G is for Gas blog
by Martin Bull
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The Elephant in the ParkWhat better way to celebrate avoiding the deluges affecting other parts of the country than taking a sunny trip into the deepest darkest depression of Somerset, and coming home with our league and play-off unbeaten away run intact (22 games now). If we can hurdle the Hatters and Orient the run will have lasted a whole year. Over 2,000 fellow Gasheads made the jaunt although only a handful made it via a rural inn and a stroll down a country lane past a 14th Century church in the intriguingly named hamlet of Thorne Coffin. The full story of my idiosyncratic entrance to Huish Park is available as one of my side projects -
www.footballbyfootpath.blogspot.co.ukIf there had been cries of ‘bring out your dead’, then at least half the Yeovil Town team would have qualified. As my mate opined, the bottom line about pre-season is that you get players fit. Becoming tactical geniuses at the same time is merely a bonus. Yeovil haven’t even managed to produce a fit, injury free team, whereas we mainly have. Glovers fans must be extremely worried at three losses on the trot, no goals, and the spectre of a triple relegation. Hopefully Dan Cabell, the febrile Glovers fan who held up a distinctly home made sign live on TV just over a year ago, stating ‘Could be worse we could support Bristol Rovers #non-league’, will have kept his magnus opus and with a few amendments can be shown the error of his ways later this season.
Whilst Yeovil were utterly woeful, unfit, and loaded with enormous donkeys front and back, Rovers need to be given credit for sticking to their task, mainly trying to pass the ball around, being adaptable to change, and showing far more desire than the Glovers. I lost count of the amount of times The Beard, Ollie Clarke and even Chris Lines nipped into to steal the ball off a Glover, or win the ball back after momentarily losing it. 67% possession, 11 corners and 16 shots (half on target), tell a story of persistence, even if the final decisive ball was often lacking, and the 3-5-2 formation seems to be confusing some of our players.
We need to keep our feet on that ground though. This was a vital win precisely because by the end of the season we could be looking back and thinking ’wow, Yeovil were a dis-jointed and poor team’. Exactly six years ago, at our first away game of the 2009/10 season, I watched in blazing sunshine at Stockport County, actually feeling sorry for the Hatters after going 2-0 up within eight minutes and fearing a cricket score. Little did we know that a proud and decent local team like County would get relegated from League One that season with an shameful 25 points, and be in the sixth tier three years later.
In November 2006 Steve Mildenhall was lining up for the Glovers in their 2-1 victory over Bristol City at a sold out Huish Park. He went on to be their Player of the Season and feature in their gutsy League One Play-Off Final loss to Blackpool. On a warm day in August 2015 he was nowhere to be seen.
I am actually glad that the ‘elephant in the room’ is finally out of the cramped dressing room and bustling through the beautiful Somerset countryside, even if the timing of the end game is not ideal and some people have criticised Darrell Clarke for his unequivocal position. I hope we can attract an affordable keeper to be one of the first names on the team sheet, and I would prefer DC to do it now, rather than later in the season when the transfer window is closed and several points may have already been lost.
Last season (in the fifth tier) Steve Mildenhall did not inspire any confidence except for his shot stopping, which was admittedly the quality of several divisions above his then station. However, that part of a goalkeeper’s role is the most straightforward. The more difficult elements are decision making, aerial prowess, commanding an area, and distribution, and I did not see anything last season to suggest that he would be an adequate number one in League Two. And as much as I like Will Puddy, especially his distribution and confident attempts to command his area, he does not have the stature or strength to be a regular number one at this level or higher.
Personally I would have loved it if we could have allowed both of them to leave, and spent the money on one exceptional keeper and a promising, cheap, understudy. Unfortunately the fly in the ointment had already nose-dived into the calamine lotion, as a one year contract extension, constructed when the king of dubious contracts, John Ward, was in charge, had already kicked in about two-thirds of the way through the season. Contrary to popular rumour this did not happen at the end of the season in April, or even with his Tim Krul-esque appearance at Wembley for the penalty shoot-out. The fact that Puddy was favoured over Mildy after his weak display at the Shay in mid-March, despite the contract extension already kicking in, spoke volumes.
There are two types of exacting managers; those who are strict and cruel, and those who are strict and fair. I see Darrell Clarke as the latter. He hasn’t verbally disparaged Mildy, childishly frozen him out, or told the press before talking to the man himself. He has given Mildy the courtesy of a final look and then conclusively decided, as many of us terrace dwellers already had, that he is not the right man to take us any further. I don’t see how that is in any way disrespectful to a player who we pay very adequately to be a number one goalkeeper and is simply not performing well enough. And talk of treating him better because he’s been a good servant to the club for two and a half years rather dishonours Billy Clark, Stuart Campbell, Vaughan Jones, Andy Tillson and many others before my time who gave much of their career to Rovers.
When deciding to change keepers I do have to add one caveat though, namely that goalies can blow hot and cold, just like wingers. Man of the Match Glovers keeper Artur Krysiak is the same Artur Krysiak who was being scouted by Billy Smart’s Circus every time we used to play Exeter City. Go figure.
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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
