ROVERS FANZ VIEW COLUMN
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There are a lot of lengthy, tiring trips for a Rovers away fan in the Third Division. I remember when we were in the Second that a lot of journeys were straight up the M5 and M6 to the Lancashire area, what with your Wigans, Oldhams, Burnleys and Blackpools. Seeing that I was living at University in Birmingham, those jaunts were further reduced by at least an hour, and we also used to win a few up there which made this going away lark quite painless really. Demotion to the Third brought with it a far more daunting itinerary, and now we plan for awkward North Easterly outposts, which for Bristolians could not be much further away. People talk about regional football being an inevitability of the future, but I reckon we already have it. Anything remotely near the Eastern seaboard is in Division Three, and these sorties across England mean you have to dice with log-jams getting around the Midlands in rush hour - and that's the easy bit. Most of these places are nowhere near motorways, especially England's newest footballing hotspot, Lincolnshire, and even the long-standing M1 peters out into dribs and drabs as you venture towards Durham. It's just as well that we're not one of the Devon clubs or even Swansea City, as I'm beginning to think that entry into this Division for us South Westerners should come with free DVT relief socks. Our stunning away record of recent years means that making these journeys is becoming more of a purgatorial exercise, with our previous big trip wins now more than a year ago at Scunny and Lincoln. I'll be on navigation duty for Hartlepool this Tuesday, but I have to admit that I was not one of the masochists who made it to York last week. I was merely an excitable listener on the radio, but those loyal followers must have been rubbing their eyes in amazement as Rovers turned around a deficit to be leading at half-time. Anwar Uddin scored his first ever goal to cap a promising introduction to League football so far, while the legend from Latvia Vitas Astafjevs struck another beauty to edge us in front. But as one man after another required a stretcher to leave the field, our resistance faded and York knocked in a frustrating last minute goal when our concentration went for a second and again our travelling support would have been cursing in their Corsas on the way back down. Having noted that Rovers had given physio Phil Kite an easy ride so far, we then go and suffer five injuries in a week, and the team for Exeter in the LDVs got a major shuffle. Why is it that we always get drawn with Plymouth or Exeter in every Cup competition? I know the Vans is regional, but there are plenty of other teams in this part of the world. Maybe the fact that Shrewsbury was in the Northern section while Chester, some 40 miles directly to the North, were in the Southern area, suggests that there is something wrong with the Football League's computer. Anyway, Neil Arndale made his first start and apparently did well, despite the one-goal defeat, while our new strike force of David Lee and Adrian Coote were paired together for the first time. We've had some terrible experiences with loan strikers in recent times, and I just hope that these two don't follow in some infamous non-scoring footsteps, while our own young strikers rot on the bench. Coote is at least an international with Northern Ireland, while Lee appears to be more of a midfielder from what I've read about him at Southend and Hull. So it's the FA Cup draw this weekend - what are the odds on Plymouth or Exeter then?
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