A cunning plan

I don't mind people looking at me perplexed when I tell them I am a Bristol Rovers fan.
I don't even mind them taking the mickey, to be honest.
But when those around you start showing you SYMPATHY, that's when I get really fed up.
Sympathy for the fact that you are adrift in the relegation zone of League One.
Sympathy because it seems every week you are getting walloped by the might of Orient or Carlisle.
Sympathy because they can see in your eyes how the demise of your beloved club is affecting you.
And I realise how perilous the plight is when I take a close look at the people who are passing out that sympathy.
Sat next to me, for instance, is a bloke who supports Luton Town, for God's sake. A team who crashed and burned in just a few seasons after gracing the top flight not too many moons ago. They now spend their Saturdays strutting their stuff in the wild and wonderful world of the Blue Square Premier.
The Hatters fan says: "Oh dear, Rovers. What's going wrong?" and I stutter and stammer because I can't think of an adequate response, particularly as there is only another five hours left in work and it would take far too long to explain.
Then there are the sad eyes of the colleague who has been a lifelong follower of Stockport County. Managerless Stockport, just a couple of points away from dropping out of the league Stockport. Almost went bankrupt last year Stockport. But he is looking at me as if my anxiety is a thousand-fold compared to what he is going through.
He doesn't need words. It is almost telepathic the way he is sending me the message through those portholes of the soul: "I know what you're going through - it's the start of the slippery slope."
Another guy, who can't decide week by week whether to show solidarity with his west country upbringing and follow Plymouth or stick with his more sophisticated, debonaire London lifestyle and shout for Millwall, is more forthright in his appraisal. "Rippers, you lot are in big trouble. How did it get to this?" And he puts a sympathetic arm around my shoulder.
Even the boss. Yes the West Ham loving boss, who is seeing his team becoming a laughing stock in the national media, has words of sympathy for my cause when previously he would have suffered vertigo just looking down as far as the bottom of League One.
This all came after our new manager's first game in charge on Saturday . . .
Northernmost football outpost inhabited only by sheep and wild goats 4
Big Cosmopolitan Metropolis at the other end of the country 0
Driving back to the west country everything seems black, empty . . . like some post-war Armaggedon. And all I can think is: "Where HAS it all gone wrong."
I start going over and over in my head the scenarios that have led to this point.
The optimism of the early season - the "landmark" signings of Will Hoskins, Gary Sawyer and Wayne Brown - the talk of our manager at the time, Paul Trollope, that we would be better placed to make a playoff push this season.
Then the harsh realities of losing 6-1 to Oxford United in the Carling Cup, crushing defeats at home to Southampton (4-0) and Orient (3-0), exit from the FA Cup to non-league Darlington and then the ignominy of another battering at Sheffield Wednesday.
Trollope gone. A season caving in around us.
A 3-2 home defeat to Plymouth after going 2-0 up, then the brief hope with the appointment of Dave Penney as our new manager.
To now . . . three points from safety, and four if you consider our wretched goal difference.
But wait.
A glimmer shines through on the horizon.
It comes in the form of Penney's appointment, and the way it was announced.
The Rovers chairman Nick Higgs said that this man had a great track record and knew the lower divisions with a vast knowledge of the players therein.
He had got Doncaster promoted from League 2 and taken Darlington into a playoff spot, only for them to have points deducted because of their perilous financial situation.
He had been given the job on a long-term contract.
I start thinking . . . and I can see what the board intended with this appointment.
It is a fail safe.
A long-term strategy.
If Penney keeps us up it is a huge bonus. He will have started rebuilding while managing to retain our status as a League One club.
If we are relegated?
The last time it happened we were totally unprepared.
We had a rookie manager who had no clue about the challenges presented by weekly trawls to Macclesfield and Lincoln.
This time we already have the man in place who can disband the team, bring in his own players and enable us to bounce back up.
No one is saying it publicly, of course, but this is what I am now convinced the board had in mind.
Rebuild, hopefully stay up but, if not, return stronger and more prepared for a second crack next time.
And I can't really fault the logic.
Yes, the board have taken a lot of stick recently but I wonder who we would rather have in charge?
Some charlatans obviously in it to asset strip and leave the club in turmoil? an organisation who have a former cockney wideboy in the background pulling the strings who will always interfere, undermining the manager, whoever that happens to be? or a couple of porn barons and a media-friendly chief executive who continue to give out votes of confidence like confetti while conspiring behind the scenes to appoint someone in the manager's place?
Our directors may be a bit naive at times, even too sentimental you might think when you consider the end of Trollope's tenure, but until things go completely Pete Tong I am prepared to give them the doubt over this one.
They may just have it right.