TBF when he was in charge of the PFA Taylor did come over as very self-important and arrogant. When you're 10 or 11 years old though you only think about players as players.

Him and Gordon Taylor were two of my earliest heroes!

When you look at the likes of Bristol and Plymouth - much bigger than Blackburn and with very little local competition - it makes the achievements of Rovers and (through gritted teeth!!) Burnley, Bolton and even Blackpool all the more impressive. Even though all have had, to a greater or lesser extent, really fallow periods in the last 60 years they have all spent time in the top flight more recently than North End - in the case of Rovers, Burnley and Bolton quite lengthy spells.

I'm by no means a Dolan fan and am very aware of his limitations. But he has 23 league goals and 21 league assists in the last 5 seasons. From what I've seen of Markanday I'd be amazed if he could get anywhere near those numbers. I do get that he hasn't had the opportunities that Dolan has had but 3 managers (Mowbray / JDT / Eustace) seem to have taken the view that Dolan is much the better option.

A good friend of our family was in charge of the turnstiles at Bury. He told us they'd asked their supporters if they would agree to swap into the away sections of the ground and the main stand so Rovers could have the rest of the ground - as Bury desperately needed the money! You're right about the wooden terrace and roof on the Manchester Road end. We were in the main stand at that end and every time the Rovers fans jumped up and down you could see the roof move back and forwards. My dad was generally worried it might collapse!

That's the game that gave me my user name on here! Shame he turned out to be a knob 🙄

Charlton Athletic at home Oct(?) 74. Riverside Stand with my dad. First game of league football for me. The blue and white halves (and the win!) did it for me and never interested in supporting any other football league club from that day on. We still went all over the north-west picking the best games when Rovers were too far away. Always had a soft spot for Bury due to close family friends. Prior to that I'd been taken all over the north-west following the great Rossendale United side of the early 70's. One of my earliest memories of supporting Rossy is of going to Ewood and standing in the Nuttall Street paddock (I think) for a Lancashire Floodlight Cup final against Great Harwood (possibly?). Would love to hear from anyone who knows about that match as tried to look it up online but not found anything.

Seem to remember our 'fans' at the end of the Oxford match (last match of the L1 season) showing huge restraint and obeying all requests not to invade the pitch 😉

I know when I was watching us in the Allardyce years I got the pragmatism but that didn't stop some of the football being fairly dull. My biggest issue was the way he effectively threw games against bigger teams to focus on those he saw as direct competitors. Achieved the result he wanted but took away from the fans the feeling that we could compete and enjoy giving the occasional bloody nose to the bigger teams. Ultimately though most of the blame lies with the Walker family. I think a fall back down was becoming inevitable under them but the big issue was the way they exited and handed us over to the bunch of shysters we've been saddled with ever since.

Our CCTV has probably been switched off to save on the running costs!

Was there that night. Sutton's goal 1-0. Seemed like that had clinched the title but then the 'mini-collapse' started! Looking at the team sheets it's almost entirely British Isles players - how times have changed!!

There can't be many teams who've gone from 20th in early Nov to 2nd by the end of the season! And a cup run where we got to Round 5 beating a Div 2 team away, a Div 1 team and taking Villa to a replay only a year before they won the League! Funnily the cup run coincided with the amazing league form. I know many other people on this forum hold the view that a good cup run can help turn form around.

It continued after that. I was at the game away at Millwall in Nov 79 where we lost 1-0 due to Keeley (I think) giving away a penalty in the 85th minute. Apart from thinking 'at least we're going to get out alive now' it seemed like we were going nowhere but the rest of the season was awesome as everything suddenly clicked. Don't know whether that means we should give Ismael the time or just that Kendall had a plan that the board could see and supported him to achieve it. Even if Ismael has a plan the current set of deadbeats in the boardroom don't have the capability or desire to back him anyway.

You could see that Eustace had a plan. We might not all have agreed with his approach - indeed some expressed that disagreement very strongly 😉 - but at least it was a plan. It had similarities with the early days of Kendall's reign. With Ismael it just looks like he's randomly throwing darts at a board with one eye closed and little idea of where the numbers are!! He might get lucky at some point but that will probably be down to the players suddenly rediscovering their fight and pride. Or doing like they did in the infamous Johnson 'false 9' game - decide to play how they want to play and fuck the manager. Unfortunately don't think most of this group have that in them.

Just read the first BLT comments - unbelievable!!!!!

Hope you meant exiting rather than executing 😉

I agree that the actions of the owners will ultimately see us relegated - highly likely to be next season. However their actions don't suggest this is their objective - if it was why did they sack Coyle? It might be that, with the current financial situation, they are just indifferent to relegation. Waggot just seems to be an effing idiot!

Thanks IraC. That covers my uni years when I only saw Rovers during the holidays and odd away games I could get to - so may never have seen him play.

I have no memory of David Glenn. Can someone enlighten me? 🙂

And just to the right of the policeman it seems that Demis Roussos was taking in a game whilst in London.

I have the utmost respect for Gareth Southgate as a human being. The way he changed the toxic culture around the team and allowed most of the players to display they are decent guys and good role models shouldn't be undervalued. If anyone heard his Dimbleby lecture on the BBC earlier this week then that can only reinforce the need for the good things he brought. However the evidence of last summer is that maybe it had swung too far the other way and the 'edge' wasn't quite there. The displays were insipid for the most part and the players didn't seem to have any spark or real hunger. One exception was Bellingham but that meant he was trying to do too much a lot of the time. I guess time will tell if those displays were all that those players can do or if the change of manager approach will take them to another level.

Totally with you there Tyrone. When I played full-back I was always looking to block those crosses as knew they were a nightmare for the rest of the defence. Shearer's goal at Anfield the day we won the league another great example.

Can I put forward Mike Newell's against Derby in the Play-Off semi-final 1st leg. Not only a great goal but one that totally changed the atmosphere and momentum of the game. Along with Shearer's 2nd against Man U in 93/94 season. In my 50 years of watching Rovers probably the two goals that I reacted to (embarrasingly?) the most! Although falling over after Marcus Bent's goal at Turd was also pretty embarrassing!!

Agreed. And the ground was named after the pub it stood behind! But people's behaviour was (generally) better then. I don't remember coming out of the pub - however pissed I was! - and making loads of noise in the way I hear it now. Additionally there is far more use of taxis now so much more and louder noise. I'm sure if Stanley have the right conversations with the council and put some mitigations in place around noise/times then a solution will be found. The direction from government is about prioritising economic growth and planning policies should reflect this.

My mum came with me and my dad on the Monday night. Only her 2nd time at Ewood and 3rd time 'watching' Rovers. 1st time at Ewood was to get me a voucher for a cup tie ticket!