It's Paul over

FORGIVE me Gasheads for I have sinned. It has been almost a month since my last blog entry.
To be honest, I feared I was losing my faith.
Having been convinced that Paul Buckle and the board were going to take us to the promised land, it was soul-destroying to see us once again slump into the pergatory that is a relegation dogfight.
What's more, being on the Memorial Ground terraces was like witnessing the last days of Soddom and Gommorah.
It was a painful experience, with Gashead pitted against Gashead, and a wailing and gnashing of teeth that could be heard all the way down the Muller Road and back at Eastville.
And that was even before kick off.
As the Christmas period approached I was still full of confidence that we would be able to reverse the worrying decline in our fortunes over the previous few months.
Ok, we got a rude awakening at Gillingham - losing 4-1 after encouraging draws with promotion chasers Southend and Swindon - but I' never expect us to get anything against the Kent club.
I hate them. We've NEVER really had a good record there. It's a thankless journey to the end of the earth that normally results in no points, no encouragement and a depressing coach journey home.
But Plymouth on Boxing Day, another home game against Crewe on New Year's Eve, followed by a trip to Barnet on the Monday really encouraged the promised revival.
So it was I headed off to the Mem for a high noon kick off against seemingly doomed Plymouth, having been unable to see Rovers due to work commitments apart from our FA Cup moment in the spotlight, beating non-league Totten 6-1 on TV.
First off, I must say I was surprised at the negativity pervading the terraces even before kick off.
I might have expected a modicum of Xmas cheer to be shared with players and manager before kick off but from my place on the Uplands Terrace all I could hear was a diatribe of negativity from those around me. And it didn't improve even though we were 2-0 up at the break and - I thought - playing some decent football.
What happened after half time was nothing short of scandalous, though. It was as if a different team had taken the pitch and the lack of drive, effort and professionalism from certain players shocked me.
Here was a chance to kick on, to get the Xmas period off to a cracking start and launch ourselves on the quest for nine points from three games and a belated chance to challenge at the top end of the table.
But whatever those players had been told by the manager, whether they weren't fit enough to cope with the heavy pitch or whether they could physically FEEL the vibe of those who just wanted the manager out, it is difficult to tell.
Plymouth, who had looked toothless in the first half, got one goal back and their fans were suddenly in full voice while ours were perplexed, bemused and silent.
It was a situation crying out for a manager to make some decisive decisions, to ring the changes, switch tactics and inspire us to complete what should have been a routine victory.
But Paul Buckle remained routed to the bench, like a rabbit caught in headlights, unable to decide what his next move was.
And inevitably Plymouth equalised, then struck the winner in the last minute of injury time.
Of course, to a great many on the terraces it was a self-fulfilling prophecy. The boos rang out and the chants of "We Want Buckle Out" quickly followed.
And although I have been pushing for him to be given more time to get it right, I knew at that moment he would never win them back.
He should have gone then. But the board dithered and dallied.
The next result - a 5-2 home defeat by Crewe - proved that even the players had lost faith in him.
The 2-0 loss at Barnet was just the final nail in his coffin.
Finally, the directors moved to remove him from the post. Some might say it was a move of compassion, because the kind of abuse he was being subjected to was becoming beyond the pail.
We have always been a resilient lot, but I've never known a manager split the faithful in the way the former Torquay boss had done - in such a short space of time, too.
It made for a horrible atmosphere on the terraces and at the ground.
Rumours of Buckle calling Bristolians a four-letter word in the dressing room after one particular defeat, and his public proclamation that they should lower their already pretty low expectations were contributory factors to turning them against him.
And so we sack a third manager in 12 months. If you include caretakers Darren Patterson and Stuart Campbell, the next man will be the sixth at the helm in that time.
It worries me because it is the classic recipe for a club in meltdown and heading out of the Football League.
I hope I am wrong. I hope the next appointment is someone who can truly re-unite the fans, with the tactical nous to save us from the dreaded drop.
It's calling out for a wise old head, someone who has found themselves in similar situations, kept their cool and done the necessary.
I don't care if it is ugly, dirty, grinding - as long as it is enough to keep us up.
There are a few candidates: Gary Johnson, the ex-City boss, would be the worst choice in my book. Too many Gasheads hate him already. His last two clubs, Peterborough and Northampton, had a habit of conceding a torrent of goals, something which we are all too familiar with at the moment.
Sean O'Driscoll would inspire the pretty football Rovers fans crave, but can we afford to work at playing that way on heavy winter pitches where we are required to scrape and scrap for every point?
Iain Dowie hasn't been a success at his last few clubs, but what he did at Crystal Palace, taking them from the bottom three to Premier League promotion is difficult to forget.
But I like the sound of Keith Curle. Ex-Gashead, tough reputation, knows about defensive organisation and has spent time under the wise tutelage of Neil Warnock. He certainly isn't afraid of winning ugly and has been around a long time.
Before then, though, we will have Buckle's assistant Shaun North in charge for Saturday's big FA Cup third-round clash with Aston Villa. It's a nice distraction after such a horrible few weeks.
And at least we'll all be united for that one...

Villa spark

And suddenly everything can change...
A 6-1 win over Totton, a club three division below us, in the FA Cup second round,followed by a nice little home draw against Premier League opposition Aston Villa, and suddenly things are buzzing around the Mem again.
It's amazing what a good cup draw can do to lift spirits. Not to mention scoring a few goals.
I admit I was viewing last Sunday's match with pure terror.
Driving in to work in London I had the radio on and was listening to Radio 5's afternoon sports coverage, hoping the traffic would ease enough for me to reach work in time for the kick off.
No such luck.
And after just a few minutes there was a quick scoreflash.
Presenter Mark Chapman said: "And already we have news from the Testwood Stadium..."
Aargh! My heart was in my mouth until he said those beautiful words "... and first blood has gone to the League side."
I was just turning into the car park.
By the time I had taken the elevator up four floors to the office, things had changed again.
My mate said as I entered: "...You're three up - and they've all been cracking goals." Damn and blast or, looking at it another way, it probably wouldn't have happened if I had been watching live.
Anyway, it all ended pretty comfortably, apart from an extremely stupid sending off for our substitute Ben Swallow who had only been on the field a handful of minutes.
Mind you, I bet it was a pretty amusing moment for some fellow Gasheads in the local pub. They overheard one elderly lady say to another as they glimpsed the score... "Gosh, that Tottenham HAVE gone downhill in recent years."
To be fair to our manager Paul Buckle, this was a banana skin of epic proportions.
Had he failed to get the players up for it (and we were missing some key players it must be said) then things could have been a whole lot different, and he might have found himself in the unemployment office this week.
As it is the Villa draw will have lifted everyone.
More important to my mind, though, is the buzz it may have given the players because what we REALLY need is a revival in League fortunes... and they won't come any tougher than a home game against our west country rivals Swindon, now managed by the colourful Paolo Di Canio, tomorrow.

Lost for words

I must admit the death of Gary Speed knocked me for six this week and until now I've had no compunction to write about the relatively insignificant events going on in League 2.
I knew Gary a bit while working as a sports journalist in Wales, and always found him an approachable, polite and unaffected man - as far removed from the egos that regularly make the front pages of our national newspapers these days as you could possibly be.
In fact, I found myself getting angry when the Football Association of Wales chairman Phil Pritchard, paying tribute to Gary, said that Sepp Blatter and the FIFA 'football family' had sent their condolences. That corrupt and hideous organisation wasn't fit to lace his boots. To my mind Gary Speed was the antidote to all the greed and self-interest that exists in world football.
Perhaps my abiding memory was turning up at one of those dinners a bit late and finding that I was the last to arrive at the table. I thought I could sneak in and take my seat without anyone noticing but Gary, who was sitting opposite, got up and leant across the table with his hand outstretched. "Hi, you must be Nick. Nice to meet you. I'm Gary Speed," he said.
I don't think I would have lasted long in the job if I hadn't recognised the captain of the Wales football team for myself.
Anyway, I couldn't write this entry without paying my own respects to a highly under-rated footballer and, better still, a thoroughly decent human being.
My thoughts go out to his family.

Meanwhile, for Bristol Rovers there has been a brief respite in the continuing holler for the head of our manager Paul Buckle.
It has come because the Gas actually managed to force a 1-1 draw at the home of league leaders Southend on Saturday with, by all accounts, a gritty, backs-to-the-wall performance.
Mind you, any brownie points the beleaguered Buckle may have accrued will be swiftly wiped out if we cannot beat the minnows of Totton in the FA Cup second round on Sunday.
The game is being shown on ITV - our chance in the limelight though, unfortunately, for all the wrong reasons.
We are on a hiding to nothing and the TV boys know it. Win, and everyone will say it was only Totton. Lose, and the outcry will be huge, the manager's neck ever closer to the guillotine.
Could he survive the ensuing clamour? I'm not sure. Directors have a habit of sticking their fingers in the air, testing which way the wind is blowing and acting accordingly.
That's why, for Paul Buckle, this is possibly his most important weekend since joining the club in the summer.

B's in a pod

THE manager, I'll call him Mr B though many have been calling him a lot of unsavoury things over the past week, now knows he is really up against it.
The honeymoon period is over.
He has come in with a good reputation, but recent results have not been what the fanbase expect.
To be fair, his remit was to change around the whole ethos of the club.
Players on good wages failed to perform last season. There was even talk of a rebellion by some who had loyalties to a previous manager. It is argued that their combined efforts actually got rid of the first guy who came in to replace him and that some players had more influence than the man in charge.
In the summer, the club bought into Mr B's long-term plans for the club. Some players went, new players came in and early results produced some optimism among the faithful.
Now the wheels seem to have come off, there is criticism and questions from all corners, and the issue is being raised... should the new man, after just three months of the season, be sacked?
Interesting.
But I don't really care what Chelsea do about Andre Villas-Boas.
I bet Paul Buckle wishes he had the Chelsea manager's headaches - a pretty bottomless pit of cash, world-class players, a chance to pit your wits against the best teams in the Champions League and an unthinkable fifth place in the Premier League table.
Unfortunately Buckle has a group of hard-working, lower league journeymen trying to turn around an atmosphere of impending doom and a current position of 17th in League Two having lost one of his main strikers and one of his key defenders through injury.
Saturday's result was an absolute nightmare for Buckle. Bristol Rovers 0 Barnet 2.
Just when it looked like Rovers might start feeling more "at home" in front of their home fans, they are turned over by a team who were finding it difficult to extricate themselves from the lower reaches of the table.
Only recently Barnet conceded six goals at home to Burton, yet the Gas couldn't break through their resistance in 98 minutes of football. Not good.
But to blame it all on Buckle is to put up a smokescreen. Four managers have tried to come up with a winning formula at the Mem, five if you include the brief spell under caretaker Darren Patterson. All, so far, have failed.
So do we spin the wheel again?
Some, looking across the city, have seen things change at Ashton Gate.
Bristol City were rock bottom of the Championship a little while ago, but a change of manager has seen them put a run together.
To be fair, though, Keith Millen had been given over a season to get things right, and had made absolutely no progress. A change was due.
Buckle, on the other hand, is a victim of his own early-season optimism. He talked up the team and is now having to backtrack. Lower expectations.
He is a victim of his own press conferences.
But what he really needs is the fans to get behind him - not shout abuse as seems to be the worrying trend at the Mem lately.
In turn he needs to develop a thick skin, a plan of action, and repay the faith the chairman put in him when appointing him to the job in the summer.
Next up it's runaway leaders Southend, away, and on the horizon is a real FA Cup banana skin at Totton.
Time to show us what you're made of, Mr Buckle.

Big-time Charlies

WELL the mighty Gas are through to the second round of the FA Cup.
We neatly avoided the banana skin that was Conference North side Corby Town 3-1 at the Mem in front of a crowd of less than 4,000.
Still, it's an improvement on last season when our knockout exploits involved a 6-1 defeat at League newbies Oxford United in the Carling Cup and a 2-1 defeat at non-league Darlington in the FA Cup.
And now it is on to Totton, the little-known club from the Evostik Southern League, in the second round for a match that will be screened live on ITV.
Mind you, the victory has scarcelessly lifted the feeling of impending doom among a large proportion of our supporters who see manager Paul Buckle as the anti-christ, hell bent on taking us to oblivion.
Apparently many feel that we should have taken Corby to the cleaners, run up a cricket score and lived up to our reputation of "a big club".
Well, I have to admit I don't know where this notion that we are among football's giants has come from.
You only have to look at our history to see that, traditionally, we have always been a small club punching above our weight.
Which football "giant" has never been in the top division, has spent a huge part of their history renting their ground from first a greyhound company and then a neighbouring non-league club, and whose biggest signing cost £350,000?
In fact, one of the reasons I supported the Gas in the first place was that we DIDN'T portray this Billy Big B******* attitude.
For years our neighbours across the city have lived on their success back in the 70s when they managed to reach the top flight and survive there for a couple of seasons. We have always jeered at their "Sleeping Giants" attitude, poked fun at the idea that they think they have some kind of divine right to be up among the Manchester United's and Chelsea's of this world.
We at Rovers were a band of brothers, united in a kind of Us against the World mentality, able to joke at our misfortunes and treat success as the imposter it was.
I don't know, maybe the fact we have managed to reach Wembley a few times, and in 2007 actually played at the new stadium AND Cardiff's Millennium in the same season, made younger supporters feel we were bigger than we were.
And certainly we have always had a big fan base - not mirrored in our home attendances but a reflection of the highly populated area from which we come.
But having a reasonable supporter base is no guarantee of success as the two Sheffield clubs will be quick to verify.
On the other hand, glory for teams without their attributes is not out of the question. Who would have thought 20 years ago that the likes of Wigan and Swansea would be gracing the Premier League?
So isn't it time for a dose of reality and to get back to what we do best? The words are there in our club anthem Goodnight Irene: We're Loyal Supporters, Faithful and True, we always follow, the Boys in Blue".
Looking through those words I find no mention of: "unless we are struggling to overcome "little" clubs like Hereford and Macclesfield".
We have no god-given right to beat anyone, or win anything.
But one more win in the FA Cup and who knows what may lie ahead in the third round?
I recall our play-off season five years ago and a trip to Derby, where we played brilliantly only to lose in the last few minutes after having a player sent off.
That performance sparked us on a brilliant run in the league, eventually leading to our fantastic day out at Wembley.
On that day at Pride Park our support was fantastic, a story of Gasheads all pulling together against the odds because we were the underdogs and didn't expect to win.
A bit more of that attitude, and a bit less of the "Big Club Syndrome", is just what we need right now.

Dor blimey

PAUL BUCKLE must have had a busy week.
I can only imagine the Bristol Rovers manager was getting up in the early hours, driving to London, then touring local newsagents.
Armed only with a pair of scissors, the dedicated Buckle must have then blown all the spare cash from his astronomical salary buying up the daily newspapers.
Then, having completed the first part of his task, I imagine he went back to his car and sat there physically cutting out EVERY League One and Two table in print.
How else could he have conned our new loan signing Andy Dorman to join us by misleading him into thinking we were still a League One club?
A daft and fanciful notion?
Not for some it would seem.
Because the much maligned Buckle HAS been blamed in certain quarters for the fact that the Crystal Palace midfielder didn't know which division we were in.
Admittedly, we are 16th in League Two and hardly pulling up trees.
Some supporters who have been exiled in unchartered territory - the Amazon rainforest or deepest, darkest Africa perhaps - might think we have dropped off the face of the earth when they return to the civilised world.
Think of that British boy in Germany who suddenly turned up at a police station after being marooned in a forest for 16 years. If he was a Rovers supporter he would be painstakingly scanning the Championship and League One tables wondering where his beloved Gas had gone.
But that's hardly ALL Mr Buckle's fault, is it?
What are we going to blame him for next? The crisis of the Euro? Michael Jackson's demise? Frankie's exit from X factor and the Bieber baby?
If Dorman didn't realise what division we were in then that's his lookout. To be honest, I am still trying to get my head around our current lowly status myself.
But please, please, please can we stop trying to lay every problem at the manager's door.

Mr Popular

A knight of the realm, who today celebrates 25 years of management at the same football club, once said: "Football, bloody hell!"
He should be a Bristol Rovers supporter.
Because these days I spent most of my time saying "Football, *!+&@!!*&=@!!"
Having beaten the powerhouse that is Dagenham and Redbridge last week, we Gasheads had to once again endure the frustration of losing the following week - this time 2-1to the almighty Accrington Stanley.
Our manager Paul Buckle and chairman Nick Higgs had both spent the week talking about the next target being "Back-to-back" wins, but within five minutes those plans had been ripped up as our defence stood aside and waved an 18-year-old through to score the home side's opener.
Honestly, it reminded me of the time when I played for my dad's cricket team at the age of 11 and, when going out to bat, the pace bowler came in off a 2-step run-up and delivered a slow bouncing ball underarm.
Did someone in our back four shout: "Give him a chance, he's only young"? because that's what it looked like on the Football League highlights.
After 30 minutes we were 2-0 down and then - as seems to happen too often these days - we managed to get a goal back early in the second half, just to tease us into believing we could actually get something out of the game.
Of course, it didn't happen, leaving me even more deflated than if we had been thoroughly trounced... at least I became almost immune to that last season.
And so, once again, those fans who were quite excited at the new era promised by Mr Buckle are now demanding that he is driven all the way back to Torquay pronto - even if the one-way ticket would cost us a small fortune.
Hmm.
It doesn't make it any easier that one of the players Buckle let go - Jo Kuffour - is now scoring goals for fun for one of our League 2 rivals Gillingham.
"Sod off Buckle, come back Jo," seems to be the common thread on the forums.
So let's return to that knight of the realm.
When Sir Alex Ferguson took over at Manchester United - a club, believe it or not, with a few more coppers in the kitty than we have at the Memorial Stadium - did he build a team in four months? Was he running away with the First Division after 17 games? Did all the players he enlisted turn up and play like world beaters straight away?
The answer to those questions is no, no and no.
In fact, it took the red-nosed one four years to win his first trophy - the FA Cup - and SEVEN YEARS to land his first Premiership trophy.
I think we all know what he has done since then.
And what about players? I recall Gary Pallister and Paul Ince both having nightmares in their first season.
Has the bloke been spot on with all his signings? Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Eric Djemba-Djemba, Bebe and Juan Sebastien Veron. And there are many more.
Of course, if you're manager of Bristol Rovers you cannot afford to make such mistakes in the transfer market.
But you can't keep demanding a change in the manager every time things don't go the way you like.
Some fans will argue that Rovers, in that case, should have stuck with Paul Trollope.
But the truth was he HAD been given a reasonable amount of time to establish us in League One and though some claim he had managed to do that, results had been on a serious downward curve for a long time when he departed.
We can all get frustrated, angry, bemused about the current situation.
We don't like being in League 2. And there is a certain snobbishness about us which says that a better fan base should guarantee us success against the Dagenhams and Accrington's of this world.
But, as we know to our cost the last time we were down here, it doesn't work like that.
At the start of the season our board took the plunge, appointed an up-and-coming highly-rated young manager and asked him to turn things around.
As far as I know we didn't say "Turn things around by November, but don't get rid of any fans favourites, and make sure everyone you sign will be an instant success."
To my mind he can get rid of who he likes, when he likes - as long as he has a long-term vision for the club.
For our part, we have to give the manager and team our wholehearted support.
And, I'll be honest, I don't particularly like Paul Buckle.
I don't like the way he makes excuses, or the way he looks away from the camera with a smirk when answering certain questions. If I know anything about body language it suggests he may be being a bit disingenuous in what he says.
But then again football management isn't a popularity contest.
Is it, Sir Alex?