Tracey Thorn - Plain Sailing

Howe will be a very good appointment for Celtic. It may take him a while to get them up to speed though and I hope the fans are patient enough to stick with it. He may get a shock at just what a huge club it is given the minnows he’s managed in the past 😉

The Jam - Burning Sky

Cat Stevens - First Cut Is The Deepest

Has to be done I’m afraid: Survivor - Eye Of the Tiger

They were brilliant for that. Weller still is. A truly generous soul. You saw them at their absolute peak mate.

Neil Young - The Old Laughing Lady

Spot on this. Southgate got away with it in the end, but the game was crying out for this change, and possibly one or two others as well, about ten minutes after it had gone to 1-1.

That's like saying Kojak was going a bit thin on top. A once-in-a-generation chance to get to Wembley and they stank the place out.

I don't think any of the team actually went to Everton School but Park Lane Rangers used to use it to train - so a future Rovers player definitely graced the place in the late 70s (Mark Patterson)

Wow! All these years and market researchers were never needed after all then?

What a morning! The Jam reformed, Tony Mowbray resigned, Darwen Tower got relocated and they found a bloke in Burnley with a full set of teeth and only 5 fingers on each hand, and all before 10am!!!

Noonday Underground - Hitch Your Wagon To The Stars

Kate Bush - Army Dreamers

Open goal I think: The Jam - Down In the Tube Station at Midnight

Made me laugh out loud Gav

Yeah it’s sometimes easy to overlook the fact that Brad is a ‘foreigner’, I certainly did when I plumped for Tugay.

To be fair Blackburn and Darwen’s best schools team in my memory was just after this, when Mark Brennan played. They got to the quarter finals of the English Schools Cup, as well as winning all the local and regional comps.

New Edition - Candy Girl

My brother played several games for Rovers reserves at the age of 15 (under Howard Kendall) and when the time came to take the apprentices on, Rovers could only afford one. So they signed Franz Carr and suggested to our kid that he could play "on a non-contract basis" (whatever that meant to a 16 year old!). He fooked them off and joined the police instead.

Yeah I remember him, he was a good 'un. The only future pros I played alongside as a youth were Patty and Mark Brennan, who both had good careers. However as an adult I was lucky enough to play with and against quite a few of them. I partnered a colourful character called Barry Lavety (Google him!) up front in my works team in a Scottish tournament a few years back. And to my joy, he couldn't believe that I wasn't an ex pro. Its a thin line sometimes isn't it?

Couple of cracking linesmen there, the fooking headmaster and Mister Memory Lane ha ha. As I've posted before, it is really good to reflect on some of the players you've played against as a young 'un. My brother's claim to fame is that he was sent off at Old Trafford for punching the shit out of Norman Whiteside in an FA Youth Cup tie. They were still fighting as they went down the tunnel (yes, Norman also got dismissed). Many years later I met Norman at a function and mentioned this to him. He said "Bloody hell mate I remember that, mainly because your kid was bigger than me and at 16 years of age that was rare!" Going back to your game, at least three from your opposition ended up having very good pro careers.

Everything But the Girl Vs Soul Vision - Tracey In My Room

Berkovic was a class act. Never afraid of showing for the ball, regardless of how much space he had (or didn't have). He could thread a pass through the eye of a needle too. Really clever footballer.

Excellent. Nice to hear of a recreation of the Rovers and Darwen exploits of 100 years earlier (of sorts anyway).