Old Codger

10 minutes in. Stats from BBC showing Rovers 14% possession. Things can only get better... Oh, hang on... 😞

Ruddy shrinkflation - The Pennines have become Pennies according to la Plod. Fair play to 1700 gullible and hardy souls for going like lambs to the slaughter in the wars of the Roses.

Well, at least it's not boring, watching the Rovers. I'm another who thinks Hyam has lost the plot, and seems bizarrely disinterested in the simple job of doing his job. Gawd knows what happens in training, but someone needs to call him out for his complete lack of professionalism, and remind him that his job is to defend our goal, not to add to the potency of the opponents' attack. I think what we saw at Sunderland was the last time this season that the side was properly balanced, motivated and facing opposition with similar problems of inconsistency as ourselves. Sadly I think we will be overwhelmed today, and our abject capitulation at Bristol will be followed by another dispiriting slump towards the trap door. Best case 2-1 with Sammie grabbing a neat consolation and adding to his transfer value.. Worst case - hide behind the sofa come 2.15pm Most likely case - sore bums all round.

None of which will ever be used to fund the acquisition of replacements. Haven't you twigged yet? Any windfall money coming in from player sales gets mysteriously trousered somewhere between Ewood and Pune, and we continue to reduce operational outgoings (including player wages, maintenance of the stadium and infrastructure, marketing) year on year, with no sign at all of any money flowing from the sale of players to the managers' hit lists. Wakey wakey!

All a bit frenetic at the moment. Rovers should be behind, and Sammie taken a knock but running it off. I wish we wouldn't persist with the fannying it out from the back. All up for grabs

I think it probably loses some of it's impact due to the accent, but I'd certainly like to be a fly on the wall when you start bandying that phrase about State-side 🙂 Nervous about this one - we do have a tendency to smoke our own exhaust sometimes, especially after having had a good day out earlier in the week... It should be a decent game of football, if Rovers turn up, and yes, they can all bugger off if they don't! 😉 COYB!

I've long said that football is a game of confidence, made interesting by the influence of lady luck. Both Rovers and Southampton have had their fair share of games where both those factors have deserted them, leading to unpalatable reverses. Both have players capable of stinging the opposition - imagine Rovers this season if we'd had an out and out striker like AA in the side together with Super Sammie!?! - but both are prone to giving away very silly goals. This has score draw written all over it, so of course that means one side will probably nick it. Hopefully it will be Rovers with home advantage (really??) and their dander up after Monday who grab the still vital points towards survival. Head 1-1 (Szmodics and Armstrong) Heart 3-1 (JRC, Szmodics, Telalovic - Armstrong) Hit and Hope 5-4 (an exciting late season goal fest with Rovers coming out on top for keeping going till the 97th minute) COYB! Oh, and please bugger off some time soon ye loons of Venkster Land, ye scunners of backroom scullduggery, and all who care not for the legend of East Lancashire Blue and Whitery.

Our lot have forgotten how to play football, and have no plan, no tactics, no focus and no direction. We rely upon the rub of the green, which has sadly been missing from recent games. Sunderland have enough in the locker to despatch Rovers quite comfortably, based on recent form. Is there anyone left at Rovers who actually gives a fook? What a dire end to a season that started with such promise. What the fook kind of business deliberately sets out to fail? What kind of set up is intentionally undermined to ensure failure? What is the mentality of owners who appear to want no return from their considerable investment in their business? The bonfire of the Venekies... that's what. Rovers on fire, and the owners fiddling whilst Ewood burns.

Perhaps the game is to avoid playing the 6 fingered derby twice next season at all costs.

No coherence, cohesion, competence or confidence in that team today. Whilst Ipswich didn't do anything really worth the win, Rovers did nothing but huff and puff, like handbags at thirty paces. If we go down it will be because of nothing performances like today. Poor across the whole team.

What Chrisene brings to the side I fail to see.

Rovers look like a League 1 side already. Making Ipswich look like a class above. 😞 Sad indeed.

Not sure that is going to do anything to help the Rovers get anything out of this game... lol

Fair play to you Scarface for coming onto the Rovers board (oh for a more influential version of that!!) and for your measured assessment of the fixture this afternoon. I thought for a second or two when I started reading, that you were in fact a Dingle troll, come to rub our noses gleefully in their expensive learning curve this season, but once I'd clocked that you were in fact a Tractor Boy I felt comfortable with what you laid out. The thing to remember I guess, in football, is that there are a lot of swings and roundabouts along the way. I used to have a soft spot for Ipswich in the glory days of Arnold Muhren and the likes of Paul Cooper, George Burley, Mick Mills, Franz Thijssen, Russell Osman, Terry Butcher, John Wark, Paul Mariner (from Chorley), Alan Brazil, Gates. Kevin Beattie and McCall. Memories fade, but that team played football years ahead of its time, and was a joy to watch, unless you were playing them as opposition! On today's fixture, we can all see that the pendulum has swung a long way between the fortunes of these two sides, and that on paper, trajectory, recent form and common sense there should be only one outcome. But then again, perhaps that is the joy of this crazy game - All we can wish for as football fans is for our team to give a good account of themselves in the game. All we can hope for as home supporters is for some measure of pride in a performance 'against the odds' at the final whistle, and a walk up Livesey Branch Road with heads held high. With any luck Rovers will find the guts and guile to nick a win, and send you Tractor Boys with long faces and cries of what might have been back on the long trek to the bland wilderness of Suffolk (lol, I'm sure the town is somewhat more pleasant in many respects than our counterpart in East Lancs).. Let's be having a proper football match first! COYB!

My question is, why do they even bother sending the fabled £20 million dollops over at all? It's worse than sending feck all and abandoning any pretence that they have an interest in our famous old club. They don't. 😞 Feck em.

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..