‘Where did it all go right?’

In his first blog ahead of a new series starting at the beginning of the season, Rick Johansen looks at last season’s success at Rovers and why the club is on the up.

There is probably only one question going through the minds of Gasheads following a rare season of success: where did it all go right?

Greater minds than mine will, I suspect, grapple to answer that question, but I have a theory.  Things sort of clicked.  Key to the clicking was the managerial appointment of Darrell Clarke.  Not the initial timing of the appointment, which took place during a frantic end of season period when Rovers found themselves on the brink of relegation to the Conference, but the very act of appointing a man with a plan.

Clarke could not put his plan into place during the dog days of the club’s catastrophic relegation season a year ago because he was appointed too late and was stuck with a squad that was, quite frankly, not good enough. At the time, many of us wondered whether Clarke would be yet another Rovers boss who would soon be leaving through the managerial revolving door at the Memorial Stadium.  He was not tried and tested as a manager, we didn’t know much about him.  But then, I reckoned, we had seen many managers come and go who we did know a lot about and a fat lot of good they did us!

We know how the season ended, with a joyous play off victory at Wembley Stadium, but cast your mind back to the autumn of last year and they nay sayers were out in force, predicting doom and gloom for the new boss.  Not many clubs, they reasoned, bounced back to the football league at the first attempt.  If I had a pound for every time someone said to me, “It’s a very hard league to get out of”, I’d probably be able to buy a large bucket of a well-known fried chicken takeway brand, quite possibly with cole slaw and drinks, too.  How on earth would Darrell Clarke beat the odds?  

The first sign of normal service being resumed would have been with the draw for the Capital One Cup. Being a non league club, Rovers weren’t in it last year, having to play briefly in the FA Trophy where, at some grounds players are separated from supporters by a rope.  Drawing Birmingham City probably would not normally have elicited gasps of delight from Gasheads, but it was a massive step up from last season. And who would have thought, with great respect to the clubs involved, that we would be looking at fixtures against Accrington Stanley, Morecambe and Dagenham and Redbridge as being a huge step up?

It’s far too early to speculate as to how well Rovers will do next season, but I have the feeling, finally, that things are on the up.  A manager with a plan with players who actually want to be at the club is not a bad combination.

One thing is for sure though: whatever happens next season will represent the usual Rovers rollercoaster and I know everyone is looking forward to the ride.