‘Loyalty is a thing of the past’

According to the New Testament, Judas Iscariot was one of the twelve original disciples of Jesus Christ. He is known for the kiss and betrayal of Jesus to the Sanhedrin for thirty silver coins.

Now I’m not naïve. I don’t expect a return to sepia-tinted days of one-club men, turning down moves in order to stay with their boyhood heroes. Nor do I expect players to have boyhood heroes; many professionals spend so much of their formative years playing the game that they don’t fall in love with bricks and mortar and shirt colours like we mere mortals do.

The money in the game bothers me at the top, but less so at our level. A report last year put the average weekly wage in League One to be £1500, and it’s fair to say that a first-team striker with a healthy goals record, I won’t be mentioning any names, might be on twice or even three times that. No problem with that.

If said striker, on said money, wants to earn more than that, thinks he can play at a higher level, and wants to engineer a move, that’s fine – well-run clubs don’t hold onto players who don’t want to  stay, they get a deal, sell the striker on, and wish him the best.

But, even in a world where the player and agent are kings, and loyalty is a thing of the past (on all sides), there’s one thing you don’t do. A certain person did that yesterday. If reports are to be believed, said person turned down the chance to talk to other clubs in order to sign for our neighbours over the river. If he’d gone anywhere else, we’d be wishing him all the best. 

What a lovely way to thank the club and manager that pulled him up from nothing when he was a free agent, a failure at Forest Green, and kept faith in him when his Gas career false-started in the fifth tier two-and-a-half years ago. His statement when interviewed after the move, talking about HIS success, as if his manager and team-mates were mere spectators, and as if Marcus Stewart didn’t coach him from being a no-mark to a good lower league striker, was pretty disgusting.  No best wishes, no thanks for the support, nothing. 

Folk will throw stones at the management, asking why we even did business with City, but all the usual media sources say there was a clause in the contract, signed in July after said striker strung us along for half the summer, and the reds met it. Our hands were tied. 

I’d still question why (a) player and agent were happy to do the move so late and (b) why the bid came in so late. From the player’s point of view it doesn’t seem that giving us time to buy a replacement entered his thoughts. From City’s, it looks increasingly like they’ve bought a player who is by no stretch guaranteed to succeed, given his lack of experience at that level, as a PR move; to give their fans something to cheer about, at our expense, to deflect from their record-breaking run of defeats and relegation battle. The way a few of their ex-players (and current employees) were tweeting on Tuesday, you’d be forgiven for thinking that was the case.

I don’t want to harp on too much about them, no club is all bad and we’re all friends with a few reds, but the way they announced it was crass in the extreme. “Welcome to Bristol” was the tagline for their announcement. Strange to act as if we don’t exist when buying our player just to make your supporters smile at us instead of scowling at your mismanagement.

One thing is certain. If they fall through the trapdoor, or we miraculously react to the loss of our main goal threat by sneaking promotion via the play-offs, the scenes will resemble Sol Campbell’s return to White Hart Lane or Luis Figo re-entering Barcelona in Real Madrid colours. No sane person would condone any kind of inappropriate behaviour of course, but the striker has re-ignited an old rivalry that has slept for a few years while we have rebuilt our football club from the ashes.

He, of course, played a part in the revival and that is a matter of record. I can’t thank him. I can’t wish him all the best. If you filled the Memorial Ground with our supporters and asked for a show of hands for who wishes him nothing but failure from now on, you’d see a lot of hands. That might seem extreme, a bit irrational, about a man leaving one job for another, but when what is rational about following the game we love?

But Bristol Rovers is more than one player. Barring an incredible run of results, a quiet end to the season awaits. That’s fine – only the very greedy would expect three promotions in a row. Before Darrell Clarke, we’d had three promotions in 40 years, after all. Next season provides Darrell with a chance to rebuild the team – keep those who can still cut it, say goodbye to those who have served with distinction and wish them well, and replace those who chose to sully their Rovers career.

Much, understandably, will be made of our failure to sign another striker on deadline day. The issue with buying a player directly after selling one is that any selling club and every agent knows that they can put their demands up – it seems like Darrell would rather get the right man on the right deal in June than dive into the last-chance saloon, and while I understand the clamour to sign someone, anyone, I respect the manager’s stance.