Bristol Rovers Goalscoring Hitlist
Bristol Rovers fans may well have woken up on Jan 1st 2000 relieved to find the millennium bug hadn’t ruined their lives, the Dome was open at last, Leeds United were top of the Premiership and their club top of Division Two and fighting off bids for their red-hot strike force of Jason Roberts and Jamie Cureton.
Fast forward just over seven years and the club has just returned to Division Two (now League One) after years of mid-table mediocrity and relegation scares, thanks partly to star striker Richie Walker but they face the same problem that has haunted them for the last seven years, can they keep their star striker?
Since the turn of the millennium Jason Roberts, Nathan Ellington and Bobby Zamora have commanded transfer fees of well over £10m between them since leaving Bristol Rovers. Throw lower league hitmen Cureton, Forrester, Agogo, Gall and, not forgetting the new kid on the block, Scott Sinclair, into the mix and you have quite a goalscoring hitlist. If it’s prolific strikers you’re looking for then look no further than Bristol Rovers.
These eight star strikers to have pulled on the blue and white shirt since 2000 (before departing) scored 84 goals last season for clubs who finished above the Gasheads, including sixteen in the Premiership. When you compare this to the 59 goals the Bristol Rovers squad managed between them last season, despite winning the play offs’, it is quite a tally.
Rovers have may acquired and benefited from the goals of this array of talented strikers but the task of keeping hold of them has proved far more difficult. With many of the strikers having to be sold because of the unstable financial situation the club has only just returned to League One this season after their relegation in 2000/01.
The trend of finding the best in strikers before selling them for a hefty profit began in recent years began with Marcus Stewart. Stewart grew up with the Pirates as a trainee and scored fifty seven goals for the club before being sold to Huddersfield who had beaten Rovers in the Play Off final. Barry Hayles was plucked by Rovers from non-league and after seventeen months where he hit an astonishing 32 goals in 62 games was sold for £2.1m in 1999.
Many of these strikers hit real purple patches in their time in Bristol, for example Ellington, Roberts and Cureton scored 145 goals in 316 games between them but others never got the chance and just slipped through the net. Everyone involved at the club at the time must be kicking themselves for letting Bobby Zamora go without ever starting a first team game. The same Bobby Zamora who’s CV includes 105 league goals in 203 games and helping West Ham pull off the great escape. Zamora was loaned out first to Bath City and then Brighton where he scored 31 goals to help the club stroll to promotion before being sold permanently for a snip at £100,000.
The fans may tire of saying goodbye to every prized possession when a big club comes sniffing, but the club have, in general, picked up substantial and cheques for their prized possessions worthy of the players value. There is always an exception and how typical for modern football the exception concerns Chelsea and Scott Sinclair’s recent transfer. Rovers were angry that Sinclair, in their youth system from the age of nine, was allowed to leave for only £160,000 to Chelsea who in turn was accused of playing the system to acquire Sinclair.
The pinnacle of the clubs fantastic play off win against Shrewsbury was the stunning lob from Richard Walker, one of his double on the day. Walker is the latest product of the clubs amazing striker production line, signing from Oxford on free in 2004 he finished with 23 goals in all last campaign following on from his 21 the previous season. But yet again the club face a battle to keep hold of him, with clubs already queuing up before his two goal salvo at Wembley.
Throughout the last seven years the sales of the prolific strikers became inevitable because their goals were not followed by success, but if the club can keep on this upward spiral then keeping hold of gems such as Walker will become that little bit easier.
Peter Evans ©
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