Albion fans were ‘spoiled’ during spectacular rise
BRISTOL Rovers manager Darrell Clarke says his club will aim to replicate Burton Albion’s rise into the Championship - a period during which he says their fans were “spoiled”.
Clarke takes his Pirates team to the Pirelli Stadium today for their League One clash, with both outfits looking to end three-game winless runs.
The last meetings between the sides came in League Two in the 2013-14 season.
At the end of that campaign, Rovers were relegated to the National League and Burton were beaten in the play-off final, before securing successive promotions in the two subsequent seasons and reaching English football’s second tier for the first time in their history.
“They’ve been spoiled, that’s what it is, that’s the way I look at it,” Clarke told the Bristol Post.
“The fans have enjoyed the ride, Nigel (Clough) got them from non-League and pushed them through the divisions years and years ago.
“He kicked on to manage bigger clubs and now he’s back, it’s his club.
“Certainly, the fans have been spoiled with a couple of years in the Championship where they’ve massively overachieved.
“We are aiming to try to replicate that at some point and keep working hard to do it. “It’ll be a tough place, it always has been. “I think Nigel’s done an unbelievable job. The year he kept them in the Championship, it was better than any feat of any manager all the way through the four divisions. “Burton are a small club that have been punching massively above their weight, they’ve got a fantastic manager in Nigel.
“They haven’t had a terrific start to this season but this division is very competitive.
“I’m not fearful of playing anybody. When we played Peterborough United and Portsmouth, we were the better team against Portsmouth.
“We’re not fearing any team we come up against, it’s tight, we’re certainly not overawed by who we play.
“Burton’s another team we go to on Saturday who haven’t had a good start but they’re well respected with a great manager and we’re looking forward to the challenge.”