Thursday 2 September 2010

Adieu, Pardew

HANDED over the office bluey today.
It wasn't too painful. After all, I'd expected it.
Yet despite his new-found fortune the Saints fan was pretty glum.
Understandable, really.
They beat us 4-0 at the Mem, and then sack THEIR manager.
Alan Pardew, the man who masterminded not only last week's hammering but last season's 5-1 thrashing of the Gas at the Mem, has got the boot at St Mary's.
Meanwhile, our present encumbent Paul Trollope soldiers on.
People tell me his tactics are negative and defensive - well, if that's the case they don't appear to be working. The Gas have now conceded 16 goals in just five league and cup games this season.
Even so, it seems the fan base is split 50/50 on whether we keep the man who won us promotion back to League One, or thank him for his services and wave him goodbye.

Rovers used to have a rather unique claim to fame. It really suited us Gasheads.
It was that we had never been in the top flight and never been in the bottom one.
We were happy in our mediocrity.
All that changed after the most exciting team put together in our recent history was ripped apart after we failed catastrophically to seal promotion in the 1999/2000 season.
I recall that season well. We were racing along at the top of the division and almost certs for promotion.
Up front we had a lethal strikeforce of Jason Roberts and Jamie Cureton, and in midfield we had the creative genius that was the Latvian international captain Vitas Astafjevs.
The defence was built around the rock solid foundation of Andy Tillson and as manager we had the incomparable Ian "Olly" Holloway.
I saw that team a number of times, ripping apart Luton 4-1 away and dishing out a 3-0 hammering to Brentford. It seemed, to use that famous phrase coined by Radio 5's Danny Baker, "nothing could go wrong now".
But, in true Gas tradition, it did.
I can only assume our bottle went with about 12 games of the season to go because somehow we even failed to secure a play-off place when losing to relegated Cardiff City 1-0 at Ninian Park.
Bloody Cardiff City.
Next season - minus a number of our big names because of a budget-trimming exercise - we still seemed to be going along well, until we went back to Ninian Park in the FA Cup.
Then a young Welsh whippet named Rob Earnshaw tore our defence apart, scoring a hat-trick in a 5-1 win.
Confidence drained away in that moment. Holloway was removed from his post in January, and so started a terrible period in the Football League basement which lasted much longer than most Gasheads had envisaged.
A number of managers came and went including "God", or Gerry Francis as he is better known, returning for a second disastrous spell.
Garry Thompson, Phil Bater, Ray Graydon and Ian Atkins all had a go, but the football was dire and on a few occasions we dabbled with the ultimate punishment - relegation from the Football League.
It was only when we suddenly had a late surge of form under Trollope and former director of football Lennie Lawrence that we found ourselves in the play-offs and rode on a wave of euphoria back to League One.

And there lies a problem.
That sustained period in the basement has meant a lot of our younger fans being brought up on a diet of kick-and-rush League 2 nonsense.
Having endured that, understandably their expectations are pretty low.
They are happy to be in League One, playing the likes of Southampton and Sheffield Wednesday, rather than enduring a diet of Macclesfield, Bury and Port Vale.
They think we are punching above our weight.
I am inclined to disagree, and so, I imagine, are many of the 40,000 fans who poured into Wembley for our 3-1 play-off final win over Shrewsbury.
A lot of promises were made in the aftermath of that triumph. This team would not stop there. We would be going places. We had a plan to reach the glittering heights of the Championship.

Seems a long time ago. Mid-table in League 1 seems to be the height of ambition for some of us.
So, are we just lucky to be in League One?
Should we stick with Paul Trollope because "we won't get anyone better"?
And should we shelve our dreams and thank the Lord Francis that we are where we are?
My answer to those - and to nearly any other question of that nature is...
Blackpool.
Yes, the same Blackpool that is managed by Ian "Olly" Holloway and shocked football by reaching the Premier League last season.
Here's some examples:
Rovers can't buy the players to match the biggest teams in the division? Neither could Blackpool.
Rovers don't have a decent enough ground to succeed? Neither did Blackpool.
Rovers' wage bill is much lower than others in the division? So was Blackpools.
My dream is one day - one day - we will go to the other end of the spectrum and grace the top tier of football.
After all, we've hit the bottom - and we hadn't done that before 2001.
But I must admit I think that to start on that course we may just need a bit more inspiration, motivation and managerial nous than Paul Trollope gives us now.
I hear Alan Pardew's available...



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