Unsung Heroes of Promotion - Part 2

Not sure when / if the Bristol Post will put this on their website, so here it is for your guys & gals now.

Part 3 will hopefully feature some less publicised unsung heroes, including some loan players



G is for Gas blog

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Unsung Heroes of Promotion - Part 2

by Martin Bull

Over the next few weeks, amidst a dearth of transfer news, I’m having a look at some of the (relatively) unsung heroes of our promotion season. Although recognised idols like Tom Parkes, Matty Taylor and Lee Mansell won’t be featured, others will get their deserved moment in the spotlight.

I was saddened, although not surprised, when Andy Monkhouse decide to leave us this week in order to have a closer family life up North. Andy didn’t win all Rovers’ fans over, but he was a relatively unsung hero in my eyes, and will be seriously hard to replace.

First let me take you back to the Aldershot match in March. A mini slump had seen us lose top spot to Barnet, barbed discontent flew around the Blackthorn Terrace and the man behind us was very vocal in his opinion that Andy Monkhouse was a terrible player. When Monky made a mazy little run and executed a fine right footed finish (especially for an exceptionally left footed player), a group of guys in front of us turned to light-heartedly chide the detractor. They evidently all knew each other, and even better came later when the Leeds-born wide man was named Man of the Match, and we all turned around and sang, “He’s Man of the Match, he’s Man of the Match, Andy Monkhouse, he’s Man of the Match!” at his critic. It was all taken as banter, but it’s not the first time a Rovers player has been loudly labelled rubbish by a vocal minority on the Blackthorn.

Despite starting 41 games out of the 52 played last season, and playing in the same style each game, some Pirates made it all the way to Wembley whilst still expected him to be a traditional winger, hugging the by-line, taking people on for pace and skill, and providing probing crosses. He’s never really been that type of operator and he certainly wasn’t going be starting at 34 years old!

At 6’ 2” Andy was surprisingly tall for a wide man, and certainly not the stature of the nippy winger we usually utilised on the opposite side of the pitch. And this is where the crux of his sporadic unpopularity lay. Not only were some fans disappointed that we rarely possessed two out and out wingers in our squad, but were also naïve to think that Darrell Clarke (or many managers for that point) would play a brace of them at non-league level anyway, as any ‘perfect’ wingers will be playing at a higher level, and the inherent imperfections of the ones left behind would be heavily punished.

Monky was a wide midfielder, and more comfortable with short passes than dribbles or balls over the top to run onto. To expect him to be Nathan Arnold or Simeon Akinola was unfair. In many ways he was actually more adaptable than such traditional fast men, also capable of being used as a forward and consistently exceptional in the air, with over 75 strikes in just over 400 starts (and 100 cameos as sub), and most of them coming at League One level.

Monky finished his brief Rovers career as our third top scorer, bagging eight league goals and two F.A. Cup wallops from the Dorchester thrashing. Many of them were important goals; each of his first four league strikes were the first Rovers goal of the match, and Rovers never lost a game he scored in, gaining 17 points out of the 21 on offer.

There was an obvious nagging similarity to Dave Savage and Jeff Hughes in that virtually every goal kick headed towards him on the left, to use his height. Moaners moaned incessantly at this tactic, but without the blessing of pace, his height was our only chance of ball retention from goal kicks, and was visibly just as important to the TEAM as the pace of Adam Dawson or the trickery of Lyle Della-Verde. Similarly the partnership with Lee Brown behind him, sadly interrupted when Dave Martin was on the pitch, was just as important as, say, the centre-back relationship as they try to complement each other’s strengths and weaknesses. And although Andy only had three goal assists to his name, the nine that Lee Brown has been credited with must surely owe something to their distinctive left side partnership? From the other side Jake Gosling and Adam Dawson contributed only four between them, yet often received less disapproval that Monky’s cautious style did.

As if to echo the analysis of Lee Brown last week, Monky was another fit, committed, serious, and disciplined player, and I wish him all the best in the twilight of his noteworthy career.


In the last throws of the season news came out of left-field that took Gasheads by surprise. Physiotherapist and ex-goalie, Phil Kite, had decided to retire at the end of the season, whether that be as sad Play-Off losers, or Wembley winners. Fortunately for us all it was the latter, and what a great way it was to send a first-rate servant out in style, plus a cherry on the cake when old team-mate Tony Pulis agreed to bring a strong West Bromwich Albion side down to the Mem for a Testimonial match on 31st July.

A local lad, who incidentally shares a birthday with my twin brothers, Phil signed as an apprentice for Rovers in 1980 and made his debut in January 1981 during the worst season in Rovers‘ entire history. He may have let in three that day, at Preston North End’s romantic Deepdale, but Rovers had already scored four in the first half to record only their third victory of the 32 games thus far, and progress to the F.A. Cup Fourth Round. 119 League and Cup games later and Phil was off to Southampton in 1984, before eventually returning as Physio in 1996, under ex-apprentice colleague, and fellow Kingswooder, Ian Holloway.

Whether or not a Physio can really influence a team and thus be an unsung hero is a moot point of course, but we seemed to have less injuries than usual last season, and a Physio’s role is surely just as much about enhancing morale and team spirit as anything else. I know that if I had the choice between a Phil Kite or a Paul Buckle in my dressing room, I’d have a Kitey every day. We hope to spot him standing on the terraces as a Gashead soon, but not in front of me please Phil, you’re just too tall.


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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 with 40 other fans has published a new book about them - www.awaythegas.org.uk