Joey Barton has made it his personal mission to get Bristol Rovers to the Premier League before rivals Bristol City, but admits the Gas have a lot of catching up to do to overtake their neighbours in the south.
Rovers beat Oxford United 1-0 on Saturday to move into third in the early League One standings, having won two of their opening three games since returning to the third tier under Barton’s watch.
With City 23rd in the Championship, just three places separate the sides in the pyramid - the closest the two teams have been for years, albeit with a division still in the way. Although that’s against the backdrop of the soon-to-be 22-year gap, with October 28, 2000 being the last time Rovers were above the Robins in any league standings.
Since taking charge of Rovers in February 2021, Barton has regularly drawn on the rhetoric around the rivalry, as a means to energise the fanbase behind him but also help drive the club forward after what he believes has been too many years in the doldrums and “false dawns” of the past.
Neither Bristol team has played in the Premier League since its inception in 1992, with City occupying the top flight from 1976-80, while it's been nearly 30 years since the Gas were higher than the division they're currently in. With a population of just under 500,000, Bristol has long been the largest city in the country to have never experienced life in the elite tier of English football.
Having signed a new contract this summer until 2026, after guiding Rovers to a dramatic last-day promotion in May, Barton is in this for the long haul.
Referencing the millions Steve Lansdown has invested in the Robins only to hit the glass ceiling of the upper reaches of the Championship, and the City owner’s admission last week he’s still looking for additional investment into the club and would potentially sell "for the right deal", Barton insists he can be the man who conquers the “mountain”, not just for the Gas but the city of Bristol itself.
“We’re a lot bigger city to be having no Premier League side and my goal is to put the blue side in the Premier League before the red side,” Barton said, in the wake of the win over Oxford. “They’ve (City) had a right crack of it because of what’s been here before but nobody has conquered the mountain in Bristol.
“We speak about it all the time. At the start of the season, we were speaking about it. We were up on the observation tower (Clifton Observatory) overlooking the Suspension Bridge saying we want to be the first team on the moon in this city. While it’s still there, we’re going to give everything we can.
“We’ve got a lot of work to do and lots of catching up. They’ve got a bigger ground than us, a better training ground than us, but you’ve seen last week, Steve (Lansdown) is talking about selling the club. He’s had his fill of it. He’s poured that much money into it and our owner hasn’t.
“Our owner has massive ambition and I have to rein it in from him when I'm talking about us getting value for money. It's not for Wael, it is me going 'No, there is a fair price'.
“You want to play for us. Why would you not want to play for us? We make every player better. If you come in and you want to work hard and get better, we do everything at a ridiculously high level for the level we're playing at. It's Championship and above in every aspect.
“If you're a young player and you come here, you get better. If you're an idiot and you don't want to put it in and cut corners and you want to think there is a shortcut, you will get emptied out here because the group just won't have you.
“My commitment to the Gasheads is that every person that pulls on that jersey will give everything they've got for the football club because we're custodians, we don't own the club. We will all disappear in a period of time and we want to set a legacy here that sets the benchmark for the blue half of Bristol.”
Those words will undoubtedly rouse those in the northern territories in the city but invite ridicule among their southern counterparts given the dominance of City in terms of league position over the course of the century, and their superior resources under Lansdown’s ownership.
However, that is also slightly missing the point because for all the firing up of the rivalry ultimately it points to a fundamental success of Barton’s management in how he’s made Gasheads believe in their team once again, with a sense of optimism and possibility not seen since the halcyon days of Darrell Clarke’s finest moments.
There are some Gasheads who still stay away from the Mem due to their objections against the character of the man at the helm of their team but, overall, he has galvanised the fanbase, especially the younger elements, and allowed such talk of one day overtaking City to be said with confidence, rather than jest. He’s tapped into the blue collar, outsider identity that increasingly defines the club.
Barton claims he inherited a “broken fanbase” following the reigns of Ben Garner and Paul Tisdale, while for all his on-field success Graham Coughlan never successfully penetrated into the hearts of minds of supporters. One that is now united behind the team and the journey the manager wants to take them on.
“They are with the team now and I remember in the early part of last year the fanbase was broken and it didn’t know whether to come or go or support. It had constantly been let down with false dawns,” Barton added.
“I think they know with this group of players, with the journey we went on last year and the away days and even Burton last Saturday. Everyone said about 10 men but we struggled against 10 men multiple times in League Two, so for us to snot Burton with 10 men as efficiently and effectively as we did, knowing we’re way below 100 per cent, fills me with confidence and it should fill the Gasheads with confidence.
“I’ve said we’re going to take them on a journey and I think last year we showed what can happen if the club is united. Players feed off that and even today they are just with the boys and you can just smell it. We go 1-0 down to Forest Green but they were with the lads and got us back in the game.
“We go away from home and they are there in their numbers. Without them, we are just another football club but with that support and that belief, we can do incredible things here.”
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