Glovers on a roll

It's local derby time! Well, local-ish. Bristol Rovers v Yeovil Town doesn't quite have the same tradition attached to it as Everton v Liverpool, Spurs v Arsenal or even Wrexham v Chester City; nevertheless it's the nearest thing that we've got to a derby match now that Weymouth are evidently doomed to disappear into a black hole of their own making, so we might as well make the most of it.

At least you would hope that we'd make the most of it, however it appears that we're not even going to come close to selling out our 1300 ticket allocation for the match, which is disappointing. Not that I can criticise anyone for not going to an away match, the last time I travelled away for a league game was to Kidderminster 4-5 years ago and that was only because I fancied a curry from their excellent snackbar. I didn't even go to Wembley for the play-off final three years ago, so no-one can accuse me of being a glory-hunter either. Going to away games is a vastly over-rated occupation in my humble opinion. More often than not you have to get up ludicrously early on a Saturday morning for the doubtful privilege of getting stuck in an horrendous queue of traffic for hours at a time on an anonymous motorway somewhere in the midlands, or worse still, up north. When you eventually reach your destination you can never find a pub selling decent beer and decent food, at best you may find one but never both. And then at the match itself, after running the gauntlet outside the ground of intimidating home yobbos intent on kicking the living shit out of hapless away fans you settle down in your seat (right next to another bunch of intimidating home yobbos intent on kicking the living shit out of hapless away fans) and watch your team put 11 men behind the ball in an effort to grind out a 0-0 draw; while all the time getting soaked in steady rain and deafened by a cretin with a drum who sits right behind you. Away games? You can stick 'em.

My Saturday routine when the Glovers are away is now well established and genuinely enjoyable. It consists of one window on my pc open on the best possible internet stream on which the Spurs match is featuring, another window open on the green room and another on the Sporting Life site. At the same time I have Jeff Stelling and chums on the tv and I'm as well-informed and entertained as it's possible for one football fan to be. I can have a drink and a smoke when I want, I'm warm and dry and I don't miss a goal. If all that makes me a bad fan then I'll hold my hands up. I don't miss a home game and thoroughly enjoy watching live footy. I just wouldn't go further than a mile or two these days to see it.

Anyway, I digress. Back to Saturday's match and the bookies have the Gas as favourites at 4/5 on, the draw is tempting at 5/2 and a Glovers win is priced at 7/2. Rovers started the season on fire but have had a blip over their last couple of games, losing them both. Yeovil are 5 games unbeaten now and while I can't see us winning at the Mem on Saturday I can see us not losing - my fiver's going on the draw. Running total: +£9.50p.

Skivo's got another decision to make regarding his team selection for Saturday, and it's the same conumdrum he had to solve last Saturday - namely, six loan signings into one matchday squad won't go. He surely will not change a winning team so I would expect Jon Obika to miss out once again and for the team to be unchanged from last week.

Finally, a curious little story to end the week with and illustrate, yet again, the club's unerring ability to shoot itself in the foot and alienate fans while at the same time push out someone who's given the club many years of loyal service. It emerged on the green room earlier in the week that the Glovers on a Roll burger van run by a gentleman known to one and all as Choppy was to close for good, and Choppy given the boot. The van was to be found on the top pitch car park week days and served the local community and factories/businesses around, as well as supporters on match days. It seems that the local council's licence charges of £350 per month, plus Choppy's wages, was enough to push the whole operation into unprofitability and the club, perhaps understandably, pulled the plug. So far so unfortunate, especially for Choppy, but that's life, eh? After all, there's a recession on and plenty of people are losing their jobs. The club even put a small tribute to Choppy on the official site, which was nice, and more than the likes of Stuart Housley and John Flatters ever got. What wasn't so nice however was this advert that the club placed in the Western Gazette at the same time this week:

Catering department: require Full or Part time Catering wagon staff to work Monday to Friday. Please contact Clive Robinson at Yeovil Town Football club for further details. 01935 423662 Extension 222 or 215.

So with one hand the club waves goodbye to an old employee popular with supporters and regular customers on the grounds that they can't afford to keep him; with the other they're trying to recruit someone new, to do the same job in the same van they've previously refused to pay the licence for. Something doesn't quite add up. There's a nasty taste left in the mouth. And it's not Choppy's burgers that's causing that.

Just watched: Masterchef: The Professionals. (BBC2). Talking of food, I enjoy cooking programmes generally but this one is the pick of the bunch, though Saturday Kitchen on BBC1 runs it close. Always interesting to see what food the contestants produce but the real stars of the show are the two judges, Michel and the ex-football hooligan, Greg. There's something very sensual about the way both men eat their food, the way they load their forks (or spoons) with huge portions and then oh so slowly push them into their gaping maws and masticate thoroughly, and then lovingly identify every single ingredient used to make the dish. I've even caught myself doing the same thing now at home at mealtimes which doesn't half piss off my better half when she plonks a plate of sausages, fried eggs, baked beans and chips down in front of me, but that's another story. Nice to see the right chef win the thing anyway and roll on the next series.