And to think we’d been so full of optimism in issue 109 back in August. Ordinarily we’d do an ‘if a week is a long time in politics it’s an age in football’ gag here, but given there’s no guarantee we’ll still have the same Home Secretary when I finish this sentence as we did when I began typing it, that comparison is a little redundant. Still, it’s most definitely been a rollercoaster start to Rovers 2022-23 season.
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It’s twenty years since Rovers first wore squad numbers, which means it’s also twenty years since we received our favourite ever letter. Reprinted here from issue 20, first published in the fanzine October of 2002.
Continue reading “In Off the Postbag: Shirt Shrift”
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.
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Jack Peat set out to tackle this season’s most pressing question; why weren’t Rovers relegated sooner?
In all my years of watching Rovers, I can recall only a handful that have felt as abysmal as this one. Indeed, off-field matters excluded, this has probably been the worst. Performances both home and away have been uninspiring. Players have struggled to gel. Any positive moments have been fleeting and all too often dissipated in the same puff of smoke in which they appeared. It has been tough, and few people reading these pages will need reminding of that, but what has been most perplexing of all in my view is that we weren’t put out of our misery sooner.
Continue reading “The Bottom Six”
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”
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.
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On the opening page of issue 105 of popular STAND I promised that we wouldn’t be bottom of League One by the time issue 106 came round. I have to be honest, I was hoping to be somewhat higher than 23rd, but hey, a win’s a win.
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New season, new manager, new players; a fresh start, a time for optimism. Right? Well ordinarily yes, least that’s usually the case when we put out our first issue of a Rovers campaign.
Continue reading “popular STAND fanzine: issue 105”
Perhaps the greatest tribute Rovers could offer in a year of false dawns over lockdown-easing and returns to normality, was a season that got us all excited about what was coming, only to emphatically disappoint and then drag on longer than anyone really cared for it. I laid the groundwork for issue 103 by telling you how upbeat the contents were, ‘a true testament to the hope and excitement that Darren Moore’s Rovers have offered us’. Come this release of 104 and that statement has aged like a fine milk.
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popular STAND fanzine 