Walsall programme

[NathanDRFC]

VSC Programme Notes

Welcome to all Walsall fans and members of the WSFT (Walsall Football Supporters' Trust) to join in the fun on Rob Jones Day.

The Viking Supporters Co-operative has been speaking with the club for a number of weeks about having a Rob Jones Day as a special tribute from the fans to our Captain Fantastic.  His performances throughout these past weeks have inspired the team on to some excellent results, not to mention his personal contributions on the scoresheet, and he is fast cementing himself into Rovers cult hero status. The club, through the In Rovers We Trust project, are delighted to support fan engagement activities and welcomed this idea with open arms.  Rob Jones himself was consulted, and gave his thumbs up too! If Mr Jones had said no we were not going to argue with him! The VSC has also designed some rather fetching #RobJonesFacts t-shirts, mugs and badges (many thanks to our regular graphic design supremo, SnodsShinpad, and the @RobJonesFacts twitter feed for their support), which can be purchased at http://townender.spreadshirt.se. The funds the VSC receives from the sale of these t-shirts will go towards supporting our continuing work with the club on behalf of you, the supporters.


Last week we announced that we were to put forward suggested designs for next season's home and away shirts.  This comes in a series of fan lead initiatives adopted by Doncaster Rovers and the Viking Supporters Co-operative under the In Rovers We Trust fan engagement project. Doncaster Rovers fans have never had a greater say in this club as we continue to remove the barriers between fans and club to make Doncaster Rovers, our Doncaster Rovers, a club to be proud of.

Rovers fans had the opportunity to  vote for their favourite 5 home and away designs that were designd by members of the VSC forum. There was a list of 21 home and 24 away to choose from, the top 5 most popular of each were then submitted to the club. Once the votes were verified, the top 5 home and away designs were sent to the club.  The threads containing the polls were then removed from the forum. The reason is simply that the results would then be available for all to see, and in true X-Factor style we felt it important not to influence the final vote on on the Club's Official Website for the winning design by revealing which designs had come where in this preliminary round.  The purpose of this round of voting was to identify the 5 most popular designs, and it will have achieved that. The club submitted the 5 home and 6 (two designs were tied for 5th place so they were both put forward) away designs to Just Sports so that they can liaise with the sponsors and confirm that the designs are possible to make. Once this is done the club will reveal the home and away final shortlist and one final vote will take place, the results of which will be revealed towards the end of the season.

Without the VSC this would not have been possible. The club have listened to us (again) and they are supporting the idea of having Doncaster Rovers wearing a shirt designed by the fans.


On Tuesday night the Viking Supporters Co-operative paid for 200 Doncaster school children to attend the England U19 friendly fixture against Denmark that was held here at the Keepmoat. The Trust also donated a vast number of England car flags to help promote the game. Prior to that England game a meeting took place with interested clubs about a new Under 21 league to help tackle the massive drop-out of people playing football from under 17  to open-age (adult). The VSC have been very much part of the steering group to tackle this issue, together with Sean Lockwood and Liam Scully at Rovers, the In Rovers We Trust under 21 League looks like kicking off next season.


The Trust has also donated a number of match tickets to Rovers remaining home fixtures to  Bluebell Wood for their excellent charity work that they perform.

 If you have not already done, so please support the work the VSC is doing to help Rovers fans and also the wider community. Membership only costs £1 a month. With more members we can achieve even more than we currently are.


Have a great Rob Jones Day and let's cheer the team on to victory.