County Ground holds few happy memories for Bristol Rovers

Bristol Rovers have been travelling to Wiltshire for league fixtures with Swindon since both clubs became inaugural members of the Third Division in 1920-21.

But from the past 40 encounters the Pirates have yet to reach double figures in terms of victories there.

To date, Rovers have eight league wins at Swindon's County Ground and you have to dust off the history books to find their best performance – a 5-3 victory during the 1926-27 season.

These two old foes have been going toe-to-toe since their days as Southern League clubs more than a century ago and, before they became founding members of the Third Division, Swindon had the upper hand at home, winning the last three successive Southern League encounters – 5-0 in 1913, 4-1 in 1914 and by the same scoreline in 1919.

Rovers went down 2-1 when they met Swindon for the first league meeting on January 15, 1921.

When Rovers returned 12 months later they were looking to add to two consecutive away wins in Division Three South and were not disappointed.

The only goal of the game came from Syd Leigh, who gave Rovers their first win at Swindon before a crowd of around 10,000.

The Pirates picked up one more point at the County Ground, courtesy of a 0-0 draw in April 1924, before revenge could be taken for all those heavy defeats during their Southern League days.

Clubs were still benefiting from a change in the offside law in 1925 when the Pirates came to Town on April 15, 1927 and duly thumped Swindon 5-3.

Up until Rovers won the Third Division South Championship in 1953 there was only one more victory at the County Ground and that came in December 1950.

The title-winning campaign of 1952-53 witnessed the largest attendance thus far when 24,406 packed inside the County Ground.

A brace of goals from Geoff Bradford, and an own-goal from Swindon half-back Ted Batchelor gave the visitors a much-needed win.

During the mid-sixties John Trollope (father of current Pirates boss Paul) played for Swindon. Rovers travelled to Wiltshire in January 1967 and snatched another rare victory when Harold Jarman scored the only goal.

Another notable match came on April 12, 1969, when a 2-2 draw was played out against newly-crowned League Cup winners Swindon. The Wiltshire club were on the up again by the late 1980's when the Pirates notched up another notable win; a double-strike from Trevor Morgan gave the visitors the three points in November 1986.

The two clubs were involved in a relegation dog-fight at the end of the 2000-01 campaign and the Pirates took maximum points from the County Ground with a 3-1 win that propelled them to 11th in League One.