FIRST Huish Park, then the George Reynolds Arena, now the Memorial Ground.

After Yeovil and Darlington, the travelling faithful can chalk up another new venue when Town seek a seventh straight Division III win at Bristol Rovers on Saturday.

Town will be hoping for better fortune than at the other two venues where the 13 previous versions of this fixture took place.

They can boast just one win, way back in the 1960-61 old Division II season, when a Derek Stokes double clinched a 2-1 victory.

That match was one of the first nine in the series which took place at Eastville, in North Bristol.

Rovers began a decade-long exile in Bath in 1986, with Town first visiting Twerton Park in 1988-89, when they were drubbed 5-1!

The last trip there was for a 1-1 draw in 1994-95, the season Town beat Rovers 2-1 at Wembley in the Second Division play-off final.

Rovers returned to their home city in 1996, bucking the trend of rugby clubs becoming tenants at football grounds by agreeing a groundshare scheme with the newly professional Bristol RFC.

Scarcely had Rovers set foot in the Memorial Ground than their landlords hit money problems, and the football club ended up buying half the ground for £2.3m.

When Bristol RFC went into receivership, Rovers invoked a clause in their contract allowing them to buy the remaining half of the stadium for £100,000.

It was the second time they had bought a ground from a rugby club because Eastville was originally home to Bristol Harlequins.

Formed as the Black Arabs in 1883, the club played at four different grounds around the city before becoming Bristol Rovers on their purchase of Eastville for £150 in 1897, when Aston Villa visited for the official opening.

The ground was laid out on a 16-acre expanse between two railway lines, the River Frome and a gas works (Rovers fans are still known as `Gasheads') and building work soon brought the capacity up to 20,000, a figure which was often neared as the club became a power in the Southern League.

They were elected to the Third Division in 1920 - arch-rivals Bristol City had been in the League since 1901 - and in a bid to boost the coffers, Rovers went to the dogs 10 years later, demolishing both end terraces to make way for a greyhound track.

While the dogs took off, with Eastville becoming a top track, the football club struggled, so much so that the ground was sold to the greyhound company for a mere £12,000 in 1940.

It was to prove a bad decision.

When the lease finally came up for renewal in 1979, the London- based greyhound company hiked up the rent, and after a fire at Eastville forced Rovers to borrow Bristol City's Ashton Gate, a deal was struck for a permanent groundshare in 1982, only for the host club to go into liquidation.

When the new regime at Ashton Gate decided to double the rent, Rovers were forced to return to Eastville, but after four loss- making years, they decided enough was enough and elected to head 13 miles East to Bath.