The future’s so bright, I gotta wear shades

My next article for the Bristol Post.  Seems pointless to wait until it is up on their website to post it as I always paste the text in here anyway.



The future’s so bright, I gotta wear shades

As all the best Jordan puns and spoonerisms have already been used I have given up trying and turned
instead to Timbuk3‘s mis-understood 1986 single. I had toyed with a memory of ‘Petra’ the Blue Peter dog,
tried in vain to make Hashemite rhyme with something other than Vegemite, and almost plumped for a
mash-up of the awful 70’s group Showaddywaddy.

The news of the Al-Qadi takeover broke a few days ago and it has been a whirlwind of interviews and
opinions ever since. The timing is of course curious, whilst a major court appeal is in deliberation, but the
timing probably matters not. And at the risk of sounding melodramatic, the other notable news of the week
was a narrow 2-1 win over mid-table Morecambe. The latter may not sound important now but at 1-0 down
and with barely a shot at goal to silence a twitchy crowd, that was the most pressure Darrell Clarke had been
under for quite some time, and with so many rivals in good form a loss would have left us in tenth place and
anxiety building rapidly.

It is early days yet, but the takeover does seem very positive, and hopefully the titular shades really will be
needed for the bright sun rather than a Cold War nuclear apocalypse. You can hardly asset strip a club with
significant debts and a contract of sale that has been quashed by a High Court judge. And the playing budget
probably can’t get much lower than it has been for the past two seasons.

I realise I get energised each time planning permission has been granted on a new or redeveloped stadium
(yes… I must be easily excitable…), but this time it really does seem like we might be able to get our facilities
in order, whatever the result of the Sainsbury’s case. Even if all that happens in the next few years is a debtfree
club building a spanking new stadium with excellent transport links, I think that is a amazing result for
our future.

I won’t think too much further than that at the moment, as on the pitch success is not as easy as
infrastructure projects are, but on that side of the fence there is surely also a decent chance we can at least
get back to our average historic level, namely the top half of League One.

As I have regularly mentioned in my articles, it has been tough having the planning permission in our pocket
for the past three years but not the money, and to be reminded regularly that the shortfall is a relatively
trifling amount in the world of modern football. Indeed, it has been sickening to see transfer fees for
mediocre Premier League players regularly topping what we would need to build a beautiful new stadium, or
to witness our neighbours blissfully losing around £10m a year whilst we scratch around for corn in the
chicken coop.

Gasheads are not asking for Man City-esque cash, but we would like a stadium and training / academy
facilities fit for the 20th Century, let alone the 21st. Matt Macey, Alfie Santos, Donovan Wilson and many
others didn’t move on before even seeing out their teenage years solely for the money, but also for the
perceived chances of longer term success, and the general discernment that higher clubs have better
coaches, better facilities and even better medical treatment when injured (the latter point should not be
under-estimated).

Whilst I’m not so naïve to think that a new stadium and hopefully better facilities guarantees success, I do
think it gives you a basis for potentially SUSTAINING any footballing success that can be attained. Facilities
do mean a lot to a footballer, the back room staff, and even a manager.

Rovers stalwart, Ray Kendall, related in his memoirs, ‘An Away Game Every Week‘ (Breedon Books, 2001),
the story of how Martin O’Neill turned down the chance to leave non-league Wycombe Wanderers (who had
moved to the small but brand new Adams Park in 1990) to manage Rovers in what is now entitled the
Championship. Kendall recalls being introduced to the ex-Nottingham Forest Champions League double
winner in the shadows of the Portakabins at the training ‘facilities’ at Fry’s chocolate factory. The ex-
Northern Ireland captain turned to Ray and asked “Is this where you normally train?”, and after being told
yes, mused, “No, I don’t think I could swap this for the luxury I have got at Wycombe”. And that was that.
Just over two years later he joined newly relegated Norwich City, in the Championship.

History may well be kind to Nick Higgs, despite two relegations. A clean, media-free, takeover to a wealthy
family with a football infatuated member seems to be a slap in the face to the numerous Internet naysayer’s
who mischievously foretold Rovers going into administration, and who perceived that a lack of information
meant a lack of activity. The bottom line is that no business, even a community based asset like a football
club, really does its business out in the open, and those who think it will might as well wake up and smell the
coffee. Many also giggled at Higgs embarking on a front page ’come and get us’ interview for a Bahraini-based
newspaper in January 2015.

Overall it seems positive that there has been a clean sweep of the businessmen on the old Board. However,
if Nick Higgs could potentially be a benevolent dictator when owning 54% of the shares, imagine what
owning 92.6% of the club must be like. It does make you wonder what Board meetings may look like now.
Will it be just Steve Hamer, as the representative of Wael Al-Qadi, and Lee Atkins (whoever he is…), sitting
around an enormous table with the so-called fan’s directors Ken Masters and Brian Seymour-Smith? In
some respects that is rather worrying, as is the general lack of other voices at a high level, but whilst I have
no inclination for Rovers to get top heavy with staff, or be in a situation where a tail of powerful employees
seem to be waging the dog, the positive outcome could be an increase in professional paid employees rather
than Board members attempting to lead on numerous themes. I was genuinely shocked recently when
Bolton Wanderers were reported as not being able to afford to pay their 300+ staff. My shock was not at
their well documented money worries, but by the level of staff! I doubt we would muster 20% of that.

I pray that the takeover will ensure the UWE stadium gets built, and lead to a revolution (not evolution) in
training and academy facilities, and I pray that the new President is genuinely as bright and sincere as he
sounds so far.

Surely all Gasheads can say Amman to that.

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Martin Bull became a Gashead in 1989 and immediately fell in love with Twerton Park, standing near G pillar.
Two of his six books have been about Bristol Rovers. ‘Away The Gas’ is packed full of over 50 years of ‘I was
there’ away game moments, all written by fans, and ‘Print That Season! - One man’s weekly meanderings
throughout Bristol Rovers’ promotion campaign of 2014-15’ is the antidote to obedient season reviews, with
none of the hindsight that most writers rely on. Full details of both are available at www.awaythegas.org.uk