Is the table a 'true table' now? Can we stay in the top 7?

My new gas article is available online - www.bristolpost.co.uk/BRISTOL-ROVERS-BLOG-G-Gas-games-people-play/story-28809430-detail/story.html

It was going to be online last week but a certain takeover made it rather futile to try to compete against that news. So I waited, updated it and here it is.



BRISTOL ROVERS BLOG: G is for Gas - The games people play

By Martin Bull

When I started writing this article about 10 days ago, I began by postulating that after the Accrington Stanley defeat and an empty weekend due to the rain, the League Two table now had a more realistic feel to it, as although we slipped to fifth only four teams in the top 10 now had games in hand on us.

This re-alignment was nothing to worry about and was hardly a surprise as even when we were fourth in the published table, the 'true table' (i.e. average points per game played) usually put us sixth. If Joe South's 1968 smash hit 'Games People Play' was, like Dr. Eric Berne's seminal psychology book of the same name, about human relationships and the chess-like transactions between them, then the League Two table was all about complex clashes amongst the top teams and games played (or not played, as the case may be…).

But defeat for Rovers at Pompey (we haven't won there since 1975), and several wins for rivals, slid us down the back of a slippery snake into eighth whilst our opponents catapulted up a nice ladder, and the article was surely in need of a re-write.

Or was it?

Rather like not entering the relegation zone until the final 54 minutes of the entire nine-month long season, being in or out of any 'zone' is often more about psychology than hard cold logic, and unfortunately many teams don't take relegation seriously until actually under that dreaded dashed line. It would, for example, have done us good to have dipped our toe in the icy water of relegation earlier in 2014 as it would have seen us take the threat of the hangman's noose more seriously. We may have launched Operation Survival rather than see us stumble on with Operation We've Too Much History To Go Down, as if we really didn't have a clue. Doh!

Staying in the play-off zone between December and February is a charade really. Of course it was great to be there, and of course it was really disappointing to have fallen out of it, but there are always plenty of frosty draughts that can hit you when you are near the top of any sporting division; what matters is that you don't actually catch a raging cold or lose your marbles. No-one has a monopoly on success and success can't truly be measured until the last fixture of a season when everyone has played 46 games. By that point caring about the size, name, history or fashionableness of a club is merely a trivial pursuit. The final table does not lie.

Thinking of the word 'unfashionable' surely only the most stubborn defender of the indefensible would fail to envisage Accrington Stanley staying in the top seven, or even reaching the top three. They haven't been out of the top eight since mid-September and it was only their three games in hand that keep them below us for a while.

I think we could still manage to stay into the zone, and although the patch of games against the top teams has been disappointing so far, we have a few more in which to redeem ourselves, plus a lot of contests against lesser opposition.

I am not yet convinced by Mansfield Town, as they are the holders of a truly bizarre statistic of not having beaten any team in the top 14 (drawn 8, lost 10), but having gobbled up every opponent, bar one, in the bottom eight like a pack of hungry hippos (won 14, drawn 1, lost 0). They still have time to change of course, but any team who fail to beat those around them rarely achieve promotion. If I'm proven to be wrong on this I'll hold my hands up and say sorry!

When I started writing this piece I had AFC Wimbledon down as a promising wild card, but you don't have to be a mastermind to now see them as a bona fide promotion contender. They've won seven out of their eight games since our lethargic Boxing Day stalemate (it seemed that day as if the players had eaten rather too many leftovers from that juicy joint of back gammon) and have scored at least a brace in all bar their most recent match.

So guess who that leaves as my sole risky outsider? Carlisle United have been up and down like a yo-yo this season (as high as fifth and as low as 20th), but may be able to bridge the gap to the top seven, and following the Cumbrians could never be described as dull as battleship grey.

I have written several times about mini-crises under Darrell Clarke, and maybe this sticky patch has been a new one to face. The vital win over Morecambe and a few opportune results elsewhere has seen us scrabble back into a play-off slot whilst only a solitary club in the top 11 now has a game in hand on us, and indeed we now hold a game or two in hand against half a dozen of the others.

Having whetted the appetite of Gasheads, especially the more casual ones, the pressure is now on to stay in the top seven rather than topple over like a line of dominoes.


------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Martin Bull became a Gashead in 1989 and immediately fell in love with Twerton Park, standing near G pillar. Two of his six books have been about Bristol Rovers. 'Away The Gas' is packed full of over 50 years of 'I was there' away game moments, all written by fans, and 'Print That Season! - One man's weekly meanderings throughout Bristol Rovers' promotion campaign of 2014-15' is the antidote to obedient season reviews, with none of the hindsight that most writers rely on. Full details of both are available at www.awaythegas.org.uk