Football Rovers hierarchy must provide clarity on way forward

BRISTOL Rovers have been relegated from League One, three years on from that famous 7-0 win over Scunthorpe that sealed promotion out of League Two in the most dramatic fashion.

- Dan HARGRAVES

The Gas were all but down on Saturday evening after Burton Albion beat Cambridge United 2-1 following their 2-0 defeat to Reading, but Burton's 1-1 draw with Wigan Athletic on Tuesday night mathematically sealed their fate.

Seventeenth and 15th-placed finishes saw Rovers consolidate themselves back in the third tier over the last two seasons, but this campaign has been nothing short of a disaster. Ambitions of pushing into the top half and laying foundations for giving promotion to the Championship a real shot now look implausible as, yet again, the football club will have to pick themselves up and dust themselves off.

Hours upon hours of tireless graft to pull the Gas away from doom and gloom have been neglected. Like him or loathe him, Rovers should have been in a strong position to take the next step and build upwards when Joey Barton and his backroom team left in late 2023. However, the club find themselves back where they started... again.

This is the fifth time Rovers have been relegated this century. Prior to the turn of the millennium, the club had just three in their entire existence since formation in 1883. The feeling of the drop has become far too familiar for Gasheads and, yet again, that Championship dream feels as distant as ever.

The Pirates' predicament certainly isn't what was pledged by the Al Saeeds when they arrived at the club in August 2023, and also wouldn't have been what they had anticipated.