‘Rovers fans should put up or shut up’

The eye of a football fan usually sees things in black and white. Things are usually going really well or really bad. There are very rarely shades of grey.

Bristol Rovers’ early season form worried a large number of supporters who feared that this would be a year of struggle. The team had not been strengthened in the summer, Darrell Clarke’s good work of the Conference promotion season was all being undone. Someone must do something.

The summer before, as Rovers tumbled embarrassingly out of league football, supporters groups were formed, a meeting with the board of directors was held, another one would be held later in the season. Promise! But then everything started to go right.

As the team climbed the league, the shambolic mismanagement of the club that had taken the club from League One to the Conference was forgotten.

The increased debts being accrued, the possible collapse of the UWE project – all were forgotten once the team started winning again. Matters of governance and fan involvement in the workings of the club were forgotten. Until next time.

You might be forgiven for thinking that Clarke did not have a clue what he was doing, but only if you were not paying attention. Dropped right in it the year before when John Ward tried to ensure his CV did not include a relegation to non league football, the man achieved a small miracle by taking Rovers back into the league.

I wonder if the psyche of the football fan will ever change. I have long given up in trying to persuade Rovers fans that there are better ways of running the football club, that there is an alternative to boom and bust, a mindset that has plagued the club for a decade now, maybe longer. I also have to concede that the fans I tried to persuade were actually right.

Change is not an attitude that comes naturally to the owners of Bristol Rovers and everyone who has tried to change and improve the club has been rebuffed and in one case banned from attending games!

I believe that attitude, to leave things as they are and hope for the best, is shared by a great many supporters and it is a mindset that I, for many years, shared myself.

My mistake, like that of many others, was to imagine change was possible and even desirable by owners and fans. What a misjudgment that was.

My advice for football fans in general and Rovers fans in particular is, frankly, put up or shut up. If you like things as they are, then just watch the football and leave the financial stuff to others.

If you don’t, then it’s probably a good idea to do something else with your Saturday afternoons. Crowds are holding up very well this season so it’s pretty obvious how most people feel about the club. Life is far too short to fret about things that cannot be changed.

Picture from Bristol Rovers.