The first thing to say is that it is two years to the day that I last saw Bristol Rovers play.
20 October 2012, Bristol Rovers 3 Torquay United 2, not that I remember anything about the game at all.
This was the day my friend Kevin Spencer, a lifelong Gashead and former director, received his banning order from Dave Harper, the club’s safety officer.
To this day, we are not clear why Kevin was banned but one thing is very clear: this is a ban for life.
We have established from chairman Nick Higgs’ public utterances that the ban is because Kevin was ‘consistently critical’ about the football club. One might think that consistent criticism of a club that was slipping down from League One to League Two and then to the Vanarama Conference might come from a large numbers of supporters but it seems that only one person was deemed sufficiently consistently critical to justify being banned. Usually people are banned for criminal actions, thought some might argue that it was pretty criminal to allow the club to tumble into non league football in the first place. Moreover, the supporters who have recently received bans for appearing before the beak and then being convicted have not been banned for life. Funny old game, football.
We know that Mr Higgs met with Kevin to try and resolve this issue and Mr Higgs made it clear that he would obtain for Kevin details of the offensive comments that were allegedly made, after which Kevin could consider whether apologies needed to be made. This would be during the summer given that Mr Higgs had other matters on his plate such as building a new stadium.
When Mr Higgs appeared in a particularly bad tempered interview with Radio Bristol’s Geoff Twentyman, he said that it was up to Kevin if he wanted to sort this matter out once and for all, forgetting, it seems, that the next move, agreed by both men, was that of the chairman.
It is now very clear that no one at the club has the slightest intention of lifting Kevin’s ban and it is a ban that will stand for life. It is not just a ban for the football, it was also for funeral wakes (you may recall that the ban extended to Roger Harding’s funeral wake) but not, according to further correspondence sent by Dave Harper, to watch the rugby. As the rugby club now play at Ashton Gate, it is safe to say he can still attend the rugby!
I am disappointed that this spiteful and petty ban has been upheld, that promises have been broken and that the bridges have been burned forever.
But we move on now. We have to. That was then, this is now.
For the vast majority of supporters, this was never a big deal and it’s not even a small one now. For most, there was nothing to move on from. It’s all about the team.
I’m going to my first Rovers game for two years this Saturday in Dorchester, travelling with a lot of people I rarely see these days. I can hardly wait.
There will never be another team for me in Bristol, but by the same token I do not have anywhere near as much of the emotional attachment to the club as I once did.
I still see Kevin, who knew nothing about this article in advance, and there is a man at peace with the world, with life priorities all in the right order. I rather think the reason he wanted the ban sorted once and for all was because he was sick to the back teeth of people asking about it. It hasn’t been and, I believe, never will be, certainly not whilst the club remains with the same owners. My view is that he is better off out of it, spending time with his beloved family, visiting favourite places and planning for the rest of his life. By contrast, look at the photos of chairman Higgs, his face as grey as his hair, huge bags under his tired eyes. With his vast wealth, the last thing I’d be doing is piling all my energy (and money) into a failing football club. But we all makes choices and I know whose choice, in similar circumstances, I would have made.
The ban is forever. Nothing more to say.
Up the gas.
