Our second tier sojourn wasn’t supposed to end like this; we were supposed to amble off into the sunset like The Littlest Hobo having taught everyone a lesson about sticking to your principles, but instead we got greedy, panicked, and gambled relatively solid foundations and a glowing reputation on a flawed strategy encompassing most of the game’s ills which failed spectacularly. It’s hard to convey the pain of seeing this unfold, but imagine you discovered your loved one was having an affair … and then imagine that affair was with Willie McKay.
…the whole visible population is in a hurry; scuttling quickly from cover to cover as if they’re trying to avoid sniper fire. The bus driver too is in a similar rush, he takes my money without taking his eyes from the road, and throughout the journey rattles off tree branches like Alberto Tomba clipping slalom poles.
I’m a Doncaster Rovers supporter, because I grew up in Doncaster. I didn’t enter into this looking for success and glory. I went along to cheer on my home town against the rest of the world, whether that rest of the world be represented by Altrincham or Arsenal. Its very rare in life you will hear people say, “I wish I was born in Doncaster”. Samuel Johnson did not write “When a man is tired of Doncaster, he is tired of life,” and for good reason too.
It’s a perplexing model which can’t be doing anything for the confidence of long-term players who have already proved themselves at this level and now find themselves kicking their heels as the revolving door spins open yet again
(Source: theseventytwo.com)
August. Kerry Dixon stands centre-stage. Dixon had been in charge at Doncaster a year. His arrival, initially as player-manager, had been a surprise for many, most notably his predecessor Sammy Chung who had first learned of Dixon’s appointment just 90 minutes before the opening game of the 1996-97 season when he opened the door to what he presumed to be his office to find the former Chelsea forward sitting at what up until that precise moment had been his desk.
Between Doncaster and Sheffield she says “yeah” more times that I have in a decade. She has only one volume setting; ‘ear-splitting empathy’; “Oh it’ll just be another day for these surgeons… It’ll be like watching Holby City for him wont it, you know, only anesthetized”
“Is this the Cardiff train?” asks a guy just outside Cwmbran, despite having been on board for five minutes. I contemplate telling him it isn’t, just to see if he’ll open the door and barrel-roll down the embankment.
