Keith Newton played for England in both full back positions. If you're two footed, as any pro player ought to be, you should be able to play on either flank.

Or me.

Yeah, I'd have thought they'd have gone for someone with more experience at that level.

Mm, he needs a win. The pressure will be on soon.

Ernie Hannigan - another one who missed his way. He was a bag of tricks. Talking about Howard Kendall, he was about the same age as me and I recall feeling really envious of him when he was playing in the Cup Final as a very young player. Fast forward a couple of years and I was stood right behind him when he was taking a throw in playing for Everton in a pre season friendly at Rochdale. I was near enough to see the bald spot appearing on the back of his head, I wasn't quite so envious after that !

Yeah you're right it was Craig Skinner who put that far post ball in. The cross field ball from Wilcox ? out to him was a gem as well. The incident at the end summed Speedie up. He picked up a ball in the centre circle, fed the winger then busted a gut to get on the end of the cross, diving in where the boots are flying most of the time.

Yeah he was a master at it. He'd get half a stride on the full back and boom, over would go a really deceiving bender of a cross. He was as good as any winger you care name at getting a cross in and he never wasted any. Grealish did exactly the same thing the other night for England. When you see some of the crossing at Ewood nowadays I find myself shaking my head !

It's going to be harder than it would have been two weeks ago. We'll need to be sharper than we were against Cardiff.

If you had to pick just one player to thank for getting us back to the big time it'd have to be Speedie. Who did more ? What would he be worth today ? He was absolutely unquenchable in fighting spirit. When I say " It's what's beating under the badge that matters most " players like Speedie epitomise that will to win no matter what the score is. No such thing as a lost cause with players like him. Give us another Speedie up front with the team we've got now and I'd seriously fancy us to go up.

Great cross there from Windy followed by an even better header from Speedie. They should show this clip to Brererton and Gallagher - that's how you jump for a ball. Rovers undone by an alehouse ball for the equaliser.

I've got another Old Trafford story. It was a bit of a happy hunting ground for Rovers in the 1960's. I'd gone over with a City supporting mate on an Ellen Smith's coach from Rochdale for a Rovers night match and the coach parked up miles from the ground. As a consequence we were late getting into the ground. Whilst we were queuing up we heard a sort of muted roar like you get when a shot just goes wide. As I was going through the turnstile I heard a loud prolonged roar that could only mean Utd had scored. When I got to the top of the steps I asked a bloke what the score was. He said " 1-1 mate ". This could only have been in the first 5 minutes of the game. We didn't play particular well that night and we were under the cosh for lots of the game. Half way through the second half we were under prolonged pressure and ultimately Utd scored at the far end from us. After that the game was petering out without Rovers looking much like scoring. Knowing it was a long way back to the coach about 5 minutes from the end my pal said to me " Come on lets go and find the coach ". So we left and made our way back to an empty coach. We'd been sat there about 5 or so minutes when a group of Utd fans got onto the coach. One said to the other " Bloody Rovers are a jinx, the jammy bastards were never in that game ! " My ears picked up at that and I said " What was the final score ? " The bloke said " It finished 2 apiece ". So of the four goals I saw one, and that was over a hundred yards away. According to the record books the two Rovers scorers I missed were Mike Harrison and Andy McEvoy.

Just going off at a tangent for a minute - it mentions a player called Lewis Baker in my paper. It says he's been a Chelsea for 16 years and has played 133 league games- non of them for Chelsea ! It also mentions a 23 year old Chelsea player called Izzy Brown who's been loaned out 9 times. They have 25 players loaned out at the moment. What's that all about ?

I remember going to a 2-2 draw at Halifax once. I was usually on my own coming from Rochdale so I didn't get in any lumber at away games. I didn't go looking for any either.

The Rovers V Burnley book I've got is called " East Lancashire Derbies " by a guy called Dean Hayes. I'm sure the author meant well but to be honest it could have been a lot better. It was published in 2001, how time flies, I'd have said just over 10 years ago ! Regarding the old Shay in Halifax - When Rochdale and Halifax were both going for promotion from the old Div 4 in the late 1960's they played each other on a Thursday night at the Shay. With one more game to play whoever won was guaranteed promotion. There were 17,186 on that night ! It was amazing, we were packed in like sardines. Halifax won 1-0 and went up. The 'Dale won their last game the following Saturday and went up for the first time in their history. The thing that made me smile was the corner flag area. Because the speedway track at The Shay cut into the corners of the pitch the area near the corners were boards with turf on top with the whole lot sat on house bricks ! I know it's hard to believe but it was true. Taking a corner was an art, ideally you needed one leg shorter than the other by about 4" ! Halifax had a guy playing on the wing who was only playing because he could throw a ball from one side of the pitch to the other. ITV had a long throw contest back in the day and he won it, beating Martin Chivers in the final. As a result every throw in they got within range was like a corner. Halifax had a team full of giants, a young Chris Nicholl who later starred for Villa, was one. Most of the game was like head tennis. An awful game that was always going to be a 1-0 score line.

The plan was " make the pitch as big as you can ". Two strikers up the middle, two wingers hugging the touch line. More room for the skilful players to make the play in midfield. A better spectacle all round.

I'll be going for a semi distant visit to an ex workmate of mine who will be 100 not out on Thursday. I can only wave at him from outside his house but it'll be good to see him again. He's still got all his marbles. I was pulling his leg about getting a birthday card from Queenie. He said " It'll be going on the fire if I do ".

I've already got a book on that subject which is about 12 years old. Maybe this one is bringing it up to date.

I liked Statham a lot but Kenny Sansom was a better player mate. The three best left backs playing for England in my time Ray Wilson, Kenny Sansom, Ashley Cole. Statham would get a game these days without a doubt.

That's right, Arsenal were top and we were second in the old First Division. Reg Blore came into the side in place of Andy McEvoy who moved over to play in Dougies place. Andy played so well that day we never missed Bryan. He was a very under rated player. Big Fred ran them ragged that day but his first goal was a fluke. He had a shot at goal but he kicked the ground as well. It was a real pea roller, it must have bounced about 5 times. Jim Furnell was in goal for Arsenal and he let it roll right through his legs. He could have stopped it by throwing his cap on the ball ! Joe Baker got Arsenal's first minute goal.

Green and Suddick were top class players. Tommy Hutch had a trick when he was running with the ball at speed were he would appear to over run the ball but bring it through with his trailing leg. It worked every time, even watching in the stands I fell for it. Even International class full backs like Keith Newton struggled against him. I've never seen any other player do it. Both Tony Green and Hutchinson came down from Scotland for very small fees. They had another class act called Pat Quinn a season or two earlier who came down from Scotland but he only stayed a season. He could run the show given half a chance.

We were playing Arsenal once and we set off moving from the Darwen End when we realised that Rovers were playing towards the Blackburn End. I'd only got as far as being in line with our penalty area walking along the Riverside when Arsenal scored ! It must have been in the first minute or two. Happily we won that one 4-1 with a Big Fred hat trick. That was when the big clubs started paying attention to Fred !

According to Mike Jackman's book the earliest we played Burnley in any season that Adam Blacklaw would have been playing was October the 1st. I went to two Burnley v Rovers night matches in that era. In one we were never at the races and lost 3-0 with Mike England getting an early bath after losing his rag with Andy Lochead and in the other we lost 1-0 to a Gordon Harris penalty. Fred Else gave a Brad Freidel style performance in goal, the best I ever saw him play. It could have easily been 4-0 or so. He even got a hand to the pen but couldn't keep it out. I don't remember the bottle incident but that's not to say it didn't happen.

Derek Statham was a class act at left back, bags of pace, liked a tackle and he was decent going forward. I liked him a lot.

When I was playing you could see the floodlights at Spotland from our home ground. We kicked off at 2-30 and we'd shower off and dash up to the game in the cars to get there just as they opened the gates to let fans out. We'd normally get the last 15 minutes. We were football daft. I remember seeing Alan Gilliver playing for Brighton after he left Rovers.

Not always. In central midfield you usually have the space to go both ways. Out on the wing sometimes the touchline isn't your friend.