A Brief History of Wycombe Wanderers at Doncaster Rovers

Our third league game and second away trip of the 2025/26 season sees The Chairboys travel to newly crowned League Two winners, Doncaster Rovers.

Wycombe Wanderers will be looking to get points on the board after opening the season with back-to-back defeats. Meanwhile, Doncaster are off to a flying start, winning their first two league games and thrashing Middlesbrough 4-0 in the Carabao Cup midweek.

The Chairboys faced Doncaster many times over the years, both at their historic Belle Vue ground and at their modern 15,231-capacity Eco-Power Stadium.

Our first visit to Belle Vue came during our debut Football League season in 1993/94. That campaign ended in promotion via the play-offs. In that fixture, Steve Brown opened the scoring in the 6th minute, followed by a first-half brace from Steve Guppy to give Wycombe Wanderers a commanding 3-0 lead at the break. Doncaster responded strongly in the second half, but the 500 travelling Chairboys fans were the ones celebrating at full time.

It would be 12 years before we met Doncaster again, this time in 2016 at their new stadium. That match ended in a tightly contested 2-2 draw. Matt Bloomfield opened the scoring inside 20 minutes, capitalising on a mistake from goalkeeper Ross Etheridge. Doncaster equalised through Tommy Rowe after a slick move down the right, before John Marquis gave them the lead just before half time. Bloomfield struck again in the second half, once more taking advantage of a goalkeeping error. His goal was followed by a memorable ‘Dab’ celebration alongside Adebayo Akinfenwa, a moment many fans still remember fondly.

Our next visit came in August 2018. Donny were out for revenge and delivered a dominant second-half performance, handing Wycombe Wanderers a 3-0 defeat in our first season back in League One since 2011.

In 2020, Wycombe Wanderers suffered a 3-1 loss at Doncaster in what turned out to be our final game of the 2019/20 season. This came just before the UK entered a national lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite that setback, it was the same season that saw Wycombe Wanderers secure a historic promotion to the Championship through the play-offs.

Our most recent trip to Doncaster came during the 2021/22 season, another promotion-chasing campaign for the Chairboys. Earned a 2-0 victory thanks to goals from Anthony Stewart and Adebayo Akinfenwa.

It will be an interesting fixture potentially featuring Ex-Chairboy Brandon Hanlan. Doncaster have proven to be strong opponents, and our history with them has seen mixed results. They appear well-suited for their return to League One. Still, I’m hopeful Wycombe Wanderers can turn things around midweek and come away with something positive from this clash.