Underground, overground, the 163; all of these lead you to Wimbledon in south west London where a settlement has existed since the Iron Age, prior to which the land had been seen as too creased to inhabit.
Continue reading “Go Away: AFC Wimbledon”
Well, let’s start with the positives. It can’t be as bad as last year… can it? After the doom-laden pages of the relegation special that was issue 108, now comes the unbridled optimism of a first fanzine issue of a new season.
Continue reading “popular STAND fanzine issue 109”
Hiraeth is a Welsh word meaning a homesickness for a home to which you cannot return, or a home which maybe never was. I’m not sure it has an antonym, but if it did, that is what I experienced on the last Saturday in August, 2021. Standing in uncharacteristic sunshine, looking over Blaenau Ffestiniog Amateurs’s Cae Clyd ground towards the mountains of Eryri – including the peak of Moelwyn Mawr which I’d been stood on just three hours earlier – I felt a pleasingly strong sense of finally returning home to a place I’d never previously lived.
Continue reading “How I watched football: 2021-22”
At the end of the summer I sat in the same spot I’m writing this editorial, whilst Richie Wellens looked back at me and my decor via Zoom, and told me that he didn’t foresee Rovers being in a relegation battle come the second half of the season. A couple of weeks later Gavin Baldwin told the BBC that ‘we are nowhere near [a relegation battle] at this stage’.
Continue reading “Editorial: Where did it all go wrong for Doncaster Rovers in 2021-22?”
Well, thank God that’s all over. A terrible season that started badly and never really looked like getting better. A 46 game-long slow trudge towards League Two. Each of our most recent engagements with the fourth tier have ended in promotion… it’s hard to see 2022-23 going a similar way.
Continue reading “popular STAND fanzine issue 108”
OK, with seven games left beyond it this match wasn’t quite must-win. But as terrible as the rest of League One’s bottom six are, they can’t possibly keep fucking up forever, so this was a real opportunity to attack a match and put ourselves a frankly implausible one point from safety.
Continue reading “Fleetwood Town 0-0 Doncaster Rovers: 250 word match report”
Recently I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s all Nick Clegg’s fault. OK, not Doncaster Rovers propping up the League One table, nor the abject season of awfulness that’s caused it, but the weird atmosphere of division among supporters watching on.
Continue reading “Editorial: How do you solve a problem like the Rovers?”
This is only the penultimate edition of the fanzine for 2021-22, but you won’t have to get far through its pages to see that the majority of our correspondents are already accepting of it ending in relegation. Rovers have had a mini resurgence, just before this issue went to print, but it hasn’t been enough of a revival to switch faint hopes the way of creeping beliefs.
Continue reading “popular STAND fanzine issue 107”
Right, cards on the table from the off here so we all know where we stand before I crack on. When I read that Gary McSheffrey had been given the role of Doncaster Rovers manager permanently my first reaction was disappointment. It wasn’t what I’d been hoping for, for two reasons. Firstly because he’s done a great job with the academy, and if we’re to salvage some sort of continuity from the last 18 months then I felt this was the space in which to do it, and let him carry on his good work. And secondly, because I felt that what our squad needed was a fresh pair of eyes on it to come in, without allegiance or empathy, and make bold decisions on what happens in the January transfer window.
Continue reading “You can’t spell new manager without ‘anger’”
The thing with football fanzines is that they tend to be much easier to write when things are going badly. You’ve more material. More frustration and anger to channel. So with that in mind, it’s a long time since we’ve had it this good.
Continue reading “Editorial: On a disrupted season so far”
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