The opponent: Doncaster Rovers
Well, the last 2 weeks seem to have dragged by in football terms. A largely uneventful couple of weeks at the County Ground will hopefully have given the team plenty of time to prepare for the visit of today’s opposition, Doncaster Rovers, managed by Welsh forward, and ex-scummer Dean Saunders. Formed like ourselves, in 1879, ‘Donny’ turned professional some 6 years later and have spent a majority of their existence in the two lowest tiers of English football. If we thought we had boardroom issues in the past it is well worth looking into the conduct of former majority shareholder Ken Richardson back in the 90’s. During the early 90s, Ken Richardson, who was later described by detectives as "the type that would trample a two-year-old child to pick up a 2p bit", took over as the majority shareholder of the club. He ploughed a lot of money into Doncaster Rovers with one thing on his mind, a new stadium. When he was refused a new stadium by the council he soon lost interest. Richardson hired three men to torch Belle Vue and planned to sell the ground to developers. The attempt put Richardson in jail for four years, ruined Belle Vue and Rovers were edging closer to relegation. In 1998 Rovers dropped out of the league with a −83 goal difference. He withdrew his financial backing and as a result the club was subject to an administration order. The better players left to ease some of the financial burden but unfortunately, the players who were left at Rovers were just not up to the task. The fans blamed Richardson for effectively destroying Rovers and even a funeral was held at Belle Vue on the last game of the 1997/98 season complete with coffin along Carr House Road. Just weeks after Rovers were relegated, Richardson was found guilty of trying to set fire to the Rovers ground, apparently hoping to pay off the clubs debts with the insurance money. Diamandis? Meh, amateur.
Doncaster, in South Yorkshire in the early 12th century, as a result of the Treaty of Durham, became a possession of the King of Scotland as part of the peace treaty, the transfer of authority is thought to have never been formally reversed, so in theory, we are playing a Scottish team today. Local MP for Doncaster Rovers is none other than the leader of The Labour Party, Ed Milliband, whether he has any interest in today’s outcome remains to be seen. Down the years, Doncaster has always been an industrial part of Yorkshire. Mining played a massive part in the local economy, until the closures began in the 80’s, and during the Industrial Revolution, The Great Northern Railway established the Doncaster Locomotive and Carriage Building Works. Another famous company to hail from Doncaster was Parkinson’s, the creators of Murray Mints and Nuttalls Mintoes, and after 190 years of trading, Parkinson’s sold their titles on eBay to the highest bidder.
Doncaster itself has a population of around 70’000, one Doncastrian known to us at Swindon is former Pox teenage fiddler, Graham Rix, who has now been off the Sex Offenders register for some 3 years now and is managing the mighty Central FC of Trinidad and Tobago. As part of his rehabilitation it is thought he molests the islands Yak’s once a week. Doncaster have also given us the inventor of the flushing toilet, Thomas Crapper, Top Gear irritant, Jeremy Clarkson, Footballing legend, Billy Bremner, Actor Brian Blessed, Crooner Tony Christie, one of the little turds from One Direction, and my personal favourite, William Hague.
What are they saying about us? – “I really love that Magic Roundabout. Bloody ace thing it is. You can go any way you like - there's always, always an alternative route to wherever you're trying to get to.
Bloody scary first time I ever saw it though!”
“I hope our flash South West Exiles flag will be there”
"We've got a manager, you've got a dicky bloke..."
http://www.drfc-vsc.co.uk/index.php?topic=235980.0Doncaster Rovers Last 6 – LLWWWW (Currently 2nd on 39 points, level with Tranmere who are 1st)
The Threat – Dave Cotterill leads the way with 8 goals, Chris Brown has netted 7 so far this season. They also have Iain Hume on their books who is capable of scoring a few. Sammy Clingan and Robbie Blake are also on the books at Doncaster.
A Warm Welcome Too - Doncaster’s number 8, Billy Paynter, who has hit the back of the net 5 times so far this season. Sods law says he scores today.
The irrelevant stats – There is no way of tarting it up, Donny’s away form is bloody good, and they have only lost once on their travels so far this season. Out of the 39 points accumulated, 23 of those have came away from The Keepmoat Stadium, at the same time they have scored 17 goals and only conceded 6, something of a formidable record. They have only failed to score once away from home, so we will need to be at our best if we are to have any hope of keeping a clean sheet.
Head to Head – There have only been 9 previous league encounters between us, Swindon having won 3, Doncaster 2 and 4 draws. The last time we met the game ended up in a 2-1 defeat with Simon Cox scoring the Town goal.
The Odds – Swindon
4/5 Draw
13/5 Doncaster Rovers
10/3 (Bet 365) Looks quite a big price for Rovers considering their away form. Fancy a 4-2 home victory? Coral are offering
80/1 on that, just a quid on it would be a fairly decent piss up, even in these times of Austerity. The first goalscorer odds don’t really vary much from week to week, so an outside bet I may have a go on is Darren Ward to score 1st at
33/1. I think he has put some decent shifts in as of late and his recent goal may well be the confidence boost he appeared to so desperately need. Oddly enough, Donny’s top scorer, Cotterill, is currently
16/1 with Bet365 to score 1st and Paynter is around the
9/1 price!
Sid Says – I thought he may take a bit of coaxing this week, so I stole a bit of Ivy off the neighbours house. The stick insect world’s answer to Doris Stokes/Derek Acorah says 3-1 victory to the mighty Town.
The Prediction – Although the odds suggest otherwise, I think a tough encounter is on the cards. Saunders will have them set up well, they have a large, talented squad (and Paynter), so based on this, a 2-1 victory is on the cards, with goals from Ritchie and Ward in front of 7’722 (387 from oop north)
And Finally – Doncaster were involved in the longest ever football match, against Stockport County on 30th March 1946. The second-leg of a Division Three (North) cup tie was tied at 2-2 after extra time so the referee decided to carry on until someone scored. After 203 minutes the game was finally stopped. Rovers won the replay 4-0. Now I have heard of ‘Fergie Time’, but surely Howard Webb wasn’t around back then?
