‘Accrington Stanley remain a bogey team for Bristol Rovers’

After a disappointing but unsurprising defeat at Peterborough on the opening day of the season a lot of Gasheads (including myself) looked at the first home game against newly promoted Accrington Stanley as a great chance to kick start our season. And with the arrivals of Stefan Payne and Alex Jakubriak on transfer deadline day, the excitement and anticipation just seemed to grow.

With the new bar open and home shirts available for the first time (for some fans at least) the atmosphere amongst supporters was probably the best it had been for a while.  The team lineups were announced and Stefan Payne, our new number nine, was starting. It was exactly what we had missed on that opening day.

The game kicked off, the atmosphere was great and then BOOM! Accrington Stanley soon reminded us that they were, of course one, of our bogey teams. Sean McConville, the player who scored the winner the last time the two teams met, cut in from the left onto his right foot and slotted a deflected shot into the far corner of the net to make it 0-1 to Stanley. At least the Gas managed to last six minutes this time, silver linings and all that.

Rovers had a great opportunity to equalise in the 34th minute when Ollie Clarke found a close range shot smartly saved by Stanley keeper Connor Ripley. Rovers enjoyed a lot of possession in the second half but without really hurting Stanley. That was until James Clarke put a great cross into the box on the 83rd minute to assist the new number nine, Stefan Payne, with a debut goal. It was just what the doctor ordered and Gasheads went wild as Payne celebrated his goal. For the next five minutes it looked like Rovers, with the help of 8,000 Gasheads in full voice, might just get the win late on as we have seen on numerous occasions before at the Mem.

But that man again, Sean McConville, silenced the Mem after what I must say was a lovely bit of play by Stanley and slotted in the winner in the 89th minute to ensure Accrington Stanley remained a bogey team for Bristol Rovers.

Looking back on the match, it looked as if Rovers were still in pre-season mode and were still getting used to each other, especially the back four. With a centre-half in Tony Craig playing left full-back, and arguably our best centre-midfield player, Liam Sercombe, playing out wide for a lot of the match, Darrell Clarke’s tactics could rightly be questioned. But it is early days and I’m not about to get on the back of a manager who I fully support.

Onto Crawley Town in the Carabao cup. It was a very different atmosphere to Saturday’s match with only just over 2,000 fans in attendance and one side of the ground closed off. The starting lineup looked like it had a little bit more balance to it with Daniel Leadbitter coming in at right-back and Tony Craig moving back into the centre of defence. But it was the left-back that I was a bit disappointed with: nothing against James Clarke who was starting there but I thought it would’ve been the perfect opportunity to start young Michael Kelly. With the Gas playing against a team a league lower and it not being a bumper crowd you could say the pressure would’ve been off.

The first half saw Rovers take the lead through Kyle Bennett, but other than Rovers still didn’t look very confident and were a shadow of what we were used to seeing last season. The second half was better and the team started to look more confident on the ball. Players like Leadbitter, Ollie Clarke and Sam Matthews, who were the stand-out players for me, started to show a bit of swagger to their play.

The game ended with a bit of controversy when Crawley Town were denied what looked like a penalty from the stands, only for Rovers to go down the other end and double their lead. Crawley were clearly angered by this but managed to grab a goal back on 88 minutes to give them a sliver of hope. In the final few moments of the match Dominic Poleon rubbed salt into the wounds of Crawley Town when he was given his marching orders for receiving a second yellow card. Rovers went on to win the match 2-1.

A first win of the season and some interesting new half-time entertainment at the Mem meant fans came away from the match feeling much better than they did on Saturday. Let’s hope the Gas can take this win and the confidence that comes with it into the match this coming Saturday against Wycombe Wanderers, who the Gas have beaten four out of the last five times the two teams have met.

Dan Ball, along with friend Josh Evans, runs Pirate Pundit, a Bristol Rovers fan channel. For more information and recent videos visit www.piratepundit.com