Town star Amankwaah ready for Bristol Rovers boos (From Swindon Advertiser)

Town star Amankwaah ready for Bristol Rovers boos

7:00am Friday 11th December 2009 in Local By Anthony Marshall

KEVIN Amankwaah is determined to shrug off the inevitable Bristol Rovers boos tomorrow afternoon, as he bids to guide Town to a fifth straight League One victory.

Having started his career and spent five years on the books at Bristol City, the full-back knows he is more than likely going to be subjected to some stick from the terraces at the Memorial Stadium.

But Amankwaah is hoping Swindon can silence the Rovers crowd with another impressive performance.

“I always look forward to playing against Rovers and any local derby is exciting. I’m looking forward to it a lot,” said the 27-year-old.

“When I was at Cheltenham I played at the Memorial Ground and got booed horribly there. I once played for City against Rovers and beat them 3-0 so that probably doesn’t help my cause much.

“But that was a long time ago, so hopefully they’ve forgotten me. I’ve got a long name but hopefully they’ve forgotten it!

“This is the derby game for Swindon fans. It’s going to be heated and Rovers fans get behind their team well, but hopefully we can keep them quiet.

“I feel confident we can go there and play well.”

Back-to-back victories over Tranmere, Carlisle, Huddersfield and Leyton Orient have launched Swindon into the play-off places, and Amankwaah revealed confidence is sky high at the County Ground.

“It’s a happy place at the moment,” he said.

“It’s always good to go into games off consecutive wins and we are moving up the table well.

“Five straight wins would be a brilliant achievement, but the main aim is just to go there and not get beat.

“Any team who goes and gets a win at Rovers, it’s a really good result. But it’s also good to go there and just not lose.

“We’ll go there for the win, but if we have to come away with just a point then we’ll settle for that.”

One player who Amankwaah won’t be able to renew on-pitch rivalries with is former City teammate Danny Coles - now lining up at the heart of Rovers’ defence.

The centre-back is suspended for tomorrow’s encounter following an accumulation of bookings, but that hasn’t stopped the pair trading jibes about the outcome.

“There’s been a bit of banter flying about between us,” explained Amankwaah.

“Danny is a really good mate and I still speak to him quite a bit,”

“He texted me after their game last Saturday and said he’s gutted because he’s going to be suspended for this one.

“He’s been saying they are going to do us over, but that’s not going to happen.”