My only memory of Villanueva was him dribbling some Liverpool players in a 4-0 defeat with Samba up front.

Vogel and Basturk seemed to be Hughes and Allardyce's attempts to find the next Tugay, but lightning didn't strike twice.

Anyone else watch Charlie Brookers Antiviral wipe last night?

Fantastic stuff.

2 hours ago, LeftWinger said:

I make it just over £40m spent ?

Yeah, I was going off wiki. On closer inspection it didn't include Perez. Odd one that. Champions' league quality (with Marseille and Galatasaray) but never settled. Think his wife or kid was seriously ill and still in France.

As a poor student in Lancaster, I took advantage of a club special offer for the home games against perennial strugglers Coventry and Southampton, even convincing my housemates to join me. After two losses, we decided not to continue with the (final of the offer) Charlton game, which we went on to win...

A couple of extra facts from that season:

We managed to do the double over Villa

We spent £36 million pounds, but only brought in £11m from sales.

4 hours ago, K-Hod said:

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is the boy though, most points ever and most titles!

And quite the martial artist as well!

Rubber dinghy men combined with a lot of injuries and an experienced coach not being a good manager.

Losing to a relegated Forest broke me. We'd given up.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1998–99_Blackburn_Rovers_F.C._season

7 hours ago, dingles staying down 4ever said:

Hakan Sukur? Joined Rovers rather late in his career to wonder what might have been? If we including player like this then Nuno Gomes and Ossie Ardiles

Might be more about him breaking his leg soon after arriving (before playing a game?).

6 hours ago, Mike E said:

I seem to remember an Italian sounding kid being prolific. Rafael?

Raffaele De Vita might be the one. Never played in the first team, moved to Scotland and was reasonably successful. I would sometimes see his name on the videoprinter and wonder where I'd heard it before.

Going further back, I remember Beattie being touted as the next big thing, but couldn't get ahead of Newell, Gallacher and Sutton before moving to Southampton as part of the Davies deal.

Then I would agree with him. Pretty sure I signed Thompson in one of my Champ Manager games. Lockdown is doing strange things to my reality...

17 hours ago, Bigdoggsteel said:

Good idea for a thread! 

I think Alan Thompson and Steven Warnock were really good for us.

Not sure if underrated per se, but Jermaine Jones was unbelievable really. 

Jeff Kenna. Solid as can be, no frills, no drama. 

This one?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Thompson_(footballer,_born_1973)

My memory might be playing tricks on me, but I remember him having a good run of scoring in consecutive games in his first season - trouble was this was when Van Nistelrooy was doing the same and getting all the publicity for it.

Worthy cup final

1.45.50 Calls for Hughes to join him and Tony to collect their medals first (you can hear Dunn)

1.47.20 Shouts and gestures for someone to join them on the podium, where Hughes is. 
 

?

Oof. Wonder if the FA follow suit.

No it wasn't, my mistake.

1 hour ago, Prelude said:

During the on pitch celebrations Souness tells someone to hurry up to come and join them and no one appears any idea if that was Tugay and if not who it was?

I think it was Tony Parkes; if not him, certainly someone on the coaching staff.

Wrong Bradley! Generous gesture nonetheless.

Flowers

Kenna, Hendry, Moran, Le Saux

Bentley (first spell), Sherwood, Flicroft, Duff,

Shearer, Cole

Kelly

Wright

Jones

Batty

Gillespie

Jansen

Bellamy

Ugh. (I did own the ‘burnt orange’ one though)

RIP Howard Finkel.

The absolute Gold standard for ring announcers.

Palace in '89, or either of the Man U travesties (Berg red card, Sherwood disallowed goal) in the early-mid 90's.

Honourable mentions from the same game:

Pedersen vs Fulham

Tugay vs Fulham

Football is still going on in Belarus, and Dinamo Minsk have made cut-outs of people who have bought virtual online tickets, put a shirt and scarf on each, and stuck the cut-out in the stand:

I'm more interested in the Rovers shirt, the style and sponsor don't match any I remember...

Without seeing the original broadcast, I wouldn't know what they take out, but they're okay with blood and some bad language (they bleeped one word during the Omega/Best Friends segment).

I guess Jericho's got a future behind the mic when he finally calls it a day.

Or if you want to stay up late on a Friday, it's on ITV4.

Just on the news now - Honor Blackman has died at 94 from natural causes.