Fantasy managers

AS the crisis grows at my beloved Gas and we start looking like we are more and more embroiled in a relegation dogfight, all the talk is who the next lucky manager to step through the Memorial Gates will be.
I'm sure every fan at every club in the football league, and beyond, have played this game before. You look around the country, establish who is out of work or may be looking to move on, and then put them forward as the person of your choice.
It may be a worrying time for a fan, but it is also pretty exciting. At the moment, for instance, there are well-respected managers like Sam Allardyce, Steve Coppell, George Burley and Phil Brown out of jobs. And each one, at some stage, has been linked with the post by someone.
Meanwhile, we are approaching our second game with caretaker manager Darren Patterson in charge. After our performance in his first game, it sounds like he would be more suited to the job if you removed the word manager from that title.
Give Patto the keys, he can sweep around the changing rooms and then when he's done it will be his job to lock up.
Franchise team from a new town with no tradition and no atmosphere 2,
West country club steeped in history 0.
Patto made all the right sounds - "I believe in attacking football, as long as we score more goals than them etc etc" - only for it to blow up in his face.
He picked what appeared to be an attacking formation which was all well and good, apart from the fact we never got the chance to attack.
From every eye witness account I have read it was an absolutely pitiful performance which could have left us on the end of another six goal thrashing if MK Dons hadn't left their shooting boots at home and our on loan goalkeeper Mikkel Anderson hadn't played out of his skin.
It's desperate times.
We need a new boss, fast.
And we need someone to come in from outside the club, who can give an honest assessment of our plight and then show a clear vision of how to progress.
Reading the message boards, though, and I'm starting to think we might as well appoint Anne Robinson to the interview panel.
Why? Well, as the results came in, each manager who had been linked to the Rovers job was assessed on his team's performance that day.
Paul Tisdale at Exeter? His lot lost 4-0 at Southampton.
"Sorry, Paul, you are the weakest link - goodbye."
Torquay's Paul Buckle? His side only drew 1-1 with bottom of League 2 Hereford.
"Sorry, other Paul, you are the weakest link - goodbye."
And so it went on. Dean Holdsworth at Newport? His side lost 2-1 at home to Bath City.
John Ward at Colchester? Nah, couldn't beat 10-man Charlton.
Each manager was dismissed by someone as soon as their fallibility was highlighted.
In fact, it came to the point where people seemed to be saying: "God, none of these blokes are any better than good old Paul Trollope."
Is he still on "gardening" leave? Perhaps he should put away the lawn mower and come back. Sorry, Trolls, no hard feelings, all is forgiven.
Joking aside, appointing a manager should be a scientific process, not done on the whims of people who can look no further than Saturday's results check.
Otherwise the board might as well just throw it open to public vote. A phone in or, to move with the times, a text vote. "If you think Paul Tisdale should be manager text Tisdale to 0845........" It might even earn the club some money from the phone lines.
Perhaps Dermot O'Leary could announce the winner, too, and Simon Cowell could give him a hug.
Alternatively, how about this. The board write down a job specification, rule out anyone who clearly doesn't meet the minimum requirements, write down questions to ask at interview for those who make the short list. Then decide who best meets the criteria by judging them against the answers they give.
It's not rocket science. I've done it plenty of times and am pleased to say it works. Only on one occasion out of over 20 interviews, as I recall, did I end up with someone who didn't quite measure up to the task.
Meanwhile, tomorrow we go into a tough home game against our financially challenged west country rivals Plymouth and at last I can actually THANK the snow.
It is the first of many a midweek re-arranged home game, which means rather than monitoring the scores from my work station up in the smoke I can actually go along and lend my support first hand.
Let's face it . . . it's beginning to look like we need as much extra help as we can get.