‘We just feel sorry for Swindon’

Another seven days gone on planet Gas, and as seems to be the theme for the season so far, it’s been packed full of incident. From discovering that one of your most prolific scorers is a centre-half, to taking on Premier League royalty in their own backyard.

I’ll keep my thoughts on Southend brief – it wasn’t a penalty. That’s it.

Tuesday was yet another proud day in the recent history of the club. Obviously, plum cup ties can happen to anyone (that’s kinda how the draw works!) and getting to play Chelsea was no achievement in itself, other than beating Cardiff the other week. But the performance sure was. Pretty much as soon as Linesy’s wonder goal went in to beat the Bluebirds, came the predictions from the social media experts: were we going to lose 8-0, 9-0, or 10-0? 

For a little while in the first half it started to look like we were too open, not defending well enough, and were going to be buried, thanks to goals from Michy Batsuayi (transfer fee: £35 million, more than I imagine Rovers have spent on players in their history) and the forgotten man, Victor Moses (who everyone still sees as a young prospect but he’s nearer 30 than 20 now). 

After going 2-0 down, we tightened up and nicked a goal back through New Messiah Peter Hartley, whose two goals in two games puts him up there with Matty Taylor in the August goal standings. Granted, by half time the defect was back to two goals thanks to Mr £35 million Batsuayi, but it looked like the next goals to be scored would shape the rest of the game; a Chelsea goal makes it 4-1 and game over, a Rovers goal makes it 3-2 and game on.

Two minutes after the break, Stuart Sinclair’s Mo Farah-style burst into the box, Pedro’s cynical foul, and Ellis Harrison’s thumped penalty later, and game on it was. There’s a video doing the rounds of Wael Al-Qadi celebrating that one in case anyone still thinks he loves Chelsea more than the Gas!

After that, we could have won it, but a side fielding 11 full internationals knew they’d been in a game, and the Stamford Bridge faithful heard away fans singing for the first time since 1991. I sound like a broken record but the manager, players and fans did the club and the shirt proud.

Since Tuesday, we’ve only gone and brought in two players – both loanees who come with glowing references from the League 2 clubs they were at last season. Plus, Kelle Roos surely has the coolest name of any Rovers player since Danish striker and 80s hair rock god Bo Hendriksen.

Next up is Swindon. Can I point out something about Swindon Town? Something that should be obvious? They aren’t our rivals and it isn’t a derby. One thing that gets on my nerves when football is discussed in the mainstream media is how every team must have four or five so-called ‘derbies’.

We get grouped with Yeovil, Swindon, Cheltenham, and even Cardiff, Exeter, Plymouth and Torquay. Plymouth is 130 miles away from Bristol – if that’s a derby, then I’m gutted to have lost an even more local derby with Chelsea in the week, who are only 116 miles away!

It’s not always about distance, I hear you cry – look at Norwich and Ipswich. The difference being that they have no clubs between them! We get grouped with these other clubs because we all talk with a mildly similar accent – there’s no genuine beef with Yeovil (at least not since Gary Johnson left and they got relegated twice), nor for Swindon (we just feel sorry for them). And certainly not for teams that are so far away that some would consider a trip there to count as a holiday!

There’s only one derby for me. Granted, we’ve been letting the side down for 16 years or so by failing to be in their division, but THE derby isn’t Swindon. One of the really great things about our Lazarus-style recovery under Darrell Clarke is the hope that we might get our twice-yearly meetings with the City back. We’re not there yet, and the old enemy don’t look like going down from the second tier like they nearly did last year. We’ll just have to push for promotion again then, won’t we?

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