‘I can confirm Rovers takeover rumours’

Much of the talk this week has focused on rumors of a takeover of Bristol Rovers and I can confirm it’s true: there are indeed countless rumors doing the rounds. I wonder how many of them are true?

One rumor is that the club is in advanced talks with an Arab consortium who are interesting in taking the club forward. Now, I would be very surprised since the main shareholder Nick Higgs has always insisted that Rovers is a family club (whatever that means) and he would only sell it to someone who had the interests of the club at heart.

For all my disagreements with Mr Higgs, in this area I support him 100 per cent. I have expressed concern about the governance and general running of Bristol Rovers for more years than I care to remember and this week’s announcement of yet another huge loss has not persuaded me my concern is misplaced.

But for all that, I remain implacably opposed to the club being flogged off to foreign owners, with no record of support or interest in the club.

The current ownership model where a number of local multimillionaires own the football club is hardly ideal, but it’s still better than overseas owners. Whilst there is currently little or no accountability to the supporters as things stand at the Rovers, the owners are at least available to discuss matters, even if they still carry on and do whatever they like.

A better ownership model, as we have discussed before, would naturally entail genuine fan ownership and board representation. The fact that efforts to encourage fan ownership have failed over the years suggests that my view is in a small minority, but I am not persuaded that carrying on like now will ever bring about sustained success. All the evidence points in the other direction.

As ever at the Rovers, a run of poor form has concentrated minds away from the pitch as they consider that off the field matters may just be affecting the team’s performance on it. What happens next is that as soon as the team wins another game, we all forget about who owns the club and how it is run.

I should apologise to my loyal Gashead reader. They will probably be blaming me for the recent decline in the fortunes of Bristol Rovers. After all, I was the one who recklessly predicted the Rovers were looking like a safe bet for automatic promotion, never mind the play offs.

And then what happens? The team loses form and falls outside the play off positions. Sorry about that.

This week, the Memorial Stadium will give a warm welcome to Morecambe. I would expect this to be a comfortable three point haul for the home team, unless Wise turns up to accompany Eric, that is. (One for the kids there.)

Last week’s defeat at Portsmouth came as a bit of a surprise to me, but not apparently to those who actually went to the game. “We literally didn’t turn up,” said one of my friends, which if true makes you wonder how Portsmouth didn’t score a few more. I think we probably did literally turn up but that Pompey played rather better than we did.

Relatively lowly Morecambe are there for the taking and I fully expect these rumors to subside by Saturday night and disappear altogether sometime next week. We have been here many times before. That is, unless, there is a total takeover of the club by a certain Jordanian family. In which case I look forward to stepping into the Al Qadi Stadium in due course.