“I can see the potential of this football club”
Full time celebrations for Steve Evans, Manager of Bristol Rovers after the Sky Bet League 2 match between Bristol Rovers and Cheltenham Town at Memorial Stadium, Bristol on 25 April 2026 (Photo: Rachel Le Poidevin/PPAUK)(Image: Rachel Le Poidevin/PPAUK)
Bristol Rovers manager Steve Evans has declared ‘this is a Championship club’ as he aims to continue the revival at the Gas.
The Gas boss has turned the ship around from a relegation battle to a second half charge up the League Two table ended with nine games unbeaten, including eight wins in a row.
Not since the 1992-93 season have Rovers played in the second tier of English football, and they have only spent 19 seasons their in their history, with a sixth placed in 1959 their highest ever finish. But Evans sees that the club has the potential and the ability to get there having fallen in love with the club and the city.
“It’s been incredible. I must admit that I didn’t think the club would grab me the way it has,” Evans told BRTV.
“For me not to be home four or five times a week to see my family, but particularly my two grandsons and two granddaughters, who I love dearly, I Zoom them every day, but this football club grabs you.
“The mission is a tough one; it’s a difficult test to go from where we’ve been to make sure we’re challenging at the top end of this league, but that’s why I’ve come. I can see the potential of this football club, and I’ve bought into it, where the owners are desperate to take the club back to where they bought it.
“But really, as we know, I’ve been in the Championship with Rotherham United and Leeds United; this is a Championship club all day long, but you are where you are. My job is to take us where we need to be.”
In order to get to the Championship, the Gas will need not one but two promotions. But if they carry on the form in the back half of this season, they will be one of the favourites to go up next time around, and work is already well under way on trying to recruit the players needed to do so.
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“We’ve had players in the building with me and the Chief Executive, Richie, and of course, the Chairman,” Evans added. “The players have been in and out for most of the week, and there are one or two in today. We’ll continue to talk and see where we go, but as I’ve always said, gone are the days that we bring a player into this football club based on a telephone conversation. As I’m doing tomorrow, I’m getting into the car and going to meet a player in the northwest. So, I’m going to go there and have a chat with him.
“More importantly, we have to be focused on what we want to achieve, which is bringing good players and adding to the good players that we have, because I don’t think it’s any secret that when we made our last signing in the January transfer window until the end of the season, we would’ve been champions by five or six points.
“That’s the facts, but it’s the players who have delivered that. We’re largely keeping the ones that have made a massive contribution to that, and we’re trying to move on the boys who have got frustrated and not played a part in that or are coming back to our house and want to go back out. If you don’t want to be in our house, go and live with the neighbours. It doesn’t matter to me.”
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