Tyrone Shoelaces

Coleman also had Aaron Ramsey in outstanding form at that time. No point anybody speculating. It'll be a completely left field appointment. most of their managers have been out of the blue. Who had Kean, Berg, Appleton, Coyle, Mowbray in their lists of 20 most likely candidates ? Only Lambert's appointment made any real sense in my opinion.

Yep, when I was growing up Football and a bit of Cricket was all there was to do, so that's what you did. You were outside with a ball, jumpers for goals, small scale games, maybe 4 or 5 a side. You were either on the ball or tackling an opponent who was on the ball all day long. Playing " Walley " under the street lights at night. The ball skills, passing with both feet was second nature. Beating players with the ball at your feet etc. I live facing a huge common, you could probably get four full sized football pitches on it easily. There's not a kid on it playing any sort of sport 99 % of the time. Anybody who knows Rochdale will know " Lenny Barn ". It is a huge grassy area just outside the centre of town bequeathed to the youth of the town by a wealthy local family in the 1920's. . When I was playing sport there was a hockey pitch, three football pitches and two rugby pitches plus a cricket square. We were down there in Summer and at weekend in Winter all the time. On a Sunday afternoon it would be packed with kids playing, mainly football. These days I can walk down there and there won't be anybody playing anything ! You don't get good at sport watching it on TV or playing computer games. I was reading the other day that the authorities are worried about the number of obese kids at school today. On my wall at home I've got an old school photo, It's of the " Upper School " March 1964. There probably about 250 kids on the photo, 15,16,17,18 year olds. Of that 250 there are possibly 3 or 4 that you could call obese. If you did the same photo at the upper school I worked at recently it'd probably be more like 50 to 60.

When I had my scrapbooks out the other day i read some of Alf Thornton's old Match reports from our golden era of the early 1960's. They were proper blow by blow accounts of the games that filled most of a page in the " Last Sports ". In most of the games there were more attempts on goal than we get now in a month of games with this current Rovers team. It was end to end stuff and nobody came to " Park the bus " no matter how badly they were getting out matched.

Neither of Bell or Hart is the answer I'm afraid. In fact if you put them both together as one they still wouldn't be the answer.

He just plays within himself for us. One of those guys who if he worked in industry he'd always be stood by the time clock at 4-25 pm. Ready to go, first in line to clock out every night. We've all worked with them, their heart isn't in the job but it pays the bills.

He seems to get injured a lot for a centre half.

RE your last sentence Tom. If you try and stand still in this game your end up going backwards, rapidly.

Neither is Del there to be honest.

It's rugby union, just leave it at " a man kicks the ball ".

The partial report is by the great Alf Thornton in " The Last Sports ".

Some more cuttings including commentary on the best goal I ever saw at Ewood Park. Bryan Douglas V West Brom Easter Saturday 1963. There's a team photo- who can name all the players ?

There are more but the computer is playing up. No 2 son trying his best.

As per requested some old Rovers cuttings . Mainly Bryan Douglas.

Who, Shearer and Sutton ?

Yeah and how many batterings have we been on the receiving end of in that time ? People go to football matches to be entertained, It's not an obligation, like going to church on Sundays. Entertainment in the main is goal mouth incidents, shots and headers on goal etc. It's not passing it back and forth in your own half. Rovers would do better if they put the goals at the sides of the pitch instead of at either end. I saw a game on TV a week or two back, could have been England, were they kicked off backwards and the ball stayed in their own half for over two minutes ! Honestly, I timed it.

Not one that stayed in the job for long.

Letting the centre halves have the ball and then pressing everywhere else is one of the oldest tactics in the book.

Time to bring the poll back I think.

Opposing teams will let you play in front of them all day long. As long as you can see the guy you're marking and the ball at the same time defending is relatively easy. We need players who can get their opponents turned around and running back towards their own goal. Defending isn't so easy when that happens. You might be able to see your immediate opponent but can you see the ball and vice versa ? Those two in the photo above in their prime would do me. Both of them could get opponents turning around.

Yeah, sometimes you get a pen and sometimes you a free kick on the edge of the box. It's what I call a " Home Team " pen, maybe the ref was feeling sorry for us

So ping them in low then. You are allowed to do that. Not every cross has to be head high. How many times have you seen a ball driven hard across the edge of the six yard box create havoc and a few own goals ?

Who knows who they listen to and when ?

Yeah I know, crazy. I don't care if they never clap the fans as long as they do the business out on the pitch.

It looked to me like they were playing to get the manager fired and his post match interview suggests he was thinking along the same lines as me. My Rugby League team used to play like that occasionally and you'd find out later that they hadn't been paid for a game or two.