Football Season Review

Doncaster have become a bit of a yo-yo club over the recent years, and the Rovers' goal going into this season was to secure their League One survival, having won promotion back to the third tier last summer at the first time of asking. Darren Ferguson's men gave their fans plenty to cheer for when they defeated Blackburn away in their second game of the season, but this turned out to have been the sole victory that they managed in their opening eight league games. However, it was always clear that this Rovers' side had potential. Apart from beating Blackburn, they also defeated Bradford away in a League Cup game early in the season and, while it took Ferguson some time to get his side to display their full potential, there was little doubt that the Rovers would be staying up once they found some consistency, which was in early October. They had a winless run in the second half of the season, with most of the results during this run being draws, but it was a decline that was caused by a difficult squad situation that Ferguson had to deal with, as Doncaster were at one stage without as many as five central defenders. The injury list started to clear up in March and the results duly improved, as the Rovers went on to collect ten points from four games to virtually secure their survival. Having had a lot of games postponed earlier in the season, Doncaster played five games in the last two weeks of the season and stayed up despite collecting only two points out of those matches. All in all, Ferguson will be pleased with having guided his side's survival in their season of return to the third tier. However, Doncaster were a Championship club not that long ago and Ferguson will be expected to improve the side and get them to challenge at least for a top half finish next time around.

Player of the Season: Tommy Rowe