According to the Bury Times, our friendly at Gigg Lane is expected to go ahead next Wednesday. https://www.burytimes.co.uk/sport/17763806.wilko-39-s-bury-rebuild-way/ However, another report on the same website looks at a letter that Forever Bury, the diehard fans, sent last Friday to the club chairman. They understand that the club won't have paid the necessary insurance premiums by the start of next season which would means that home League and Cup games are unlikely to be able to be played. I'm not sure if there are different rules for pre-season friendlies, though I can't imagine there would be.

Another one a bit off-topic - more Memory Lane than Summer Transfer Window 2019 - but another name I remember from the mid-60s, although I can't remember if I actually saw him play - it was A Level time & my Mum, in particular, kept my nose to the grindstone - was another Aussie keeper, John Roberts. I think he played a few games either in the 65/66 relegation season or the following season; our first back in Division Two. There's something in a memory cell at the back of my brain telling me that not only was he the first Australian to play for us; he may have been the first Aussie to play in the Football League. But I couldn't swear to that.

We haven't had anyone with that particular talent since, ooh, about 2011! [Or perhaps that wasn't what you meant, 47er!?]

Oh, tony; No-o-o-o-o-oo!!! Were you the umpire in the chair that afternoon at Wimbledon whom John McEnroe informed, "You cannot be serious, man!"??? Why on earth would we - would any team - want to sign the true successor to Robert Green?! Please let him not be what our grandfathers said about the GIs during the later years of World War 2: "overpaid and over here"!

I'd be surprised if they didn't have a third shirt. Many - most? - clubs do these days, don't they; whether they actually need one or not.

That makes sense if the team are going to wear it for the first time at Ibrox.

I don't think so. I think we played a 'behind closed doors' game which apparently ended with that score last week against a team we're supposed to be playing in a pre-season friendly at their ground a week on Wednesday. Or were you being ironic, Philipl? ?

Probably. That would be two of the pre-season opportunities for us to see how the new arrivals are being 'bedded in' cancelled.

It is/was.* A week on Wednesday. [* Delete as appropriate.]

Allegedly, of course!?

I'm not having a go at you, Scotland1; but, as someone who hasn't paid as much attention as I probably should have to what's been going on at Ewood since the Walker Trust sold the club, I must say that I switched off from much of the argument you were making because you don't explain what the initials you used in the above text stand for on the first occasion you used them. While I don't live in the Lancashire Telegraph's circulation area, I've learned that LT is the LET I knew when I lived in Blackburn in the 1970s. And because I follow I football in general, I know what FFP stands for; and because I'm aware of financial institutions in general, KPMG. But initials like SCMP & SBOI mean absolutely nothing to me. So I ignore the point you're trying to make because I don't know what those initials stand for. So, not just to Scotland1, but to all posters on here; please, please can you explain what the acronyms you use on here actually mean the first time you use them? Who knows; it may give more weight - and give more support - to your argument?

What a really good way to make a simple point; love it! Mind you; if I remember rightly, my first pint of Mild only cost me 1/10d!

What a good job we can't see into the future. None of us watching that team could have predicted the rollercoaster ride that the next half-century would be for us, eh?

And to offer another entry from the Dictionary of quotations, it was Humpty Dumpty who told Alice, "Words mean what I want them to mean." 'Similar' in that context could surely mean: "slightly more"; "the same"; or "slightly less".

To slightly mis-quote the late Mandy Rice Davis, "Well, they would say that, wouldn't they?"

Joe Hart these days reminds me of Robert Green although, writing from memory, Green never 'kept' for a Premier League-winning side. I can't think of any reason why Rovers should pay anything for, and to, someone who seems increasingly like yesterday's man. We're surely not going for a 'marquee' signing just because he once, several years ago, used to be a good 'un. Are we?

Bad news: Rovers' pre-season game at Rochdale's called off on Sunday; Good news: I'll be able to watch the cricket World Cup Final on TV!?

What are the odds on a throwback to that staple of late-1950s pre-seasons: Probables v. Possibles, being played behind closed doors at Brockhall??

Does it help to know you're not the only one, S8 & Blue? Insidious, isn't it?!

In which case, follow oldjamfan1's guidance on p.15 of the pre-season thread for getting to the ground from Central station.

It's a beggar when you can see both sides of the argument! In the last poll on here, I was one all for cutting Mowbray some slack this season. While I think he's the first 'proper' Football League manager we've had since Sam, I felt that last season, he'd been perhaps too loyal to the lads who brought us back from League One. But we ended up stable in mid-table so I could allow for that loyalty. However, I'm beginning to find his collection of midfielders bewildering. Especially at a time when we haven't - yet - replaced Raya or bought the big, ugly [optional extras, both!] first choice centre back to play alongside Lenihan. I feel - almost! - sure he's got some irons to pull out of the fire but must confess to being more concerned than I have been at any time since he arrived.

I was born in Blackpool to 2 'exiled' Blackburners and can identify with this. I was the only 7-year-old in my class at school who knew that Rovers - then midway in Division Two - were better than the Blackpool team which beat Bolton in the last minute of the 1953 Cup Final because my Dad told me so. And he wouldn't have lied about something so important. Because I came over with schoolmates to Division One games at Ewood from the late-50s on, it was Blackpool, not That Lot in claret and blue, who were 'the enemy'. Don't worry; I'm a quick learner! As far as my schoolmates and I were concerned, PNE were nonentities, to be disdained. Wigan were probably in the Lancashire Combination at the time so didn't figure in our conversations.

What are the odds on a throwback to that staple of late-1950s pre-seasons: Probables v. Possibles, being played behind closed doors at Brockhall??

Plus, didn't I read on the blurb about him joining us that he was an old pal of Arma's? Maybe he put in a good word for him with DJ or TM? Also, Gateshead were relegated from the National League - National League (North) at the end of last season as a punishment for financial irregularities under previous ownership. Perhaps they're having to trim their wage bill.

Now there's a hell of a question to answer, RF! I'm not saying your guess is as good as ours, but we've had the pre-season from Hell. Last Saturday, in our first friendly, we beat a team from the National League [= League Three, if you know what I mean.] The next game we should have played - this coming Sunday v. League One Rochdale -has been called off because their pitch isn't playable. We've a game a week tomorrow at Mansfield Town, who got to the League Two Play-offs, followed by our trip to Ibrox. Midweek after that, there's a game scheduled against Bury, who were promoted from League Two at the end of last season - but seem to have imploded since - so we've real doubts about that game taking place, also. Our final friendly - v. Blackpool [another League One team] - is arranged for the Saturday after we play you. And the weekend after that, the new season starts!? So our game at Ibrox will probably be the strongest opposition we'll face in these friendlies, even if you field a few Reserves. So our team should be close to the one with which the manager intends to start our League season. However, if you look at some of the other threads on here, quite a lot of us who'll be at the game query whether the team he picks a week on Sunday is actually the team that should be playing either you, or Charlton Athletic in our first League game. In short, we need to sign a new goalkeeper and strong centre-half in the next 10 days or the 'joke' of fielding a 3-6-1 team might well come true.