Tranmere Rovers
Prenton Park Spring Water
Tranmere Crest
By David Sindall
September 7 2025
Del Boy Trotter was always fond of saying ‘This time next year’ we’ll be millionaires!’ It encapsulated a dream, we might be in a bit of a mess right now, but with the right enterprise, and faith, everything would come right. Del Boy should have been a Tranmere supporter because tomorrow is always promised as a better place.
We started last season quite brightly, we had a manager who had completed their first pre-season, we won away at a recently relegated team, and it was possible to believe that by now we would be in League One. Then things started changing and, well, we all know where that ended, one of the most toxic periods I can remember in Tranmere history.
One of my favourite episodes of Fools and Horses was the Peckham Spring Water one, where Del and Rodney bottle everyday water and try and pass it off as fashionable mineral water. Of course, plot spoiler, their dreams never come off. Like Tranmere fans it is the hope that kills you. Personally, I lost interest in Fools and Horses after the daft bit where they got rich. It felt like a Peckham version of the Beverley Hillbillies and just didn’t work. I preferred Del and Rodney in their Tranmere supporters phase, hopeless dreamers.
There are enough signs to suggest that this season won’t be as bad as last season. We are scoring more goals and we look more purposeful. Against Salford we lacked the presence of Kenneh in midfield who gives the team a bite. It was also too early to say what impact Joe Ironside will have going forward. His movement showed promise, but I am not sure why he was taken off at half time, or why we didn’t try 4-4-2 for at least 10 minutes with Davidson on. Nor was I sure why Joe Murphy was put between the sticks and not Jack Barret. Just strange decisions.
I wonder if Andy Crosby is thinking of another John Sullivan series after the game at Salford, Citizen Smith? In Citizen Smith Robert Lindsay played Woolfy Smith leader of the Tooting Popular Front. Woolfy also had a catch phrase ‘come the glorious day’. Woolfy’s long suffering followers never quite got what was promised. However, at least we knew that Woolfy wasn’t a Tranmere supporter but a Fulham one. Fulham were then a pretty unambitious second tier team. Yet, like Fools and Horses, the promise of a better tomorrow was what drove members of the Tooting Popular Front forward. The promised revolution never arrived and the ‘glorious day’ remained a pipe dream. Does this sound familiar?
At our level footballing success is a bit of a pipe dream, it seems that we now dream of not failing, which is somewhat different to dreaming of success. People come along to Prenton Park in increasing numbers, certainly more than were coming when the first series of Fools and Horses was transmitted, in 1981, when our gates were dreadful. And it’s not to say that we won’t see the bubbles rising as the season progresses. There might be much more than Peckham Spring Water flowing come May. Ah, but there we go again, ‘this time next year’. ‘Come the glorious day’ eh?
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07/09/2025 08:46
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Quote:hong kong rover
and not forgetting that other John Sullivan series, 'Just Good Friends' with Paul Nicholas and Jan Francis, where he doesn't show up on his wedding day..Just like us yesterday at Salford, we never turned up..
Paul Nicholas was the first west end lead in ' jesus Christ superstar ' , even with him providing the crosses we won't win this league
