Writing as someone who has not attended a Bristol Rovers game in nearly five years, you might find it odd that I am giving my opinion on the state of the club, but sod it, who cares? It’s still the only club I will ever support because, let’s face it, you don’t choose your club: it chooses you.
I started to fall out of love with the Rovers back in 2006. The reasons really don’t bear repeating, yet again, but slowly but surely my football marriage to the club turned to divorce. Those who aided and abetted my disillusionment are no longer at the club and some aren’t even alive anymore. I was told to get over myself and finally I did, vowing never to get involved with an organisation at any level because every time I did get involved in something it ended in tears. My tears. From time to time I’m still interested and, to a far lesser extent than before, concerned about the direction of the club. Not this year though.
Many Gasheads have expressed their concern at the losses being run up at the club. In the year to June 2022, the club lost £3.7million, which works out at over £10,000 a day. I took a rare view at some of the Rovers forums and to be fair there wasn’t that much concern, to the extent that the debate turned into a debate about how much people hated Yeovil Town. Personally, I think it’s a sad day for Bristol Rovers when people are more concerned about the likes of Yeovil, a struggling National League club, than Bristol City, but perhaps that’s an indication of how far we have fallen over the years. Yeovil shouldn’t matter to BRFC but then neither should the internal machinations.
Before the Jordanian banker Wael Al Qadi bought the club, losses of £3.7million would have been grounds not just for concern but absolute panic. For as long as I can remember, the club has always made a loss, some years worse than others, but somehow it has muddled through, often by selling a star player. The accounts suggest that in the year ended 2022, the club had expected to sell a player but didn’t actually do so. This may well have inflated the losses. But it doesn’t matter.
This year, as with last year, the club is quick to praise Mr Al Qadi for his “investment” in keeping the club going. I keep hearing rumours that the club is struggling with money, but where is the evidence? Unpaid wages? Unpaid bills? There’s none of that. Yes, next year’s season tickets went on sale in February, which seems a little early, but no one can say with any degree of certainty that this means anything at all. And manager Joey Barton is always full of praise for the generosity of his wealthy owner. People say there’s no smoke without fire but there’s no smoke here.
Rovers’ financial model isn’t exactly one I’d favour if I was an active punter – my view was always that a football club should look to be sustainable, with the involvement of supporters, and not be run at a considerable loss – but if there is a generous benefactor willing to fork out £3.7million this year, virtually the playing budget, so we are told, and there is no evidence that this arrangement is in any kind of danger, then supporters should concentrate their energy, as well as emotional and financial support, to the one thing they are there to do and that’s watch the team and hope they win.
In retrospect, I feel I was a naive fool getting involved in something I could never affect and change and that realisation was a long time coming. I’m almost at the stage where I can see myself attending some games at the Memorial Stadium now that all that anger and bitterness has subsided. The only thing preventing me attending at the moment is the presence of manager Joey Barton, whose appointment is, in my view, a continuing disgrace to the good name of the club. But that’s me, not you, and the continued presence of Al Qadi would be no barrier at all if he’s happy to keep throwing the money in or even if he isn’t.
The reality is that we should move along because there’s nothing to see here. Rumours come, rumours go. Leave the money stuff to the people with the money and enjoy Saturdays for what they are, a time to spend with friends and family. That’s certainly how it used to be for me and one day, maybe, it will be again.
