Wild Al managed to get to the County Ground for the 13.30 kick-off and visit of Bristol Rovers. Fortunately a second-half abandonment meant he didn’t need to remember any of the detail for this report…

Bristol has given the world lots – Massive Attack, for instance. Of course the earnest trip-poppers never transcended cult status, nor appealed to anyone but beardies and girls who like joss sticks and My So Called Life.

But we have much to be grateful to the 90s Bristolian beat meisters for, after all their boy/ girl dance combination set the template that was utilised to such commercial and critical success later in the decade by The Vengaboys

Without ‘Blue Lines’, we might never have been gifted the majesty of ‘We Like To Party’, and for that alone we should give praise to a place so indelibly stained by it’s twin shames – The Slave Trade and the work of Justin Lee Collins.

When it comes to sport, Bristol is of course a city divided. One half likes rugby and the other half likes playing Goldeneye on a vintage N64s, while ripped to the tits on hydroponic skunk, skunk sold, inevitably, by a man called Pete.

But some Bristolians are also into football, to the extent where they have managed to produce two professional teams.

Now Bristol City, I’ve never got along with.

If Bristol City was a person, they’d be braying at the bar, blocking my increasingly tearful attempts to get served, while showing off about their new car and how many people it can fit inside. Even though said car is rarely full, was bought on an eye-watering hire purchase deal and makes Aden Flint’s white Range Rover look classy.

Bristol Rovers on the other hand, have never whacked a magnum of poor quality Champagne, with a cocking sparkler on top, on to their credit card, in a futile attempt to finger a minor cast member from Skins.

Bristol Rovers wouldn’t even make it past the bouncer, they’d be outside chucking cans of cider they almost certainly haven’t paid for, before going home for the night with someone called Irene, to whom they may or may not be related – They don’t know and, more to the point, they don’t care.

Host a house party and Bristol City will just turn up and sneer; as if they think they should be some place better than an over packed suburban semi with bathtub full of Bacardi Breezers and the Out Here Brothers blasting from a fake Bose sound system.

This attitude is even more laughable, when you remember Bristol City have actually spent the last decade splashing out on new clothes and fancy aftershave, only to repeatedly fail to gain admission into the ‘better’, blingier, party in the big house up the hill.

That said. Whatever you do, never dance at a shindig when Bristol City is in attendance, as history has shown us, the second anyone jumps around or waves their hands, Bristol City will notify the police.

Bristol Rovers meanwhile MAKE a house party.

The Gas will whack on the Prodigy at ear-splitting volume, while everyone else is still making small talk over the punch.

Taking Keith Flint at face value, they’ll then proceed set fire to everything and everyone, even though it’s their house, and they’ll then be forced to move to Bath.

Doomed to spend the next decade or so, swaying down the hard shoulder of the A36 with Irene on one arm and a half-eaten half-dead chicken in their spare paw, They’ll regret nothing.

What I’m saying is Bristol Rovers fans are my type of people

Put it this way. Everyone knows the Coronation Tap in Clifton stocks a cider so potent they will only serve it in half pints – what’s less well known is this health and safety hooplala is instantly overlooked if you produce a Rovers season ticket, indeed bar staff will simply handed over a straw, your own barrel and tell you to crack on.

Sadly a heavy police presence before Saturdays game at the CG, meant that a pre-match pub trip with my pirate chums, to sink double digit ABV Scrumpy and LOL about the fact that Lee Johnson looks more like an action figure estate agent than a football manager, was out of the question.

Obviously, we still got on it, just in a park in Chippenham. And I’m not entirely sure my Saturday morning drinking buddies were Bristol Rovers fans and not just some tramps; it is, and I mean this as nothing but a complement to the Gas faithful, often hard to tell the difference.

Hobos or not, all were all heroically sozzled at 11 in the morning, and more willing to join me in a ‘Conga if you hate City’. Which is to their credit.

Such pre match festivities, meant my recollection of the game itself is quite loose. The first half Town seemed much the better side, like a gap toothed farm hand, 4 pints down, in the mosh pit of a Wurzels gig, we were lively, without every actually scoring.

As for the second half, I’ll be honest, I nodded off just after kick off. When I woke, the ground was strangely empty, and Towns scoreboard – Never the most reliable – had gone stuck on 59 minutes. This regrettable equipment malfunction aside, did I miss much? Did we win?

Wild Al – @KingOfCairos