Road to Wembley is just too elongated to elicit excitement

The glorious Spring afternoon in 2007 when Sean O’Driscoll’s side signed off English football’s six-year exile in Cardiff with a 3-2 victory over Bristol Rovers remains one of the great days in the club’s history.

Despite that, just 1,495 fans turned up last night to see Darren Ferguson’s side book a home tie in the knockout stage of the Checkatrade Trophy with a goalless draw against Port Vale that was followed by possibly the most pointless penalty shoot-out of all time. With Mansfield Town having beaten Derby County’s Under 23s in the other Group E game, Rovers had already guaranteed top spot and Vale were already out.

No wonder, therefore, that Vale’s eventual 4-3 triumph from the spot was met with merely a shrug of the shoulders by those who had braved a freezing cold night.

This palpable lack of interest in the revamped Trophy is not exclusive to Rovers fans, as was proved last night by Cambridge United and Northampton Town both posting their lowest ever home crowds.

Those change-for-change’s-sake new initiatives included inviting 16 Premier League and Championship sides to enter Academy teams and the introduction of penalty shoot-outs after drawn group games.

This latter brainwave, which earns the victors an extra point on top of the one for the initial draw, was how Doncaster went through as group winners despite claiming one victory to Mansfield Town’s two.

Rovers drew their other two fixtures but, thanks to the extra point gleaned from last month’s shoot-out win over Derby County’s Under-23s, finished in pole position.

Confused? If so, you are not the only one and it is to be hoped all the changes will be ditched at the end of this season.

For now, all those still in the Trophy can do is try to make the best of things and Ferguson’s men are doing that.

The Rovers manager, unlike many of his peers, has made no secret of his desire to reach the Wembley final. He has history with the competition, having won it as a player with Wrexham in 2005 and then again nine years later at the helm of Peterborough United.

Having made six changes from the side knocked out of the FA Cup last weekend, Ferguson saw his side create the lion’s share of chances in a low-key encounter.

Cedric Evina brought a fine reflex save from Miguel Santos in the Vale goal on 24 minutes. Santos followed that by displaying safe hands when dealing with a fierce drive from Riccardo Calder.

Santos was called into action again after the restart when he thwarted Jordan Houghton.

Will Longbottom had a shot deflected over the crossbar in a late spell of pressure that also saw Mathieu Baudry head straight at Santos from a corner.

Vale, despite stroking the ball about impressively, offered little in terms of attacking threat until the last minute when Rigino Cicilla was played in behind a static home defence.

However, with just Ross Etheridge to beat, the Vale substitute scuffed his shot and the shot was saved.

At about the same time, Mansfield went in front at Derby – meaning the shoot-out that followed was an irrelevance, which will come as a relief to Longbottom and Evina after the pair saw their efforts saved.