‘Telford has earned his chance’

It’s been a week of storms at Rovers. Firstly, a firestorm, with the manager’s fury and frustration at the state of the Memorial Stadium pitch; then, along with the rest of the country, a snowstorm, causing not only your correspondent’s boiler to go funny but also the postponement of Wigan’s first trip to BS7 in 18 years.

Darrell has a point regarding the pitch. Even on TV footage, it looks very patchy. Unless this website has turned into Gardening24/7, I’ll refrain from a full-blown debate about it, given that I’m no Percy Thrower (ask your grandad), but it looks bad. Moreover, it doesn’t play to our strengths as a squad.

However, I would refute that it is the sole cause of our less-than-top performance vs Scunthorpe on Saturday. After all, it’s not as if slick passing and one-touch football is the only way we’ve won games under the gaffer in the last few years. Also, we’ve been having insipid starts to games both at home and on the road – with just eight of our 49 league goals this campaign coming before the break.

Additionally, while I’ll accept that a more direct style of football might be required on the sand-covered surface, long, high balls to the second-half substitute, who is not the tallest of players at 5′ 7”, might not have been the best idea. Nor was it the reward the player deserved after banging a few in for the reserves, but I guess the circumstances of the game dictate that. Not for one minute am I saying that DC should have gone full 1990s and do what managers loved doing then, putting a tall bloke up front regardless of his usual position, but if long and high is the plan, the ball has to be won in the air.

Still, a defeat would’ve been undeserved. Scunthorpe didn’t set the place alight with their play, and their goal was somewhat fortuitous. Ellis Harrison’s late, late equaliser was no more than we deserved.

As with his talk of infrastructure and budget constraints, you guess that while he’s got a point on some of it, the rest is typical football manager behaviour: deflecting criticism from his players when he feels that giving them a boot up the keister would do more harm than good. Can’t blame him for that.

You can tell that the season has turned around somewhat when a point against one of the top six inspires disappointment from the dugout to the terraces. We’ve lost to far worse sides in front of our own supporters this season. Oldham, Oxford and Wimbledon all came to north Bristol and took home three points because of how bad we were rather than anything they did.

With Tuesday’s game against Wigan called off, and rightly so, the boys have had an extra bit of recovery time before Saturday’s trip to Milton Keynes. The venue for the weekend’s fixture, in this writer’s humble view, is a case of ‘be careful what you wish for’ in terms of our own future.

There is a clear need to replace the creaking Memorial Stadium, outdated even when we moved in and never improved by the club in 18 years from purchase to the Al Qadi takeover. I love the place dearly and given a choice we’d make some improvements to our funny old home and keep some character while making it a place fit for people to watch the game. Those who demand a new stadium or nothing else should take a look at Stadium MK. A soulless place to watch football, on a retail park, with Primark and Ikea replacing the hustle and bustle of the Gloucester Road.

Additionally, having a 30,000 seat stadium doesn’t bring either success or more people to fill it; based on average attendances this season, their shiny stadium has fewer people in it than our rickety old ground – two thirds of those lovely black seats they have don’t get sat on.

Anyway, old man rant over, back to the football. Saturday’s hosts are on an absolutely sorrowful run of form. Without a win in two months, even a change of manager hasn’t lifted spirits. Dan Micciche is best known as a nurturer of very young talent, in the schoolboy age groups, and the often unforgiving nature of League One, especially the bottom half of it, is a tough first gig in senior coaching. His seven games in charge have produced two draws and five defeats – although those two draws came in the last pair of fixtures, so at least he’s stopped the rot in terms of losing all the time. Relegation looks likely, and Micciche may have been hired with an eye on rebuilding next year rather than revival before then.

On paper this is a game we should win. Firstly, because the pitch up there is of good quality, which should help out, and secondly for the reasons outlined above.

If you’re a betting type of person, lump on 2-1 Rovers with a Dom Telford winner. Of course we’ll go behind, we always do, but then our hosts throw away leads like an irresponsible dog owner. I can see Telford getting his reward for good form in the stiffs, and a stiff neck watching the ball fly over him last weekend, by getting some gametime on a good surface with team-mates who give the ball to feet. He’s earned his chance. I’ve a feeling that chance will be taken.