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Doncaster Rovers: Give us our due - Ryan
They may be "only Doncaster", but Sean O'Driscoll's Rovers have turned some heads with the style of football they've played this season.
And chairman John Ryan reckons it's time everyone else cottoned on to how good his team can be.
According to Ryan, Rovers would be a dozen points better off – and challenging for promotion if performances had always been transformed into results.
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Not that he's unhappy with where they are sitting at the moment, but Ryan feels Doncaster's style of play deserves more plaudits than are
usually afforded to a team in the bottom half of the second tier.
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"I think we have played some great football," he told Yorkshire Sport.
"The only disappointment is that we haven't got another 10 or 12 points, which is what we thoroughly deserve.
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"We have outplayed teams yet have either drawn or lost. We have drawn far too many that we should have won."
Last weekend's home clash with Queens Park Rangers exemplified the potential in the current Doncaster team, according to their chairman.
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"I thought we really showed our capabilities," said Ryan. "In the second half we played them off the park.
"The scoreline of 2-0 was scant reward for the tremendous way we performed. It could easily have been four or five.
"I think we have a quality squad and a quality team and a lot of people under-estimate us.
"We played Newcastle and lost narrowly in a game we should have won and we competed really well against Middlesbrough away and West Brom, away, so we have played some tough games already.
"We are confident we can have a strong middle and end to the season."
So, with Rovers sitting 16th in the Championship before this weekend, what would constitute a good season as far as Ryan is concerned?
"We came 14th last year," he recalled. "Anything in the top half would be fantastic, bearing in mind our resources compared to a lot of bigger teams.
"In all fairness, anything above 14th would be great. We did very well last season – which was our first in the Championship – and usually we are everyone's favourites for relegation, but they under-estimate us badly.
"We are a quality side, a strong squad and, most importantly, we have a quality management team led by Sean O'Driscoll."
Though Ryan is clearly irked when Rovers don't receive the credit they are due, the opposite is a source of great satisfaction.
"The QPR chairman told me we are the best footballing team in the league by a mile," he said.
"He told me we did to them what they've been doing to other teams and he can't understand why we aren't top of the league.
"People say 'it's only Doncaster', but I am delighted by that. When we win, they say 'we must have been bad because Doncaster beat us', but it's not quite like that.
"I think a lot of people don't give us the credit we deserve, but last Saturday there was a 34-pass move which led to Billy Sharp being put through clear on goal, only to be cynically brought down.
"If anyone else did that, certainly a bigger team, there would have been greater acclaim.
"We got no acclaim at all and Sky and the BBC ignored us, which is a great source of disappointment when you consider the quality of games and the quality of football we play."
Looking ahead, Ryan is confident that there's no reason why Rovers can't continue to thrive and grow, but he is not willing to set long-term targets.
Asked where he sees the club in five years' time, Ryan said: "You never know. We could be in League Two, we could be in the Premiership.
"In football, you always need a bit of luck, but I think we have got a very astute, capable manager, with a very progressive outlook.
"At this stage, we have to build and become established in the Championship, then who knows?
"The Championship a few years ago felt just as unlikely as the Premiership feels now. You never say never for anything can happen."
Clubs with similar, humble roots have made it all the way to the English game's elite and Ryan regards Doncaster as a key team in a footballing hotbed, with a large bedrock of potential support.
"We feel with the quality of football we are playing, we have got a chance of attracting more fans," he said.
"Crowd-wise, you would always like more, but we have got a lot of big games to come this season.
"This season we are averaging just over 10,000, last season it was around 12,000 and we would like more of the people of Doncaster to come out and share the enjoyable environment on offer.
"When I took over in 1998, we were getting an average of 2,000, so up to last season it was a six-fold increase.
"We have a capacity of 15,000, so we are just short of another 1,500 to 2,000 fans.
"It is great to go to places like Newcastle, Forest, Derby, the two Sheffield clubs and maybe Leeds next year," said Ryan.
"When I first started, we used to go to places like Leigh RMI and Altrincham. This year the highest attendance in the Championship has been 44,000 for Newcastle against Doncaster – it is a bit different."
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Saturday 26 May 2012
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