Post by harrybuckle on Apr 27, 2024 18:21:20 GMT
Review of the
2023-24 season
by Stephen Byrne Bristol Rovers History Group
Rarely is it straightforward being a Bristol Rovers supporter and the 2023-24 season offered proof of this assertion. Pre-season optimism gave way to transfer deadline day despair, before a controversial manager left the club, followed by a mini-revival, then a goal drought of Biblical proportions which threatened to convert mid-table apathy into a relegation struggle, leaving supporters feeling insecure despite a reasonably positive FA Cup run. Confusing, isn’t it! Ultimately, Rovers settled for fifteenth place in League One, the mid-table position many supporters had predicted prior to the season starting. An outspoken manager had been replaced by a calmer, gentler one; a cup run had seen Rovers falter within touching distance of a trip to Anfield; and topsy-turvy results saw the Gas lose at home to struggling sides such as Fleetwood and Burton and yet win away to play-off hopefuls Bolton and Stevenage, taking four points off champions Portsmouth, as well as completing a League double over Charlton.
As ever, the season opened with a string of new faces in quartered shirts. James Wilson had won the third-tier title with Plymouth Argyle in 2022-23 and Rovers’ supporters hoped he could repeat this feat in Horfield. Exeter striker Jevani Brown, described by his partner as “gentle, calm and quiet” and yet fined in court after admitting assault, was joined by returning players in Luke Thomas, Lamare Bogarde and Connor Taylor. Ryan Woods became the thousandth player to represent Rovers in the Football League and was joined by experienced heads in Jack Hunt and George Friend, not to mention Scotland international Chris Martin. Two goalkeepers, Matt Cox and Matt Hall, joined the ranks, whilst Chelsea youngster Harvey Vale and young Brentford defender Tristan Crama added youth to this mix. Harry Anderson joined Stevenage, Calum Macdonald went to Mansfield, whilst Paul Coutts moved to Highland League football and both Glenn Whelan and Alex Rodman retired.
Pre-season friendlies had started with six unanswered first-half goals at Melksham and included victory over Swansea City and Brentford B, whilst John Marquis scored a brace to defeat Chesterfield. Rovers opposed a Cardiff City side featuring Mahlon Romeo (Antiguan international and son of Jazzie B from SoulIISoul) plus international players for Nigeria, Greece, Canada and Gambia. There was also a last-minute loss 3-2 against Braga in Portugal, the opposition featuring five players who have played for the Portuguese national side, as well as internationals from Sweden and Uruguay.
On the eve of the new season, Kuwaiti investor Hussain AlSaeed purchased 55% of the club, with Wael AlQadi retaining 40.5% and remaining President, and Samer AlQadi retaining 4.5%. Hussain AlSaeed, regional head of the Ahli United Bank, was appointed as Chairman of Bristol Rovers whilst Abdullatif AlSaeed was appointed as Executive Vice-President. One immediate effect was that work began, ahead of planning permission, on a 3,425-seater South Stand with plans afoot to work on both the North and East Stands, whilst a long-term vision included that elusive new stadium; within weeks the proposed move to the Fruit Market had been ended once and for all with the new owners looking to redevelop three sides of the Memorial Stadium instead. In February, AlSaeed announced proposed improvements to training facilities at The Quarters and a suggested future 16,000 capacity at The Mem, with a stated goal of promotion to the Championship within three years. Rovers were to announce pre-tax losses of £3.9 million for the 2022-23 financial year.
Any pre-season optimism off the field and suggested verbally by manager Joey B***** initially appeared to have some foundation. Having held the lead at Fratton Park on an encouraging opening day before conceding an injury-time equaliser to the eventual champions and having won at Charlton for a second consecutive season, this time through Luke McCormick’s winner eight minutes into stoppage time, the season opened brightly. However, successive fixtures were then lost to Cambridge and Wycombe and Rovers also lost at leaders Oxford, where Brown was sent off and the hosts received two injury-time red cards, issued to Oisin Smyth and Stan Mills, the twelfth time Rovers’ opponents had suffered
two sendings-off in a League fixture. More dramatically, Rovers failed by minutes to re-sign goalscoring striker Jonson Clarke-Harris, an alleged transfer-window administrative blunder leaving Rovers short of goal-scoring power and leading to questions as to the manager’s future.
Therefore, just thirteen League games into the season, with Rovers mid-table and not yet fulfilling the pre-season hype, the club parted company with manager B*****. His tenure from February 2021 to October 2023 had seen the remarkable 2021-22 promotion campaign in League Two, but his overall record in League One amounted to thirty-nine defeats and only twenty-one wins in 77 fixtures. Rovers had incredibly lost 22 times in the League at home during his time in charge. B*****’s final signing had been the experienced former Scotland international Chris Martin, whose superlative thirty-five-metre lobbed equaliser at home to Stevenage in October proved to be the final goal of the manager’s two-and-a-half-year tenure.
An initially impressive run under caretaker manager Andy Mangan was ended by a narrow 2-1 defeat to Derby County at Pride Park, a game which Rovers were unlucky to lose, especially after Martin’s smart header from an excellent free-kick; Nathaniel Mendez-Laing, who scored the winning goal, was the first Guatemalan player to opposed Rovers in the League, and County also fielded Tyrese Fornah, who had been sent off against Egypt six days earlier whilst playing for Sierra Leone. Rovers were relying heavily at this point on the guile of Sam Finley in midfield, especially with Jordan Rossiter out injured long-term. No Tunisian international had opposed Rovers prior to this season, but two did so at this point in the campaign, namely Omar Rekik of Wigan Athletic and Orient’s Idris El Mizouni; Rovers conceded own goals in these consecutive November fixtures.
Former Exeter City and Rotherham United boss Matt Taylor was appointed as Rovers’ new manager on the last day of November. He had played for Exeter against Rovers in the League, had been a team-mate of Friend (at Exeter), Marquis (at Cheltenham) and Aaron Collins (at Newport) amongst players on Rovers’ books and had managed Brown in the successful Grecians side promoted to League One alongside Rovers in 2021-22. Remarkably, Taylor led Rovers to victory over both the top two sides in the division in December, winning 2-1 at Bolton Wanderers and, on Boxing Day at The Mem, defeating table-toppers Pompey, who fielded two Australian internationals in their side, through a dramatic stoppage-time finish from Thomas; the former Rovers caretaker manager Shaun North returned as the visitors’ kitman. Three days later, in another extraordinary finish, substitute Martin’s second goal, again four minutes into stoppage-time, earned Rovers a second consecutive 2-1 home victory.
Mid-season signings were designed to build on this promise. Kamil Conteh, with eight caps for Sierra Leone, was joined by promising youngster Harry Vaughan on loan, Elkan Baggott (who had opposed Rovers in the League Cup in August and was just back from international duty in Qatar at the Asian Cup with Indonesia) and the mercurial Brandon Aguilera, who had played in all three of Costa Rica’s matches at the 2022 World Cup Finals. Indeed, whilst on Rovers’ books, Aguilera was to start for Costa Rica in their international fixture against world champions Argentina in Los Angeles in March 2024. On the other hand, Collins, voted Player of the Season for League One in 2022-23, left for Bolton Wanderers and was not replaced, heralding a goal drought.
In response to a poor run of results in January, Taylor changed his team around, Jed Ward was put in goal (he was voted Young Player of the Season), new signing Conteh strengthened the midfield and, with an altered formation, Rovers defeated Oxford United 3-1. Having added three new faces, The Gas won 1-0 at Exeter, débutant Aguilera striking an excellent winner from twenty yards which was later voted the club’s Goal of the Season. However, fluctuating results, as Rovers stumbled between mid-table obscurity and mediocrity, saw Rovers slip towards a potential relegation scrap. Orient had eighteen corners to Rovers’ two in March, and yet Rovers won 1-0 away from home; this proved to be the sides final League goal in a club record 702 minutes prior to Scott Sinclair’s strike at Cheltenham. This run included a 5-0 thrashing at Lincoln City, for whom Joe Taylor became the first opponent in fifteen months to score a hat-trick. Port Vale had eleven shots on target to Rovers’ none, Baylee Dipepa, at seventeen years 77 days, becoming the seventh youngest opponent ever to score a League goal against Rovers.
During the 2023-24 campaign, Rovers were never higher in League One than ninth place (after successive Christmas victories) and never lower than the seventeenth place they occupied after Woods had been sent off at Burton. The highest attendance was 26,623 at Derby and the highest at home 9,937 for the visit of Derby County, with an average home League attendance of 8,190. Martin was easily the top scorer for the season with sixteen goals in the League whilst, in the absence of any ever-present, Antony Evans appeared in more League matches than any other player and was named Player of the Season. League doubles were achieved over Charlton and Carlisle, whilst Wycombe, Burton, Peterborough and a very impressive Derby side all beat Rovers home and away. Bizarrely, only Evans against Northampton and Bolton substitute Aaron Morley scored penalties in the League; Rovers scored one of four penalties awarded in their favour in the League. Carlisle’s Sam Lavelle conceded an own goal in Rovers’ favour, whilst Hunt scored for Derby and Crama, in the final minute, for Orient. Rovers received six red cards in the League, as did their opponents. Rovers used thirty-four different players in all competitions during the campaign. Throughout the season, Rovers scored seven last-minute goals to gain seven extra points and conceded six which cost four points. By the close of the season, it was clear that the side’s home record would need some work, Rovers having played 133 League matches at The Mem in six years, winning 48 and losing 54, despite gaining promotion during that period, and scoring just 162 League goals at home. After Port Vale earlier in the campaign, it was only the penultimate home fixture, against Cambridge United, when Rovers kept their second clean sheet at The Mem all season and nine League matches were lost on that ground.
East Anglian opposition ended Rovers’ season in cup competitions, Ipswich Town in the League Cup and Norwich City in the FA Cup. The side had seven different scorers as Rovers recorded a 7-2 home victory over Northern Premier League side Whitby Town in the FA Cup; with a large lead, the club had the opportunity to hand a first-team début to Ollie Dewsbury, aged fifteen years 255 days, the second youngest player ever in any competitive Rovers fixture. The Gas then recorded their first win under their new manager by defeating Charlie Colkett’s Crewe at Gresty Road in round two, racing into a four-goal lead before winning 4-2. Rovers gained a very creditable 1-1 draw at Championship side Norwich City in the third round, Grant Ward curling in a delightful equaliser as Rovers more than held their own before a crowd of almost 20,000 at Carrow Road. A packed Mem saw Rovers hold a half-time lead through McCormick before losing to the Canaries, whose reward was a trip to Anfield to play Liverpool in the fourth round. It was a replica of the January 1965 cup-tie with Stockport County, where Rovers lost the replay, knowing Liverpool awaited the winners in the next round. The 2023-24 season had seen more individual players score for Rovers in the FA Cup than in any preceding campaign. Meanwhile, James Gibbons had scored for both sides in a Football League Trophy win over Cheltenham Town before Rovers crashed out of the competition at Crawley Town.
Plenty of former Rovers players reappeared in opposition line-ups, including Ali Koiki at Northampton Town, the Cheltenham Town pairing of Liam Sercombe and Matty Taylor, Peterborough’s Jonson Clarke-Harris, Ryan Loft for Port Vale and Fleetwood’s Ryan Broom, whilst Ryan Sweeney played against Rovers with Burton Albion, whose goalkeeper Max Crocombe became the fourteenth New Zealand international to oppose Rovers in the Football League. Burton’s substitute Kyle Hudlin, at six feet nine inches in height, became the tallest outfield player ever to oppose Rovers in any competitive fixture. Carlisle United, when they played at The Mem in February, fielded Fin Back, son of the former England rugby union captain Neil Back MBE, playing alongside Harry Lewis, whose grandfather Ken
Mulhearn (1945-2018) had played for Shrewsbury Town against Rovers in the 1970s. Luca Hoole enjoyed the privilege of captaining the Welsh Under-21 side. The Gas Girls won the South West Regional Women’s League and gained promotion to the FA Women’s National League, coming under the umbrella of the Football Club itself from the start of the 2024-25 campaign. In December, Bristol Rovers celebrated the 140th anniversary of the club’s foundation, with the team wearing a replica Black Arabs shirt from 1883 for the fixture with Cheltenham Town.
2023-24 season
by Stephen Byrne Bristol Rovers History Group
Rarely is it straightforward being a Bristol Rovers supporter and the 2023-24 season offered proof of this assertion. Pre-season optimism gave way to transfer deadline day despair, before a controversial manager left the club, followed by a mini-revival, then a goal drought of Biblical proportions which threatened to convert mid-table apathy into a relegation struggle, leaving supporters feeling insecure despite a reasonably positive FA Cup run. Confusing, isn’t it! Ultimately, Rovers settled for fifteenth place in League One, the mid-table position many supporters had predicted prior to the season starting. An outspoken manager had been replaced by a calmer, gentler one; a cup run had seen Rovers falter within touching distance of a trip to Anfield; and topsy-turvy results saw the Gas lose at home to struggling sides such as Fleetwood and Burton and yet win away to play-off hopefuls Bolton and Stevenage, taking four points off champions Portsmouth, as well as completing a League double over Charlton.
As ever, the season opened with a string of new faces in quartered shirts. James Wilson had won the third-tier title with Plymouth Argyle in 2022-23 and Rovers’ supporters hoped he could repeat this feat in Horfield. Exeter striker Jevani Brown, described by his partner as “gentle, calm and quiet” and yet fined in court after admitting assault, was joined by returning players in Luke Thomas, Lamare Bogarde and Connor Taylor. Ryan Woods became the thousandth player to represent Rovers in the Football League and was joined by experienced heads in Jack Hunt and George Friend, not to mention Scotland international Chris Martin. Two goalkeepers, Matt Cox and Matt Hall, joined the ranks, whilst Chelsea youngster Harvey Vale and young Brentford defender Tristan Crama added youth to this mix. Harry Anderson joined Stevenage, Calum Macdonald went to Mansfield, whilst Paul Coutts moved to Highland League football and both Glenn Whelan and Alex Rodman retired.
Pre-season friendlies had started with six unanswered first-half goals at Melksham and included victory over Swansea City and Brentford B, whilst John Marquis scored a brace to defeat Chesterfield. Rovers opposed a Cardiff City side featuring Mahlon Romeo (Antiguan international and son of Jazzie B from SoulIISoul) plus international players for Nigeria, Greece, Canada and Gambia. There was also a last-minute loss 3-2 against Braga in Portugal, the opposition featuring five players who have played for the Portuguese national side, as well as internationals from Sweden and Uruguay.
On the eve of the new season, Kuwaiti investor Hussain AlSaeed purchased 55% of the club, with Wael AlQadi retaining 40.5% and remaining President, and Samer AlQadi retaining 4.5%. Hussain AlSaeed, regional head of the Ahli United Bank, was appointed as Chairman of Bristol Rovers whilst Abdullatif AlSaeed was appointed as Executive Vice-President. One immediate effect was that work began, ahead of planning permission, on a 3,425-seater South Stand with plans afoot to work on both the North and East Stands, whilst a long-term vision included that elusive new stadium; within weeks the proposed move to the Fruit Market had been ended once and for all with the new owners looking to redevelop three sides of the Memorial Stadium instead. In February, AlSaeed announced proposed improvements to training facilities at The Quarters and a suggested future 16,000 capacity at The Mem, with a stated goal of promotion to the Championship within three years. Rovers were to announce pre-tax losses of £3.9 million for the 2022-23 financial year.
Any pre-season optimism off the field and suggested verbally by manager Joey B***** initially appeared to have some foundation. Having held the lead at Fratton Park on an encouraging opening day before conceding an injury-time equaliser to the eventual champions and having won at Charlton for a second consecutive season, this time through Luke McCormick’s winner eight minutes into stoppage time, the season opened brightly. However, successive fixtures were then lost to Cambridge and Wycombe and Rovers also lost at leaders Oxford, where Brown was sent off and the hosts received two injury-time red cards, issued to Oisin Smyth and Stan Mills, the twelfth time Rovers’ opponents had suffered
two sendings-off in a League fixture. More dramatically, Rovers failed by minutes to re-sign goalscoring striker Jonson Clarke-Harris, an alleged transfer-window administrative blunder leaving Rovers short of goal-scoring power and leading to questions as to the manager’s future.
Therefore, just thirteen League games into the season, with Rovers mid-table and not yet fulfilling the pre-season hype, the club parted company with manager B*****. His tenure from February 2021 to October 2023 had seen the remarkable 2021-22 promotion campaign in League Two, but his overall record in League One amounted to thirty-nine defeats and only twenty-one wins in 77 fixtures. Rovers had incredibly lost 22 times in the League at home during his time in charge. B*****’s final signing had been the experienced former Scotland international Chris Martin, whose superlative thirty-five-metre lobbed equaliser at home to Stevenage in October proved to be the final goal of the manager’s two-and-a-half-year tenure.
An initially impressive run under caretaker manager Andy Mangan was ended by a narrow 2-1 defeat to Derby County at Pride Park, a game which Rovers were unlucky to lose, especially after Martin’s smart header from an excellent free-kick; Nathaniel Mendez-Laing, who scored the winning goal, was the first Guatemalan player to opposed Rovers in the League, and County also fielded Tyrese Fornah, who had been sent off against Egypt six days earlier whilst playing for Sierra Leone. Rovers were relying heavily at this point on the guile of Sam Finley in midfield, especially with Jordan Rossiter out injured long-term. No Tunisian international had opposed Rovers prior to this season, but two did so at this point in the campaign, namely Omar Rekik of Wigan Athletic and Orient’s Idris El Mizouni; Rovers conceded own goals in these consecutive November fixtures.
Former Exeter City and Rotherham United boss Matt Taylor was appointed as Rovers’ new manager on the last day of November. He had played for Exeter against Rovers in the League, had been a team-mate of Friend (at Exeter), Marquis (at Cheltenham) and Aaron Collins (at Newport) amongst players on Rovers’ books and had managed Brown in the successful Grecians side promoted to League One alongside Rovers in 2021-22. Remarkably, Taylor led Rovers to victory over both the top two sides in the division in December, winning 2-1 at Bolton Wanderers and, on Boxing Day at The Mem, defeating table-toppers Pompey, who fielded two Australian internationals in their side, through a dramatic stoppage-time finish from Thomas; the former Rovers caretaker manager Shaun North returned as the visitors’ kitman. Three days later, in another extraordinary finish, substitute Martin’s second goal, again four minutes into stoppage-time, earned Rovers a second consecutive 2-1 home victory.
Mid-season signings were designed to build on this promise. Kamil Conteh, with eight caps for Sierra Leone, was joined by promising youngster Harry Vaughan on loan, Elkan Baggott (who had opposed Rovers in the League Cup in August and was just back from international duty in Qatar at the Asian Cup with Indonesia) and the mercurial Brandon Aguilera, who had played in all three of Costa Rica’s matches at the 2022 World Cup Finals. Indeed, whilst on Rovers’ books, Aguilera was to start for Costa Rica in their international fixture against world champions Argentina in Los Angeles in March 2024. On the other hand, Collins, voted Player of the Season for League One in 2022-23, left for Bolton Wanderers and was not replaced, heralding a goal drought.
In response to a poor run of results in January, Taylor changed his team around, Jed Ward was put in goal (he was voted Young Player of the Season), new signing Conteh strengthened the midfield and, with an altered formation, Rovers defeated Oxford United 3-1. Having added three new faces, The Gas won 1-0 at Exeter, débutant Aguilera striking an excellent winner from twenty yards which was later voted the club’s Goal of the Season. However, fluctuating results, as Rovers stumbled between mid-table obscurity and mediocrity, saw Rovers slip towards a potential relegation scrap. Orient had eighteen corners to Rovers’ two in March, and yet Rovers won 1-0 away from home; this proved to be the sides final League goal in a club record 702 minutes prior to Scott Sinclair’s strike at Cheltenham. This run included a 5-0 thrashing at Lincoln City, for whom Joe Taylor became the first opponent in fifteen months to score a hat-trick. Port Vale had eleven shots on target to Rovers’ none, Baylee Dipepa, at seventeen years 77 days, becoming the seventh youngest opponent ever to score a League goal against Rovers.
During the 2023-24 campaign, Rovers were never higher in League One than ninth place (after successive Christmas victories) and never lower than the seventeenth place they occupied after Woods had been sent off at Burton. The highest attendance was 26,623 at Derby and the highest at home 9,937 for the visit of Derby County, with an average home League attendance of 8,190. Martin was easily the top scorer for the season with sixteen goals in the League whilst, in the absence of any ever-present, Antony Evans appeared in more League matches than any other player and was named Player of the Season. League doubles were achieved over Charlton and Carlisle, whilst Wycombe, Burton, Peterborough and a very impressive Derby side all beat Rovers home and away. Bizarrely, only Evans against Northampton and Bolton substitute Aaron Morley scored penalties in the League; Rovers scored one of four penalties awarded in their favour in the League. Carlisle’s Sam Lavelle conceded an own goal in Rovers’ favour, whilst Hunt scored for Derby and Crama, in the final minute, for Orient. Rovers received six red cards in the League, as did their opponents. Rovers used thirty-four different players in all competitions during the campaign. Throughout the season, Rovers scored seven last-minute goals to gain seven extra points and conceded six which cost four points. By the close of the season, it was clear that the side’s home record would need some work, Rovers having played 133 League matches at The Mem in six years, winning 48 and losing 54, despite gaining promotion during that period, and scoring just 162 League goals at home. After Port Vale earlier in the campaign, it was only the penultimate home fixture, against Cambridge United, when Rovers kept their second clean sheet at The Mem all season and nine League matches were lost on that ground.
East Anglian opposition ended Rovers’ season in cup competitions, Ipswich Town in the League Cup and Norwich City in the FA Cup. The side had seven different scorers as Rovers recorded a 7-2 home victory over Northern Premier League side Whitby Town in the FA Cup; with a large lead, the club had the opportunity to hand a first-team début to Ollie Dewsbury, aged fifteen years 255 days, the second youngest player ever in any competitive Rovers fixture. The Gas then recorded their first win under their new manager by defeating Charlie Colkett’s Crewe at Gresty Road in round two, racing into a four-goal lead before winning 4-2. Rovers gained a very creditable 1-1 draw at Championship side Norwich City in the third round, Grant Ward curling in a delightful equaliser as Rovers more than held their own before a crowd of almost 20,000 at Carrow Road. A packed Mem saw Rovers hold a half-time lead through McCormick before losing to the Canaries, whose reward was a trip to Anfield to play Liverpool in the fourth round. It was a replica of the January 1965 cup-tie with Stockport County, where Rovers lost the replay, knowing Liverpool awaited the winners in the next round. The 2023-24 season had seen more individual players score for Rovers in the FA Cup than in any preceding campaign. Meanwhile, James Gibbons had scored for both sides in a Football League Trophy win over Cheltenham Town before Rovers crashed out of the competition at Crawley Town.
Plenty of former Rovers players reappeared in opposition line-ups, including Ali Koiki at Northampton Town, the Cheltenham Town pairing of Liam Sercombe and Matty Taylor, Peterborough’s Jonson Clarke-Harris, Ryan Loft for Port Vale and Fleetwood’s Ryan Broom, whilst Ryan Sweeney played against Rovers with Burton Albion, whose goalkeeper Max Crocombe became the fourteenth New Zealand international to oppose Rovers in the Football League. Burton’s substitute Kyle Hudlin, at six feet nine inches in height, became the tallest outfield player ever to oppose Rovers in any competitive fixture. Carlisle United, when they played at The Mem in February, fielded Fin Back, son of the former England rugby union captain Neil Back MBE, playing alongside Harry Lewis, whose grandfather Ken
Mulhearn (1945-2018) had played for Shrewsbury Town against Rovers in the 1970s. Luca Hoole enjoyed the privilege of captaining the Welsh Under-21 side. The Gas Girls won the South West Regional Women’s League and gained promotion to the FA Women’s National League, coming under the umbrella of the Football Club itself from the start of the 2024-25 campaign. In December, Bristol Rovers celebrated the 140th anniversary of the club’s foundation, with the team wearing a replica Black Arabs shirt from 1883 for the fixture with Cheltenham Town.
