Family feel, EFL ambitions and making an England hero: Inside Bristol Rovers' FA Cup opponents

"When the ball came out, the place erupted."

It's fair to say that excitement has been growing for the past two weeks at Weston-super-Mare AFC on the back of an FA Cup draw for the ages. The National League South club will make the short trip up the M5 to the Mem on Saturday to face Bristol Rovers in the first round, a tie that has created, with no exaggeration, the biggest game in the club's history.

Being only 26-odd miles south of BS7 with a BS postcode of their own, it's not unheard of for Gasheads to attend Seagulls matches on a relatively frequent basis over the years and there will no doubt be a number of home fans in attendance on Saturday who hold a soft spot for Weston. However, similar levels of affection certainly won't be reciprocated.

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Right now, the National League South outfit are enjoying their best ever spell in their history, sitting pretty at the top of the sixth-tier table and in the midst of a 16-game unbeaten streak. Their message to Rovers is very simple: they are going there to win.

Bristol Live were invited to The Optima Stadium to speak exclusively to club director Ed Bliss to get an insight on what the FA Cup draw has done and will do for the club and its community as well as getting a stronger understanding about the Gas' opponents this weekend.

"So, just a little bit of context to where we were after beating Lowestoft," Bliss recalled when asked about the day the first round draw occurred following the fourth qualifying round victory. "Obviously chat goes around amongst the supporters on the team coach when we were coming back. What's your ideal draw? And it's the FA Cup. It's the best sporting tournament in the world because it gives clubs like ourselves a real opportunity to gain some funds but also you have the opportunity to play against clubs that you can't get to.

"So we were umming and ahhing. Yeah, Birmingham would have been great. Wrexham would have been great. They're your kind of gold starters, just for the financial kind of push.

"My two boys are really into football and I said to them, ‘nothing will be better than Rovers’ and then that word was kind of spreading...that I didn't trigger. Everyone else was kind of like, yeah, Rovers would be good. Rovers away because we can take our fans. It's Rovers, they're on our doorstep.

"Then when the balls came out, it was unbelievable. The place erupted. We had probably about 200 people down here watching the draw. All local. Rovers were drawn first and then ours was 17 when it came out. Quality. And that's the whole point of the FA Cup.

"It's a shame that it's slightly different this year because obviously it's new rules so there's no return fixtures if there's a draw and that takes the flavour away a little bit I think because if we're going up there looking for a draw, historically then we get them back here and we get a chance of doing them here. But the draw couldn't have been better."

After selling 1,350 tickets in just over an hour, a second allocation has meant that Weston will be backed by the best part of 2,000 away fans on Saturday which could well prove to be the biggest away attendance at the Mem over the course of this season. Meanwhile, home sales are also understood to have gone well and therefore it's certainly a possibility that this weekend's clash will be the largest gate Rovers receive this term.

It could also see Gas winger Luke Thomas come up against his older brother Kieran who is a right-back for the Seagulls with the brotherly connection also adding some potential spice to the game.

Although logistically it will likely suit most of those supporters, there is still some gripe about the fact that the game is a standard 3pm Saturday kick-off having not been chosen for television coverage. Huddersfield Town, Birmingham City, Wrexham and Lincoln City's matches against lower-level opposition have been picked as well as a Northamptonshire Derby between Northampton Town and Kettering Town.

However, there is certainly a feeling of flabbergastedness from this part of the South West, and admittedly other parts of the country, towards the decision not to televise such a local draw.

"It baffled all of us," Bliss admitted. "I mean, you've got Birmingham and Sutton being televised. Confusing. You know why with Wrexham. They've got a bit of weight behind them. I'm not taking it away from them. Absolutely not. But you can't get a better opportunity to televise a game in the FA Cup than two reasonably well-matched teams on each other's doorstep. So it's confusing, but that's the way it goes sometimes.

"It would have been in the realms of about £80,000," the Weston director added when asked what a TV game would do financially for the club. "So a game changer for us to build for next season, to plug in a little bit of finance for this season. But that's the way it goes.

"You can't think about that too much. It's out of our hands. You park that quickly and you go, right, you look at the real situation and where Rovers’ form is at the moment and ours and the depth of our squad."

In regards to the club's history in the FA Cup, a second round tie against Northampton Town in 2003 is the furthest they've gotten with famous meetings with Doncaster Rovers and Wrexham pre-Hollywood takeover also stand outs. However, the feeling within the club is that Saturday's game is the biggest in their history, particularly considering the geography.

Nothing says convenient timing than playing their biggest game with their best ever side though and that is the reality. Right now is the best it has ever been for the football club.

A 4-1 home win over Aveley put them top of the National League South last weekend, less than two years on from winning the Southern Premier title to secure promotion.

Dorking Wanderers and Boreham Wood are certainly the big names in the division this year following their relegations from the National League last campaign but Weston drew with both of them at home in recent weeks.

Since losing their first two league games of the season, Scott Bartlett's side have surmounted the early setback by putting together an outstanding unbeaten run of 16 matches which has catapulted them up to the league summit, through to the FA Cup first round proper and also the second round of the Somerset Premier Cup.

With one of the lower playing budgets in the division and being in their second season at this level, no one foresaw such a strong start to the season. Although, Bliss knew there was something about their current squad.

"We knew we had something that was going to be good," the Weston director admitted. "But you don't get the likes of Boreham Wood and Dorking coming down. You've got to see where you go and they’re showing well at the moment. There's just a good buzz. That's what happens with winning clubs.

"My boys keep saying, ‘what if we get promoted?’ And I just say ‘chill out, just wait.’ It's early, but we're showing that we've got the depth in the squad to fill holes when there's niggles. But there's something else that's driving the team and it's Scott's ability to manage teams that he has at the club well. He gets on very well with them as a kind of like a working kind of colleague-friend relationship but doesn't cross the boundaries. They don't ever really cross over. He knows when he needs to step back and be manager but he knows when to step forward and put that metaphorical arm around the player.

"I see that. I've only been involved a little bit more now in the last couple of years on the commercial side but it's fun. It's form to take into a cup tie and we're going to compete and they're going to be stunned a little bit because we're going up there to beat them.

"It's a powerful statement," Bliss added on being top of the league. "It really is, bearing in mind, as I mentioned, we're one of the lower budgets in the league.

"But, interestingly, a friend of mine last weekend, he said it doesn't matter how much you pay. If they want to play for you, they'll play and I think that's what we've ingrained into every player that comes in. We go and meet them, all the staff, we introduce ourselves, let them know our role, welcome them into the club and then we build that relationship.

"It's not to get too excited on where we are at the moment because as I said, we're all sportsmen in our family and we've seen it all.

"I think the proud moment is just being here, you know? When we won the league a couple of years ago, it's just psychologically and physically stepping out at the moment and looking at Dad out on the pitch with Dennis who's the club president, 95 last week. That's the proud moment. Understanding where the club’s come from. 25, 30 years ago getting 200 people in and then seeing 11, 1200 people a week now coming through to watch our football. That's awesome."

Although it's an archive laborious to navigate, in comparison to other family-owned clubs in England the expectation is that the Bliss' ownership of the Seagulls is up there with the longest spells. Ed's father Paul became chairman in the 1986/87 season and has owned the club since. Meanwhile, the director's brother Oli is currently managing director having stepped in around 15 years ago.

It's not just ambition on the pitch for the Blisses either. Plans are in place to develop their home stadium and have been for four years with Covid certainly not offering a helping hand. Building a new seated stadium running down one of the touchlines as well as a new conference suit, director's lounge and changing rooms are all part of the plans as well as constructing apartments on the site.

It's ambitious, but once completed the target for the National League South outfit is to get to League Two within eight years.

As the interview was nearing its end, one particular shirt on a wall of various signed kits from over the years stood out. An Aston Villa jersey with a message that couldn't quite be made out, although there were no prizes for guessing who it was from.

Over the summer Weston found themselves subject to serious media attention after former loanee Ollie Watkins scored a dramatic winner for England against the Netherlands to send the Three Lions through to the European Championships final.

The Torquay-born Villa front man has gone on to have an outstanding career but did have a loan spell at the Somerset club as a teenager while still at Exeter City.

Bliss, who had been invited on talkSPORT amongst other major media platforms, reflected: "It was a crazy week for us at the club. It really lit us up. You grab hold of that quickly and just run with it as fast as you can just to kind of get a bit of exposure but also to just shine some light on who we are as a club and how we run.

"We all love this club and we want the best for the club all the time and it is fun sometimes. Other times you want to rip your hair out. But that's sport and also the element of running it as a business as well kind of accentuates those moments.

"It's one of those dream stories that you want the kids to always keep an eye on because it happens and when he was here I didn't really have too much to do with him when he was here but when I did he was just really approachable, very professional, wanting to learn, always good around the youngsters around him and the staff. He was just a good guy and on the pitch, you could see there was something there that needed to be captured.

"But he was young. He was 18, 19 and he was still learning how to be. And well, the rest is history. He went back to Exeter because he was here for a season. Went back to Exeter and then flew off from there.

"I'll say that we helped develop Ollie," the Weston director added with a grin. "We’ve had players come through us and as I said, this level of football, if you're a good club you are in a transitional gap.

"You'll have players coming down in their career. You'll have players going up and if we're a pathway to that, either way, then great. If players want to come to us going up, players want to come to us coming down, then that's great for us and it also means that the attraction of coming to this club means we're doing something right.

"And if we give people just that opportunity to take that next step forward, where we work quite closely with professional clubs around us at the moment, the likes of Bristol City, Exeter, we've got really good relationships with them and we have opportunity to have those players come to us. Great.

"It's one of Scott’s key attributes. He pulls in loan players and that's where we found that jump from Southern League football into where we are at the moment with our budget, managing the budget, he does really well. Pulls in loan players that he really shouldn't be able to get hold of to get them here. But he does."

Saturday's two sides may be separated by three divisions in the football pyramid, but Rovers' non-league visitors are planning to bridge the gap in quality as much as possible.

The Gas were able to get past a side from outside of the Football League comfortably in Whitby Town last year but they have been subject to a couple of upsets over the years and this certainly would top the lot with geography adding extra flair to the contest.

One thing's for sure, it's not going to be easy as Rovers look to avoid a delayed Halloween scare. Game on.

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