Back at the Mem

Bristol Rovers’ miserable appeal court defeat at the hands of Sainsburys was, I hope, the final act of the old guard. Chief operating officer Toni Watola, one of the last members of the old guard, appeared on the TV last night, expressing his disappointment that Rovers had lost. Their lawyers had told the club it had ‘a better than 50 per cent chance’ of overturning the previous court verdict, but then lawyers always say things like that. That’s how they get rich. Luckily for Bristol Rovers, the consequences of this court defeat will not be as serious as they previously might have been. 

Former chairman Nick Higgs had been very bullish about Rovers chances. The fact that the club took out a high interest ‘Wonga’ type loan to finance the appeal seemed to back up his confidence, but as ever with Bristol Rovers nothing is how it seems. 

I dread to think about the state Rovers would be in if the Al Qadi takeover had not taken place. I suppose we will never know, but would administration have been that far away? It doesn’t bear thinking about but it seems to me that the entire future and even the very existence of Bristol Rovers might have been in doubt.

I made my second visit to the Memorial Stadium last week following my three year break and it seemed a very different place. I was actually among the upper classes in the executive boxes and I can report that I did bump into Wael Al Qadi, our new president. I did not stop to say hello because he was on his way to the Gents and I did not want our relationship to start off on a bad note. There were a few reminders of the past there too, former directors looking very pleased with themselves, and why wouldn’t they, given they had now got their money back? 

It is a rare privilege to watch the game from on high. From pitch level, the Mem is a bit of a mish mash of unrelated development, but the West Stand boxes are absolutely superb. The game itself was a bit of a non event with one team (Rovers) trying to win and the other (Mansfield) having just the one plan, that being to snatch a draw. It became a bit of a chess match and you know just how boring watching a chess match can be.

More than anything, it is good to be back. Every Gashead knows what a great job Darrell Clarke has done despite sparse resources and little support but with every passing day it is more and more apparent how badly the club was run until now. It has been obvious for a while that the club is going in the right direction on the pitch and it’s now very obvious that it’s going in the right direction off it.

The Sainsbury’s court case was hopefully the final act of a failed regime and now, at last, Bristol Rovers can look forward to a brighter day. That’s how it felt last week, for sure, and I can’t begin you to tell you just how good it was.