Mansfield managers view on us.

Christ, how many sending offs? 28 left us with 3!!!!

Maths not his strong point. Wouldn't want him in charge of my club's transfer kitty!

I put this on the stags forum...


Hi again Stags.

I'm the guy who wrote a piece based around Rovers & Mansfield last season when we were about to face the play-offs. I posted it on here, and if I get the time I'll find it and link it.

Anyway... That article is pretty poor really. Don't believe half of it. m.chad.co.uk/sport/mansfield-town/mansfield-town-news/bristol-rovers-showing-the-way-says-mansfield-town-boss-adam-murray-1-7787636

Relegation (which BTW you obviously we're 'responsible' for...) was the best thing to ever happen to us and pulled our Board kicking and screaming into the 20th century (no... that's not a typo...). We re-assessed and stopping giving those 3 year contracts out to higher league players on their way down. We stopped the high wages, long contracts, poor fitness, lazy managers, etc. It all stopped, and all due to Darrell Clarke, plus some support from fans like me, and the Board.

Not surprisingly we didn't keep most of our players from the relegation season, so that is also wrong. Obviously we had loads of loans, who went away, plus nearly everyone who was out of contract left. A couple of high wage earners left, such as John Joe O'Toole. A couple of decent players left for a fee. We were, rightly, left with a few decent players, a few who really wanted to be here, some decent young 'uns, and a couple who probably stayed because it suited them more than us. We re-built the team slowly, and are still doing it (one of DC's methods). So to suggest a lot of our players have been here for 3 years is really wrong.

However, the principle is right, in that most successful teams have a pretty settled squad and it is something to strive for. We are certainly not there yet, but we are better than some teams.

Our attendances have probably had little to do with any success because the previous Board never balanced the books anyway and were pretty rubbish with money; attendances have been similar level for decades and we've had a lot of failure with them! I guess you could argue that the higher attendances than most teams at our levels at least reduced our losses and need to sell players a little.

Average in Conference was 6,200. Average so far this season is 7,500.

We now (about 2 weeks ago) have a completely new owner and Board, and the possibilities are endless. Nothing has kicked in yet on the field of course, but off the field we have finally been getting some experienced and professional people in behind the scenes. They will hopefully have a medium and long term impact.

The big news is that we have a new scoreboard. it is still tiny, and the 'goal' graphic is like 1986 Donkey Kong, but heh this is Rovers and anything that I can see from 100 yards away is fine by me. it is, typically, placed by the away fans, so you won't be able to see it [sadly so many clubs do it...]. The good news is hopefully it will have 1-0 on it, so you won't want to see it.    

come on, you owe us one