FL2: Rotherham v Torquay 7 May 2011

It'll take a lot more than a bit of software to change Mr Meerkat but I suppose to his credit he is a passionate supporter of the club and has made that long journey from North Devon (not forgetting the return trip which is quite depressing if we have played crap) for many years including the several seasons where we have been scrapping at the wrong end of the table.

He does also try to be constructive in his whinging. Doesn't always succeed but he does try!

We need a cracking first leg win against Shrewsbury to cheer Mr Meerkat up and I know that nobody would be more delighted than him if Scott Bevan put in a man of the match performance to ensure our win.

I am quite relaxed about the whole play-off thing now. I think we will do well as that is just my normal mindset before a game but I am actually not too bothered if we go up or not. I want us to but it's not the end of the World if we don't. Whatever happens it has been a good season.

If we make it it will be the first time we have been a league above Argyle ever .... if we don't we have a nice consolation prize of Argyle, Swindon, and Bristol Rovers coming down to join us.

Next season is my 49th of supporting though, so it would be nice to be in the Championship for the first time for my 50th season! ;D

Mr B goes by the name of Hector these days and pops on now and then

I would have said the bloke who came as Charlie Fairhead from Casualty. Uncanny.

torquayunited.newsprints.co.uk/view/17492736/rotherham_v_torquay_ppauk059_jpg

Yeah I know he does. He always manages to coax a post or two from me anyway.

I think I even had a Meerkat moment on Saturday. I was so underwhelmed by the woeful performance that I couldn't even clap the players. I'll make up for it this weekend.

The match report in today’s Sheffield Star made a point of saying that, hopefully, Rotherham will only be playing at the Don Valley for one more season. You get the feeling it has been an ordeal for all concerned but, as has been hinted in several posts, the move was pretty much forced upon Rotherham and had all the makings of “any port in a storm”. I wonder if the terms were favourable to rent the Don Valley? To all intents and purposes the place has been a white elephant since the World Student Games of twenty years ago - a situation made worse during the last year or two by the departure of Sheffield Eagles RLFC who now apparently play at Bramall Lane.

The whole business is made even more bizarre by the fact that – viewing from the train at least – Millmoor looks to be pretty much in working order. I'd be interested to know more about its' current state.

The plan now is to move to a new stadium in 2012 on an old foundry site close to Rotherham town centre: www.themillers.co.uk/page/NewsDetail/0,,10360~2300640,00.html

Incidentally, reading today’s Yorkshire Post there’s talk of the rent at Valley Parade being put beyond Bradford City’s reach – they’re in a big financial hole anyway – and they could be moving to Odsal (another big hole).



I thought it was a case of sitting there watching a game being played far away with our thoughts being focused on games played even farther away.



That’s post-industrial East Sheffield for you – and a world away from the city’s leafy, hilly western suburbs which constitute one of the most appealing areas in any of our big cities (I sometimes wish I'd stayed there for ever after finishing university). I remember Attercliffe from the 1970s when many of the steel works were still in place. Never the most attractive of areas but it did have some “life” with a high street dominated by the various shops of the Brightside and Carbrook Co-op. Now it’s an odd mix of the old, derelict and new – including something called Valley Centertainment where I spent Saturday evening in Frankie and Benny’s (a new experience for me) in the company of Grecian friends. Not sure what old Joan Maynard, one-time local MP (who went by the wonderful name of “Stalin’s Granny”) would have made of the inventive diversification of the local economy.

A face only a mother would love

You can't trust one of those Grammar Snobs when he's got a camera at the ready! Good old Mr Bond....