February Review

[bob fleming]

Good morning and welcome to March where we will look back on an eventful February for Blackburn Rovers Football Club. FA Cup, UEFA Cup and three league games to look back on through our blue and white eyes.

The alert amongst you will note that Rovers have today slashed Season Ticket prices by 25%. What a club. Brilliant stuff. They’ll be no mention of that in here though.

Recent months have seem a storm in a tea cup develop as this very writer has plunged BRFCS.com into controversial controversy with certain members taking exception to a couple of images used. First there was the zebra in December and last month a picture of a naked David Moyes brought the website to it’s very virtual knees.

Still, what can you do eh?

Thursday 01 February. Sir Matthew Derbyshire of Ewood get’s a call up into the England U21 squad.

Saturday 03 February. Blackburn Rovers 2 Sheffield United 1

The sort of game you should be winning they reckon, whoever they are.

Great work from Bert Mk II on the wing, he beat his man, beat another, did a couple of step overs, forgot where he was and then sent a great cross deep into Kenny’s box where, The Artist scored with another header, not too dissimilar to the one he scored at the Council House the other week.

Another injury though, Sir Matthew Derbyshire of Ewood pulled a thigh muscle.

Predictably, Rovers old boy Jonny Stead equalised pouncing on a mistake or something or other, I’ve no idea, anyway he was about six yards out and whereas when he played for us he’d normally have hit the post and us Rovers fans would say something like “that guy is so unlucky” he scored. The swine.

“Jonny’s Dead” As the Blackburn End used to sing. Or at least that’s what my mate Jason used to sing. No he isn’t, he’s just been on the weights at Sheffield United. And he’s now a zebra.

David Dunn made his second debut for the club, it was his searching, foraging, sneaky run that led to the free kick whereby The Artist scored again in the 92nd minute. Another fantastic free kick from the Norwegian Boy Band Member.

Reports later in the week revealed his secret, they suggested that Morten Gamst Pedersen uses something called “neuro-linguistic programming” in perfecting his free kick technique. Basically this involves UEFA qualified coaches Eddie Niedzwiecki and Mark Bowen standing over him shouting repeatedly, through megaphones, “Kick the ******** ball into the back of the net boyo.” This goes on for about an hour after every training session and yet again shows how advanced our training methods have become these days.

Sunday 04 February – Speedy Centre Half Stephane Hedghog put’s pen to paper on a one year extension to his current contract.

Monday 05 February – Hedghog finishes writing his signature, but everyone marvels how it’s beautifully positioned in the middle of the dotted line.

Wednesday 07 February – That cruel heartless mistress lady luck sticks the knife in yet again. What is it with this bitch? The Artist, in the form of his life, suffers a hamstring injury playing in a friendly for Norway against what amounted to be a San Marino second eleven. This meant that he’ll miss our next three games. Ranked 195th in the world this was obviously a very important fixture. (Look I know it was against Croatia but I was bitter OK?)

Saturday 10 February – Everton 1 Blackburn Rovers 0

A depleted Blackburn Rovers travelled to the hell hole that is Goodison Park and lost one nil. Andy Johnson scored the winner on nine minutes. Our chances of getting anything out of this game went when David "Dunny" Dunn limped off following a challenge with top England International and all round ace footballer, Gary Neville’s brother, Phil. A dead leg that he couldn’t run off. We had run out of midfielders, already.

I’ve nothing else to say about this match. Make your own stuff up in this bit.

Monday 12 February – Bizarrely, The Mirror claim that we’re looking to buy burnley forward Kyle Laffatme for £6 million. This despite the transfer window closing 13 days earlier.

I can only think that the Mirror meant to write "Blackburn Rovers look set to offer £6 million for burnley Football Club". Quite what we'd do with it though is anyone's guess.

The scene is Brockhall and burnley FC has just been delivered and dumped on the car park. Williams The Chair and Mark Hughes are looking through the wreckage / contents.

"Is this any good to you Mark?", "No, chuck that away"; “What about this bit?”, “No”; “What about this?”, “er, no John”; "What about this injured midfielder?" "That looks familiar, no, skip it"; "What about this ageing Stand?" "That’s just dangerous, you could have someone's eye out with that if the wind gets up"; "Ah ha. Look at this! What about this gangly striker I've found?" "I don’t think so Johnny boy. Look, to be honest Williams The Chair you've been had here isn’t it. This burnley football club thing you've bought is absolute rubbish boyo. There isn't one thing in this little lot that is better than what we've already got, chuck it all away. Dump it all in the valleeey or drive it round to Stanleee, see if they can do anything with it, I doubt it though."

Wednesday 14 February – Bayer Leverkusen 3 Rovers 2.

The magic of Valentines Day and Rovers playing in Europe combined. I didn’t make this one, but the breadknife did.

No doubt it will have been a largely uneventful trip, a few lite ales, a couple of songs, some sauerkraut to remind you that not everything in Germany is brilliant, a bit of a fight on the ground, a bizarre carnival, you know, that sort of thing.

Anyway we lost 3-2. It could have been worse, it could have been better. It could have been a draw. Anything could have happened.

For those of you who went here’s what happened…

Callsen-Bracker opened the scoring with his head, making a sneaky move round the back of our defensive line. Dave Bentley equalised just before half time with a deflected free kick only for Kirsty Rumbelow to score again for The Mighty Bosch, despicably shooting in off Ryan Nelsen. Things got worse when Dee Schneider made it 3-1 in the second half and we looked to be in real

trouble.

Then…in an Alan Partridge voice….. “Who’s that coming over the hill?” No, it’s not a monster, it’s actually Shabani Chris Nonda, the Blackburn Rovers substitute. “What’s he doing?” He’s scored a goal, it’s 3-2. Hurrah!"

All to play for then? No rest for the wicked though, or Blackburn Rovers, it was back to dear old Blighty and......

Saturday 17 February – Arsenal 0 Rovers 0

The FA Cup 5th Round. “Our third away match and inevitably our last in this seasons competition” was what I had written prior to the game. Well who’d have thought it?

Mark Hughes foolishly set his team out to get a draw at the Emirates Stadium, older viewers will recall that Rovers took a bit of a hammering in December, losing 6 – 2. So in view of this and the number of players missing Hughes put out a defensive formation. This of course was akin to committing several war crimes in the space of 90 minutes.

First of all 19 year old cry baby Cesc Fabregas had a go at Mark Hughes for not getting Rovers to play like Barcelona, then Arsene Wenger calls for all replays to be banned, various newspapers claim that what we did was akin to ruining the game of football, and of course TalkShite (the home of journalists who have verbal diarrhoea and clearly know absolutely nothing about football – that’ll be you then Durham) lives up to it’s name.

Then there was our “pitiful” away following, despite the fact we had played in Germany three days earlier, that the game was on the television, that the ticket price was £32, that Blackburn is 200 miles away and that the game kicked off at 12.30 we were lambasted for not taking 15,000 fans.

I think that was everything.

No. Wenger, not content with wanting to change the rules of the oldest Cup competition in the World, went on to say “Blackburn, from a tourist's point of view, is not a great place to go and it's a game we didn't need.” How does he know? When was the last time Arsene Wenger spent a fortnight in Little Harwood? Now I don’t know for sure but I’m willing to bet he never has.

Arsene Wenger (not Matt Groening) – Two weeks in Fenny?

And so it went on. Bleating, whinging, moaning and that’s just my thoughts. I wonder what anyone would have said had this been AC Milan or Inter? “Italian Defensive Master Class” anyone? But no, this was Blackburn Rovers. Evil.

So we became the first English team to stop Arsenal scoring at their new stadium. How dare we? It was worth it though, wasn’t it?

Monday 19 February – Should we overcome The Mighty Arse we’ll play Manchester City at Ewood in the Quarter Finals.

Tuesday 20 February – In the wake of “The Emirates Stadium Disaster”, The House of Lords vote that Parliaments idea of bombing the town of Blackburn is probably taking things a little too far.

Thursday 22 February - Rovers 0 Bayer Leverkusen 0

Well that’s that then. Out of Europe. This was our eighth game and for the first time we got the full Euro experience, time wasting, feigning injury (yeah, I know one of them was carried away on stretcher, these were Germans though don’t forget, they don’t do things by half) and the totally incompetent, if not downright biased, Spanish officials.

Ewood was rocking, 25,000 turned up for a game that kicked off at 6.05.

We just couldn’t score. Benni McCarthy and Doctor Shabba Chris Hey Nonny Nonda Congo in-particular were guilty of some terrible misses and couldn’t breach Butt.

It was great fun while it lasted and although I just made the one journey into that there Europe (doh!) it will live long in the memory. Plenty others made more and I’m sure I speak for the majority – can we have some more please? – (the Intertoto will do just fine for starters).

Saturday 24 February – Yet more bad news. Manchester United’s win at Fulham means we can no longer win the league. We need snookers and you just don’t get them in football.

Sunday 25 February – Rovers 3 Portsmouth 0

Back to the bread and butter of the Premier League and what a stroll in the Park this was? Doctor Shabba Chris Hey Nonny Nonda Congo wasted no time in this game and scored after only a few seconds, chipping the ball over the hapless David James.

He added a second later in the half after further good work from Sir Matthew Derbyshire of Ewood and David James again. Stephen Warlock scored his first for the club five minutes into the second half when the good Doctor set him up rather than trying to secure his hat trick. Magic stuff.

This really was all plain sailing. We should have had more, missing a penalty in the process. A great performance.

Tuesday 27 February – Good news. David “Dave” Bentley signs an extension to his contract until 2011. That should put an end to any speculation linking him with a move to Manchester United or Spurs in the summer. Oh yes.

Wednesday 28 February – Rovers 1 Arsenal 0

What a goal. What a time to score. Arsenal have become the come back kings this season. I think I read they’ve come from behind to win on 14 occasions. Not this time though. We timed it perfectly.

Now then. Chris Samba. Just what have we bought here? He was awesome.

We survived their falling over antics and a “blatant penalty” when Bert Mk II caught Freddie Ljungberg on the edge of the box. Yes, he wasn’t even in the area but that was good enough for Wenger.

So Benni came off the bench and smashed the winner in on 87 minutes. We were through and deservedly so. We prevented Arsenal from scoring over 180 minutes. The pitch was to blame, and the FA and the linesman from the previous Sunday was a lier, and the suspensions, and the injuries...... Etc Etc Etc.

Whatever happened to “Well done Blackburn, they rode their luck a little but got their goal while we failed to score. I wish them all the best for the rest of the competition”? Dream on, that would require class.

And so another month draws to a close. Another eventful month but a short month, possibly the shortest we’ll have all year, and yet we played seven games. That’s one game every four days on average. Played 7 Won 3 Lost 2 Drawn 2.

Bought your season ticket yet?

[Jim J]

Quality as usual Bob, didn't realise we needed snookers to win the league, thats put a bit of a downer on a great day, but heyho.

[Wild Irish Rover]

If I'd been eating cornflakes when I was reading this I would, no doubt, have choked on my breakfast. As it was I was eating porridge, so thanks very much Bob for another installment of cholesterol reducing food product added to my dining room wallpaper.

An excellent review, capturing the highs, the sighs, the lows and the oh no's of the past month. More next month please

[Eddie]

Always a good read. Thanks bob.

[Ronin]

Quality read as ever. Brings ye olde smile to my face for that Friday feeling

[daveoftherovers]

Simply Brilliant, a lot of poeple our now wondering why I've sprayed my coffee over my desk several times this morning.

p.s. The Citeh fans here also thought it was excellent.

[Jan]

I've shared this with the Celtic fan who sits next to me. He appreciated the Hedgehog bit! He didn't appreciate the Gamst bit because although it was funny, he lost a fortune on that game on some bet or other where the other 5 results came in.

I laughed a lot.

[trueblue]

Magic Bob, pure magic

[USRoverME]

Fantasic stuff!

[1864roverite]

Champion pal, long live the Bob

[yorkblues]

very good read bob

[colin]

Keep them coming Bob.

[Perth_Rover]

Great work bob

[Presty On Tour]

awesome stuff again boyo

[Finch]

Quality stuff as usual Bob. You should write a book about Rovers or something.

One question though, why is Bert now called Bert mk II?

[James No. 7]

Quality stuff as usual Bob. You should write a book about Rovers or something.

And you wanted to give the reviews away, Bob! You're stuck with them for eternity now.

[James No. 7]

The poor zebras have been attacked on many fronts lately.

[herbergeehh]

Reports later in the week revealed his secret, they suggested that Morten Gamst Pedersen uses something called “neuro-linguistic programming” in perfecting his free kick technique. Basically this involves UEFA qualified coaches Eddie Niedzwiecki and Mark Bowen standing over him shouting repeatedly, through megaphones, “Kick the ******** ball into the back of the net boyo.” This goes on for about an hour after every training session and yet again shows how advanced our training methods have become these days.

You'll struggle to find a better jinx than that.. Quality as always, Mr.Fleming.

[cletus]

Doctor Shabba Chris Hey Nonny Nonda Congo

Yet again, an excellent monthly review Bob!

...& nice to meet you & the missus in the Fernurst after the Leverkusen game

[dj54nna]

David "Crazy Dave" Bentley.

[CAPT KAYOS]

Can't wait for the march 17th review Bob

What was it somebody said about the ides of March??