In the light of what Judge Henry Globe QC said of Joey Barton, that he was guilty of "a violent and cowardly attack" - telling the Newcastle midfielder: "You drank to excess and behaved in an aggressive, disgraceful manner", I wondered whether any of the chaps on this M/B who were praising Barton's qualities as a footballer last summer and indicating that they would like to see Mark Hughes sign Barton for Rovers, might now have actually changed their minds?

Barton is an odious creature who could have dragged the name of Blackburn Rovers into the gutter if he had signed for us. A man who drank 10 pints of lager and five bottles of lager before carrying out a "violent and cowardly attack" outside McDonald's.

"You were restrained by others but ignored them and acted in an extremely violent and aggressive manner," said the judge. Hardly the actions of a dedicated professional is it? For a start he shouldn't be drinking so heavily. Secondly to act in such a violent manner which has now led to him being jailed, means that he is not fulfilling his responsibilities as a pro footballer.

The court heard that Barton had knocked a man to the ground, then straddled him and punched him four or five times as his cousin threw food at the victim. Barton then punched the man up to 15 times more before then attacking a 16-year-old, punching him and leaving him with broken teeth.

In the light of the "extremely violent and aggressive" attack from Barton, I'd be interested to know if any of the gentlemen below would still like to see Rovers buy Joey Barton ?

Barton>AESF

Who's the Paraguayan for the Rovers?

Who's that scoring all the goals?

Oh it's Roque Santa Cruz,

And he's playing for the blues,

And we're going on a European tour!

and to the tune of that Brazilian song....

Oooooooohhh Roque Santa Cruz,

Plays balls better than Scholes,

He's

Quicker than Ronaldo

Scores more goals than Fernando

Oooooooohhh Roque Santa Cruz....(repeat)

Mr Souness was critical of Liverpool's defending during the half-time analysis on Sky, suggesting that Liverpool didn't do their homework properly. This is the man whose Liverpool side he was in charge of, conceded 4 goals against Chesterfield at Anfield in the League Cup in 1992. (It finished up a 4-4 draw.)

This is the man whose Liverpool side:

- lost 5-1 to Coventry in 1992 - the biggest defeat that Liverpool have ever had in the Premiership, since it was formed 16 years ago.

- were humiliated in the 2nd Round of the European Cup Winners Cup to Spartak Moscow in 1992/93, conceding 4 goals in the 1st leg and losing 6-2 on aggregate.

- lost a leg in the UEFA Cup to the mighty Kuusysi Lahti in 1991 (though Liverpool did win the tie overall on aggregate.)

- were beaten at home by Bristol City in the FA Cup in 1994.

I don't think Rafa Benitez needs any lectures from Mr Souness on what Liverpool are not doing properly.

You're quite right. The way Liverpool demolished Barnsley (and Havant and Waterlooville for that matter) under Benitez was very impressive.

Souness criticising Rafa's reign as manager is more acceptable than any views that you have on football issues - he's entitled to his opinion and, as one of the most successful players ever to play in this country, happens to be someone whos views I think are worth listening to. So what exactly is your point?

Croatia to beat Holland

Israel to beat Romania

N.Ireland to beat Bulgaria - 18/1

Bentley to score first, England win 2-0 - 50/1

Young to score first, England win 2-1 - 60/1

They are my little flutters for today.

Clever new program that cleans your monitor from the inside: Monitor Cleaner

Does anyone think putting 'corners' between the BBE and the Riverside, and the BBE and the JW would make any difference to the atmosphere created? Maybe just single tier corners could link our more vociferous support in the BBE to the wannabes in the Riverside, and maybe spur a bit of life into the 'rug and flaskers' in the JW?

Would also make the away end sit on it's own.

Perhaps worth comparing with Bradford who slashed prices. Despite being in danger of relegation from the football league (when they had high hopes of promotion), over 13,000 turned up yesterday to see the 2-1 home defeat to Brentford in a division which looks like it could be suffering a big decline in attendances otherwise this season.

I'm sure I've read that Bradford have 12000 season-ticket holders so maybe that puts it slightly into perspective. I believe they massively reduced their season-ticket prices and with hopes of a successful season - many took advantage of this offer. I'd probably say that we have similar support as Bradford City actually. Bradford's a bigger place with more people but many people in the surrounding areas support Leeds and in that respect face similar issues as us with Liverpool and Man United.

---

It's also worth noting that I believe there were many that went to the game yesterday as neutrals or Liverpool supporters sat in the home areas. I know you always get this with the 'bigger' clubs, but I personally know seven people that sat in the Blackburn End and six of them were supporting Liverpool. Now I'm not for a moment suggesting that lowering the ticket prices has not affected the attendances in a positive way, but maybe we should look behind the figures and take a realistic view on them.

I have only been on the City game this season due to work commitments but I believe Ewood has been rocking this season. Maybe the club should try to do a little work in the local (but more importantly the national) press to emphasise the real value for money to be had at Ewood - an excellent (potentially top4) team AND a cracking atmosphere for the CHEAPEST in the country!

Incidentally I think the atmosphere at Ewood is underrated when compared to other grounds in the Premiership.

The poor response to BRFC's generous ticketing policy is exactly as I predicted..... it's cost the club revenue and made little difference to the crowd figures or the match atmsophere. At best it might just have stopped the rot. The town is rewarding the clubs efforts with indifference. The plain fact is that .....

The majority of people I have spoken to agree that the atmosphere has got better.

Rem the older ones amongst us have seen it all before!

Sorry but 114 pages on and each page only proves that there is still only one viable way forward from a business point of view to provide the backing for a football club that can remain at the top by right.

If by that you mean the 'Lancashire Utd' plan - it wouldn't work. Say the likes of Rovers, Burnley, PNE, Bolton, Blackpool and Wigan all joined together, would be necessarily be a better run, better performing and more successful club than the likes of Man United, Chelsea, Liverpool, Arsenal etc? It's not guaranteed. And if we ever did find ourselves ruling the league over said teams, what's to stop Chelsea, Spurs, West Ham and Arsenal joining forces? Man Utd, Man City, Liverpool and Everton?

Before you know it all the northern clubs would be joint as one, and all the southern clubs as another. And we'd be playing each other every week. And we'd have 80million people splt between two clubs so none of us would be able to watch live football anyway.

So just forget it.

I wonder if we could fill the stadium if we charged £5 per ticket in any seat in the stadium for any person?

If the answer is yes, maybe we should consider it. If the answer is no, then we need to simply face the fact that 20k is about right for Blackburn Rovers.

30,000 seats at £5 = £150k

20,000 seats at £15 = £300k

At the end of the day, the club needs to decide what the priority is. I personally would say, if it means filling the stadium let's practically give tickets away. We need to drum up passion that would require maybe two seasons of a packed out stadium - so maybe a short term loss would yield a long-term gain?

I read somewhere that the expected outcome in a few years time would be for football clubs to let people in for free? Sounds daft but maybe this is where we are heading.

oh and as for new drum beats?

sing us a new ###### song and we'll come up with something new

I think it's a catch 22 situation.

Most would argue that it's impossible to start anything new when the drummer is going off on one. People just can't be arsed competing with a drum. Also, one of the main ways a new song spreads is by a small group of people starting and then others hear the words and join in until the song spreads over the whole end - but you can't hear it when theres an almighty BOING BANG BOING.

Nobody is saying you should be banned - drummers should be banned with their drums but welcomed into the stadium if they want to sing like the rest of us. I just can't understand why these individuals wish to drum anyway. I personally think they must have some kind of attention deficit which makes them feel like when they drum they are doing the club and fans a great service.

Well your not so just ###### off with your drums!

Not only that he is an utterly horrible person. I want to tw@t him every time I see his mug on the telly.

Hold on - Cyprus are a decent team, holding Germany to a 1-1 draw and (embarrassingly for me) destroying Ireland 5-2 at home. They can play explosive attacking football, and aren't kicking boys by any stretch of the imagination.

Toshack should go because he's damaging welsh football, but not because they lost to Cyprus.

No. Cyprus are a big pile of poo.

I can see Bowen being the next Rovers manager. Only problem with that is, whilst we presumably still get the management style and tactics of Mark Hughes, do we get the same connections that Hughesy has around the world?

I totally agree.

In over 30 Years of watching Rovers i have never,ever booed a Rovers player and cannot understand the mentality of "supporters" who do.

In any trade or profession,i have never seen anybody respond positively and enthusiastically after being criticised or slated.

Imo negativity creates negativity.

Me neither, but I'll admit that I was one of the thousands of Rovers fans singing "fck off Carsley" when he announced he didn't want to play in the First Division (as it was then).

To be fair I'll never forget that last minute header at the Breezeblock.

WTF has this got to do with this thread?

It's never been mentioned there has been any racial name calling.

Maybe you need to PM Jan then.

I came across this quite by chance has anyone any idea what it is about? Just click a selection in any of the cells in the table and see what happens.

Looks like its some kind of tool for a foreign scrabble???

On the top two lines you choose a letter, and then on the third line you choose how many letters long you want the word to be.

It then finds a list of words that is that number of letters long, and also includes the two letters you specify.

All I want to ask is 'why'?

Well, you'll never get one. Andy Cole and Benni McCarthy are two of the top 5 strikers to grace Rovers in the time since I've been watching them, which is since 1991. Both of them took/are taking more stick than was ever aimed at Paul Dickov, or Ashley Ward, or Graham Fenton or any of the other useless journeyman strikers that have "graced" rovers since. The fact that ALL of them were called lazy, whereas the white strikers were called other things- all different, but ALL at least called "hard-working" is what makes me know that it was simply a euphemism.

That's because Paul Dickov and Ashley Ward WERE hardworking! And I think you're overexaggerating the 'stick' that Benni McCarthy is getting. We still sing his name at every match, and he is still idolised in general by the Rovers support. However, it only takes so many performances of a seemingly 'lazy' nature and supporters will get ###### off, never mind the players he is keeping out of the squad.

If you seriously think that supporters of a club with the likes of Jason Brown, Chris Samba, Martin Olsen, Steven Reid, Aaron Mokoena, Jason Roberts and others are racist, then you are deluded.

This comes from a part-time supporter of one of the most bigoted and racially motivated clubs in world football. Muppet.

Right Jan, that was a complete waste of time.

My issue with you is that you have very clearly insinuated that some members of this board have racially tarred Dwight Yorke, Andy Cole, Jason Roberts, Shabani Nonda and Benni McCarthy with the lazy tag. That is complete and utter b******s and myself and others are offended that you have accused us of this.

There was no need to quote the above. I can remember the 'lazy' accusations myself, particularly with Yorke and Cole (I think I even contributed to the Cole-bashing). However, to say this was based on the colour of his skin is unforgiveable. I demand an apology.

Actually I suspect that's to do with differing expectations. Defenders are expected to be rocks at the back, not scurry around after lost balls which someone useless like Dickov did (and which talented strikers are therefore supposed to do and thereby knacker themselves for the chances they do get).

And Samba has not yet done anything to provoke frustration. When people are frustrated with players, they go to stereotypes, and as they can't use the label they want, they use a euphemism. I also suspect that the same people who called the above players for being lazy conveniently ignore Samba's colour- or at least they will do until he does something to annoy him.

I'd liken it to Andy Murray (or any other Scottish sporting hero)

British when he's doing well

Scottish when he's not.

Jan - you miss my point. I know what your point is but you are failing to back it up with evidence that this is a view upheld by Rovers supporters. You have come out and declared that "Yorke, Cole, Roberts, Nonda and McCarthy have all been tarred by the same brush on here". I think myself and others will dispute that.

Yorke was lazy. Cole could be lazy when things didn't go his way but was an excellent player. Roberts is hardworking but limited. Nonda was a very average player after his injury. McCarthy is getting too big-headed for a lot of people's liking. Now does all that make me racist and/or stereotypical?

Come on Jan back up your claims.