Heroes & Villains – Doncaster Rovers
Hero – James Coppinger
I have selected James Coppinger as Doncaster Rovers’ hero for a couple of reasons.
The first is that the 39 year old was still player was still playing first-team football at the club up until all football was suspended a few weeks ago.
He has been a first-team regular since joining Rovers for £30,000 from Exeter City back in 2004 and has made 631 appearances for the club to date.
Loyalty in this modern era is hard to come by and for a player to stick around at the same club for sixteen years has to be recognised where possible.
The second reason is a hat-trick that he once scored for the club. It was scored in the Play-Off Semi Final Second Leg against Southend United in 2008.
The tie was goalless going into the second leg at Doncaster’s new Keepmoat Stadium and with the score at 2-0, Coppinger fired in an impressive hat-trick. I have included a video of the goals above.
Villain – Ken Richardson
After having a look around to find a villain for Doncaster, I can only give this dubious honour to Ken Richardson.
The former Chairman oversaw the worst season in the club’s history, when the club finished bottom of the old Third Division with a meagre 20 points from 46 games, only winning 4 of the games. They finished 15 points behind Brighton & Hove Albion who finished 23rd.
Doncaster conceded 113 goals in the league that season, including 8-0 defeat to Leyton Orient and 7-1 at Cardiff City. They also lost 8-0 at home to Nottingham Forest in the League Cup.
Rovers got through three managers in the opening months of the season.
After player-manager Kerry Dixon resigned, Youth-Team coach Danve Cowling took over the first-team. He left after two matches because Richardson was interfering in team affairs.
The third manager of the season was a Urguguayan called Danny Bergara and he even let Ken Richardson pick the team! He lasted seven games before Richardson’s right-hand man Mark Weaver decided to become the manager instead!
Fans protested about Richardson’s running of the club during the ill-fated 1997/98 season and he left soon after.
Richardson was jailed for four years in 1999 after it came to light that he planned to burn down the main stand at Rovers’ former Belle Vue ground. A fire was started in June 1995 and it was said that Richardson wanted to claim the insurance money. £100,000 worth of damage was made to the stand.
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