Tyrone Shoelaces

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.

I'd rather have these selection problems than the problems we had last time we played at then at home when we'd run out of experienced centre halves.

You wouldn't if you were paying the wage bill. Anybody know where Matty Platt is at the moment.

I put two teams together a week or two ago and I still had some players over. It's the out of favour ones that aren't in your post that need moving on, if only on loan. Smallwood, Samuel, Davenport, Gladwin, Chapman, Hart one or two of the younger players. We could afford a quality keeper if we could shift some of that drag on the wage bill.

Travelling from the Midlands each day prior to training isn't ideal. I've travelled down there every day for work for weeks at a time, 2 hours plus in traffic, and it took me 10 minutes just to unwind getting out of the van. You start to hate the journey.

If you're expecting players to come in some have to go out. I'd say at least half a dozen. We've possibly got a bigger squad now than we had when we were in the Prem.

I wasn't doing cartwheels when we signed Gallagher. Although he scored his share of goals in a poor team last time he was here I thought he was a bit lightweight for a guy his size. Also he'd done nothing since that time so I thought we weren't getting what we needed ie Danny Graham MK 2. In recent games the lad has put his self about and done his level best to make an impression up front for us. I put a lot of store in guys who look like they actually want to wear the shirt, recently we've had too many who were just going through the motions.

Do you think Howson is an improvement on Holtby Paul ? If possible I'd be looking for a Berkovic style signing that can come in and give us that bit of real class that can take us to another level

And then I woke up.

I hope you're right matey. We owe them one for sure. Having said that you could have " Oxford 3 - Blackburn Rovers 1" engraved on my gravestone.