ROVERS FANZ VIEW COLUMN
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On Tuesday night, our FA Cup adventure finally came to an end. We made a game of it and scored a couple of goals, with Paul Tait ending his personal ten-match drought, but ultimately it was same old Rovers. Listening to the radio that night, it was refreshing to hear Jamie Shore's thoughts, and even when the commentator had the mike you could still hear Jamie in the background ranting and raving like one of the Gasheads down below in the away end. But once we had let Rochdale's substitute Pat McCourt slice us open for the deciding goal, you could almost picture him shaking his head in disbelief, seeing as he was already lost for words. In a way, I am glad that the Cup run is over. We could have done with more of that lovely prize money, but maybe now the final distraction is out of the way the reality will hit home that Rovers are in a huge hole. Indeed, having been treated to a misleading three-goal win up at Runcorn, I had completely forgotten about our shocking run in the league and only realised some time after Saturday's Oxford game that we were fast approaching an unwanted club record of successive league defeats. It's time to stop bemoaning our luck and the injury crisis and shake ourselves into life. Sure, Oxford were extremely fortunate to open the scoring with a wicked double deflection, but aren't you supposed to make your own luck in this game? Friends of mine who are fans of other clubs cannot believe that nobody is calling for the manager's head, and in terms of results Ray Graydon is certainly not producing. Maybe that's the mild-mannered Bristolian temperament for you, but up at Leeds they had the knives out for Terry Venables before his side's timely 3-0 win at Bolton last week. I'm all for giving managers time to bed in and construct their team, but how long have we got? We can't wait until we're in the Doc Martens League before we string a couple of victories together. I'm not saying there is anyone better out there, just that successful bosses tend to win more than four by Christmas. I think it was Jamie Shore who mentioned that Rovers were severely lacking in power, and maybe a couple of big ugly brutes would toughen us up when defending set-pieces, as well as give us a bigger presence when it's our turn to swing in a corner or free-kick. At the top of the league both Bournemouth and Rushden benefit from big target men in Steve Fletcher and Onandi Lowe respectively, but with no offence meant to Paul Tait, who is a lovely footballer, he is hardly a physical terror at 11 stone. In this division it is very difficult to out-football other teams, and the only time we have really succeeded in doing this was against Shrewsbury, who so happened to have the slowest pair of centre-halves I've seen in ages. But who are higher in the table? Yes, the Shrews. We have got two massive games in three days coming up with a visit to Swansea and then Boston locking horns with us at the Mem over the festive period. We cannot afford to lose these, otherwise the Conference will be calling even louder.
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