Lee Brown’s new contract at Bristol Rovers sends out a big signal to supporters. Here is a high quality professional who rarely misses a game. He stuck with the club when things were rotten and now he is getting his reward and not just through the new contract.
Whilst the race for automatic promotion in League Two is tighter than a duck’s bottom, Gas supremo Darrell Clarke’s recruitment drive for next season will already be underway. Whether or not the club starts the new season in League One is bound to be a part of his considerations, so the new contract for Lee Brown is a massive statement of faith in the player and, more than that, a clear signal to every player at the club that if they perform to the required level, there can be a future at the football club. Brown will be thinking, “The gaffer thinks I am good enough for League One so I must be.”
New club owner Wael Al-Qadi has already said that he believes in evolution and not revolution and that has to be right. Whilst it is to be welcomed by most fans that Wael and his family are probably richer than God, there can be no guarantees that throwing money at the first team will bring long term sustainable success. Short term success is always a possibility because it can bring about instant change, but will it last? Take Blackburn Rovers for example. Not that long ago, thanks to the financial input of owner Jack Walker, Blackburn Rovers won the league, but where are they now? Jack’s money brought in Alan Shearer, but Alan Shearer cannot last forever before he shuffles off to the Match of the Day world of TV punditry. The club stayed basically the same and eventually it turned out Blackburn Rovers was built on sand.
It is the same at Bristol Rovers. Does anyone seriously think we have invested and developed our academy well enough? Have a look at the first team and you have your answer. Similarly, the commercial side under the now departed and wholly unlamented Barry Bradshaw had more than a slightly comedic feel to it, a small club mentality with an even smaller town attitude. And not long ago, the club employed a media manager who couldn’t even spell properly and the website was a joke. It is surely a fact that if you ignore the foundations of an organisation, the walls will soon come tumbling down. I get the impression that the new order at BRFC long worked that one out.
Next in our way stand Yeovil Town, a club starting to find its natural level, which is not the Championship. I would be very surprised if they did anything other than park the bus outside their penalty area and it may be a while until Rovers break them down, but they will, trust me.
League One is more than do-able and with the new regime changing the club from the bottom up, the odds are that if we made it to the promised land, we’d stay there and then build again. That’s long term planning for you, previously unheard of in BS7.
1 comment
Totally agree with you on most of it but the youth setup has been producing results in recent years. Lockyer, Clarke and Harrison are all in an around the first team with various levels of involvement and in comparison to the 10 or so years previously, 3 first teamers from the youth setup is a good return. Not to mention the couple of players snapped up by bigger clubs.
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