Tyrone Shoelaces

Playing in the right position he was very good. Trouble was we rarely did that. He didn't have the mobility, speed on the turn etc to make a top class left back. I'm glad he's doing well.

Listening to the latest press conference " Normal Service " seems unlikely to be resumed this side of Christmas.

I agree with that. The " Kill Rate " is ludicrous to say Mr Plod never gets on her trail.

He could come on for Dougie when Bryan had run them ragged. I always wondered what Tugay would be like playing further forward.

I've seen a lot of great strikers at Ewood over the years that could partner Shearer. Fred Pickering, Andy Mac, McCarthy, Kevin Gallagher, Jansen, Sutton, Santa Cruz etc. I rated them all but Bellamy just had that little bit extra.

Anybody else think " Killing Eve " vastly over rated ? Mrs Shoelaces had " Dev " on over the weekend. Interesting, but ultimately about 5 hours of my life I'll never get back

Nobody with any sense will be looking to spend big bucks on Dack until they've seen him play a few games. Not everybody comes back from injuries like that one.

Ok, Flowers and Hendry. My previous 11 was the best I've seen irrespective of nationality.

Better than Berg and LeSaux. He could attack and he could defend. I remember watching him as a young player and he was marking Cliff Jones, the Gareth Bale of his day. Jones never got a kick. I thought then this lad could go far, he's got all the assets to be a top class full back. Alan Hunter was good for us and brilliant at Ipswich under Bobby Robson. My best 11 since 1961. Freidel Newton England Samba Le Saux M Ferguson Clayton Douglas Duff Shearer Bellamy.

Mike was the best centre half I've ever seen in the flesh and I haven't seen many better on TV. DeSailly and Lucio spring to mind. That's how good he was. Rothmans Football Annual used to chose a Great Britain 11 every year and although Mike was probably on the way down he still made that team. He hadn't got a weakness in his game. You can have Hendry, Berg, Henchoz, Nelsen, Samba, all good players but not in the same league football wise.

Not in a million years.

Sorry, I've been doing too many of these threads. The latest one - Your best international 11 but you can only have 1 player from each nation and 1 per club.

What no Tugay ? Much as I loved Matty as a player, Bellamy was better. Same skill level with added pace.

" Dunlop " in Rochdale had an enormous textile factory making cord for tyres back in the day. Their pitch was one that was used for local cup finals etc. When I went in the bar after the first time I played there I noticed they had a plaque on the wall saying " Duncan Edwards played on our pitch ". It had been back in the early to mid 1950's when he was playing in a junior representative game.

I thought Bruck made a meal of the Fergie incident. It was always the same though, you get kicked black and blue and nothing happens, retaliate slightly and off you go. They obviously targeted Fergie as being our danger man. I have that down as the first player I ever saw dive to get an opponent sent off. My abiding memory is Bobby Gould and Ronnie Clayton chasing a long ball down field. Neither of them was going to get to the ball before the goalkeeper and Ronnie was running in front of Gould just to make sure. So Gould does no more than kick Ronnie right up the arse a la Andy Todd. This was after the Fergie sending off but the ref was happy just to book Gould. In the Chelsea game missing that chance took all the wind out of our sails. If that would have gone in we might have held on for a famous win. I couldn't head the ball but I would have backed myself to put that one in. It was a free header with the Chelsea goalkeeper rooted to the spot.

Grayson was bobbins, one of the worst right backs we ever had.

Yeah, that's more like it. None of handbags stuff you get today.

I reckon the average manager will get 50% of their signings right. Really good managers get about 75% to 80% signings right. Hodgson's figures were terrible.

Yes, he was a rough handful but a much better footballer than he was given credit for. He was a really good left foot passer of the ball. His career more or less coincided with that of Bobby Moore otherwise he would have had many more caps. That's two of the 1970 squad gone in a week.

It was 0-1 Jim. I was in the " Hake Boat " in town after the game queuing up for fish and chips. There were a few Coventry fans in front of me who were cock a hoop and looking forward to playing in the old First Division. I wasn't impressed with how Coventry played that day. They looked very average and basically parked the bus even against 10 men. I remember thinking " You'll be straight back down again ". How wrong I was - they had about 30 years at top level in spite of being near the bottom of the league most of the time. We'd some really good players then but the management was past their sell by date. Jimmy Hill would have walked that league with our players.

I'd argue that given the circumstances his signings record was the worst of any Rovers manager. All that money and only Henchoz was a success. I read an article in my paper years ago were Jim Smith was being interviewed. Regarding the Dailly signing he said a little bird had told him Rovers were sniffing around so he'd discussed a possible fee with his directors. The chairman had told him " Not a penny less than £2 million Jim ". He nearly fell off his chair when Roy Boy came straight out and offered £5 million ! Even then he talked the fee up another £250K !

That's a really poor penalty. Tony Daley showing why wingers are match winners.

I know I keep saying it but we'd do better these days if the goals were at the side of the pitch instead of at the ends. Back in those days if you picked ball up in midfield you had one of the strikers looking to make a run beyond the centre halves, the other striker would be coming short towards you. Both wingers would be looking to get involved. You had players to aim at in front of you. Nowadays they all seem to be stood next to each other.

It wasn't a result but finding out that Alan Shearer had left was pretty bad. We were on holiday with friends in the Cotswolds. My wife and I had gone into a supermarket leaving our friends in the car. When we got back to the car the news had just finished and my pal, who was a Darlington fan, said " What do you want the good news or the bad news ? " I said " The bad news ". He replied " Shearer has gone, but the good news is he hasn't gone to Man Utd ".

Oxford 3 - Rovers 1. FA Cup 5th round in 1964. We were playing brilliantly up to this point and we were drawn away at Div 4 Oxford. For once all the other big clubs had been knocked out really early. The final eventually was played between a mid table West Ham and Div 2 Preston. Preston had beaten Oxford in the next round then had to play another Div 2 Club in Swansea in the semi. We could have won the Cup easily that year, we would have been favourites, but for the slip up at Oxford. The repercussions were more than just on the field. Leading scorer Fred Pickering then became disenchanted with events at the club.and was sold to Everton and that was the beginning of a down ward slope that ended several years later with us playing in the old 3rd Division.