Not a chance Mowbray is going to West Brom.

Isn't Ainsworth our of contract this summer?

Said it before, but Middlesbrough under Mowbray were 3rd at Christmas one year and finished 16th. The year before that under him they were 2nd at Christmas and finished 7th.

Forest still have to play Bournemouth though, and all Bournemouth's games are against sides in the top half. I wouldn't rule it out.

Not quite. 4 in 9 home league games from August-November.

Would rather that than the manager sitting there sulking on the sidelines because we have managed to come back and win 3-1 after being 1-0 down at half time.

I know it happens all over the game, but at least it would finally put to bed the honest, humble, 1970s working class nice guy manager theory's to bed. Anyway, as long as he isn't here next season and we get a fresh start I will be happy whoever he takes with him, as the last 3 months have shown the November/December form to be a blip more than anything. August-November and January-now is what you usually get under Mowbray.

Who runs the official site these days? Misleading headline here.. https://www.rovers.co.uk/news/2022/april/01/roverstv--watch-rovers-at-the-ricoh-/ Rovers TV headline saying how to watch the game live tomorrow if you can't make it, only to say you can't watch it 😆

Remember going to Port Vale and Barnsley in that run. Horrible games, was also at Tranmere where the fightback started. Again like others have said, and it was probably because i was a lot younger but i always thought we would go up in that season. Still, it's a good thing Dalglish did lose those 6 in a row so it can be pointed at every time Mowbray goes on a ridiculous losing run.

I've seen some cruel pranks before, but this beats the lot.

They beat Sheffield Utd 4-1 at home but then lost to Hull 2-0, so they seem a bit hit and miss. They will however hammer us as Mowbray won't have a clue what to do with our starting lineup. Coventry 3 Rovers 0

Lowe and Benson were here prior to Mowbray weren't they? Or did they all sign contract extensions at the same time with Mowbray?

To be fair i said he was bang average at his absolute best, i do share your views that most of the time he was abysmal. I didn't really factor in some of his comments over the past 5 years, as all managers speak mostly bollocks. That 1995 one though, yeah that's a fair point. Shows the kind of man he is in my opinion. He's not the honest, humble 1970's "football" man that he and a lot of others would have you believe.

I'd probably give Mowbray a 5 or so. Breath of fresh air when he first come in, but I think a lot of that can be down to following Coyle. I don't blame him solely for the relegation, but as said previously 2 points adrift with 15 games to go, I personally think he should have got us out of it. So that's one strike there. League one after an uninspiring start he changed it around and got Danny Graham involved which saved our season and secured a pretty comfortable promotion in the end. Whilst of course promotion is the aim, you don't get to see your side win many league titles, so it was poor just to laugh that off like we were better than that. There's a reason the 75 title winning team still gets talked about to this day. That was the first sign for me of Mowbray not really being a winner and being a "just enough will do" manager. 18-19 again started well, a bit inconsistent but found ourselves a couple of points outside the play offs after a superb January. Clear as day a centre half was needed in that window as we only had Rodwell and Downing as back up to Lenihan and Mulgrew (who was slowly losing his form). Not only did he not bother sorting it out, he let Downing go out on loan on deadline day. What followed was a Lenihan injury in the first game after the window shut and 9 defeats in 11 games that destroyed a promising season. "Defenders are coming" 19-20 started with a bizarre transfer window of promising defenders only to sign Tosin on loan, who was decent don't get me wrong, but nowhere near enough to what we needed. In his own words "we sold our goalie to buy Sam Gallagher" which again was another odd decision. Even odder that he had no plan to replace Raya and settled for another loan who was bang average at his absolute best. Our captain Charlie Mulgrew played the first game, had a stinker and was promptly sent on loan only playing one more time for us over the next two years before leaving on a free. The first game against Charlton was the end for me with Mowbray, a dreadful performance with Gallagher bumbling around up top replacing our player of the year the season before, Rothwell left on the bench despite a brilliant end to the previous season, and despite being 2-1 down at home to a side just promoted, he sends on John Buckley for the last 10 minutes leaving our £7m striker sat on the bench. The season as a whole went as expected, plodding on until getting in a good position, before not knowing how to cope with dacks unfortunate injury. Covid disrupted the season and we finished in mid table never really threatening anything. 20-21 looked great on paper, a big squad packed with talent. Strange season being behind closed doors but a great start, followed by more inconsistency with Mowbray not having a clue of his best 11 ended with us a few points outside the play offs as usual in January. 2 wins in 17 followed and we finished 15th for the second time in 3 years. Cracking "journey" so far. This season I think most feared the worst. A promising but inconsistent start saw us in 10th before playing Fulham at Ewood, a record home defeat had me close to giving up entirely. Somehow that result galvanised everyone and the next 2 months were incredible and gave the feeling that something special could be happening. However as we all know, January was crying out for one solid striking addition to push us over the edge. Mowbray didn't bother because "we don't play that way" and of course just like two years ago with the defender situation it came back to bite him like we all knew it would. A club record 5 games without a goal followed, with only 6 been scored in total since the new year. Now of course we could find a bit of form that still makes us finish in the top 6, which all things being considered would be a fantastic achievement and would probably bump up his score a bit. I will be amazed if that happens though and feel another 11th place finish coming on, which would be a total failure to where we were at Christmas. Player wise he's been hit and miss, Armstrong, Dack, Kaminski and Diaz eventually have been great signings that will all end up in profit for the club, there have been howlers too like Gallagher, selling Raya for peanuts, getting Harrison Reed in and telling him to learn off Smallwood and Evans. Travis, Buckley Wharton and Nyambe have all come through in his time and become important players, a shame one will leave for nothing in the summer. So, barring a promotion this season, my main memories of Mowbray will be a great night at Doncaster, a brilliant two months in 2021, long ridiculous losing runs that never seem to end, a record home defeat, and a record run without scoring a goal. At the moment 5/10 seems more than fair. He hasn't finished as high as Bowyer yet, and in my opinion Bowyer inherited a bigger mess of a club than Mowbray did. (He also kept us up.)

I did notice in the original article when the Blackpool tickets went on sale that they stated the Darwen End would be open to home fans, so to be fair they didn't just announce it yesterday. It certainly wasn't clear though as it was just a throw away line at the bottom of the article.

Christ i cant tell you how much i played those videos in the 90's. Brilliant memories.

St George's day haha, heard it all now. I'm not sure why anyone is suprised, games have been moved for years. Also, it was clear as soon as football carried on behind closed doors during the pandemic that football doesn't need fans, despite all the nonesense they spout.

Only others at this level i have come across this season that haven't bothered with programme's are Derby and Reading.

I don't disagree Coyle was the main contributer. As i said though, we were two points adrift with 15 games to go. Hardly a lost cause. For how good some seem to think Mowbray is he should have gotten us out of it.

We were two points adrift with 15 games to go. He got us out of the relegation zone twice during those 15 games and still slipped back in. All he had to do was better the mighty Burton Albion's results over a 15 game period. He was bought in to keep the club up as his number one objective, and he failed. Despite what his "PPG" record was in that season. If he had kept us up that season, the majority who seem to support him now would have been fed up of him a long time ago. Relegation was the best thing to happen to Mowbray, and the worst thing to happen to the club as it seems to have killed any ambition what so ever.

It's gotten to the point that after 5 years, i would still rather have most of them on that list than Mowbray.

That's actually incorrect. Middlesbrough were 2nd on 31st December in the 2011-12 season, and finished 7th, only winning 6 of there last 23 games. The season after was even worse, they were 3rd on 29th December and finished 16th, only winning only 3 of there last 21 games. I'll let you work out who was in charge of them during that time. The bloke is a disaster and i'm just amazed more can't see it.

I very much think that Tuesday night was a "paper over the cracks" win. We'll revert back to type here, give a sloppy goal away, and miss a good 5 or 6 chances to score. Reading 1 Rovers 0

Shame we didn't hang on and offer a "final 3" bundle. £30 for all three games in the Darwen End lower. A long time ago and different divisions i know, but i remember when we did that exact offer for the final 3 games of the 08/09 season and it pretty much sold out.

In the "Final 5" article on the website it definitely said that Blackpool & Stoke would be category A to justify the price of the Final 5 ticket. Article confirms that the game has been reduced from a cat A to B. https://www.rovers.co.uk/news/2022/march/16/ticket-news--rovers-v-blackpool/