[Archived] Favourite Blackburn Manager?

[neekoy]

Kidd

If it wasn't for him the club wouldn't be where it is today...

Read whatever you want into that comment

[Manc Rover]

Didn't he also sign Steve Archibold and Ossie Ardiles?

Happy days......

and the legends Tony Finnigan and Andy Kennedy!

[Billy Castell]

Kidd

If it wasn't for him the club wouldn't be where it is today...

Read whatever you want into that comment

I think you're the only fan nominating that name. Please can you expand on why he's your favourite?

[Amo]

I guess his logic is that if Kidd hadn't ballsed up, Souness wouldn't have been hired and the rest is history. Ja?

Oh, and Kidd signed Matty Jansen.

[waggy]

kendall the most sucessfull,smith the most entertianing,saxton and mackay the best shoestring managers around at the time.souness the most passionate,hughes the most technical,kenny the best spender,ince the most colourfull the list goes on.

HOWARD KENDALL FOR ME

[jim mk2]

Jack Marshall - if only because he assembled the best Rovers team I ever saw :

Else, Bray, Newton, Clayton, England, McGrath, Ferguson, McEvoy, Pickering, Douglas, Harrison.

[T4E]

ince the most colourfull

[elwaxo]

What about the side that Jack Marshall put together, - Marshall's misfits? Brilliant team and management.

I've only heard about that team, but it's all been good... Dougie, Clayton, McEvoy, Ferguson etc....

For me personally it's one of Mackay, Dalglish or Souness.... All of them Scots!

[dingles staying down 4ever]

and the legends Tony Finnigan and Andy Kennedy!

you forgot the giant that was Ronnie Hildersley

[rogerjonesgloves]

Gordon Lee ... happy days on rickety coaches, breaking down on the way to matches

[bazza]

Just been in touch with some deceased relatives through a medium who reckon that Bob Crompton was the best thing since sliced bread.

Come to think of it, he was probably the best thing before sliced bread.

Seriously, though, Johnny Carey's predecessor was Jackie Bestall, a much underrated manager of the Rovers.

He did for Rovers in the early fifties what Ken Furphy did in the early seventies. He turned the ship around that had been heading towards oblivion by bringing in the right players in the right positions to play well as a team.

We even made it to the FA Cup semi-final as a second division club.

[bazza]

you forgot the giant that was Ronnie Hildersley

My son hated Hildersley but I quite liked him; a tiny mercurial dribbler and playmaker.

I remember that back pass that beat our keeper and bounced back off the crossbar.

[adopted scouser]

For Managerial reasons - Hughes.

For pure comedy - Kidd (when he arrived on the touchline with that camel hair coat on I nearly lost bladder control)

[92er]

Just been in touch with some deceased relatives through a medium who reckon that Bob Crompton was the best thing since sliced bread.

Come to think of it, he was probably the best thing before sliced bread.

Seriously, though, Johnny Carey's predecessor was Jackie Bestall, a much underrated manager of the Rovers.

He did for Rovers in the early fifties what Ken Furphy did in the early seventies. He turned the ship around that had been heading towards oblivion by bringing in the right players in the right positions to play well as a team.

We even made it to the FA Cup semi-final as a second division club.

Some good shouts here! I was about to post that Crompton had not been manager-I think there used to be a committee to pick the team-when on checking, I saw that BC had won us a cup (1928) and got us promoted back to the 1st Division (1938/9).

Bestall brought in the 2 Claytons and Dougie, as well as a range of older players. It looks as though Carey was responsible for the 1959 FA Youth success. And of course they both got us to a semi-final ( 1951 and 1958) Remarkable.

[Tyrone Shoelaces]

Jack Marshall - if only because he assembled the best Rovers team I ever saw :

Else, Bray, Newton, Clayton, England, McGrath, Ferguson, McEvoy, Pickering, Douglas, Harrison.

I'm with Jim on this one, I'll die happy having seen this team at their best. On their day the ultimate goalscoring machine. Thanks Jack.

[67splitscreen]

I'm with Jim on this one, I'll die happy having seen this team at their best. On their day the ultimate goalscoring machine. Thanks Jack.

I'll third it following Ferguson from Stanley was the start of my life long support

[Blue blood]

Too hard to call, but suprisingly looking back I remember Souness fondly, which considering the state he left us in is a tad suprising. Perhaps it's because he left on good terms (we wanted rid and we got lots of dosh for him) and before he fully ruined the team, perhaps because he can't harm the team any more. Most probably because he was such a character - Kenny was amazing but didn't have the same character and although I admire him more, I felt you got to know and identify more with souness.  And we did have some cracking times under Souness - some top players, and 3 quality seasons. I dare say that had you asked me after the Leeds home game in souness' lst full season in charge I'd have felt differently, but I guess that's nostalgia for you. Hughes also rates really highly, and I hope he doesn't spoil it with comments now he's  left the club. Again some cracking seasons and great players under him. Kidd I never respected (who did) and Woy I feel a little sympathy for - he had shocking luck with decisions, injuries and the like and probably deserves a fonder recollection, but Darren Peacock as a first choice centre half?

[neekoy]

I think you're the only fan nominating that name. Please can you expand on why he's your favourite?

I like to think of fate

If we didn't get Kidd, we most probably wouldn't have been relegated, we wouldn't have got Souness, we wouldn't have won the league cup, Souness wouldn't have left for Newcastle and Mark Hughes would have never arrived.

Besides I just love nostalgia, Uncle Jack sure could pick 'em. "He was always our first pick"

[JC4LAB]

I think it was Eddie Quiqley who was in charge at my first ever game..Fred Else lived on the same road as me at the time and Keith Newton was a regular visitor...Cant remember if Eddie was any good..just remember the rattles and rossettes you never see nowadays.Gorden Lee was prob my favourite...A season which saw the arrival of Ken Beamish and his wild shooting...and the Leagueliner train to Peterboro sharing the train with the players...

[Rovermatt]

Dalglish. As if there would be any other.

[graham W]

No mentions as yet, but Bobby Saxton anyone?

to the brink of the 1st Division on a shoestring, playing 'proper' football................heady days

[philipl]

Sadly, I'm just that bit too young to have seen that amazing side Jack Marshall brought together.

We have been very fortunate having good managers down the years and I'll certainly echo the comments about the wondrous entertaining football that Jim Smith and Roy Hodgson produced in their short stints at Ewood.

Huge credit to Lee, Kendall and Souness for restoring pride in the club and winning us promotions and to be honest to Don Mackay for getting us into those play-offs.

Of all the Managers (and he was before my time), the one whom I hardly ever heard a bad word about was John Carey. The aura continued even into his second spell although by then everything was falling apart.

But the kudos has to go to King Kenny. Yes he had the backing but he took us from the "fun" of repeated play-off failures in the second division to the Premier League title and that was one enormous achievement, the magnitude of which I don't think the football world even now fully appreciates. But the more years pass with only four names on the Premier League trophy, the greater that achievement looks.

[Andy Kennedys Hairdo]

No mentions as yet, but Bobby Saxton anyone?

to the brink of the 1st Division on a shoestring, playing 'proper' football................heady days

Graham,

was just about to mention Saxton. Totally agree. Great team at this time, with a very solid defence - Gennoe, Branagan, Faz, Keeley and Basil - a half decent midfield - Barks, Sellars, Brotherston and Miller - and a potent attack of Garns, Thompson or Quinn.

The fella, could also pick out a player ; signing TG from Southampton, Sellars for £25,000.00 from Leeds, David Mail and Chrissy Price for God knows what was fantastic business. Also Jimmy Quinn, who despite what the boo boys at the time might have thought had a pretty good goals to games ratio...............that said, he did buy Colin Randall and Paul McKinnon

So near, yet so far for this lot on a number of occasions. Great days on the raised corner bit of the Blackburn End.

[JC4LAB]

Wasnt Saxton Coach or No2 at Sunderland when they did a fly on the wall documentary about the New Stadium of Light under Peter Reid on TV a few years ago....As for swearing,he made Alf Garnett sound like Mary Poppins

[92er]

I think it was Eddie Quiqley who was in charge at my first ever game..Fred Else lived on the same road as me at the time and Keith Newton was a regular visitor...Cant remember if Eddie was any good..just remember the rattles and rossettes you never see nowadays.Gorden Lee was prob my favourite...A season which saw the arrival of Ken Beamish and his wild shooting...and the Leagueliner train to Peterboro sharing the train with the players...

Eddie Quigley was an excellent player just before I started watching the Rovers. He wasn't great as a manager when he worked with Johnny Carey in his 2nd spell at the club. The 1 story I heard about Quigley as manager was that he wanted the players to try a particular free kick routine, which Ferguson said couldn't be done-so Quigley went ahead and carried it out. At the free kick, the player had to hit the bar so that a nominated player would attack it and score.