None of the championship teams I’ve seen this season appear to carry passengers or luxury players. Apart from Rovers of course.

Unfortunately yes. I broke my right leg twice within 9 months and it was in plaster for a long while. My right knee was a bit problematical after that. Over the years it’s just got worse. I’ve got an appointment for injections in it next month when we get back from Spain. Let’s see how that goes.

Is Bennett still catching at Shrewsbury Town ? He fit right in at Sunderland.

He wasn’t the quickest but he had a good change of pace. He could slow down and stop opponents then still go by them even with his lack of real pace. Jack Grealish is the same. Dack was a natural street footballer, there aren’t many around in the era of players being coached from a young age. I used to watch some Rovers players and think “ bloody hell, I could have done better than that “. I never thought that about Dack, he could do things I could never do, way beyond my skill set even on a my good days.

Great stuff. He had what you can’t teach. Look what good positions he takes up and how he’s always the first to react. Never panics, lets the defenders do that. Plus he had the technique for every occasion. Right foot, left foot, headers, side foot, toe pokes, blasters he had them all. Up there with Tony Field for me.

All three promoted teams stayed up.

On the other hand he pulled off saves that only an international class keeper could make. Even the dogs in the street could see he was a top class keeper in the making. Brentford could anyway.

Yes they do - but they seemed to have done ok without it.

They rely massively on their pressing game. I can’t see how he’d fit in to that.

Best way to be. Pointless getting into slanging matches with the ref. Pushing and shoving other players ? Why ? What’s that all about ? Just nail them them the next chance you get.

The Lovin’ Spoonful - Do You Believe In Magic

I can’t see past Luton to be honest. They’re very hard working and hard to play against.

Like I said at the time - with a Kevin Moran or a Colin Hendry in the team that corner in the Coventry game gets headed away before their keeper can get anywhere near it. Leadership - that’s what we are lacking.

There’s too much of it at the club. We haven’t got a winning mentality and it all stems from the top. Just business as usual after the Dingle away debacle. Anybody think Jack would have taken that shit show lying down ?

Or the Hull game at Ewood were we just went through the motions. Or the league game at Big Club were we went through the motions again. Too many players happy to just do enough and not enough players who want to win at any cost.

A bit like Tony Field was when we were bumping around the old Division 3 in the 1970’s.

I agree Jim. I watched the Luton v Sunderland game the other night. Luton ran themselves into the ground to win the game. I thought early on that “ they won’t be able to keep this up. After 60 minutes they’ll have to ease off “. Well they never did, they kept going at 110% right until the end. When we have a Rovers team that shows that level of commitment, desire, will to win, effort etc I’ll start believing that we, as a club, want promotion. Until we do we’re just playing at it.

We won 4-0 there in the FA Cup when Mark Hughes was managing us.

Yeah I remember Barry. One of team that won the Youth Cup along with Fred Pickering, Keith Newton, Mike England etc. He could play off either wing and he was pretty quick. He held his place for a while but once we’d signed the two Mikes ( Ferguson and Harrison ) he was out of the frame. He wasn’t the biggest lad and full backs were ruthless then. I think his last first team game was against Fulham at Ewood. He was playing on the right wing against an old lag called Jim Langley. He’d given Langley a bit of a chasing so Langley decided to quieten him with a flying two footed tackle that landed about half way up his legs. A shocking tackle but only a booking then. Instant red today. It was right in front of me. After that Barry went into his shell for the rest of the game and never got another chance at Rovers. We sold him to Scunthorpe I think. After that he rocked up at my home town team Rochdale. He was in and out of the team until the night they played Altrincham in the FA Cup. The Dale played like drains and Altrincham won in a canter. Jack Swindells ex Rovers and a prolific non league striker ran them ragged. Nobody played well but Barry was among three Dale players who were scapegoated and never played for the club again. A sad end to a career that started so brightly. Thanks for the memories Barry.

What - any of the words ? I was thinking just one word.

Or chucked in against the likes of Luton away.

Marshall Crenshaw - There She Goes Again

I’m a member of an American engineering internet site. They got to discussing Indian machine builders the other day and this evolved into doing business with Indian companies. The guys contributing all had hands on experience of dealing with Indian businesses. The anecdotes that came out were very revealing of a totally different mindset to Western businessmen. Very much akin to how South Americans see ‘ The Hand Of God “. Anything goes if you can get away with it.

Prince La La - She Put The Hurt On Me

You mean Brian Hyland.