After a terrific return of seven points from our three games over the Christmas period we have a break from L1 and entertain Bristol City in an FA Cup third round tie.
I mentioned when the draw was made that i remembered attending a third round tie against Bristol City back on 4th January 1964 as a boy.
We drew the game 2-2 and lost the replay 2-0.
City lost 6-1 at Sunderland in round four.
City come to us this time as top of L1 having won 14 of their 23 league games so far.
However they have had a bit of a wobble of late, losing three of their last six matches in the league.
Earlier in the season Bristol had an easy 3-0 victory over us at Ashton Gate when there was the first ever video footage of a player literally falling asleep in his own six yard box.
It was of course Cedric Evina who nodded off as a Bristol player sneaked up on him to poke the ball into our net.
The first time the two sides met was in the 1901/02 season when we lost away 3-0 and won at home by the same score.
I wonder what our fans would prefer if we had the choice, a 3-0 cup win or a 3-0 league win later in the season?
In matches between us, the home side has usually had the better of things.
We have won only twice at Bristol and they have won only three times in Donny.
Overall though City have 17 wins to our 11 with 11 games being drawn.
Just as a little aside, whenever i think or hear of Ashton Gate it always provokes thoughts of what happened to Alick in that fatefull England game all those years ago.
Bristol City came down from the Championship in 2013 and were managed by our former manager SoD.
Towards the end of his reign there City went on a club record run on no wins in 21 matches from March to November 2013.
SoD of course had a similar run when he was our manager.
Of course we all remember that run very well so how our fans can remain so negative about PD when we are in our current situation really beats me.
If we win our game in hand we go level on points with the Blunts who of course are in sixth place.
Is there only me on 606 who can see that we are heading in the right direction?
Of course we will lose more games this season and at that time i expect some adverse comments to what i have written here but all the teams around us will also lose games so i expect us to keep pace with the teams chasing the play off positions.
Someone on here posted a comment that PD "had lost the dressing room".
Comments by our players, including Richie Wellens only this week, tell us that this is not the case.
We really do have such a negative bunch of fans.
Anyway, following SoDs' departure along came Steve Cotterill who has been in charge of City for just over a year now.
Very obviously he has done well but has had the luxury of good financial backing by the City owners.
Cotterill is a manager that i have a personal dislike of.
It goes back to a game between Portsmouth and the Rovers in SoDs' time with us when a Pompey player (i think he was called Dickinson) nearly cut James Hayter in half and was red carded right in front of the dugouts.
We went on to win the game but afterwards Cotterill said that Hayter had dived and that the foul wasn't even worthy of a booking.
He went down and stayed down in my estimation after that.
Cotterill has said that it will be a "tough" game on Saturday (don't all managers say the same) and their captain Derrick Williams has acknowledged that we will be a totally different proposition from the team that they easily beat in September.
He, unlike our fans it would seem, acknowledges the improvement in our team.
City have ex Scuum player Matt Smith on loan to them from Fulham and they have asked for permission for him to play in this game.
I am hoping that Fulham refuse because his height and strength up front always causes us problems.
Finally, as i mentioned last week, the game on Saturday will be Furmans last one with us for at least a month following his call up by South Africa to play in tournament football.
If SA go all the way to the final we could be without him until mid February which is a massive blow as the team has benefitted from his contribution to our one man up front set up which we have reverted to.
It would be great to progress in the FA Cup because in all my years of Rovers watching i can't recall us going any further than the fourth round.
I know that we have reached the fifth round but i believe that it was in the fifties, before i started going.
ROVERS V BRISTOL CITY FA CUP THREAD
posted on 4/1/15
I think the silence says it all.
posted on 4/1/15
"We didn't play well in the first half but it had nothing to do with Doncaster".
The above is a comment by the to55er Steve Cotterill !!
What a k n o b he is.
posted on 5/1/15
I have just watched the so called highlights on player and what a disgrace.
They showed two attempts from City in the first half, then went right to the Rovers goal and followed that with three or four City attempts leading to their goal.
They then showed Bennett's miss at the end, from what I heard we DID play yesterday, they didn't let City on the pitch on their own did they?
posted on 5/1/15
They did the same on the BBC website highlights.
Anyone who saw the game will know differently and the match stats back up what we were saying.
posted on 5/1/15
Looking forward to seeing more. It was less than 30 seconds on MotD and the 1m 52sec on the website suggests City had the better of it which was not so of course.
We are almost non-existent as far as the TV people are concerned; they discussed Peterborough after last week's match and the previous week they actually featured the game at Swindon but still managed to avoid any but the briefest mention of us.
I took heart from Cotterill’s comments. He refused to agree with his interviewer’s prompt that our goal was fortunate because it came off the post. Instead he said we had the better of the first half and deserved the goal we got. Praise indeed in my book.
I still want to see the man who Hound has dubbed my idol in the team even though I have never seen him play. What about a debut start at Ashton Gate? If he could ever begin to emulate Alick, it would be a symbolic place to begin.
posted on 5/1/15
I suspect that Cotterill is by a long chalk my least favourite manager. Graceless and wholly charmless.
posted on 5/1/15
Johnstone loan extended for a month to January 28th. Only Butler to sort out now.
posted on 6/1/15
Thanks hound.
Still in tenerife
posted on 6/1/15
Two and a half year deal gets Butler for Rovers.
posted on 6/1/15
This is good news and the two and a half year deal shows encouraging "long termism". Let's hope that this commitment beyond the end of this season becomes a feature of club policy now.