Old Codger

Naahh, it's a barometer / reality check for the remainder of the season. Might as well either gird our loins, or administer last rights. No point letting them duck the axe. Found out this week that Ainsley Pears is dating one of my lad's old school chums.. She doesn't seem to have cottoned on to the definition of goal-digger just yet, but I'd wager she'll be offski if the financial outlook takes a turn for the worse at the end of the season. Watch this space 😉

Burble burble burble, blahbladdyblah. Three nil to the Tractor Boys, John Eustace won't go far... This is Rovers' cup final for this season. Rise to the occasion and maybe the campaign could end with a little pride and a flourish. Baulk or worse still freeze in the headlights, and the downward trajectory might become a little too compelling to avoid a galling tailspin into the third division. Dark days at the home of football. Oh, and just as an aside, I was speaking with a neighbour who is a dyed in the wool follower of all things shite at th'Turd, and he reckons that this season is actually "going to plan" with the beanie bloke looking to rebuild through another dominant season in the Champ, before taking a re-vitalised army of knuckle-draggers back to Mid Prem permanence. I know, I've had a warning already for talking non-football matters on the forum, but really, a 5 year plan including boing boing?? The idea of a bouncing turd really does nothing for my love of football. C'mon Rovers players tomorrow. Give it some welly, and play for a bit of pride.

Aye, best not to speak ill of the dead.. There's a few I'd forgotten, no doubt, and some who should be consigned to history.

That'll be the Mick Rose whose dad was Fred, and brother Peter who both taught at the College back in the day. Not sure if Mick might have retired from the Holly Tree Chippy these days, and passed it on to the younger generation, but I think his missus (or daughter) can still be seen there from time to time.. There are many ex St. Mary's College folk lurking on these pages - you know who you are (in Thailand, Redditch and the like 🙂 ) Some of us have ended up back in Blackburn and let's be honest, there really are a lot worse places to live! Father Stuart, Fred Arkwright, Mick Devoy, Joe Rigby (died last week at 96 I heard, RIP), Father Cassidy, John (?) Eastham (Spam), Ma Riley, Ma Burns, Fat Colly Collinridge, Dirty Denis Mahon, Joe Pilling (Groundsman), Tommy Duckworth, Father Wynne, And many others.. Not happy days for me, but for some, no doubt the time of your lives :O) A good school for football.

Well I'm not really dead, but the nom de plume has been retired / killed off. The posts remain somewhat adjacent, though perhaps a little toned down to reduce my tendency to offend folks 😭, but it is still me, except I'm now officially an Old Codger 😉

Sponsored by Holly Tree Chippy! Come on Mick Rose, you know you want to..!!

Not sure how many will trudge up the A19 for this one, but fair play to those hardy bastards who make the trip. I hope you are rewarded for your blind optimism with a display of attacking flair, resolute defending and midfield tenacity / creativity in equal measure. The form book looks somewhat telling: Boro - Last 6 = won 4 lost two Rovers - Last 6 drawn 5 lost one. Just like every single game from now to the end of the season, we need something from this one. I think though, on balance, that all we will get is disappointment and anger at what might have been. Hoping I'm wrong. Both sides have something to play for, but at opposite ends of the table. Both sides have players back. Both sides have players capable of changing a game. Both have players who coast like entitled babies instead of blazing like footballing gods. Hoping for a Rovers miracle. Expecting a Rovers reverse 😞 But FFS! COYB! F-WAGGOTT OUT! F-VENKYRAODESAIWASTRELS OUT! F-SUHAILPASHAHIDINGLIKEAWANKER OUT!

Have the players stopped believing in possibilities? Has a terminal gloom settled on the squad? Has the manager (head coach bah) got anything in the locker? I think we are about to find out, folks. Kansas may be about to go bye bye..

Beware the Ides of March... Omens not good, and the form book and outlook for games to come pretty bleak too. We can go on about lies, damned lies and statistics, but at the end of the day having the second worst defensive record and being so reliant on one player to provide 'moments of magic' really doesn't help me to feel any confidence we can stop the tail-spin. If we don't get anything from the next two games, for whatever reason, I'm inclined to think we'll just sink into oblivion. Damn those VenkyRaoDesaiPasha scum. Balls to Mr Stephen cut your granny's throat for a laugh Waggott Feck them all. How dare they allow this on their watch?

Boro have won this evening at Big Club, which continues their renaissance after the return of some key players. Given that football is a confidence game where momentum is vital, their positive movement upwards meeting our virtual stasis going nowhere would seem to suggest there will only be one likely outcome. This is where we see what is in the locker from the new management team, and from the players. If there isn't a significant change in both formation and attitude, we will definitely start to have the stink of a sinking ship. Watch out you don't get bitten, rat fans... Here's our glorious new leader, hamming it up on the One Show a few years back..

I think at least a 3-0 bashing is on the cards. Whilst Carrick's side has been inconsistent this season, they have had some key players out, who are now back available and starting to make the team gel once again. Where Boro have strength in depth, coherence and a plan, we seem to have holes in the squad, a chaotic and ineffective approach, and no plan whatsoever other than to hoof and hope. Consequently it is difficult to see anything other than a further dent in our confidence, a crushing blow to those hardy enough to make the trek up to Teesside, and a further deepening of our goals against crisis. As ever, I'd be more than happy to be proved wrong, but there's no recent evidence that these players have the balls to deliver anything else. Bollix.

Well, that was a dose of reality bites for the rose tinted bespectacled optimists amongst us who kept saying Rovers should win this... the BBC match statistics make for sobering reading: It isn't going to look any prettier on here either, if we don't somehow start to play with some form of coherence and conviction. It just wasn't there today. Nobody to blame but ourselves for swallowing the bullshit that JDT leaving and being replaced by 'a safe pair of hands' was anything other than another game of death by a thousand cuts. F-OFF VENKY-RAO-DESAI Football Luddites F-OFF WAGGOTT AND SUHAIL Football Stooges F-OFF VENKY APOLOGISTS AND BLINKERED SUPPORTERS WHO CAN'T SEE THIS IS DELIBERATE VENKYS OUT

Attack, Attack, Attack attack attack!! Oh, ok then,.... Tippy tap, tippy tap, tippy tippy tippy tap... oh bollux 😞 Someone down at Ewood, close to the dressing room - please could you put the shooting boots out this afteroon? Ta, muchly.

70s were cracking times to be a Rovers fan - bovril on a wet Tuesday evening against Hereford, the baying of rabid opposition supporters separated only by the merest whiff of metalwork, coins flying through the air from (and to) the Darwen End, being able to walk right round the ground so you were behind the 'scoring end' for the whole game, the smell of the crowd, Hollands pies, players training at Pleasington quite happily, talking with players getting the bus to the ground, proper turnstiles, teddy bears at half time in the Riverside, celebrating 1975, players and managers less concerned with 'systems' and more with sticking the ball in the onion bag, legendary goalkeepers and players living across the road (Roger Jones on Hollytree, Tony Parkes on Livesey Branch Rd opposite Station Garage when it was a petrol station), when 'being there' was more important that 'who owns the club'. Them wer't days. Miss em.

en mi cabeza hijo ¿Te estás riendo árbitro? ¡Tenerlo! (on my head son, / Are you having a laugh ref / Have IT!!) How difficult could it be?

Gallagher summed up last night for me - in dangerous positions several times, but far too slow to react, far too easy to knock off the ball, far too easy to out-muscle, and far too relaxed when it comes to doing his job (i.e. striker = score goals). I can't imagine for one nanosecond that Speedie, Bellamy, Jansen, McCarthy, or that weird Geordie turncoat would have done anything other than smash the ball into the net in most of the positions Gally got himself into. And as for all that passing the ball backwards and across the line instead of putting it into danger areas, REALLY? FFS, bash the fooking ball into their net. Simples. Going down, going down, going down. 😞 FFS FFS FFS!!

Lack of urgency. Lack of a coherent plan. Lack of leadership. Lack of quality in front of goal. Lack of concentration. Lack of energy. Lack of guile. Lack of a plan. Lack of pride in the shirt. Lack of options. Lack of concern. Lack of connection to the fans. Lack of action to put things right. At this rate, we are going to need to be renamed as 'Lackburn Rovers' 😞

FFS

Crowd looks as thin as was to be expected. Thin crowd. Thin budget. Thin squad. Thin returns this season. Thin effort to score this evening. No thin to shout about. 😞

We are having good possession, but not hurting this lot. Doesn't bode well.

Lets be brutally honest - it doesn't need to be a biblical torrent. A simple sea fret / light mist should be enough to bury our chance of winning this evening in the circumstances. Hoping beyond hope to be proven wrong. Whatever happens, I don't think it is going to be a pleasure to watch. Happy to be proven wrong, of course. COYB!!

Was thinking about this overnight, and I remembered something someone once said to me about getting through a crisis, which went along the lines of, "if you are in a skid, you need to focus on the outcome you want (e.g. staying on the road) rather than the outcome you don't (e.g. hitting the wall or landing in a ditch). Whatever you focus on, tends to become the reality you experience". Good advice. I know it feels like a tail-spin with an inevitable outcome, but remember, these players more than held their own last week against a team whose collective value was well over 50 x greater. Ok, so we aren't the fastest, most defensively capable, cohesive group of players in the league, but we aren't the worst either - AND when we put our minds to it, we can compete with the resources we have. Time for us all to focus on the outcomes we want, such as Rovers to succeed on the pitch, Venly's to F-OFF, Waggott to be gone from the club, rather than the unpalatable outcomes we definitely DON'T want. So actually, all of the below, are POSITIVE STATEMENTS of outcomes I'd like to see: F-OFF VENKY-DESAI-RAO wastrels F-OFF SUHAIL PASHA-SLINKING AROUND IN THE SHADOWS F-OFF WAGGOTT AND YOUR SELF AGRANDISING SCHEMERY COYB!

The only glimmer is that we seem to play better against stronger opposition. I would rather be safe and looking ahead to next season in the Championship, but it looks like we are going to take it to the wire. Not a great fan of Russian roulette to be fair..and when we so often seem to spin the magazine to the loaded slot for our opponents, it makes me wonder if we are doing it on purpose. Said it before, we have no god given right to be in the Championship and at the end of the day the table doesn't lie, especially in the goal difference column. Rich people sometimes have a very mean streak, especially when it comes to putting those they consider beneath them 'in their place'. We will get no assistance from the club's moronic owners, who don't even see us as a plaything anymore, but just a lingering reminder of their own vanity and poor judgment. F-OFF VENKY RAO DESAI SUHAIL WAGGOTT MORONS

Not looking too much like we want this. Swansea players fighting for the ball more, showing more intelligent movement off the ball, playing in passes that are pressurising our back line - all these things we don't seem to be doing at all today. We need some kind of miracle to get anything other than another bloody nose on our travels. Not sure who might be a miracle worker on present showing? 45 minutes to save the season. NOBODY too good to go down. Come on you absent on your travels Blues 😞 FFS!

Brittain really should be hitting the target there, if he had he'd have beaten the keeper. FFS