CAN
YOU HEAR THE SOUTH STAND SING? |
Prior to the Torquay game, we’d played a total of ten fixtures at the Mem this season. According to the official site the number of away supporters attending these games had been a grand 2,408 – or less than 250 per game. Which begs the question – why do we give them some of the very few seats that we have in the stadium, and more importantly why do we give them an area which in recent years has been highly popular with those bringing youngsters to games? Maybe this wasn’t such an issue under the Atkins regime, when to be honest you almost didn’t want youngsters to have their first experience of the Gas as it would probably have put them off. But with the team showing signs of turning things around and suggestions that previous stay-aways are thinking of returning, it’s surely time to reconsider this policy (and especially so if we were to start a drive for promotion). Yes, there were valid reasons for the move in the close season when it looked as though the diggers may be going in to replace the North Terrace and the Centenary Terrace would have been needed to house the majority of the home crowd. But with the emergence of the new plans for the regeneration of the whole ground that is not now the case. It would be a crying shame if the club missed out on winning a new generation of fans by asking them to stand in a packed Bass Terrace or on an uncovered Centenary Terrace when one of the few covered seating areas was inhabited by a couple of hundred away fans. If anything, the Torquay game highlighted even more the bizarreness
of the current system. The Gulls brought only 453 fans, who would
have fitted quite nicely into the “old” away end at the
end of the Centenary Terrace. Instead, half were in that part and
the other half were standing in the South Stand. While all of this
was taking place, of course, a number of Rovers families who used
to sit in that part of the ground were either paying a hugely inflated
price to sit in the Centenary Stand/West stand or maybe not attending
at all as they weren’t able to purchase a season ticket for
their favoured part of the ground. |