Another huge following travelled to Oxford last week to see if Rovers could grab a result against the odds and surprisingly we got one. Nobody can be sure whether the good or the bad Rovers will turn up on matchdays at the moment but this time we were treated to a sturdy performance from our rearguard as the high-flying Us failed in their attempts to beat Kevin Miller. After seeing his heroics against us for Exeter last season, I had been a little disappointed not to see such breathtaking antics in a Rovers jersey but in the recent Orient match Miller tipped a vicious curler onto the woodwork to save us a point and then served up a master class at the Kassam Stadium last week. Two saves in particular left many in the ground with mouths wide open in disbelief, as he scooped a point-blank Julian Alsop header up and over the bar and later stopped the ball dead on the line when top scorer Steve Basham was already turning away to celebrate. Oxford could find no way past him and they must be wondering what on earth they must do to lift their home Rovers bogey, which now stretches over ten years at both the old Manor Ground and the 'Kass-Stad', as the PA annoyingly called it. With such a record on our side I was half-hoping that we would draw them in the 1st Round of the FA Cup but instead we were paired with Bournemouth at the League's other three-sided stadium, on the South Coast. It would have been nice to play someone different, like Runcorn last year, and with the Cherries up near the top in their first season back in Division 2, it is going to be a very tall order to pick them off. Something like City's tie away at Bradford Park Avenue would have been a much more intriguing prospect but at least there is no embarrassment in going out to higher grade opponents, unlike with the big headlines given to non-league scalps. With our new-look defence finally plugging the gaps at the back, perhaps we may start to see some more attacking players back in the team as we aim to end a run of four games without a win. And with Kevin Street gone and Lee Hodges joining Junior Agogo in the knee clinic, Ray Graydon has brought in winger Ryan Williams from Hull, who says he prefers to play on the left which is just the ticket. In fact he sounds a lot like Hodges, with a short and stocky frame coupled with dribbling ability and a tendency to drift in from the left flank to shoot with his stronger right foot. A goal in his only outing for Hull this year can't be a bad thing, especially for a team like us who are struggling to score at the moment. By the time we play at the Mem again, I suspect many fans will have forgotten what some of the players look like, seeing as it will have been three and a half weeks since the Leyton Orient game when we host Bury. For those that cannot travel with Rovers, an away Cup draw was not very welcome considering the current fixture list and it will be a fortnight until many can see Williams in action. We seem to have had home and away fixtures in bunches and twice already we have had back-to-back home games on a Saturday and Tuesday, which is a financial strain for many fans who don't have season tickets. Thankfully the Club help out with the occasional reduced price match, like the Mansfield game in September, but I'm sure several clubs don't do this and supporters are forced to pay full whack twice in four days to see their teams. © Chris Chappell - Friday 31st October 2003 Back to Index