It has been an age since my last post on football in this cosy corner of England. Part of the blame lies in my increasingly manic workload. Who knew learning to teach could be so tough? On the other hand, Rovers have been starved of a game at the Mem' for an inconveniently long time. The lower down the divisions you go, the more fractured the fixture list becomes, as can be testified by a run of three away matches for the Pirates on the trot.
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Despite their recent travels, the Gas remain on full throttle, slowly pulling back Conference leaders Barnet after remaining unbeaten for 16 games. So far the divide between the two league leaders has been reduced to five points.
At this stage of the season, Darrell Clarke's side deserve to overtake their London rivals. Their level of play is a step above this division and another comfortable victory on Saturday afternoon showed how wide that margin of superiority has become.
At no stage did the journeyers from the eastern shires threaten an upset. Whereas earlier in the year, the Rovers players might have been thrown by typical non-league plodders, they now gobble up this type of opposition with confident ease.
Although the Lincoln 'keeper managed to produce a series of miraculous saves worthy of Gordon Banks across the ninety minutes, he could do nothing to stop a brilliant set piece goal from Lee Brown and a Nathan Blissett tap-in. Whether by shin, heel or a full-facial block, the Imps' man between the sticks did his all to keep the ball out of his net. Yet by half time the result had effectively been decided, leaving Lincoln to limp aimlessly onwards after their return to the field.
I saw the visitors, a former league club (there are few teams in the Conference who weren't members at some point in their history), ten months ago against Gateshead. Over that period of time, they have not improved in the slightest. If anything, they were poor then and even more lacklustre now. Based on my observations, therefore, Grimsby are Lincolnshire's only hope of a return to the glitzy world of the 92, where a visit by Mark Clemmit or Manish Bhasin acts as a ceremony of supreme soccer status.
Bristol Rovers are now daring to dream of a return to that glorious pyramid, having finally found the right recipe for scoring goals. An ability to kill teams off is still a missing ingredient but, in the energetic Clarke, the club has a manager well-versed in simple logic. This is his side now and they are beginning to play with a professional swagger too often lacking outside of the top tiers.
Finding a strategy in the signing of Jermaine Easter, however, is a harder task. If failure to attain promotion strikes (always a possibility in the unpredictable play-offs) then the gamble on wages for this new intake could be shown up as plain, unsustainable arrogance. Is it even possible for a non-league club to make a marquee signing? It certainly looks that way.
In their humiliated opposition, Rovers can see how easy it might still be to dwell in the lower rungs without any hope of a foreseeable exit.
