Right wing

[Rovermatt]

Ripley.

[den]

Thanks for all of your contributions. Very interesting and a lot of memories, not all of them verified , but with out doubt - the best yet.

It just remains to vote.

[whittle blue]

Douglas.

Look no further.

BTW -spotted him in the Royal Oak, Riley Green on Saturday night.

[Manchester Blue]

Everything about me wants to votr for Douglas apart from this one voice shouting 'go on vote Ripley, you know it'll wind Jim up'.

Incidentally to the poster quoting Best, Law, Charlton as United legends, the player voted greatest ever united player was Cantona. Why? Because he had a bigger impact than any other player, ever.

[Alex Rover]

Incidentally to the poster quoting Best, Law, Charlton as United legends, the player voted greatest ever united player was Cantona. Why? Because he had a bigger impact than any other player, ever.

Or because he was more recent in the memory of most voters perhaps?

Anyway I've gone for Dougie. Thanks for the posts everyone but I voted purely thanks to my Dad. I've never seen him overawed or humbled by anyone or anything, until Dougie comes into the Butlers Arms in Pleasy for a pint of Black Cat.

[Manchester Blue]

Or because he was more recent in the memory of most voters perhaps?

He was the catalyst behind the most succesful period of United's history ever. Simple as that.

[thenodrog]

There can only be one winner-

                                                Stuart Ripley

Stuart Ripley.....you're having a laugh!

Obviously Duggie but does no one rem boy wonder Mekky playing rw? Personally speaking he'd be my 3rd choice.

btw best crosser from the right wing and by an absolute country mile..........Alan Shearer

Edited October 18, 2004 by thenodrog

[den]

There can only be one winner-

                                                Stuart Ripley

Stuart Ripley.....you're having a laugh!

btw nobody rem boy wonder Mekky playing rw? Personally speaking he'd be my 3rd choice.

Yeah I do now! Why didn't you mention it at the start?

[adopted scouser]

Margaret Thatcher

[cn174]

I've chosen Bryan Douglas. As much as I like Ripley I dont think that he should come close to Douglas. I obviously have never seen him play but I've read and heard a lot about him, enough to know that he was better than Ripley.

When I was at school I interviewed him for the school magazine, which I've dug out and posted below. We spent the best part of two hours just talking about Rovers which was very cool for me. The end few paragraphs are a little outdated, but never mind.

Bryan Douglas always wanted to be a footballer. He played for the Blackburn town team. He was offered trials at Blackpool, Bolton, Preston, Wolves and Blackburn. He chose Rovers because he was born and bred in Blackburn and had supported them since he was young. After the trials, he was asked to sign by the manager, Jackie Bestall.

Bryan only ever played for Rovers, his home team, something he is very proud. He made his debut in August 1954 against Notts County. That was the first of 500 league and cup appearances he made for Rovers. He mainly played either in the outside right or inside left position. Inside left was his favourite although the outside right was where he made his name.

He also made 36 appearances for England including playing in the Sweden 58 and Chile 62 World Cups. He retired from playing international football in 1963 and finished his career with Rovers six years later.

His most memorable game for Rovers was the 7 – 1 defeat of Tottenham at Ewood. This was when Spurs were one of the best teams in the country. His two most memorable games playing for England were both against Scotland. In his early England career he remembers beating the Scots 4 – 0 at Hampden then later on beating them 9 –3 in England.

Bryan said that without a doubt, Tom Finney was the best player he had ever played with while Pele was the best player he’d played against.

When he started at Rovers he got paid £14 a week. In 1963, the maximum wage was abolished and Bryan was given a 50% increase on the £20 he received. The players also got bonuses for winning games. The most Bryan ever got was £50 plus appearances per week. Unlike today there were no sponsorship deals.

After he retired, he ran market stalls for a year. Then he became a sales representative for a local paper mill. A job he did for 18 years. I doubt that we will see any of today’s professional players have another job when they retire from football.

Bryan still watches Blackburn. He goes to all of the home games and some of the away games. He also keeps in touch with some of his Blackburn and England team mates including Ronnie Clayton, Tom Finney and Jimmy Arnfield. In his opinion, the game is not as entertaining now as when he was playing. This is because there are less individual players who take the opposition on.

If he had the chance to, Bryan said that he would play football today but he believes it would be a lot harder for him because now the players are a lot fitter. When Bryan was playing, training was very basic, concentrating on stamina and sprinting. Now the players are as good athletes as footballers.

Bryan thinks that next season will be a very big year for Rovers. He thinks that Graeme Souness is the manager that will make Blackburn successful again and thinks that they will get promoted again.

It was a pleasure to meet Bryan Douglas. There won’t be many footballers who grew up in a town, played for his home town’s team for all his career and still lives in the town but Bryan Douglas is one of those few.

[Ianrally]

I cannot blame anyone voting for the players that they have seen and not voting for those that came before they were watching Rovers.

On this same vein my vote has to go to my boyhood hero Bryan Douglas.

I was enthralled watching him when I started watching Rovers some 45 years ago as a ten year old. I have seen many great players on the right wing and some not so great.

I would still love to watch Super Stu, the unpredictable Mike Ferguson, and the rapid Windy Miller, all of the great club servants, but my vote has to go to the best right winger I have ever seen, and that includes Mathews. Bryan could go inside or outside the full back unlike Matthews who only went on the outside.

He was also a one club man and that was his hometown club. For the sake of those who have never seen Bryan play I can only say that it was like having Damian Duff on the right wing. Oh happy days.

Bryan played for England in two World Cups not many players can say that.

As a youngster I was taken by my dad to a Scotland v England game at Hampden Park with a full house of 134,000 and saw my hero take Scotland apart. The headlines in the papers the next day were "Black Douglas of England".

I shed tears of joy that day. Here was an England player from my club, from my town, who tormented those Scots and did not know how the hell to handle this pocket dynamo.

What's more having spent all his playing days for the Rovers he is still a fan and regular attender ar Ewood. He is indeed one of us.

I have just finished reading Jimmy Armfield's autobiography and in it there is a picture of the greatest England team that Jim ever played in. Sitting there on the front row is the Great Duggie.

Vote for him please.

[92er]

Mark Atkins played at right back.

We beat Spurs 7-2: 3-0 up, then sweating at half-time when they pulled 2 back.

[LeChuck]

I did start of with the intention of voting Stuart Ripley no matter what anybody said, he's my favourite Rovers player I've ever seen and had certain England managers had more sense he would be my favourite England player of all time too.

However, the strength of the argument for Douglas is overwhelming and, having read all the reports in here, there was really no other option for me than to vote for the man. I have to admit that I didn't know much about him before this topic came along but if the reports are accurate than I'm quite jealous of anyone who was around to see him play for us, even if he was only half the player that had been described in here he would be worthy of my vote over Ripley.

[samtheozzy]

I voted for Douglas, I never saw him play but the vote isn't for my favourite right winger (would be Ripley), it's for the greatest ever right winger which Douglas clearly is. My next task is to hunt down the three people who voted for Emerton....

[FourLaneBlue]

Mark Atkins played at right back.

Also played at centre back a few times if I remember correctly but I'd suggest his biggest contribution to Rovers was a central midfielder and as such should be included in the vote for that position. Didn't he often deputise when Batty was injured?

[mattyboy6000]

Anyway I've gone for Dougie. Thanks for the posts everyone but I voted purely thanks to my Dad. I've never seen him overawed or humbled by anyone or anything, until Dougie comes into the Butlers Arms in Pleasy for a pint of Black Cat.

ditto.

[The Producer]

I voted for Douglas, I never saw him play but the vote isn't for my favourite right winger (would be Ripley), it's for the greatest ever right winger which Douglas clearly is.

My thoughts exactly. I never saw Douglas play, but once you read about him there's only one winner in this vote.

Edited October 19, 2004 by The Producer

[den]

I suppose I'm entitled to give my take on this one. To be frank, I am surprised how many votes Ripley has actually got in this debate. That's not to take anything away from either Rippers or the people who voted for him.

It really just goes to show how times and people move on. I honestly didn't really believe that any rovers supporter would put Ripley ahead of Bryan Douglas. How naive is that?

Out of the eleven positions to be selected, to me the ONE that simply HAD to be in there was Douglas. He was my boyhood hero, like no-one before or after. I read somewhere that he won the Blackburn Citizen greatest ever player poll. Not just best right winger, but best ever player. So if he doesn't make it into this team, boy will that be a shock to me and I suspect, everyone who saw him play.

Ripley - Douglas, chalk and cheese. You couldn't have two players so different in their styles. Ripley, the strong, fast, direct modern day winger. Certainly one of Dalglishs' best buys. For three/four seasons he was excellent. Had a big contribution to the championship success. However, he did fall away fairly quickly after that. Quite a few fans made him their scapegoat, unfairly in my view, for the fall from being the top club in England.

Duggie, completely the opposite of rippers. Small frame, supreme dribbler and was a player known in those days as a schemer! That means he used to be the supplier of goals and certainly had a lot to do with the prolific goalscoring of people such as McEvoy, Byrom and Pickering. To some extent, he made those players.

Rippers made one appearance for England, but in all honesty, he was not quite good enough to hold down a regular place. Duggie, on the other hand was someone who gained 30 caps when it wasn't easy to get a cap.

There was no changing half the team at half time, the best players played the majority of the games. Not only did he play for England, he was a star for England. Finney, Matthews, Douglas - three terrific wingers.

Add to that, as others have said, he was and still is, a one club man. One game in particular stands out from Duggie's career [for me] - rovers beating spurs 7-2 at ewood. A top spurs side too. They had just won the inter city fairs cup [ the equivalent of the UEFA cup]. They had players such as Danny Blanchflower and Jimmy Greaves playing for them. That day Douglas was at his absolute best. He tore the unfortunate Danny Blanchflower to shreds. He set up Andy McEvoy with four goals on McEvoy's first game as a converted half back. A game and performance that for anyone priviliged to see it, will stick in the memory.

That same season, rovers went to west ham and beat them 8-2, again Duggie the architect. I also remember going to west ham for a F.A. cup game in the early sixties [63, I think]. West ham had a great team. Brooking, Byrne, Sissons and the great Bobby Moore. At Upton park rovers drew 3-3 in the first game. Moore was marking John Byrom then. Duggie was fantastic, setting Byrom up for a hat trick. The replay at Ewood saw rovers win 4-1, Moore marking McEvoy. Duggie set up McEvoy for his hat trick.

Now then, good as Rippers was in the modern day game, can anyone recall him tearing sides to pieces, virtually on his own?

If you think it's all a bit over the top, see one of the previous posts recalling Duggie taking Scotland apart at Hampden.

Possibly the greatest rover ever. [iMO]

[of course, when I said "how naive is that", I was referring to myself]

Edited October 19, 2004 by den

[mattyboy6000]

my old man has one word to describe duggy.. "genius"

[Hanks]

Obviously Duggie but does no one rem boy wonder Mekky playing rw?  Personally speaking he'd be my 3rd choice.

indeed i do , particularly the game against city in the cup. at the time he was being touted as the next bryan douglas!

dougie should win this easy, am i right in thinking that he got over 20,000 for his testimonial?

[thenodrog]

Duggie, completely the opposite of rippers. Small frame, supreme dribbler and was a player known in those days as a schemer! That means he used to be the supplier of goals and certainly had a lot to do with the prolific goalscoring of people such as McEvoy, Byrom and Pickering. To some extent, he made those players.

Todays closest equivalent as a scheming 'inside forward' able to make ordinary strikers look brilliant but obviously without Duggies mesmeric dribbling skills would be Eyal Berkovic.

As for those 30 caps. Gained after displacing Tom Finney and Stan Mathews from the England team! Just how much does that tell you about his ability?

btw I bet it was Jim who voted for Fergy, probably with the intention of keeping Duggy for the inside forward position. Am I close Jim?

[Andy Kennedys Hairdo]

Noel Brotherston was not confined to the left wing until Saxton bought Miller who could play only one position.When I went to the (late) Brotherston's testimonial I was struck by how confined a role Noel had had to play after Miller arrived.He must have overlapped, on the time scale, with Waggie but Waggie was released,I think, by Jim Iley and therefore must have left before we were relegated to the 3rd again. I suspect that from then until Miller arrived Brotherston was given some leeway as to where he played.

Correct 92er. Noel took up permanent residence on the left wing during the 81-82 season after the arrival of Ian Miller. You are also correct to assume that his career at Rovers did overlap with that of Dave Wagstaffe. However, they only really played one full season together in the same side - that being 77-78 - and for a number of those matches I'm of the impression that Wagstaffe made way for Gordon Taylor on the left wing whilst he took up a more central striking position.

[Andy Kennedys Hairdo]

Mark Atkins played at right back.

Also played at centre back a few times if I remember correctly but I'd suggest his biggest contribution to Rovers was a central midfielder and as such should be included in the vote for that position. Didn't he often deputise when Batty was injured?

Atkins was initially bought as a right back to replace the departed Chris Price and did play the majority, if not all, his games there until Dalglish arrived.

Atkins 'deputised' for Batty in the midfield on 30+ occasions during the Championship winning season. Batty had been injured and was only involved in the last 6 games of that campaign. Such was Atkins in-pact that year, or Batty's embarrassment, that Batty handed over the winners medal presented to him at Anfield to the non-involved Mark Atkins.

Edited October 19, 2004 by Andy Kennedys Hairdo

[tchocky]

Garry Flitcroft has played right wing too you know.

[jim mk2]

[

btw I bet it was Jim who voted for Fergy, probably with the intention of keeping Duggy for the inside forward position.  Am I close Jim?

I voted for Duggie but Fergie was a wonderful player too. More of a crowd darling than Duggie, if I remember correctly.

The size of the vote for Ripley is ludicrous. Fifty years from now, people will wonder who he was.