New article - The road is long, with many a winding turn
Jul 22, 2015 12:36:44 GMT
brfcdom likes this
Post by mehewmagic on Jul 22, 2015 12:36:44 GMT
This will be up on the Bristol Post website soon
G is for Gas blog
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The road is long, with many a winding turn
by Martin Bull
Obviously we are all incredibly frustrated that Sainsbury’s have won the first battle in the legal case over the contract to buy the Mem. I write the ‘first battle’ because the law is a complicated beast and an appeal is imminent. I must admit that my initial reaction to the dreadful news was ‘please don’t appeal, it's just lawyers getting rich and making us look pathetic’, but that very same day the top news story in Wiltshire was the complex and rather unseemly case of which Council will be forced to pay for a young man who lives with serious disabilities and will require very costly personal care for the rest of his life. The Department of Health initially said Cornwall Council [where his parents and siblings live] should pay, and that ruling was upheld by the High Court. The Court of Appeal later reversed that decision, saying that South Gloucestershire [where he has lived with foster parents most of his life] should pick up the bill. The Supreme Court has now ruled that Wiltshire Council [where he was born] has to pay his £80,000 a year care bill.
That case suggests that not only is the road long, with many a winding turn, but there is also no return at this point. So on we go because plan B is well… we don’t have one. That innovative stadium idea, a collaboration with the rapidly expanding University of the West of England (UWE), was genuinely so perfect and astute that it looked like we were finally entering the 21st Century… until delays, TRASHorfield, and the economy intervened. The frustrating thing is that we probably only need about £15m extra to get a beautiful stadium built, with many local benefits, but it’s just £15m extra we don’t have without that Sainsbury’s contract, and our Board seem to have already maxed out their credit cards. Meanwhile City have a billionaire ‘local boy made good’ owner who could tip a wine waiter £15m and not realise it was gone.
Oh well, supporting Rovers is always more a twisty country road than an efficient autobahn. The clue is in our name, and compared to the struggles others have in life it’s no burden to bear. We’ll get there sometime, who knows when, but as the planning permission on the UWE Stadium doesn’t run out until 17th January 2018 I wonder if there may even be some chance of a new funding plan coming out of the left-field, if the Uni can wait that long?
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At the risk of being labelled an ostrich by a recently sacked football manager, I enjoyed our away day to the resurrected Salisbury F.C. last week, and the great turn-out from over 1,000 Whites fans and Gasheads. If any fans know what it is like to have a really tumultuous five years, it is a Whites loyalist, enduring a rollercoaster of administration, an enforced double relegation, two promotions, and finally liquidation and an entire season without even a club. For us at least the football goes on and we'll try to enjoy what we do have rather than be too depressed about what we don't have (yet?).
As the Ray Mac Stadium is miles outside the centre of Salisbury, and was pretty much on its tod until new houses began to surround it, I assumed that this would be perfect territory for a ‘football by footpath’ saunter. I had been to Old Sarum before, the ancient pre-Salisbury settlement just a flints throw away, so to be able to link all three together in an afternoon was like a dream come true. If Tony Robinson wasn’t a dirty red I might have even roped him along for the ride into bygone times.
‘Football by footpath’ is one of my little projects; the quirky way to arrive at an away match, usually involving a smidgen of research, a public footpath or a canal towpath, shanks' pony, a pub and preferably decent weather. Falling down hills and getting lost is also distinctly possible, but it's hardly an extreme sport, so handglider geeks and parachutists need not apply. The full 'Old Sarum Stroll' can be found at www.footballbyfootpath.blogspot.co.uk - featuring colour photos, Mormons, parachutists, and the truly bizarre sight of a stadium flypast by a World War I bi-plane! I already have a route mapped out for our opening away trip of the new season to our country bumpkin cousins at Yeovil Town. Now I just need to be able to secure a ticket.
I was very impressed by the new thinking of splitting the squad into two separate friendlies, and giving most of them a proper match and a chance to gel, rather than the old ‘first half with one team, second half with another’ routine. Seven of our starting 11 played a full 90 mins in this first pre-season match, and some, like Nathan Blissett and Jamie Lucas, were still running like gazelle's at the end. We did struggle a bit when the three youngster subs came on, but obviously they were introduced precisely because we were well ahead and it was an apt time to give them a crack at a real match.
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As usual it was great to be able to attend a free Q&A with Darrell Clarke even if it slightly suffered from that unique Bristol Rovers manner of organisation. 90 minutes of non-stop questions, answers and chat are almost impossible to cover on paper, but what is actually more noteworthy is that the session proved yet again what many of us have known all along; what a meticulous, passionate, modern, strong, honest, clever, and tough taskmaster Darrell is. We are very fortunate to have him. Gone are the days of a 55 year old bloke with little recent knowledge of English football commuting from Brighton, or a jumped up Napoleon figure trying to push his players and staff around.
We finally have a leader, an intelligent modernist, and a man manager; a Renaissance man born on a dodgy Council estate in Mansfield.
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Martin Bull became a Gashead in 1989 and immediately fell in love with Twerton Park, standing near G pillar. In 2006 he wrote, photographed and published the first independent book about the artist Banksy. Having been exiled for much of his past, away games have always been special for him; so much so that with 40 other fans has published a new book about them - www.awaythegas.org.uk
G is for Gas blog
-----------------------
The road is long, with many a winding turn
by Martin Bull
Obviously we are all incredibly frustrated that Sainsbury’s have won the first battle in the legal case over the contract to buy the Mem. I write the ‘first battle’ because the law is a complicated beast and an appeal is imminent. I must admit that my initial reaction to the dreadful news was ‘please don’t appeal, it's just lawyers getting rich and making us look pathetic’, but that very same day the top news story in Wiltshire was the complex and rather unseemly case of which Council will be forced to pay for a young man who lives with serious disabilities and will require very costly personal care for the rest of his life. The Department of Health initially said Cornwall Council [where his parents and siblings live] should pay, and that ruling was upheld by the High Court. The Court of Appeal later reversed that decision, saying that South Gloucestershire [where he has lived with foster parents most of his life] should pick up the bill. The Supreme Court has now ruled that Wiltshire Council [where he was born] has to pay his £80,000 a year care bill.
That case suggests that not only is the road long, with many a winding turn, but there is also no return at this point. So on we go because plan B is well… we don’t have one. That innovative stadium idea, a collaboration with the rapidly expanding University of the West of England (UWE), was genuinely so perfect and astute that it looked like we were finally entering the 21st Century… until delays, TRASHorfield, and the economy intervened. The frustrating thing is that we probably only need about £15m extra to get a beautiful stadium built, with many local benefits, but it’s just £15m extra we don’t have without that Sainsbury’s contract, and our Board seem to have already maxed out their credit cards. Meanwhile City have a billionaire ‘local boy made good’ owner who could tip a wine waiter £15m and not realise it was gone.
Oh well, supporting Rovers is always more a twisty country road than an efficient autobahn. The clue is in our name, and compared to the struggles others have in life it’s no burden to bear. We’ll get there sometime, who knows when, but as the planning permission on the UWE Stadium doesn’t run out until 17th January 2018 I wonder if there may even be some chance of a new funding plan coming out of the left-field, if the Uni can wait that long?
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
At the risk of being labelled an ostrich by a recently sacked football manager, I enjoyed our away day to the resurrected Salisbury F.C. last week, and the great turn-out from over 1,000 Whites fans and Gasheads. If any fans know what it is like to have a really tumultuous five years, it is a Whites loyalist, enduring a rollercoaster of administration, an enforced double relegation, two promotions, and finally liquidation and an entire season without even a club. For us at least the football goes on and we'll try to enjoy what we do have rather than be too depressed about what we don't have (yet?).
As the Ray Mac Stadium is miles outside the centre of Salisbury, and was pretty much on its tod until new houses began to surround it, I assumed that this would be perfect territory for a ‘football by footpath’ saunter. I had been to Old Sarum before, the ancient pre-Salisbury settlement just a flints throw away, so to be able to link all three together in an afternoon was like a dream come true. If Tony Robinson wasn’t a dirty red I might have even roped him along for the ride into bygone times.
‘Football by footpath’ is one of my little projects; the quirky way to arrive at an away match, usually involving a smidgen of research, a public footpath or a canal towpath, shanks' pony, a pub and preferably decent weather. Falling down hills and getting lost is also distinctly possible, but it's hardly an extreme sport, so handglider geeks and parachutists need not apply. The full 'Old Sarum Stroll' can be found at www.footballbyfootpath.blogspot.co.uk - featuring colour photos, Mormons, parachutists, and the truly bizarre sight of a stadium flypast by a World War I bi-plane! I already have a route mapped out for our opening away trip of the new season to our country bumpkin cousins at Yeovil Town. Now I just need to be able to secure a ticket.
I was very impressed by the new thinking of splitting the squad into two separate friendlies, and giving most of them a proper match and a chance to gel, rather than the old ‘first half with one team, second half with another’ routine. Seven of our starting 11 played a full 90 mins in this first pre-season match, and some, like Nathan Blissett and Jamie Lucas, were still running like gazelle's at the end. We did struggle a bit when the three youngster subs came on, but obviously they were introduced precisely because we were well ahead and it was an apt time to give them a crack at a real match.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As usual it was great to be able to attend a free Q&A with Darrell Clarke even if it slightly suffered from that unique Bristol Rovers manner of organisation. 90 minutes of non-stop questions, answers and chat are almost impossible to cover on paper, but what is actually more noteworthy is that the session proved yet again what many of us have known all along; what a meticulous, passionate, modern, strong, honest, clever, and tough taskmaster Darrell is. We are very fortunate to have him. Gone are the days of a 55 year old bloke with little recent knowledge of English football commuting from Brighton, or a jumped up Napoleon figure trying to push his players and staff around.
We finally have a leader, an intelligent modernist, and a man manager; a Renaissance man born on a dodgy Council estate in Mansfield.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Martin Bull became a Gashead in 1989 and immediately fell in love with Twerton Park, standing near G pillar. In 2006 he wrote, photographed and published the first independent book about the artist Banksy. Having been exiled for much of his past, away games have always been special for him; so much so that with 40 other fans has published a new book about them - www.awaythegas.org.uk
