Time flies when you're having fun -Some of the season so far

My latest gas article covers a hodge podge of the season so far, including home records, the 250 club, and the bloody weather.
It's available here - www.bristolpost.co.uk/bristol-rovers-blog-when-will-it-end-250th-appearance-triumphs-and-bad-weather/story-29861630-detail/story.html

Or pasted in below


Time flies when you’re having fun

by Martin Bull

As a breathless start of the season has whizzed by in a ‘two games a week’ fashion it has been hard to
keep up with all the remarkable going-ons at our mighty Bristol Rovers.

Whilst the on the pitch comebacks almost feel like a ‘when will it end?’ conundrum, the off the pitch
progress seems healthy so far, with record attendances, various interesting ticket offers (the likes of
which the previous regime forgot or refused to offer), huge staff improvements behind the scenes,
potential progress on the UWE stadium and a training and academy centre, and a general sense that
this could be the time of a real Rovers resurgence.

As a history scholar I can’t let our home record go unmentioned as Rovers equalled, but could not
surpass, our record for consecutive home wins in the League; a record that dated back to 10 wins in
1935. The 1935 run started with a 7-1 mauling of Northampton Town and was ended by Clapton Orient
(one of the numerous names of Leyton Orient), on a day when Rovers fielded five ‘mcs’ on the field,
emphasising a deliberate policy for recruitment from Scotland and the North of England. Oddly the 7-1
subjugation was our largest inter-war win in the Football League, but counter intuitively it was watched
by the lowest League crowd (circa 1,500) in Rovers’ entire history at Eastville.

The mid 1930s were the days when double barrelled gentlemen were managers (Captain Albert Prince-
Cox), when men were men (heartily laughing in the face of five games in eight days during Easter 1935),
and when silverware rained down like a monsoon from the skies, with the Gloucestershire Cup, the
Allen Palmer Hospital Cup (thrashing Division Two Southampton 5-2) and most impressively the Division
Three (South) Cup, all bagged.

The later was almost a forerunner to the Football League Trophy of
today, but instead of 60,000+ at Wembley, that final was won in front of two men and a sausage dog at
Millwall’s Old Den because Rovers and Watford rather petulantly refused to toss a coin to decide who
got home advantage.

Today we also have a true gentleman leader at the helm, and fit, strong and motivated men on the
pitch, so all we need now to emulate the 1934-35 season is the silverware. Err, OK, skip that…

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Rovers have also recently had not just one, but two, players celebrate their 250th appearances for the
club, with the the party poppers and a bottle of the finest Pomagne (to share, we aren’t THAT loaded
you know) coming out just one game apart from each other.

Chris Lines and Lee Brown were our first 250 men since Steve Elliott hit the milestone during a dull-all
draw with Tranmere Rovers in March 2010, where Bas ‘one goal for City‘ Savage and Luke Daniels lined
up amongst the opposition duffers. Earlier that season Super Stuart Campbell broken his own 250
barrier during the famous win at St. Mary’s in September 2009.

This ‘Class of 2004’ endowed Rovers with our last golden era of stable club men. Craig Disley and Aaron
Lescott both agonisingly fell just eight games short of the landmark. Aaron is a particularly neglected
stalwart, with 242 solid appearances in six years as a Gashead. James Clarke may be comforted to learn
that although Aaron remained goalless for his first 198 Gas games, he scored an outlandish brace in his
199th and finished with five goals in his final 44 games.

Imaginary long service medals were also awarded to Craig Hinton and Richard Walker, both bubbling
just under the 200 mark.


Rovers have already played Chelsea for the first time in 35 years, Bolton Wanderers for the first time
since Gerry Francis’s 1989/90 promotion season, and met Sheffield United for a first League meeting
since the 1988/89 season.

We’ve endured a highly contentious match against an Academy team where stay away fans forced a
new record low home attendance, beaten Cardiff City for the first time since 1995, mugged our first
ever point at the MK Dons, and soon Pirates will be meeting [Coventry] Sky Blues for the first time since
January 1964.

Although I previously described the abandonment of the Swindon game as “a freak deluge in August“, I
immediately regretted my description as I have painful first hand experience that August can be a very
adverse month.

In fact I devoted most of a chapter of my book ‘Away The Gas’ to it, chronicling the freezing August rain
that hit us on our first ever meeting with MK Dons in 2006 (whilst they played in the soulless, and open
to the elements, National Hockey Stadium), as well as the infamous ‘lightning stopped play‘ incident at
Wycombe Wanderers in 2012.

I‘ve never been back to Adams Park and frankly never wish to be seen there again.