I think he was a photographer. Good bloke whoever he works for.

I don't think that Gav or I have "alternative suggestions", quite simply because we don't want them. I'm happy to support Blackurn Rovers. I'm sure he will post himself if he wants. And do try and cut out the petty sarcasm. Neither of us said that we "would rather watch BRFC in the Lancashire combination," so your post was fairly pontless. "Gazzooks sirrah, I'm orft to the conservatory with the loaded pistol to do the honourable thing,

Reasonable and accurate match report here

So, has that's killed off your "Lancashire United" idea? Yes, it would have been a lot better with only 15,000 on wouldn't it? We would have won.

I hope the Blackburn mortuary is well staffed and has plenty of spaces because from the tone of some of the posters on here there will be some shocked Mums & Dads coming home to see little Johnny dangling on the end of a rope from the bannisters. For goodness' sake, we've lost a game. Yes I know it was to the dreaded Notlob who are, by the way, having an excellent season, but we comprehensively outplayed them for a good percentage of the game. Maybe you should have been around when Hodgson & Kidd took us down with a back four of Davidson, Peacock, Dailly & Grayson. No that was something to gripe about, and it lasted about 18 long dismal grey months before the drop was confirmed at home to the Red Scum. The penalties were completely and utterly rubbish though - both terrible, but at least they only cost us one point rather than three as some people are suggesting. If the first one has gone in then the run of play wouldn't have led to the second.

Football365.com's prievw for Notlob Same again for Trotters at Ewood Sam Allardyce looks set to name an unchanged Bolton line-up at Blackburn on Sunday as his side chase a fourth straight win in the Premiership. After his decisive two-goal strike at Newcastle last weekend, El-Hadji Diouf looks set to start on the left side of a three-pronged attack, with Kevin Davies on the right and Nicolas Anelka in the centre. Long-term injury casualties Ricardo Gardner, Henrik Pedersen and Joey O'Brien are progressing but still not ready to make a comeback. Kick-off at Ewood Park is at 3pm. Bolton (from): Jaaskelainen, Hunt, Meite, Faye, Ben Haim, Fortune, Giannakopoulos, Campo, Speed, Nolan, Diouf, Davies, Anelka, Walker, Vaz Te, Tal.

Good heavens! There are no fat footballers (well, Kevin Davis used to count, and we used to hurl insults at Jan Molby when he was warming up on the sidelines at Ewood, but he lost at least 50 calories laughing with us.) I can't really decide if some on here are just being naive or just wilfully detracting from the main point. It doesn't matter that Nondo or Roberts wasn't racially abused. It was McCarthy so let's stick to the crux of this discussion shall we? If McCarthy was abused it wasn't because he is black it was because the colour of his skin was rolled up in a parcel and included with an insult. "Benni McCarthy you are black" is not an insult. "Benni McCarthty you are a c**t" is an insult, but not a racist one. "Benni McCarthy you are a black c**t" is a racist insult. How difficult is that? If you can't grasp that then you need help. The fact that Benni and a number of the Rovers players felt it necessary to have a pop at the Krakow player at the end of the game is enough for me.

A quick 11 year history of league games between the two clubs: 05-06 home draw 0-0 away draw 0-0 04-05 home lost 1-0 away won 1-0 03-04 home lost 3-4 away draw 2-2 02-03 home draw 1-1 away draw 1-1 01-02 home draw 1-1 away draw 1-1 00-01 home draw 1-1 away won 4-1 99-00 home won 3-1 away lost 1-3 97-98 home won 3-1 away lost 1-2 95-96 home won 3-1 away lost 1-2 total games 18 Total points up for grabs 54 Rovers have got 23 Notlob have got 22 Rovers wins 5 Notlob wins 5 draws 8 At Ewood Rovers wins 3 Notlob wins 2 Draws 4 If statistics are anything to go by it'll be a close game. I still hate Djoufe with a passion after his dive for that penalty at Ewood in 04-05. Statto statto

Awww, Don't be so hard on Shefi. He was/is a great lumbering lump, but at least he scored a few goals for us and that belly-flop was worth the ticket. And as Fife has said, he never got a strop on when he was on the bench. He's been replaced at Ewood with something better and I wish him well & that Palace can work to his strengths.

I'll admit my involvement in this, I was part of the process that got the whacking great LED "No Entry" signs authorised. They light up like Blackpool illuminations. The site is the centre of Manchester which has been pedestrianised apart from the mini-buses that pootle about the place. When the mini-buses approach the bollards, the latter drop to ground level, and as soon as the mini-buses go past the bollards pop up again. Enjoy the sight of a few drivers who have not got brains bollards

Albionus, Your team did Ok, but Rovers were the better side over the 90 minutes, and it doesn't matter when the winning goal was scored. Good luck to you for the rest of the competition. It's been good reading your posts, too often all we get is abuse from opposition fans, so thanks for your contributions. Keep in touch. We will watch for your results in the next games. Colin. BTW, for everyone else..is that David Bentley slowly but surely turning himself into a rather good player? He really was a bit hopeless when he joined is a couple of years ago, but he's coming on in leaps & bounds.

This is a bit old and completely not what was asked about. From somewhere deep in the bowels of The Guardian Footballers are generally regarded as being a bit thick and people such as David Beckham and Robbie Fowler do nothing to improve this image. During Euro 2000 I noticed that there are several foreign footballers who are graduates. Are there any current Premiership players, British or foreign, who have a degree or even a couple of GCSE's? wondered Daniel Davies Take a bow David Weatherall, who has a first in Chemistry from Sheffield, and several ex-Southampton players, including Barry Horne (who also has a Chemistry degree) and Ian Dowie, who has some sort of business degree. Also on the roll of honour is Watford's Steve Palmer, who is - according to James Lowther - the only current professional footballer with an Oxbridge degree (an Msc in computing). Those with professional qualifications include Gudni Bergsson, who is a qualified lawyer and plans to practise in Iceland when he retires (says Ben Dudley), and Phil Whelan, who has a degree in accountancy from the UEA (according to Steve Moore). And legendary 40-fags-a-day Brazilian striker Socrates was a paediatrician by training.

Thank you albionus, much appreciated.

Just to cheer you all up a bit (and I'm sure that you will all be cheered up no end by this post.) I just love going to the City Of Manchester Stadium. Rather than my usual 60 mile round trip to Ewood I can set off at 14:30 after an enjoyable lunch, a glass of wine and a chat with Mr Natural, have a gentle cycle ride for a couple of miles, park up at their excellent facilities and enjoy the game. On the way back I gently sway thought the gridlocked traffic and am home by 15:15 at the latest to post on here that the game was an absolute nightmare. Isn't life wonderful?

I lost 90 minutes of my fairly worthless life watching that. I should have been scraping off paint. I hope Lucas watched it too. They were hopeless and only scored via a dubious penalty. Why anyone would want to go from Ewood to SJP is beyond me. Mind you a huge wad of Fat Freddie's cash might be compensation. But for any self respecting footballer.............words fail me! At least Duff moved so he could play 90 minutes more than once every 3 months.

Some nice coments here from The Observer from yesterday The Observer "A tradition as old and proud as the Premiership itself will have involved managers the length and breadth of the country using international duty as an excuse for their players' loss of form this weekend; just do not expect Blackburn's Mark Hughes to follow that trend. While Rafael Benitez, pre-match, ranted and railed about the injustice of being denied Mohamed Sissoko and Dirk Kuyt because of injuries sustained playing for their countries in midweek, Blackburn's Australian pair, Brett Emerton and Lucas Neill, were in the air, completing a round trip of more than 20,000 miles following their own international appearances. Yet there was little sign of any jetlag affecting their form here as they formed an important part of a Blackburn performance that would have produced a famous victory, courtesy of Benni McCarthy's goal in the first half, but for a Liverpool equaliser claimed, inevitably enough, by former Rover Craig Bellamy. 'How the hell they do it, I don't know,' said Hughes of his Australian pair who played against Bahrain on Wednesday. 'They travelled for 26 to 28 hours leading into the game, they didn't train yesterday and turned up at 5pm at the hotel. That was the first we saw of them. 'Yet they continue to produce performances like that. I had to have a word with them before to see if they felt ready for a game of this size and they were very positive and said they were ready to play. It is a big commitment for them but when you are a top player, an international player, you are going to have those sort of commitments. It's more difficult for guys from Australia because of the distances involved but they are proud to play for their country.' How refreshing to hear a Premiership manager not using the spectre of international football as an easy get-out. It helped, of course, that his players did such a good job against an uninspiring Liverpool whose defending, in the first half in particular, was appalling."

Probably, even the most die-hard barcode must have realised that they were completely bobbins today.

Moppy, Threre's a chap called Gav who posts on here every now and then who put me right on this one. I suggested the same as you, but he rightly pointed out that if The Dingles ever got promoted to the Prem then they would have far too much money. Leave them to stew where they are.

I'm posting on it because it is an interesting discussion about the England team. I've read and digested coments from Speeedie; Rover The Hill; Phillipl; Four Lane Blue; Revidge Rover; & Fife Rover. Have you got a problem with that? Post it. Or shut up.

Supporting England has been right off my personal agenda since theEuro Spain whenever it was about ten years ago. Rovers had not played Shearer for a few months so that he would be fit for the tournament and then he went and buggered off to The Barcodes. I hated that tournament with a vengance, because our best striker has F*****d off to Newcastle and here was the media treating him like a God. Ever since I have lost my appetite for supporting England, to be honest I just don't give a hoot any more. Every goal that Rovers score brings a joy to my heart even if I'm listening to it being scored on radio 5 when we are playing away at Boro. I'm dancing around the house with pleasure. Every goal we concede pains me, and that's still just on the radio. To be honest, I quite enjoy the opposition scoring against England. Ha! Ferdinand, Terry, Neville, Cole - collectively paid more in a week than I'll ever earn in my lifetime and they get skinned by a lad from the slums of Zagreb. I'm bored with the England team and I just don't care whether it wins or loses, it seems to be comprised over over-paid prima-donnas from "Big Clubs" who don't give a flying one whether they put any effort into the match. They all talk the same mindless footballspeak jargon, and then disappear off home to their luxury mansions & trophy wives, meanwhile bleating about "the shirt." The sooner Steve "The Bus Driver" Mclaren picks a squad exclusively from the bottom end of the Premiership & all of the Championship the better, at least they might play as though they cared. But that's a flying pig alert isn't it? Why does he write down his shopping list on his little notepad in the middle of matches anyway? I'd rather watch Rovers in the Carling Cup beat Torquay 1-0 than watch England win a game. And finally: Frank Lampard is useless & overpaid. Rant over..........

Free for Salzburg. £7.50 each for the next two matches. That's some reward for having an ST. Well done Rovers. let's hope lots are also tempted by the £15 for non ST holders.

scurrilous rumour scroll down a bit

Good spot Hasta, So why the hell has he been dropped? Is there a limit on the number of over 21s?

more on tattoos from previous here In 15 years' time it'll just be a blue spodge, irremovable and ugly. I wouldn't have one of you paid me. But then, I'm not you, so don't mind me.

Florida, He was born 27th August 1984 which makes him 22 years old ( I had to take my socks off to count that!) Now too old for the under 21's here