Rome wasn’t built in a day and nor was the new era at Bristol Rovers. Today’s defeat at Wycombe was not “a wake up call” for anyone. You only need a wake-up call when you are asleep and Bristol Rovers is not a football club in the land of nod.
It’s not a wake-up call for Gasheads, either, unless any of them still believe in the myth of overnight success. If you’ve been watching them for as long as I have, which is some 44 years, give or take a few years of enforced and indeed voluntary absence, that overnight success has been a long time coming.
New club president Wael Al-Qadi was in the away end this afternoon. Quite frankly, I am not interested in a cynical perspective on Mr Al-Qadi’s motives for being there, and that’s coming from a Class A cynic like me. I am happy to believe that both he and his colleagues who have taken over at Bristol Rovers are in it for the right reasons and for the long haul. The worst you could say about him meeting the fans was that he was trying to inveigle personal popularity, but that is unlikely. What could be gained by that? From the distance from where I sit, I sense that he has got the bug.
I have heard it suggested that it is simply not possible to start supporting a different club, particularly in middle age, abandoning the one you have loved since childhood. That infers that everyone is exactly the same. Look at TV ‘personality’ Tim Lovejoy who abandoned Watford for Chelsea and former MP David Mellor who took the same journey, only in his case from Fulham. The world is full of people who forsake their home teams to support the big clubs. (At this point, I must add that my despite my absence from the Rovers’ terraces, my second team, Liverpool, never became my first.) If people want to support another club, then let them. Wael is taking on an extra club to support.
Anyway, back to Wael. Can you imagine ex chairman Nick Higgs or former director Barry Bradshaw meeting the fans like Wael did? They’d have been mobbed all right, but not in the affectionate manner shown to the new kid in town. And why so, what’s the difference? My theory? You can’t fool the fans. Well, not always. Partly due to his limited skills of communication, Nick Higgs always came across in the media as somewhat shifty. This may have been a little unkind, but the camera did him no favours, something I can personally relate to. Bradshaw was either kept away from the media, which would have been wise, or he chose never to go near it, again very wise. Wael Al-Qadi comes across as a good guy, apparently open, straight-talking and, yes, not averse to a decent photocall. And guess what? The fans love it.
I know nothing about what happened at Wycombe today, other than the score, but Rovers’ season is far from over. Pretty well half the sides in the division still have a chance of promotion and the Gas are among them. But if we don’t make it, don’t fret. It could be that the players were fearing the pressure and raised levels of expectation following the takeover and that would be completely understandable. They are, after all, lower league and formerly non league players and pressure does funny things to a player’s mind.
It could all change next week, in the evening game against Hartlepool, but who knows? I’m getting interested again, but only in the football. Anything off the field will be for others to worry about, if something goes wrong at the top of the club, someone else can moan about it. But I don’t think it will go wrong and, famous last words, I think the new owners are the real deal.
Hey Irene! See you soon, other than in my dreams?
