First striker

[den]

It looks now as though we have one contender making a surge.

I reckon we can start the next poll sometime after the Chelsea game and you're all feeling in a good mood.

Gives you time to think about the second striker and make some more recommendations. It will be the last poll after all.

[Alan75]

What about the manager den.

Jin Iley anyone

[colin]

Turning to his other love, he became a professional violinist and played with the Halle Orchestra.

Sorry, I'm just stumped with that. Just thought I needed to bring it up. Amazing.

I can almost imagine Mad Andy hitting the tympanii like "Animal" from the Muppet Show, but playing the violin???

[RevidgeBlue]

What about the manager den.

Jin Iley anyone

Excellent one indeed.

I think given the respective resources at their disposal I think I'd have to go for Howard Kendall to slightly pip King Kenny by the narrowest of margins.

My ratings since I started watching in late 1970

1) Kendall

2) Dalglish

3) Lee

4) Furphy

5) Mackay

6) Smith

7) Souness

8) Hodgson

9) Saxton

10) Kidd

11) Harford (but superb coach)

12) Iley (by quite some distance)

Caretakers

Parkes excellent

John Pickering did a fair job

Norman Bodell and Richard Dinnis off the bottom end of the scale somewhere.

[Bobby G]

Id like to think despite the last 18 months,Souness did a great job and should be higher up in your list.

He won a cup,finished 6th,took us to Europe two years on the trot and got us promoted.

Id say that ranks high up probably after King Kenny's time in the modern era.Kendall maybe third?

I mean its all good choosing a likeable manager,but its success that counts I would say!

[colin]

It will be the last poll after all.

Den,

I know it's self-flagellation, but having done "the best".... can we do "the worst?"

Fraught with difficulties, I know.

Got to agree with Alan75, we need to do the manager too.

[blue phil]

Turning to his other love, he became a professional violinist and played with the Halle Orchestra.

Sorry, I'm just stumped with that. Just thought I needed to bring it up. Amazing.

Amazing it is to be sure ; I simply can't imagine present day kids being allowed to handle a violin let alone being taught to play it ....

Here's a bit more about Southworth (who later played for Everton) taken from aa Everton website . Can you imagine this bloke up front with Shearer ?

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

The Victorian Gary Lineker!

JACK SOUTHWORTH was an early Everton sharp-shooter christened the "Prince of Dribblers."

A more modern description, however, might have been the Victorian Gary Lineker.

Like the England sharp-shooter of the 1980s (left), he served Everton for just one full season, finished that campaign as the top division's top scorer, but still left the club empty handed.

But while Lineker left Goodison voluntarily, Southworth's departure in October 1894 was forced on him by injury.

It was an awful blow for the Blues, who had invested the considerable sum of £400 on Southworth's signature 18 months previously.

But with a haul of 27 league goals in 22 appearances in his first full season Everton recouped immediate dividends for their outlay.

That haul was boosted by an astonishing scoring spree either side of Christmas - a blitz which created a club record which stands to this day. On December 30, 1893, Southworth became the first - and so far the only Evertonian to celebrate a double hat-trick . . . a week after he had scored four goals in an 8-1 defeat of Sheffield Wednesday.

The double hat-trick came in a 7-1 defeat of West Bromwich Albion at Goodison Park. "Southworth scores 6 out of

7 goals" was the Football Echo headline that day, although Evertonians were fortunate to witness the momentous feat.

With three other First Division games abandoned through fog, Everton's was completed despite a gloomy mist shrouding Goodison Park.

The gate at kick-off of 12,000 was described as "enormous" by that day's Echo. When the second half commenced the attendance had increased to "some 18,000" and before the finish had swollen to "about 25,000."

Maybe the extra numbers had been attracted by rumours of Southworth's goal-getting feats.

"Southworth gave one of his wonderfully good displays," reported the Football Echo.

"There is not the slightest doubt but that the whole of the Everton successes just now are traceable to the skilful manipulation of the ball by Southworth, who displays a masterly control of it. The rest of the team apparently recognises Southworth's grand form and unselfishly afford him every opportunity for displaying it."

Sadly for Everton that form lasted only a further 10 months.

After finishing the League's top scorer at the end of the 1893-94 season, he kicked off the following campaign like he intended to repeat the feat. He scored nine goals in nine games, before an injury ended his career.

It brought to a close a career which ended with the incredible record of 139 appearances for Blackburn Olympic, Blackburn Rovers and Everton - scoring 139 goals. He was also capped three times by England, and predictably registered three goals.

After his enforced retirement Southworth proved his talents didn't just extend to his shooting boots.

A gifted musician, he played with the Halle Orchestra in Manchester.

The musical accompaniment to his prematurely ended career might well have been titled Unfinished Symphony. At least he enjoyed the honour of becoming the first Evertonian to finish as the Football League's leading scorer

[Eddie]

Shearer. By far and away the best I've ever seen for Rovers.

[mhead]

Manager list ...Bob Crompton. Won FA Cup and 2 rescues.

Has Big Al won yet -been out of the country.

[den]

Manager list ...Bob Crompton. Won FA Cup and 2 rescues.

Has Big Al won yet -been out of the country.

Good shout for the manager.

Does being out of the country affect your ability to scroll to the top of the page?

[MCMC1875]

Chairman list

John Lewis

Lawrence Cotton

Derrick Keighley

David Brown

Bill Fox

Rob Coar

Greatest Rover list

Bob Crompton

Jack Walker

Edited January 31, 2005 by MCMC1875

[FourLaneBlue]

Den - you did say there was to be a greatest rover of all poll?

Bob Crompton was never chairman of Rovers...

...he remains however the greatest Rover of them all. A lifetime devoted to the club and it wasn't just because he had to...he was truly a great player. No other player would get close to his number of England caps for half a century and that was only because they started playing loads more games in the fifties.

If Crompton was cut in half he'd bleed blue and white, if Shearer was he'd spurt out a black and white combination stinking of Newky Brown Ale. Crompton (a former landlord of the Florence near Little Harwood) may have a Lions Bitter smell about him...but only because all of Little Harwood stank of the Lion brewery in those days. Crompton was at Rovers as a die-hard fan in the 1880s and was still there when he died in the 1940s, still managing his one and only club.

Shearer was my idol but there's no way he is the greatest Rover we have ever had...we bought him from Southampton and we sold him to Newcastle. The man was great, ace, but never one of us. Still a Geordie.

If we do have a vote for the greatest of them all I'm sure Shearer will win.

Thing is...he shouldn't. As nobody on this board has ever given as much to Rovers as Crompton did. The man's career suffered, his health suffered..all for Rovers.

I've gone on long enough about players from yore like Crompton and Forrest to bore both you lot and myself to death so I won't go on anymore on these polls (I'm going on holiday shortly as well so won't be around as much) but if there is a poll for the greastest Rover of them all...vote for one of your own. Vote Crompton. The man gave his life to the club...surely you can give him just one vote?

Edited February 1, 2005 by FourLaneBlue

[HugeChin]

David Speedie was a sensation in the 1991/2 season and for that he gets my vote.

Plus I think he got a final day hat trick against Plymouth Argyle that fired us into the play-offs

[dave birch]

FLB, it was the LION brewery that was located in Little Harwood.

Great bitter.

edit: Funnily enough it (The Lion Brewery) got shafted by the then Scottish and Newcastle Brewery.

Edited February 1, 2005 by dave birch

[FourLaneBlue]

Dave - you are quite right, I've amended the original post. Think the site is mostly houses now.

[MCMC1875]

FLB

The office block still stands - I think it is a training centre now?

Edited February 1, 2005 by MCMC1875

[dave birch]

MCMC, you didn't have to mention that, did you?

[colin]

You have to go to college to train to be a muslim? Or it's a training college for muslims to go to?

Thin ice old chap..........

[broadsword]

Yeah, I was thinking that after I pressed "Submit".

[dave birch]

You could go back and edit it

[broadsword]

MCMC had edited his so it didn't make any sense any more anyway.

[MCMC1875]

Anyway it was Lion in Little Harwood and t' John Peel Special weren't bad either.

[Blue blood]

Blackburn have had their fair share of Scottish legends: Colin Hendry, Kenny Dalglish... even Graeme Souness!

Then there was Kevin Gallacher. A neat and tidy, nippy winger-come-striker, Gallacher was a truely enjoyable player to watch; gave defences the run around on many occasion that I watched him. A hat-trick back in the 96/97 season against Wimbledon was a highlight, particularly when he nicked the ball away from Neil Sullivan, who'd spilled his shot, and poked it into the net.

His partnership with Sutton was perhaps not the most prolific, but at least when the two of them were up front you knew there'd be chances and some level of excitement. In fact Gallacher's talent was perhaps more in laying on chances for others than it was taking them. He remains affectionately remembered wherever he played in football, from Dundee to Coventry, Blackburn to Newcastle. Gallacher was a great little player and, for me, rated above Sutton (although I may well be alone in that!)

Gallacher was also a very mild-mannered man, from what I remember of his time at Rovers, never got involved in the sort of dodgy escapades that now litter the world of football and are smeared across tabloid front-pages nationwide.

I've given my first vote to Shearer, but Gallacher is definitely worthy of the second striker's berth. Then we'd be cooking with GAS.

My thoughts exactly, my favourite Rovers player of all time. Shearer and Gally are my choices too.

[Jordan]

Paul Dickov

[den]

Final result:

Alan Shearer, [ 179 ] [82.11%]

Fred Pickering, [ 2 ] [0.92%]

Andy McEvoy, [ 0 ] [0.00%]

John Byrom, [ 0 ] [0.00%]

Chris Sutton, [ 3 ] [1.38%]

Tommy Briggs, [ 5 ] [2.29%]

Simon Garner. [ 15 ] [6.88%]

David Speedie, [ 3 ] [1.38%]

Mike Newell, [ 0 ] [0.00%]

Andy Crawford. [ 0 ] [0.00%]

Matt Jansen, [ 10 ] [4.59%]

Roy Vernon. [ 1 ] [0.46%]

Duncan McKenzie [ 0 ] [0.00%]

Kevin Gallacher, [ 0 ] [0.00%]

Total Votes: 218