You seem to have followed that to its logical conclusion. The fa ignore the plight of rovers therefore as a result you find it funny when the national team lose. Nothing but sense there.

Ali coming in at 3 with a test average of about 25. He is the classic not good enough as a batsman not good enough as a bowler but because tries both has over 50 test caps to his name.

Very poor review.

Wrong thread

Re Lancs the other night. Livi has been abysmal for Lancs ever since playing in the IPL, to ahem, become a better player. As if anyone believed that. I mean what on earth does he actually do anymore?!?! I see Croft, not captain fantastic, fronted up to the media Friday night. Completely feckless that lad. Muddled thinking from the club since the start of the season. Anderson available and we sign a medium pace trundler in de grandhomme when needed a strike bowler, yet simultaneously now produce the flattest pitches in the country. When we play away in the championship we do okay, we just don’t have the bowlers to win matches at Old Trafford. Muddled. What was the point in Rob Jones playing the T20s. Run a ball at best and doesn’t bowl. Wouldn’t it have made more sense to play Balderson or Lamb?! Muddled. Parkinson fiasco. Muddled

Not out but the point remains

What was that some sort of upper cut shot. 🤦‍♂️. The ball was bouncing over his head ffs

Games gone but 10 mins to close and wafting at one like that. Stokes played one of the finest innings will ever see at headingley which combined sublime attacking shots and pure digging in. He’s now like the scarecrow in wizzard of oz looking for a brain.

I know they banned runners about 10 years ago. When did they ban bowling at the stumps for tailenders? And tailenders with a broken leg?

Appalling cricket. It’s almost as if it’s somehow harder hitting 6s over midwicket when the bowlers are bowling quicker than they’re used to. It would appear it takes more to win an ashes test match than wearing a green bucket hat and grinning inanely

They’re so desperate to do the unexpected they’re prepared to do the ridiculous. Game to game it’ll manifest itself in different ways from selections, the toss, random declarations, odd bowling changes, etc. They’re just so keen go rogue. I wouldn’t worry about the Aussies racking up these runs, they’re bound to declare when they get to 393. It’s the new batting big.

To be honest this redevelopment is an absolute abomination (not that it’s unfinished). They’ve purposely designed it so a shed load of seats are restricted view. And when the fencing is down in most of these seats you will not be able to see 25% of the outfield.

As a side note in recent years lancs have proved they just cant cope with a crowd. Hope I’m wrong but I suspect the ashes will be a disaster in organisation. The main issue is 95% of their focus goes to the 5% in the point (even in there the food at lunch won’t be served before they’re out playing again), the hotels and pavilion. I’ll wager getting in will be a faff, there won’t be anywhere near enough toilets wherever you sit, the bars/food outlets will be chaos and they’ll also cock up getting people out. Hardly anyone here this evening and they’re crumbling at the bar, or at least the one nearest the hotel.

I’d have Danny lamb in our t20 team any day of the week. I’m not too worried about lamb going generally though, it’s just when the likes of lamb and Parkinson were playing all formats last year we challenged on three fronts. When the new breed - a lot of non-homegrown players - are playing this season, we’re floundering. Hameed, Davies and Parkinson is too much homegrown talent to lose across a three-four year period. Plus Clark a bit before as well. Players leaving yet Jones stays and stays and stays.

I vaguely recall each cycle was tournament to tournament on the fans club. So you’d look at an away game really wanted to go to down the fixtures and work out what the allocation was and where you’d need to be on the “rankings”. If you were say just in the top 2000 you could gamble if the allocation was likely to be 5,000 no dramas but if was likely 1,500 then you’d have to do a bit of spade work to get “promoted”. The problem being if wanted to try and get into the elite group who were guaranteed tickets regardless of allocation if there was a couple of low allocation fixtures the ones at the top would just pull further way. Had to post the stubs off for them to count and once I lost them at a game didn’t really want to go to (incidentally the game in Madrid where the Spanish were making monkey noises and booing our black players - not that we heard it). It was fun while it lasted and life got in the way.

They might have changed how they do it. When I was last going they had a cap system (1 for a home game and 2 for an away game). You’d need about 15 caps to get an away ticket, more or fewer depending on the allocation. Once got in to the fold got to the point where we bought a ticket to every game regardless, even if couldn’t go, and if we couldn’t tried selling them or often gave them away. Good times though. Might just be a rovers esque can get tickets on general sale these days. 🤷‍♂️

It was almost like an atmosphere you find at a swimming baths. Sort of. Ambient noise with the odd random high pitch squeak and a whistle. One of the joys of going to a live game rather than watch it on tele is the atmosphere, sadly appears that’s gone if the atmosphere on Monday was better than the norm at Wembley. I suspect those fanatical fans who go home and away just go through the motions at home to get the caps in order to go away.

This won’t help your search sure they used to be called BRASIL. Not sure what they had as the ‘A’ but the gist was Blackburn Rovers supporters in London. I don’t know how active they are in terms of an organised entity but as we seem get the best crowds outside of Lancs in the capital I’d say there was a few

I think Plymouth away early doors is the one I’m most looking forward to. Defo cuts the wheat from the chaff from Lancs based away travellers for a beastly journey. Operation sow the seeds under way this evening. I’m going to the football on Saturday 2nd sept. Few weeks later did I mention it’s an away game…. Did I mention it’s in Plymouth… Did I mention I’m staying over. Oh by the way a full weekend job.

I hope we’re not the darlings of sky this season. There’s not many fixtures individually that particularly looking forward to. No derby match. No big sides - Leeds fans may disagree. No random minnows not likely to play again. Each individual will have grounds to tick off I suppose but other than that not much. Other than nob end there’s no local games either.

Yeah that’s what I feared and speaks volumes.

I went to the game on Monday night. I used to watch England regularly but I’d not been for a good while. I was astonished by how many women and children were there, certainly from my vantage point in the Stretford end upper I’d go as far as to say the majority. I took the 10 year old so people in glass houses and that. On the one hand it’s nice people feel comfortable these days to make watching England a family day out but the trade off is women and children will never make for a good atmosphere. I partially stopped going regularly after they built the new Wembley as I felt they were selling out to tourists and day trippers. Looks like they ultimately did. A family in front of me who all watched the game through their phones, all had horns and not one had the foggiest about the rules of the game.

Bitterly disappointing. I know who and what I’m blaming for the defeat but still had chances to sort it. Lancs also didn’t cover themselves in glory this evening in the t20 reverting to their own style of spazball. Not least of all with 2 and a half overs to go and we send in Hartley ahead of Livingstone.

Bairstow again. 😡