As this most unique (we hope) and difficult season draws to a welcome end we still do not know what division Rovers will be in when the next campaign begins in August. It has certainly been a trial for us supporters having to watch the team struggle and with us unable to get into games and give the lads some much-needed encouragement. It has been the same for every club of course and I guess every team thinks it has the best fans so who knows what would have happened had it not been for the pandemic that has taken so many lives, including of course some of our own.
The Supporters Club has, like all others, just had to take something of just a watching brief being unable to hold even proper committee meetings, although we did manage a few in Janet Wooster’s garden when such things were permitted back last autumn. We have since kept in touch with each other of course via phone, e-mail and the now seemingly vital ‘zoom’ that will probably be here to stay but it really has not been the same. Having not previously missed a competitive Rovers’ home game since 1972 it has been a strange experience watching ‘my’ team playing vital League and Cup matches in the atmosphere of a training session via the I-player on my laptop. I think, but I’m not sure, that I now have an idea of what the Premiership’s ‘armchair supporters’ go through when they are watching ‘their’ teams play. You watch a vital win or disastrous defeat end in near total silence then the screen goes to adverts and you make yourself a ‘cuppa’. It just is not right for the true football fan but I guess what we have had over the past season has been better than nothing and those of us lucky enough to have avoided or even survived this terrible virus have to be grateful for that!
Again thanks to modern technology we have been able to keep our successful 50/50 Draw going every Saturday and I guess we will keep it going now on a regular basis through the summer although the Committee has yet to make a final decision on this at the time of writing. My thanks go to Helen Wigmore for her work on this and to all those of you who continued buying ‘tickets’ on-line. Quite how many spectators will be permitted to attend games when next season starts will no doubt depend upon the ‘state of the nation’ by then but hopefully we will be getting back to some semblance of normality and we will soon be able to enjoy our football again, whatever division we are in!
As this is the final programme of the current season I wish you all a very happy summer holiday and I look forward to seeing a mass gathering of the ‘Gas’ again at the ‘Mem’ in August. Stay safe until then – it’s not too long now!
Jim Chappell.