Gas Gossip with fan Steve Knowlson

The English football season came to a shuddering halt last week with all professional football suspended indefinitely. A scenario unprecedented in peacetime, this extraordinary turn of events mirrors the dramatic changes to society as a whole as we all have to get used to a very different “normal” for at least the next few months.

So what will this coronavirus-enforced hiatus mean for Bristol Rovers? No-one knows for sure because we are in uncharted territory but the season will most certainly end is a very different manner than anyone expected.

Rovers’ last game was an excellent 2-0 home victory against playoff-chasing Sunderland and Gasheads were delighted at the sudden improvement in form for Ben Garner’s players. Up until that point, Garner had won just once in 15 attempts and the rumblings of discontent from the Memorial Stadium were building to a crescendo of anger and resentment before the team finally pulled a decent performance out of the bag.

Some might think that this enforced break has come at a bad time for Rovers as we finally seemed to be getting our act together, but in reality our season is already over – we won’t go up and there’s little chance of relegation.

The break will allow Garner to spend more time on the training pitch with the players he has and work on potential targets off it for when the summer transfer window opens (whenever that might be).

The big question for all League One clubs is whether the season will be completed. There does seem to be a near-unanimous desire for that to happen – both to preserve the integrity of the competition and to prevent financially-stricken clubs from going under. With Euro 2020 postponed until 2021 there exists a window for all English leagues to play until 30 June but, of course, we don’t know if we’ll still be in the grip of this pandemic in the summer.

Everything is unknown at the moment and I don’t think things will become much clearer for a while yet.

I hope that Gasheads and football fans everywhere stay safe and take care of each other during these testing times.