It seems remarkable that it's only 6 days since GS left-it seems much longer ago. It's interesting that the Newcastle fans who were not happy with the appointment, are apparently even less happy now that they've seen the team he left behind. The interview with Andrew Cole in the Daily Telegraph is longer and more interesting.

Radio Lancs were making the point about the "messiness" that can occur when employees under contract try to leave Palace.

Radio Lancs commentators made the point that although Dowie is not under contract, his back room staff are and that the chairman of CP would demand compensation as well as maybe hold the job up. Dinnis went for Hughes and the other fellow fpr Strachan,partly but not exclusiveley with the agreement of the kit man.(No change in manager's kit-smae initials).

Where was Matteo for Shearer's goal?

We very occassionally score from corners, but that hardly makes up for the general dross up with which we have to put.

LET(yesterday) said the Rovers won't let Hughes manage Wales on a part-time basis.

I'm going to join the negative posters-last year was the first time since 1958 that we've won there,they have a better squad than us and they'll also be up for it. A loss.

I don't know if you ever read The Blackburn Times on Fridays, before it shut up shop, but there was a writer who I thought was excellent-William Westell.I think-and this is from memory and could be wrong-he used to print reports from matches of that particular date but from some time in the past. This brought to the fore many names that I otherwise would not have come across.I wonder if it would be possible to cover this in a media section within the history section?

Interesting that Souness is having an involvement with Reserve matches.

Talking of shoe-ins, what about Mike England? I haven't made my mind up yet between Eckersley and Newton. And there's going to be Forbes and Cowell to consider...

Good night, Alan.

It's provoked a lot of interest.

The rumour before Souness came was that Uncle Jack wanted Reid-who had done a very good job at Man City and was then doing a good job at Sunderland-to be manager but he wouldn't come until the end of his contract. Uncle Jack wanted Souness to sign an 18 month contract but Souness wouldn't play ball and the rest is history.

I think Harrison has recently resigned due to ill health.

I also presume Newcastle will have been encouraged by Souness's reputation for toughness but Henry Winter in yesterday's Daily Telegraoh,in yet another thoughtful article, argued that Souness's move could be the making of him provided he gives careful consideration to his man-management approach. "The feeling remains that unless Souness can foster the kind of spirit that embodied his performances as a player, Newcastle may be doomed for a further period of frustration." Although there have been some interesting conspiracy theories-and there's nothing more interesting than a conspiracy theory- I can't understand why Newcastle are considering giving Souness a 5 year contract when by that time most managers have gotten stale.

It's pretty clear that the Directors were happy to let Souness go or they would have put up more of a fight to keep him.It's also pretty clear that the LET sports writer thought it was also time for him to go-"The frustration took its toll" was the heading for his article yesterday.Neild was quite complimentary, but argued that a lack of spending power, fall-outs with players and a difficulty of keeping together an increasingly fractious dressing-room was beginning to weigh heavily, suggesting that Souness had taken them as far as he could with the resources currently available.

Maybe he'll also come in for Amoruso as they need a centre back.

It was at least arguable that if Souness had stayed and had been unable to turn the situation around, he would have been sacked.In many ways this would have been disastrous in terms of PR-Souness has many friends amongst the media,and comes across well in the media,so that is one problem we have avoided.

My "stab in the dark" yesterday wasn't far off.

Radio Lancs was saying that Saunders was not going at this stage and that the club were intalks about his role-but no more info was given. It sounded like Murray and Boersma were going to go.

I was referring to Arthur Cowell who played for a long time at left back at the same time as Bob Crompton played right back. I knew him-or rather I knew him as a grandad who was often biased in favour of his grand daughter with umpiring decisions etc. It was only when I was older that I realised who he was. Yes, indeed, we do have a glorious history, some of which is accessible through various books that have come out over the years( I have heard that Mike Jackman might well be bringing 2 books out this year) and some of which is accessible through the library.

Yes. Don't forget Arthur Cowell, Bernice's grandad.

It sounds as though, as well as being an excellent player in his own right, he captained us to 2 winning cup finals.When the Rovers went for him, they were looking for him to take them back to their former glories, which he did.His leadership in the 2 finals was a demonstration of the great art of captaincy and was judged to have been the finest display of back play ever seen at the Oval. So,should he be included as a left-back? In my opinion, yes.If he's not included-and I wouldn't expect him to win-it's more a reflexion on the person writing about him than the great man.

According to the LET it might lead to an increase in the number of people in our Norwegian fans club, which stood at 131.

And yes, Philip1, Forrest should also be seriously considered as he was the only player to feature in all our cup wins in the 19th century.But in what position-left-attacking/creative midfield?