Building a Bristol Rovers DNA (and other assorted bullshit)

23rd December 2019. Bristol Rovers CEO Martyn Starnes welcomes new manager Ben Garner to the club:

“Ben was the outstanding candidate for the role and someone who really stood out to us during the interview process and we are delighted that he has agreed terms to become the first-team Manager.

“It was a meticulous process undertaken in order to appoint a replacement for Graham Coughlan and we are confident that we have found the right Manager to progress the club moving forward.

“Ben has a wealth of experience in the game and we look forward to supporting Ben is his role here at the club.

“Ben has a great record of working with younger players and we are keen for the close ties between the first-team and Academy to be expanded further, showcasing a pathway for young players.

“As part of our discussions with Ben around the role and the shared expectations, we have devised a plan to ensure that the good work achieved during the first half of the season is continued into the New Year, with the collective vision of helping the club push for the highest league finish as possible.”

17th November 2020. Bristol Rovers CEO Martyn Starnes announces Garner’s sacking:

“We hadn’t given Ben a final warning or so many games or anything like that,” Starnes told Bristol Live on Tuesday.

“I think it’s fair to say some unease had crept in with us regarding the results and the performances.

“We know the conditions were very difficult on Saturday, but we just felt the performance was so poor, particularly in the first half.

“We weren’t seeing any eradication of the mistakes that were being made, there was no improvement in the performances really and no improvement in the results.

“We had an impromptu board meeting immediately after the game and we came to a unanimous decision that the time had come to make a change.

“Six wins in 33 matches just isn’t acceptable.”

Focus quickly turned to identifying Garner’s successor for Starnes and Al-Qadi, who have held discussions with candidates in the past couple of days.

Former Exeter City and MK Dons manage Paul Tisdale is an odds-on favourite with the bookmakers.

19th November 2020. Bristol Rovers CEO Martyn Starnes welcomes new manager Paul Tisdale to the club:

Starnes said Tisdale’s qualities “mirror that of the Club’s’ ongoing strategy to build a ‘Bristol Rovers DNA’, with the new Manager signing a two and a half year deal.

“We are delighted to welcome Paul to the football club.”

“Paul has a vast amount of experience in the game and has several promotions on his CV. His ambition and long-term goals mirror that of the Club’s ongoing strategy, to build a Bristol Rovers DNA. 

“His track record of developing younger players is impressive and we believe he’s the ideal person to maximise the full potential that the playing squad possesses. 

“We look forward to working closely with Paul to bring success to Bristol Rovers F.C.”

Wednesday 10th February 2021. Paul Tisdale is sacked. The club website says:

Bristol Rovers can today confirm that it has parted company with Manager Paul Tisdale.

Tommy Widdrington will be taking charge of the first-team on a temporary basis, while the Club undertakes the process of appointing a new Manager. Tommy will be assisted by Jack Mesure and Kevin Maher.

Mel Gwinnett has also left his role as Football Operations.

The Club will be making no further comment at this time.

I’m not surprised. It’s probably a good move for Starnes to keep his mouth shut for a short while at least.

Let me put my cards on the table: I know nothing about Martyn Starnes, other than the fact he, like everyone else on the board of directors at Bristol Rovers is on the payroll. In other words, he’s a hired hand. And he’s not a Gashead. There isn’t a single Gashead near Bristol Rovers’ top table these days and there hasn’t been for a very long time. That’s what worries me. Club president Wael al Qadi is a Gashead by choice, not by birth.  I don’t knock them for that, but my point is they are at Bristol Rovers because they are being paid by it. Until 2006, Rovers was run by Gasheads, at least four of whom had a vision to bring the club into the 21st century. Clearly, long term thinking didn’t fit in with the Rovers psyche back then. It still doesn’t today.

You might answer my comment by saying, ‘What was the appointment of Garner if it wasn’t a long term appointment, a project?” Well, Starnes praised his own efforts at recruiting Ben Garner as “meticulous“, so meticulous that under the new manager the team won six out of 35 games. The “outstanding candidate”, “someone who really stood out”, “the right manager (who had) a wealth of experience” and his “great record with young players”. Within barely a year, which I suppose by Rovers’ recent standards is a long term appointment, Garner was axed. “We weren’t seeing any eradication of the mistakes that were being made, there was no improvement in the performances really and no improvement in the results”, said Starnes. Then please explain how “meticulous” the recruitment exercise actually was? Not very.

After sacking Garner, Paul Tisdale was quickly appointed. Starnes gushed that Tisdale was “the ideal person to maximise the full potential that the playing squad possesses.” The assertion here is that the squad actually does have potential. Well, what if Tisdale did maximise the full potential and that the squad is actually pretty rubbish? I suppose we will only know that for sure when Tisdale’s successor gets to work with them. Good luck, Tommy.

So, as supporters always say, is this a case of “You don’t know what you’re doing?” Starnes confidently explained that on each occasion with Garner and then Tisdale he, or rather “we” as he always says, got his man. Then, the right men for the job were the wrong men for the job. They were sacked, Starnes stayed to fight another day, or rather to set up another “meticulous” search for a new manager. Why is it that when the club is stumbling from crisis to crisis, no one seems to look beyond the failings of the people that appointed the manager?

Starnes hasn’t been at the club for that long so he can’t be held responsible for failed managerial appointments over the years. But how many successful managerial appointments, by design, can you remember at Bristol Rovers since Gerry Francis joined the club in 1987? I’d say one, the appointment in 2005 of Paul Trollope and Lennie Lawrence. Most of the other managers since Gerry left in 1991 have never worked again. So, the odds of Starnes finally getting it right are not short.

If the career of Starnes at BRFC is hardly stellar, what of the club president and owner Wael al Qadi? Listening to the radio phone-ins, the sainted Wael appears to be immune from criticism whilst callers demand the manager’s head on a plate. Well, they’ve got it now so what next?

In terms of bricks and mortar only, Wael owns the club. He has pledged the fill the yawning financial gaps that are becoming a chasm, one assumes for the long term. But to what ends? A succession of dud managerial appointments, endless apparently empty promises of a new stadium and from all accounts one of the worst playing squads in the club’s history. This isn’t a plan: it’s a continuation of the old Rovers way of hoping to rely on luck and chemistry and that the law of averages will offer us success.

The Al Qadi years have seen him apparently paying off the enormous debts and covering the mammoth weekly losses. Gasheads are grateful that he does this, but for how long? How many million quid will one man throw at a failing, technically insolvent company in a business where it is all but impossible to make money? None of it makes any sense, but then he rarely tells us anything, bar a few soundbites.

Just never forget that the people who run Bristol Rovers are not Gasheads. As I have said, they are hired hands, employees on the payroll. This might not be a bad thing at a successful, ambitious football club but when things are rotten, as they most definitely are in BS7, then be afraid.

In football, supporters generally get the club they deserve. And if they’re happy to be mushrooms, kept in the dark and fed bullshit, things don’t tend to end well. And when the CEO spins out of control, with vacuous populist nonsense about “(building) a Bristol Rovers DNA”, you begin to wonder whether these are serious people. As of today, the answer is no.