From what I have seen, the only "hard headed" Parkes had to go comments are being posted on this message board. Everywhere else the comments are universally in condemnation of what happened.

A great article in the LET graphically describing the over-exposure of football.

I hate this dead man walking syndrome. It causes untold stress to everyone involved when a decision to make staff redundant or simply fire them has been taken and it has not been enacted. If redundancies are needed, then usually the situation has been brewing for some time. A good senior manager will have already thought through the operational consequencies and morale issues before the meeting is held to decide who exactly will be going. In those circumstances, holding the meeting off site on a Wednesday, taking hand written notes, allowing time for reflection Thursday morning and then holding the meetings with each individual affected on the Thursday afternoon is the best way. If several people are going, the Thursday morning can be used to make sure you know where they are and can check on any atenuating circumstances. Then quietly round them up and have enough relevant people to speak with them individually. In Europe (including the UK) you have to tell redundant staff their position is at risk and give them the chance to suggest alternative ways to work for the company. However, I always insist they take immediate paid leave of absence and ask them to see me again early the following week, again individually. Most accept and understand there is no way back, some come up with daft ideas and sometimes a genuinely good and original suggestion emerges. After making sure the departing people are safely off the company premises and any emotional cases are being taken care of, immediately call a staff meeting and tell the ones who remain the truth, irrespective of whether you cannot assure them their jobs are safe or you are able to make an assurance of no more redundancies for six months or longer. I've faced some pretty horrible situations but nothing like the Parkes leak.

I have always had a deep distaste for Newcastle ever since that horror Lord Westwood cheated on us on both the Gordon Lee and Roger Jones grabs. Of course the move that ruined Shearer's career didn't exactly endear them to me either. Taking Souness off us is all our paybacks coming at once. Yes Souey was magnificent for two and a half years but the bullying arrogant ignoramous with an ego fifteen sizes too big came to the fore and nearly destroyed us. Newcastle have taken that idiot and doubled the size of his over-inflated ego. I even found myself cheering the Manc goals against them yesterday. Vomit! Tricky one next week. Palace v Newcastle. Have to fancy Palace to make it five defeats on the trot. Looking at Pompey v Citeh and Norwich v Saints (two home wins by my reckoning) on Saturday makes our Sunday afternoon against Brum look even more important. At least when we kick off, will know for sure that even a draw will not lift us off bottom place this time. In terms of Hughes v Souness, it is highly unlikely we will finish ahead of the bar codes but I am expecting Boxing Day to be tasty. That will be a huge proof of Hughes' management credentials. If he cannot organise us to beat a Souness side which will resemble a pickled chocolate fry up for all the tactical sense his team selection will make, Hughes will have been found seriously deficient as a manager.

This will be one bad boring game- a terrible advert for trying to bring the TV watchers to Ewood. Quite possibly a sub-20,000 crowd as well. Brum have managed just 8 goals all season and we have scored 9. Unlike us, Brum don't conceed many either. This is the long over due 0-0. We will have to wait a bit longer for the second win of the season.

rover 6 Please can you give us a link to any article which says Rovers pay Tromso an appearance fee after four matches?

Sorry to interupt but anyone know why Gally was not on the bench yesterday?

A Notts County perspective on the FA Cup of 1891 which produced Jimmy Forrest's never to be equalled fifth FA Cup winner's medal. A personal note, when I was a child, our next door neighbour was Jimmy Forrest's daughter-in-law. The old lady was never particularly talkative and her husband had died many years before I was born but I do recall the hushed and reverential terms which were used by her for the "greatest Rovers footballer". He was remembered as a gentleman.

Simple. Buy a ticket and go watch.

The sacking of Tony Parkes means that Sparky is very much his own man doing his own thing with his very own Tafia. He's certainly making sure that he and not Souey gets the blame or the plaudits from here on in. Meanwhilst we can count the successive defeats suffered by Newcastle.

I know this emotional but since when was following a football club an exercise in Cartesian logic? I feel gutted. A huge part of why I support Blackburn Rovers died with this sacking. Tony Parkes is Mr Blackburn Rovers. He is someone who made our club different. An all round nice guy who showed that nice guys have their place in modern football. Tony, you are a hero. Thanks for all 34 years at Ewood Park.

I for one will be very disappointed if this were true. Even with a new broom, the knowledge and experience of all things Rovers that Parkes has is still invaluable. As things stand at the moment, The Sun is on its own with this story. It is over five hours since the "news" broke. In this electronic age, that seems a long time for them to be maintaining exclusivity, especially as it has been a slow night for football news (the only big stories are Mandaric's denying Redknapp is at risk and the possible collapse of the Leeds take over,- the other 50+ news items to hit the wires since the Sun published are either pure speculation or previews of Saturday's games). It seems odd to be firing the Reserve Team Manager when the Reserves are doing so well (are they top of their league?) and just after we lost their coach Rob Kelly who took up the first team coach position at Leicester. However, perhaps TP is taking early retirement as Sparky completes a total reshuffle of backroom personnel and processes. Let's see.

Linny8, Will et al. Great. Support the lads. But will the Rovers supporter sat behind you be able to see the game?

Plumped for Forrest because of his unique achievement of FIVE FA Cup Medals and the fact he was an automtic England choice for five seasons- only Douglas and Clayton can better that length of representation for England. I believe it is important that we recognise the first period of Rovers' domination. The time when not only the Rovers but Blackburn was a major force in the World. When Forrest was playing, over 50% of all the manufactured cotton goods in the world were originating in the mills of Blackburn- a staggering thought.

"tough tackling"? I think the rest of the article is a bit of a Rangers dream as well. Aren't Managers supposed to get into trouble for unsettling players at other clubs? Anyway, I'll repeat what I've said elsewhere, Ferguson is class and key to the Rovers surviving and thriving in the Prem. However, there will be an awful lot of money (not much of it at Ibrox) chasing not a lot of players in January and we are gooing to have a huge fight to hold onto Ferguson and Emerton.

A fan supports Blackburn Rovers and all it stands for. For the last 30 years this has included having the best behaved fans in whatever division we have been playing in. A true supporter encourages as many people as possible to support the club and helps make the collective experience of going to the match to support the Rovers as exciting and as pleasant an experience as possible. No propper fan of Blackburn Rovers would deliberately obstruct the sightlines of other fans or be abusive or threatening towards other spectators.

I had expected Newcastle to have two excellent seasons under Souness before everything started falling apart. Make that two months. We had the good fortune of getting him unemployed and down on his luck- he had to rebuild his self-belief by rebuilding the Rovers which he did before his ego started to destroy us. Newcastle have the misfortune of getting him full of his own hubris and feeeling totally self-justified now that a "massive" club have come in for him. There is nothing to make him realise he was managing us to relegation so he is carrying on doing the same at Newcastle with a different set of players. Newcastle will not realise it until its too late. All the screams coming out of St James' (assuming he's not so stupid that he alienates Shearer) will be put down to him disciplining the gobby hoodlums masquerading as players and he will be aplauded for his destructive bullying.

Assuming we don't suddenly discover our Boro and Chelsea "form", this is a banker draw. Could be the sort of dull as ditch water sterile 0-0 clubs in our sort of situation often get before turning things round properly. Or it couldbe a comedy turn 3-3. I'm plumping for 1-1.

A plea to include Duncan McKenzie in the list. The contributions on this have been brilliant. Much as I liked Tim Sherwood personally and as a player, the contributions of Forrest and Latheron were much greater in terms of putting silverware on the Rovers' list of honours (five FA Cups and two Championships respectively). Both were automatic international choices and undisputed best in their position in their era. For all Tim's value to the Premiership side, those are not attributes Tim posessed.

Gosh this sounds familiar! Just delete Newcastle and insert Rovers and apply to Brum in the Cup, Liverpool away etc etc.

Is cuidad MGP? He has always maintained that he is MGP's trainer and mentor. Is cuidad, sorry MGP, injured by cuts received in the reserves game against Wolves? In which case, he could not play yesterday anyway. Did MGP play badly against Wolves reserves before being substituted? In which case how could he have deserved the shirt yesterday even if he was not injured? Cuidad, do you at least acknowledge that MGP ws unconvincing to say the least in his Premiership starts for Rovers? If you are able to look at the video of his performances and help him improve, then you will be doing MGP nd Rovers far more good than just having a rant. Having now seen the game at Norwich, Reid and Emerton did OK, particularly when we were down to ten men. It is not impossible for MGP to be better than them but based on his performances to date, MGP would not have had the bottle and brain to help Rovers get that point yesterday.

Just ten points off UEFA Cup qualification and more than two thirds of the season to go.

Yes Parker and Shepstone. Two complete non-footballers. This something the old giffers undoubtedly have the edge on the young'uns. Ostenstad would have been the best player on the park in quite a few teams the Rovers put out in the '70s and '80s!

Well done Tris. It is desperately important that this minority should be rooted out immediately. The Rovers have long had a fantastic reputation for excellent behaviour nd it hasto be kept that way.

I shouldn't let rover6 irritate me but he does. From the Radio commentary/statistics, Norwich came out steaming today. And before anyone dismisses the Rovers' achievement in holding them at 0-0, remember Norwich gave Arsenal (when they were flying at the beginning of the season) an almighty fright and pegged Everton back frm 0-2 to 2-2 in a twenty minute spell. In fact after 20 minutes today, the possession stats were Norwich 68% Rovers 32%. The Rovers turned that around so much that just before Norwich scored against therun of play, the possession stats were Norwich 49%, Rovers 51%. In other words, Rovers must have had close to 60% of the play over the following 40 minutes including 15 minutes without Bothroyd. Not condoning Bothroyd who was n absolute idiot but the commentary team were observing that Rob Styles had missed several bad fouls on Rovers players and his linesman had dropped a couple of clangers in flagging Rovers offside. Sadly Bothroyd's moment of madness cost us a win and very nearly caused a wholly avoidable defeat. The good news seems to be Ferguson and Emerton playing to the very considerable best, Tugay doing well (yes rover6) and McEveley, Todd and Nissa operating as a pretty effective unit. Neill seemed to be pretty clueless gainst Huckerby. Anyway, I look forwards to reading the comments of those who were there. Well done for making so much noise.