From Disney deals to Magaluf millionaires: A decade on from Bristol Rovers' Wembley promotion

Bristol Live spoke to a number of key figures involved in Bristol Rovers’ Conference play-off final win at Wembley in 2015 for the 10th anniversary

Daniel Hargraves Bristol Rovers reporter

07:00, 17 May 2025

Bristol Rovers celebrate promotion to League Two after beating Grimsby Town in the Conference play-off final(Image: Jamie McDonald/Getty Images)

As Lee Mansell stepped up towards the penalty spot at Wembley Stadium, the best part of 35,000 Gasheads were situated behind in the opposite end, watching on with anticipation, knowing that one kick of a football from 12 yards could right the wrongs of Bristol Rovers’ darkest day a year prior.

Relegation out of the Football League was a nightmare that should have never become a reality for such a fiercely supported football club with rich EFL pedigree, but, a 1-0 home defeat to Mansfield Town, when all Rovers needed was a draw, saw them drop into the Conference.

It was an all-time low for the Gas as their 94-year stay in the Football League came to a devastating end.

At that moment, what would eventually follow in the next two years felt inconceivable as Rovers had to lick wounds so deep that, still to this day, haven’t healed fully.

Fast forward 12 months, and the Pirates were at Wembley, one kick of a football away from bouncing back into the Football League at the first time of asking, something that is so rare that only two clubs have managed it in the decade since.

On this day 10 years ago, the Gas were promoted back into League Two and, to commemorate the anniversary, Bristol Live spoke to some of the key figures behind that promotion.

As expected, it was a far from straightforward campaign. Rovers made a sluggish start to the season, losing two and drawing one of their opening four matches and only had eight points from their first seven games.

Then-chairman Nick Higgs had made the decision over that summer to keep manager Darrell Clarke in his position after the former assistant had taken over from John Ward for the final six matches in League Two, but was unable to steer Rovers to survival. However, rumours that Clarke’s job was on the line ahead of a game against Telford were gathering pace. The Gas won 1-0 and the rest was history.

Clarke went on to spend four-and-a-half years in the Rovers dugout, becoming a modern club legend, and has recently returned to north Bristol six-and-a-half years on from his departure. The new Gas head coach spoke to Bristol Live before he was re-appointed by Rovers.

“The big thing for me for that year was the pressure of the year,” Clarke recalled. “Obviously we didn’t start well. Feeling that relegation, I knew what it meant. What people don’t know, at the time we didn’t have a great budget. Listen, we had a top three Conference budget, but it was like rebuilding a club.

“I just remember it being a massive, massive pressure year. I had a good relationship with Nick Higgs and Toni [Watola], but the pressure was relentless.

“I wouldn’t change it because it put me on a real good course for the rest of my career, but it was just managing the environment. I can remember when some fans tried to get on the bus when we drew 0-0 with Alfreton and we didn’t have a good start. Then it all started to click. But the pressure was the amount of times I heard ‘we’ve got to get out of this division this year Darrell’.

“If you look at past teams, Wrexham were there 15 years. I think Luton had five years there. Oxford. You know, you’re talking about Championship clubs that were down there for a while. So it was relentless. The fans, the owner, the chairman; we’ve got to get out of this division Darrell.

“So it was hard to enjoy a lot of that season and Wembley, it all just came out when that final penalty went in because the pressure was immense.”

Darrell Clarke claps the Bristol Rovers fans(Image: Ben Hoskins/Getty Images)

Another two points come May and Rovers would have gone up automatically. They were on course for top spot but a 1-1 draw at Dover in their penultimate league game allowed Barnet to swoop in and seal the sole automatic promotion spot, ending the campaign just one point ahead of the Gas with a notably superior goal difference.

A second half strike from Ellis Harrison put the Gas 1-0 up on a pitch that Clarke recalls as a “concrete car park”, but an error from goalkeeper Will Puddy meant that Rovers had to settle for a point and, ultimately, the lottery of the play-offs, despite ending the regular season with a 7-0 thrashing of Alfreton Town at home.

“Do you know, that Dover game still rings so heavy on my mind,” the Gas head coach sighed. “That changing room after the game, obviously after the relegation it was a disastrous changing room, but after that I was speechless, to be honest with you. I was nearly in tears after that game because it had been in our own hands.

“But what I will say is that the mentality of that group, and the way we responded and pulled it together, because not a lot of teams do that. Just to miss out on an error, win 7-0, and then we dismantled Forest Green in the play-offs. We were miles better than them in the two legs. To come back from that and do what we needed to do was testament to the character I had in that changing room.

“When I knew for me that we were going to be all right was the Forest Green first leg and I’m just about to go in to do my talk at about half past one, and the whole bloody squad’s singing this song that they put on the stereo blaster. Not an ounce of nerves within them, because they’d gone through all the stages through the course of this season. We’d gone through those moments where we had to come through fighting and I just thought, ‘you know what, we’re going to be all right here’.”

The final itself was a poor game. Rovers conceded within the first two minutes and could have fallen further behind before Ellis Harrison’s 29th minute equaliser. It then fizzled out into a forgettable stalemate, going into extra-time and then penalties.

If getting Rovers promoted hadn’t put Clarke in club folklore, images of the celebrations afterwards did. To this day, a photograph of the Gas manager singing to the thousands of Gasheads situated in the West Stand at Wembley, arms outstretched and medal glimmering with a blue-and-white scarf around his neck remains iconic in club history.

Darrell Clarke celebrates promotion with the Bristol Rovers fans at Wembley(Image: Jamie McDonald/Getty Images)

As Mansell’s winning penalty hit the back of the net, all built-up emotion leaped out of Clarke’s body as he raced across the hallowed turf towards the sea of blue and white.

He was also very much involved in the celebrations with a video of that speech directed at the Grimsby Telegraph still shared frequently amongst supporters to this day.

“The build up was good,” Clarke reflected. “We went down beforehand because I thought that was important. Get all the photos and all that rubbish out the way.

“We didn’t play that well on the day. It was a pretty even game, a decision went for us. I still don’t kid myself, we weren’t anywhere near our best on that day. A lot of players froze to be honest, but we deservedly got through in the end from what the season was.

“But what the day did do was set me up really well for my next promotion at Wembley when I took Port Vale and beat Mansfield, because I learned so much from it. Managing an unbelievably big game and what it meant to everybody.

“So yet again, massive pressure leading up to it. I couldn’t really enjoy it, if I’m honest, and the only time I enjoyed it was when Lee Mansell put that one in the top bin. The rest of the time I was bloody praying.

“The big thing for me is running over to the fans,” he added on the celebrations. “I’ll never forget that because I know how much the pain and the hurt it caused our fanbase and dropping out of the League and I know it still hurts a lot of fans now. Just the pure relief and to share that moment, I’ll never forget that.

“The partying after, you seem to forget about that. Your adrenaline’s pumping, you’ve had two pints and then you’re p****d. I don’t remember a lot after that!

“It’s got to go to the top [of my career] because the resilience, which has formed a lot of my life to be honest, the resilience my team showed to get promoted there, it has to be top because that has put me in a much better place and I’ve managed some big games after that game.

“I’ve obviously managed some decent sized clubs as well, but that game, for the resilience, has to be at the top.”

Naturally following a relegation, there were departures ahead of that season. However, Clarke was able to convince players who were subject to interest elsewhere to stay, with one of those individuals being Lee Brown.

The left-back was a rarity in the sense that he had already been at Rovers for some time, joining the club from QPR in 2011. At 23, Brown had already racked up over 100 appearances in League Two for the Gas and the risk of dropping down to the National League was significant.

There was strong interest in the defender, and a move was apparently close. However, when offering his recollection to Bristol Live, the now-retired left-back admitted that Clarke convinced him to stay on and help the club get promoted.

“I had three clubs wanting to sign me,” Brown confessed. “I was close to going, but I knew Darrell Clarke from when I used to play with him when I was like 18, and do you know what, he sort of sold me what we were going to do, and I just sort of believed in him.

“It was a massive gamble at the time, considering my age and wanting to stay in the Football League, but I just always believed we would be able to bounce back up and if we did, it would be an unbelievable feeling.

Lee Brown lifts the Conference play-off trophy(Image: Jamie McDonald/Getty Images)

“The disappointment of missing out at the end of the season, we were obviously gutted, but I think we always had confidence in the squad, even though it’s a lottery in the play-offs.

“I remember beating Forest Green and steamrolling them a bit in the play-offs. I’d rather win at Wembley than go up automatically, but it’s just that when you lose in the play-offs, it sucks.

“Amazing, amazing memories,” Brown, who scored Rovers’ third penalty, continued. “If you said to me now would you have rather gone up automatically or through the play-offs, I would have said, ‘definitely the play-offs’. But just at the time, I remember we all felt gutted because obviously we could have had an extended holiday. It was a done deal if we had gone up automatically. But I think the manager dealt with it really well.

“It’s on a knife edge. It can go either way on penalties. I just think the whole game, I think in the extra-time, and we didn’t perform well on the day. We were probably awful. It was probably our worst performance of the season. But to get into extra-time, sometimes it’s just written in the stars and we had five good penalties, to be fair.

“I’ve actually got a picture in my office of the exact moment of us all sprinting off the halfway line. So I’ve got it blown up to like A1. It’s basically us sprinting off the second that the goal went in and all of us sprinting off the halfway line and everyone’s expressions on their face. Every time I look at it, it sends shivers down my spine of that feeling, and the expressions on people’s faces. It’s such a raw picture.”

Bristol Rovers players react to Lee Mansell’s winning penalty(Image: Jamie McDonald/Getty Images)

What was also unique about the group is the fact that, 10 years on, they all remain in close contact with one another, with Brown adding that he still speaks to 99 per cent of the squad on a regular basis.

Celebratory nights out in Bristol followed the end of the regular season and the play-offs, as well as after the bus got back to the Mem from Wembley. However, the party of all parties was a three-day trip to Magaluf, organised by Brown.

“We got promoted on the Sunday or the Monday, and then we went on like the Tuesday and the club gave us some cash, so we were all bowling around Magaluf like we were millionaires!

“But we literally went straight away the next day, so we were all still on a high. We ended up booking the flights and hotels literally the same day. You’re just living off of adrenaline at that point a little bit.

“We got a club mini bus to drive us from the Mem to the airport and were just on adrenaline.”

Another member of the squad that made it over to the Majorcan resort town was Chris Lines who, like Brown, had worn the blue-and-white quarters many a time before the club’s season in the Conference. However, the circumstances were slightly different.

The Bristol-born midfielder had come through the youth ranks at Rovers before joining Sheffield Wednesday in the summer of 2011 following the club’s relegation to League Two.

He then returned in March 2015 on loan from Port Vale, a move that proved to be a masterstroke with the then-29-year-old making a major contribution throughout the play-offs.

“I was the first name on the teamsheet back then,” Lines joked on the celebratory trip to Magaluf. “It was a crazy story to be honest. Obviously, we just got straight back in to see our families after the game, then on the coach back to Bristol. And then I think we just went straight out in Bristol, like in our suits, and we were sort of partying until probably four or five o’clock in the morning.

“I remember waking up in the morning, I’d probably had about four or five hours sleep. I think I still had my medal around my neck and I’ve got the group chat going off and Lee Brown had already been down to the club to organise our trip to Magaluf and we’re actually going that day.

“So it was literally the day after we were flying out that evening and it was just a case of, ‘right lads, the club are booking this for us, who’s coming? If you’re coming, be at the Mem for four o’clock and we’re getting a mini bus up to Heathrow and we’re off’.

“I think probably about 12 or 13 of us actually made it, and yeah, another kind of three days of madness really.”

Chris Lines celebrates Ellis Harrison’s equalising goal in the play-off final(Image: Matt Lewis – The FA/The FA via Getty Images)

With game time at Vale in the third tier not of a satisfactory quantity, Lines was exploring his options mid-season with a return to Rovers, at that time, something that didn’t feel possible.

Eventually, the midfielder was back in north Bristol, making eight league appearances before saving his best for when it really mattered.

The loanee scored the goal that put the Gas in firm control of their play-off semi-final against Forest Green as Rovers went 2-0 up on aggregate after a thumping effort in front of what is now the Thatchers End in the second leg.

Lines was also named man of the match in the final and took the Pirates’ first penalty, scoring a lovely spot kick into the right side-netting which got Rovers on their way.

“I was at Port Vale and was looking to get out on loan and just dialing up a few options,” the Gas legend recollected. “I was chatting to my Mum and I must have been back in Bristol for a couple of days and she said, ‘why don’t you try and get back down Rovers’ and I was like, ‘there’s no chance that’s going to happen’. Well, you might as well try.

“So, I literally spoke to my agent and said, ‘look mate, just reach out. It’ll be perfect there’. Obviously I looked at the league table and there was an outside chance of going up automatically and [it’s] probably going to be play-offs. So there were a good few games still to play. It proved obviously to be an unbelievable decision and I sort of just went in and hit the ground running really.

“I mean, I obviously dropped down two levels from where I was used to playing at that time and I suppose it was just a confidence boost that I needed personally and obviously it turned out to work out really well and help the club positively.

“It could have gone probably one of two ways, to be honest, because obviously I left on quite difficult terms after we got relegated and I just had to come back and sort of win a few more people over again and I think I did that kind of perfectly, to be honest.

“So yeah, it worked out really well and just an amazing sort of, it seems longer, but it was probably only a couple of months to be fair.”

Coincidentally, one of the clubs interested was apparently Forest Green, which subsequently put even more meaning behind Lines’ thumping effort in the play-off semi-final.

“I think we just went into it with confidence. We went into that game with Forest Green in the first leg, I guess thinking ‘it’s a tough place to go’, but then we turned up and there was probably more Rovers fans there than Forest Green. That obviously spurred us on, we got an early goal, and then despite Ellis getting sent off towards the end, we just hung on and a 1-0 away win is a good result, but the game’s still on a knife edge.

“I think I remember like the first 20 minutes of the home game, they actually had a bit of pressure on us. I think they had big John Parkin up top and he was causing all sorts of problems and the game was on a knife edge really up until the first goal.

“For me, it was just like a personal bonus to be able to get that goal and I obviously still say it now, like it was probably the greatest feeling I’ve had in football actually, and probably one of the loudest I’ve ever heard the Mem and I’ve played there many a time and I’ll never forget that roar. I quite often just look back at that video and watch it over and over again.

Chris Lines celebrates scoring for Bristol Rovers in the play-off semi-final second leg against Forest Green Rovers(Image: Ben Hoskins/Getty Images)

“I think once we got that second goal on aggregate, I think that was game over to be honest.”

When it came to Wembley, Lines was unlucky not to score what could well have proven to be a winning goal, but the midfielder’s penalty got the shootout under way before Matty Taylor and Lee Brown also scored with Grimsby netting their first two before a miss from Jon-Paul Pittman opened a clear pathway to triumph for Rovers.

After Angelo Balanta made it 4-2, one more miss from the Mariners would have seen the Gas through, but Craig Clay kept the shootout alive with a cracking penalty.

Then, up stepped Mansell, a player who was in his first season playing in blue-and-white quarters, but an individual who has been strongly associated with the football club over the past decade, coaching within the club’s academy following retirement and, more recently, being a summariser for BBC Radio Bristol’s commentary of matches.

“I ended up signing with Rovers while I was in Euro Disney,” Mansell chuckled when reflecting on his move to the Gas from Torquay that summer. “We were walking around, my wife was pregnant. I was always leaving Torquay because they offered me a 50 per cent pay cut and I just couldn’t afford to take it. So it was time to go and have a look somewhere else.

“So we’re walking around Euro Disney, go back to the hotel, phone goes off and it’s Daz at the end of the phone. I had already reached out to him on LinkedIn and sent him a message and he said ‘we’re interested’ and asked when we would be back.

“We ended up getting the earlier ferry and drove from France and stopped off in Bristol and had a meeting. Darrell made out his plans and asked what I wanted wage wise. He said, ‘we’ll give you that, what do you reckon?’ I had to speak to the missus but at that time I didn’t realise that Steve Yates had already gone and done up a shirt so there was pretty much no getting out of it!

“There was a massive turnover of players and when the season started, we didn’t realise how toxic it was going to be. It was a pressure cauldron already. They expected to get out of the National League at the first time of asking, but the National League is one of the hardest leagues to get out of.

“We were okay – we didn’t pick up many great results at the start. We drew on the first day and then we lost to Altrincham and had supporters trying to get onto the bus and God knows what. We then nicked a couple of results but I remember Braintree being the big one.

“The atmosphere was inherited from the previous season. I mean, there were posters that said, ‘Darrell out’ scattered across the training ground and we didn’t even realise because Darrell would get there earlier than us and take them down. We didn’t realise but he kept a few of them in his drawer.

“After that, we had a real good dressing down meeting where people said their own bits and pieces and yeah, from that moment it went straight up.”

Lee Mansell pictured in action for Bristol Rovers during their Conference promotion season(Image: Ben Hoskins/Getty Images)

As the group got tighter, results improved and by late November Rovers were flying.

Having lost three of their opening seven league games, the Gas then went on to lose just two more times in the Conference that season with a home defeat to Eastleigh in March their sole loss in their final 25 matches.

Mansell was a kingpin for Rovers, missing just two matches all season due to a yellow card suspension and providing a much-needed engine in the middle of the park.

The former midfielder played the full 120 minutes at Wembley in the final before stepping up to take the decisive penalty.

“As it’s going on, I kind of had a feeling that it was going to go down to my one anyway,” Mansell recalled. “If Ellis had still been on the field, I probably wouldn’t have taken one, and I would have been fuming with Daz because I’ve always said yeah.

“I just thought to myself, ‘I’ve got the shot to nothing’. I think the biggest penalty was our fourth to put us ahead, and then the onus would have then gone on.

“All I was thinking as I was running down was just ‘don’t miss it’, and all I was thinking about was my kids in the crowd. I wasn’t worried about 35,000 Gasheads, I was thinking, ‘I can’t let the kids see me miss a penalty’.

“As I placed the ball down, all I was thinking to myself was ‘this is what you do it for’, so I took a breath, I kind of shifted my eyes to the left hand side as if I’m looking to where I’m going but the ‘keeper guessed the right way anyway. But I was always going to go high because when you watch the pens, he only had a certain diving range. So I thought to myself, we’re going to have to go high here because if he goes low, he had a good spread.

“Did I mean to put it right in that top corner? No, not particularly. I just happened to do that, but that was always the thought process because all the penalties that were going low, he was near. So for me it was kind of no risk going higher above it. My debate was whether I reversed it into that corner or I go open foot and then put it into that one and I missed one.

Lee Mansell celebrates scoring the winning penalty for Bristol Rovers(Image: Jamie McDonald/Getty Images)

“We were practicing pens at the Mem in the week and I missed the reverse one; [I] put it just over the far top corner and I thought ‘I missed one so I’m going to do this’. And that was it.

“I just concentrated on it. Like I said, I had a deep breath, tried to give him the eyes which he didn’t fall for, and then [it’s] just execution. Nine times out of 10, you back yourself because variably, if you get everything right, the ‘keeper shouldn’t really get an opportunity to save it.

“Thankfully for me, it went in and it was just that kid moment from playing Wembley at school to taking a winning penalty,” he added. “I’ve taken so many over the years but it’s just that surreal moment to score the winning penalty at Wembley. No one can ever take that away from me.

“People can turn around and go, ‘you’re crap’. You’re this, you’re that. I love everyone’s opinions on it. It doesn’t bother me in the slightest. I can just walk away and then sit in my kitchen and have a look and there’s my shirt on the table and I’m like, ‘yeah, I did that’.

“Personally, for me, it’s the most pleasing aspect of what I’ve ever done in football. But club-wise, I didn’t get the significance of it at all. It was just a case of shot to nothing, please don’t miss because the kids are here, and that’s the last thing I wanted to do, was upset the kids.”

A season that started with a phone call in Disneyland was apt given the rollercoaster of the campaign that was to follow, while the aftermath of scoring the winning penalty was also hectic to say the least.

There is plenty of video footage and photographs of Rovers’ celebrations. However, despite being the man of the moment, Mansell admitted he can’t recall any the immediate festivities, having had an out of body experience.

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“I remember hitting it. As I put it down, I was a little bit nervous. I remember just as I was going, I just get this massive slap on the chest and it’s Andy Monkhouse and I looked at him and he went, ‘don’t you f***ing miss.’ I was like, right, and I said to him after the game, ‘what was that about’ and he went, ‘because I had to take the next one and I didn’t want to take one!’

“I don’t remember seeing it go in the net. Obviously then as I then ran off, I got cramp in both calves, and that was the reason I ended up on the floor. Everything from that afterwards, I have no recollection of what happened.

“Apparently I did an interview with BT Sport. I can tell you what happened in the game, clear as day. From that moment, as soon as the ball left my foot, I can’t remember it going into the net. I remember like getting cramp and laying on the floor, but from then afterwards, no idea until I was really back on the bus.

“I didn’t even really get a chance to see my family, which was an absolute killer. I got back into the changing room. So obviously most of the lads had then showered and changed because you’re doing interviews and things like that. There’s the long line at Wembley. Did all that, came out, and didn’t see my family for like 24 hours afterwards.

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“That’s the biggest thing that disappointed me that day – not getting to see the family. They actually hired a bus but I didn’t get to see any of them. I saw the wife for about two-and-a-half minutes, the kids quickly.

“I think it was just because you spend so long doing the press and when you get back into the changing room, you imagine, everything we’ve just achieved as a club, you’re up there then you sit down in the changing room, you take your shin pads off and you go ‘oof’. Then you’re talking about the game to people and you’re sat there just in a kind of a daze, really. Like, did that happen?”

Once back on the bus, the next stop en route back to Bristol was a Wembley off licence before, upon return at the Mem, Sky Sports cameras and reporters were met by a squad that was, in Mansell’s words, “absolutely steaming.”

A celebratory do at the Bristol Hotel was then followed by a night out in Bristol with iconic nightclub ‘Pam Pam’, which has hosted numerous Bristol Rovers promotion celebrations down the years, paid a customary visit.

Magaluf was considered by Mansell, who started driving to Bristol after heading home to Gloucester and having breakfast with his family, but he opted to miss out on that particular trip.

“I hadn’t seen the family; that was the first time. I started driving to Bristol but then went, ‘I don’t think I’ve got this in me’ so the younger lads went and me and the family had a holiday a couple days later.

“It was just a brilliant occasion. We then had the open top bus which in itself was a great opportunity to spend time with the family.

“I’ve been fortunate enough to be involved in a couple of promotions and you’re always looking at around mid-June until you realise the significance of what you’ve done. Relegations take longer, just to get into your head of where you’re at.

“But promotions, because you’re so high on life, it’s just like you’re walking on air. There’s no greater feeling. It’s just brilliant.”

The season may not be one remembered overly fondly by supporters due to the fact that Bristol Rovers should have never found themselves in non-league. However, Wembley promotions remain a rarity and, 10 years on, it is still the club’s most recent visit to the national stadium.

It also laid the foundations for further success as the Gas secured a second consecutive promotion to League One the following campaign before the club consolidated itself back in the third tier.

The campaign itself was something Rovers never wanted, but it created memories to last a lifetime with that day at Wembley one of the stand outs in the club’s modern history.

From Disney deals to Magaluf millionaires: A decade on from Bristol Rovers’ Wembley promotion

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