Rovers fans travel along Wembley Way. It was their first appearance at the home of English football for 27 years and that had hardly been the happiest of games. In fact, Rovers had to go back fifty nine years for their last victory underneath the famous towers.

This image is (c) Cottontown and is used with permission

Cup Final Day at Wembley in 1987. Alright, it was only the Full Members Cup yet it was to prove the high point of the life in the eighties as a Rovers fan.

This image is (c) Cottontown and is used with permission

Rovers fans celebrate a famous victory. Well…famous in Blackburn anyway!!!

This image is (c) Cottontown and is used with permission

Blackburn town centre came to a standstill as thousands of fans packed into King William Street to pay tribute their conquering heroes. The old Town Hall had already been the traditional venue for celebrating the triumphs of Blackburn Rovers for over a century by this date.

This image is (c) Cottontown and is used with permission

The best thing about being a Rovers fan in the 1980s was that even though there seemed to be at times little hope, events often conspired to shock and exhilarate the long-suffering supporters. Who would have expected an Argentine World Cup winner such as Ossie Ardiles to pop along for a while seemingly out of the blue and join the already present star of the side, Barcelona striker Steve Archibald? Who would have expected Rovers to (very, very briefly) take part in the centenary celebrations for the Football League as participants at Wembley? Who would have expected battling performances against the likes of Southampton, Liverpool, Everton and Aston Villa in the cups? More importantly, who on earth would have expected a first Wembley cup win in six decades?

The Full Members’ Cup may not have been taken seriously by all clubs (including Rovers themselves as they did not even bother to enter the competition in its first season) but it provided a welcome relief from the grind and monotony of life in the old Second Division and enabled Rovers to win only their second ever game at the home of English football, Wembley Stadium.

The competition was based on the usual cup format of a series of knockout rounds until the final, which was played at the neutral ground of Wembley. All previous rounds were played at the home ground of the side that had been drawn first. The competition was introduced after the ban of English clubs from European competition and was restricted to solely the full members of the league, i.e. those teams in the top two divisions. Those teams in the third and fourth divisions were deemed as being associate members and had their own, separate competition. Despite the absence of European football, only 21 of the 44 ‘Full Members’ chose to enter the competition in its first year. A season later, after Chelsea won the inaugural competition 5-4 in a thriller against Manchester City, every Second Division side and most First Division sides entered, albeit often playing weakened teams.

For once and in what was totally contradictory to Rovers’ usually useless performances in modern cup competitions, they revelled in this new challenge. After a less than impressive 2-1 win after extra time away at Huddersfield Town in the first round and a similarly less than thrilling 1-0 home win over Sheffield United at Ewood in the second, Rovers suddenly burst into life. The fans didn’t respond quite so quickly however. Home wins over two first division sides, Oxford United (4-3) and even more impressively Chelsea who were promptly thrashed despite them being the then holders of the cup. This took Rovers to a cup semi-final, much to the astonishment and bemusement of the locals who suddenly had to catch up and embrace an utterly unanticipated prospect of a place at Wembley (they Chelsea score was 3-0). Less than three thousand had turned up for the win over Oxford and there hadn’t been that much of an improvement against Chelsea. With the chance of a first Wembley appearance for twenty-seven years in the air, 12,060 fans packed into Ewood to see Rovers demolish Ipswich 3-0. No mean feat, as Ipswich reached the play-offs that season. Not that anyone cared about them though…Rovers were off to Wembley

Inspiring scenes producing echoes again of 1960 were created by the almost 30,000 Rovers fans travelling to Wembley on Sunday March 28th 1987. What wasn’t a reproduction of the ’60 Cup Final was the presence of the opposition fans. Mainly because they weren’t there. Charlton Athletic, then of the First Division, had barely 7,500 fans in attendance. It may not have been exactly the Champions League Final but it was expected that more fans than that would’ve made their way north of the river. This seemed to transmit to the Charlton players. Their fans didn’t turn up and neither did they. Rovers won the crunching tackles, the 50-50 balls and the disputed headers. Ian ‘Windy’ Miller (named because of his speed not because of flatulence, at least I don’t think so) jinxed and jived and menaced and minced (well, maybe not the last one) down the right wing. Scott Sellars did the same down the left with his usual unflappable skill and aplomb. Simon Barker pulled the strings in midfield and Keeley was a tower of strength in defence.

Despite that, the man of the match was goalkeeper Vince O’Keefe. Charlton may not have been at their best but they did have some chances, all expertly saved by the Rovers’ man in green. It was a display that would have echoes of the man-of-the-match performance of another Rovers keeper in their next cup final, at Cardiff in 2002.

With five minutes to go the score remained at 0-0 and Rovers’ goalscoring legend Simon Garner had been unable to break the deadlock. It was to be his young partner at centre forward who was to become a hero. After a run to the by-line, Miller whipped a cross high into the box. After Rovers substitute Mark Patterson challenged with the Charlton keeper, the ball ran free to twenty-one year old Colin Hendry who promptly smashed the ball into the gaping net from close range. Although Hendry would later find fame as a Championship-winning guts n’ glory-style defender, during his earlier life he was a centre forward scoring a winner in a Wembley cup final. There was to be no way back for the Addicks from South London. Rovers had won a national cup. Their first for fifty-nine years. In truth it wasn’t the greatest day in the history of Rovers but it was certainly one of the best for their supporters who had travelled down in the thousands.

A walk up the thirty-nine steps followed for captain Glenn Keeley to collect the cup, which he then proceeded to drop. Glenn quickly reassured the fans that he was in fact alright. It wasn’t you we were worried about Glenn…! A reception at the old Town Hall in the centre of Blackburn followed. Supporters who had been starved of success for so long knew not to look a gift horse in the mouth. Who needs the FA Cup anyway?

The Rovers team that day was… Vince o’Keefe, Chris Price, Chris Sulley, Glenn Keeley, David Mail, Scott Sellars Simon Barker, Alan Ainscow, Ian Miller, Simon Garner and Colin Hendry. Mark Patterson came on as a substitute for Sellars and Jim Branagan was the unfortunate unused substitute. The unlucky, unused substitute was Jim Branagan. Although at least he got a nice day out. The attendance was 43,789, of which a good 70% were probably Rovers fans.

Subsequent appearances in the competition by Rovers were not quite so shrouded in the same level of success. In fact, they went out of the competition in the first round the following year, losing 2-1 at home to Swindon Town. Talk about defending your trophy...

By then the competition had been named the Simod Cup after the new sponsors. In 1988-89 Rovers made the third round after beating Manchester City and Sunderland but were brought to a halt by former adversaries Ipswich Town, losing 1-0 at Portman Road. It was to be the last year the competition was known as the Simod Cup and also the last year that Rovers won a game in the competition. The name change to the Zenith Data Systems brought no luck for Rovers. First round defeats followed to Leeds United, Everton and Port Vale.

With the reinstatement of English clubs to continental competition, the cup had outlived its usefulness and was discontinued. All that was left was memories. Memories of Wembley, of butterfingers Keeley, of a day out in the North London sun, of Windy Miller down the line and of a young, fair-haired Scot smashing in the winner at the home of football. The stadium may not have been at its finest by that time (the red seat with big red holes in I had to endure that day was a literal pain in the bum) but it was still the only time I have seen my team win there. At least, the only occasion so far...

ROVERS IN THE FULL MEMBERS CUP

• 1986/87
  • R1 – Huddersfield Town 1 BLACKBURN ROVERS 2 (aet)
  • R2 - BLACKBURN ROVERS 1 Sheffield United 0
  • R3 - BLACKBURN ROVERS 4 Oxford United 3
  • QF - BLACKBURN ROVERS 3 Chelsea 0
  • SF - BLACKBURN ROVERS 3 Ipswich Town 0
  • FINAL - BLACKBURN ROVERS 1 Charlton Athletic 0 (at Wembley)

• 1987/88 (renamed Simod Cup)
  • R1 - BLACKBURN ROVERS 1 Swindon Town 2

• 1988/89
  • R1 - BLACKBURN ROVERS 3 Manchester City 2 (aet)
  • R2 - BLACKBURN ROVERS 2 Sunderland 1
  • R3 – Ipswich Town 1 BLACKBURN ROVERS 0

• 1989/00 (renamed Zenith Data Systems Cup)
  • R1 – Leeds United 1 BLACKBURN ROVERS 0

• 1990/91
  • R1 - BLACKBURN ROVERS 1 Everton 4

• 1991/92
  • R1 – Port Vale 1 BLACKBURN ROVERS 0