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Seven Possible Turning Points of our season so far


a) Leaving our Brains in the gutter - If our first eight days in the Conference Premier were traumatic (1 point from 3 games), our final away defeat (so far) was maybe the extra, if belated, lesson in humility we needed. Thankfully the season last eight months, not eight days, and seven points from our second trio of matches put a nice gloss on our new surroundings. But providence had one more jolt for us. A 2-0 defeat at Braintree Town was our final low point, and a few of our fans put us back in the headlines for all the wrong reasons, whilst the press ignored the dedication of the 500+ others on the longest trip of the season thus far. Thankfully our fans have mainly received good press since, including a lovely thank you note from the Eastleigh chairman, national sympathy at some Gasheads being locked out by Woking, and the staggering statistic that gasheads have supplied an average of 31% of the crowds on their away trips.


b) Sticking like glue - After the Braintree match above, we were 15th, with eight points from seven matches, and there was a strong rumour that Darrell Clarke could be gone if the Tuesday night match against Wrexham didn’t go well. We won 1-0, the second of eight ‘Arsenal scores’ so far this season, and Darrell stayed. The great Velvet Underground drummer Mo Tucker was not much of a singer, but her brace of contributions included a delightfully childish ditty that went “I’m sticking with you, ‘cause I’m made out of glue”. Very apt.


c) LDV and Tricky Dawso - Let’s be honest, we’ve still never achieved a ‘proper / balanced’ squad of our own players as we’ve never had a creative midfielder and never had pace on the wings. I won’t include ‘goal scorers’ in this complaint because like it or not, we’ve always physically had numerous forwards at the club. Whether they have been the right people at the right time is a moot point of course, but that is a separate question to this ‘turning point’. I’m also not going to be pernickety enough to complain, for example, that we don’t have cover for Lee Brown at left-back, because many teams (especially those in non-league) are not going to have perfect cover for every position, and acquiring utility players who can fill in (as Tom Lockyer did for Brown’s three league absences so far) is just as much a skill of management than having that perfect centre forward who scores loads of goals and is never injured or suspended.

ANYWAY, to get to the point, the signing of attacking wingers on loan is offered as this third turning point. The first man in, Dave Martin from Luton Town, didn’t quite go to plan despite an impressive start, but Lyle Della-Verde from Fulham was a fan’s favourite until injured, and in 2015 Leicester City’s Adam Dawson has proved just as tricky and attack minded. These wingers have offered us something different and certainly have become the creative outlet we don’t possess in our own squad. Crucially Dawson arrived at time when Daniel Leadbitter is been used as a more attacking right back, so we now have a very creative and pacy right side, coupled with a more steady and prosaic left hand side.


d) Take the honey and run - At the time it felt like only a pyrrhic victory, as we were still 8 points behind Barnet (albeit with a game in hand) and didn’t actually reduce the gap below five points until mid-February, but that last-gasp winner versus Barnet on a wet Tuesday evening in late November 2014 was exactly the physical and psychological win we needed to keep us within a fighting distance of the Bees.


e) The tale of two centre backs - A team will rarely concede only 0.73 goals a game, and earn 18 clean sheets out of 37 games, without a good centre back pairing, and although this hasn’t been a single decisive moment as such, a negative turning point was potentially averted because we’ve boasted not just one top class partnership, but two. At this late stage of the season it is easy to forget that Tom Parkes, one of only two ever presents in the league this season and an early candidate for Player of the Season, was actually partnered by Neal Trotman for 16 out of the first 19 games, until Trots was injured at AFC Telford United and replaced by Mark McChrystal. Macca has been Parkes’ ever improving partner for all of the 19 league games since, and amazingly they have picked up only seven yellow cards, and no reds, between all three of them.

More precise turning points could be two specific draws that central defenders helped earn for us. A point at Wrexham in early December was disappointing in some respects, but having Macca in goal for 50 minutes (after Mildy was injured) and still keeping a clean sheet should never be sniffed at. We may not have had a sub keeper, but surely in Neal Trotman we had one of the best central defenders ever to sit on a Conference bench, and between them the three central defensive mustakeers helped earn what may prove to be a crucial point.

Similarly if Rovers get into the play-offs by a point, or even win the league by that little digit, we might wish to send a Methuselah of Champagne to Torquay United’s foolish centre back Angus MacDonald. The Gulls (or should that be the Turkeys?) were the best team I’ve seen at the Mem this season, until we grabbed a barely deserved late New Years’ Day point courtesy of a few moments of madness; two yellows within 11 minutes for MacDonut and a gifted penalty.


f) Being dumped out of the FA Trophy by Bath City - Pretty self explanatory, although I may write something later.


g) No fireworks since Guy Fawkes’ Night - Another minor turning point may well have been the away game at FC Telford United on 1st November, which saw our fifth, and final, red card of the season so far, as well as the return of Tom Lockyer after a one match ban for five yellow cards. That plethora of cards in the first 19 games could have left casual observers wondering if our players had a serious discipline problem. It didn’t seem so, as none of them were for awful challenges, but it was most probably costing us points, as we only garnered four points from the four games where we had players dismissed. Up to that Bucks game we were earning 1.77 points per game. Since that game we have plundered 2.21 points per league game and have never tasted defeat. Co-incidence?

Gotta be the Beard's goal against Gateshead. That's when the whole league saw that this Rovers team never say die.

yep, that's a good one.

I thought of that match just when i thought I'd finished the 7... But decided I'd better get the 7 up rather than add more.

I think the match was imp because we scored 3 pearlers, came from behind TWICE, and yet again DC made an early change when things didn't pan out they way he ead expecting them to.

thanks for the feedback.

Gateshead will certainly be added as an important moment in the season!

That may well be my perfect moment for this season. 

This may not be in line with what you were hoping for but the turning point for me was DC's radio interview shortly after relegation.

I thought he was very, very impressive and that was the point that I thought "we can get out of this league".

Looking back, that was the "turning point" where doom and gloom turned to hopeful optimism. All the other things you have listed have built on and reinforced that.

I totally agree mate, how refreshing is it to see a manager who can walk the walk as well as talk the talk. So many are good talkers but not many can back it up.

Nutter. 

thanks for the votes and comments.

more appreciated.

The Gasheads forum is putting you to shame.