The Memorial Stadium is soon to be a fitting name. If I could care to be pretentious, I might even call it ironic. When the bulldozers have completed their work and a monstrous supermarket is erected over the rubble, a memory is all that the stadium will be.
Unlike such lost arenas of sporting inspiration as Ayresome Park, Roker Park and Boothferry Park, this rectangular patch of grass is enclosed by a beautiful structure, a pillar of local identity; a lost relic to the days when football was about something more precious than money. It has not been a happy home for Bristol Rovers but many a classic rugby union battle has been fought on its turf. Alas, no longer.Sadly, once the football ground is gone, my favourite part of living on Gloucester Road will be snatched away. After much thought, over many a long walk, I have decided that I do not like the area. In the early days I kidded myself about its cosmopolitan vibe; a sort of British San Francisco, as I naively claimed . It was on this road that I first saw a same-sex couple holding hands as they walked along in daylight. It is also the scene of my first conversational encounter with Pidgin English. These are things that I embrace wholeheartedly with delight.
Yet, the illusion has finally been eroded away. Every day I walk past depressing, disappointing, despairing social wrongs. Over a two mile stretch I pass countless Big Issue sellers. I hate to ignore their polite pleas but I simply don't have the time or money to help them - even if it is only to buy a magazine I will never read.
They are what I would call the legitimate beggars, though there are plenty who request money without valid reason. A number of people in perfect health, with permanent homes nearby, stop me and state their case. Each time I say no. One man, who lives in my sector of the street, has asked me over ten times for spare change. Does he have no memory of my answer the last time we talked? And why me? On a cold day, when I had no coat and he was well-wrapped in multiple layers, he asked me. In times when I have been standing amongst a group, he has asked me alone. When I am in the laundrette, and have clearly spent a fortune in coins on the dryer, he still asks me. How is anyone meant to make sense of that? Karl, Che', Malcolm: what is to be done?
The football is unique in bringing out salt of the earth sorts. Standing on the terraces, anonymous in the crowd, I feel more at home among them than wandering in this postcode. Our cultures are different but I know enough to blend in. Stokes Croft, Redland, Cotham and Clifton, on the other hand, remain inscrutable.
Without becoming a total disaster, Saturday's game remained a poor outcome for the Gas. A familiar pattern of early Rovers' pressure, then loss of confidence when scoring looked unlikely, and a sloppy goal concede from a set piece, was followed predictably. Matt Taylor (the centre forward, not the rocket scientist with a controversial taste in fashion) saved his team's blushes by equalising from a skidded low cross. Space on the left wing was there to be exploited, and this was where Kidderminster's defence crumbled under a late raid from the Pirates. It was good football, the best I have seen this season, in all fairness. Nevertheless, it still took Darrell Clarke's team over an hour to realise that their long ball tactics were proving counter-productive.
Despite the result, this strong late showing sent the home fans back to their dwellings in good spirits. Back on Gloucester Road - that most strange of thoroughfares - the Royal Oak pub (a quiet middle class establishment with inflated prices) displayed a sign which read 'Home fans only'. How odd. Are Kidderminster's small assortment of travelling support likely to make a scene? In this division you would be lucky if you got 50 away fans, nevermind enough to cause a serious civil disturbance.
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