Can't see any way Andy Taylor is ready or good enough for the first team.

Col, I think the Blackpool game finished 5-2 to Blackpool, with Bob Hatton scoring 4 of the goals. Hatton was prolific around that time and warned as rovers were, they still allowed him to bag four.

Last night was his first start in the prem. Previous to that he had made 3 appearances in the FA cup. One of those as a substitute.

I did say that I might be developing blue and white eyes Gord. I look at the performance at goodison and then look at the performance at St James, where we were 3 down after about ten minutes and could have lost by 7 or 8 had Newcastle kept going, in Soueys first game in charge of Newcastle and there's no comparison.

Point 'em out then.

I think everyone on this board, except for you IHB, understands the reasons why Admin don't want to take the risks of having players named on this board. What's your problem?

undeniably? You mean except for the world class displays against Man utd of course.

Why - because they had 10 men? Football is littered with teams who lost to 10 men. In cases like that, you are usually faced with more defenders, not less.

I remember seeing some of the goals on BBC news. I think there were two hat tricks scored by rovers players. Oh to see those news clips now.

A bit of credit to Everton for the way they defended. It wasn't a one off - them keeping a clean sheet.

That team would win the European cup. I'm serious. Tyrone - have a look at the thread about the west ham 8-2 away win, further down the page. Do you remember anything about that game?

I must be seeing with blue and white eyes - I don't think the display was as bad as most on here are saying. However, if I had to pick out one point from our recent away games, - we have become too cavalier in our play. We've been playing as the home team and tried to force the play too much, therefore leaving loads of room for the home side to hit us on the break. That suited West Brom down to the ground. Everton was slightly different because being that they were down to ten men, we had to committ players forward. That suited them to bits though.

Fabulous memories. I too saw that game at Ewood and it will stay with me as long as I live. This might raise a few eyebrows, but in my opinion, that rovers side was the best rovers team I ever saw, including the team that won the Premiership title.

Which ones apart from Peter, who was involved, Waggy? I haven't seen anyone anywhere near the first team in terms of ability.

Shall we use this for the rearranged game?

Blimey, I start off by giving my version of the youth game on Wednesday and finish up being accused of running the academy down. The only point I've ever made, is that the academy up to now, would struggle to justify it's existence based on financial grounds. Assuming of course, that you don't count Duff and Dunn, as they were at the club before the academy was in existence. Nowhere have I said that we should close the place.

We're out of the youth cup because we weren't good enough on the night Philipl. As for the comments on Gary Bowyers tactics on the night being one of the reasons for the team losing the game, I think they're valid. As for the worth of the academy, it's been debated before, but I do think you've given a biased summary of the upsides/downsides. For the past few seasons all the academy has done is produce good, cheap young players for the lower league teams. Can our academy produce enough youngsters of prem quality? No-one knows that.

Bellamy fit, Pedersen out.

Right, one of rovers greatest ever wins must have been this scoreline. Both teams were in the top division and it was played Christmas 1963ish. Anyone got the stats, or even better - anyone actually at the game? Remember, this forum is not just for games from long ago, but any game that has real memories. We're not really after the "I remember us playing Bournemouth in 1971 because it was my first game" post. We're after games that stand in the memory because of what happened on the pitch, or was of relevance to all of us.

Coaches and cars. At a guess - 60 80 fans? Quite a few next to me.

Even though they are top of their academy league, on the three occassions I've seen them, I've been very disappointed. Brighton deserved their win last night and they are quite a way off being one of the better sides over the last few seasons. They were a big, direct side and rovers seemed as though they wanted to play the same game. Over the 90 minutes, rovers were probably the better side. However, the longer the game went on, the more the rovers tired. Very difficult to pick out the better performances from that team. The central defenders coped quite well for much of the time. Martin Ollssen looked very good for the most part, but he seemed to tire after the first hour and struggled for the rest of the game. I found Gary Bowyers tactics a bit baffling as well. Firstly, shortly after half time he took off Pezzoni - the tall midfielder. Rovers were doing well until that point. However, he moved Ryan Woods, a left winger, into the middle alongside Hodge [who played well] and brought on Keith Treacy. Joe Garner came on up front, but struggled to make any impression. The game started to get away from rovers at that point. Also, why Bowyer didn't use the third sub, when three or four of the rovers lads were really struggling with cramp, I didn't understand. Brighton used all three subs and it worked for them. Brighton pretty well ran the show in extra time and deserved their win, albeit, their last two goals were virtually gifted to them by some poor defending. So, all in all, fairly disappointing. I would say this is the worst academy side I've seen. That doesn't matter though, as long as one or two of the lads make it into the first team set up. We'll have to see on that score. EDIT: love to know how Lee sees it.

Don't think anyone was quicker than Mike Harrison.

You would be surprised how big the population is. Almost 800,000 people live in the newcastle area. Link. On top of those 800,000, they draw support from as far west as Carlisle and as far north as Scotland. They should be well supported shouldn't they? Especially if you compare them to Blackburn - pop 130,000ish.

Rovers unchanged from Wednesday. Pongo on the bench, no Bellamy.