When Bristol Rovers were relegated to non league football last season, there was a lot of anger.
Naturally, that anger was aimed at the team, the manager and the board of directors.
Judging from the internet, there was a lot of anger out there which encouraged some supporters to set up an independent supporters group and others to form a less formal group based in the Wellington public house. The Supporters Club even called an EGM, albeit one with no agenda, nor aims.
But, after a shaky start to the new season, the team’s doing well, the anger has subsided and people have moved on.
The independent supporters group, BRISA, was set up early in the summer and it quickly attracted interest from hundreds of Rovers supporters who did not feel the existing structures at the club were doing enough to represent their views. A group of middle aged men, plus two women, met a few times at the Wellington to debate what had gone wrong at the club. And the existing official Supporters Club held their own meeting with club officials.
In fact, there were meetings galore during the summer, including an open Q&A with the manager and members of the board of directors. It was heady stuff, although there was no clear direction to any of the anger and little in the way of vision for a different way forward.
The truth is that BRISA has failed. The fans forum alone was never going to be enough to launch a major new supporters group and three, latterly two, people running it was never going to be enough. And if not enough people were prepared to help, then perhaps it’s only right that it should be put out of its misery. My view is that Tom and Richard should get enormous credit and respect for having a go and I’d like to thank them for all their time and effort.
The lads from the Wellington have done their bit too. It was only an informal grouping, with no membership, no officials, elected or otherwise, or a constitution, but they held two small public meetings and even secured a meeting with two directors of the club. I don’t think they really had an agenda or any long term aims: just some questions they wanted answering and I am guessing they have them. I’m sure they’re happy now and good luck to them. Well done too to Jon, Bernard and Mark.
So we are where we were just after relegation. The board of directors remains the same, the Supporters Club is the only fans’ body at the club and the fans have moved on and are fully concentrating on the one thing that really matters: the football.
The main point is that the vast majority of supporters have what they want. They may have reservations about aspects of the club but none so great as they got in the way of supporting the shirt. And as the team has improved and closed to within a play off position (I know there are one or two games to go, but you get the idea!), the thought of changing things diminishes and disappears. And so it has at the Rovers.
Hopefully, it will be onwards and upwards at the club from now on, with a strong push at promotion and the start of building the UWE stadium.
Knowing Bristol Rovers, there will be another crisis along the way and we will have to hope the owners of the club and their supporters can deal with it.
One thing is for sure though: the likelihood of any alternative supporters association coming about, either now or in the future, is virtually zero and the next time, in the next crisis, hundreds of people complain that something must be done, we all know full well there is no one out there who will actually do anything, so don’t wear out your keyboard! Because like every independent initiative there has been in the last decade or so, it will run out of steam quite quickly!
In the immortal words of Bruce Hornsby, ‘That’s just the way it is. Some things will never change.’
Two defeats for independence in a week! Up the Gas!
