No More Waiting - Here We Go.

[Alan75]

Editorial.

Although it is currently pouring down in Lancashire, it won’t dampen our spirits as we prepare for the first league game at Ewood this season. Full of enthusiasm and excitement after last weekends opening fixture win against Borough, our spirits are high for the visit of Arsenal.

However today is more about visiting Ewood, for the first time in the new campaign. To take in the atmosphere of newly laid turf, when the grass is greener than emerald, the stands themselves after summer make over are fresh and sparklingly clean. Amazing what a spot of paint does.

Today is the day that we meet up with lost friends that we haven’t seen since last May, people that we don’t actually know in the real world outside Ewood, but on match day they are comrades in arms, that you embrace in triumph and console in defeat. You wonder whether the same people that you’ve sat next to for a generation will have renewed their seat and you look around for the new faces. You hope that the bulky chap sat next to you will still be there as he cuts out the chill factor on a cold January afternoon, but you hope that the want to be Mark Lawrenson along the row has moved on.

You look forward to seeing the players warm up for the first time, in the new season strip, (still not available to fans yet) and to make judgement on the new summer acquisitions.

There is always a buzz about the first home game, from the minute you get up, you prepare like some pubescent teenager, preparing for their first date. You find all your lucky charms, the lucky shirt, pants and socks. You lay them on the bed and remember that was the shirt you wore when Pedersen missed at Old Trafford and change it for the retro top, hoping that the new strip will be available soon and that it will be a lucky one.

The only thing on your mind when you set off will be how soon you will see the first car with a scarf draped across the back window, or fans walking to the ground in the team colours. Thinking back to a rituals of “if I see a Rovers replica car kit before junction 29 we will win today”

There will be a ritual pint in the pub and then on to the ground, passing programme sellers and street hawkers selling scarfs, badges and fans magazines, until the Blackburn End Stand looms up in front of you. The crowd milling around the club shop and ticket office and then the entrance turnstile, where you flash the season ticket before entering into the concourse. Where the smell of hot dogs and burgers meet you and the sound of Wendy Howard announcing the team.(which you know already, due to Grooby's txt service)

Then its up the steps and your first view of the pitch until you turn to find your seat. There’s no need for steward direction or an A to Z, you know where it is like the back of your hand. You shake hands with your best mates for the next 9 months, (except Bob Fleming whose usually late and whose arms aren’t long enough) and prepare for another seasonal roller coaster ride of highs and lows.

Have a good one, enjoy the season and lets make Ewood Rock.