? Why do you think that? I'd bet on Wigan getting more v brum than v Portsmouth.

I dont think you have been keeping up rainmaker have you? Anyway tell you what ........ have you not considered simply sending the club the cost of the airline ticket every year then? Would help BRFC no end and would certainly help save your forests and stop your fiords from filling up.

Now I realise that you want to protect the integrity of this mb Steb but no need to get all stroppy. I was only responding to the above post from Don. btw now you mention it I wouldn't mind a medal though......... if you could manage to smell my name porperly.

OK then truth or dare. If I reveal as close as is genuinely possible what monies I hand to BRFC every season will you do the same SAR? Hand on heart time! That should stop all 'snideyness' don't you think? It's your call. Maybe a good exercise for all whilst we are at it eh?

indeed he has waggy. ...But "why would the best centre forward off his time want to be reminded off what could have been" wouldn't that mean a testimonial v Man Utd?

Lets try and imagine that BRFC is a business. I know its hard and that no one else ever does on here. Anyway 16 / 20 million for two players who cost us just 4.5 in less than two years is superb business! What price too for Nelsen and Neill our other two most saleable assets? 20-25 million in total for 4 players that cost about £6m! Superb! In fact I'd tie Sparky and his team to the club by putting them on a 20% share of transfer profits between them. They'd find leaving mighty difficult then! A decade ago we were Prem Champs, had KMD as manager with National captains and professional icons Shearer and Hendry as kingpins in our team. A policy as outlined above with those 3 responsible for developing young talent (and rewarded appropriately) might just have seen most of the 2 nations young talent signing for us....and we went and let it all slip. The only criteria we need to adhere to is that we plan the time to sell our young diamonds and to ensure we have a conveyor belt line of new talent coming on. All my days BRFC have been left stranded by selling their best players without lining up adequate replacements. Brockhall has the facilities to cope and attract the best. If we become known as the best place for developing talent into future superstars budding talent will be forming an orderly cue. Don't forget the world is a big place. 10 years ago we foolishly missed out on Zidane and Dugarry whilst we were sidetracked in struggling to imagine a life without Shearer Sutton and Hendry............ 4 years ago we couldn't imagine life without Jansen, Duff and Dunn......... Now it's MGP, Bellamy and Nelsen. Tempus fugit guys. We would do well to choose to imitate bulls rather than bears. *def academy..... An association of artists, scholars, etc. that aims to maintain professional standards and to promote the affairs of its members.

He might be in Manchester next season which would leave just Spuds in for MGP.

Notice how the BBC now are implying that shearers career only took place at Newcastle over the last 10 years. Yet again they expressed incredulity that Newcastles best ever forward is retiring empty handed!

Whether there is any substance in this current speculation or not ....... 1. We are a small town club currently punching well above our weight in football. 2. Jack Walker always said that BRFC had to be run as a business. 3. MU are in the top 2 biggest clubs in the world. 4. MGP is a self confessed fan of them. 5. Money talks. What right have we to expect a player to turn down the chance to double or triple his current salary? 6. Unless a new Jack Walker turns up we will always lose our best players to bigger clubs. Fact. Afraid I have seen all this before in the 60's. The town turns it's back on the club, income falls and the club has to sell to balance the books. Bosman has changed the players say in this but the basic situation remains the same. Damned if we do well (players and managers leave) and even more damned if we do poorly (no buggger leaves cos no one wants em!). As far as progressing our aspirations in the Prem it's actually a lose/lose situation. All we can do is realise our position NOT as a selling club but as a DEVELOPING club. It's good business to develop players and thereby increasing their value before selling them on.........but only if we keep constant supply of top replacements in the pipeline. Think positive and if MGP ends up at MU and BRFC project the right image then young players and their agents in Scandanavia and elsewhere will view the facilities and position of BRFC as the number 1 launch pad to stardom. We simply need suitable replacements BEFORE we sell anyone. In this case it's clear that Peter is not near enough to the finished article yet. We must learn from our mistakes in the 90's when we let our best players leave without finding adequate replacements for them first. If we end up selling MGP for 6 million and Bellamy for 10 it'd be dissapointing as hell for supporters but not if that left the club in a stronger and safer position than it was when they came.

I would think the Geordies would burn St James down as long as Fat Freddie was in it!

Hmm we could have done without this. Bruce is probably history any time now and a new manager might just galvanise the squad (which does contain good players) as Roeder has done briefly at Newcastle. Funny last night but NOT a good result overall. I like Savages input to a team and a game, but Brums record of doing sweet FA since he left more than flatters his influence there.

Did the mags sell out here this season ES? A (red) rose by any other name is still a (red) rose! I would also like to point out that any negotiations are far better done from a position of power. At the moment we have 3 clubs in our neck of the woods in a position of relative financial strength, 1 seemingly OK for the minute and two in deep sh1t.

It might if the International and Prem suites and other areas of the ground offered the facility too.

It's absolute rubbish that waggy and you can tell em so. Last 2 weeks we have been on £15 tickets ffs! Transparent gits! Do you think that if we get relegated to whichever league it is that averages £300 per week that they would go then? Would they bollokxk. They'd say 'I'm not paying good money to watch that conference shyte!' Truth is they are searching for excuses to spend as much of their £300 quid on ale as possible. How many times do people say 'if fags go up again in the budget I'm packing in!' and never do.... Well its the same with ale. Their kids kids will simply end up supporting Man Utd. I bet when they are in Benidorm and somebody mentions footy they'll be the biggest Rovers fans the world has ever seen.

I've thought that too. But surely NUFC are acting illegally too? Or is subscription to canal+ or whatever available in this country too? If it is then BRFC should sign up and utilise the facilities at Ewood too, as well as quietly 'shop' pubs that are receiving and showing live transmissions illegally.

No he is a pig-head with a typically familiar Latin temperamant. Charming in the extreme when everything is going well and a little whingeing sh1t throwing hissy fit tantrums when the opposite is happening. All so predictable really. tell you what aesf he's affected the temperament of his squad too. I cannot stand John Terry nowadays, if their is a bigger big head and more aggravating ref-threatening whinger I have yet to see it. Kinell he's a half decent centre half whose slow but with decent positional sense and a good tackle on him. He's staring to believe the stupid soft puffs in the southern based press circus.

community shield in Cardiff? Which year?

I think it was the 3rd episode of the second series of Fantasy Island waggy.

If thats the case american then I apologise to you both. It just gets frustrating sitting in a half empty stadium (God only knows how many would be there if we were threatened with relegation again) and then hearing the fans criticised by our exiled brethren who contribute sweet FA in finacial terms. You must realise that my feelings of frustration and helplessness with regard to ever falling attendances are not new, they were forged in the mid sixties and that lesson appears to have beeen largely forgotten nowadays.

Roof probs?! The cost of this was originally set at approx £700,000,000 if I rem correctly. Well all this and whats gone before will prob have taken the estimates nearer to a cool Billion now .....as we all knew it would anyway. Coming on the back of recent collapsed roof tragedies in Eastern Europe they may as well pull it down, write it all off as a huge loss and build a carbon copy of the excellent millenium 100 miles north for about £150 million. Sports fans are fickle and the stadium will always be cursed from now on. Then again all the gin and tonic brigade from the FA will live darn sarf I expect so theres no chance of that happening. Dont suppose there ever was in reallity was there? Hey ho....

USAB Please don't expect others to do what you are disinclined to do...... namely providing a share of the necessary funding for BRFC!

Truth is eddie how would anybody at the club notice you (collectively) had gone?

Wow! Theres a few barbs in there ....methinks they do protest too much! Well for what it's worth imo....... 1. Lee bangs on about low attendances stiffing our chances of signing top players in the close season on the official site. Fine.......but it's not that is it Lee? The problem is income. Income is linked to attendance but not joined at the hip. Rovers need money first and support second. What about you exiles getting together and being regular sponsors of kit / match balls / kids for a quid etc? You might not make much difference........ or you might make a lot BUT surely you'll feel better. Or am I being naive? 2. Whatever you all say I know that Rev works all kinds of unsociable hours in order to chuck about £500 (after tax!) the way of Blackburn Rovers every single season! What do you lot contribute in financial terms? Let me guess at Sweet FA!....... apart from maybe the token purchase of a Rovers shirt for the latest family addition. . Judging by your number of posts you all make you must get something from being a member of the Rovers supporters (albeit passive), you appear to watch most matches too so why you can you be so selfish to leave financing it all to the likes of us lot over here? When Rovers inevitably succumb to the forces of gravity it wont be your fault will it? You didn't go anyway! It's the fault of those other selfish gits who actually live in Blackburn and who have given over going! 3. 21 English games a season Philip? How is that different to 21 games attended at Ewood Park? Cos thats all that matters to the accountant and bank manager. I knew a lad in the late 70's who couldn't attend a home match (first in years that he missed) because of his sisters wedding. Despite not earning much money he sent the club a cheque for his admission money! How committed is that? That one lads worth more to BRFC that all the stay aways and exiles on the sodding planet. And that is indisputable. Just like the thousands who thanks to illegal reception of foreign TV channels now watch the game through the bottom of a glass your support in body or spirit is as useful and transparent to BRFC as those empty beer glasses. Unless you choose to offer financial support in some way the club may as well be without you. You make no difference. Remember support does not just mean jumping up and down and singing in the Blackburn End with your mates, it runs much deeper. When this site asked for donations I sent a cheque for £25 (accepted that was ages ago and nobody seems to ask anymore ). The point is that if you want to feel a part of something then support it financially or one day it wont be there. Simple as.

So many people dislike Todd for some reason. I guess it's in the make up of many that they need favourites to praise and favourites to hate. Anyway I prefer him to Zurab when partnering Nelsen. Zurab is a good player but lacks Todds concentration and has an annoying habit of 'doing a Dailly' once a game...... imho.