Bristol Rovers Former Players Association Chairman’s Report December 2022

It gives me great pleasure to present this report after 2 years of relative inactivity due to Covid.

2022 saw the return of our much anticipated Golf Day and of our Annual Dinner for the first time in 3 years. The former was held at the Kendleshire Golf Club in June and was once again deemed to be a great success. Despite a couple of late withdrawals we were joined by 9 former players as well as a team from Bath City led by Jerry Gill, a former youth coach under Paul Trollope. We are grateful to the following for their sponsorship and participation on the day.

Steve Lamble – Bristol Rovers Supporters Club

Jerry Gill – Bath City Football Club

Lloyd Williams – The Globe PH, Frampton Cotterell

Martin Paul – Acorn Recruitment

Les Underdown – Chipping Sodbury Glass

Seamus Brennan

SM Gauge

Longreach Scaffolding

Our Dinner was held on Friday 21st October at the Pavilion, Nevil Road, home of Gloucestershire County Cricket club to whom we are also grateful for there assistance in organising the event and for their excellent service on the night itself. 23 Former Players joined us on the evening and included our special guest Bruce Bannister in a nod to the 50th Anniversary of our Watney Cup win.

We were also delighted to support the Supporters Club initiative of presenting caps to all of our Former Players and those players in attendance who had not already received them were presented with theirs as part of the evening. We would also like to thank everyone else who attended to support this event which was generally considered to be the best Dinner that we had held.

One achievement that I must also mention is the launch of a brand new website on which you can find full reports of the events mentioned above. My thanks go to Rob Pendleton and Lesley Bell for their work on this. We can now be found at BRFPA (bristolroversfpa.org)

As always I need to thank my fellow committee members for all of their hard work during the past year, without whom their would have been no Golf Day or Dinner. The work carried our by Mo Bell and Simon Hedges is remarkable and truly appreciated as is the input of our treasurer Clive Farquhar who always produces impeccable and easy to understand accounts. Whilst he is not a committee member may I also mention in despatches Keith Brookman who continues to make a valued contribution as he always does to both our Association and the Supporters Club.

Talking of the Committee, we have rather fewer members that we did originally. If you are interested in joining us and taking some of the weight from our shoulders please express your interest to Mo Bell on mjbell1937@gmail.com.

With very best wishes to you all.

Tony Mills