A few thoughts....

[PDX_Rover]

So we can finally start planning for League 1. My main concern is the state of morale within the team. I imagine there are some bemused players right now wondering what the hell has gone on this season, as many of us are.

I think if we'd finished mid-table and playing attractive football with an end result, then the majority of fans would have judged 'the experiment' a success and we were right to go down the path we went down.


Like a few fans I think on here, I feel like we lost a lot of things that made Doncaster Rovers special this season. Rovers is in the blood for all of us, it's why we contribute to this forum. It's why people vent on here for the most part. Because we care about this football club, and it doesn't matter when you started your love affair with Rovers - 50 years, a decade, a year - or where you are in the world.
It's a unique thing to support Rovers...

Never a 'fashionable' club, when I first went in 1974 with my Dad. No idea what game it was. All I remember as 6 year old was that it was cold, we were on the pop side, and it was the first time I'd been anywhere where there was pure excitement....

The floodlights.... We used to drive from Edenthorpe or Cantley and seeing the floodlights on started the heart racing... The car park at OBV, I think they must have been open cast mining during the week because each week would present a new suspension challenge for my Dad's Turqouise Austin Maxi. The smell of hot dogs, Bovril, cigarettes...

That first game I couldn't see a thing so went to the perimeter wall, really close to the pitch. Fantastic as a kid.

We were a yoyo team when I first started going, and stayed that way through the 80's and the first half of the 90's - either Division 3 or 4. It didn't matter. Pre-Richardson, we'd have periods of good times, such as the Bremner years, and some awful times and management teams. Rovers have given me the best of times and the worst of times...

The Richardson Era - well that was just beneath contempt. We went to the brink and nobody in the Football 'Establishment' gave a f***.

In comes John Ryan. Fact - without him we would not have a club. He's a fan through and through and I imagine he is hurting as much as each of us, and unsure about where we go from here.

The last decade has been like a dream... And typically I move to the USA in May 2004.... Just when things are getting GOOD... Really really good.

Dave Penney was the right manager at the right time. A pretty tight squad where the total was way greater that the sum of its parts. Fast passionate football... stoke...the Mansfield moment... Great times. And then DP goes and in comes Sean who???

The upward trajectory continues with triumphs on bigger stages, and playing some of the best football I have ever seen. Period.

JPT, the Crewe game, Leeds, Southend... Copps treble in that game was the best thing I have seen in football, in a game that is in my top 3 of all time.

I know many people, me included, felt that S'OD was struggling in the job. I do not know why that was - injuries? Ran out of ideas? Hands tied in some areas? A combination of these and more? There are not many that will know for sure. You can't pull rabbits out of hats forever based on the gates we get. But he also made some decisions that I felt odd. Ignoring Heffs and Greeny, some bizarre subs, and no real plan B.

For me personally, I would have loved this season to have worked. But it hasn't, and if I am honest, I don't like the way things are at the club.

There's still a niggling distaste about the way in which SO'D was dismissed and DS and WM ushered in from the wings. Et tu Brutus is not our club motto. After what SO'D did for Rovers, that episode soured things for me with the club. You only have to speak to players who played for him at Rovers to know how highly he is rated. Anyway he's gone and I wish him well and we owe a huge debt of gratitude to he and RO'K.

I'm not going to dissect this season. What happened didn't work. Now we have sort through the rubble and start over.

My main concern is winning the heart of the club back. There's been little team spirit, not genuine team spirit. How can there be anything more than superficial with a transient squad of players? It's a team sport which also caters for individual brilliance and requires a great degree of understanding. The best teams anticipate. Do we have that?

I am a little perplexed by the withdrawal from the KM2 not too long after DS and WM were brought in. Strikes me as odd that they would leave JR apparently carrying the can alone next season?

I am not conviced yet by DS but In my view I cannot make a real judgement at the moment. It's been such a bizarre season that I doubt any manager could play 'squad' bingo. I hope we can keep the core of the team - Friend, Jimmy, Copps, a fit Stock, Hird, Hayter, Brown, Spurr, bring on the youngsters, and see who else comes in and out. A fit Martin Woods would be nice.

I hope this apparent divide can be bridged for the good of the club, and we support the current manager and at least give him a chance without the McKay scheme. I'd love to know what the plan is for next season.

As I said, it's in the blood. Just hope we can retain key players, add sensibly and seek to get some stability back and something that we can one again unite behind.

 

[Rovin Reporter]

It is great post..thank you

[Scooter]

Thanks PDX - I completely agree with everything you have put 100%. Walking past Cantley Bridge and seeing the floodlights got the blood flowing everytime. A logical well thought out post about decisions the club has made.
I am uncertain about Saunders but how many managers could make a success of "squad bingo".
I don't think Deano will be sacked and if I was him I wouldn't resign so hopefully if he has full control of team affairs and we keep some of our experienced players we could steadily rebuild.

Your post has given me a hope after the upset of yesterday!
 

[RoversAlias]

I have no doubt that a few of the players are bemused - as that means they aren't bothered!

Grammar nazism aside, I totally agree. This is a great post, sensible and reflective. A few too many peoole on here have lost their heads recently, I wish there were more threads like this one!

[graingrover]

 :)I first went to Belle Vue in the Peter Doherty era . My main memories are  big crowds at Belle Vue when the miners were our true core of fans . Then the rapid demise of the club after Doherty left , disilusioned by the Directors lack of ambition.Then the many years in the wilderness brightened often by hope riding on beliefs in people like  Alick the Second, Billy Bremner and his young scrappers...... then JR and Dave Penney and the SOD delusion .
         The last six( post SOD) months seem to have been a brave attempt to avoid a return to the lower échelons where we ploughed our trade for 40 years . We will no longer attract the Diouffs , Chimbondas and  I think to hang on to League 1 status next year would be a significant achievement . Only JR can sort that for us financially whoever the Manager and whatever the strategy.   Perhaps the grass roots approach intimated by Saunders with the signing of the 6 youth teamers will be the Plan C we need .