ROVERS experienced good news off the pitch last week and endured continued disappointment on it.

Last Thursday a High Court judge dismissed campaign group TRASHorfield’s legal challenge to prevent Sainsbury’s building a store on the site of the Memorial Stadium. The ruling means that Rovers can get on with building a 21,700 seat stadium on land at the University of the West of England.

This excellent news means that construction could start in the summer, with Gasheads enjoying the new facilities in time for the 2015-16 season.

If only progress on the pitch matched that made off it. Last Saturday fans suffered an uninspiring goalless 90 minutes against promotion-chasing Southend United.

There were few chances of note for either side; O’Toole forced the Shrimpers keeper into a couple of smart saves and that was pretty much it. The same player was given his tenth yellow card of the season, thereby picking up a suspension which saw him sit out Tuesday night’s game against Fleetwood.

The squad’s lack of penetration up front was evident when Rovers made the long trip up to Lancashire and returned with a 3-1 defeat.

The first half was a desperately poor showing by the players – only a single shot in the entire 45 minutes, and just one shot on target in the first hour of the game. During this time Fleetwood put three past Mildenhall.

We picked up for the last half an hour and Harrison came off the bench to score his first goal of the season. But it was too little, too late.

The result leaves us three points from the relegation zone and with just a single victory on the road this season. With away games coming up against relegation rivals Bury and Portsmouth, I’m beginning to worry about our prospects of playing league football next season. John Ward and the players need to work very, very hard to get us out of this mess.