Post by herbertblake on May 8, 2023 9:10:27 GMT
2022-23 Review of the Season. Compiled by Stephen Byrne Bristol Rovers History Group. Be prepared for a long and fascinating read.
Whatever pre-season fears supporters may have harboured, Rovers’ first season back in third-tier football ended in the relative comfort of mid-table obscurity. The club, the players and staff and the fans were spared the near perennial anxieties which the typical April promotion or relegation dogfight had brought in recent years. It was a season when Rovers started well, fell apart either side of the New Year and, after a brief flirt with the fringes of a relegation scrap, re-established themselves in the middle of the division.
Flamboyant and occasionally controversial manager Joey Barton and his wife, Georgia McNeil, welcomed their son Etienne in August, their third child; two months later he was found not guilty of assault against her and remained as Rovers’ manager. He was sent off when his former club Fleetwood visited The Mem in November, just as he had previously been sent off on the same ground when visiting as manager of the Cod Army. With Barton found not guilty, his assistant Andy Mangan was then charged with use of homophobic language aimed at a member of the Plymouth Argyle set-up at half-time during the sides’ League meeting.
Following a club trip to Portugal, Swansea City and Stoke City offered quality pre-season opposition, the latter fielding Phil Jagielka just eighteen days shy of his fortieth birthday. New signings arrived aplenty: midfielder Jordan Rossiter, defender James Gibbons and the experienced striker John Marquis, plus James Connolly, who had been on loan the previous season. Jerry Lawrence came through the youth ranks to make his first League appearance in August. Later in the season, many more players were signed: Lewis Gordon, Lewis Gibson (who was out injured when his elder brother Liam played for Morecambe in both fixtures) Josh Coburn, Sylvester Jasper and Bobby Thomas, who scored Rovers’ second equaliser at home to Morecambe on his club début. Two former players returned to the fold in midfielders Luke McCormick and Scott Sinclair, whose appearance as a substitute at home to table-topping Plymouth Argyle in October was his first for a club record seventeen years 196 days. Blackpool’s Grant Ward and Stockport’s reserve left-back Calum MacDonald arrived in the January transfer window, alongside the loan signing of promising Liverpool central defender Jarell Quansah, Dutch midfielder Lamare Bogarde and goalkeeper Ellery Balcombe.
It was certainly not the immediate start to the season Rovers had hoped for. Fellow promoted side Forest Green Rovers, who were to finish bottom of the table, started the campaign with victory at The Mem despite Aaron Collins’ goal against his former club and Trevor Clarke, Zain Westbrooke and veteran Alex Rodman all finished a traumatic week on the transfer list. However, that Saturday Rovers scored four first-half goals in the sunshine at the Pirelli Stadium after Burton’s Conor Shaughnessy had been sent off with just thirty-four seconds on the clock. Indeed, Rovers also led 4-0 at half-time at Cheltenham, Collins scoring a brace in both matches. Victory over Oxford United, by dint of the 12.30pm kick-off, in the hottest temperature in which the club has ever played, put The Gas briefly and proudly top of league One for a few hours. Ryan Loft found long-awaited goalscoring form, scoring in three consecutive League matches in the autumn and adding a critical last-gasp equaliser against Exeter City at St James’ Park. There were three straight victories, including a mauling of Cheltenham Town at Whaddon Road, Collins regained his scoring touch and the side playing much more attractive football. Following this, Rovers recovered from two goals down at half-time to draw 2-2 with table-topping Plymouth Argyle in an enthralling fixture at a sold-out Memorial Stadium.
However, there were signs that the good times might not last forever. With Connolly, Gibson, Gordon and Coburn out injured and both Coutts and Rossiter suspended, the latter for an incident unseen by officials during a feisty early-season home fixture with Shrewsbury Town, Rovers were almost down to the bare bones. The club’s only two fit central defenders, Bobby Thomas and Alfie Kilgour, were both sent off in the dying moments of the already-
lost match at Portman Road, the latter’s red card being later rescinded, (Rovers received five red cards in League fixtures, their opponents two), and Rovers faced the visit of Lincoln City without a recognised centre-half on their books; this was the fourteenth occasion in the Football League that Rovers had suffered multiple red cards in one fixture. As a result, Rovers crashed 6-3 at The Mem, Lincoln scoring four times in a sixteen-minute spell, Jack Diamond claiming a hat-trick and the club conceding six times in a home League fixture for the first time since 1957. Indeed the game could have easily featured more goals: Rovers themselves had fifteen shots and nine corners that day.
In the autumn, Rovers lost only once in a run of twelve League fixtures, even though this list included trips to Charlton, Derby, Sheffield Wednesday and Bolton. Rovers won away to Charlton in the League, thanks to two goals from substitute Marquis, for the first time since 1958 and lost at home to Exeter in the League for only the second time in 91 years. There were some unusually big names in League One during the 2022-23 and Rovers could enjoy visits to more illustrious venues. The Gas came from behind to secure a draw at Hillsborough against a rampant Sheffield Wednesday side in front of a crowd of 22,006, then travelled three days later to Derby. Before an even larger crowd (27,841), Rovers were involved in a six-goal first-half for only the eleventh time in their League history, David McGoldrick becoming the twelfth opponent to score a first-half hat-trick against The Gas in the Football League, with goals after five, 24 and 40 minutes; Derby County won 4-2. Bizarrely, both Derby’s scorers, James Collins and McGoldrick missed penalties against Morecambe in their next fixture.
It did not immediately appear any more positive for Rovers, as the side conceded four at home to Exeter at Christmas, recovering from 2-0 down at half-time to take the lead before succumbing in stoppage time. Then in January Rovers embarked on a run of four straight defeats, the club’s only goal in a dismal five-game run being a last-minute consolation strike in a 5-1 massacre at Morecambe. At the same time, the club slipped out of the Football League Trophy and did not make the significant purchases required in the January transfer window. Several players left the club at this stage, amongst them Bobby Thomas who departed ship en route to a fixture, in time to sit on the bench that day for Barnsley, a club he later represented at The Mem. As struggling sides Accrington, MK Dons and Burton Albion all defeated The Gas, Rovers’ supporters looked nervously at the daunting closing run of fixtures against huge names from the English game, Derby County, Sheffield Wednesday and Bolton Wanderers amongst them, fearful of where the relevant points for League One survival might be gained. Indeed, Rovers scored just once in a run of seven consecutive home fixtures at the start of the calendar year.
Nerves were settled with a resounding 3-0 victory at Oxford United on the final Saturday in February, a deserved point at home to promotion-chasing Barnsley and victory at bottom-of-the-table Forest Green, allaying fears of a relegation dogfight. Even then, in the grand scheme of things, Rovers made it comfortably across the line to League One safety. Two wins over the Easter weekend secured Rovers’ League One status, substitute Marquis’ penalty defeating Charlton at The Mem before Gibson and Grant Ward both scored their first goals for the club in a comeback victory at Fleetwood. This meant that, despite an April run of three consecutive defeats, Rovers survived the drop with ease. With the early-season fixture against MK Dons having been initially postponed because of the death on 8th September 2022 of Queen Elizabeth II (1926-2022), the campaign finished with a home midday fixture against Bolton Wanderers, delayed by a day because of the coronation in London of King Charles III.
Sixteen-goal top scorer Aaron Collins, “The Severnside Salah” to accompany “The Teesside Messi” Coburn, was touted by some as a potential name in the Welsh squad for their first World Cup Finals in sixty-four years, but he did not make the cut. Two former Rovers players, Connor Roberts and Tom Lockyer, did travel to Qatar as members of the Wales squad. Collins, though, did earn the title of League One Player of the Year, a remarkable
achievement for a player at a mid-table side, but one justified by being the only man in the division, at the time of selection, to have hit double figures for both assists and goals scored. Antony Evans, Marquis and Sinclair all scored penalties in the League, Rovers achieving a League double over Charlton, Cheltenham and the Boat Race pairing of Oxford and Cambridge, losing both fixtures to Accrington, Lincoln and Portsmouth. It was difficult, though, to escape the conclusion that Rovers’ poor home record, losing ten home League matches, including against relegated Forest Green and Accrington, went some way towards explaining why the side finished in seventeenth place in League One. No side in the top seven completed a League double over Rovers, but relegated Stanley did. As the season drew to a close, Rovers failed to score in nine of the last eighteen games. In total 35 different players were used in all competitions, 32 in the League including fourteen débuts, and four players appearing in just one game. Collins was the only ever-present, although Evans was to miss just two League fixtures. Former players returned to haunt their previous employers too, Brandon Hanlan scoring for Wycombe when set up by Gibraltarian international Tjay de Barr, Luke Leahy heading home at Shrewsbury (in a match where Rovers, for the first time in their League history, made a quintuple substitution -they made seven on the final day of the campaign against Bolton) and Ellis Harrison adding a goal for Port Vale.
Towards the end of the campaign, popular wing-back Nick Anderton announced his retirement from football. He had been diagnosed with cancer and received enormous support from fans as well as his team-mates, who took part in a January head shave to raise funds for charity, whilst manager Barton ran the Manchester Marathon to offer his support. The summer of 2023 appeared also to mark the end of the playing career of player-coach Glenn Whelan, whose brief cameo appearance as a late substitute and captain against Bolton in May, aged 39 years 114 days, enabled him to surpass the ninety-five-year-old club record set by Jack Evans as the oldest player ever to appear for the club in a competitive fixture. The club’s oldest surviving former player, Josser Watling, approaching his ninety-eighth birthday, suffered a broken hip in a fall but is continuing his recovery.
Historically Rovers have not fared spectacularly well in cup competitions and this season proved no different. The Gas departed the League Cup 1-0 at League Two Crawley Town in August, in front of a crowd of 1,860; Tony Craig played against Rovers and Crawley’s captain Tom Nichols scored the only goal. Scott Sinclair’s first goal in a Rovers shirt saw off Rochdale in FA Cup round one, the visitors fielding fifteen-year-old Oscar Kelly, the Gas’ youngest ever opponent in any cup fixture, only for Rovers to crash out of the competition at home to impressive non-league outfit Boreham Wood. There was a long run in the Football League Trophy, Kilgour being sent off with Rovers four goals ahead in the quarter-final against MK Dons, but Rovers lost meekly at home to Plymouth Argyle in the regional semi-finals with a potential Wembley trip beckoning.
As ever, the club lost some great names from the past. Manager Don Megson, who had played for the club before leading the side to Division Two in 1973-74, his flying winger Colin Dobson, 1960s stalwarts Micky Slocombe and David Hudd, as well as 1980s striker Franny Joseph all died during the season. So too did Clive Middlemass (1944-2022), Terry Cooper’s assistant when Rovers were relegated from the second tier in 1980-81. A former Rovers youth player, Takayo Nembhard, reinvented as a rapper known as TKorStretch, died after being stabbed at the Notting Hill Carnival in August. Brian Harding, a hugely popular programme seller from 1970s Eastville, known to one and all as “Oscar”, died on 22nd November 2022, aged eighty-two, whilst former club director Colin Sexstone (1948-2023) died at the end of February.
Off the field, the former Rovers defender Geoff Twentyman, who had been the backbone of local football coverage on BBC Radio Bristol, retired in May 2023 after thirty years with the corporation, whilst Rovers’ club secretary David Sams stepped down in November after twenty-one years in the position. England’s national rugby side was captained in the spring by Ellis Genge, the first Rovers supporter to be given this prestigious
position. The season closed in May to a charity match at The Mem to raise money for Motor Neurone Disease, after former Rovers striker Marcus Stewart announced he was suffering from this disease. Following recent legislative changes, the ground capacity at The Mem, which had recently been 11,796, was reduced for the 2022-23 season to 9,832. Rovers’ average home crowd for the League campaign was an impressive 8,907, with every crowd exceeding 8,000. Some away League attendances were seriously higher, notably 22,209 at Portman Road and 22,006 at Hillsborough, with the highest being the 27,841 at Pride Park in October, whilst only 2,510 hardy souls saw Rovers crash at Accrington in January.
Under manager Nathan Hallett-Young, the Gas Girls won thirteen of their eighteen matches in the regional South-West League in 2022-23, midfielder Abi Todd top-scoring with twenty-two goals. In November “Her Game Too”, an innovative organisation established by Rovers supporters Caz May and Lucy Ford to promote the participation of women in football, was deservedly presented with the Gold Award at the Football Content Awards. Rebecca Welch, who ran the home fixture with Wycombe Wanderers in March, was the first female referee at a League fixture.
