Bristol Rovers have appointed Steve Evans as their new manager in an attempt to reverse their recent struggles.

The League Two outfit sacked Darrell Clarke after Saturday's 3-0 home loss to Swindon made it 10 straight league defeats and dropped them into the relegation zone.

Evans, 63, has been out of work since March when he was sacked by Rotherham.

Since then, the Scot has spoken extensively about the fitness drive he has been on, shedding seven stone (44.4kg) in weight as a result.

The first match for the former Leeds United, Mansfield Town, Peterborough United, Gillingham and Stevenage boss will be away to Crewe Alexandra on Friday (19:45 GMT).

Evans, who has signed a deal until the end of the season, has managed more than 1,000 games, including more than 700 in the EFL, over a 30-year career.

"It's fantastic to be here at Bristol Rovers," he said.

"Bristol Rovers is a club that is very traditional. Every time I have brought teams here, I have always said it's a really difficult place to come.

"I'm really looking forward to it here. It's a huge club, but I'm very mindful of the immediate challenge and I'm looking forward to getting down to work."

Director of football, Ricky Martin, said Evans would provide "clear leadership and direction".

"Steve brings a wealth of experience at this level, a deep understanding of the demands of EFL football, and a proven ability to get the best out of his players.

"His teams are known for their work ethic, organisation, and commitment, all qualities which are central to what we are building here," added Martin.

Evans' assistant will be Paul Raynor, who had a loan spell with the Gas as a player in 1984.

Group A
Twerton 16
A.A.A. 14
BaggieVicar 13
B.B.B. 12
Minizin 11
BaggieOne 9
Stairs 7
Zimnan 1

Decent week with 5 players in double figures, but prior to that winning goal for Villa it was looking very bad. That goal saw a 30 point swing in the scoring on its own!!! Twerton leads the way this week with 16 points, his second best point of the season and interestingly its the league leading 6th time he has topped the weekly scores!! He was one of only two players to score positive points on the Gamball and managed to score on his other balls as well. AAA continues his decent form in 2nd spot with 14 points. He missed on the Gamball but got a max on the Bonus as well as another CS. BaggieVicar is 3rd with 13 points, he didn't play his Gamball and it saved him a point again.

BBB is 4th, he was the other player to get points on the Gamball as part of his 12 points in total. Minizin ia a point behind him in 5th. he got 5 CRs but was unable to convert any into CSs. BaggieOne is 6th with 9 points, he only scored on 3 games but one was a CS, another was his Bonus and the third was a CR with the Scoreball on it. Stairs was 7th with 7 points, still not great but a huge improvement on last week!!

Zinman fell back to last place for the first time in 8 weeks ending with just 1 point thanks to his Scoreball.

188 Minizin
166 Stairs
158 BaggieOne
155 A.A.A.
154 Twerton
137 BaggieVicar
126 B.B.B.
121 Zinman

Not a lot of change in the table, Minizin stretches his lead to 22 points over Stairs. His poor form means the next 3 players are closing in behind him with B-One just 8 points back, follwed closely by AAA and Twerton. The Vicar stays 6th pretty much on his own and then we see the only change in the table with BBB climbing back above Zinman who lost a lot of blood from the nose bleed he had while in 7th for one week!!!

Cheers
SCO

Group B

4eva 22
Amelia 11
Salop 9
Lady Jane 7
SCO 7
Derby 6
Themaclad 1
Snooty 0

Another week which sees a large discrepancy between the top and bottom of the table - not just because of Snooty's no-show. For once, no fixture produced a negative total though both the Sunderland and Millwall games totalled zero. The bonus ball had one of its better weeks with just 2 negative scores (more on this ball to follow) and only one player missed out on the scoreball.

4eva is th wek's stand-out performer scoring a season's best 22 points. He scored on 6 games and got 3 out of the week's total of 4 correct scores - I think he can probably take a few weeks off to give the rest a chance! Amelia secured second place with half of 4eva's score. She predicted the only other correct score but missed out on the gamball, though she did get her third consecutive bonus ball.

The next 4 players all had 3 correct result predictions and are therefore separated by their ball performance. Salop takes 3rd place thanks to scoring on both the gamball and bonus, though he was the only player to miss on the scoreball. Lady Jane and SCO exactly matched, correct bonuses but missing out on the gamball while Derby missed out on his bonus, again (see below).

Themaclad continued his inconsistent run after topping last week's table though he is kept off the bottom thanks to Snooty's disappearance. Themac got 2 correct results and the scoreball but nothing else.

172 4eva
131 SCO
122 Lady Jane
118 Snooty
118 Amelia
117 Themaclad
106 Derby
98 Salop

4eva extends his lead to 41 points with SCO clinging on to the important 2nd place. Lady Jane jumps 2 places to 3rd with both Themaclad and Snooty dropping back after their poor week. Amelia joins Snooty in 4th spot, not bad having missed the first 3 weeks. Derby and Salop both have some catching up to do but are both closer to SCO in 2nd spot than he is to 4eva!

I thought I'd look at the bonus ball in a bit more detail as this week's statto extra. In total this ball has so far produced minus 18 points and that might suggest that we're not very good at picking a banker from the week's fixtures. However that isn't the case - at least not for all players. Overall Group B has correctly predicted the bonus result on 54 occasions - an average success rate of just under 45%. This compares to just 32% for all other games so it seems that we are picking correctly, however this masks some very different individual scores. 3 players, Themaclad, Derby and Amelia actually get the other games correct more often than their chosen bonus - in Derby's case by some distance (25% v 35% for his non bonus scores). The opposite is true of SCO who is running at 63% on his bonus but just 27% on the rest, only just ahead of Salop's figure. SCO is also heading the gamball table so is very reliant on his balls (which gives me an idea for next week).

Zin

2 points for correct result
4 points for correct score
2 points for each correct scorer
Correct joker doubles your score   (correct score on a joker would give you 8 points)
Wrong joker result gives you minus 2
Correct Badger gives you 2 points

The prize for winning the league is one rep point.

Cup games: In the event of a draw, it's half the points if you've predicted a draw when it gets to 90 mins and the full points if it's still a draw after extra time. Half the points will be awarded for correctly predicting the winner of the match if it goes to penalties. However, if you do predict a draw and it's a match that won't be going to a replay, you can get a possible extra point by stating which of the two teams you think will eventually win.

Random score generator: I will be using the random score generator again for those who miss predicting, so we shouldn't get some people too far behind that after missing a couple of weeks they lose all interest, because I know it's not easy getting on here every week.
To be fair to everybody, this is going to be like, say if three people in one week miss their predictions, the first one in the table will be given all 0-0, the second one down the line will get 1-0 and the third will get 0-1 and so on, like if there's four missing the 4th will get 1-1, then 5th 2-1, 6th 1-2. and if there are so many missing, might as well pack in.
And if you miss two weeks on the trot, I'll stop until you come back on again. Not doing it for half a season like I did t'other year.  


At the end of the season, the winner of group 2 and the bottom of group 1 will swap places in what is commonly known as "promotion" and "relegation". It's something that most football fans will be familiar with, unless you're a fan of Liverpool or Arsenal or one of those other fashionable clubs.

The second placed player in group 2 will then have a play off with the player who finishes second from the bottom in group 1 to decide whether they will be going up, down or staying where they are.

We're going to have two seasons in one though, just to try and make it a bit more interesting and not so long drawn out. The first season will end on the Boxing Day fixtures, with the play offs being on the dates of the Twixtmas fixtures and the NYD fixtures.

The second season will start the following week, which is usually the FA Cup 3rd round, finishing on the last game of the League One season. Then another period of relegation/promotion play off games, taking in such fixtures as the EFL play offs, FA Cup Final, UEFA finals and such like.

Each group will have it's own set of fixtures. Both groups will have the Town games, with scorers to predict as before. Then it will be a split of League One fixtures and bonus matches, hopefully around ten, eleven or twelve games per Matchday.

The random badger is restricted to three goal scorers in any of the fixtures in your group.

Here's how that will appear at the end of the fixture list. All you have to do is fill in the blanks.......


*** scores for ***
*** scores for ***
*** scores for ***

Any of those will score two points if correct. No minus points for getting it wrong.

Postponed matches will only count if the match is re-played before the next Matchday is under way. Abandoned matches will be awarded half the points for the score at the time of abandonment, so 1 point if you have the correct result, 2 points if you have the correct score.

Substitute or scorer in one of the Town games:- These will be only be allowed if you change them before the match involved has kicked off.

Prediction League Archive: https://www.sportsbabble.co.uk/showthread.php?tid=12830

Division One table after Matchday 20:

1. Baggiebob(BBB) = 372 pts
   
2. jjamez = 368 pts
   
3. neonfoxinthebox = 311 pts
   
4. Lord Snooty = 275 pts
   
5. ritchiebaby = 268 pts
   
6. SHEP_HTAFC = 137 pts
   

Thursday 18th December:
League One:
Reading v Luton Town (20:00)

Saturday 20th December:
Rotherham v Town
Town scorers:
Rotherham scorers:

Wigan Athletic v Blackpool (12:30)
Leyton Orient v Bradford City
Mansfield Town v Stockport County
Port Vale v Peterborough United
Wycombe Wanderers v Bolton Wanderers

Premier League:
AFC Bournemouth v Burnley
Brighton & Hove Albion v Sunderland

Scottish Premiership:
Dundee United v Hibernian

Championship:
Hull City v West Bromwich Albion

*** scores for ***
*** scores for ***
*** scores for ***

1. theo_luddite = 325 pts
   
2. themaclad = 321 pts
   
3. Devongone = 310 pts
   
4. St Charles Owl = 278 pts
   
5. WakeyTerrier = 249 pts
   
6. Amelia Chaffinch = 242 pts
   

Friday 19th December:
League One:
Northampton Town v AFC Wimbledon

Saturday 20th December:
Rotherham v Town
Town scorers:
Rotherham scorers:

Stevenage v Burton Albion (12:30)
Doncaster Rovers v Plymouth Argyle
Exeter City v Barnsley
Lincoln City v Cardiff City

Premier League:
Manchester City v West Ham United
Wolverhampton Wanderers v Brentford

Championship:
Preston North End v Norwich City (12:30)
Ipswich Town v Sheffield Wednesday

League Two:
Shrewsbury Town v Chesterfield

*** scores for ***
*** scores for ***
*** scores for ***

Is this for real?

Quote:The Scottish Premiership match between Rangers and Hibs will be shown exclusively on RangersTV in the UK. It will not be broadcast on traditional TV channels like Sky Sports or Premier Sports in the UK.

Match Details
Fixture: Rangers vs Hibernian
Competition: Scottish Premiership
Date: Monday, December 15, 2025
Kick-off time: 7:45 PM (GMT)
Location: Ibrox Stadium, Glasgow

Where to Watch
UK: The match is exclusively available for live video streaming via a pay-per-view pass on RangersTV. A match pass can be purchased for £9.99 on the official Rangers website.
International: International subscribers to RangersTV can watch the full match live as part of their subscription.
Radio: Live audio commentary will be available on BBC Radio Scotland Extra and BBC Radio 5 Live.

Bristol Rovers have sacked manager Darrell Clarke after 10 straight defeats in League Two saw them slip into the relegation zone.

The latest came on Saturday as the Gas were thrashed 3-0 at home by neighbours Swindon in the M4 derby, leaving them 23rd in the table, trailing Harrogate on goal difference.

Clarke, who led Rovers to successive promotions in his first spell in charge in 2015 and 2016, has failed to stem the tide after the club was relegated from League One last season.

He said before the Swindon match that he understood that not winning games as a manager meant you would get sacked, but that he was not "a quitter".

His assistant Jon Stead has also been relieved of his duties.

"The club would like to place on record our sincere thanks to Darrell and Jon for their hard work and efforts," a Bristol Rovers statement said.

"Darrell's legacy at the club is assured and he will always be warmly welcomed at the Memorial Stadium.

"The process to recruit a successor is under way and the club will be making no further comment at this time."

Swindon win at Bristol Rovers on Holloway return
Rovers were booed off by their fans at full-time following defeat by the Robins, in what was their fifth consecutive home league loss.

They have the scored just three goals and conceded 27 during their losing run - which stretches back to the first weekend of October - and possess the worst goal difference in the division of -23.

Clarke, 47, was appointed in place of Inigo Calderon in May.

And, after losing the first three league games of the season, he seemed to have worked similar magic to his first spell in charge with a run of five wins and two draws that led them towards the play-off places.

That proved to be a false dawn in October, when a narrow defeat at leaders Walsall, where they led at half-time, began their unwanted run of defeats, including 4-0 hammerings by Milton Keynes Dons, at home, and Crawley Town and Barnet away.

Clarke led Bristol Rovers to two promotions during his first spell but his return has been difficult

Clarke also led Port Vale to League Two play-off success in 2022 but he lost his previous job, at Barnsley, last season after a poor run of form.

His departure also means the Gas are searching for a fifth permanent manager in just over two years since the Kuwait-based AlSaeed family purchased a controlling stake in the club from previous owner Wael Al-Qadi.

Speaking at the end of November prior to their 1-0 defeat by Notts County, Clarke said he had the backing of the club's owners, but patience has run out.

Supporters also made their feelings known towards the ownership during the Swindon defeat, unfurling a banner in the South Stand reading "speak up or sell up" with reference to the lack of communication from the club hierarchy.

Posters bearing the same message have also been placed on lamp posts in the streets around the Memorial Stadium.


Sad because he's a club legend for what he achieved in his first spell in charge, but despite the genuine excitement of his return in the summer he has been unable to stop a sinking ship from plumbing new depths.

And inevitable because 10 successive league defeats is a club record.

Rovers have been hampered by injuries - but they have the worst goal difference in League Two - scoring 15 goals and conceding 38.

But, on reflection, it would appear the problems at Bristol Rovers are deeper rooted than the head coach.

Recruitment in recent transfer windows will be questioned, while supporters are becoming increasingly frustrated and concerned about the lack of communication and leadership from the club owners.

Now the Gas are searching for another head coach, with relegation to the National League a very real threat heading into 2026.

Gamball:
Bristol City - Middlesbrough

Others:
Newcastle - Chelsea
Spurs - Liverpool
Leeds - Crystal Palace
Blackburn - Millwall
Southampton - Coventry
Hull - WBA
QPR - Leicester
Sheff Utd - Birmingham
Watford - Stoke

THE MATCH

MONDAY 15TH DECEMBER KO 8PM

v

LAST MATCH



Well just as we all thought win number two was on the way, The Hornets stung us with a last minute equaliser. Watford started on the front foot with Charles having to make an early save and Valery cleared one off the line. With our first proper attack we took the lead, when Valery's cross found McNeill on the edge of the box and finished well. Watford put the pressure on and Charles saved again while other chances went begging. The pattern continued into the second half but Watford continued to spurn chances. Watford were awarded a pen for a foul in the box, but the pen crashed against the bar & the rebound was disallowed for encroachment. But Watford were not to be denied and in the 97th minute the ball fell to Semedo who lashed one in.

DEJPHON CHANSIRI, GET OUT OF OUR CLUB    

THE MATCH



Next up and we return to Hillsborough as Derby make the short journey north. Derby have made an ok start to the season and currently lie in 16th place, 7 points off a playoff spot and 9 points above the relegation zone. They probably have enough to stay in the division but I would be surprised if they could mount a playoff push. They are managed by John Eustace, who took over in February of this year. There leading scorer is Carlton Morris who has 10 goals so far this season, though he wasn't in there last matchday squad.

DEJPHON CHANSIRI, GET OUT OF OUR CLUB    

ALL TIME H2H

OWLS 48
DERBY 53
DRAW 42

CURRENT FORM

OWLS    D L L L L D                                                            

DERBY D L L W L W

EFL STOOGES

DOES IT MATTER THERE ALL CORRUPT  

LEWIS SMITH
Richard Woodward and Nigel Lugg
Fourth Official: Adam Herczeg

THE TEAM

Charles
Palmer Cooper Iorfa M Lowe Amass
Chalobah Ingelsson Bannan
McNeill Cadamarteri

SCORE & SCORER (HOME TEAM SCORE FIRST)

1-1 McNeill

WEDNESDAYS FIRT GOAL TIME

56

ATTENDANCE

23211

BML LEAGUE

Owlkev 10
Maddix 8
Imre 7
SCO 4
Washington 3

BMPL

Stateside 6
Pei -3
Wereham -11
Southey -12

OTHER GAMES OF MILD INTEREST

Man Utd v Bournemouth
Rangers v Hibs
Cardiff v Chelsea (Winner of the tie)
Man City v Brentford (Winner of the tie)
Newcastle v Fulham (Winner of the tie)

AHAHH

THE MUPPETT LEAGUE

For the third time in little over a month, Ryan Mason again finds himself in the position of requiring a win tonight to shore up a position which looks less and less tenable with every passing week. The squad's inherent weaknesses and limitations are probably his best defence against criticism, along with the eight-point cushion against relegation; we do, astonishingly, remain marginally closer to the playoffs as things stand. But the fact that we seem to end every match with the team we should have started with, either frantically chasing a game we blew in the first half or desperately defending an advantage gained during an all-too-brief spell of dominance, doesn't indicate high levels of strategic genius operating behind the scenes. And it's hard to shake the feeling that it's getting worse, not better.

It's highly likely that tonight's visitors Sheffield United will be a tougher nut than either Swansea or Oxford before them. Unbeaten in six - four of them consecutive wins - they're looking a lot more like the team everyone expected to show up this season. For Albion, the continuing absence of Collyer and Wallace is augmented by doubts over Mowatt, leaving Molumby and Diakite to run the engine room. There are unquestionably goals in the side, but unfortunately they're coming at both ends right now, and one more freely than the other. With Tyrese Campbell and Patrick Bamford on hand to swiftly punish any prannying about at the back, Albion simply can't afford to go behind in this one as we have so often recently.

It's not an encounter I'd choose to have my job riding on, but here we are. Mason has made plenty of poor decisions to bring himself to this point, and after getting quite lucky with the previous two must-win games, I suppose we'll see whether third time isn't the charm.

anyone else been waiting for mason to be sacked?

a defeat tomorrow we may just get that
(not that i like to see any manager get the boot)

but (as been said) he out of his depth and more importantly running out of time
not sure how much longer the board will put up with it
a defeat tomorrow should do it for him

not being a doom monger
just want what`s best for our club

thoughts?

Internet issues at the moment so maybe a very limited match preamble