The Sporting Hack

It’s 3.56pm on Sunday 2 January 2022 at the Mazuma Stadium in Morecambe. My phone has one unread text message containing four capitalised words : ‘REPEAT NOT OVER YET’ For context, at that moment, Doncaster Rovers were 3-0 up away from home at half time against a relegation rival and looking good for their first win on the road at the twelfth time of asking. Gary McSheffrey after that Morecambe loss Sixty minutes later, the right boot of home midfielder Toumani Diagouraga smashed the ball in to the top corner of the net and secured a scarcely believable 4-3 comeback win for the hosts. In fact, the second half was believable. Not only that, but it had been accurately forecast! Whether an optimist, pessimist or realist, that second half performance should have surprised absolutely nobody when it comes to talking about the crop of 2021/22. It was a season defining moment, a six pointer which could have been the difference between League One survival and relegation. In addition to that, it...

In the end, it was the Doncaster Rovers board who blinked first. And, in fairness, they didn’t have much choice in the matter. Their failure to put Richie Wellens – and the thousands of supporters who idolised him as a player – out of his misery would have all but signalled the hierarchy’s disregard for the current season and beyond. Wellens speaks to the media Can a club ‘take the hit’ of meekly accepting relegation before Christmas? No, and nor should they. Rovers, are in a tight spot, make no bones about it. So, they had to do something to initiate a response from a squad that has, thus far, laboured to 13 points from 19 league games - incredibly, they’re still not bottom of the pile. And so the axe fell on Wellens. The Rovers suits knew what they were getting when they appointed him, or certainly they thought they did. A ‘heart-on-sleeve’ former midfield general could galvanise an alienated fan base from the dugout. This wasn’t “married at first sight” either, Rovers had a good lon...