A pair of Bristols sinks Maamria
- 23 hours ago
- 5 min read
Bristol Rovers (H) - EFL League 2 - 10th March 2026
Editors Note: Written before the we did the Barrow thing of sacking a manager
Pease Pudding Hot
Pease pudding cold
Pease pudding in the pot, nine days old
Folk
Take Two
I had already written an intro for this game, long since rage-deleted after the postponement. I have no recollection of what I wrote; maybe something about Steve Evans managing the ‘gas’tric bypass or some such nonsense. Make your own joke. The only body horror on display since that day is us dipping a verruca infected toe into the shallow end of the Non-League toilet bowl, only to pop straight out again like a turd in a hot tub. We are currently cresting the relegation rim, dodging the s**t-speckled bristles of the National League bog brush as they attempt to force us through the U-bend and into the open waters of the Wealdstone Ocean.
Your Beans correspondent is currently having some R&R touring North Yorkshire in the Beans-mobile. I’m spending a night in Whitby, the "Goth Benidorm," home to Dracula and spiritual home of Sam Foley. So, how am I still doing the match report? Via the miracle of Radio Cumbria. I’m experiencing the game in the manner of a Barrow fan who can’t make the trip and doesn’t have access to a "dodgy stick." iFollow (shudder) is the host, and the price? Cheaper than a Lost Mary and a packet of Chewits at just two and a half quid. Joining me in the bunker, I have the company of Adam Johnson and Craig Rutherford. They are my eyes, and their perspicacity is my gateway to the game. I remember iFollow from when we first re-entered the Football League, when there was more buffering than floor-polishing in the bread aisle at Asda. How will they cope with audio only? Half an hour to kick-off and there’s a timer on screen counting down to 7:45, but no match build-up. Let’s hope someone in iFollow Towers remembers to hit the big blue "Barra" button before the game starts.
I’ve selected my match-listening snack, an opportunity to sample some local(ish) cuisine and imbibe the culture. Embracing the "none of that foreign muck" spirit pervasive in the area, I’ve purchased a pot of pease pudding. I’m unsure what it is or how to eat it, but at a whopping 39 pence, I’m expecting big things. Is it just Geordie hummus? Do I dig at it with a sausage? I presume it’s not dessert. A quick message to our North East correspondent, Fraser, and he recommends putting it on a stottie with some ham.
Well, that’s the fun out of the way. On to the game. I’ve been quite optimistic in the lead-up. We’re coming off the back of a reasonable performance against Cheltenham, a game we could have won with a bit of luck. Bristol are not a good football team, as their league position attests, and Evans hasn’t had the instant effect you might have expected. Put yourself in the mind of a Barrow player sitting in the dressing room prior to kick-off. What is the very minimum you would expect from yourself? A win could go a long way toward securing the survival of a football team that means so much to so many, especially against a relegation rival. You can play a part in a performance; you can, for 90 minutes, give everything you have. Do it for the manager, for the fans, for the people who give up their time improving the ground, and for the people who spend countless hours writing for a fanzine or talking on a podcast about Barrow soccer. Do it for the people who spend their hard-earned cash travelling up and down the country. For fg me, who has taken fg fanzines on holiday to post out and is tapping out a match report on a f****g phone, for f**k's sake.
Writing used to be fun, even when we were poor or lost a game. You could find humour in the mistakes and hope for the next match. In the last report I wrote, I could barely think of a thing to say about the performance because there wasn't a performance. I don’t know how Adam and Craig managed to talk for 90 minutes about this team without swearing or just throwing their headphones to the ground and walking out alongside the fans. I couldn’t see the game, but I knew exactly what was happening; I’ve seen it too many times this season. You can’t just become better players or learn ability overnight, suddenly finding the right pass, getting a shot off, or timing a tackle to perfection. But f****g effort, determination, and actually wanting to win a game of football are all within your gift. I’ve seen us relegated before, seen us lose to a team of Chester spotty nerds on the last game of the season and somehow still stay up. But it was ours to win, to guarantee our safety and we couldn’t. It’s easy to think, just play better, just score the goals, just go out and attack teams but it’s almost as if there’s some Randian invisible hand controlling us, stopping us. You can talk and talk and pontificate from the sidelines but it’s all out of our control. My hopes that something will just click is fading. If we do somehow survive, it’s going to be through sheer luck.
I want to drive the van back right now and scream at these b*****s. But they’ll be tucked up with teddy by the time I get home, ready for the next training session where I’ll wonder what the f**k they actually do.
The comments are coming in from Barrow fans; at least we’ve seen a lovely pair of "Bristols" from, ahem, a fan in the North East, as Bristol go two up. If you don’t laugh, you’ll cry. Listening to the s**t is equally as anger-inducing as being there. I don’t want to be fatalistic, but relegation seems inevitable. All the signs are there: the inability to create chances, the failure to get shots off, the basic defending, and the pathetically simple passes gone awry. We’re running out of time. We can’t bring in any more players or another manager; we have to find a way.
Craig Rutherford made me think of that time we printed those FA Cup tickets when we played "Rotherford." A pang of nostalgia for when we made mistakes off the field #notyet. We are rapidly heading back there. Just another gaffe-prone Non-League team with no chance of promotion and the occasional cup run. People have worked too hard for this. We absolutely have to maintain our league status; to not do so would be a travesty. What can I do? What can anyone do? We aren’t too big to go down, and we certainly aren’t too good to go down. There’s one more move we can make, which, realistically, won’t change a thing now.
Adam and Craig have performed admirably in trying to make the s**t as entertaining as possible. As good as the commentary is, I still wanted to take a nail gun to my ear drum. I wanted to hear one of Adam’s trademark goal celebrations; there was no chance.
I’m on holiday FFS, I wanted to write a nice little piece on tuning in to the radio coverage, which I rarely do. I’m just as angry as being there. Buck your ideas up. Knuckle down. For Cowps sake just show a little pride.
I’m aware this has just turned into a rant. I’ve got no energy. Well done to the 200 and odd Bristol fans that made the journey. Your team probably secured safety tonight. Didn’t even take too much effort did it?
I’ve not touched my pease pudding. I’m f*****g heartsick.
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