Just a quick note to let everyone know that this years Disabled Supporters Player of the Year Awards are being held in the Premier Suite at 7pm on Wednesday 23rd April. Just £5 gets you a chance to meet some of the players and food too ! Reports from previous years have been very complimentary. More information as we get it, tickets available via Rovers ticket office (probably, we've yet to confirm where exactly to purchase them from).

The Football Association of Ireland (FAI) have today announced that Damian Duff has been withdrawn from the team to play a friendly against Scotland on Wednesday. Duff has been out with a hamstring injury since he was subbed off after 34 minutes in the League Cup game against Manchester United on 22nd January and despite rumours of his imminent return to the starting eleven it would seem he is not yet fully fit. This announcement is seen as a blessing for many Rovers fans due to Damian's recent record of getting injured whilst playing for his country.

In a not unwarranted rant about Aston Villa defender Ronny Johnsen's attempts to get Jay McEveley sent off this weekend, Souness may have landed himself in hot water with the FA once more. After the game Souness reportedly said about Johnsen, "I always thought he was a proper player, but now to me he's just another Johnny Foreigner and there are a few of those around." The FA have confirmed that they are aware of Souness' comments, but have yet to announce if they are to take any action. Souness already faces a personal FA hearing after being charged following an altercation with fourth official Matt Messias during Rovers Worthington Cup Quarter Final win at Wigan. Also in November last year he was given a three game touchline ban and a £15,000 fine for abusing referee Steve Bennett during the home game against Liverpool along with a one match suspension from the dugout and a £10,000 fine in April for abusing Graham Barber during the FA Cup fifth-round game against Middlesbrough.

That makes you 65556 by my reckoning. </GeekHumour>

The referees have been announced for the Worthington Cup Semi Finals. At Old Trafford the man in the middle will be Uriah Rennie and for the home leg Jeff Winter will be presiding. Rennie was responsible for some very unpopular decisions in Rovers defeat at Old Trafford in 2001 (although no cards were shown that day) This is currently being debated on the forum here

Some snippets of news, The Sporting Life are running a story about Souness now backing the call by a number of Premiership managers for a winter break. Elsewhere, a number of websites are reporting that Rovers have had their bid for Aston Villa's Alpay turned down. Interestingly Souness was looking to include out of favour defender John Curtis as part of a swap deal.

Craig Hignett's career was starting moving again having just agreed a one month extension to his loan spell at Coventry with Garry McAllister looking to sign him up on a permanent basis. Now fate has struck a cruel blow and a scan has revealed he sustained a fractured shin during Saturday's game against Sheffield United which will see him out for at least a month. Hignett, who has only featured twice for Rovers this season has now returned to Ewood.

Another quick round up of todays stories, many websites are reporting that Henning Berg is set to return to Norway at the end of the season, but this has been expected for some time now. Rovers' Reserves home fixture against Sunderland has been moved to Wednesday January 8th at 7pm because of the first team's participation in the Worthington Cup semi-final at Old Trafford on January 7th. Lucas Neill has now served his one match ban and is likely to return to the squad for the game against Boro on New Years day.

Darren Dunning is set to return to Ewood after a very successful loan spell at Torquay. The Gulls boss Leroy Rosenior said: "Darren has done brilliantly for us, and he absolutely loves it here, he doesn't want to go back.", however club chairman Mike Bateson has ruled out the possibility of making the move permanent by adding "Darren is on big money, too big for us". The 21 year old has already made five appearances for Rovers and has had previous loan spells at Bristol City, Rochdale and Blackpool.

Every man and his dog seem to have us down for snapping up out of favour Alpay from Villa as soon as the transfer window opens for around 2-3 million. There were several unconfirmed sightings of him at the West Ham game and it no secret that Rovers are looking to strengthen their defence. It also looks less likely we'll ever see Craig Hignett in a Rovers shirt again as his two month loan spell at Coventry has just been extended to three. There is still no news on the severity of the hamstring injuries that forced both Damian Duff and Craig Short to be replaced during the West Ham game. With Henning Berg unlikely to be fit enough for the game against Middlesbrough on News Years Day it could leave Rovers with a very young defence.

Where as I did and I am. However they were based mainly on ones used on other online forums I participate in combined with common sense and knocked together in an hour or so. So if anyone has any suggestions either email/PM me or one of the other admins and we'll discuss the merits of possible changes. We are always happen to listen to suggestions, however we'd prefer them submitted constructivly, not bitched about in public. This ends the public service annoucnement, I'm off back down the pub.

Rovers have been drawn against Manchester Utd in the Worthington Cup semi finals. The first leg will be at Old Trafford in the week commencing 6 January, with the return at Ewood Park two weeks later.

I'm not sure what happend during the move from the main messageboard to the news, but it now seems to have got my name attached. I'd like to point out that thanks for this great little write up should go to EwoodPork.

A few snippets of news from around the net. Rovers reserves face Birmingham at Christie Park tonight at 7pm, the expected line up is Robinson, Douglas, Bjornebye, Danns, Greer, Todd, Gillespie, Grabbi, Jansen, Mahon, Morgan. Subs from: Pelzer, Drench, Hockenhull, Donnelly, Watt. The Fulham (Away) game has been moved to Monday 7th April at 8pm for Sky. David Dunn is expected to be out for "a short period of time" after a scan revealed fluid in his hamstring area. Previously it was believed to be a torn hamstring which would have seen him out for 6-10 weeks. Whilst Souness hasn't yet commented on Gabriel Milito, he has ruled out a bid for Nantes defender Sylvain Armand. Keith Gillespie's spat with reserve coach Alan Murray is now believed to be resolved and could see Dizzy heading back to first team action. Aston Villa are doing cheap home tickets for the FA Cup game against Rovers on January 4th, hopefully we'll see the same deal for us visiting fans. Rovers Ladies team have made it to the 4th round of the FA by beating Bangor City 4-0. The official site has a section for the Ladies team at http://www.rovers.premiumtv.co.uk/team/view/third_feature_index These snippets have been sourced from many websites including The Official Rovers Site (www.rovers.co.uk), TeamTalk (www.teamtalk.com), The Official Aston Villa Website (www.avfc.co.uk) and SkySports (www.skysports.com) and also from user submitted stories too short to be used individually

Full Draw: Leicester v Bristol City Scunthorpe or Carlisle v Leeds Gillingham v Sheffield Wednesday Chelsea v Middlesbrough Ipswich Town v Morecambe Preston v Bristol Rovers or Rochdale Manchester City v Liverpool Shrewsbury Town v Everton Southend United or Bournemouth v Crewe Plymouth Argyle v Dagenham & Redbridge Cambridge United or Northampton v Millwall Bolton v Sunderland Darlington v Farnborough Walsall v Reading Fulham v Birmingham City Stoke City v Wigan Athletic West Ham v Nottingham Forest Charlton v Exeter City Sheffield United v Cheltenham Aston Villa v Blackburn Rovers Cardiff City v Coventry City Wolverhampton Wanderers v Newcastle Southampton v Spurs Norwich City v Brighton Arsenal v Oxford United Grimsby Town v Burnley West Brom v Bradford City Rotherham United v Wimbledon Brentford v Derby County Blackpool v Crystal Palace Manchester United v Portsmouth Macclesfield Town v Watford [This was originally part of Big A's post, but I moved it into a new post so it didn't make the front page overly long]

Rover's reserves lost 2-1 to a Liverpool side that looked more like a youth side than a reserve side. With 6 of Liverpool's team currently playing at U19 level or below and the only recognised name being keeper Pegguy Arphexad many would have though that a Rovers team that including Jansen, Grabbi and Gillespie would walk away with the points. Things looked even more favourable for Rovers when after only 3 minutes a curling Alan Mahon free kick saw Rovers ahead, but goals from David Raven (41) and Robbie Foy (47) saw the Rovers reserves defeated. Rovers Lign Up: Robinson, Hockenhull, Pelzer, Douglas, Bruce, Greer, Gillespie, Mahon, Grabbi (sub Gallagher 72), Jansen, Morgan.

The Worthington Cup tie against Wigan Athletic has been confirmed as Tuesday 17th December. There is however some confusion over the time, The Football League Official Website and the official Rovers World website have it listed as 7:45 where as the official Wigan Athletic World website has it listed as 8:00pm. Whilst Rovers have not released ticket information yet it would seem we have been allocated the entire East stand, which has a capacity of 8178 ! Tickets are anticipated to be in the region of £14 for adults and £9 for concessions (based on home ticket prices). It would seem unlikely the game will be televised as Sky have opted to show Man Utd vs Chelsea instead. The above details will be confirmed as soon as possible.

This is just a quick annoucement, more details will follow shortly. Sunday 15th December at 1pm we will be holding our annual BRFCS.COM get together and present our annual awards "The Grooby's". Enterance is free, everyone is welcomed etc etc. Modi has kindly offered to run the voting for The Grooby's again. Details about how to vote should follow shortly.

I'd say you're doing a fine job of that on your own Graham.

My problems with the Rovers organization (from my view in the Blackburn End). 1. At half time, there must have been 50 private security and 30 police on the concourse, prior to this NOT A SINGLE SECURITY OR POLICE OFFICER WAS PRESENT OF THE SEATING SIDE OF THE GROUND in the BB end. Perhaps if they were, the Celtic fan in front on me wouldn't have been dragged from his seat and kicked. YOU CAN'T BLAME THE STEWARDS FOR THIS - THEY ARE PAID TO BE STEWARDS NOT SECURITY OFFICERS. They had obviously been given a remit of "Don't get invloved, let one of the security/police handle it", sadly the police and security were nowhere to be seen. Even for the City game we had two police on every stairwell in the BB end. 2. Those evicting people from the ground have been given no instructions to record where the person was evicted from. So the club is now unable to punish those that sold on their tickets. I have the seat number of one of the people evicted if the club would care to act upon it, however I'm sure they will just sweep it under the carpet. 3. The one man pitch invasion. The refusal (probably due to orders) of the stewards to enter the pitch to stop him, and again the lack of presence on the pitch apron of police and security. THE BLOODY ST. JOHNS WENT AFTER HIM ! How professional is that going to look on TV. 4. Fake tickets were seized in the run up to the game, but as far as I'm aware neither the cordon police nor the turnstile operators were given specific instructions as to how to spot them. I enjoyed a great day in Glasgow, although I managed to recieve a slap off a casual and felt somewhat "threatend" on the walk back to the ground, it was nothing compared to how I felt at the home leg. The Fenhurst was on the borderline of "controlled", thankfully the Celtic fans seemed to be self policing to some extent. It was the home "fans" that really bothered me, it nearly kicked off in the Fox & Hounds and the outside McDonalds, there were Rovers fans trying to knock lumps out of each other on the concourse over wether to evict Celtic fans. In recent years I've been away to Burnley, Birmingham and Millwall and never felt it as likely to kick off as I did on Thursday. As a few people have pointed out, we are a small town club, with a great regular following for the size of catchment area we have, we also do very well at attracting semi-regular fans from further afield (especially women and children) just how many will have been put off coming to games again after this. I know the woman sat behind me screaming into her mobile (presumably to a family member in another part of the ground) to get her son out of the ground, isn't likely to be back in hurry. The club seemed to learn some leasons from the City game, the ticket restrictions were spot on and keeping almost all the exit gates shut until full time was the correct decision (although the tannoy announcments advertising this were questionable, surely informing the riversiders when they purchased their tickets would have been a better call). I feel that so far luck has been the only thing preventing a serious incident on two occasions now, how many more before the club either gets it right of something serious happens.

The club has announced that despite the forthcoming firefighters strike the UEFA Cup game against Celtic on Thursday is definitely still on. The Worthington Cup game against Rotherham at Ewood has been confirmed as 8:00pm on Wednesday 4th December. Whilst Rovers have yet to announce ticket details, Rotherham are offering tickets to away fans at £12 for adults and £5 for concessions. It is therefore highly likely that Rovers will again be offering reduced priced tickets for this game.

It's a while before the transfer windows opens, but the rumours have started already. Graham Taylor has rubbished reports that Gareth Barry is set to move to Rovers. "There's no way I'm looking to sell Gareth and I'm not sure where this story has come from." said Taylor, but it wouldn't be the first Villa transfer to take place without the manager's consent. It's also reported that Graham Souness is looking to swoop for the soon to be out of contract Canadian international Jim Brennan from Nottingham Forest. The 25 year old defender was signed for £1500000 in 1999. It now looks unlikely that Egil Ostenstad is unlikely to return to Norway as predicted when the transfer window open after he has started to get regular first team football after a remarkable turn in form.

A last minute goal made by Lucas Neill and nudged in by Andy Coal saved Rovers from a defeat at the hands of Southampton. Ex-Rover James Beattie opened the scoring from the penalty spot on 38 minutes after Craig Short was judged to have brought Svenson down in the area. With Duff rested and Flitcroft suspended Rovers struggled to make an impact, especially in midfield and may be a little lucky to come away with a point. Rovers only real chances were a goal by Martin Taylor which was disallowed (offside) and a 25 yard shot from David Thompson that bounced off the woodwork. Tugay was sent off for two bookable offences after blocking an attempted quick free kick.

In todays Worthington Cup draw, Rovers have been given a home tie against Ronnie Moore's Rotherham. Local rivals Burnley have been been drawn at home to Manchester United.

I knew ticket sales had been slower than expected, but not that slow !