One of the highlights among the recent images from Bristol Rovers’ pre-season training camp in Portugal was a joint group photo of players and staff from the Gas and their opponents in a secretly-arranged friendly with FC Porto.
There were beaming smiles across the board but lurking towards the back row was the stern gaze of Rovers’ new frontline striker, just a few days into his career in the quarters - John Marquis. “Bet he’s fun at parties”, was a predictable response among the light-hearted social media replies, but here’s the thing, John Marquis is a serious man - in how he plays and talks off the field.
There was an intensity to how he was closing down Chippenham defenders on Tuesday night, sometimes even a little too close to the bone, and also in mapping out his hopes and dreams for the next two years in a Rovers shirt. His goal inside 10 seconds wasn't met with a smile, but a nonchalant shrug of the shoulders.
Even when making, what appeared to be, a joke about having to keep up with Harvey Saunders’ pace down the flank, he said it with a completely straight face and absolutely no change in tone to indicate sarcasm.
But there’s also a paradoxical element to it all, because while Marquis is serious about being successful, most of all, he’s serious about having fun again on a football pitch.
The last year to 18 months have been tough for the 30-year-old, as a Portsmouth career that began with his status as a £1million striker and a banner role in a squad that was among the contenders for the League One title, fizzled out over time and he became a pariah among the Fratton faithful, as their ability to get out of the division dwindled. There was even somehow a Pompey fan among the Chippenham crowd in midweek moaning about him.
A short-term move to Lincoln last season failed to re-ignite the goalscoring flame as he hit the target just five times in 20 appearances, but Rovers is now a fresh start and a chance to reignite the flame within.
“For me, I just want to get back enjoying my football and playing with a smile on my face to my full capability,” Marquis tells Bristol Live. “At times, it’s been frustrating, which is just part of football, I suppose. There will be ups and downs in everyone’s career and throughout a season, I know that, but I want to have more happy moments moving forward and I know this is a place where I can achieve that.
“I know my capabilities, what I’ve done at this level for a number of years now so I just need to play in a team that suits me with a manager that suits me and accepts and likes me for who I am, and likes what I do. And that’s hopefully what I can achieve here - get back to having fun on a football pitch.”
As Marquis mentions, central to achieving something that is intangible and subjective - far beyond goal targets and points tallies - will be Joey Barton; how he manages the striker, uses him in whatever system he deploys and tries to get the best out of him through the service around him.
Certainly from the player’s point of view, the signs are all there given how quickly his transfer was concluded, from an international phone call from Liverpool to Dubai, to visiting the Quarters and then hopping on a flight to Portugal - all in less than a week.
Marquis was conducting his own pre-season training programme in the UAE when he received Barton’s pitch, about Rovers, how he plans to play, what he wants to achieve and what he thinks of the former Doncaster and Millwall striker, who has such a strong reputation in League One.
So enthused by Barton’s plans, a few days later he was on a plane back to the UK before visiting Almondsbury on the Friday morning of Rovers’ friendly against Melksham Town to meet the manager and his staff and get a feel for the place. Three days later he was a Gas player, joining the team at Browns Sports Resort in Vilamoura.
“I spoke to the manager on the phone, straight away he impressed me with what he said - how he spoke about the club, his ambition personally and with the club moving forward,” Marquis added. “It aligned very much with what I’d like to achieve and what I want to do. He also told me what he liked about me, and what he didn’t like about me, which is nice to have some honesty and clarity from minute one. And I was very interested.
“When I came back, I came down to the training ground, spoke to the manager, spoke to the staff and from that point it was pretty quick over the weekend, dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s and making sure everything was good and then it was straight out to meet the boys on the Monday. In a way, it was quick, but after speaking to the manager, seeing his ideas, visually seeing them face-to-face was very good and, obviously, the training ground as well, it was nice to see that.”
Those few days in between speaking to Barton, visiting The Quarters and signing his contract, Marquis also sought out two names very familiar to Gasheads for their own experiences of the club: Ellis Harrison and Lee Brown. Close friends from his Pompey days and long-term servants in these parts, the feedback he received was overwhelmingly positive.
“Lee and Ellis spoke ever so highly of the place,” he added. “When I knew there was a chance of going there, I picked their brains a bit and they said, ‘you’ll love it, you’ll love the area, you’ll love the people at the club, the fans, everything about it’. Them giving me a nudge helped it but I was pretty made up anyway.”
As for what Barton wants from his new No9 - and the squad numbers are yet to be confirmed but the way Marquis talks, having that shirt number seems very much part of the equation - there were glimpses of that at Chippenham in midweek.
Marquis claimed a brace, tap-ins via the express pace and vision of Harvey Saunders, with Rovers’ requiring that sort of wily penalty box finisher they lacked at times last season - it’s easy to overlook just how many of Aaron Collins’ goals were finishes of beauty rather than brawn. In League One, they’ll often need to scrap rather than dance and dazzle their way to victory.
But his instincts were more than just about getting into the box. He pressed and wrestled with defenders - even kicking out at one point in frustration - and was a willing option for Rovers’ young midfield duo of Jerry Lawrence and Ryan Jones, wanting the ball into feet.
By his own admission, his lack of training compared to his teammates means he’s slightly behind them fitness-wise, and partly contributed to the reason for his withdrawal at half-time after sustaining a dead leg, but he wants to be about more than just goals.
“They’re the areas I like to get in, that’s part of my game, getting in and around the six-yard box and one or two-touch finishes; they’re the areas most of my goals come from so as long as the balls keep going in there, I’ll hopefully get on the end of some good quality,” he said.
“A No9 nowadays has to do a bit of everything but, first and foremost, I have to try and score goals. But there’s also linking the play, making unselfish runs, setting off the press, running in behind, so there’s a lot of things nines need to do but a lot of people looking at it from the outside in think that all that matters is goals, but that’s not just the case.”
Now house-hunting for a place with his young family, time is of the essence as his eldest daughter starts school in September but Marquis is very much looking forward to not just becoming part of Rovers as a team but settling in the area and finding a new home and that sense of happiness he’s been deprived of.
READ NEXT:
