Blackburn Rovers, yet another of the original 12 founding members of the football league in 1888. The club was founded at the Leger Hotel in Blackburn in 1875 and holds the distinction of winning the league title in 1911-12, 1913-14, 1994-95 and were five times FA Cup winners in the 19th century.
The town of Blackburn literally means Dark Coloured Stream and is mentioned in the Domesday Book in 1086 as Blacheborne. The club has the latin motto "Arte Et Labour" which translates By skill and Hard Work. It originated from the town's coat of arms, before working out that Jack Walker's millions could buy them more trophies. They took the name Rovers as was the tradition for clubs without a fixed home ground at that time.
Rovers were originally one of two teams in Blackburn, the other being their main rival, Blackburn Olympic FC. The first match between the two clubs was in February 1879, which resulted in a 3–1 win for Olympic. The clubs played each other forty times, but Olympic won only six of these matches. Olympic achieved a significant first in the history of English football as the first club from the north of the country and the first from a working-class background to win the Football Association Challenge Cup (FA Cup) - previous winners were from the Home Counties and were posh boys. Alas for Olympic, Astonvilla chairman William McGregor, the driving force behind the new football league, put in place a rule stating that only one club from each town or city could join, and chose Rovers, rather than Olympic, to be Blackburn's entrant.
The club's fanzine is called '4,000' holes in reference to the hovels where their fans lived. And though the holes were rather small, they had to count them all. A top piece of supporter trivia is that fans, Clement Charnock and his brother Harry introduced football into Russia. True story.
Blackburn's mascot is the uniaginatively named Rover the Dog. Rover is reknowned for gettinghis head stuck in the nets when saving penaltys. Blackburn are owned by Indian poultry compay, Venkys. Wigan fans have been known to release chickens on to the pitch during matches. I call that Fowl Play!! Not to be outdone, Burnley supporters arranged a plane to fly over Ewood Park with a banner reading "In Venkys we trust, - Burnley SU". A case of karma coming home to roost.
If you can avoid getting spat at by El-Hadji Diouf or mauled by Joey Barton, I strongly advise watching the sit com Rovers based on Blackburn. The fictional Redbridge Rovers has been run by chief barmaid Doreen for 25 year who entertains local supporters such as Pete "Mete Pott" Mott, the club's most fanatic member. It is currently available to Sky and Now subscribers. Thankfully, they only made six episodes.
Famous celebs to come from Blackburn are
Ian McShane
Steve Pemberton
Diana Vickers
Carl Fogarty
Russell Harty
Barbara Castle
Wayne Hemmingway
Karen Kay
Jack Walker and his brother Johnny Walker
Michael Winterbottom
A J Odudu
No figther pilots of any note but the Blackburn Airport Company produced the Blackburn Buccaneer used during the cold war.
Blackburn are currently fifth in the league but we are top. The Rovers form is WWWDLL and ours is WWDWWW. However, this is Fortress Elland Road where Leeds are invincible this season. Rovers do have a couple of decent players in Todd Cantwell, Makhtar Gueye, Callum Brittain and er Lewis Baker. I fancy this to be a close game, with a Piroe goal securing the points. Over to you.
Not very pleasing on the eye and Eustace continues to be a thorn in our side. All in all, not sure we deserved more than a point so cannot really grumble.
I understood taking Solomon off, yes he was creating havoc down the left wing, however with another home game on Saturday probably trying to protect him. The decision to bring on Bambi was baffling beyond belief!. Ramazani needs the game time and operates on the wing, so that would have allowed us to press on both wings as opposed to going wide to James all the time, whereas Bambi offers us nothing and just gets in the way. Maybe he is putting him out there for a potential buyer, who knows.
Anyway as it all turned out, we are now 3 points ahead so it was a point gained rather than 2 lost.
We looked the most dangerous when our wingers actually played as wingers in the space between the 18 yard box and the sideline as it stretched the defence allowing space for Striker and attacking midfielder. Unfortunately that happened only 4 times which was 4 of our 6 scoring opportunities created. Also not 3 of those 4 chances came from actual early balls.
Not a game that will live long in the memory. Highlight of the day was fish n chips with mushy peas from Gravelleys.
10 Points from the 4 games though so I'm not going to moan.
Well that was a hard game to watch from behind the goal
But still we are top of the league
Bumley got a draw and let's hope Blunderland do us a favour tonight.... we'll still be top either way
This isn't hindsight as was saying at the time but can't post while watching us....
Farke had the perfect opportunity in the 50th minute to change formation when Bogle had to go off. We had 3 natural CBs on the pitch and could have bought Gnonto on earlier to attack Blackbum even more....they weren't attacking us and we have to have a Plan B!
To totally contradict myself I thought Wober got forward really well and would start him at LB in the next game. He got crosses in early with his left foot.... Byram has to turn back onto his right, slows the momentum down and invariably just passes the ball 5yds backwards to a midfielder. Love Byram though....
I'd certainly take 8 out of the last 11 games ending in victory with 2 draws....👍🙌
Sonetimes, Farke’s substitutions puzzles me. Probably whenever Bamford is coming on…
Leeds XI: Meslier, Bogle, Byram, Rodon, Struijk; Tanaka, Rothwell; James, Solomon, Aaronson; Piroe. Subs: Darlow, Wober, Schmidt, Ampadu, Guilavogui, Ramazani, Gnonto, Bamford, Joseph
Rather strong bench!
Come on Leeds! MOT
Rothwell Solomon james piroe all in,ampadu Joseph ramazani willy out
Come on Smurf take us to the promised land
Knowing how Leeds always manage to disappoint me just when my levels of optimism are at their highest
0-0 I reckon
Another quality MDT Smurf and good luck for a prolonged run....
Gonna be freezing cold and very windy but I'd say that will suit us as we keep it on the floor. They'll have 24 players behind the ball and try to catch us on the break and set pieces....
We'll surely have too much for them but will be tight ...
James, Rothwell, Solomon and Piroe will start and I'm going for a positive 2-1 victory with James and Solomon notching....
It's a feast of quality MDT's - great run Rebecca, keep it going
Leeds 2-1 Blackburn - they'll scare us and get one, but they aren't LEEDS.
Excellent write up as usual Smurf and here's hoping we can notch another victory. Eustace seems to have formed a plan to beat us over his last 3 games against us, time to put that ghost to bed. With confidence sky high at the moment, I'm predicting a 2-0 victory. I would still start with Ramazani, Gnonto and Joseph just for game time, bring on the calvalry in the 2nd half!