Post by mehewmagic on Feb 24, 2015 11:34:06 GMT
My new article is up now on the Bristol Post site and pasted in below.
www.bristolpost.co.uk/BRISTOL-ROVERS-BLOG-G-Gas-kind-people-way/story-26070618-detail/story.html
BRISTOL ROVERS BLOG: G is for Gas - Be kind to people on the way up...
Posted: February 24, 2015
By Martin Bull
As Grimsby were becoming the third team in recent weeks to complete a once unlikely league double over Barnet, we were fairly efficiently making sure Altrincham couldn’t do the same to us - and are now preparing to face the final side who could potentially inflict such shame upon us.
Should we avoid defeat at the hands of Braintree Town at the Memorial Stadium tonight, it will be the first season without a double loss against our name since John Ward’s team ended an otherwise excellent campaign with an agonising Play-Off Final defeat against Huddersfield Town at Wembley 20 years ago.
Ward’s 1994/95 team let in a miserly 40 league goals, only lost once at home, and kept 20 clean sheets. So far in the Conference Premier we have 17 clean sheets from 35 matches, including nine in the last 13 games, have lost once at home, and have conceded only 26 goals.
Conceding an average of only 0.74 goals per league game is however not entirely unexpected given the retention of four of the back five that was ranked as the tenth best in League Two last season, plus using a brace of defensive-minded central midfielders in front of them.
This sadly puts a lot of pressure on the four wider players to be creative though, and the front two to score goals, as neither Sinclair, Mansell, Clarke nor Lockyer are likely to score many from open play (eight such goals in 86 midfield appearances). If we can get the balance right I think we could still win this league.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I was really surprised when I bobbed onto the Barnet fans forum over the last few weeks to read some considerable dislike aimed towards us, and various extremely arrogant attitudes about how they are going to walk the league.
They were even naming the game when they would receive the Conference title! This was not just internet bravado either; these were serious feelings that they had pretty much already won the league and that heroes like John Akinde and Martin Allen would display typical testosterone-fuelled brawn to bulldoze their way through any opposition, just as they had in the first half of the season.
This macho invincibility has been slowly unravelling since New Year, with Akinde not only scoring less goals, but less important goals, and also getting sent off for a dive and missing their crucial defeat against Grimsby Town on Saturday.
Allen is now being criticised as a one-tactic pony, who is refusing to see the problems that the more cerebral and mature posters on their forum are clearly pointing out. To be fair Allen is actually a two-trick pony, as he seems to have one line-up (with more flair) for the Hive, and another for away matches. Other than that fortnightly adjustment [sic - my mistake, should be weekly] he just seems to be ploughing the same furrow, over and over again.
One Bees fan reasoned that they will win the league because Martin Allen had experience of being top virtually all season with Gillingham in 2012/13 and safely getting them over the League Two finishing line, whereas neither Darrell Clarke nor Paul Hurst (Grimsby Town) had.
Without trying to diminish the fact that Allen deserves immense credit for that promotion, this jolly Bee forgot to note that the Gills actually won only four of their final 13 games, and they were all narrow home wins; which is hardly inspiring as we come into the last dozen games of THIS season.
Anyone who could be bothered to summon up the energy to type ‘Darrell Clarke’ or ‘Paul Hurst’ into a browser will instantaneously spot two hard fraught promotions on both of their CV’s. Arrogant? Surely not.
Wilson Mizner led a frankly outlandish life, and during it came up with many now celebrated bon mots, including “Be kind to people on the way up; you’ll meet the same people on the way down”, which rather reminds me of Barnet. A few dozen fans on a forum will not always represent a club’s wider fan base of course, so I am willing to give them the benefit of the doubt, but these negative comments about us sound even more peculiar as there is no ‘history’ between us.
We’ve only ever met them 16 times, and the only real history is of us letting Giuliano Grazioli go to them in June 2003 as part of a player plus £110,000 swap for Manuel ‘Junior’ Agogo. Sadly for us it was other clubs who poached even more gifted players from them, such as Albert Adomah and Jason Puncheon.
It has been suggested that opposition teams raise their game against any league leaders, have ‘worked Barnet out’, and will work us out if we reach those heady heights. That may be true to some degree, but it would be a sorely shallow and shoddy analysis of a much more complex wobble, and just like Mr. Allen, anyone whose research stops at that sound bite would seem to be absent-mindedly admiring a beautiful African sunset whilst sailing on a felucca down the longest river in the world (i.e. in denial).
Barnet’s problems seem to be deeper than that, as a worryingly leaky defence is being married with a distinct lack of pace on the wings. Forum bees seem to be calling for the youthful exuberance of Mauro Vilhete and Luke Gambin on the wings, and the undoubtedly talented, but ponderous, Luisma Villa Lopez moving into the middle. Meanwhile last season’s top scorer, the mercurial Keanu Marsh-Brown, has been cold-shouldered by Allen and took to twitter before Saturday’s match to comment, “What a waste of a season“. Classy.
What I find strange is why no-one is talking about Macclesfield Town. To see this as a two horse race is bordering on the disdainful. There is no evidence to suggest that the Silkmen could not potentially win this league. I get a feeling no-one is mentioning them solely because they are not, (a) a team who have been top of the league nearly all season, and have a 26 goal top scorer, or (b) a team with large attendances, some decent players, a good young manager, and a passion to right the wrongs we committed last season. If their chances are to be judged solely on watching them once this season, taking a tonking from us 4-0 (incidentally their last loss), then of course many of us will scratch our heads and wonder how on earth they can be up there, but judged purely on statistics, especially when holding the joint best home record in the league and being top of the current form table, the Silkmen should be kept under vigilant surveillance.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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 he has just produced a new book about them, in collaboration with Rovers fans far and wide, young and old - www.awaythegas.org.uk
www.bristolpost.co.uk/BRISTOL-ROVERS-BLOG-G-Gas-kind-people-way/story-26070618-detail/story.html
BRISTOL ROVERS BLOG: G is for Gas - Be kind to people on the way up...
Posted: February 24, 2015
By Martin Bull
As Grimsby were becoming the third team in recent weeks to complete a once unlikely league double over Barnet, we were fairly efficiently making sure Altrincham couldn’t do the same to us - and are now preparing to face the final side who could potentially inflict such shame upon us.
Should we avoid defeat at the hands of Braintree Town at the Memorial Stadium tonight, it will be the first season without a double loss against our name since John Ward’s team ended an otherwise excellent campaign with an agonising Play-Off Final defeat against Huddersfield Town at Wembley 20 years ago.
Ward’s 1994/95 team let in a miserly 40 league goals, only lost once at home, and kept 20 clean sheets. So far in the Conference Premier we have 17 clean sheets from 35 matches, including nine in the last 13 games, have lost once at home, and have conceded only 26 goals.
Conceding an average of only 0.74 goals per league game is however not entirely unexpected given the retention of four of the back five that was ranked as the tenth best in League Two last season, plus using a brace of defensive-minded central midfielders in front of them.
This sadly puts a lot of pressure on the four wider players to be creative though, and the front two to score goals, as neither Sinclair, Mansell, Clarke nor Lockyer are likely to score many from open play (eight such goals in 86 midfield appearances). If we can get the balance right I think we could still win this league.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I was really surprised when I bobbed onto the Barnet fans forum over the last few weeks to read some considerable dislike aimed towards us, and various extremely arrogant attitudes about how they are going to walk the league.
They were even naming the game when they would receive the Conference title! This was not just internet bravado either; these were serious feelings that they had pretty much already won the league and that heroes like John Akinde and Martin Allen would display typical testosterone-fuelled brawn to bulldoze their way through any opposition, just as they had in the first half of the season.
This macho invincibility has been slowly unravelling since New Year, with Akinde not only scoring less goals, but less important goals, and also getting sent off for a dive and missing their crucial defeat against Grimsby Town on Saturday.
Allen is now being criticised as a one-tactic pony, who is refusing to see the problems that the more cerebral and mature posters on their forum are clearly pointing out. To be fair Allen is actually a two-trick pony, as he seems to have one line-up (with more flair) for the Hive, and another for away matches. Other than that fortnightly adjustment [sic - my mistake, should be weekly] he just seems to be ploughing the same furrow, over and over again.
One Bees fan reasoned that they will win the league because Martin Allen had experience of being top virtually all season with Gillingham in 2012/13 and safely getting them over the League Two finishing line, whereas neither Darrell Clarke nor Paul Hurst (Grimsby Town) had.
Without trying to diminish the fact that Allen deserves immense credit for that promotion, this jolly Bee forgot to note that the Gills actually won only four of their final 13 games, and they were all narrow home wins; which is hardly inspiring as we come into the last dozen games of THIS season.
Anyone who could be bothered to summon up the energy to type ‘Darrell Clarke’ or ‘Paul Hurst’ into a browser will instantaneously spot two hard fraught promotions on both of their CV’s. Arrogant? Surely not.
Wilson Mizner led a frankly outlandish life, and during it came up with many now celebrated bon mots, including “Be kind to people on the way up; you’ll meet the same people on the way down”, which rather reminds me of Barnet. A few dozen fans on a forum will not always represent a club’s wider fan base of course, so I am willing to give them the benefit of the doubt, but these negative comments about us sound even more peculiar as there is no ‘history’ between us.
We’ve only ever met them 16 times, and the only real history is of us letting Giuliano Grazioli go to them in June 2003 as part of a player plus £110,000 swap for Manuel ‘Junior’ Agogo. Sadly for us it was other clubs who poached even more gifted players from them, such as Albert Adomah and Jason Puncheon.
It has been suggested that opposition teams raise their game against any league leaders, have ‘worked Barnet out’, and will work us out if we reach those heady heights. That may be true to some degree, but it would be a sorely shallow and shoddy analysis of a much more complex wobble, and just like Mr. Allen, anyone whose research stops at that sound bite would seem to be absent-mindedly admiring a beautiful African sunset whilst sailing on a felucca down the longest river in the world (i.e. in denial).
Barnet’s problems seem to be deeper than that, as a worryingly leaky defence is being married with a distinct lack of pace on the wings. Forum bees seem to be calling for the youthful exuberance of Mauro Vilhete and Luke Gambin on the wings, and the undoubtedly talented, but ponderous, Luisma Villa Lopez moving into the middle. Meanwhile last season’s top scorer, the mercurial Keanu Marsh-Brown, has been cold-shouldered by Allen and took to twitter before Saturday’s match to comment, “What a waste of a season“. Classy.
What I find strange is why no-one is talking about Macclesfield Town. To see this as a two horse race is bordering on the disdainful. There is no evidence to suggest that the Silkmen could not potentially win this league. I get a feeling no-one is mentioning them solely because they are not, (a) a team who have been top of the league nearly all season, and have a 26 goal top scorer, or (b) a team with large attendances, some decent players, a good young manager, and a passion to right the wrongs we committed last season. If their chances are to be judged solely on watching them once this season, taking a tonking from us 4-0 (incidentally their last loss), then of course many of us will scratch our heads and wonder how on earth they can be up there, but judged purely on statistics, especially when holding the joint best home record in the league and being top of the current form table, the Silkmen should be kept under vigilant surveillance.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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 he has just produced a new book about them, in collaboration with Rovers fans far and wide, young and old - www.awaythegas.org.uk
