Why does anyone linger over a once great relationship gone bad? Why do marriages turn stale? He'd sorted out the sinking ship, won promotion, played amazing football, brought in some of the greatest EVER Rovers players (Tugay, Friedel), won a cup (!!!), got us into the top ten, then the top six, dominated Celtic at their place, smashed Spurs at White Hart Lane. When it went bad...it went bad quickly. But you still hope the good times return. They were all very human failings by Williams. The fans were torn just as he must have been. Including on BRFCS. Newcastle coming calling was a godsend...

She'll be in Parkhead, no doubt about it!

I'm pretty sure he is, but I won't reveal who I think he now is... I think a number of those from BRFCS from those days are here under different names. The Venkys takeover and few years after were traumatic. People argued and fretted and walked away. After some time, many (albeit reluctantly) returned. Rovers is in the blood. But...by God, blood poisoning via chicken farmers stings, doesn't it!!!!

I thought Rothwell was one of our three best players today, alongside Ayala and Travis. He was always lively, always looks for the ball and always looks to create something. By the very nature of his role, it won't come off a lot of the time but when it does, he's the team's creative lynchpin. Brereton had a mixed bag of a game but definitely grew into it. Much stronger in the second half (yes, I know it's easy to say that as he scored, but I was paying attention to him outside of that) which suggests that he's building a bit of grit into his game, a bit of staying power. In the past, he'd seem to retreat from games when it wasn't happening for him, but over the last season or so we see him shrugging off setbacks and popping up out of nowhere for a chance. Still a long way to go for Breo, and admittedly this is from a low bar to start with, but he's definitely getting better each year.

Unless Southampton had a brain fart then no way they'd agree to that. He had one year left on the contract and we got £15million for a player with no prem experience. They must have known we were desperate to sell. It was a good deal in the end for all concerned.

The only thing that TM really got wrong today was his treatment of Dolan and Gallagher. Millwall have some big defenders who can easily snuff out any high balls, especially when the opposition player can't even reach their shoulder. So, what did we see? Plenty of long balls in the first half. Dolan was ineffective there and we had no presence. Even worse, Dolan naturally drifted to the right touchline time and again, meaning we had no presence at all in the middle so even if he beat his man, there was nobody to whip into anyway, as usually Gally was just stood five metres away watching the proceedings. We have a player in Gallagher who is better than Mowbray allows him to be, but he's no pacy winger who can whip balls in. So why play him there? I don't think Gally had a terrible game, in fact you'll see that he actually looked strong when he was able to get the ball, turn around and drive at the opposition. The issue is that he tends to do that in our own half, rather than toward the opposition penalty area. Just by his presence, Sam gives the centre backs something to think about. Balls can bounce off him, creating opportunities, at least it means their defenders have a busy day and can't relax, even when Gally isn't at the races. With Dolan, they get time to chill out. They might as well as have pulled out a pair of deckchairs and cracked open a tinny in the first half for all the danger Dolan posed to them!!! TM's use of Gally as a wide forward is never going to work. Just give him a solid run of games in the centre FFS, stop chopping and changing. Get Dolan outside with someone to aim at in the middle. Football doesn't have to be rocket science. Will TM ever stop overthinking it? Put Dolan and Gally in their best positions and stop chopping and changing them. Give them time to grow into their roles.

We certainly are short up front, we play Dolan there! 😄

Got to be happy with coming from behind to take a point.

We've just scored from whipping a ball into the box. We then gain a corner. What do we do? Take a short corner and let Chapman overhit it out of play with his first touch of the day. Jesus wept...

Big Ben!!! 1-1!!!

Now we've conceded, what's the response? Change the formation yet again?!?

True. If they're going to play long balls, at least put Gally in the middle and Dolan on the wing. At least Gallagher can make a nuisance of himself against their central defenders, Dolan's a head shorter than them.

Hope Tony doesn't tinker. It's been a tight game and it could go either way. Last thing we need is yet another mid-game formation and players yet again being shifted about willy nilly. Swapping Gally and Dolan would be my only change...god knows why TM's going to think Sam's a winger until the day he leaves, but he's not looking like he's one for turning, is he?

Looks like the crowd have managed to intimidate the referee. Might be a wise bet to lay on Millwall getting a (dodgy) penalty in the second half.

Millwall starting to dominate a bit, forcing their influence on the game.

Millwall aren't showing any quality but are trying to intimidate us. We'll learn a lot about the cojones this season's team has - or, indeed, doesn't have - today. They're there for the taking, but we'll have to not let them bully us out of it.

We've not shown much it's true, but to be fair neither have they...there's been a remarkable absence of even a hint of a scoring chance. Not that I don't think we could concede at any second, but then I've always felt like that in the Mowbray era.

Pretty much, Millwall definitely look up for it and have made sure they are in our faces as much as possible. Rough challenges and not letting us have any time on the ball. We've had a few direct free kicks not too from their area but the deliveries from Rothwell didn't find anyone. We don't seem to really have any width up front, so a lot seems to be going through the middle. It's been an ok start. Tight game.

Hate to say it but the club who were everything we should be were (until their takeover); Burnley FC under Sean Dyche. Hard-working, community club, no airs and graces, spending well within their means. They had similarities to us the decade before under Hughes (we were better of course!!! 😉) but seeing them be what we should be and where we should be while we turned up our noses at Neil Warnock to appoint Owen Coyle really brought home our self-inflicted regression under the Venkys.

Which was better? That or the "2-0 in your Dingledome" earlier on that season when their fans were so enraged that smashed up their own town centre?!?!? Hahaha...great days!

I was there at Old Trafford for that game and as thrilling as it was in that semi final (I think we missed a close header too in extra time) and somehow Ballack's winner wasn't a surprise. That was Mourinho's Chelsea. True, we got very close and that was the closest we've been in my time. However, we were at our very best than and didn't quite make it, but against Millwall we threw away a great chance. Two FA Cup chances, but one was a glorious defeat, the other just yet another shambles under Venkys. When we lost at OT I felt pride. When we bottled it at home to Millwall, everyone was livid. Those differing reactions say it all.

Initially however, Cole and Yorke were a hit. In their first season together, we finished sixth after all. However, that was the high point in the Souness journey. If Newcastle had come in for him, we'd be asking if Souness was actually our greatest ever manager and comparing him with Dalglish, albeit with fewer resources (compared to the other clubs). He'd picked up a shamble in the second tier, got us promoted with one of the most exciting sides any of us could remember, kept us up and won us our only cup in what is now almost the last century (Full Member's Cup doesn't quite count!) and took us into Europe twice, once via the league. Alas, that 2003-04 season was a disaster. New signings did not work, especially those from Rangers (Barry Ferguson and Lorenzo Amoruso, others like Brett Emerton, Andy Todd or Michael Gray did ok for Rovers eventually but were still a step down from the likes of Duff, Berg and Bjornebye), which combined with injuries permanently having an effect on some quality players (David Thompson and Matt Jansen were at the club, but not the same), by then players either left for better climes or had fallen out with Souey (Duff went to Chelsea and GS failed to adequately replace him, Dunn went off to fall over his own feet doing a stepover at Big Club Birmingham City and Souey had simply reached the end of his time here. It's so difficult to get rid of a manager who has been so good for the club. Souey's highs were so much higher than Mowbray's. We played thrilling football in those days. The game which represented the high point was the final game of the season. Needing a win at White Hart Lane to be certain of Uefa Cup qualification, we absolutely plastered them. The previously maligned Yorke opened the scoring to cap a good first season at the club (he wasn't prolific, but he often scored important goals in tight matches), then Craig Hignett doubled our lead. Gus Poyet was then sent off for them, before a goal from Damien Duff on his Rovers swansong and Andy Cole (he was never prolific for us after his first, glorious half season which shot us to safety and the Worthington Cup) put the icing on the cake. It was the pinnacle of the Souness years https://ar-ar.facebook.com/1Rovers/videos/️-on-this-day-spurs-0-4-rovers/268217960984999/ Alas, it all went downhill from there. Duff and Dunn went that summer, Jansen never did recover as a footballer from his motorbike accident in Rome the year before, the new signings were downgrades and Souness...he couldn't reverse the decline. Hubris. All the tales and gossip from that time described a toxic workplace. The magic had gone. It's easy to try and blame this player or that one person, but it tends to be a funny old thing when things go wrong. Souness of course takes a lot of the blame for the decline after the summer, but all had their own part to play. We got lucky when Newcastle came in throwing money at us and lucky again when Hughes turned out to be the perfect replacement for the absolute shambles we'd become (was it Dickov, Kuqi and Stead as our attacking talent by then a year or so after Jansen, Cole & Yorke, dear me...) as, even though he had plenty of potential, he had never managed a club before (he was with Wales) and every appointment is a gamble to some extent. But, recover we did. I think in the end we just about got away with the timing and thank Newcastle for that. Any longer and we wouldn't have avoided relegation in 2004-05. Overall, though, Souness is rightly remembered as one of the great Rovers managers. My three favourite games from his reign in reverse order are... 3. Thrashing West Ham. We were back in the big time! 2. Smashing our promotion rivals Bolton at the Breezeblock - http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/eng_div_1/1184772.stm and, of course... 1. A glorious day at Cardiff under the roof. Dear me, what a club we used to have! Behind the scenes as well as on the pitch. For a decade we were known as the best-run club in the country. Regular Wembley visits, regular forays into Europe (we even won a couple of games as well under Sparky!) and regular pride to be had in being a supporter of Blackburn Rovers FC. We'll always have the memories. Treasure them. Will we ever feel that same kind of pride in our club? One day we will, one day we'll have owners who give a shit. That was quite a ride, the Pride of Lancashire.

Excellent BBC piece of Nymabe, highlights one of the successes of the Rovers academy.

Best chance of getting to the FA Cup final in my time of supporting Rovers. It was probably the last nail in the coffin of Appleton at Rovers. Another shocker I remember is losing at home to Brentford in the cup in the late eighties. It's now over 60 years since we've been in an FA Cup final. The cup that made our name! The vast majority of Rovers fans have never seen in us play in one. I'd probably enjoy it more than even a promotion, just because I (and most of us) have been waiting so long for that special day out. If ever we do hear "Abide with Me" rolling out before kick-off one sunny May day at Wembley, the hairs will be standing up on the back of our necks. To sleep, perchance to dream as Shakespeare had it...

He didn't forfeit the game one tiny bit. We lost pathetically and he came out with the "forfeit" bs in an attempt to pretend that it wasn't a pathetic capitulation but instead somehow planned. As if it wasn't a big deal as it was planned that way and so he shouldn't get any flak over it. Pathetic attempt to deflect criticism that was so inept that it ended up being an ever bigger embarrassment than the loss itself.