History of Lewis Guy will be kind to him. He arrived on loan from Newcastle and made an immediate goal scoring impact with 3 goals in 9 games and signed a permanent deal. At the time it looked like good business. He was an England under 19 international with UEFA Cup experience and on the verge of partnering Alan Shearer in the Newcastle first team.

Two of the best managers Rovers have ever had - Penney and O’Driscoll rated him enough for him to make 142 appearances in a Rovers shirt during their reigns. And whilst the flood of goals we expected never came, he combined well at times with Paul Heffernan. In fact, Heffernan’s goal against Villa was set up by a sublime flick from Guy. And let’s not forget the record books will always show that he scored Rovers’ first goal back in the Championship at Derby and the first Championship goal at the Keepmoat in the game that followed. Those goals were reminders of what he was capable of, as are the two goals - still viewable

Those early Championship highlights were the high water mark. Spells at Franchise FC, Oxford United, St.Mirren and Carlisle United have brought 9 goals in just over 80 games since departing Rovers in 2010.

So, Lewis Guy; allegedly a bit of a knob, Tom Daley’s new diving coach and a player who won’t make it into my all time Rovers First XI, Second XI or Third XI. Yet he’s a player with a ten year playing career in an era when the average pro ekes out just three years.

He’s also a cup winner, promotion winner, an ever present in key moments of the Rovers story and the scorer of ‘that’ goal at Pride Park, plus the whitest teeth this side of John Ryan. Perhaps history should be kinder to him.

JTM

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VOICE OF THE POP SIDE ANOTHER GREAT RETROSPECTIVE PIECE FROM JOHN COYLE AS HE RECOUNTS THE STORY OF NORMAN OF THE ROVERS It is probably fair to say that Doncaster Rovers have never won a league championship in more dramatic fashion than they did on 27th April 2013. Thanks to modern technology the moments will be preserved for generations to come, so they too can marvel at a truly amazing sequence of events. There was similar drama involving Rovers and a league title 115 years ago, but there were no cameras to record what happened. Maybe it is time to retell the tale of Rovers dramatic seizure of the 1898-99 Midland League Championship.

That season saw Rovers bidding for a second Midland League crown, their first having been achieved two seasons earlier, and quite a few of that side were still around. Rovers’ record at the Intake Ground was excellent: after an opening day draw they won the next eight games.

Away from home was another matter entirely and a couple of wins were offset by some heavy defeats, notably at Wellingborough (0-5) and Derby County Reserves (1-9).

Mid-March 1899 found Rovers tucked in just behind the leaders in the Midland League table. Ilkeston Town headed the table with 32 points.

Rovers were sixth with 24 and with three games in hand, though with two points for a win they needed

some help from others. What they didn’t need was a shattering defeat. On Saturday 18th March they went down 0-4 away at Long Eaton Rangers, a team near the foot of the table. The Doncaster Chronicle’s reporter was in no doubt that this marked the end of Rovers’ title ambitions. “Rovers,” he thundered, “can now bid good-bye... to the Championship of the Midland League.” Adding, for good measure “fancy losing to a team like Long Eaton,” a refrain we’ve heard from a few opposing fans this season after we’ve sent them home empty handed.

But the game did look to be up for Rovers, eight points adrift and with only five games to play.

Because the Midland League had only 14 members, Rovers supplemented their fixture list by playing in the Yorkshire League. A week after the Long Eaton debacle, Rovers took out their frustrations on Sheffield FC, hammering the amateurs 9-0 at the Intake. A good day became even better once the Midland League results for the afternoon became known. Second placed Kettering Town, Chesterfield Town in fourth and fifth placed Rushden had all been defeated.

Ilkeston and Wellingborough had not played. The following weekend’s Easter programme promised to be decisive.

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Rovers’ Easter schedule consisted to two games against opponents from Northamptonshire in successive days, followed by a home game with Burton Wanderers on the Monday, a schedule to make the modern professional blanch. First up, on Good Friday, were Kettering Town, who came to the Intake as one of the title favourites. They were four points behind Ilkeston with two games in hand and had a four point advantage over Rovers. In front of a crowd of around 3,000, Rovers led at the break with a goal from Nelson, a winger signed from Attercliffe in January. Nelson added a second after the interval, and then set up William Gladwin for the decisive third. Rovers eventually ran out 3-1 winners. A day later they travelled to Rushden and earned a valuable point from a 0-0 draw. Then on Easter Monday Rovers took on Burton Wanderers at the Intake. Nelson gave Rovers an early lead, and then Billy Linward netted a rebound after goalkeeper Bunting had saved his penalty. When Leon Gall put Rovers 3-0 ahead in the second half, the game seemed won, but Burton stormed back with two late goals and Rovers had to hang on to a nervous 3-2 win. Elsewhere matters were conspiring to help Rovers.

Second-placed Chesterfield earned a draw and a win over Easter but had completed their programme and were still a point behind Ilkeston.

The latter lost on Easter Monday and on the Tuesday completed their programme with a surprising defeat at the hands of Leicester Fosse Reserves. Kettering had bounced back by beating Rushden 2-1. The table after the Easter games made interesting reading:

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

Ilkeston Town Chesterfield Town Kettering Town DONCASTER ROVERS Wellingborough Rushden Town

P 26* 26* 24 24 25 24

Pts 32 31 30 29 28 27

Rovers had another title to contest, that of the Yorkshire League. On Saturday 8th April they travelled to Wombwell Town with hopes of a rare away win that would keep their title hopes alive. These were dashed when Gosling scored the only goal of the game for the home side, which clinched them the League honours.

To make matters worse, Gladwin was forced off by a knee injury. However, there was a ray of light in the gloom.

Mexborough had surprised Kettering by holding them to a 1-1 draw. This meant Rovers were only two points behind Kettering with a game in hand, although as the Northants men had a superior goal average, a win for them in the return fixture at Mexborough would probably be enough to give them the title.

Neither side was in Midland League action the following Saturday, Rovers winning 9-3 at Sheffield FC to cement their runners-up spot in the Yorkshire League. Gladwin was passed fit for the crucial home game on 22nd April against Sheffield Wednesday Reserves. It is not hard to imagine the consternation when Gladwin aggravated his knee injury before the game and was unable to participate, especially as the reserve side had an away fixture. Fortunately a young local amateur called Norman Clayton was present as a spectator and the committee invited him to

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VOICE OF THE POP SIDE CONTINUED FROM PAGES 16 AND 17 play. Now our story moves into “Roy of the Rovers” territory, as Clayton rattled in two goals before the interval. First he shot home after being set up by Linward, and then he converted a centre by Nelson for the second. Wednesday pulled one back before the break, but then Clayton set up Gall to make it 3-1. Young Norman’s perfect day was completed near the end when his fierce shot completed his debut hat-trick and a 4-1 win. Fans now repaired to the telegraph office in town, where joyous news from Mexborough awaited.

Rovers’ local rivals had done them proud and had beaten Kettering 2-1.

One more win would mean that the Midland League trophy would be back in Doncaster.

Kettering’s defeat had put them out of the hunt and Ilkeston, still top with 32 points, were the only team who could also win the title. They would be Champions if Rovers lost or drew their final game, at home to Rushden Town. The game, on 29th April 1899, was attended by a healthy crowd of over 3,500. With Gladwin still injured, the committee

asked Norman Clayton to continue, and he was to play a full part in the fun to come. Nervous fans soon had their anxieties dispelled when Linward fired Rovers into an early lead, then added a second for good measure. The other winger, Nelson, then scored two more with angled drives and just before half time Clayton made it 5-0 with a 20-yard drive. The second half was a tamer affair, Clayton netting the sixth goal of the game from a rebound after his penalty had been saved. Rovers had won the Midland League title in style.

Just over two years later, Rovers would be embarking on their first season in the Football League. They didn’t win a title until 1934-35 when David Menzies’ side secured the championship of the Third Division (North) in rather less dramatic fashion. No doubt there would still be fans who could recall the drama of 1898-99. Just as in 30-odd years from now Rovers supporters will still talk about the events at Griffin Park.

JC

Bernard Glover's

BELIEVE IT or NOT Former Rovers centre-back Vince Brockie boasts the UK’s 2nd-largest collection of horse brasses.

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HITTING THE BOTTLE ITS TIME MORE WAS DONE TO PROTECT FOOTBALL’S FORGOTTEN VICTIMS ARGUES CHRIS DONALD You no doubt enjoy going to watch Rovers week in, week out, but do you ever stop to think about the real victims of the sport you know and love?

The abuse of the defenceless water bottle through unprovoked attacks by football managers across the country is something that needs to be brought to the forefront of public attention.

At Off The Woodwork we are campaigning to raise awareness of what is fast becoming one of football’s biggest unspoken crimes. This isn’t simply a grassroots issue either; with Arsene Wenger and Jose Mourinho known for their infamous ‘bottle bashing’. On average 93% of water bottles given to football managers on a Saturday afternoon are either kicked in anger or thrown on the floor. And it gets worse. Not only are the majority of water bottles kicked or thrown, 86% of them are never actually used for their primary purpose of rehydration or to ease those nasty looking injuries back to full health.

This needs to stop. These water bottles play a vital role in our beloved game yet the managers we cheer for from the stands continue to treat them with total distain and unwarranted aggression. The ‘Stop Water Bottle Abuse’ (SWBA) campaign aims to eradicate the victimisation of water bottles from the game and stop these innocent bystanders being harmed.

After researching this horrific epidemic, Off The Woodwork spokesperson, Rob Munro said: “We owe these great servants to the game protection. It’s a water bottles worst nightmare realising that it is going to a football game on a Saturday and knowing full well there is a very high chance it will be on the end of a beating. We have re-developed football grounds to make it safe for fans and for the players. There needs to be action to make football safe for water bottles as well before we have a Highland Spring on our hands.”

The SWBA are putting forward several ideas to the FA in the hope of bringing down the number of water bottles harmed on a Saturday afternoon, including a potential 12-game ban for repeat offenders.

Another idea is to ban managers from standing within three feet of water bottles whilst in their technical area and only allowed access to them when they need a refreshing beverage on the safety of their own bench. Ultimately we need managers to behave like the role models they are and not give off the message to children that kicking these powerless bottles is acceptable.

To support the cause and get involved, follow @offthe_woodwork on Twitter at and give the voiceless a voice.

Stop water bottle abuse. Now.

CD

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MILLER TIME EDITOR GLEN WILSON SITS DOWN WITH FORMER ROVERS CAPTAIN BARRY MILLER “How’re you, ok?”

“Good, though I’d be better if I didn’t have to look at that every time I come in here” Barry Miller is pointing at a huge picture of Jamie Coppinger’s titlewinning goal at Brentford that spans the width of the Keepmoat Stadium’s East Stand staircase. Though he may be a former Rovers captain, a Doncaster resident, and the current club chaplain, Barry Miller is also a Brentford fan. And so, though he tells me he enjoys coming to the Keepmoat, he doesn’t much enjoy climbing this particular staircase when he’s here.

The team he supports are also the team where it all began for Barry Miller. Growing up in Ealing he joined the Bees as an apprentice, but was released after two years and found himself playing in local non-league football with Epsom & Ewell; “It was a really low league, but playing with my brother and a few mates I really enjoyed it. It was going well so I remember phoning up the Wokingham manager and saying ‘are you looking for a right back?’ And his words were ‘why, do you know any?’”

Luckily Wokingham chose to take Barry on and from there he went on to join Conference stalwarts Farnborough and continued to enjoy his football.

“The manager there was fantastic, the best manager I played with, his name was Allen Taylor, he’s not well known

but he was like me dad really. And it was kind of what I needed at that time as my head had gone a bit, so I went there and I really enjoyed it, it sorted me out.”

A semi-pro as he was, how did it feel to have professional clubs starting to look at him. Was he aware of their interest?

“Well there were rumours that teams were watching me, but nothing really happened.” And when it did, misfortune seemed to get in Barry’s way. “There was one point when Bristol Rovers put in an offer for me and I spoke to Ian Holloway to arrange to go down, but on the Saturday before I was due to go down training with them I did my cartilage. I tackled Tim Ryan when he was playing for Southport – I tried hooking the ball and I ended up kicking him and I did my cartilage. So Holloway had wanted to sign me, but then because I was injured that fell through.”

Eventually Barry did move on, signed by a then third-tier Gillingham side in 1999. The stats I’ve looked up pre interview suggest Barry had a decent run in the Gills team initially but heremembers it differently. “It was horrible. My confidence had been shot. I’d come from

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Farnborough where I was flying, then I went to Gillingham and it was like I’d never kicked a ball before. Even trying to flick the ball up I just couldn’t do it. I was still in West London, and I used to travel in with Barry Ashby and Junior Lewis, but it was a horrible journey, I used to hate going round the M25. It still sends shivers down my spine.”

Barry’s subsequent loan to Woking, a Conference side on his side of London, was ultimatel, it seems, more of a relief than anything. “Just getting away from Gillingham was great to be honest. I was on loan there for most of the season and I was just like ‘extend it, extend it, extend it’ I don’t wanna go back. I didn’t even want to go back to the end of season do, you know.”

He did go back though, and having been told by new boss Andy Hessenthaler that he was going to be given a chance at the Gills, Barry’s confidence returned, though sadly the chance to show how never did and so when the opportunity came to join Rovers he jumped at it. “I was playing really well, but they just weren’t gonna play me, and then they played a youth team player ahead of me a couple of games and so when Steve Wignall phoned up the training ground I said yeah I’ll come up tomorrow. I went up on the train either that night or the next night to come and watch the next game.”

Come the following Saturday Barry was on the Rovers bench, and came on at half-time to

brighten an otherwise terrible afternoon for Doncaster fans . “I just loved playing again, you know it was just good to come somewhere where you were actually wanted. They actually came and signed me… and it was a massive club wasn’t it, probably the biggest non- league club.”

People talk about the fans being a 12th man for a team, an added advantage, but you get the feeling with Barry that support from the fans present a 12th man in the form of an additional team-mate, a friendly arm on the shoulder. It becomes clear from just a few minutes talking to Barry that when he feels wanted then he is happy and relaxed, and when he is happy and relaxed he plays his best football.

“The fans were fantastic, and I’m not just saying that as a typical footballer, because I’m talking to you here, you know… because seriously the fans were great I always felt I had a good rapport them and I used to try and mix with them, and my wife got on with them all too.”Was he aware of the nicknames the fans had given him? He gives an embarrassed laugh. “Yeah, ‘Covered in Monkeys’ from the lads behind the dugout, and then the guys on the other side y used to do ‘halaam, halaam’ as well. Do you know what, it was just nice to know that I was wanted, in a sense.”

That said, Barry’s first experience of Rovers fans, when playing for Farnborough, wasn’t as welcoming. “I remember going out the tunnel and there was this old woman shouting at us and swearing at us – Mrs Robinson - she had those little knitted dolls sat in front of her on the barrier. She used to swear at you and moan, and you thought flipping hell, and then I still came and signed for you.”

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MILLER TIME

CONTINUED FROM PAGES 20 AND 21 I ask Barry if he had a favourite memory from playing for Rovers, and he pauses for a long time trying to remember. When a stand out moment does come to him, inevitably it involves the Rovers fans. “I remember the second season I was here, we played Boston at home and I gave away a penalty and Dave Penney took me off. We were playing Stevenage the Saturday after at home, and he dropped me, and I was sub. With abouttwo minutes to go I was like “Get me on, get me on, get me on”, and when I came on the fans just went mad, and I have to say it was like, shivers and tingles down my spine. Everyone on the Pop Stand, and behind me at the back of the dugouts too, but you know you come on facing that, and they just erupted, singing my name, and that was just… it’s not an amazing moment for anyone else, but it was just special, to know that I was appreciated, because everyone likes to be told they’re good at things.”

Though loved by the fans, it was injury that ultimately curtailed Barry’s time at Rovers as he had to sit on the sidelines and watch as Rovers finally fought their way back to the League.

“It was hard being injured, because I was told to give up playing, I don’t think many people knew that. I’d had two operations it weren’t recovering so that season was a nightmare. And Dave Penney just didn’t take a liking to me, he just didn’t fancy me. That’s

football, it happens, and that’s fine, I don’t mind, you know there are far worse things that happen in the world, but I was gutted when I left, because the fans here were fantastic.”

Released by Rovers Barry went on to play locally, firstly with Gainsborough and then with a strong Hucknall Town side – his performances there earning him further spells in the Conference with Leigh and Burton before he decided to call it a day in 2006 age 30.

Was retiring from football a tough decision?

“No. I’d had enough. We’d just had a baby daughter, and I’d been fourteen years travelling around, and I just thought, no. I was at Ilkeston, and not been great, they thought I’d had a heart attack twice, though it turned out it was panic attacks… I’d had tests, been rushed to hospital and the club had tried to stop me getting paid, and I just thought I’ve had enough of this, so I retired and that was it.”

Post football Barry has focussed his attention on work with Bentley Baptist Church, I ask him if religion has always been part of his life. “My missus grew up in a church family, but I didn’t have a clue. My mum and dad separated when I was thirteen, and I’d gone off the rails, drinking, drugs, my mates were nicking cars

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“The fans erupted, singing my name and although it’s not an amazing moment for anyone else it was just special to me, to know that I was appreciated, because, you know, everyone likes to be told they’re good at things.” and I was with them, I was just messed up really, and then I met her and it was amazing. I started going to church with her and it just made sense, it was what I was looking for. I kind of flitted in and out, but then ten years ago, I had a real experience, a real change in my life, and it was from new really, and then I started working for Bentley Baptist Church, which is a really lovely little church. We’d go out on a night and see the prostitutes, the drug addicts, alcoholics you know, have a wander round chat to people”.

Though no longer with Bentley Baptist Church Barry still serves and now works in a local primary school in the town, his kids’ school. “I went in on a Monday and just said look, what do you need doing so you can get on and teach, so I do laminating, gluing and sticking, mopping up wee, cleaning up the sand, whatever, I’d do anything just to help.

I also take some kids for reading, so I sit with them and read… well, try and read.” So there’s a group of kids in Doncaster now with London accents?

“You know it’s funny, I do phonetics with them and there’s a ‘U’ and they all go “uh” and then I say ‘barth’ and they all correct me and say ‘bath’, so I have to teach them in a Yorkshire accent, the way they speak, but I love it.”

So what does the chaplaincy work involve? “I’m just a shoulder to cry on really for anyone who’s got any issues.

Every Thursday I come in, I come down to the stadium first and wander round here, and then I go up to the training ground Football is a macho

environment, all the way through, even the fans are like ‘I’m a man, I go to the football’, and they’re not ones to talk.

So if someone is struggling in me at least they got someone away from it that they can talk to about anything and I’m not going to go on the tannoy and blurt it out.”

Was that on offer when he was playing, is it something he could have benefitted from? “When I was an apprentice, because I was young, I was a bit of a mess you know and I needed that, but it wasn’t there and I wish it had been.

There’s a lot of depression in football, I’ve struggled with it in the past, and especially with Gary Speed’s shocking death, it is there, but never talked about. And even in the fans you know, you don’t know who’s suffering out there,” he says pointing out the window to the fans arriving in the stadium.

“But some people, when I walk around, will have a chat with me, and I’m just here for people who need that, my heart is there, I just want to help.”

As we get set to wrap up Barry stands and looks out the window towards the pitch. “I come here now and I watch, and you know, I would love just one more game… I probably wouldn’t fit in the kit no more… but its every supporters dream isn’t it… I know we were joking about Brentford, and yeah I grew up a Brentford fan, but Donny is always going to have something special in my heart, and no matter what’s gone on in the past, I’d just love to get out in front of the fans again, that’d be great.”

GW

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A THING ABOUT RUGBY WITH ROVERS NOW OWNING THE DONS HERE’S KERRANG! EDITOR JAMES McMAHON WITH SOME WORDS ON RUGBY Of all the places to impress your father, a playing field in Dinnington – a small colliery town roughly equidistant between Rotherham and Sheffield for those of you not native to South Yorkshire/lacking a wi-fi signal and access to Wikipedia – is an unlikely location. Yet on one windswept Saturday morning, sometime in the early nineties, I succeeded in doing what Callum Best and Luke Skywalker never achieved.

I made my dad proud.

I’ve always been more comfortable with pens than penalty kicks. I was born asthmatic. I’ve got flat feet. I’m colourblind. I have the eyesight of a mole and I get out of breath putting Pro-Evo into the disc drive. But I have tasted sporting glory. Roll the montage, cue up Chariots of Fire and I’ll take you back to Dinnington. Said no-one. Ever.

Forgive the sketchiness and absence of details, but I’m now 33 and only last year lost my keys in an elevator shaft. Yet, fairly clearly for someone who’s been to Glastonbury numerous times, I remember the ball coming to me and I remember running.

Sport is easy, really! I remember swerving tackles and the roar of the crowd. I can see my dad smiling!

And I remember the feeling of utter joy when I cross the line and all my schoolmates jump on top of me for a

reason other than they want my dinner money.

I look at the ball and wish it wasn’t oval. I look at my dad and see a glint in his eye that only normally appears when my mum cooks sausages. DEEP SIGH TYPED OUT IN CAPITALS FOR DRAMATIC EFFECT. Why can’t my dad be normal and like football like other decent people?

My school viewed football with the suspicion of a young Joseph McCarthy, rounding up fans of the sport and shooting them in the back of the head (I made up the last bit of that sentence). The head of PE, in a statement completely inappropriate for a man of his standing, once declared, “football is a great game.

It keeps the puffs off the streets”. He also used to make us play kabaddi, which has no relevance to such blatant homophobia, yet serves as a stark reminder as to how weird the nineties were. And my dad? Oh, he loved rugby in a way he could never love football.

The heroics of Dinnington aside, I hated rugby mainly because I hate sport - but mostly because I hated nosebleeds. But I loved football.

Because as we all know, football isn’t a sport. It’s a transcendental coming together of art and culture. It’s lifeblood. And in turn, I grew to hate

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rugby even more because it stood between me and my dad. See, other than the time he promised then reneged on his promise to build me a me a go-kart, effectively ruining my childhood and influencing every bad life decision I have ever made, my dad’s lack of interest in football and love of rugby is his principal failing as a father.

If that sounds harsh, then you’ve never been the only boy on the estate who didn’t own a go-kart, thereby doomed to play ‘pit mechanic’ for the rest of your life. Yet harsh it is, because he did try. Once a decade in fact, for the last thirty years. Three visits, three extremely articulate observations about the quality of the snack bar tea, one excellent and quite inappropriate heckle of Mickey Walker. And, if my memory hasn’t completely failed me, three defeats too. To be honest, apart from the resolute sadness that we might be missing out on something crucial to the development of our father and son bond, I’m happy that he stay away.

Truth is, the absence of football in my relationship with my father has been a private obsession for years. I’m not ashamed to say there were times I was consumed with jealousy for Rovers supporting friends and their fathers and their 3pm unions. I most definitely am ashamed to say that I briefly resented my dad for his lack of interest in balls that actually looked like balls and not diseased eggs.

Because I love my dad with every fiber of my being.

I am nine and I am swimming. I’m not very good at swimming because I am not really thinking about swimming and instead I am singing

the Cheers theme tune under my breath and smiling. But it’s fine, because swimming club will finish soon and my dad will pick me up and buy me a hot chocolate from the vending machine. Then we’ll go home and we’ll eat fish n’ chips and watch Cheers. And I will look up at my dad and think he is the greatest man in the whole wide world. If you love someone that much, why wouldn’t you want to spend every Saturday with them?

This Christmas, after hearing quite distressing reports that rugby league was being played at The Keepmoat, and a brief moment of festive clarity that left me in no doubt that I can be an unrelenting selfish twat, I bought myself and my dad a ticket to see Doncaster Rugby League Club. I was skeptical. I was freezing. I was wondering if we could make it home to see the late kick-off on telly at fulltime. But it was brilliant! Not that I had any idea what was going on – I think it’s sort of like British Bulldog or Speedball 2 - but it was certainly better than the football I’d seen at the same venue versus Ipswich a fortnight prior. Come on The Dons!

I am thirty-three and I am watching a seventy-one year old man sliding down a plastic chair with excitement. He is sharing his flask of hot chocolate with me and I’m reciprocating with chips. We are shouting at men. We are laughing.

And I look down at my dad - because men shrink when they get old don’t they - and I think this man is the greatest man in the whole wide world.

Even greater than Leo Fortune-West.

And he could probably ‘ave him.

JM

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WINDMILLS OF YOUR MIND THIS ISSUE OUR STATISTICAL EXPERT DUTCH UNCLE LOOKS AT ABANDONED MATCHES, IF YOU CAN MAKE IT TO THE END Earlier this season we suffered the agony of having our match at Charlton abandoned when leading 3-1 at halftime. Chris Brown, with two, and Paul Keegan had goals chalked off them, but Paul was not so lucky with regards to the red card shown him which was not annulled, and he duly served a suspension. All this pain was only worsened when the replayed match was lost 2-0.

I was present on the last occasion Rovers were involved in a competitive match that was abandoned. I was one of just 4,327 hardy souls who went to Belle Vue on a cold foggy October night in 1965 to see a Rovers side, whose electric early season form had evaporated, take on promotion rivals Colchester.

Well, I say ‘see’ – most of the time was spent peering into the gloom guessing what might be happening. The match was duly abandoned after 36

minutes with Rovers apparently losing 0-1 (I was standing too far away from the Cow Shed end to have known that Colchester had scored). But then in early December, just a few short weeks later, the match was replayed and a revitalized Rovers convincingly beat Colchester 2-0, and eventually went on to become Champions of Division 4. The Essex team hung on to the last automatic promotion position of 4th by the skin of their teeth, finishing equal on 56 points with Tranmere and Luton, but with a superior Goal Average. In some ways Colchester were lucky, because if Goal Difference had been introduced as a tie-breaker 11 years earlier than 1976 they would have finished 5th behind Tranmere and not been promoted.

As an obscure aside, as a professional scientist who has continuously been required to use his mathematics throughout his working life, I feel today’s level of mental arithmetic is vastly inferior to that of the 1960s and I blame three factors. The most significant is the advent of pocket calculators, followed by decimalization of the pound in 1971. Then the final nail in the coffin for the UK populace’s ability to perform instant mental calculations without electronic support was the introduction of Goal Difference instead of Goal Average for the 1976-77 season

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as mentioned above. No more halcyon days such as that in 1969, enjoying Rovers destroy Aldershot 7-0 and with each successive goal mentally reevaluating two long divisions to check whether the balance of Goal Average was sufficient for Rovers to overtake their opponents as the Division’s leaders. I didn’t even have my log tables with me.

Season Competition Opponents 1925-26 Lge Div 3N Grimsby Town Lge Div 3N Grimsby Town 1926-27 FAC Rnd1 Desborough Town (NL) FAC Rnd1 Desborough Town (NL) 1929-30 FAC Rnd3 Stok e City (D2) FAC Rnd3 Stoke City (D2) 1929-30 Lge Div 3N Accrington Stanley Lge Div 3N Accrington Stanley 1932-33 Lge Div 3N Chester Lge Div 3N Chester 1934-35 Lge Div 3N Halifax Town Lge Div 3N Halifax Town 1949-50 Lge Div 3N Tranmere Rovers Lge Div 3N Tranmere Rovers 1965-66 Lge Div 4 Colchester Utd Lge Div 4 Colchester Utd 2013-14 FL Champ Charlton Athletic FL Champ Charlton Athletic

Venue Home Home Home Home Home Home Away Away Home Home Home Home Home Home Home Home Away Away

Score 1 - 0 1 - 4 0 - 0 3 - 0 2 - 3 1 - 0 1 - 1 3 - 3 1 - 0 3 - 3 2 - 1 0 - 1 1 - 0 1 - 1 0 - 1 2 - 0 3 - 1 0 - 2

Att 3112 9711 2376 3628 13221 7748 3205 2143 1574 4379 3452 8113 16825 15107 4327 6035 13633 14140

If the scores at the times of abandonment had been taken as the final results, these 9 matches would have resulted in 5 wins, 2 draws and 2 defeats for Rovers with 11 goals scored and 7 against. The replayed matches ended in 3 wins, 3 draws and 3 defeats with 14 goals scored and 14 against – i.e. significantly worse.

The final column in the table shows the match swing between the original and replayed match (e.g. -2 means a loss in the replayed match from a winning position at time of abandonment, -1 means either a replayed draw from an abandoned winning position or a replayed loss from a level abandoned position, etc).

It can be seen Rovers have benefitted

Anyway, I digress. So in 1965-66 the abandonment worked in our favour, but how have Rovers fared across their history with the replaying of abandoned matches? In our league seasons I have found only 9 occasions (including the two above) where a match was abandoned and later replayed – seven Football League matches and two FA Cup ties. The original and replayed scores are shown below.

Scorers P.McConnell J.Lambert F.Keetley 2, T.Keetley W.Bott, J.Bowman F.Emery T.Atk in L.Lievesley 2, J.Bowman F.Beresford S.Burton, D.Kelly, C.Parker R.Baines, A.Turner P.Todd P.Doherty A.Jeffrey, L.Sheffield C.Brown 2, P.Keegan

Time/Reason abandoned Unk nown

Diff in Res -2

After 80 minutes, fog

1

After 68 minutes, snowstorm

2

After 40 min

0

After 40 min

-1

After 57 min, fog

-2

After 57 min, fog

-1

After 36 min, fog

2

After 45 min waterlogged

-2

only three times and have lost out on five occasions, with the other fixture being an away league match at Accrington Stanley in the 1929-30 season which was drawn, after the first match had been abandoned with the scores level.

The consequences are clear for the two cup-ties. In the first case of an FA Cup match abandonment in 1926-27 the scores were level when the match against Desborough was stopped, so effectively the replayed match was just an FA Cup replay but at the original venue - Belle Vue in this case.

Three seasons later in 1929-30, a 1-0 win took Rovers past Stoke in the FA Cup 3rd round match when the initial fixture had been abandoned with

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WINDMILLS OF YOUR MIND CONTINUED FROM PAGES 26 AND 27 Rovers trailing 3-2. This reprieve did not seem to help Rovers much though as nine days later we lost 4-0 at Millwall in the 4th round, although the attendance of 30,440 may have provided some unexpected financial gain.

finished 5th instead of 10th, but more significantly Bradford Park Avenue would have been champions and promoted to Division 2 instead of Grimsby – this being in the days when only the champions were promoted from the regional third divisions.

It is more interesting then to look closely at the end of season consequences of the 7 abandoned league matches, and the differences made by the theoretical changes in results. On two occasions the actual champions of the division concerned would have been different.

All the other seasons would have resulted in either little or no change to the final league positions. In 193233 we would have finished 5th instead of 6th. In 1934-35 the replayed match with Halifax took place after we had already been crowned champions, although Halifax would have finished 3rd instead of 2nd if the original score with Rovers winning had stood. In 1949-50 Rovers would clearly still have been champions with a win over Tranmere instead of a draw, but one fewer point for Tranmere would have seen them finish 8th instead of 5th.

Finally, since there was no change in the result against Accrington Stanley in 1929-30, the final positions of both sides would not have changed.

The biggest difference for Rovers would have been in our Division 4 Championship winning season of 1965-66. If Colchester had won at Belle Vue instead of losing the replayed match, then Rovers would have finished 4th instead of being champions, albeit still promoted to Division 3. Colchester would have improved their final position from 4th to 2nd behind new champions Darlington.

In addition to the above 9 abandoned matches I have been able to find another five competitive matches which were abandoned, all more than a century ago which are detailed below.

Another significant difference would have occurred in 1925-26. If our 1-0 lead against Grimsby had been confirmed as a result we would have Season Comp 1897-98 FAC Q4 2ndR FAC Q4 2ndR 1899-00 WCC League WCC League 1907-08 Midland Lge Midland Lge 1908-09 Midland Lge Midland Lge 1912-13 Midland Lge Midland Lge

Opponents Mexborough Mexborough Attercliffe Attercliffe Nottingham For Res Nottingham For Res Leicester Fosse Res Leicester Fosse Res Leeds City Res Leeds City Res

Venue Neutral Neutral Home Home Home Home Home Home Home Home

Score 1 - 1 1 - 2 0 - 0 2 - 1 2 - 4 0 - 1 1 - 1 2 - 1 0 - 0 2 - 0

Att Scorers 1500 W.Langton 2000 G.Chester

2000

Robinson, B.Linward Priestley, Shepherd

Time/Reason abandoned After 115 minutes, too dark

Diff in Res -1

In second half, fog

1

73 minutes, too dark

0

L.Bramall 55 minutes, heavy snow 2500 L.Bramall 2 150 45 minutes, snowstorm C.Woodruffe, E.Gregory(pen)

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1 1

The two FA Cup ties above were played at Bramall Lane and Barnsley, and WCC stands for the Wharncliffe Charity Cup League. Unlike the more recent matches Rovers benefitted more often (3 times) in the replayed matches than fared worse (once) with the Nottingham Forest match in 1907-8 producing the same ‘ result’.

There have also been three matches in Rovers’ Football League history which were played and then subsequently annulled. The first of these was the home match against Accrington Stanley in the 1962-63 season which was drawn 1-1 thanks to a goal from W.Younger. However, Accrington duly resigned from the league mid-season causing all the fixtures they had played thus far to be annulled. which was annulled when Accrington resigned from the league mid-season without completing all their fixtures. The other two annulments occurred in

similar circumstances in 1991-92 when Aldershot’s bankruptcy caused the 1-0 home win (Colin Douglas scoring) and 0-0 away draw against the Shots to be annulled.

From the above it can be seen that there have been a total of 17 goals ‘scored’ by Rovers players, only later to be annulled. These 17 goals have been split between 16 players starting with Walter Langton in 1897-98, including some great Rovers names such as Paddy McConnell (Rovers first ever international) and Paul Todd (captain of Rovers record breaking 1946-47 team) and then finishing with the only player in Rovers’ entire history to have had more than one legitimate goal chalked off - the excellent but in this case unfortunate Chris Brown.

Let us hope that the potential 3 points lost at Charlton do not have significant consequences at the end of this season!

BW

Caveat - no figures quoted in this article are official. Dutch Uncle uses many sources including club handbooks, Rothmans/Sky annuals, and Official Rovers History by Bluff & Watson. For definitive data the reader is referred to Tony Bluff and/or Barry Watson.

THIS ISSUE STEVE IS... ...trying to cop off with Dave Jones. a football fanzine for the likes of Doncaster | March 2014 | PS69| 29

JUST A PUB TEAM JACK PEAT LOOKS AT SOCIAL STRATIFICATION AND DONCASTRIAN FOOTBALL FANS Karl Marx has no place in football.

He tried once, replacing Ludwig Wittgenstein in Monty Python’s Philosophers’ Football Match, but did nothing to advance the game. As he retired to the dressing room he decided to write about football stratification in Doncaster instead, and he only went and nailed it.

Social stratification works like this; the upper class do their utmost to keep their position, the middle class strive to move up the social stratum and the lower class simply desire equality. It’s a mentality that has governed social order for centuries, but the same principle applies to football fans and league rankings.

Doncaster is home to an array of football fans, or, in the parlance of John Ryan is “a town full of Leeds fans”.

Dismayed as our former chairman may have been it is hardly surprising that towns ‘like’ Doncaster struggle to champion civic pride. Football supporters are products of a generation and as Doncaster languished in the depths of the Conference Leeds narrowly missed out on the Champions League final, creating a lure of ‘upper class’ fortunes that was too much for some. Manchester United’s longstanding success – available direct from the television - has also intoxicated a generation of would-be Rovers fans.

But fortunes have turned, and the status of teams such as Manchester United, Leeds and Doncaster are not what they once were. The mentality of their fans, however, lives on. Here’s a brief dose of Marxism and the social stratification of football fans in Donny:

UPPER CLASS

The upper class can’t be anything but upper class. Asking Lord Grantham to live in a downgraded 27-bed property with knock-off whisky and no footman doesn’t sit well with the big man, and he will go to any measure to maintain his status.

Manchester United are trapped in similar aristocratic chains. Adored worldwide they are an iconic football club built on champagne signings and they will strive to keep their position at any cost, going recruitment mad to keep their place in the higher echelons.

The mentality of their fans is therefore based on the material qualities of their club. “Yeah but we won the Premier League 20 times”, “we’ve got Van Persie and pay Wayne Rooney £300,000 a week” and we come from a long line of silverware emblazoned monarchs of the football realm.

But empires crumble, and David Moyes may have to resign himself to life as an OBE if he fails to follow in the footsteps of Sir Alex, Sir Bobby and Sir him who played for City and Liverpool before managing them.

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MIDDLE CLASS

The middle class will do all they can to become members of the upper class.

In many instances this results in only fragments of their lifestyles becoming gentrified – a wee glass of Prosecco at the weekend and picking off the a la carte menu on payday – but they will largely live their lives idolising their neighbours. Keeping Up Appearances built six series’ worth of gimmicks on pseudo upper class mentality, but they needn’t have looked further than Leeds United fans.

Leeds are not alone in carrying this trait in the Championship, but they do a bloody good job of showcasing it. They’re a hated club, but most of their rivalries are products of their own making. A dislike of Chelsea, an abhorrence of Manchester United and the frequent clashes with Cardiff, Millwall and most other clubs that have the pleasure of hosting them is a result of the middle class mentality that they should be doing better than they are.

Like Hyacinth Bucket, they will forever be left exasperated by the many misfortunes of their own reality. They may think they ‘deserve’ to be backed by bigger owners and ‘merit’ a higher league standing, but football, like a brother-in-law with a battered sofa on his lawn, proffers realism much better than aspiration.

WORKING CLASS

The working class don’t strive to be anything other than what they are. There’s no masquerade or false pretences. We’re the walking embodiment of Ronseal’s longstanding marketing campaigns, doing exactly what it says on the tin.

A puzzled Man Utd fan in (surprise, surprise) London was the inspiration for this article. We were going through the male greeting formalities one night when he drew his pint from his mouth, stepped back in aghast and with a cockney bellow said: “Doncaster Rovers! They’re shit!”

To which I replied, “I know”.

At the end of the day, we’re just a pub team having a laugh. We don’t suffer from mild depression when we board a six hour bus back to Doncaster after a 1-0 defeat away to Yeovil and we remain upbeat despite resting perilously above the Championship relegation zone. Truth is, we’re happy to be there as it is.

So down at the Keepmoat you’ll never be asked to stand up because you hate Man U or hear songs of your fathers’ shotgun and the Chelsea scum. You’re more likely to become acquainted with “How shit must you be...” and “He’s one of our own”, or how we don’t care about Rotherham or Leeds. But while we keep our expectations low, the emotions you feel when you experience the highs are all the more euphoric.

I’ve got no doubt that when I see my first child’s face that there will be tears in my eyes and I’m sure I’ll feel shivers down my spine when my wifeto-be walks down the aisle, but until that date the highs I experienced at Griffin Park against Brentford, and at Wembley against Leeds, and at the Millennium Stadium against Bristol Rovers and at the Britannia Stadium against Dagenham and Redbridge will be hard to beat.

After all, we’re just a pub team.

JP

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REG IPSA: LEGAL BEAGLE OUR RESIDENT LEGAL EXPERT REG IPSA IS DEFLEAD, ALMOST SOBER AND READY TO RESPOND TO MORE OF YOUR LETTERS. STAR LETTER BLOWN AWAY

Dear Reg As I have not had much success with the ladies I’ve gone on the internet and ordered a life like lady doll to enjoy my affections. The problem is I ordered a doll that is supposed to look like Scarlett Johannson. The one I have is flat chested and the blonde wig keeps falling off in the fifteen times we have had a wrestle. The last time I could not finish as it was like climbing on David Cotterill. Can I get my money back?

Roger Crevise, Hexthorpe

REG RESPONDS

I remember a mate who tried this caper in the 1980’s. He wanted one that looked like her from Flashdance. He ended up with something that looked like Colin Douglas in a welder’s mask.

I suggest sending it back. If they won’t have it then turn it inside out and fetch it to the Woolpack. I have a mate who has a Paul Keegan fetish – we can draw some stubble on it and smear it with Guinness – he’ll pay loads for it.

TURN BACK TIME Reginald, My wife and I used to be part of a wifeswapping club back in the 1970’s. We often got the hostess trolley out on a Saturday night and our friends came round and put their car keys in a bowl.

You can guess the rest. Anyway, this week a 40-year-old fella came to my door and claims that I am his dad. He is about my height, same colour hair and eyes and does look a bit like me when I was his age. However he is a Wednesday fan. He is talking about a DNA test and wants back-pay of his pocket money. What should I do?

Bruce Snuff, Cantley

REG RESPONDS

Those crazy days. If I had a pound for every party or orgy I turned up to I could afford to pay for my practising certificate. It sounds like the DNA test is the best way to go – I suspect you are on good ground – no lad of yours would follow that shower and if he does then it is good grounds to ignore him.

UNFULFILLED FANTASY Na then Reg, T’other month one of the lads in the Leopard convinced me to cough up £25 for ‘fantasy football’. Now it turns out this isn’t a chance to see Look North’sTanya Arnold do keepy-ups in nowt but lederhosen and a miner’s helmet but a daft footy stats game. Can I get my cash back?

Barry Bickerslike, Intake

HB

REG RESPONDS

You should really have checked the terms and conditions (ie. asked the landlord what he thought) before handing over your dosh Barry. The bad news for you is two fold, firstly you’ll not see that £25 again, and secondly your wife reads this page.

I can only really suggest watching Calendar for a while

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WAYNE TOMLINSON’S LUCKY SCARF May 2nd 1981 and the Rovers were at home to AFC Bournemouth in Division 4.

Seemingly nothing much of interest there - however this was not just any old run-of-the-mill basement league fixture, the type Rovers had been playing constantly for the previous decade (and for ‘decade’ read ‘lifetime’ to a 12 yr old footy fan like I was.) No, this particular fixture had so much more riding on it.

The buzz around town had been building for several weeks as Billy Bremner’s white with red sleeved soccer supermen had at last found themselves pushing for promotion to the dizzy heights of Division 3 after years of underachievement. Just one point in this last home game of the season against Bournemouth would do the trick. With seemingly the whole town wanting to cram into Belle Vue on that magical Saturday, match tickets became like gold dust. I thought there’d be no way I could get into the ground and I’d have to content myself with kicking a bright orange plastic football around in the back garden, just like every other Saturday.

The big day finally arrived, and Belle Vue was full, with well over 11,000 crammed into the old ground. Never had the pitch looked greener, never had the footballing gods looked down on the Rovers so kindly, and even when the yellow shirted Southerners dared to equalise Alan Warboys’ early strike there was a feeling round the ground that it would only be a temporary setback. Sure enough a second half goal from Ian Nimmo put Rovers back in front.

I remember the smell of Oxo being drunk around me, the thunderous rumble of several hundred feet stamping down in unison in that old wooden stand, the deafening roars each time Doncaster looked like scoring again, and finally the cries of relief, and happiness, when at last the final whistle came and Rovers were promoted!

A jubilant mass pitch invasion followed.

Grown men were crying. I was almost lost in the crush as thousands of happy supporters filled the pitch in front of the Main Stand to salute the Rovers players.

Suddenly, looking down, I noticed a red and white Rovers scarf in a heap on the floor.

Picking it up and showing it to my Dad, he told me it was lucky and to keep hold of it.

So I did. What a day - promotion for the Rovers AND a lucky new scarf for myself. A lifetime love of Doncaster Rovers was born right there in that instant.

But, one evening over our fish fingers and cips tea, Dad suddenly announced that in his position as a school teacher he’d been offered some special tickets for the big game - sat in the ‘Cowshed’ family stand at the Town End - and did I want to go with him? Excitement! Suddenly That same lucky scarf later went with I was counting down the days until the Dad and I to the Millennium Stadium and afternoon of the big match, knowing I’d be Wembley for successful Rovers days that one of the special few who were actually would have been unimaginable on - but no there to cheer on the Rovers to their first less special than - that magical Saturday promotion since the 1960s. afternoon back in May 1981.

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BLOWING MY OWN TRUMPET THE STEADY BLURRING OF ‘AMBITION’ AND SPENDING; EDITOR GLEN WILSON ON CHAMPIONSHIP FINANCES Finance has never been my strong point. It’s ok, you’ve no need to come running back after me looking for your pound back. I’m good with my money, and I live within my means. I can use a cash machine and I get how cheques work, but to be frank, beyond that it is just a whirl of numbers, calculations and obscure terminology. In my world APR is only ever an abreviation for April, ISA may be a girl I once dated at University. It is simply an alien world to me. A grown up world. And so long as I continue to include a packet of liquorice flyers in my weekly shop then I reason that world isn’t for me.

So given this, and the fact that if I had it my way I’d just stuff what money I had in an old mattress, and hope that the electric blanket didn’t singe away interest, I’m probably not best placed to talk about the money of football. I mean I’d back myself above say, Nick Leason, when it comes to doling out financial advice, but my understanding is a very simplified one. Basically, don’t spend what you can’t afford.

You would think that was a given really, but alas the balance sheets of countless professional football clubs would suggest otherwise. As I sit and write this piece someone in the UK has just scooped over £107.9million on the Euromillions Lottery. It was once a token assumption that if you won the Lottery or the Pools you’d buy your

local football club. The winner of that that Euromillions Jackpot – the fourth largest Lottery win ever in this country – wouldn’t even come close to paying off the debt of two Championship clubs.

Queens Park Rangers are £177m in debt, Bolton Wanderers are £163.8m in debt, Balckburn Rovers are £54.3m in debt, Ipswich Town are over £30m in debt, Brighton lost £14.7m in the last year, Leeds are thought to be losing £1m every month. That is a deficit of £450m across just six second tier clubs.

These clubs are still operating, they continue to do the very things that put them in that position – chiefly spend more money than they earn on a daily basis. In 2006 Queens Park Rangers’ debt was £14m, they have lost £163m in eight years, that’s £55,784 each and every day. I simply don’t understand how that can be allowed to happen.

Pre-Premier League, from my hazy memory, the risks used to be very obvious. If you foolishly spent more money than you had, then one of three things happened. 1. You had to try and find someone rich enough and gullible enough to take over the club. 2. With nobody foolish enough to step in for option one your fans would be forced to have a whip round and just about keep you afloat for a bit longer. 3. You went bust. Yep, it actually used to happen, as supporters of Aldershot and Maidstone will testify. It’s not an ideal system, and

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no-one wants to see a club cease to exist, but when you have in your sights the very worst thing that can happen, and that worst is the end, then it will certainly shake you up enough to make some sort of vague effort to stay afloat at least.

But clubs don’t go bust any more, instead they bounce around in debt, skip out of their taxes and ignore the final reminder’s piling up on the doormat in the hope that they’ll somehow make it to the Premier League before the real world catches up with them, like the Blues Brothers trying to get to the Cook County Assessor’s Office. Only football clubs aren’t on a mission from God, they’re on a mission from the self. And if it goes wrong they’ll simply go into administration, local businesses will be left unpaid, and they’ll start again in the division below having learnt bugger all about spending beyond their means (hello, Leeds).

It has reached a point where a club going into insumountable debt as they chased ‘the promised land’(TM) via ‘the richest game in football’ is shrugged off as an inevitability of football. It is covered but never questioned. Just once it would be nice to see a reporter interview one of these club owners, take with them a graphical representation of their accounts, put it in front of their face put and ask them – what the hell is this? This big downward red line that looks like something out of a political cartoon about the Wall Street Crash – what the hell is it? How have you allowed that to happen? You’re supposed to know stuff about running a business?

And this assumption that money can, and should, be spent without consequences permeates every level of

football so for far too many ‘ambition’ has become a byword for how much money you’ve spent. “This board just don’t have any ambition”, basically translates as ‘the board have stopped lobbing money aimlessly onto the bonfire of football’. But as League football clubs don’t go out of business any more, the danger is ignored and so we are left living in a backwards world where owners who build up these daft debts are praised for their ambition, whilst those who run clubs sensibly are slated for not shelling out money they don’t even have.

To see a football club board member who gets it, who isn’t prepared to rack up debts and prioritises a long-term future over a short-term gain you don’t have to look far. There’s an interview with one on the website of the Viking Supporters’ Co-operative. In a Q&A with the VSC Rovers’ David Blunt delivers plentiful sentences of life-affirming sense, the sort of financial sense even I can understand.

“Premier League football will always remain a long term ambition, as it does with any football club however our main focus is to ensure that Doncaster has a football club for the long term.Premier League football is not a key requirement and we are realistic in acknowledging that there are bigger clubs than Doncaster Rovers that have thrown everything at Premier League football with dire consequences and we would not wish to place this club at risk.”

Can someone send this memo round the rest of the division?

GW

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SEASONS IN RETROSPECT EPISODE 4 OF RAY JEST’S LOOK BACK AT ROVERS’ 1974-75 SEASON AND WE’RE UP TO FEBRUARY AND MARCH A poor start to the season has left Rovers out of both cups and fighting to avoid the re-election places at the foot of Division Four. Manager Maurice Setters was dismissed in November, and after John Quigley’s spell in temporary charge the Rovers board have just announced Stan Anderson as the new Rovers manager bringing a touch of optimism to support ahead of the final three months of the season.

FEBRUARY Stan Anderson’s first game at the helm was a home encounter against Torquay United. 2,166 turned out to meet the new manager, and his new charges did not let him down. In a sparkling performance Rovers ran out 3-0 victors with goals from O’Callaghan, Murray and Curran. The win lifted Rovers back to 3rd from bottom on goal average above Workington.

Rovers’ new manager Stan Anderson and Barnsley manager Jim Iley were old mates; they were in fact two thirds of the half back line that took Newcastle into the 1st Division in 1964-65. Anderson missed just one match that season and between them Anderson and Iley scored a total of 13 goals.

Friends they may have been but there would be no love lost when they came head to head in a South Yorkshire derby at Oakwell. Rovers were unchanged from the team that beat Torquay and were on top from the start. Barnsley made several chances early on but Rovers absorbed the pressure and hit back with quick raids. A traditional derby game with

plenty of effort and no little skill built up to a thrilling and furious climax.

Rovers went ahead after 49 minutes when O’Callaghan beat Stewart in the Barnsley goal. The excitement mounted as Barnsley went for an equaliser but Donny held out for a deserved victory and two more points for Anderson’s new charges. The crowd of 6,276 had been treated to an exciting and entertaining game.

With two wins under their belt confidence was high in the Rovers camp. Two wins, four goals scored and none conceded had Rovers fired up for the visit to Belle Vue of title-chasing Mansfield Town. Rovers’ biggest gate of the season, 7,276 welcomed the teams onto the Belle Vue pitch with Mansfield making it clear their intentions were to spoil the party for the home fans. The visitors dominated the first half and were ahead after just one minute, Foster hammering home from a corner kick and in the 38th minute they increased their lead through Eccles after a mix up in the Rovers defence. As half time approached Rovers pushed forward and were rewarded on 44 minutes when Uzelac scored a well taken goal.

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In the second half Rovers began to push forward more and more and egged on by their vociferous fans they equalised through Kitchen with a superb shot from just inside the area.

Minutes later the revival was carried a stage further as to the delight of the home fans Curran scored to put the Rovers in front after good work from Murray and Kitchen. Mansfield were not to be perturbed and roared back themselves to equalise with a second Eccles goal on 79 minutes. The end to end stuff was a treat for the fans of both teams and with time running out and both teams still looking for a winner it fell to Kitchen to finish things off. The forward scored from close range to put Rovers back in front and this time it was too late for Mansfield to mount a revival.

The win moved Rovers out of the bottom three; now residing in 20th position in the league. The three games since Anderson took over had all resulted in victories and you could forgive Rovers fans feeling a little light headed, after all this was the first time that they had felt optimistic for many a season.

An away game at high riding Newport County’s Somerton Park was next on the agenda. With Rovers on the back foot for most of the first half it was a jolt to Newport when Rovers took the lead in the 42nd minute with a goal from Kitchen. Graham Brown, Rovers’ goalkeeper was much the busier of the two custodians, saving well from Woods and White before making a flying save from Jones and managing just to put the ball over the crossbar. Rovers came under intense pressure but a goal from O’Callaghan secured both points for Rovers and a fourth straight win under Anderson’s guidance.

MARCH Doncaster was buzzing and as usual the age old question was being asked “what if we had got Anderson earlier, where could we be now?”.

That question was asked even louder after Rovers dispatched their next opponents Northampton Town to make it five straight wins under Anderson.

Peter Kitchen scored two goals, one in each half, to give Northampton a lesson in chance taking. Watched by an attendance of 5,329 at Belle Vue Kitchen’s goals proved the difference between the two sides, as Town matched Rovers for work rate and commitment just didn’t have anyone to take the chances they created.

Up to 18th in the League, from their last five games Rovers had a maximum 10 points, had scored 12 goals and conceded only three, keeping four clean sheets. The Rovers fans felt with justification that there was much room to be optimistic. That optimism increased even further when Stan Anderson confirmed his intention to stay at Rovers by signing a new three year contract. Rovers Chairman Ben Rayner told the press “This should allay the fears of many supporters who have raised the point with me.

The whole atmosphere in the club is electric with everyone looking ahead”.

Shame then that Rotherham should spoil the party. The Millers were pushing for a promotion spot and lying fifth in the league with games in hand over some of the teams above them had been enjoying a relatively good season. It was to turn out to be a dire match and nothing like you would expect from a South Yorkshire derby.

Both teams were very much under par although Rotherham had the better of a drab first half. In front of a gate of

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8,049 swelled by many Rovers fans Rotherham’s Trevor Womble scored the only goal of the game to send Anderson’s men on the short trip back to Doncaster without reward.

Had the bubble burst? Well Rovers answered that question in emphatic style when travelling to Edgley Park the home of Stockport County. With both sides struggling on a bone-hard surface chances were at a minimum and the closest either team got to scoring was when Stockport’s 16 year old centre forward Massey had a shot headed of the line. It looked odds on to be a goalless draw until in the 77th minute when Curran took a chance from all of ten yards to put Rovers in front. In the last minute with Stockport pressing for an equaliser Rovers broke from their own half and Curran, this time the provider, laid on a goal for Murray.

Rovers were once again on the winning trail, and it didn’t stop there. At Belle Vue on the following Friday Rovers entertained Swansea City. A gate of 5,011 was treated to an exciting game

between two teams hell bent on attack. In the 13th minute Rovers, prompted by skipper Archie Irvine and midfielder Les Chappell, stormed into the lead. From Steve Reeds free kick the ball dropped nicely for Curran to chip a sublime shot into the net from 15 yards. Reed headed Rovers second goal just nine minutes later from a cross by Chappell. Rovers were 2-0 up and looking good value for their lead. But this Swansea side wasn’t to be beaten easily and after 46 minutes they were back in the game as skipper Evans was allowed time and space to slot the ball home. Rovers roared back and in the 59th minute Kitchen tapped home a third goal after good work

by Curran and O’Callaghan. Still it wasn’t over and still Swansea refused to lie down. Evans scored his second of the match in the 69th minute to set up a tense finish but Donny managed to hold on and claim all the points.

How far can the Stan Anderson resurgence take Rovers up the table? Find out in issue 70.

RayJ

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38 | PS69 | March 2014 | a football fanzine for the likes of Doncaster