That's harsh on at least Kevin Stonehouse, imo.

Jim Arnold's only 72!😉

Not for me to comment, I guess (but, as you see, I'm not letting that stop me!), because each of us has different circumstances. But being able to get more easily to Ewood was one of the factors which influenced my move, 18 months ago, from Heywood to within a couple of miles of Ewood. Then Sod's Law struck, and I'm stuck at home for at least the next month until an injury to my left leg has healed.

Brilliant, @chaddyrovers !😉😅😂🤣 And before anybody asks, I know, I know!! But I won't be fit enough to take my new seat in the JWU until the bandages can come off my left leg. (A month's time🤞)

Well there's a coincidence! I'd begun typing what follows before @SIMON GARNERS 194 's post had appeared on the Board and, not being a regular reader of the LT, had begun with: "Well if nothing else, the coming season could well be a test of JDT's coaching skills." It now continues as follows: I'm going into the new season with less optimism than for several years. The only things that encourage me (and this is probably down to football journalists in those parts of the national media I read/listen to focussing on the Premier League, almost to the exclusion of the Football League) are: i) the continued development of some of our younger players; ii) the apparent alacrity with which Gregg used the opportunity to recruit players who may, or may not have been on his wanted lists but without the continuation of the war in Ukraine, would probably have had to remain there; and iii) the media's obsession with the Premier League which means that I haven't a clue how the other teams that were "there or thereabouts" near the top of last season's Championship have approached their recruitment so I don't know how the Championship table is likely to settle down. When it comes to Saturday's match, I've not much of a clue about what Gregg's opposite number at W.B.A. has been able to achieve during the close season in terms of strengthening their squad. So - and with no disrespect to Leonard this is very much typed with fingers crossed - I hope that Leonard has a blinder on his League debut and fulfils what , based on his display in the pre-season game at Parkhead, I hoped Vale might achieve last season. And that we win with the only goal of the game in the 8th of 9 minutes' stoppage time. When it comes to the scorer's identity, I'd like it to be Leonard, irrespective of whether it's a blinding shot, or goes in off his arse in a goalmouth melee!

Put my name down for one of those FTH tee-shirts, please.

Beware of the company you keep!

I'm gutted that I couldn't make it - it sounds like everybody enjoyed themselves - but quite heartened by the comments on here. I was really quite pessimistic before the game, but at least I can quote the comparison with Real Madrid in my usual Sunday morning WhatsApp chat with my old schoolmate in NZ who follows The Dingles!

I'm gutted that I can't go to this game; a longstanding, slow-healing couple of injuries to my left leg just above the heel (I stopped describing them as "slow-heeling" a long time ago!) prevent me wearing any footwear other than bedsocks. In other circumstances, I'd have been there. Anyway, I'll be thinking about you all; and hope that the weather's fair, so that anybody local without a leg-itimate😉 excuse like mine; or who had already booked their holidays for the close season - that's what it's there for(!) ‐ will be there.

😉 😅 😂 🤣 Yes; that team's probably best playing a 4-2-3-1 system, @JPTSwindon !

Maybe it was because it was only 12 years after VE Day when I went to "big school"; or - more likely - it wasn't a very good school, but we never learned German when I was at school. So I couldn't have sung "Can we play you every week?" if I'd been at today's games!😉

I already did, @rigger. And no; I discounted the items that @bazza listed!

And it's for poor sad old beggars like me who like to: i) "collect" away Grounds where I haven't previously seen us play; and ii) are too aged and infirm to stand on terraces for 90+ minutes. It must have been popular last season because, if memory serves, it was only £10 then. 😉 Not for me to put the words "Swag" and "money-raising scam" - sorry, "scheme"; you know how these words sound similar! - in the same sentence, you understand.

Damn; and I've left it too late to go!!

We bear grudges; and rightly so in cases like this one. Those two goals in the one game were so far out of order as to be almost unbelievable. If I remember rightly, weren't they early in the season? (Far too late at night for this old beggar to check.) I seem to recall thinking that, if he'd got them at the other end, those three goals would have made him top scorer in the Division.

Move over, Trent Alexander-Arnold!!

Shouldn't that read, "There's still 8 weeks of the transfer window? 😱", @BankEnd Rover ?😉

Can they truly be "Rovers fans" any more?? Just asking.

If the weather at the Wham Stadium's anything like it is in BB2 at the moment, serious respect to anyone who's there. (I would have been; but I'm 77 and recuperating from surgery.)

Yes, that's a brilliant evocation of how things used to be "back in the day", @Tyrone Shoelaces . Thanks for it. There were always some players who could fit into more than one of those roles, I seem to remember. This may be an old man's memory playing tricks on him; but didn't Tom Finney sometimes play centre-forward - No. 9(😉!) for PNE? And because I'm the "Sandgrown 'un" (born in Blackpool) son of two Blackburners and lived there till I was about 24, I didn't see as many Rovers home games in the 1960s, as my contemporaries on here. So I need to ask those on here of a similar era, am I correct in remembering "Duggie" playing either as a Right winger or as an inside-forward as the "2 - 3 - 5" morphed into "4 - 2 - 4"?

True, dat @philipl ! I don't remember any commitment by the ownership; let alone them "being absolutely clear to the point of being repetitously boring this is a Project which JDT has signed up to for 3 years." I've read JDT say that; but nothing from our owners. And what if there's another snafu on the next transfer deadline day, leading to us missing out on someone else JDT thought would advance "the Project"? In such an event, he wouldn't be human if he didn't think he was surrounded by incompetents; and start looking - before the three years of The Project were up - for a more business-like football club for him to be Head Coach. God knows the last transfer window proved that he seems to have the reverse at Ewood.

You're right, of course, @goozburger ; but don't forget what a very big word "If" can be.

A cynic writes, "Well, don't hold your breath, @Exiled_Rover ." It'd be nice if that happened, but this is the cynical world of Swag & Co.

Yep! Well, this one does, anyway. And sometimes you just think, "I can't be arsed going to watch us playing - e.g. - Luton Town because I've always found games against them drab battles." And I'm getting a bit old for getting home from evening kick-offs. If I have my bedtime Horlicks too late, . . !😉 😁

Now here's a challenge: Mark Chapman on BBC Radio 5 doing a preview on tonight's game involving Sunderland begins his interview with the BBC Local Radio correspondent who follows them by saying, "There's nobody in football who has a bad word (for Tony Mowbray)." I immediately thought, "I can think of a few who can!!"💩