They Think It's All Rovers

This is Mark Weaver, general manager of the worst professional soccer club in the country. I swore I would start the season and go ahead and do it. I won't have continued and Donny, no. People won't make me leave. It's just what Churchill says: it's April 1998 and the World Cup is still six weeks away. Doncaster Rovers have been glued to the bottom of the Football League for the last nine months at the top of the Premiership arsenal two weeks away from clinching the Football Double. It has never been more glamorous or more lucrative for those at the top of the beautiful game, one hundred and nine places below Arsenal in football's pecking order.

Doncaster is bankrupt. All of his hired professionals make less in an entire season than Dennis Bergkamp makes in a single week. While Arsenal's stars will play in the World Cup, Rovers' squad will see it at home if

they

don't look for work like Arsenal. Doncaster Rovers also play in red shirts, but that's all

they

have in common this season. Rovers have scored. 33 goals have been conceded, one hundred and twenty-seven, you've been saying all season that you know,

think

about Christmas that things could get better, we're open for the next game, things are going to get better, the jokes say, things are going to get better since August.

The team has had six coaches, six captains, six goalkeepers. Relegation is a certainty, but they still have two games to play. If they lose, they will have the worst won record in Football League history. four tied eight and lost 38 we have many donkus two Rovers a thousand gozman forest eight Peter brief I don't know, mr. Robers not Doncaster Rovers a guard in the Seven Wine Club of all the full-time professionals in my world, but it doesn't happen as it is something that they deliberately bring us down in this way, that they have done to us under this ownership, it is simply unbelievable, Nobody understands what is happening in this club.

Fans blame Mark Weaver, but he says he had no choice. At the start of the season, the club went into administration and the wage bill was reduced. Mark Weaver believes that, given the financial constraints he has been working under. It is a miracle that the club has managed to put together a team. I have a couple of security guards that travel with me now to all the home and away games. I received a death threat through the Football Club email at my home. Manchester where they cut off my head, a color photograph taken from a local newspaper, we may have been cut and the blood dripping and we are gone or else Tommy Boot Boys, Mark Weaver, has taken over the hot seat at Doncaster Rovers, but the man really in charge is Ken Richardson, who bought a substantial stake in the club in 1993, put his daughter and niece on the board and told everyone to call him a benefactor.

In 1995, a fire almost destroyed the club's main stand. Gasoline cans were found at the scene for nine months. Ken Richardson was later arrested and charged with conspiracy to commit arson, he denies all charges and the case will be heard next January for players like Mike Smith. Ken Richardson is an enigmatic figure, he has not been to a game for nine months, but despite that he maintains a very hands-on approach to leading the team will be in a gesture that I knew he said an hour before the game and will probably retire with the team itself he'll mark what the team will do if he doesn't if we don't all rest on it then we're all sitting there and we could change then maybe on the mobile phone and then Mark will come and say oh wow oh he He loves you, so you know you pick up the phone, it'll be me.

For example, he and then they'll start, uh, but no, no, I want you to play and we want you to do this and it never matters that he's not even in the game, he's probably sitting with his feet up. I've seen what he wants you to do, but I find it absolutely amazing that things like this happen. The man officially in charge of the club's football is former Uruguayan youth international Danny Paga. Yes, I believe and I honestly believe that. I am one of the best cultures in this country I am part of the world anyway I paint around the world I have more experience than anyone Danny was the top striker in the Spanish league for two years in a row in the late 60s he came to England 25 years ago, Doncaster Rovers, this was his 13th clan, in July 88.

I became the first foreign manager in the history of English football. This is by far the worst job I have ever had to deal with. I have learned in the six months that I have been here. I've been at this club things I would never have ever believed never helped me yesterday I've been explaining it to you for the last three months and it's funny you never say anything to me Danny resigned three weeks after taking the job due to fan abuse but Now he's back and determined to finish the season, that's what I'm trying to tell you now, you're probably not shooting yourself.

I'm just making sure you get into your mind, but you. I have the ability, but that was the gym in a swimming pool. Today, at the front, it was not always like this in Doncaster. There are still some people at the club who can remember the glory days. This is in the old players' room. These are some of the previous team, some of the previous players want to play for the role, some of them a lot of my father, but some who were still alive, this one is evident, this is Peter Doherty, who came and took it. in the second division, this is a big chair, Williams, who was down the other day, became a famous star and comedian until he was in gold and shot, read the gold and shot to the biggest crowd I've ever heard : 36,000 people throughout the city. game and it must feel like it was tremendously close, you are yourself, as I say, it would be around, it would be about nine minus ten and it was fantastic if we thought it was out of this world, don't do it.

Believe it, football stopped becoming a sport many years ago, now we have gates of seven hundred five hundred thousand two hundred here regularly this season and we gave receipt, so that means it cannot survive and a football league excels in the Premier League . The primaries and the Premier have all the money and all these little clubs, we have nothing and yet they have to get their talent, as soon as we get a youngster or someone who looks good, they come and grab him. that's why we have no chance and that's it, it's not sport anymore, it's just that many teams like Doncaster have always survived by nurturing young talent and selling them on a plane is to project the services of a young Kevin Keegan, now the youth team of the soul of Doncaster Rovers so many people so many people selling the best we repeat the big thieves but most of them now play for the first team because all the professionals have been sold Danny is reluctant to play with them in the youth team any longer I

think

it is that yes we play them and they get injured and then we have a problem with a thirsty Danny who needs thirteen fit players for Rovers' final away game against Swansea in two days.

Good afternoon and welcome to the last away bingo game of the season. Big prizes today we will play for two pounds 84 your line and five pounds for four hours yeah sure I'll chill for your line here we go it's a family club Doncaster Rovers all the supporters get on well with each other and in the past, We have always had a good relationship with the management team. Art Weavers, the big monitor that appears for Mr. Richardson basically Mr. Richardson says something now, if he does it, my tissue is standing, it's if mr. Simmons, we are very Richardson and Weaver to think that these two men can make this trip personally.

I think the only thing they will help the club is to bring it in, bring in new owners with a new manager that an experienced manager can bring in. leaflets that could get us out of the situation we are in Despero's tattoo shows how much I love the club. I had it about six weeks ago, so I knew we were done anyway. What he didn't know well, yes, that always colored him. The team's coach Danny becomes philosophical about the disaster, but there are two very important things at stake and that is your pride and don't believe that not only of the players but of myself and I can't say things because I'm not going.

I'm afraid anyone, and when you compare the top of the Premier to a team relegated to the conference, there are two things in common in any game you play and your pride and your careers always take like Danny said, you know we're not dead. You know what I was still alive for in football terms You know I'm dead really Danny is desperate to win today and has a clever trick up his sleeve to surprise the Swansea defense until they mess with the numbers, you know, you try to confuse. Other people try to confuse the opposition by putting people in different numbers so they play different positions, think of the press box.

Paul Mayfield, bingo caller and lifelong fan, listen, it's a long way to go to get there and then get crucified and you. We will only be crucified if you give 100% effort, like flying, we play for price, we play for our own careers, for our families. Here now, show me how much you love your careers, how much you love your families and how much you love. I want to keep any damn salary in the game okay so bye sir it's a football club's last football league away game you can take it two ways you can go out and throw it and us They leave and that's it, but we.

We can go out with a little pride and win the game, the other thing is that we have that in a mutable record of being, if we lose today, the worst team in the league, so seven losses are big and we don't do it. you want to be able to without it because you don't deserve that is the right place to put it unfortunately Danny's plan to change the numbers has failed the only person who is confused is Danny himself in this post and let's see so I should get back to you in the other , yes but you don't do it with numbers and change numbers, that's what happens when you change numbers at half time with no score, we actually drove at nil to nil so that's a minor miracle for Doncaster Rovers Seriously, it's probably yes.

I mean Doncaster really had their backs to the wall in this first half but the youngsters defended resolutely, I mean every shot I made there, jumping to block the shot, I mean the amount of saves Craig Davis is making . creators, we have a great feeling, although it is not really problematic, we can win, do you know that your knitting bastards will get there if they follow me for a long time? Oh no, I'll say, I'll say, we'll donate the mathematical possession of Swansea, but we as the best chances and with a zero run with a bunch of kids and everything stays well for next year if we could keep the club going next week , when you realized that that's the last game, I think that's when it will affect him the hardest and that's it.

When the people will be one of the reasons I don't go for the fans, winning the last Football League game would be incredible, but what they really want is to replace Ken Richardson with a more understanding owner before the new season, if we can. be taken over by the Doncaster businessman, the one leaning on the hurler will return so we can be like a phoenix from the ashes, we could resurrect him and get into the Football League, but it's about taking out the regime current, could Rovers why? deny Anne Tom Johnson, Essex nightclub boss, self-confessed football addict and would-be owner of Rovers for the last 15 years.

Doncaster has lost its mind and its power plants, now it is in danger of losing the football club, literally built by the fans. just after the first world war, the club is now for sale, welcome to Bellevue. No disrespect to the gray stadiums, but it looks like one of them from 15 years ago, doesn't it? Instead of a football field, we are actually some of the others. The week came to buy some tiles, we thought it was a real lock. The stadium may be falling apart, but the club is in the Football League's most expensive location outside London, with a refurbishment cost of £18m.

Next door is a thriving retail park. The developers have long wanted to expand, but the only thing standing in the way is the football club, which has a 75-year lease. This is one of the few decent things we have that, through money, we can maintain that vision of the state. than we have doors, people will say, you know what the point of spending money was, this is the local team's jersey room, the man pulling the purse strings is Ken Richardson, hailed as a savior when he took over, initially he spent a lot on new things. The players now the fans feel that their benefactor has lost interest in the club, but since he no longer speaks to them or the press, they cannot be sure that he can defend him because I know what he did for the football club and I know how much. the time he invested I know how much it meant to him I know how muchmoney is investing I know what he has been through to try to get the results maybe when he came in you could say something good was done, we have a lot of new players some good some but now he has withdrawn his financial support most of those players have left gone there are no assets to fall back on nothing financial or innocent has no connection to the city and this dispenser duplicates our Minnetonka negative for the table because this is a lambda real estate development it is no longer a football club like many clubs small Doncaster Rovers have virtually no value as a going concern their Premier League price reflects the value of their lease, not their football and it is the pitch, not the team that attracts takeover bids many people have tried to buy the club but no deal has been finalized yet Anton Johnson has been trying to buy the club for 18 months and remains the people's choice Mark Weaver has turned up to represent the absent Ken Richardson.

Nervously, there is no doubt about the rules of football. I mean, I think I watched 210 games this week, I said from amateur games to a professional game and we feel like we can change this and the only way to do it is to spend money. Thank you very much and I want to ask you to give Mark a fair hearing and none of this ridiculous personal abuse. Here's what you have to say and if you have any questions. please ask them politely thank you for giving me the opportunity to answer some of the questions. I think what he wants to know is whether he will go there tomorrow and buy his football club and nothing more.

I want to know it. Is it mr. Johnson courage, I will believe that this is not so, mr. Johnson values ​​Doncaster Rovers, but the asking price is training day and Richardson center for me, and that's three point eight five million. I'm asking you guys, not my value, that's your friend, you were there, you need to know if you're going to do it. go there tomorrow and offer 3.85 because if so, you can offer it to me now in writing and I will go to Rumia and Richardson will sell it for that amount of money. No, he has nothing to do with me.

It would not be fair. telling you the price I don't know how to argue with that because I want to buy the club, honestly no, honestly I make the point seven-five is still on the table but this morning I'm afraid I'm an actor. I understand how the money plays, I think, since it increased by buying it for the right price, but I'm not selling it. What you all seem to forget is that I'm not selling it, that's what I'd call it now. I'll just open it up for Johnson to buy the Rovers. It won't be easy: the elusive Ken Richardson may own the club, but he rents the land from Doncaster Council, who were very angry when he announced its sale shortly after buying it in 1993.

We don't build with a few thousand people. In the advertising of the land they show us that it is property of the city council so everything came to nothing and I suppose that this effect on the relationship between the city council and Mr. Richardson, the council's current situation is that where we are not interested in having direct negotiations with mr. Richardson, we'll leave that to third parties, then we can start to develop more confidence in what we're willing to consider the size of a bear. Well, we'll almost prepare them. Yes there is a stalemate in Doncaster, but today Anton Johnston is 150 miles away. in Essex and his mind is on another purchase, but it's a strange thing coming in.

He's not a very practical man that time, he just uses it as a summer toy. Did you ever publish it on Football Club, yes, yes, so that's me, yes, they think this. 80s kid Anton Johnson was known as the king of the clubs, Mr. Football's fixit, he knew how to bring in the stars, bringing Emmalin Hughes to Rotherham, Bobby Moore to South End and George Best from Bournemouth, but in 1984 the Football League decided he had broken their rules by having dual control of South End and Rotherham. I have committed to keeping a close eye on any club I try to buy in the future.

Over in Doncaster, everything is going wrong, but Ken has problems with the lawnmower, as I say, now he is running a bit on this machine, if we can, I don't know. it's a day it's a day look the head of the club is about to sit down two or three years ago it's an unlit mooring mechanized front with a motor Robin the lock at the players' entrance has broken and half of the youth team is locked inside There's a gardener there and all of Danny's remaining staff have left or been assigned. I have to do the training for the first team and the training for the reserves, which is similar to having the Salmons first and the children, the youth and the under-teens.

It's a school of excellence every Thursday night I have to take the kids when it's available take them to you know, whatever the place is Leeds Scarborough I drive the coach myself, they are not the most important pillars that the youth team has to train alone in the stands to avoid wear and tear on the field while the first team trained with Danny in the local park without queues or approaching Danny wants to work in patent law but does not have a full staff since the club stopped paying training expenses They are volunteers today, they can wait a couple of seconds or leave it alone.

See, for example, although the Rovers are dying. Football in Doncaster is as popular as ever. More kids play organized soccer here than anywhere else in the country, but their heroes don't. from Bellevue is Man United's Newcastle Liverpool, which are the big teams now in the south of Egypt, so these kids' football means the Premier League and satellite television. Not a rainy afternoon in Bellevue, an entire generation of fans have been lost to Doncaster Rovers, the youth team playing their final. arrangement at home for the club at half time their one-nil deficit and Danny is trying to inspire them with a beautiful game in which you will probably be so incredible in 30 minutes that already Popeyes Blackburn moving the post quickly to the front, touches the phone and stuff, are you playing? call them, what processing they were dribbling, anyone, dominate, hit, although fantastic, if you don't want to play for Arsenal, what the hell are you doing?

Ele, if we can fix that, the simple things, where did we do them? who receive the ball from behind they hit the front I don't mean a world of dominance I mean they hit the front they just control their gold for me the youth team ended their season with a loss they will soon find out that all the remaining games are canceled due to lack of funds and there will be no youth program next season with days left until the end of the season the club is in a desperate situation only a great goal in the last game will save them for the few remaining players the future is very uncertain I'm supposed to mark Weaver and he said you know they are still interesting people who seem to be looking to buy the flat but as far as you know the current regime they are in they are still carrying until something happens.

I can't really say anything, unfortunately for Doncaster nothing seems to happen and it would be the Savior Anton Johnson has been shopping his Scotland for other football clubs, obviously our priority was Doncaster but we certainly got out. In fact, we presented the offer. folker, which was initially the only one and although it was going to be, except that it is still in the plans at the moment again, we are in the interesting Partick Thistle, we got in touch well with the mathematics with the colored people, they were in play. I missed it. One week I spoke with the German man.

He returns to Yorkshire with hours to go until the final Football League match, except Rovers are planning their final showdown. It is now open to everyone. What do we do? Some people told me beforehand that they don't want to do anything. I wanted sir for the game to stop and then close it teaser the end of the game go to the field and do that I am singing driver others have said that we have to interrupt it there should be no game if the game is canceled then we can say that the inferiors would never be expelled from the league because the last games were never played if we can do some good by dying ourselves we take Saturday the counters and a victory in the conference why is this son interested in covering for us when we have two tits in charge, there is a lot at stake in the last match, each club in the league receives a share of the revenue from the television and pool funds, but the football league has withheld the rover's money and will only pay the £200k owed if they complete their matches if Doncaster Rovers don't stick to their schedules, don't try, they will always cease to exist and the only people who can stop us now are the pitch invasions, not in the morning, I can't make sure we stick to the schedules, that's our problem, I'm not saying that we The bet stopped again, my friend looked up, there were banners and money funnel notices that we can possibly go down there because, for once, whatever it won't be there, hopefully, if you're going to do something, you have to do something very big and very spectacular.

Knocking on the door it all comes down to the last game, if Rovers lose it they will have the worst record in history and the Football League, if they don't complete the game the club could die anyway. Mark Weaver has said that he will stay away from fans. They know it's his last chance to draw the football world's attention to his life. It's the morning of Don Caster's final game in the Football League and South Yorkshire Police are bracing for trouble. They are expecting a record entry. Almost 5,000 tickets have been sold. I have them pinned to my forehead, I have them everywhere, all seized and several in the front, in the back, several posters, but in the last few months we have been targeting Weaver because we have just been the we are one, but I I wonder if we decided we had to come back to Richardson again.

My father was the one who took me to Bellevue first and when we had a moment of silence after the Hillsborough tragedy, I mean, it was my father who was in I think he was with me when I was in Bellevue and they will be there today and I'm sure that there will be hundreds of people there today or we will be thinking about former players but they will be thinking about friends. the new there and the relatives and the first memories and it's part of our lives and it's not fair that they took it away from us we are alone the Reeves is where I was for the first time and Tony was for the first time when we took our children for the first time because it was the family stall, it was an old wooden stall, but that's where the kids weren't and, in fact, she really remembers the Rovers, you know, sitting there and then they stand in their sad look of what , we could even win today, not Johnson.

Colchester team have everything on the line today, they could be promoted to the second division, while Rovers are part of the league despite saying they would stay away, Mark Weaver has turned up with a bigger group of caretakers than ever, as As usual, Ken Richardson won't do it. be there but he's a fact guys his game plan from his home on the Isle of Man set the wind guys keep 'em they mean no quarter to take winners for people who want to win more show a bastards today and finish the season with a win, I think you'll find the funds will be shaken by the fact that I'm here.

I think that certainly will be and has been a difficult decision whether to come or not, obviously some aspects, some security. It's always at risk when people are so upset one person and there are so many I accept that risk this afternoon of I don't know what we're ready office it's a quarter to three and the Bellevue terraces were almost full for the first time this season back In the locker room, the club's top scorer, Prince Moncrief, feels optimistic. I fancy a winter there now. PO, what do you think? Yeah, no school, honey, my friend from 1980 did all this, he didn't see me great, after the game.

Straight out of the field, don't get into a fight, don't do anything the police have told you, you must go straight out of the field, through the tunnel, you will come here if the police think it's a signal to go back out. There will be no problems, they will take you out, don't stand there, don't make sure you add anything at the end, wait until the police have returned, okay, just some crowns or something big, we will reproduce the last post in the image. three quarters and I will deliver some wreaths to the city and we will stand up if the police would be happy without that and that will stop any problems and I am happy for him to do what they want under the circumstances we have to work under, you have done the best he could, sometimes not. good enough all the time very good, but generally what you want for today is to pick it all up and finish the season on them, but sometimes it's true, it's not really abandoned, mr.

Bober is right now, it is nothing else, there is no brand, it is not the planet Adhara, it is your own race, since someone with that, most of you are or something will come and pick you up like you have, sounds a big number. from others, if you go out and show the desire to win it all, there will be someone who will give you the opportunity. I don't need to say anything else, unless you come from a damn foreigner and tell you. You, itthat one of the greatest leaders this country ever produced, Winston Churchill, you never give up.

You leave and it's a shame the police are telling you to get off the ground. You come to watch a soccer game so you don't end up in imbalance with a certain person. It's just not Michael J. I mean, I this again was prompted by Mr. Weaver's appearance because of his continued statement in the pressures he rushed to wait but didn't attend the game. Oh, the undersecretary should be upset. Our contestant will make my only face. I work in an extra bunk and have a policeman sticking his fingers in. He takes the M years. and what can you know what to stand up when someone passes their fingers is so earthly but any day this part is part of a small club you know everyone is suffering today at halftime it's zero-zero five minutes let's go 20 minutes in the second half The Police advise Mark Weaver to leave the ground for his own safety when it's a code five minutes before the end.

Finally the brave defense of the pitchers is broken. Rovers have broken the only record they did not want to break in 75 years of football. League history is about to come to an end, a new beginning for Colchester, but it's all over for the Romans. Wow, I could watch Premiership football every week, but Maharshi Doncaster, so I'm still here and I'll be here next season. Globalize Lingus when you grow up, they will be in action next year, next season, conferred to two depending on the railing as support if you are on the way down. I hope the clubs don't like it but the Premier League you are getting too much money and they just agree they didn't do it and the First Division clubs are getting too greedy and clubs like this in the heart of the community They're just going to die, we're just the first.

In a long line of deaths, I can assure you that we are just the first, we are just the beginning of the snowball, so we have to start somewhere and just like you, every television station, every radio station , there's one here about this one in Two years from now you'll be able to choose from 20 clubs to go to and stop tuning in to find out what went wrong and you'll totally tell us because Mark told us all about it two years ago because that's what's going to happen.