'It was home' - Doncaster Rovers fans still hold Belle Vue dear in their hearts 18 years on


I didn't grow up supporting Doncaster Rovers. Nor did I ever get the opportunity to venture to Belle Vue, the club's former ground where they played for 84 years up until 2006. It is a ground which has now been consigned to football's history books for longer than some Rovers fans have been alive.
And yet even after all this time - just over 18 years since it staged its final match - it clearly still retains a firm place in the heart of supporters who ventured there. That much was evident within hours of me putting out an appeal on social media earlier this year. I wanted to get people's memories of their old home and see if they still yearn for those days.
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Hide AdOf course, the mind can play tricks on you the older you get. The more you reminisce about things and the further it goes into the rear-view mirror the hazier it can get. But perhaps we cling on to the 'good old days' to try and hold off the rapid changes that football throws at us.
Belle Vue was a relic of its time. Hotch-potch stands and uncovered terracing. The overwhelming responses that came in helped paint a far more vivid picture than I could ever hope to get watching back grainy footage of Youtube clips.
Many fans of other clubs may have sneered at the facilities on away days and thought Belle Vue to be a shoddy and ramshackled ground. But to Rovers fans it was 'their' shoddy and ramshackled ground. It was home for so long that the feeling never really wore off. I doubt it ever will.
Since a ball was last kicked there, there will be people whose newborns have now become adults. And yet for others it still feels as if no time has passed at all. Many fans still yearn for those days on the 'Pop side' stand.
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Hide AdSome of the memories sent in include the relatively banal, such as the smell of chips wafting out from the burger huts or the Deep Heat attacking their nostrils, given the close proximity to the pitch.


But plenty of others cut to the heart of what football is, and always will be, about. It's about going as a youngster because your Dad dragged you along - but then quickly catching the bug and eventually continuing the legacy with your own offspring. It's about discovering something you never knew existed but immediately loving the fact that it does. Some even professed to Belle Vue playing the unexpected role of Cupid; the setting for them to meet their future partner.
Many spoke of the famous nights under the lights where noses of the 'big boys' were bloodied, especially during the League Cup run in 2005-06.
But others also looked back fondly (or perversely) on the defeats to Rochdale and Hereford in the freezing cold. And maybe that is the beauty of all of this. Nobody is kidding themselves that Rovers won every week, nor that the football was always beautiful. But all the stuff surrounding it, including the unique setting, was undoubtedly special.
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Hide AdOf course not everyone looks back with rose-tinted glasses. There will be a fair share of Rovers supporters who fully embraced the move to the all-seater, gleaming new Keepmoat Stadium back in 2007.


Many accept that change was necessary if the club wished to progress and at this point it's worth pointing out what a superb stadium the Eco-Power was and still is. It is not just a 15,000-seater complex that serves all the needs of a modern day club but its restaurant, corporate and education facilities make it a community stadium in the truest sense. In effect, it is a world away from Belle Vue. But that doesn't mean you cannot appreciate both.
Jason Price's time as a Rovers player overlapped the transition to the new ground in early 2007. "I loved playing at Belle Vue because of the atmosphere. It was a proper old school ground and I have to say, the pitch was like a carpet," he tells the Free Press.
"But I think moving to the Keepmoat was a smooth transition because we had such a good team. It all just clicked into gear and it was perfect timing really."
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Hide AdIndeed, the mid-season switch to the new ground certainly played its part in Rovers' subsequent period of success. More than 20,000 fans turned up to two home games in the EFL Trophy in the second half of that season, roaring them on to a final that they would ultimately prosper in against Bristol Rovers.


The first full season in the ground then saw promotion into the Championship, culminating in the superb win over Leeds United at Wembley in the play-off final. That would be the first of seven promotions or relegations witnessed by the new ground, with a new generation making memories just the way people did at their previous home.
Of all the replies about Belle Vue, of which there are far too many to reply individually to, perhaps my favourite was this succinct one: "The best memories that I'll treasure forever. It was home, simple as that."
One day these fans will be grey and old but do not bet against them still harbouring that same twinkle in their eye should someone happen to ask them about what Belle Vue was like.
I bet even then they'll still be able to recall the smell of Deep Heat. And the chips.
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