Just now, JoeHarvey said:

Steve Waggott saying Adarabioyo had complications over weekend. He didn’t say it was dead but insinuated it might be.

Hopefully, that'll open the door to a big, preferably ugly, experienced centre-half - not bothered if he's Croatian, German or whatever nationality - who will be ready-made to replace Mulgrew in the back four.

1 hour ago, markhayhurst said:

So by the close of play today will we see a signing or will it ALL be dragged out to deadline day/loan deadline day.
Scenario on deadline day: TM "We had a few irons in the fire but couldn't get them across the line in time, but we've sold Dack and Lenhan for peanuts so next January we might add some depth".

That could be scarily prescient.? 

I think he'd more likely end up with something on the lines of "... across the line in time. We had offers for Dack and Lenihan which were too good to turn down and will allow us to push on in January towards promotion."

He was always a real tryer; 100% effort. Doesn't it  speak volumes about his impact over only 4 seasons - I'd have thought his career with us was longer - that he's being remembered with such affection?

RIP, Kevin.

Just now, 47er said:

I don't read it often! The first time would have been in the early 50's!  

... when it was the Northern Daily Telegraph, if memory serves!

1 hour ago, bluebruce said:

One thing is for sure. He doesn't fuck around! Might be a little on the rash side potentially. Without seeing the times he gets it wrong, it's hard to tell whether he has terrific instincts for when to stick a foot in, or if he is a bit over-eager to do it and might come undone against a quick or silken-footed striker in this league.

Definite no-prisoners type. Actually decent technique as well by the look of it. Being captain suggests he is a leader, precisely what our defence needs (then again, Mulgrew is our captain...). I'd take him based on what I've seen so far.

But, if I remember rightly, wasn't Hanley 'club captain' of Norwich City last season, despite not playing too often for them in the Championship?

What's to stop Mulgrew being our Club captain with this feller being our team captain? Sorry to be a bit brutal but I like the sound of him & Linehan being the first choice centre-half pairing.

And on a different topic than my last post I'd like to share the following thought.

Forthe first couple of seconds after Lenihan was injured yesterday afternoon, it looked really serious. He looked to be in the sort of agony that makes that leads you - me! - to think, "He's going to be out for AGES."?

Fortunately, of course, it wasn't that serious, but I'd have given more than a penny for Mowbray's thoughts if Lenihan had had to be stretchered off. I have to say I'm beginning to lose a bit of faith in the manager. But, had Lenihan also been out for, say, 6 weeks +, and I were the club's manager, I'd have been as worried as many on this Board are about the back four for the first couple of weeks of the coming season.

9 hours ago, RevidgeBlue said:

It shouldn't be a difficult thing to organise, Waggott and Mowbray should be able to agree an Annual budget and have complete autonomy within that budget. They should only need to get the green light from India if they need to go over and beyond that. 

It's what used to be the relationship between John Williams and the Walker Trust.

As regards all the negotiation, Waggott should do that, if he can't, why's he in the job?

But is that the way that our owners do business? Or indeed any owners? They hold the purse strings; it's surely their right to approve how their money is spent.

It might have been easier for John Williams to get a decision from the Trust - partly because his time as Chief Exec covered both Uncle Jack's and the Trust's ownership - and modern communication methods should, in theory, make it easier than it seems to be to us impatient-for-success fans. But we are presently stuck with the systems that our owners feel most comfortable with.

Just now, Paul Mani said:

Nyambe, Magloire and Grayson have potential to be excellent cb’s. However, the issue in my mind is that Mulgrews back legs have gone and Williams is average at best. Which leaves us with Lenihan. Assuming Ada comes in that gives us a safer pair of hands than the other younger lads but it’s not enough to achieve our goal of challenging the top 6 imo.

You can't call him 'Ada'!!? ? ? 

I agree with the last part of your final sentence, though. Hope it's etched on every wall of TM's office.

12 minutes ago, Mike E said:

Well Dunny was at Burnley and Gt Harwood before us...

You - I! - learn something every day.

I never knew Dunnie had been with That Lot.

4 hours ago, Mike E said:

Been a Rover since he was 6.

Cue, "He's one of our own!"?

Does that make him the first since Dunnie?

On 05/06/2019 at 13:41, DraytonRover said:

Was with us in King Kenny's time but hardly ever played. My fault as put him in my Fantasy Football team when we signed him!

Moved onto Huddersfield I think.

Very lightweight midfielder - good skill - just not tough enough

Kenny's first signing, if memory serves; along with another young - back then! -midfielder whose name escaped me.

Until flicking through these threads: Wayne Burnett!

After retiring, Makel went into coaching & currently, according to Wikipedia, is an Academy coach at Hibernians.

On 21/07/2019 at 23:47, Tom said:

As football fans of a similar sized club, with erratic owners this is terrifying.

Its the kind of stuff you always think won’t come to pass but it could be unfolding in front of us.

Whether we like them or not, if they laughed when we got relegated, are in Lancashire or not, there’s a real chance a football club, one that’s spent considerable time in the top division, who families have supported for generations, grandads, dads, sons and daughters, their club could cease to exist.

Imagine if happened to us, football is so ingrained in our lives that it’s part of our daily, weekly and annual schedule, it would be like losing a limb 

One of my old schoolpals from the days when we used to play Blackpool in the old Division One is a Blackpool season ticket-holder who became a part of the NAPM - Not A Penny More - protest against the activities of the Oystons.

I remember discussing with him the impact of his not going to games at Bloomfield Road on his grandchildren who were - probably still are - to go to a game on their own. Fortunately, for him and perhaps especially the grandchildren, the Oystons no longer own Blackpool FC. He can resume watching games at Bloomfield Road and I look forward to discussing Saturday's game over a drink on the Fylde coast that evening.

One of the good things for Blackpool is that they didn't have a 12-point penalty imposed by the League. Bolton and Bury, on the other hand, must start this season as joint-favourites for relegation to League Two and who knows where in the season after that? Worrying times.

1 hour ago, old darwen blue said:

I suggest you go back to sleep!

Seconded!?

Honestly, gunnerrover, is this the first Message Board you've ever joined?? If so, I'd like to suggest that you'll be more use to it if you spend some time - days or, preferably, weeks - just reading the existing threads and getting used to, for want of a more appropriate word, the 'culture' of the Board.

And you'll see that, as bluebruce effectively pointed out, we don't take kindly to threads like this one which take a scattergun approach with lists of names and spurious valuations, most, if not all, of which would be irrelevant at the moment to This Great Club Of Ours.

I'm not normally a suspicious person; but - and this is a rhetorical question, you understand - if you've just broken up for the summer holidays, wouldn't a better use of your time be looking at books your teachers will be taking you through in the next school year?

On 21/07/2019 at 23:52, SIMON GARNERS 194 said:

 

As for the new away kit...looked even worse than I thought today at Ibrox.

Shyte.

Sorry, S G 194, I'm with 1864roverite on this one. I had only seen close-up photos of the new design which filled me with trepidation.

Watching the game on Sunday, however, we were too far away from the players to see the, erm, 'niceties' of the design. All we could see were a team wearing what looked like a plain grey shirt and shorts.

Just now, PeteJD13 said:

Mowbray is probably still waiting for Rodwell then box that off as a CB signing ? does seem to be a tough window for the vast majority of the championship. Lescott as in Joleon ??? crikey

Yes; he's Man. City's "loanee player liaison agent" these days.

2 hours ago, J*B said:

Hi everyone,
 

Just wanted everyone to know that @OnePhilT has decided to step down from volunteering to work on the front end of the website. I'd like to really thank him - from everyone at BRFCS for all the work he's done - the front page is revolutionised (https://www.brfcs.com/), the new theme is unanimously liked and he's done loads of cleaning up which means we can do things like create the player archive, which is here if anyone isn't aware: https://www.brfcs.com/mb/index.php?/player-archive/ . I'm sure he doesn't want to plaudits, but he really has been irreplaceable! 

In terms of what this means for you - it means BRFCS now has nobody with front end web experience. We still have - thankfully - a few people who help out with the back end, but in terms of how the forum is viewed it will stay how it is for the foreseeable. Phil kindly finished off a couple of bits and made some guidelines that we can follow, but any more major changes are off the cards. If you are a web dev and would like to volunteer, our messages are always open! 

Other BRFCS news:

We will continue to lose people from behind the scenes if certain people don't stop treating this forum like they currently are doing. The BRFCS transfer thread is - every single year - the hardest thread to run. Its tiresome, especially when we aren't signing players. We're all sick of the bickering, name calling and trolling, so I assume you are too. I'm pretty much out of ideas on how to stop it - we could restrict members, but thats not what a forum is about, we could also force members to show their real names or social media accounts, but I don't want to be responsible for arguments at the ground.

My latest thinking is to bring on board a few more moderators who can look over the site, as with Phil stepping down we're currently down to three, K-Hod, Tom and myself. I'm happy to speak to anyone who thinks this is something they might like, but I must tell you that being in this position is often no fun! All three of us will tell you it sucks the enjoyment out of the forum - the only reason I do it is because I don't want to see the website fade away, I suspect the others feel the same.

In the meantime, i'm taking a really strong hand (which I hate doing), because moderating in the previous style taking up 3/4 hours per day. Rule breaks won't be discussed over PMs, posts won't be hidden without repercussion, it's straight to bans unfortunately. The knock on effect from losing people is that we're slowed down creating a content site for Rovers fans. The podcast and players archive are exactly where we want to end up, we're really proud of them. The team working on podcasts enjoy making them and have all become good friends, the player archive is the biggest public one available.

Yes; Kudos to everyone involved in making the Board so user-friendly.

I had a lo-o-ng time away from here because of rancourous attitudes on the Board 3 or 4 years ago. It certainly feels less aggressive a place these days, doubtless due to proactive moderation. And no, this is not an application to join the team of moderators; at 73, I've different and less thankless things I want to do; including spending - too much of! - my time on the players' archive.

I applaud the thinking about the sanctions moderators can/should impose and was wryly amused by the part of the last sentence of the third from last paragraph of J*B's post, which I've highlighted. That's because, during Sunday's game I had little option than to overhear some, erm, "full and frank discussions"? among fellow-Rovers' fans. At one stage, I was tempted to ask the protagonists what their nicknames on here are, but thought better of it!

18 hours ago, Mattyblue said:

I’ve always thought the club doesn’t make enough of its fantastic heritage.

And anything that shows old Lancashire as THE heartland of the game and not the ridiculous notion that it is the north east with its 3 League clubs is fine with me.

You mean the 'Hotbed of Soccer™' as they'd have you believe?!????#Shakesheadsadly

14 hours ago, doctorryan said:

Alright, that's it!!!

First, we need somebody in East Lancs who knows how to silk screen to carve out 2 10Bet logos. (make sure they're perfect)

Everybody who prefers the red/black halves buy one from Umbro. (You can get their generic blue/white too if for some reason you dislike this year's traditional (home) kit.)

Now we'll need a good supply of embroidered club badges. (Does the club sell them in the store?)

Someone will need to offer at cost to screen the 10Bet logo onto the kits (white onto red/black, RED onto blue/white) & affix the badges. (DO NOT TRY TO PROFIT FROM THIS; THE CLUB &/OR UMBRO WILL SUE.)

Voila: The kits I believe most of us prefer exactly as we want them, complete with the current sponsor's logo in the color it should be.

If enough of us keep doing this they will eventually capitulate; it's simple commercial math.  It will take a concerted effort, but we can do this.

 

I quite like this idea but am not volunteering to get involved!

I bought my one and only replica shirt - call me a tightwad if you must! I can't get my head round why people apparently feel they have to buy a new one every season - at the start of the season when our owners sycophantically(?) tied up with the Prince of Wales' Trust but before they had permission to put the Trust's logo on the shirt.

As an old fogey, I'm proud to wear a modern Rovers shirt which looks back to the advert-free days when my Dad first brought me to Ewood in the 1950s. That'll do for me.

Just now, CD_93 said:

Rain?

In Scotland?

HEAVY rain, CD!?

Heads-up for those going to Ibrox on Sunday: don't forget your rain jackets! I've just seen the weather forecast & it looks like incessant rain for the west of Scotland on Sunday!?

2 hours ago, Gary C said:

Looked good last game of season against Swansea when he came on. Had high Hope's for him this season. Hopefully he wont be out for long

I, too, was impressed by his performance in that Swansea game & hoped that display represented him turning a corner in his career.

Let's hope things aren't as serious as they appeared yesterday afternoon. After last season, would only be natural for the lad - he's still not yet 21 - to fear the worst.

Just now, unsall said:

... both Carson and Foderingham not exactly young, but would be happy if both signed.

So would I; it'd feel like genuine competition between the 2 keepers.

1 minute ago, S8 & Blue said:

... It's all going a bit Grella for Davenport.

I know what you mean, S8 &; but it's a wicked way of expressing your sympathy for the poor lad!??

At least you didn't compare him with Darren Anderson!

Just now, 1864roverite said:

It’s pre season work outs putting a few miles in the legs. How’s the time for players to make sure they are part of the first 11 by making the required effort.

Travis is or has to be the first name on the team sheet alongside Johnson. The team will be built around these 2.

Or should that read, "The team really ought, imo, to be built around these 2."? I'm asking because I simply don't know.

I'm trying not to be provocative. I'm as far from being ITK as it's possible to be and I get bemused by so many people on here making what looks like a factual statement, but is really their opinion.

Isn't that how we get 'fake news'??

32 minutes ago, Gary C said:

True we have until the 8th Of August to fine tune. 

Bringing in a new, reliable, keeper's a bit more than fine tuning, imo. The word 'crucial' springs to mind.