Leeds United v Blackburn Rovers

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.