“Insane” and “mad” were the adjectives Antony Evans used in the wake of Bristol Rovers’ extraordinary victory at Rochdale; the former to describe the circumstances and scenes surrounding Aaron Collins’ winner at Spotland and the quality of the travelling Gasheads in attendance; the latter as a form of categorisation for this group of players.
“We’re just a mad team”, he said in his deadpan and laidback Scouse accent. A brief but a pretty fair assessment given the journey this team has been on and the increasingly complex mixture of brilliance and bedlam that underpins their performances.
Rovers are 45 games deep in a frenetic League Two campaign and a glorious paradox of being a team in which it’s hard to pigeonhole exactly what they are as a side but, at the same time, that slight sense of chaos is precisely what makes them special and gives them an identity.
