52 minutes ago, Upside Down said:

We should have just kep the yellow shirts.

They were absolutely fantastic. By far the best away shirt we've had since the early 90s.

42 minutes ago, Mattyblue said:

Keep a shirt for two seasons? You should’ve put that on the nostalgia thread!

It is a thing for some teams now, isn't it? Brentford for one I think. I can see it becoming more of thing for green / sustainability reasons as years go by. We all know the mass array of attire produced every year (training, preseason, walk out, home, away, thirds (repeat for GK), European...) is for money, not distinction on the pitch. So what if it costs whatever much environmentally or it all ends up in a tip...

Are Rovers the first team they've played since their renaming back to the old club's title?

Aye there's no salvaging anything with that logo. Looking at them pictures, the lettering might honestly be worse than the devil symbol. Kind of thing an edgy ten year old knocks together.

33 minutes ago, davulsukur said:

QPR at home for us on the opening day

Dingles away to Hudds 

 

Championship fixtures: Vincent Kompany's Burnley start at Huddersfield Town - BBC Sport

I know it's illegal for a Blackburnian to feel sympathy for that mob, but I hate how the media bang on about Lampard's Everton, Rooney's Derby, Gerrard's Rangers, and now Kompany's Burnley. They don't own them; they've been around for decades long before and hopefully long after whichever hired hand disappears again. Have some respect for the club's heritage, history and fanbase for crying out loud.

Does anybody else look forward to tomorrow more than Christmas? 

Out of interest has anything ever been said or implied about whether we'd sell the naming rights to Ewood? Totally Wicked do - or did - sponsor St Helens RFC's ground, which got me thinking!

Another point which got me thinking, with all the (very admirable) outreach work the club have been doing amongst the South Asian community, how does having a vaping sponsor sit with our appeal to them? By my understanding, vaping is disapproved of in Islam much in the same way tobacco is. Not having our main piece or merch sit comfortably with a demographic we are trying to capture isn't great. 

Where it could be communicated to fans (i.e. at such a level where grounds have screens or electronic scoreboards), 90 minutes to be done away with and replaced by the rugby method of time only advancing (generally) when the ball is in play, say for 2x35 mins.

Also, during all instances of penalties, players cannot pause between commencing their run up and placing their grounded leg to strike the ball. Similarly, during shootouts, keepers forbidden from advancing beyond the six yard box between kicks.

Off-topic but that Chorley effort above is something Rovers should have been all over a long time ago - a range of leisure / beach / summer- wear, that is modern, smart and stylish and still conveys the club's identity, without being your traditional 'look at that bloke, at the beach in a football shirt ffs'. Half the stuff we have in at the minute looks like the kind of thing you'd wear to do the gardening, the other half looks like something you knock together in Paint in ten minutes.

Why don't we develop a new range playing on the 1875 / Arte Et Labore theme? Team up with relevant part of Blackburn College if there is one (or similar) and spin it as part of our giving community partnership stuff? Why are teams at Tier Six (and below!) doing stuff that appears beyond us?

Yes the UK's expensive, yes there are social problems which we are generations off solving, yes politically we've had better days (IMO), but I am genuinely amazed this country can contain cities like Bath, York and Edinburgh; countryside like the Cotswolds, Lake District and Snowdonia; one of the world's and some of Europe's foremost cities; and more sport, culture and recreational activity than you can shake a stick at all pretty much within a day's drive of each other; an entire continent on your doorstep and the most successful town football team on the planet (probably) and people still think it's a shithole. What seriously do people want?

I won't be there myself - agonisingly I'm in Glasgow the weekend after (hotel for £40 when I booked 😉) and can't really justify it twice in a week - but I thoroughly recommend the Laurieston Bar if any of you are getting the train up to Glasgow Central. No idea what they are like with colours so perhaps cover up, but it is a proper, proper old school boozer if that's your thing. Excellent city in general and certainly good for the ale, have a great day / weekend whoever is going. 

Must admit I'm not a fan of the FA Cup Final not bringing the curtain down on the domestic season.

11 hours ago, Aqualung said:

I know where you are coming from mate but alas, none of the grounds you want to host England matches or finals or semis have the capacity of Wembley. Money talks and the FA takes. Plus they dictate ticket prices. 

As an aside, I've never been to the new stadium ( only visited on the outside), the area around there is unrecognisable to when I last visited v Leicester. 

Spent a few nights in the cannabis towers Hotel there whilst taking my wife and her kids on a London tour. 

Fucking dump of a place IMHO. 

 

Oh I realise I am definitely being wishful; I just look at the women's national team and see them playing at the likes of Norwich, Middlesborough and Wolves and think what a good idea it is to take it to the people - if you're a kid growing up on Tyneside it's highly unlikely you'll ever get the time or money for a day out a Wembley, but say a qualifier v. Andorra at the Stadium of Light? I accept finals and meaningful England fixtures are a different thing altogether mind.

I used to on occasion work in that corner of London; the area around the stadium, as with a lot of major cities, is a very strange mix of expensive new apartments and shops and old, run down equivalents practically right next door. I find the stadium and area a bit soulless myself, it literally just looks like a massive computer generated image with no character or anything. 

10 hours ago, bazza said:

Not getting at you GHR personally but just responding to all those who are aggrieved that Rovers have never been to the new Wembley.

Sorry, I was definitely a massive arsehole with the nature of that reply. The point about automatic promotion is a fair one, but I think it still demonstrates how practically every other team in the 92 has had some form of 'big day out' or similar over the past 15 years. Our single promotion aside, it feels a little bit like we've just existed rather than lived in the same timeframe.

51 minutes ago, bazza said:

All these posts complaining that we haven't been to the new Wembley amaze me. Would you have preferred us to have visited the new Wembley for a play-off final instead of getting automatic promotion from League One just to tick a box? We may have lost there as well.

I'd like to see our visit there for an FA Cup final or League Cup final. 

What a bizarre post.

I was merely responding the poster who originally brought up the point with an actual list. I would like to think it's an interesting bit of trivia whatever way you want to interpret it. 

For what it's worth I've been to the new Wembley and I think it's shit. It should have been flogged for housing, England should tour the country to actually take the game to the masses, and finals should be held at vastly the many vastly superior club grounds around England.

Not usually one for the cliched stories of excess and 'banter', but the Undr the Cosh with ex-West Brom midfielder Andy Johnson is brilliant. The bloke is full blown mental in the best possible way.

This could go in any number of forums really but I might as well stick it here.

I really don't get the recent spate of pitch invasions. Seems to be the latest go-to fad now that crowds are back in the proper sense. It was a seeming increase in general unruliness to start with, then flares everywhere, now this; with added assault and whatever else for flavour. The way we're going there'll be a night of rioting when someone gets a last minute equaliser chalked off next season.

I don't want to sound old - I can just about remember Cardiff in 2002! - but it really puts me off does this kind of thing. I love away days, passionate crowds and whatever else but lately it's seems like there's loads of ****heads on god knows what trying to get a kick or a decent Insta story or whatever by doing random, pointless shit.

Edit - I will also say, I dread to think what the potential solutions are if this starts to get properly out of hand...

On 18/05/2022 at 09:36, GHR said:

4,000 Holes listed them all recently. From next season it'll be ourselves, Accy, Colchester, Crawley, Hartlepool, Ipswich and Port Vale (though Vale may get there yet this season). Stockport County I don't think have been there either, plus perhaps whoever wins that play off (it's at West Ham this year).

Only team in the top 44, and one of only two teams with any sort of presence and success in the domestic game is quote some going from Rovers!

... and we can also remove Port Vale! We're now one of six, or one of seven depending on who wins the National League play-off...

(Thanks for all the Stockport corrections, that had completely passed me by, but in my defence it was a while ago!)

8 minutes ago, bazza said:

I remember Third Lanark, another interesting name.

The club that's proof that owners fiddling football clubs for all they're worth is nothing new. I've been to their old ground in Glasgow, it survives as a public park and football pitch, with the terracing still there, lost amongst trees. A haunting but fascinating place.

12 minutes ago, bazza said:

I see "The Blue Brazil" got relegated out of the Scottish League proper for (I think) the first time in my lifetime.

As a child I was always fascinated by the fixture Cowdenbeath v Stenhousemuir; strange names to me.

It will be, they've only had relegation from the fourth division into the leagues below for a decade or so now. It being a play-off, they're only the fourth team from the 'traditional' 42 to go, however none have ever come particularly close to making a return. 

I completely agree with the names by the way, I was always taken in by the likes of Queen of the South and Albion Rovers.

It's got all the makings of a few years ago when Man City had to beat Brighton away on the final day to win the league. Brighton went 1-0 with about 10 minutes gone, which was then followed by City annihilating from that point onwards to win 4-1...

10 hours ago, frosty said:

Forest were one of the few Football League clubs never to have played at the new Wembley. Hardly any of us left now….

4,000 Holes listed them all recently. From next season it'll be ourselves, Accy, Colchester, Crawley, Hartlepool, Ipswich and Port Vale (though Vale may get there yet this season). Stockport County I don't think have been there either, plus perhaps whoever wins that play off (it's at West Ham this year).

Only team in the top 44, and one of only two teams with any sort of presence and success in the domestic game is quote some going from Rovers!

It is genuinely admirable that we aren't accepting gambling sponsorship. I agree we should make more of a deal of this, but I can understand a reluctance in case we ever need to go back on it (I hope not!).

Received mine this week as well, which was a nice surprise as I had no idea one was due! Superb read again, plenty of laugh out loud comments too.

My skepticism with data is that if you fed Tugay into a Spreadsheet we'd never have touched him in a million years. As it transpires, he was probably the greatest foreign player ever to grace Ewood in spite of all the things he couldn't or wouldn't do.

I accept that data can be useful and will doubtless have uncovered some gems to buy or weaknesses to exploit, but at the end of the day, there is only one metric which counts. Two decades from now nobody will look back at a fixture and see 'they had 67% possession, a superior xG and an overwhelming victory in the aerial duels stakes', they'll see we lost 1-0 and subsequently attained zero points that day. It's the same with players - people remember Brad Friedel as one of our finest keepers ever, Craig Short as an absolute unit and whoever else as whatever else. No one will ever say 'Well, that Harry Pickering lad back in the day once successfully completed thirty passes over fifty yards in six matches'...

2 minutes ago, roversfan99 said:

Does anyone get filming matches on their phones? Drives me mad!

I can't understand why people do it, I'm very much of the opinion that I'm there for myself, there for the moment, I'm the same with concerts. I get a couple of pictures of the ground if it's a new one for me but other than that my phone stays in my pocket unless I'm checking scores if there's a stoppage or whatever.

There's a couple of other things for me too - firstly, it goes nowhere near recreating the atmosphere / circumstances that it takes place in - I've just watched that video sat as my (WFH!) desk, a day later, with no connection to any of the teams involved; to that extent it's utterly meaningless really. Secondly, who actually watches stuff like that back? In all my years following Rovers I have maybe looked back at footage from 1995, Cardiff, and random odds and ends that pop into my head - Andy Todd booting Christophe Duggary for example. I'd go as far as to say I'm not actually interested about watching highlights from inconsequential matches more than a game after they happen.

Still, probably got a couple of social media likes, so it's all grand.

Just now, WacoRover said:

I’d like to see some mean, nasty steaks in our players. We have a lot of nice, inoffensive lads now. 

Indeed. Andy Todd would have been in the crowd having a scrap with those fans keeping the ball a few minutes ago. Lenihan and Johnson are perhaps the only two of that ilk we have, and even then I'm not sure about Darragh.