‘The bunker mentality suited us at Twerton – no more’

So, we march into the back end of the season. Easter means three things – long weekends, chocolate eggs, and untold stress if your team’s got anything to play for. It’s still not clear if Rovers have or not. Saturday’s draw at Peterborough was a decent one – any points taken away from London Road are hard-earned as it’s a tough place to go. But after the absolute mugging at the hands of the ref at Plymouth, a win was what was needed.

Seven points off the play-off with eight games to go isn’t impossible, but given the run-in we have, I’m not dreaming of Wembley just yet. Anyway, given the first half of the season, unable to defend, incapable of doing anything away from home, then losing Billy Bodin, I’m thanking my lucky stars that we pulled away from the relegation scrap.

An Easter double-header will surely determine whether there are signs of life in the play-off push, or whether we call time on it once and for all. Bury, at home on Friday, is the dictionary definition of a winnable game: absolutely rock bottom of the table, doomed to relegation, on their third manager of the season, and having failed to win outside of their Gigg Lane home all season long. Plus they’re a team of strangers- they’ve used about 480 players so far. No gripes about muddy pitches will wash here; fail to add all three points to the column here means we don’t deserve to be in the mix.

The long, long trek to Fleetwood Town follows on Monday. I’m sure he wouldn’t admit it, but given their run-ins during and after recent encounters between the two sides, I’ll bet DC had a wee smile when Uwe Rose joined the Sacked Manager’s Club back in February. John Sheridan, his replacement, is a wily old manager, and tends to come into struggling sides and makes them hard to beat. He’s done that at Highbury (seriously, guys, call it something else). They’re within touching distance of safety and will be up for this one. I’d usually take a point here, but there’s nothing wrong with chucking the kitchen sink at them here – if teams around us win, a draw is next to useless for us.

If I may use the rest of this week’s piece to discuss off-field stuff, we’ve had a couple of hot topics this week, namely the release of some quite concerning financial results, and season tickets going up for next year.
Being a football supporter gives one a licence to complain, and no club should ever want fans to stop moaning. It’s healthy. But two big groans have come out of all this numbers chat: one, that the club needs to start making more money, and two, that an increase in season ticket prices is an absolute affront to everything we stand for.

Obviously, for the small, small minority that have seen a season ticket go from affordable to unaffordable, I’m sorry that that’s the case, and we don’t ever want to go down the route of clubs higher up the pyramid than us who have priced out local, working-class fans in favour a totally middle-class, middle-aged crowd.

However, in the absence of a person who is happy to pay for the club to burn money for eternity, and in an age where player wages grow faster than the speed of sound, what to do? Even our neighbours in BS3, billionaire owner in tow, have had to do it.

The club is some way through a process to rectify the years of managed decline that came before. It’s hard to describe to fans of other teams just how bad things were. Tickets having to be picked up in person, couldn’t use a bank card in the stadium, a PA system that works properly every third Saturday of the month – I could go on. I read a comment online that said that the club is changing too much, too fast; I can sympathise with that, of course, but the reason it feels that way is because for too long, nothing changed.

The bunker mentality, and social club feel suited the club in the Twerton years, and for a bit afterwards, but if we can spend £3m on wages, surely we can run the rest of it in a professional, modern way?

That process, is underway. Oh and if you’re considering buying a season ticket next year, and somehow haven’t seen the club’s advert for them yet, have a watch. I must admit I cried at the little girl stood on the programmes in order to see the game, but only because one must treat programmes with more respect than that. Store them in a binder and bring a Yellow Pages next time!