‘Rovers optimism tempered by Sainsbury’s’

And now the weather forecast. It will be warm and sunny, with a maximum temperature of 21C. This can mean only one thing: a new football season is about to commence.

Perhaps it is my memory playing tricks, but haven’t things always been like this? The return of football, which we regard as both our national game and our winter game, is always greeted by a warm, sunny day. At the Memorial Stadium you will see men wearing shorts and short sleeve shirts and I don’t mean the players.

Middle aged men wearing replica shirts that, for some reason get tighter by the year, is never a good look. Add sunglasses and you have, for one week only, summer football.

Gasheads will have mixed feelings about the new season. Relief, certainly, to be back in the Football League and pleased to have a squad of players who actually want to be at the club. Add to that a young, talented manager who speaks openly and honestly and, more importantly, has a plan. So everything in the garden is rosy, right?

Well, not quite. For many, the close season has been a big disappointment because of what happened off the pitch. I refer, of course, to the disappointing result in the High Court, which has thrown the entire UWE project into major doubt, the significance of which is yet to be felt.

The optimism for the new season has to be tempered by the Sainsbury’s defeat because, as chairman Nick Higgs has said, remaining at the Memorial Stadium in the long term is unsustainable. And there is the not exactly small matter of legal fees and an enormous Wonga-type loan. We need to trust in the board to get Rovers through this difficult time and hope beyond hope that the appeal succeeds.  But don’t bet the house on Rovers getting the full £30 million.

On the field, we have no real idea how things will pan out. It looks as if much of Darrell Clarke’s promotion winning squad has been retained for the season ahead and it seems as if the manager has moved to enhance it rather than conduct major surgery. The return of Jermaine Easter, if he remains hungry and ambitious, should be like a new signing and could propel Rovers into a much higher position in the league than we might otherwise expect. With the fast maturing Ellis Harrison still at the club, scoring goals will surely not be an issue. And defensively, well, the manager knows what he is doing, so no problems there.

They, whoever ‘they’ are, say that you usually know how the season will go after around 10 games, so we shouldn’t be judging too much on how things might look come next April after the first home game against Northampton Town. But why not dare to dream?

Clarke’s team knows how to win and more crucially, it knows how not to lose. I see no danger of a relegation struggle, but every chance of a run at the play offs, especially with the twelfth man (and woman) on the terraces.

And don’t worry about the weather: it will be cold and wet soon enough. This is the English Football League after all.