This is what came out of this exercise.
Hopefully will use some of the other topics in the next few months as well...
BRISTOL ROVERS BLOG: G is for Gas - Be good to yourself, and even better to others
By Martin BullWith yet another barren Saturday, Rovers fans embarked on a multitude of alternatives from putting up shelves to watching our old friends Bath City continue their impressive march in the F.A. Trophy.
One thing most of us probably weren’t doing though, was sitting down with a rosy red pen to write a Valentine’s card to the head cheese of J. Sainsbury plc.
It comes as no surprise that the BRFC Board of Directors have felt they need to take Sainsbury’s to the High Court as it has seemed clear for quite some time that the behemoth retailer has been having cold feet about agreeing to buy the Memorial Stadium and that their wallet really isn’t in this love affair.
If this was an episode of Eastenders I suspect the obligatory relationship blow-up scene would have been played out by now with the bling engagement ring being ripped off in a fit of pique and sinking like a stone to the bottom of the River Avon.
Usually it is us fans and Rovers who resemble a mismatched couple, aptly described after the shocking relegation in May by David Roberts in my recent book as, “a one-sided love affair, unrequited love, but only one of us seems to be committed to the relationship.”
In 1996 Sainsbury’s became one of the first retailers to sell Fairtrade products, and now claim to be the world’s biggest retailer of such produce. Yet it doesn’t seem to promote fair trade towards everyone and have recently been accused of bully boy tactics by Citigrove Securities and South Ruislip Residents’ Association for declaring that they will apply for a judicial review into the planning permission that was legally granted for a large development in West London on the site of a former dairy that had been a derelict eyesore for ten years.
The development includes a cinema, five restaurants and 132 much needed flats and houses. Oh, and an ASDA store. Andrew Rennie of Citigrove Securities was quoted as remarking that “Sainsbury’s have had permission to extend their store in South Ruislip since 2006, but have chosen not to do so”, and thus believes that the legal challenge “has no merit, but its sole purpose is to stifle and restrict competition”.
Unless you’ve been holidaying on Mars with Colin Pillinger’s Beagle 2 probe, no-one could have failed to notice that the big supermarkets are going through a torrid time, and are looking at crisis cutbacks, especially of bigger stores. This though is a crisis of their own making as they didn’t respond to the economic downturn and haughtily kept prices high when customers clamoured for alternatives that didn’t exist at the time.
Experts say that the problem is that lots of people may well shop in these big hypermarket-type retail units, but very few actively love to shop there. The strategy was a real example of the ’build it and they will come’ philosophy, but as the great Motown team Holland, Dozier & Holland wrote (what a creative midfield they would be!) “you can’t hurry love… it‘s a game of give and take“.
What is galling many, including Rovers fans, is the lack of clarity and openness as to what Sainsbury's intentions for Horfield now are.
What is worrying is that some Gasheads seem to have already given up the fight. Of course we cannot influence the legal process, but there is no reason to suggest that Sainsbury‘s have a get out of jail free card just because they have an enormous turnover and are a FTSE 100 company. A contract is a contract, and when they entered into it they were extremely happy to secure such a prime piece of real estate. Since then Rovers have bent over backwards to accommodate what are increasingly looking like disingenuous delays to the sale. Little did we know that their range of ’Be Good to Yourself’ foods was also the slogan for their own self-centred strategy to abrogate contractual responsibilities. If the contract was full of escape clauses they would surely have been long gone by now, like the expensive ring in the Avon.
Gasheads, there is no need to give up the fight yet. Yes, this is more delay. Yes, the Board will not be able to give us a blow by blow account of every legal issue that is going on. But Sainsbury’s won’t be able to win this just because they can afford a posh lawyer. A well-aimed sling shot to the forehead can bring down even the mightiest Phillistine Goliath, and if the spoils of war are only a partial fulfillment of the contract, at least we died on our feet rather than lived on our knees. Viva Zapata, Viva Higgsy. Hasta la victoria siempre!
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Martin Bull became a Gashead in 1989 and immediately fell in love with Twerton Park, standing near G pillar. In 2006 he wrote, photographed and published the first independent book about the artist Banksy. Having been exiled for much of his past, away games have always been special for him; so much so that he has just produced a new book about them, in collaboration with Rovers fans far and wide, young and old -
www.awaythegas.org.ukRead more:
www.bristolpost.co.uk/BRISTOL-ROVERS-BLOG-G-Gas-good-better/story-25929694-detail/story.html#ixzz3Q7uT1hgF
