Amidst the excitement of Wembley and Rovers' last-gasp dash to promotion from League Two in 2007-08 was the realisation that avoiding immediate relegation had to be the priority for Bristol Rovers in 2007-08.

This was achieved relatively comfortably, though not without a late glance over the proverbial shoulder, and a hugely impressive FA Cup run to the club's first quarter-final in half a century added a touch of gloss to the season.

The management team of Paul Trollope and Lennie Lawrence had achieved their aims and the process of consolidation in League Two had begun.

Prior to the side's first season in the third tier of English football since 2000-01, there was the small matter of building up a side capable of holding its own at this level.

Trollope and Lawrence held onto the shape and personnel that had taken the club to this point, adding in a few players in key positions. First, the signing of left-back Joe Jacobson was made permanent and the young Welshman continued to impress, captaining his country at Under-21 level during the season. Midfielder David Pipe, striker Andy Williams and strong central defender Danny Coles were added to the squad and all had significant roles to play as the season progressed.

A brief Scottish tour that followed a 5-2 victory over Bath City saw the team remain undefeated against Dunfermline Athletic, Cowdenbeath and Airdrie United, Richard Walker scoring in all three games north of the border.

Yet, though he and Sammy Igoe had both scored at the Millennium Stadium and again at Wembley, neither was to score from open play in 2007-08 and Igoe left on loan to Hereford United in the spring.
If survival was the primary concern during the season, it is one that Rovers achieved with the minimum of fuss.

Though three Yorkshire sides completed a League double over Rovers - Leeds United, Huddersfield Town and Doncaster Rovers -, as did Swindon Town, Leyton Orient and relegated Bournemouth, this was achieved in turn over both Oldham Athletic and Millwall, who were both defeated by last-minute goals at The Memorial Stadium. Rovers took four points off promotion favourites Carlisle United and drew both games with the former European champions Nottingham Forest, who were promoted on the final day.

The side rode its luck on occasions, securing victory over Millwall twice through injury-time goals and scoring five minutes into stoppage time to earn a point at home to Yeovil Town.

However, Rovers were unbeaten in their first five League games of the season, a run which stretched to sixteen matches undefeated if the tail end of 2006-07 and the play-offs were taken into consideration, and there was another run of eleven matches unbeaten in all competitions from Boxing Day until the trip to Doncaster in mid-February. With club captain Stuart Campbell controlling midfield and Aaron Lescott playing with renewed vigour at full-back, the side had greater shape.

The two Craigs contributed greatly to the goals-for column, with Disley achieving a personal highest seasonal goals tally of six League goals and Hinton, who had not scored at all in over 100 games for the club, hitting a purple patch with two League goals and, astonishingly, three more in the FA Cup.

However, there were tell-tale signs that League One was to be a tougher proposition to all that the club had experienced in recent years. Luton Town equalised and held on for a point at The Memorial Stadium, even though they were playing with only eight men. At relegation-threatened Gillingham, Rovers led 2-1 with five minutes remaining, only to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

Southend United scored an injury-time equaliser for a point in Horfield and Forest recovered a 2-0 deficit to escape from the Memorial Stadium with a point.

Three of the four relegated sides escaped from Horfield with at least a point, Bournemouth defeating Rovers three times during the campaign. Indeed, in an alarming run that hinted at the 2000-01 relegation season, Rovers had not won at home in the League until mid-November, their eleventh home match in all competitions, and there was a slump either side of the FA Cup quarter-final, when Rovers secured one point in five League encounters and did not win in ten League matches.

Indeed, there was just one League win in the final fifteen games of the campaign. At this point, Trollope and Lawrence acted in the loan market and brought in two experienced campaigners, striker Wayne Andrews and midfielder Jeff Hughes.

Andrews lasted just seventeen minutes at Yeovil before injury brought his season to a premature end and Hughes did not even make the team, receiving an injury in a reserve game that prevented him from getting onto the pitch at all.

One highlight of the League season was Rickie Lambert's astonishing goal at Luton that was voted second best in the division by an independent panel. Just 67 seconds in to Rovers' 2-1 victory at Kenilworth Road in September, he volleyed home from a full thirty-five yards past goalkeeper David Forde for a spectacular goal.

The same game also featured a thrice-taken penalty, as the referee continued to spot infringements as the kick was taken - to his credit, Luton's Matt Spring scored on all three occasions and the goal eventually stood. When the sides later met at The Mem, Luton became only the second side ever to have three men sent off against Rovers, with Chris Coyne, Steve Robinson and Tony Grant all seeing red.

Rovers themselves received only two red cards all season, yet these were both in a controversial close to the single-goal defeat at Swindon, when Richard Walker and Steve Elliott were both dismissed in mystifying circumstances along with Swindon's Jerel Ifil; their substitute Sofiane Zaaboub was also sent off, just two minutes after coming onto the pitch. The red card to Swansea's Fabian Brandy at The Mem took to six the number of opposition substitutes ever sent off in League action against Rovers.

Walker became only the seventh player to score twice from the penalty-spot in a League fixture, in giving Rovers a 2-0 lead at home to Orient in September, a lead that was squandered as the east London side came away with all three points. Doncaster Rovers also scored from two penalties when Rovers lost 2-0 at The Keepmoat, Brian Stock and substitute Paul Heffernan converting the spot-kicks.

That match included the entire, yet brief Rovers career of Anthony Pulis, the son of a former Rovers stalwart, who appeared as a late substitute, picked up a yellow card and conceded the second penalty. Byron Anthony's first League goal for Rovers was followed three minutes later by an own goal at home to Nottingham Forest in September, as he became the fifth Rovers player to score for both sides in a League match.

This first season back in League One had enabled Rovers to attract an average home attendance in the League of 6,937, almost one-and-a-half-thousand more than in the promotion campaign twelve months earlier. Rovers finished the season in sixteenth place in League One, having scored just 45 goals in 46 League encounters and secured just five home victories in the League.

Goalkeeper Steve Phillips and captain Stuart Campbell were both ever-presents, whilst Rickie Lambert, though substitute on four occasions, featured in every League fixture as well as top-scoring with thirteen League goals in addition to his six Cup strikes. Rovers also supplied the opposition when Cheltenham Town fielded their oldest ever League player, Jerry Gill being 37 years 190 days, whilst Alan Wright, who played alongside him, had also been in the Blackpool side that opposed Rovers in April 1989. Millwall's Ali Fuseini came on as a fourth minute substitute at The Mem and his goal, timed at seven minutes 49 seconds, is the earliest in a Rovers game from a substitute.

Cup competitions were of critical importance to Bristol Rovers in 2007-08. Whilst the Johnstone Paint Trophy did not bring the success of the previous campaign, Rovers bowing out meekly at home to a Bournemouth side that included the former Bristol City player Rob Newman, now aged 43 years and 300 days, success lay elsewhere. First, victory over Championship side Crystal Palace in a dramatic League Cup penalty shoot-out set up a home tie with Premier League West Ham United.

A narrow 2-1 defeat was marred by the broken leg suffered by England winger Kieran Dyer in a tackle from Joe Jacobson. Then, the FA Cup took over Rovers' season, though the side had almost been eliminated in the First Round at Orient. As the cup run gained momentum, Rovers began to draw the attention of the national press and, by the beginning of March, Rovers were "unquestionably the Cinderella team of the FA Cup" (Dave Rogers). In becoming this, they had defeated teams from each of the top five tiers of English football. For only the third time in the club's 125-year history and the first time since 1958, Rovers found themselves in the quarter-finals of this famous old competition.

Struggling through to defeat nine-man Orient in a penalty shoot-out at The Memorial Stadium, Wayne Corden and Jabo Ibehre having been sent off, Rovers recovered from trailing to an early wind-assisted long-range goal from Rushden's Marcus Kelly to defeat their Conference opponents 5-1 in atrocious conditions in Round Two.

This victory earned a trip to Craven Cottage where "it was sometimes hard to tell who were the Premier League team" (Simon Burnton, The Guardian, 7.1.08). With "the euphoria ? (and) pride of Rovers' travelling band" (Oliver Brown, The Telegraph, 7.1.08) behind them, Rovers twice took the lead through central defenders, Craig Hinton and Danny Coles both seeing their goals cancelled out by Fulham equalisers.

Tenacious and determined, and cheered on by a partisan crowd, Rovers were "vastly superior in terms of both adventure and endeavour (on) a famous night for Rovers" in the Horfield replay (James Corrigan, The Independent, 23.1.08). Rovers triumphed 5-3 on penalties, with Disley, as he had against Orient, converting the decisive spot-kick. A single Lambert goal at Barnet set up a fifth-round tie at home to Southampton, the 2003 finalists but uncharacteristically vulnerable near the foot of their division.

Live on the BBC, Rovers ground out a barely pretty but wholly effective 1-0 victory, Lambert having one headed "goal" disallowed before marking his 26th birthday with a famous goal from a free-kick with six minutes remaining, his shot deflecting in off Jermaine Wright. "If anyone questions the magic of the FA Cup", wrote Andrew Warshaw in the Sunday Telegraph, 17.2.08, "they should have been down in this part of the West Country".

Rovers were through to their first FA Cup quarter-final in half a century and, having been given a home tie against non-Premier League opponents, there was a very real hope that the side could reach its first-ever semi-final.

Alas, further FA Cup success was not to be. Before a fiercely vocal record attendance of 12,011, Rovers were undone by a slick and effective West Bromwich Albion side that played with great skill and showed clinical finishing. The margin of defeat - 5-1 - was harsh on a Rovers side that competed well, but reflected the power of an Albion side who were top scorers in the four divisions of English football. Ishmael Miller, a cut above everyone else on the day, scored a hat-trick, only the second opponent ever to do so at The Memorial Stadium.

For some time, after Coles' scrambled goal on 31 minutes from Campbell's right-wing corner had cut the score to 2-1, Rovers were in the tie, but "Miller, retreating from an offside position" (Russell Kempson, The Times, 10.3.08) put the Baggies 3-1 ahead with twenty minutes remaining and the efficiency of Tony Mowbray's side ultimately proved too strong for The Pirates.

Nonetheless, a quarter-final had been beyond Rovers' pre-season aspirations and Coles could lay claim to being only the second Rovers player, following the late Geoff Bradford, to have scored for the club at this stage in the competition.
A good deal of positives could be taken out of the 2007-08 season. The management team continued to add stability to a side that had chopped and changed through the roughest years of the basement division.

A regular line-up now played with greater consistency and only there games were lost by more than a single goal in the League. Youth was allowed to flourish, with Chris Lines given an extended run in midfield and both Sean Rigg and Josh Klein-Davies playing and scoring in attack.

Charlie Reece, Tom Parrinello, Matt Groves and seventeen-year-old Charlie Clough, the first 1990s-born Rovers player, were given brief cameo roles as a prelude to what may be major contributions to the Bristol Rovers story in years to come.

The club continues to attract positive support, taking 2,781 fans to Leeds and a total of 6,976 to the FA Cup game at Fulham, this figure representing more than half of the 13,634 crowd. It was said that no top division side has ever been so outnumbered by a lower-league side in its own ground.

"The Pirate" was voted Programme of the Year for League One by Programme Monthly, who said it offers "unbeatable value for money and a tremendous service for supporters". Finally, the go-ahead for the redevelopment of the Memorial Stadium was given the green light on 2nd April, when Bristol City Council, heeding the persuasive argument of community liaison officer Carl Saunders, a former Rovers striker, voted 7-1, with one abstention, to agree to the original plans.

The number of student flats was to be reduced from 105 to 99, hotel bedrooms from 112 to 97 and hospitality boxes from 28 to 20, but this plan would otherwise follow closely that already agreed, with the result that the pitch would be enlarged from 100×64 m to 100×66m.

A long-anticipated announcement of Rovers' temporary move to play home fixtures at Cheltenham Town's Whaddon Road was made public as the season drew to a close, the curtain coming down on the Old Mem in a disappointing 2-0 defeat at the hands of Brighton in a meaningless end-of-season anticlimax, as this chapter in the Bristol Rovers story drew to a close.

Written by Stephen Byrne