Eh ? I doubt if the population of the entire South East is 20 million unless you think they are all potential Charlton supporters. Charlton are in the SE London and attract supporters from that area and north Kent. I don't know what that catchment area is but I would hazard a guess at about 1-2 million at most, certainly more than East Lancs. Sorry Jim, wasn't entirely clear. I was referring to the fact that Charlton have used the Evening Standard and London-wide radio stations to advertise Prem League football 20 mins from Waterloo (East), at prices which are cheaper than the likes of QPR, West Ham, Millwall, and even Brentford and Leyton Orient for certain games. They have spent up to £80,000 per game on London-wide publicity, depending on the opposition. And it's worked. Which is why they are looking to increase capacity from 27K to 40K. Rovers cannot even dream of doing anything like that - the Lancaster Guardian and Westmorland Gazette aren't the ES, whilst The Bay radio has started to sponsor Morecambe (and cover their games).

But Den, the only places where the "dismally poor" product was any better can be counted on the digits of one hand - Liverpool, Chelsea, Newcastle, Arsenal and Man United. What sort of product did you want that season ??? What's the board supposed to say to the manager and team ? "For flips sake you lot, stop winning away and improve the home form"? It's not the fault of the club that Blackburn is such a small place, or that the public is the most fickle and spoilt in the 4 leagues. You cannot run a football club on the basis of what you think ticket sales might be if you make certain decisions. Look at Milton Keynes. And the only "player / management problem" departure that summer was Dunn. Who has since played just 17 out of a possible 58 full PL games at his new club (could be 17 / 76 come the summer), lost his England place, and confirmed all our worst fears about his problems - which Souness spent his entire time at Blackburn trying to help him overcome.

True, but we ought to have ambitions to be a well-managed top-ten club, perhaps like Charlton. Either way, the board's decision to allow Souness to replace a class act like Cole with the artisan Dickov made no sense. Interesting to compare us with Charlton. They are IMO the best run club in the Premier League. It's a credit to them that they recently submitted a planning application to boost the capacity at the Valley to 40,000. If and when that happens and they fill it, they will have every chance to be described as a top ten club. After all - they are already advertising London-wide to tempt the fans in who can't near the other London PL grounds, as well as the commuter corridor down into Kent. Ask Paul Scally (Gills Chairman) who detests them with a passion. Compare their catchment area of 20 million people with ours of 200,000. We can't hope to compete on the same terms. However, their finishes since promotion are 9 - 14 - 12 - 7. Ours are -- - 10 - 6 - 15. So on the football side at least, Rovers have made a far better fist of it than Charlton have since getting back up. And that's even before the cup win.

Den, say the board had "acted then" Rovers would have been a laughing stock. What do you do when your unfashionable northern team beats a host of bigger rivals to grab a place in Europe, having done the double over Arsenal and beaten Man Utd on the way, with a cup run into the last 4 to boot. Sack the manager ?? Yeah right - which lunatic would be enticed to a club run along those lines to take over??!! Any candidate is going to assume they have to get in the Champions League and WIN a cup to keep the job for more than a season! The fact that many of the Ewood faithful had left the stadium before the end of the final home match says more about them than anything else. There were no Rovers fans leaving White Hart Lane early 8 days later. And having finished in that 6th place the board were perfectly entitled not to expect ST sales to collapse. Take your point to the extreme. If you want to see swashbuckling victories every week at Ewood, then let's drop a couple of divisions and take on the likes of Blackpool or Kidderminster. If you want to see top division football, then let's educate the Blackburn public that it's not going to be pretty. Many of the last 10 games have been dire, but Hughes will get a honeymoon period with the fans just as Souness did. However, if in 12 months time we are still 15th, drawing 7/10 games and scraping a couple of narrow wins, then the same people who turned on Souness will have turned on Hughes.

Cole's biggest problems are his lack of professionalism, and his inability to adapt to those around him. He does have many qualities, mainly fantastic movement off the ball and he's good at holding play up and then bringing runners into the attack. His fantastic overall record owes much to Peter Beardsley at Newcastle, and to Cantona and Sheringham (and later Yorke mk1) at United. Players with great football brains who could understand Cole's game and used their abilities to suit it. Many Rovers fans used to excuse Cole's abysmal scoring record at the club by claiming that those around him couldn't read his runs, or play the right passes for him. That pattern is repeating itself at Fulham, and the longer it continues, the more one has to say that the problem is not Cole's teammates - it's Cole himself. He should - 4 years after leaving United - have been able to adapt his skills and his game to suit the environment he finds himself in. He had a honeymoon period of 14 games at Rovers (which only makes his record for the rest of his spell look even worse) and also had a few good games for Fulham. But for his supposed pedigree, it simply is not good enough. Dickov doesn't have Cole's movement or probably his footballing brain, and never will have. But what Dickov does have is far more valuable in any team outside the elite of 4 in this league. Dickov won't ostracize a team mate (as Cole did to Sheringham) just because they've had an argument off the pitch. Dickov won't decide he is above playing for any particular manager. Dickov won't say in an interview that he's not interested in helping kids at the academy, or the first team strikers, because he's only interested in his own game. Cole did all of the above, and as the records now show that he's also the lesser player of the two so far this season as we pass into 2005, those Rovers fans who continue to mourn Cole's departure are really only mourning the player who excelled at Newcastle and United.

Oops. Chris is gonna come back at me and say it's all down to Dickov's two penalties. Henry took 1 missed 1 Defoe took 0 Johnson took 5 missed 2 Pires took 1 missed 0 Baros took 3 missed 1 Hasselbaink took 0 looks like most of em enjoy the odd chance from the spot then

Players with more PL goals than Dickov. Henry Defoe Johnson Pires Baros Hasselbaink

Dickov v Andy Cole (including todays games) Dickov Cole GOALS 7 6 shots on target 22 18 mins per goal 243 262 goals per game 0.35 0.35 caught offside 40 22 assists 3 2 crosses 26 7 fouls 45 23 yellow cards 3 2 red cards 0 1 hands on hips (av mins per game) 2 45 being a total pest to the opposition defenders (av mins per game) 90 12.5

I think the problem with Thompson is that he's completely frustrated about his 18 month injury lay-off, and now he's trying to put that 18 months behind him when he gets on the pitch for 18 minutes. We know he's a good player. He knows he's a good player, and in his game, energy and involvement are important. Problem is, he can't expect to get totally involved in a game, or exorcise the nightmare of the last 18 months when coming on as a late sub. Hopefully one of the management staff can see this, and turn his sending off into a positive. Calm him down a bit and channel that adrenaline towards helping Rovers rather than letting us down. He certainly isn't becoming a liability (post above) - he just needs some tlc and pointing in the right direction imo. And finally, to flog a technicality, he was very unlucky to get sent off for the second yellow. Yes he deserved to go for the kick - but he didn't, that's football - and the bookings were harsh.

When the **** are you going to offer something different ?

You have to give the away team a minimum of 15% in the FA Cup - whatever that means at your place I'm not sure ... sometimes it ends up being more because of segregation issues. How many we'll bring is like asking for next weeks lottery numbers. The only away game I've struggled to get a ticket for this season was Norwich. Team just back in the Prem and an opportunity for a weekend away somewhere a bit different. Cardiff may turn out to be similar - and being able to stand legally will bring in a few - although on the other hand we'll all be spent up after Christmas so it really could be anything between 500 and 3000.

We'd rather there wasn't - it's been done to death, resurrected, and repeated ad nauseam. Unless you were referring to Mickey Gray's Pub, in which case please carry on.

I think you'll find it focussed fair and square on Manchester Blue. Hughes was just stood in the way.

This is one of my favourite weekends of the football calendar. Every year a handful of teams from way down the leagues go into this weekend and for some players it will be the biggest game of their lives. If the players from Yeading, or Histon, or Hinckley United triumph prior to the draw on Sunday, they will feel that they've won a cup ... and the reward is to be in the hat with Blackburn, Burnley, Bolton, and lesser rubbish like Arsenal Youth and Chelsea 2nds. Yeading isn't that far from where I live and they play Slough in a local derby tomorrow. Their players are ordinary people. I play Monday and Tuesday 5-a-side with their former schoolmates and team mates. But one of those two teams will be in the same hat as Liverpool and Manchester United. The IT helpdesk operator or the local postman vs Mad Roy Keane or Milan the top scorer at Euro 2004 Baros. This is the FA Cup, and this is why football in this country cannot be touched by any other nation in the world. For Rovers, I suppose all I want is an easy home draw, but at the same time I wish for a new away trip or a terrace to stand on. Come Sunday night, I'd love to be planning a trip to Hinckley or Aldershot.

Has he been taking chicken lessons from Dwight Yorke ?

an amazing insight from 250 miles away did anyone reading this manage to get a pie ?? i was offered a bacon buttie or a frazzled burger or a hot dog, i took the burger and broke bits off the edge to use as missiles, but the onions tasted ok anyway 1864, you're still so full of it it's untrue "We" didn't make the news because "we" were impeccably behaved from row A to row ZZZ. Sorry to disappoint, but Leyland HQ only got half the story.

Thanks ever so much for the update from Leyland HQ I'm not sure if the Sky cameras showed the complete picture But you know best, oh mighty 1864 ... fount of much info

Sums up everything really - great post

As such a long standing and loyal Rovers fan, I assume you were at the game at St Andrews in DY's first season with the Rovers (24.08.02). When the Birmingham fans (and lots of them) chanted, repeatedly and loudly, that his son would never see him, due to the kid being blind. I also assume - because as you say, Dwight Yorke is both a bad footballer and a bad father - and you knew all that 2 1/2 years ago - that not only did you join in with the Birmingham fans to taunt Yorke about his blind child, but you slated his football prowess as well. Because that day, he was somehow a different human being to the Dwight Yorke we saw on Sunday. Or perhaps because he wore Blue and White that day you didn't say a bad word about him when he scored the winner in the 1-0 defeat of Birmingham. You call yourself OnePost but after 4 you need to make a 5th to describe how you felt about this LET report after Yorke won the points that day. This criticism goes for a lot of people who have sounded out in this thread, it's harsh of me to pick on someone who has only made 4 posts, although those 4 posts have been in the last 2 days. Yorke had the right to ply his trade at Ewood as a Brum player on Sunday in the normal way. Just as the vile abuse he took at St Andrews as described above was totally unacceptable. there is no justification for the racial abuse he suffered in Blackburn. Even if it was only one person. And there is even less justification for the implicit criticism he has received since, which seems to justify the one (guilty) persons actions on the basis that Yorke invited it. He had a right to react in the way he did - anyone who has suffered an emotional headrush caused by direct and hurtful provocation knows that. To the people who say he should know better as a professional footballer, that's crap. I defy any of you not to react if your wives or kids are verbally abused in public. It's the same emotion a coloured person protects - it's untouchable. Yorke could have gone in with fists flying - the court reports he approached and said "you souldn't be doing that, it's wrong" and the ###### up tw@t who is now guilty of racial abuse by his own admission carried on wagging the finger and abusing Yorke to his face. Yorke made no physical contact. That must have required considerable self control. Yorke walked away, clearly upset, and explained to the next two human beings he came into contact with (Clemence and Bruce) what had happened to him. I totally fail to see how this is his fault. At the same time I abhor the media exposure this has forced on Blackburn Rovers - but it is NOT Yorke's fault.

And one more thing. Who would care to bet that last weeks culprit HASN'T been offered money by some tabloid trash to attend the game on Saturday ? It would be so easy and so cheap - here, have 2 grand, pays your fine and some pocket money. Go in with a decent disguise, get pictured as a face in the crowd with a long range lens, and bingo, some freelance tosser has a full page exclusive on how the legal ruling means nothing, the 5 year ban can't be enforced, and right in the heat of the debate the freelance tosser makes a mint. Don't think they aren't trying.

But no other club has just had a fan plead guilty to racial abuse of a recent former player. Days after the whole racism in football thing hit the news in the biggest possible fashion. And therefore no other club with a fan found guilty of racism, fined a grand, splashed all over the media, from an area of the country which is choosing BNP representatives in elections, and which is in general the nasty north ... ... is involved in a 1245 TV KO against a London team in two days time with another coloured ex-player who left our same club at almost the same time as the other black player who was involved 3 days ago!! So yes, you're being incredibly naive if you think the away fans on Saturday will not be under the brightest spotlight in our history ! EDIT - PS I don't like it, I'm just telling you how it's going to be ! It's hardly bloody rocket science - this whole thing has been blown way out of proportion by the media, if you really think they won't come back in force to get episode 2 live from the Cottage you're beyond being naive, you're just being daft

If you think that they won't be piling in I think you're being extremely naive. After this weeks lunacy, with the parallels of the ex players (Yorke and Cole), with the match being in London, with the KO time allowing freelancers to get some zoomed in snaps and then bugger off somewhere else for a 3pm game ... ... I think there will be more lenses pointed at the Putney End on Saturday than have ever been pointed at a Rovers crowd before.

Hmm, but a quarter of that total is from just 4 people. Three of the four are Norwegian, and the other is Rover6. And one of the three Norwegians is bordering on the obsessive when it comes to MGP, and isn't a Rovers fan.

To clear this up, it's not up to substitutes where they warm up, because law 3 states That when combined with this means that players warming up will ask permission from the 4th official and will be told where they can warm up. 9 times out of 10 they will be instructed (as Lee pointed out in an earlier post) to warm up in the half of the field where the linesman is officiating on the side of the pitch where the dugouts are. Presumably because the laws governing the technical area are fairly strict as well so the subs are sent to warm up where the lino can make sure they're not conveying messages to players or coaching from the sidelines.

It's getting close again !! Den, maybe this straight head to head knockout should be best of 3 rounds ?