Sorry, this should gone in the main forum!

@khod can you or the other mods rectify? 🙏🏻

So the club have said we’ve had at least one academy player in each match day squad for the last 600 games, which is quite the achievement. I thought I’d tap into our collective intelligence because I’ve a few questions that follow on from that:

1 - how does this compare to other Championship teams?

2 - what was our squad 601 games ago?

I read once Ajax have had an academy player in their starting XI in every game since sometime in 1983, and I know Man U lived off the class of ‘92 for a good while so I was wondering how 600 games ranks nowadays and whether it’s only ‘quite the achievement’ in my head.

8 hours ago, Tom said:

Who was the lad that we had on loan, played for wolves and then we decided not to sign him and he went to Burnley and got them promoted?

I want to say Dave Jones but could be way off there 

 

Anyone remember Raffaelle De Vita - Italian lad coming through in the early 2000’s with high hopes but another like the Jimmy Corbett’s, Jemal Johnson’s and Robbie Cotton’s of the world!

I think it was Dave Jones. Came in roughly the same time as Williamson, quite a tidy player IIRC.

I mainly remember Da Vita from the BBC vide-printer after scoring for Livingston.

4 hours ago, Nuttall is lost said:

Kevin Davies. Brutal signing.  7m was it?!

 

I remember Hodgsons first season was good then a disasrer after that.   The recruitment was awful 1995-2000

7.5m IIRC. Still in third place for most expensive signing (although we exchanged Davies for Ostenstad so it was more like 3.75m each. Still more than either were worth.)

Agree with the second point. Henchoz was good but raw, we were unlucky with Dahlin, but only Jansen from that period leaves me with good memories. Thank goodness we had the academy bringing through Duff, Dunn, and a bit later, Taylor.

I remember Ostenstad coming to Ewood after Kevin Davies's disasterous season, in a rare example of a player exchange with no fee involved. Probably managed to look good by playing next to Ashley Ward, less so playing alongside Jansen.

If he’s not been mentioned in 14 pages he must surely have been forgotten…

Per Frandsen

10 hours ago, Oldgregg86 said:

Anthony stokes.

always thought he could be a very good player but had the Ben Marshall’s about him 

Just checked Marshall's career. Still only 31, playing for Stoneclough in the West Lancashire Football League division 1 (12th tier).

Been doing a wiki trawl of Rovers post-Bowyer and there's a fair few players I have no recollection of:

Matthew Kilgallon

Chris Taylor

Nathan Delfouneso

Tom Lawrence

Stephen Hendrie

Sam Hart (I do remember him, but I couldn't remember his first name)

The lower part of 7-13. At least I’m hopeful that there won’t be a death spiral in the new year under JDT.

Speaking of keepers of that period, he never played a senior game for Rovers, but there's our only Faeroese(?) player, Gunnar Nielsen.

5 minutes ago, simongarnerisgod said:

was that his one and only appearance,i can recall the game,he was inspired,like a human wall

Possibly that season. As per wiki, he made 15 appearences over the next two seasons as understudy to Robinson.

On 07/09/2022 at 18:46, SuperBrfc said:

This would have been around 2012/13 with the Portuguese players.

On the topic of Souness. I was reading just yesterday how he dealt with Bellamy at Newcastle. He subbed Bellamy off one game, with Bellamy aiming expletives his way when walking off.

Souness only found out about it later on when looking at the video footage of the game.

He grabs Bellamy by the throat, tells him he'll knock him out and to get in the gym where they'll sort it out like men. Shearer and a few of the others had to jump in to get Souey off him. It never got to the gym, but Kieron Dyer, who told the story, said it was the quietest he'd ever seen Bellamy.

Can't mess with Souness 😁.

I heard a version of the story that would probably get me banned (it's not exactly SFW) 🤫

On 07/09/2022 at 18:51, M_B said:

Cracking player Lucas Neill, hard as nails. He's coaching the girls teams at Stanley. 

Neill displaced John Curtis, who was a cracking player at championship level, but quickly forgotten.

So a few reports coming out which says Punk may have injured himself again. Torn bicep. Which might not matter anyways because if Ace Steel does get fired for being bitey and throwing a chair into Matt's eye then most are believing Punk will walk anyways.

Would love to have been a fly on the wall when they thought it was a great idea to unify the belts 2 weeks before a ppv. Mox drops it, now Punk is more than likely vacating it if the injury is true. Russo booking 101.

If it's a work then all they've done is overshadow MJF and anything good about All Out / AEW generally.

Assuming it's real if Tony doesn't fire Punk, he's a moron. No man should be bigger than the company, even if he holds the belt. Though it smacks of the whole "leaving with the title" angle they did in WWE, I don't think it's a work. Like I say if it is, then fine - I bought it - but all people are talking about is the shit show. It doesn't elevate the company in the slightest.

There's no "gotcha!" in this... they all look like fucking idiots.

Peter Enkelman (got a few end-of-season dead rubbers as understudy to Friedel)

Steve Harkness (a poor man's Dominic Matteo)

The mention of Goulon reminded me of Maceo Rigters and Elrio Van Heerden. I don't think either of them started a league game?

4 hours ago, simongarnerisgod said:

dino baggio was well past his best when he signed for us,great player in his prime,souness took a gamble but it did`nt work

i don`t remember anything about basturk,i can recall hakan unsal,who played a few games then decided he liked istanbul more than blackburn and hakan sukur,the legendary galatasary striker,i think he broke his leg soon after joining us which was unfortune,he was a great player

anyone remember per pederson and anders anderson???!!!!!!!

Basturk suffered from the same affliction as Johann Vogel: better than decent players who it never quite worked out for. I was under the impression he didn't get any game time with us, but it seems he got 45 minutes in our shirt.

Unsal I remember getting sent off at the world cup (Rivaldo's play acting) and disappearing from view soon after.

2 hours ago, simongarnerisgod said:

remember bruno ribeiro,kean was always babbling on about how good he was in training,though nobody ever saw him,we used to call him the invisible man

Our first and only Brazilian? Surprised to learn he had five appearances for us.

Javi De Pedro. Managed to outdo Witschge by only appearing for 45 mins.
 

Niklas Gudmundsson & Per Pederson (Hodgson signings?)

Heard about those before we went but didn’t have the opportunity to try one ☹️
Had to settle for my own bodyweght in Pasteis de nata/belem (topped with cinnamon and icing sugar).

And one down. 

Have our commentators been caught out by the train strike?

16 hours ago, RoversClitheroe said:

ENGLISH Premier League champions Manchester City have secured the signing of England-born Zimbabwe youngster David Chigwada from Blackburn Rovers.

 

The 14-year-old who can play as a winger or an attacking midfielder is widely regarded as one of the brightest prospects in England at the moment having already featured for the Three Lions at Under-15 level.

Saw this on Instagram a couple of days back. It’s everything that’s wrong with modern football 😠 bet he never gets a first team game for City.

Not confident here. Think United will target Pickering and we’ll get bullied out of the game in a 2-0 loss, plus one defensive injury.

1 hour ago, J*B said:

Interested to hear from our head coach tonight - can someone tag me into it when his quotes are out?

https://www.rovers.co.uk/news/2022/august/17/jdt-s-reading-reaction/

We wouldn't have won this last season.

Massive result - we've now got to hope that Brittain and Phillips aren't out for long.