I haven’t written much about Bristol Rovers in recent months, but I feel the need to do so now, regardless whether anyone actually wants to read about it. Oh well: it’s my blog and I’ll write if I want to.
The first thing to say is that I am at peace with the football club. It has been a long nine years of squabbling, disagreement, legal threats, bans and division. In 2006, I took one side in a very public disagreement and the fall out has lasted ever since, albeit to an ever diminishing number of supporters. Everyone else, quite rightly, carried on supporting the club in general and the team in particular. Some time ago, I decided to accept the way things were and to move on, once and for all.
It’s been well documented – by me!!! – of the reason I have not been to a Rovers game for almost three years. Chairman Nick Higgs’ decision to ban former director from the Memorial Stadium, which included not just attending football matches but also a funeral wake (but not rugby!), was, to me, a challenge about loyalty. Along with some others, I put my loyalty to a friend above loyalty to the club I have supported for well over 40 years. I have missed out on some bad times (relegation to the Conference) and some good times (the Conference play off final at Wembley). I regret the split in the club that occurred in 2006 and the long years of division that followed. So much water has flowed under the bridge and so much has changed. It really is time to draw a line in that proverbial sand.
The tragic death of Ben Hiscox, the much loved Stoke Gifford legend, earlier this year concentrated the minds of many of us and returned to me a greater sense of perspective. And oddly enough, it changed not just my perspective on life, it renewed a lot of my faith in Bristol Rovers Football Club. I did not attend the Memorial Stadium for Ben’s minute’s applause because I felt so strongly about my friend’s banning order and I did not attend the Wembley final for the same reason. I stand by both decisions because, without principles, we are nothing. Some might regard them as misguided principles and they may be right. I can live with that. But I know that my conscience is clear and I am content with the decisions I made. I made my bed and I am comfortable lying in it.
When I meet Mr Higgs next month to thank him and the club for the wonderful compassion and generosity they showed to the Hiscox family and the Stoke Gifford community I will mean every word. What he, and what they, did went well beyond the norm and they made a positive difference to people’s lives at the most difficult circumstances imaginable. My friend has specifically asked me not to refer to his banning order because he accepts it will not be lifted, that he has moved on (and away from Bristol) and insists that any meeting with the chairman must not be about him. I will happily accede to that request because he is right. Our meeting will not be about me, it will not be about him, it will be about something far more important, infinitely more important.
In an ideal world, I would be looking forward to another season at the Memorial Stadium, watching the team I have supported since the days at Eastville, where my father stood in the 1950s and where I stood from the early 1970s onwards. I still have my memories, I still have many friends made over the course of a near lifetime supporting this great old club. I will always be there in spirit, I will still take a keen interest in their results, I will still write about Bristol Rovers, I just won’t be there in person.
The arguments now really are a thing of the past. In fact, the arguments really ended some years ago, although it took me some years to realise. I have no stomach for an endless debate about what happened years ago, I don’t want to argue with anonymous names on a message board, the past has definitely passed.
I am not going to say that this will be my final word on the subject of Bristol Rovers, it isn’t, but so far as I am concerned there is no chance of going back to where we were and I have no desire to make that happen.
My father, who was a wise man, always told me that there was no point in concerning yourself with things you could not change. As with many things, he was right about that. I only wish I had paid attention to his advice many years before.
