We recently received the sad news that Ben Gunstone had passed away at the age of 53.
A lifelong Rovers supporter who saw his first match in 1980, Ben wrote, and recorded, the anthem we all file out of The Mem to on matchdays – Tote End Boys.
The flowers are dead and gone behind the Eastville goals,
The traffic’s a little quieter on the Stapleton Road,
Ghosts of Bamford and Barrett steel,
The shadows on a drizzle field
His day job was as a teacher and, more recently, Deputy head of Warminster School though he continued to write, perform and record music.
Speaking in an interview with Bristol Live back in 2022 Ben said; "I’d been going to Rovers for a long time with my Dad, my Brother, my Grandad, my Great Uncle, and my Dad’s friend who had been watching the Gas with him since the 1950’s challenged me to do a version of Goodnight Irene.
"Well, everybody’s done Goodnight Irene so I decided to write something original. It was a song very much about the ghosts of Eastville Stadium. It was a pretty impressionable place for a young soul to be in the early 1980s.
"I guess the song is a dedication to Rovers supporters everywhere whether they’re on the Tote End, the popular side of Twerton Park or the Blackthorn, now Thatcher’s, End at The Mem.’
‘And when you hear the Tote End Boys sing,
I can hear everything.
And when the North Bristol Chorus rings,
I can hear everything.’
Our thoughts are with Ben’s family and friends at this incredibly sad time.