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The official twitter site of the pub league - Van thingy - said on the day of the game the Few had sold 27,000 tickets.

I think by this point Godsiff was sports editor, or some loftier position, with Perry covering them and Latham us. As I remember it. Could be wrong. All so very long ago now (although some things still come to mind easily, clearly....) I'll get down the central library over the summer and check....

To be fair to them, I don't think they actually started all this "tremendous support" fairytale Jackanory silliness. As I remember it now, the E. Post initiated this when they left Eastville - because of not owning their own ground, which was a result of insufficient dosh, which was a result of having shite support (which was a result of having a shite team, which was a result of having shite support. Which was .... etc etc) - and trudged over to Bath - a journey of about 9 miles instead of about 4 from the Few "heartlands" to home games so a massive show of faith there (not exactly Brighton playing in Gillingham). Because everything about Bristol Rovers in 1986 was shite and piss-poor, mundane and about as interesting as Bob Crampton's sex life, the Post felt sorry for them and with nothing good to say about them they came up with the idea that their supporters were in some way "special." "There's always been something special about Bristol Rovers" I seem to remember Peter Godsiff writing at the time*. The sort of thing you might say about one of your always overlooked, very ordinary children just to try and encourage them. But Godsiff failed to specify what it was, unsurprisingly, beyond the "homely" and friendly club it was (ie not successful, and not likely to be), and eventually he and the Post settled upon the support being "special," something they absorbed and came to believe themselves. It's no use pointing out that their crowd was only just over 4k in the last year at Eastville, fewer than what we were getting in the 4th division when we were 92nd for a while. Or anything about their support that is at odds with the "special" narrative. The belief is firmly embedded, over decades now, and the confirmatory evidence is there to be cherry-picked, and the inconvenient facts, the mundane reality, to be firmly dismissed and ignored. You are wasting your time arguing with believers over stuff like this. That going from Eastville to Trumpton was an upgrade - no joking here; Rovers 3k at cavernous Eastville or 3k in tight Trumpton? They could, almost, fill (well, one side) the latter, never the former - certainly no great humbling of once glamorous high-achievers accustomed to more grandiose surroundings, no great step-down, and was barely any different to go from East Bristol to this side of Bath, and they started showing up again when they had a winning team (like any crowd, so therefore: not special), didn't come in to it. Rovers were shite and leaving their shite ground that they didn't own and couldn't fill and it was sad, and they were pathetic, and they needed cheering up/encouraging, and the Post had papers to sell, so let's make something up: their fans are "special" (and please keep buying the Evening Post). The "special" genie was out of the bottle. And the infatuated Few were not of a mind to attempt putting it back in. From this you get all the "thousands locked out" and "39000" at Wembley (when it was 27k tickets sold, according to Vanarama twitter) and "we'd take more than Arsenal and Chelsea combined" magical thinking. But don't blame them: pity is more appropriate. Blame the Post, and Peter Godsiff. He did this out of pity; pity and keen journalistic business sense. So pity - and not pointing out facts - is the correct response to Fewers claiming "special" status. "Yes, yes mate: you are so special. So, so very special." "More than Chelsea and Arsenal, yes mate. You would." "Thousands locked out, I know. I remember." "3 thousand for the last game at Eastville....sorry! What am I saying? 44 thousand to Wembley, yes, pretty 'special' that" etc etc. *at this point, mid 80s, Rovers had, I think, been promoted twice and relegated twice, in their league history. All between the 2nd and 3rd division. No top flight football, no 4th division football. No Cup semi final appearances. One England player, earning one cap. Poor crowds in a dismal ground, with dogs running around it. In other words: the epitome of nothing special. Dull, dull, dull. Probably explains the decision to go with the unusual/comedy kit: the only way anyone outside of Bristol would ever notice or remember them. Nothing they do on the pitch has or will achieve this. Clearly, this is not a "special" football club, if we are to be adults about this and not children, and so the folly shifts to the idea that the tragic 3k with nothing better to do that now trudge to Bath instead of Eastville - any City fans travelling in from Weston travel twice as far - are themselves "special." And this is still with us today, and there's nothing we can do about it now. We'll just have to live with being the better club and team. With more people turning up for games. We'll never be "special" like them.

The climax to 1990 was "two bald men fighting over a comb," to quote Jorge Valdano. Well, to be fair to us, one bald bloke (Rovers), and one Bobby Charlton/Ralph Coates (us).

So speaks a fan of a mundane, lower league club. "Hartlepool" and "Hereford," mate; you've said it all there. And you can throw "Bristol Rovers" in with those two. Pitiful. Hasn't it ever been thus in Bristol - the low/zero ambition/appetite for challenge, we-know-our-place blue few consumed with derision and bitter resentment for the ambitious/deluded, ever-dreaming-big upstart south of the river (but secretly wishing for some of what we have achieved, and continue to strive for), never quite accepting our "place"? If Spurs have "The Game is about Glory" writ large at their ground, what would the Rovers equivalent be? The Game is about ..... ?

Thing is, they went up, and we went up. Promotion was what we desired in August 1989, not being "Third Division Champions." A big deal for them, no doubt, but third tier "honours" don't exactly float our boat. I would prefer to forget every season we have played at that level (no-one outside of Bristol takes any notice of us at that level). Rightly or wrongly, deluded maybe, we see ourselves as a bit above that piss-poor division (having more often than them, literally, been above that) It didn't do them any long term good, going up that year, anyway.

It was 42000 we took, v Walsall. And Rovers had sold 27000 tickets for their non-league kickabout at Wembley, source: the Vanarama twitter site, on the day of their game v whoever FC. City: 42,000 Rovers: 27,000 Try and remember these numbers, people.

Tomlin, on loan, played a key role in keeping us up. He was the quality we were desperately in need of. The free-kick winner at Fulham was critical, and brilliant. What a moment. Johnson will never forget the lesson learned from signing Tomlin, despite his reputation. A learning experience for a young coach no amount of visits to European clubs for personal development could ever come close to matching. Lee came through the toxic, corrosive Tomlin season, binning individual talent and turning to team spirit and effort (with Matty Taylor), and we came through it, and both our much the wiser, and stronger, for it. The morons jeering last night are clueless.

Would Birmingham notice if he was managing Bristol Rovers?

How to depict, visually, someone as thick, comical and inept. And the costume department nailed it in one (football top).

It's a stupid, disproportionate, unrealistic game largely unrelated to life outside the "bubble" (and yet some people are surprised and upset at the reaction of some supporters to it, ie, that they "moan" a lot, and expect a lot/too much, and are not proportionate and realistic etc). Funny old game/world!

Be in the moment, Rum. Tis all we have, little moments (tomorrow can wait) of pleasure...

I can't wait until we mark our tin pot league win ..... in December 2044. See you up Whitchurch Sports Centre (if it's not under the sea by then, global warming and all that). Flinty, Frankie, Waggy, Joe B, Korey, Packy, Albie, Pembo, all the lads are coming - but Cotts only if he stops sulking (and tells us all what really happened, Aug 15) and Ayling, only if behaves himself and doesn't spend the evening looking at blokes todgers and laughing. Not in Whitchurch. Apologies: Cunningham and Freeman, washing their hair; and JET'll be chilling up London. Jon L hopes to be there to represent his father, RIP, but might have to attend a Europa League Winners club owner annual meeting to discuss the latest breakaway/pulltheladderup league in Beijing.

"Rovers have to up themselves" says some bloke called "Keith" on local radio Bristol. I think they are more than capable of this.

One nil down, two one up..... Apparently, this is an "upset" ?

Correct. Wael has plenty of money to spend in November, December, February and March. And April. Just not in January. Or June/July/August.

Poor bloke was so upset, cross even. We took 1800 to West Brom in the end, which is alright. With two successive promotions and then finishing 10th in L1 in 2017, their highest finish in the 92 in 17 years/since 2000, Rovers away support naturally went up. And they made a lot of noise about it. Now, as their form slumps and they are not winning much, the numbers melt away, and surprise surprise, they do not draw any attention to this. We can only keep putting the facts out there and hope that people resist the lies and the myths and the bullshit of The Few.

Thought it was 18 in a row?

Interesting. In the last 25 years - a quarter of a century - we have been to Barnsley 17 times. In the same time - 25 years - Rovers have played Barnsley once. So a new ground for many of them. But not for us. I wish the City fan upsetting himself in the build up to West Brom away, about our following there midweek, was on here reading all this. He has been taken in big time by there bullshit myth making.

"Loyal and Few" I think it is now...

Who did he say that to: Big Joe or Robbie Turner?

We did, though, have trains then. I wonder if they had enough interest for a motor coach, about 40 to 50, but insufficient for chartering a locomotive?

"He's only a poor little Tent, His flap is all tattered and torn, He makes me feel sick, When he pulls down his zip, And now .... "

This whole tent thing. Is it not time for us, now, to update, modernise, bring-into-the-21st-century our term of reference for them? We tip our hat to our forebears who - with a wit still unmatched by the dullards of Eastville (and Trumpton and the Memorial Ground) - called them "the gas" but recognising the appropriation since of said term by the witless Few (and their local media chums) now coin a new term of endearment acknowledging their evolution from noxious gasworks scruffy f*****s to scrapyard dwelling camping enthusiasts and label them: The Tent. And in so doing, enabling us to sing: "The Tent, The Tent: We gotta get rid of The Tent" (to which they will surely reply: "You'll never get rid of The Tent"). To us, to my mind, they are no longer The Gas; they are now: The Tent.

They managed three seasons of second tier football in the 90s, finishing higher than us in one of them. Around Easter '93 we beat them at AG and this helped relegate them shortly after. They have not been back to the second tier since. Rovers have only had three spells in the second tier (90/91 to 92/93; 74/5 to 80/81; 53/54 to 61/62) spending fewer seasons at this level each time. If/when they next reach this level, they'll do damn well to last more than one season in the Championship.