Goodbye Mr Dunford

Geoff Dunford resigns from the board of Bristol Rovers Football Club.

This is not national news. Bloke who is a director of a non league football club quits. It won’t make Sky Sports News, that’s for sure. But for Bristol football, it’s massive.

The name Dunford, or Dunford Out as the bridge on the Muller Road used to be called, has been in the forefront of everything the club has done for a generation and more.

He and his father Denis saved the club from near certain oblivion in the 1980s, moving the club from its dilapidated old home at Eastville to a temporary dilapidated new home at Bath where the club stayed from nearly a decade before returning to Bristol at the Memorial Stadium, a more permanent but still slightly dilapidated stadium. Not only that, they oversaw an unlikely promotion to what we now call the Championship, whilst being tenants at a non league ground. It was impossible.

Much has happened since we returned to Bristol. We now own the ground we were to share with the rugby club, we are now playing non league football. How the hell did that happen?

Sorry, but I really can’t be bothered to go over all that stuff again, other than an ugly boardroom split in 2006 with consequences that, for some, still linger which, I would argue started the club’s tail spin out of the league.

And now Dunford has gone.

It was a shock to hear the news but then in some ways it wasn’t. He has not enjoyed the best of health in recent years and nothing is more important than good health, so we all hope he is enjoying that. He’s heading for his bus pass too so ill health or not, for all of us the clock is ticking. There is a whole wide world out there. Bloody enjoy it.

Rovers are in crisis, struggling badly with their new status in non league football, having lost last Saturday to a team of part timers, one of whose players could not make it because he couldn’t get time off work. The losses are mounting, the board is weak and divided, supporters are angry – things could hardly be worse.

The club needs a few things in these desperate times.

It needs new leadership which is both strong and inclusive, to repair the old wounds, to unite the support base, and end to the division.

It needs stability and it needs to be more sustainable, with a new long term plan for the future.

On the basis of no firm facts at all, I believe we will see changes and quickly. Despite my concern with the direction of the club for many years, I am not a sack the board and everything will turn out fine type person. The changes we might wish to see could happen from within and they may be what we want. In many ways, I would like to see change from some of those who are already on the board because if people suddenly start emerging from left field I will want to know where the hell they have been before now.

If nothing happens before Saturday, I look forward to listening to Radio Bristol when Geoff Twentyman is scheduled to interview chairman Nick Higgs. For some reason, I don’t expect that interview to take place but, as I say, I write without evidence and for all I know Mr Higgs could well be on and give a polished interview.

It’s all a mess for now.

Football fans know what it’s like in the first game after something traumatic has happened, like the sacking of an unpopular manager. There’s a shared exhalation of breath and everyone has a bounce in their step.

I don’t think there are too many last chance saloons for the Rovers and reading director Chris Jelf’s website piece today, I think he realises that.

Something, as they say, must be done and soon. And something must be done to stop this never ending downward spiral before we ask the last person out of the Memorial Stadium to switch off the lights.