The Year the Doncaster Rovers Went Up in Flames
1997/98: The Worst Year in the History of Doncaster Rovers
Many clubs have had bad seasons, but very few can compare to the calamitous campaign Doncaster Rovers endured in 1997/98.
That season, the Vikings were relegated from the Football League for the first time in their long history.
Many believed it would be the team’s final year as a professional football club. Some of the fans even held a funeral for the club on the last game of the season.
One fan who has seen it all at Doncaster Rovers is William Workman. He began supporting the club at the age of six and is now in his sixty-fourth year as a season ticket holder.
He is known by the Rovers faithful as Saturday Santa, as he wears a Santa hat to every game he attends. He promised his friends as a bet that he would wear it to every game until Doncaster Rovers reached the promised land of the top flight.
Much of this article has been informed by Workman’s words, appearing in a book about the Doncaster Rovers in the 1997-98 season, written by Ian Macmanon.
Find out about the worst year ever for the Doncaster Rovers.
Ken Richardson takes over
Doncaster had financial difficulties in the early 1990s and desperately needed someone to invest in order to keep the club to keep it afloat. They were eventually bought out by Ken Richardson in 1994.
Richardson came to Rovers with a flawed background, which had seen him preside over the rise and ruin of a non-League club, Bridlington Town.
He had also been given a suspended prison sentence back in 1984 after being convicted of switching horses in a race at Leicester.
Workman said: "The fans had no conception of what was going to happen when Ken Richardson bought Doncaster. He gave this glowing account that he would invest heavily and have us in the Premier League within five years. We all hoped he would be the saviour.”
Over time it became clear that Richardson's intentions were not to progress the club, and instead he aimed to strip the team of its assets for personal benefits.
Workman explained: “The atmosphere became vitriolic very quickly. The unrest began early in 1996 as Richardson began to sell a number of our best players.”
As things began to unravel on the pitch, the pressure began to take is toll on Richardson. Workman recalls a strange instance during one of his Saturday games at Belle Vue when owner Richardson asked him to sit alongside him in the director’s box.
"Richardson asked me to point out sections of the fans who he believed were conspiring against him. It was clear at this point that the paranoia was setting in. The manager at the time Sammy Chung was present in the meeting but remained silent throughout the meeting.”
Just two hours before the 1996-1997 season began, Doncaster dropped a bombshell by sacking manager Sammy Chung.
Kerry Dixon was appointed manager and miraculously avoided relegation with the help of a core of senior players, despite the frequent interference of de facto owner Ken Richardson, who was reportedly faxing out the team selections.
Rumours began to circulate that Richardson was faxing the team sheet for the games, and even doing the team talks over the phone.
The fall of Belle Vue
All of Doncaster’s assets were stripped, the training facilities were run down, the majority of senior players were sold. It was a grim state of affairs for the Doncaster Rovers.
One of the most notable examples of Doncaster’s asset stripping was Richardson’s plans for the stadium Belle Vue. During Richardson’s tenure as owner he put an advert up with the intention of selling the stadium to investors elsewhere.
The historic Belle Vue stadium
What he did not realise at the time was that Belle Vue was the property of Doncaster Council, who had leased the stadium to the Doncaster Rovers under the terms that the stadium had to be used for sporting purposes.
The 1997/98 season
The writing was on the wall for the Doncaster Rovers well before the 1997/98 campaign began.
In the opening 4 months of the 1997/98 season Doncaster failed to win a single game. By November, they had already gone through five different managers- most of whom resigned as they felt undermined by Richardson's interference with the team.
The final manager to take charge was Mark Weaver, who was appointed in November 1997. His only previous experience in football was selling raffle tickets for Stockport County.
Workman said: “He was a figure of hatred amongst the fans and was viewed as the face of the Ken Richardson regime. During Weaver’s time as manager most of the players were on part time contracts. Many of our players didn’t even train as it was made voluntary.”
The Final Straw
In the 1997-98 season, Doncaster Rovers fans formed the "Save the Rovers group"; with the aim of alerting everyone to what was happening to the club.
"One game we all brought a whistle. As the match started it would sound like the referee was blowing his whistle when really it was someone in the ground. A police inspector came out and asked me what was going on and I said: "Richardson is killing our club, we have to do something.”
In the final game of the year against Colchester the fans held a mock funeral before the game and put flowers at the side of the pitch. Many believed it would be the club’s final ever game.
" We did everything in our power to force the game to be abandoned- there were pitch invasions every ten minutes, we just wanted someone to take notice of what was happening so this kind of thing would never happen to any other club.”
Resurrected from the Ashes
When Doncaster crashed out of the football league many fans feared it would be the end for the club. Ken Richardson relinquished his ownership of the club after being sentenced to prison time, and it was doubtful that Doncaster would even be able to field a team in time for the new season.
It is only because of John Ryan, who took ownership of the club in 1998, that the Doncaster Rovers stayed in existence. A recurring thought throughout the ordeal for Rovers fans was faith. Having faith that someone else is looking after the bigger picture, and a stepping out in faith retreat theme is what many fans held on to.
There were, and are, brighter days ahead.
When he arrived the team only had four players signed up. The ground still had a hole in it from the previous regime where Richardson tried to burn the main stand.
The ground looked like something you would see at Sunday league, but Ryan made assurances that he would get the club up and running again.
Within ten years of John Ryan's ownership, the Doncaster Rovers have achieved promotion three times between 2003 and 2008. This has resulted in Doncaster being promoted to the Championship for the first time in fifty years.
More information about John Ryan’s time at the Doncaster Rovers can be found here.
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