How about purchasing players with the hope that they can actually hold down a first team place ? This buying players as long term investments is nonsense given the league position we find ourselves in. If we'd have paid £250k for him fair enough but £7 million ? Crazy signing.

Boo Hoo. I'd been playing earlier that day and we were in town watching the scores come in on the old teleprinter in a TV rental shop window. Reading that sentence back brings home how much technology has changed our lives. No mobile phones then. Anyway now and again they'd get the scores wrong right after the game and subsequently it would be corrected. When Oxford Utd 3 - Blackburn Rovers 1 came through I said to one of my team mates " They've got that one the wrong way around ! " Oh no they hadn't !

It was the only game kicking off at 11.00 am that day. Why that was I don't know. Rovers must have travelled down on Xmas day. As I said I didn't find out that we'd even played whilst after the game. Co incidentally it's our wedding anniversary today and as a present Mrs Shoelaces has bought me a copy of " Football History Through Newspaper Headlines - Blackburn Rovers " and I was just reading the " Daily Mirror " report about that game. Of course there's no mention of the game at Ewood were we played like we'd been celebrating since Boxing Day. Returning to Willie Anderson and George Best playing against the Dingles. Anderson was 16 yrs old, making his debut and Best was 17 and making his 2nd start. Apparently Best ran Alex Elder, a really classy left back, ragged. They must be the all time youngest pair of wingers to feature in top flight football. Then you read people saying Big Ben is only a kid.

And then you went to the return match a couple of days later and came back down to earth. Just reading about the late Martin Peters, he was supposed to be marking Bryan Douglas in the Boxing Day game. Dougie ran him ragged enough for him to be dropped for the return game at Ewood. There were some other queer results that Xmas, in the game I went to the Dingles won 6-1 against Utd on Boxing Day and then lost their return game at Old Trafford 5-1 I think. I remember reading the Burnley match report in the old " Last Sports " on the bus on the way home from the West Ham game. Matt Busby had given the Red Rats team a shake up and played two young wingers I'd never heard of before, Willie Anderson and a lad called George Best. I wonder what happened to them ?

Nice report matey. Let me be the first one to " name that tune ". " For What It's Worth " by the excellent Buffalo Springfield. One of those songs were the title never appears in the lyrics. Under Venkies maybe this bit might have been more appropriate - " Paranoia strikes deep, into your heart it will creep. It starts when you're always afraid " . ! Hope that's right as I'm quoting from memory.

Not every young player gets better with age. He's not doing much at Bristol City as far as I can see.

When it's your place of work obviously good conditions make a massive difference. I see Rochdale training in public on what are Lacrosse pitches near the cricket ground. If you know Rochdale at all they're on what were the old Redbrook school playing fields quite near what's called " The Crown Oil Arena these days. They can walk from the ground to the training pitches in 5 minutes and the younger players do sometimes.

Looks like Huddersfield got the best out of Palmer.

How far back would you like to ? Dougie, Fred Pickering, John Byrom, Barrie Ratcliffe, Stu Metcalfe, David Helliwell, John Waddington was from Darwen/

Turf Moor Boxing Day 1963. I was queueing up at the turnstile to get on to watch them play the Red Rats. That's what football mad lads did then. You'd go where ever there was a game. Anyway two Dingles were chatting in front of me in the queue, one said to the other " What about bloody Rovers this morning ? Just bloody won at West Ham 8-2 " . I said " Are you sure ? " He replied " Sure I'm sure, it was on the news earlier ". This was prior to the mass news technology revolution. I didn't even know we'd played that morning, I was expecting our game to kick off at 3-00 pm like all the other games. Not living in Blackburn anymore these were the days you'd open the morning paper and find out we'd played the night before !

Very sad, he wasn't really that old. He suffered from Alzheimers according to the radio. Another victim of heading the old balls ?

Me too.

Just going back to Marlon Broomes for a minute. I remember reading an article by Alan Shearer in the programme, part of it was regarding young players that were coming through at Ewood. He was praising Broomes to the skies, future England international etc. I was really taken aback when I first saw him play, even allowing for his youth, he looked deeply average to me. He'd been built up as the next Bobby Moore and he looked nothing like him ability wise. When you see top young players coming through you can usually see a couple of attributes, Broomes didn't have any outstanding qualities.

That's a blow.

Alex Marrow - what a cabbage !

This guy you know - He's not called Rob Howley is he - speaks with a Welsh accent ?

I hope you're right. I can forgive lots of things if they have the right attitude. To be honest lots of good strikers don't have a particularly good first touch. Didn't Shearer once say he couldn't trap a bag of wet cement ? The thing is lots of times his first touch was usually a bullet like shot on goal ! A pal of mine was working behind the scenes at Old Trafford when they signed Ted McDougall ( Google him ) who was a prolific goalscorer back in the day. My mate had watched him in training and he was amazed at his lack of ball skills. But get the ball into the box and he'd do the business alright.

Have you been Sam's agent for long ? I don't think he has a good first touch and for a very tall player he's not the greatest header of the ball I've ever seen.

Henderson at Rochdale is a good nuisance striker, short term buy though given his age.

Yes a striker needs service, ideally from the flanks. You have to be International class to make something out of a throat ball from the half way line.

I can't see Dunn and Cairney gelling in midfield. Nzonzi would have to be in there as would the Yak, twice the all around striker Rhodes was playing at a higher level.

That team could play whilst this time next year and not win a game ! They might not even score a goal.

I watched the Boston V Rochdale game on TV tonight,. that 16 yr old right back Rochdale have is going to be some player. He is seriously quick and a good footballer. Utd in for him I believe.

We've already got one of those left backs.

Father Christmas is bringing it for me apparently.