‘Thanks for the memories, Browner’

It’s been a bit of a busy week. Two games in four days, which isn’t the norm for the business end of the season, and both sets of opponents were among the very best sides the third tier has to offer.

Rotherham United, in the top six since Christmas, sealed a spot in the end-of-season showdown with a deserved win over the Gas in Yorkshire at the weekend. It was deserved because Rovers made mistakes and bad decisions. James Clarke had an absolute howler to let the Millers’ Michael Smith run straight past him with the ball early on. While Smith still had work to do but it’s that kind of sloppiness that costs you points. Clarke shouldn’t be slaughtered for one mistake; he’s done okay since his return from a really nasty injury, and, to coin a phrase as old as football commentary itself, he’ll be disappointed with that.

It’s always going to be hard to get a grip on the game, away at a promotion chasing side, so it’s doubly important to make the right decisions when chances come your way. Easy for us to say, of course, but when Byron Moore had a good opportunity, his decision making let him down. The winger has had a frustrating Rovers career but his form has improved as his contract winds down, and to be fair to him he created the second-hand chance all by himself. But to then try and side-foot the ball in a crowded six-yard box when several bodies were in the way was never going to pay off.

If that game showed what we need to change in order to mix with the big boys in this league, Tuesday’s draw with champions-elect Wigan showed just how close we are to getting it right.

Paul Cook’s big spending Latics started as obvious favourites on a soaking wet night in BS7 but Rovers got at them from the off. Ellis Harrison was unlucky not to open the scoring early on, but it was the returning Liam Sercombe, with a crisp finish along the ground from just outside the box to give us an improbable early lead.

After that, Rovers swarmed all over the visitors in the final third, creating a hatful of chances. Harrison and Sercombe combined to tee up Kyle Bennett, almost on the same spot Sercombe scored from, and he was desperately unfortunate to beat the keeper but hit the post.

Then followed some pinball action in the Latics’ box with shots raining in, none of them finding the net. After the break, Bennett had a gilt-edged chance too.

As anyone who’s ever seen football know, if you fail to take opportunities in games you dominate, the team you’ve kept quiet all night pops up and punishes you. In particular, the visitors’ equaliser punished Sam Slocombe, the ball fizzing in the air past the keeper at his near post.

Lee Brown could still have won it with a late strike from a well-worked free-kick routine, only to strike metal rather than net.

A point may be more than we were expecting, but it should’ve been a home win. No moaning here, though, over either result – we’re still punching above our weight, and the boys showed great energy, spirit and determination in what was two dead rubbers (for us at least) at the end of a long, hard season.

Maybe it was an off-night for Wigan, or perhaps, having sealed promotion, they decided to take their foot off the gas, but on this evidence their four years of yo-yoing between the second and third flights won’t be ending soon.

I could talk about Gillingham’s upcoming visit to BS7 now, but I hope you’ll forgive me if I don’t build up to an end-of-season game with nothing riding on it, and instead focus on one Lee James Brown.

Darrell Clarke confirmed on Tuesday night that the left-back is to leave the Memorial Stadium shortly, for personal reasons, to be closer to his hometown of London. Clearly it goes without saying that whatever those reasons may be, everyone from terraces to boardroom at Bristol Rovers will wish Lee all the best with them and everything else for that matter.

Saturday will be his 319th and final appearance in the quarters and I was delighted to hear that he’ll be given the armband for it.

Let’s talk about those seven years in blue and white, though. A Rovers career that saw the very worst and best of times. Signed by Paul Buckle, in his 25 transfer spree of 2011, Brown was one of a small minority of those scattergun signings that paid off, albeit despite Mark McGhee playing him in midfield after Buckle’s tempestuous reign ended.

Full-backs, unless they’re marauding attacking ones in the Dani Alves mould, rarely attract too much attention, and it’s fair to say that in the seasons that followed, Lee was an example of that. Not that that’s a criticism. He was a manager’s dream: a solid, seven- or eight-out-of-ten performer, week-in and week-out, great to have around the dressing room, and contributing to the attacking effort with the odd assist.

Had he gone the way of so many others, at the club’s darkest hour, he’d have been a fairly unremarkable player in the club’s history. Few would have begrudged him leaving post-relegation to non-league, given that he was clearly good enough to ply his trade elsewhere and would probably have made a few bob along the way.

But, as we know, he, along with a couple of others, stayed to right the wrong. Only missing three games of the long, anxious Conference season, and slotting home a penalty at Wembley in the play-off final that, had we lost, I’m still sure I wouldn’t have a club to write about in 2018.

His crowning glory was the first season back in the League, of course. He remarkably played every minute of that campaign. For a left-back, a goal return of six wasn’t bad either.

What can be said about the last of those six goals, that hasn’t already? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. But I’ll say it again. He provided us with our moment, the best thing most of us will see those blue and white shirts do, on that or any other field. The man who played every minute, all 4200 odd of them, took us to heaven in the very last one.

Some say he hasn’t hit those heights since promotion to the third tier, which is arguable but we wouldn’t be there without his left foot tapping into that empty Dagenham net on that warm May afternoon.

Lee is young enough to play for another seven or eight years, so he may play for as long with his new club, and he might just like it there as much as he did here, but if our paths cross he’ll realise that his new fans can’t like or respect him as much as we do, and always will.

Thanks for the memories, Browner. Until next week….