Blackburn Rovers

Luke’s Blackburn World: truly, truly awful

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No goals, no great creativity, precious few thrills – and yet they’re queueing up to say what they think. First Monsieur Salut! with his immediate post-match thoughts, later Pete Sixsmith will doubtless tell us the highlight of his evening occurred on the other side of the Pennines long before kickoff. Between those two grumps, let’s hear from a deeply unimpressed Luke Harvey …

As I jumped in my best friend’s car to nip up to the pub, and avoid the admittedly rather short walk, I was told Monday night’s match would either be “brilliant, or very bad”.

I laughed at my friend’s naivety, how could he be so daft? “Oh it’s going to be awful. This match will be truly, truly awful.” I replied, entirely seriously as well. He laughed, I laughed and we went and watched the truly, truly awful match together.

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Blackburn Rovers v Sunderland: back to business

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There are loads of people for whom international breaks are heaven sent. Maybe we’ll see things that way when Darren Bent is banging in goals for England and Jordan Henderson is showing just how good he is. But not just yet. Tomorrow night is the sort of occasion some of us live for – proper league football. For our return to Premier League action, we face Blackburn Rovers away. …

I’ve been to Ewood Park a few times.

On the most recent trips there, I’ve seen us beaten once – unjustly – in the FA Cup during Peter Reid’s second championship season, and a 0-0 opening game draw that seemed to set us up for a season that would end a bit better than what we achieved: bottom place.

After the second of those matches, a low, unseen bollard managed to rip the back bumper off my car though I couldn’t really blame Peter Reid for that.

Tomorrow, we’re looking for a big performance against, on paper, weaker opponents that those against whom we’ve fared best so far.

The weekend results saw us slip a few places down the table, exposing our lack of wins in the opening phase. Whoever Steve Bruce finds he ha savailable for the game wil need to be in tip-top form if we are to grab our first away win, an donly second Premier victory, of the season.

For those who missed it yesterday, Tony Sassine*, an editor at the Vital Blackburn Rovers site, tells us what is right and wrong with Big Sam’s team, and predicts a 1-1 draw …

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The Blackburn Rovers ‘Who Are You?’: no man of Straw

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At last, the Premier is back. Readers have drifted off in droves during the international break -though I know a few people who would dearly like to visit Salut! Sunderland but come up against cyberspace brick walls – and we face an almighty task in bringing them back.

Meanwhile …

Blackburn Rovers v Sunderland: another chance to do the business on the road.

Not for the first time, we approached the former Foreign Secretary Jack Straw to be the Rovers fan to preview the game. That’s mentioned only because, again, he – or his office -felt no need to offer the courtesy of a reply. So off we went Down Under, where we unearthed Tony Sassine*, a fan since very early boyhood and owner of a willing pair of hands at the Vital Blackburn site …

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Soapbox: TV brings hard day’s nights for Gooners – and us

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One great day out ruined, Arsenal at home turned into a logistical nightmare for away fans, another excuse for avoiding Chelsea – all, says a remarkably understanding Pete Sixsmith, in a day’s work for the TV folk whose job it is to undo the Premier League fixture list …

A colleague, who is also of the Red and White persuasion, performs the valuable task every year of making a copy of the fixtures, laminating them and passing them out to those who are Sunderland fans. Every year, I thank him and I see a pristine fixture list, with games every Saturday – as it used to be and as it should be.

Then along come the TV fixtures……………

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Soapbox: Blackburn’s Rovers return empty-handed

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Pete Sixsmith worries about the lack of a Spurs angle (yesterday’s throwaway on the Hon Alan Hutton inexplicably drew in readers in their thousands, albeit mostly from Tottenham’s tower blocks). But he still manages to capture the essence – and the fight for half-time chips – of a satisfying night with the reserves …

Monday night reserve games always bring back waves of nostalgia for the Reidy days when it looked like we had made the breakthrough as a serious contender in the Premier League.

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Soapbox at Ewood Park: a turn for the better

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Having led Blackburn 1-0 and 2-1, the loss of two more points could be seen as another example of the sloppy, wasteful ways into which Sunderland have fallen. Sloppy yes, but Pete Sixsmith recognises the draw as a fair result and finds scope to take heart for the new year – and to salute a couple of touches from Daryl Murphy ….

The “typical family Christmas”, I assume, includes a phase where someone in the “family” with whom you have had a fall out over the past year turns up at your house, plonks down in a comfy chair and proceeds to spoil the whole bloody day by drinking your best Egyptian brandy and smoking your finest Manikin cigars.

For “typical family Christmas”, read “holiday trip to Ewood Park”. For awful relatives, read Pascal Chimbonda and El Hadj Diouf. It would not be controversial to say that neither was a huge success in a red and white shirt or that season tickets were sent back by the sackful when they were moved on by Ricky Sbragia.

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Soapbox at Hibs v Rangers: a tale of two Millers

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Ewood Park, for Blackburn v Sunderland on a bitterly cold Monday, requires dedication. Pete Sixsmith has it in abundance and will be there. He even warmed up for the challenge, if that is the right description, by subjecting himself to a blast of wintry Scottish weather, catching a Hibs v Rangers game that enabled him to see how a couple of our old boys are faring …

So, what to do the day after the day after Christmas? The Chocolate Fudge has been eaten from the last selection box, the DVD of Hilarious Footballing Gaffes Presented By DJ Spoony has been watched and proved to be as funny as a performance by Sting on his lute and the last of the relatives is still hanging around, desperately hoping for a New Years invite before they go back to the Salvation Army Hostel.

The prospect of “going to the sales” is about as enticing as an afternoon in the Strawberry with Ant and Dec, while the cinemas are showing nothing but rubbish – and American rubbish at that. What’s wrong with British rubbish? Where is Sex Lives Of The Potato Men when you need it?

A glance at the fixture list throws up Arsenal v Villa (too far away), Hull City v Manchester United (no chance of a ticket) and Hibernian v Rangers. Why not? Edinburgh’s not that far and it should be easy enough to get in, so let’s go, and leave the elderly relative on the doorstep for the Sally Bash to collect.

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Who are you? We’re Blackburn Rovers

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The Rovers Returned in the nick of time. We were beginning to fear Dan Clough* – great surname and he runs the Rovers Return site – was not going to get back to us with the answers to the customary Salut! Sunderland questions. It being Christmas, he’d completely forgotten. But here they are, including his thoughts on Sunderland (essentially “none, I’m afraid”) and Alan Shearer (“true Rovers legend”); and given how often we played Blackburn Rovers last season, each time getting a Rovers previewer, it is probably a small wonder that there was anyone left to interview …


Salut! Sunderland: Miserable about your form so far this season or just happy to be out of the relegation zone?

A mixture of the two. Things started reasonably well but recent form has been desperate and, with no signs of our away form improving at the moment, things are starting to look bleak. It’s good not to be in the relegation zone, but after a few bad results we are well and truly in the relegation battle at this moment in time.

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