I have taken note of comments made by close and respected friends about my thoughts on Bristol Rovers.
I remain divorced from the club I married over 40 years ago and there is no prospect of a reconciliation. It is important to note that some weeks ago I had a one-night stand with a club in red. It didn’t mean anything, honest, and it certainly won’t lead to a long term relationship. I’m not that way inclined.
The point that I now accept is that I have to stop banging on about the state of the club regarding off the field matters. I certainly have little or no right to talk about matters on the pitch since I do not know, nor would I recognise, any of the players. I have not been to the Memorial Stadium to see a game in over two years.
The simple fact is that I will never attend another Rovers match for as long as Nick Higgs is associated with the club in any capacity, specifically for his actions regarding matters that have been done to death, often by me. So that’s that. Mr Higgs will not exactly lose sleep if he finds out this earth-shattering news because he won’t give a toss and why should he? That he has made a mess of running the club, that neither he nor his friends on the board ever bother to reply to my correspondence; these are matters of little consequence, but his economy with the truth on why a former director remains banned is of major consequence to me. I don’t know if the truth hurts but it certainly matters, at least to me.
Having tumbled into the Conference, it looks like Mr Higgs has finally struck lucky with his managerial appointments. Darrell Clarke looks like he is the man for the job and it would now be a big surprise if Rovers did not make the play offs at least. Yes, they need to return to the league at the first attempt – the financial meltdown that might accompany another season in non league might be too terrible to even contemplate – and given the relative size of the club and the spending power this brings, they should manage it.
That is what the supporters are looking for: success on the pitch. And I can vouch for that because that was how I felt in the old days. Although I stood in despair at Bristol Rovers at Eastville as the club stumbled from crisis to crisis until it stumbled off to Bath and the Rovers ground became an IKEA, and I definitely wanted Flook (Flook off?) and Bradshaw out, my eyes were firmly on the pitch.
I now see things in a slightly different perspective to many Gasheads because my period of active involvement at the club changed my perception. I saw a club that could have been run so much better, that needed a long term plan, that needed to have sound finances, that should really be in the Championship. And the ‘what should be’ took over from ‘how things really were’ and I never got over it.
When I should have been vocalising for the team, I was fretting about poor governance and bad management at the top; concerning myself with things I couldn’t change. In other words, I wasted my time, as others wasted theirs. We should have let Nick Higgs get on with it and now, at this late stage, I will.
I remain surprised that so many remain uncritical of Mr Higgs’ poor record but that’s probably because they go for the reasons I used to go and I got sidetracked.
My late father always said that you should not concern yourself with the things you could not change and I now know how right he was.
So unless anything dramatic happens, like the stadium plans falling through or a huge investor arriving at the club – seismic kind of stuff! – I’m going to try not to come across as the sad, embittered person I’m not!
And now for something completely different.
