Editorial: What’s the point?

Editorial: What’s the point?

‘What’s the point?’ Never a good sign when those three words leave your mouth is it? Usually means you’ve run out of patience, of self-belief, of desire, of fight, and chosen instead to accept the warm embrace of futility. It’s not all bad, futility, for a start it’s much less labour intensive than trying. But it’s not fun. It’s a place of defeat. The mountain of emails, the rising cost of living, the sodding thing that won’t just clip into this bastard other bit has beaten you. Why fight it?

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Editorials: popular STAND issue 1

Editorials: popular STAND issue 1

April 2023 marks 25 years since popular STAND fanzine was first foisted on unsuspecting Doncastrian punters who were trying to mind their business in The Park Hotel. And though the pub in which this ‘zine first appeared may be no more, there’s mercifully no sign of us being turned into an Italian restaurant… not yet.

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Editorial: Board Out? Board In? Or Just Shake It All About?

Editorial: Board Out? Board In? Or Just Shake It All About?

“I can cope with being in the National League, relegation is part of being a football fan, but what I want is a sustainable club with decent morals and values and not one which is part of one man’s ego.”

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popular STAND fanzine issue 111

popular STAND fanzine issue 111

There will be people who tell you that ‘the club’s fan base has never been so divided’ as it is right now. But to be honest, in the 12 years I’ve been editor of this fanzine, I can’t recall a single point where all Rovers fans have been united in their view on the club. Perhaps those 18 seconds at Griffin Park. But I suspect within a minute of James Coppinger tossing his shirt into the crowd, someone in the away end was criticising the club for missing out on a play-off pay day.

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In Off the Postbag: The Miseducation of Paul James

In Off the Postbag: The Miseducation of Paul James

In early 2012 one-time Doncaster Rovers midfielder Paul James released his autobiography. In Cracked Open the Canadian international talks frankly about the cocaine addiction he suffered during his later career as a coach. He also looks back at his playing career, including his brief time as a Rover. Ahead of issue 59 of popular STAND, subscriber Ralph Davies sent us the excerpt from James’ book which focussed on what proved to be an eye-opening spell at Belle Vue for the then 24-year old.

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Marshall Matters: Starting to take a back seat

Marshall Matters: Starting to take a back seat

In the last edition of this fanzine I wrote about enjoying the opening games and weeks of a new season. About optimism and about how enjoying watching football should be the thing which sets the tone, not the results or what they might mean.

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For Peat’s Sake: To Barrow… via Dublin

For Peat’s Sake: To Barrow… via Dublin

The streets of South London were eerily quiet as I emerged from my house and walked the short distance down the road to the tram stop. An early autumn breeze blew through the trees and the skies were still dark, occasionally illuminated by streetlights and the big forecourt sign at the Shell garage. 

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Editorial: Managerial hope not hate

Editorial: Managerial hope not hate

When he was still a player, Gary McSheffrey dated a girl at our university. He even turned up for a Christmas Ball once, wearing a pair of remarkable brogues, and thus without prompting everyone who saw him in Lincoln’s Engine Shed that night remarked, ‘he’s smaller than you’d think… nice shoes though’. To the point that it became a catchphrase among our friendship group, used whenever he popped up in any of our football-watching lives. ‘I see your lot have signed McSheffrey, what’s he like?’ ‘Oh OK… smaller than you’d think… nice shoes though’.

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