[Archived] Favourite Blackburn Manager?

[hawaii501]

Thats nonsense about him being the greatest manager of all time. Lets not forget that we have won two trophies in the past 15 years, and you seem to consider Hughes ahead of them. No way. Souness' reign was more a success in my opinion. Souness kept on knocking close to 4th place, I thought, at least relatively. Sparky stabilized a sinking ship and made us a good top half side.

Sorry but I strongly disagree with you. Souness had alot of money to spend and spent it stupidly. Can you honestly say huges made bad buys? No

He unearthed some good talent on the cheap and did some good wheeling and dealing.

[walk down bolton road]

Gorden Lee 1975 under him we won the 3rd Division Championship,the 1st thing i ever saw Rovers win.The worst one was without doubt Jim Iley he made Stanley Ternant look a football genius.

[allrovertheworld]

Souness for me, I almost managed a whole season of home and away games in them days and there was a real feel good factor. Someone said Souness always seemed to like the club, I think this is very true and he always engaged with the fans well. Yeah he bought some garbage (De Pedro) but lets remeber he gave us brad, tugay,neil pedersen and cole real quality players.

He always made me laugh coz he used to go mental aswell and I enjoyed the passion he had for Rovers as a club.

[roversinmyblood]

Its got to be Ken Furphy from the 70's - he got us going again when we were in freefall in division 3 and in danger of dropping into the 4 division and almost got us promoted from an impossible position.

Besides he is now my father -in-law!

[sambo]

Souness..

5-0 and 2-0:D

Tugay, Brad etc

Liked his passion!

Although since im 16 I've not experienced many, I cant remember King Kenny at all, as I was 3:P

Hughes was great too, but Souness was full of memories

[dingles staying down 4ever]

Sorry but I strongly disagree with you. Souness had alot of money to spend and spent it stupidly. Can you honestly say huges made bad buys? No

He unearthed some good talent on the cheap and did some good wheeling and dealing.

Souness bought wisely on a shoestring. When he had money he mainly blew it. He gave youth a chance and also played flair players to excite the crowd.

Hughes bought players wisely and cheaply but fitted his gameplan. Any players he did not know he got in trial or loan to see if they fitted his system. There very seldom was a plan B to his regimented style of play.

Hodgson was very much the same, he too wasted big money. The common factor in all three managers plus Kidd was Willaims as top man.

How can noone mention Howard Kendall ? We played some seriously good football under his leadership.

1-0, 1-0, 1-0

At times like watching Aresenal under Graham

To me the best managers has to be the liverpool duo - Souness and Kenny

[bobsterbrfc]

For me its Souness, enjoyed it after the League Cup win when he said to the interviewer on the pitch, 'This is good for us, we're a small club and they're a "big club"'. Souey gave us Cardiff and Celtic, Sparky gave us Chelsea Semi-final and Bayer Leverkusen at Ewood......three of our biggest days out of recent times ended in heartbreak! I'm going with Souness as he also let my all-time favourite player Damien Duff loose!

[trs]

Souey gave us Cardiff and Celtic,

Never to be forgotten.

Said it before and no doubt will again, but the sight of Souness unbuttoning his coat, chest out and facing the baying mob at Celtic was a sight to behold!

[RevidgeBlue]

It's a shame that this has turned out to be mainly a post Jack debate between Kenny/Souness/Hughes.

Kenny had a certain charisma about him that just set him apart and was by far the most successful but then again relatively speaking he had by far the most resources at his disposal.

In many respects, people like Ken Furphy, Gordon Lee and Howard Kendall achieved just as much.

We were spiralling out of control towards the bottom tier of the football League and near oblivion when Ken Furphy took over. Within days of taking over he'd traded probably fifteen or sixteen players on a shoestring and eventually moulded a team that played exciting football, we missed out on promotion by finishing third in the very season before three up three down was introduced and looked fair set for another crack at promotion from Division 3 the following season before he was poached by Sheffield United - at the time riding high in the top flight.

Gordon Lee inherited a bit of a shipwreck from Dick**** Dinnis and let us to the third Division Championship inside a season. Poached by top flight Newcastle.

Although the football was drab, Howard Kendall was arguably the best of them all. Won us promotion from division 3 first season, missed out on promotion to Div 1 on goal difference second season - all with no resources. Went on to prove himself by being enormously successful at Everton.

Didn't think Jim Smith was quite as good but he got us playing tremendously entertaining football.

My favourite? Kenny, but probably Kendall did the best given the situation the club was in when he took over and the complete lack of resources at his disposal.

[ABBEY]

Dalglish followed by Hughes.

Least favourite is becoming more of a toss-up than I ever thought possible.

king kenny

soey

no soey? mmmm silverware promotion europe v hughes trophyless

[Mr. E]

King Kenny is the only one who didn't leave us for dead as long as I have been following.

[AussieinUk]

Mr Dalglish for me, circumstance's did dictate this decision though.

[Billy Castell]

As a 90's Rovers fan (no georgraphical or family connection with the area) I have a limited scope, so I go for:

1. Dalglish (for obvious reasons)

2. Souness (got us back up, won a cup)

3. Hughes (kept us up, and got us respect)

[Parsonblue]

Personally, I have happy memories of a number of managers for different reasons.

Jack Marshall and Jim Smith both brought an attacking style of football that was pure entertainment. They may not have won honours but their teams provided style and attractive football.

Gordon Lee and Howard Kendall may not have had the most talented players at their disposal but they knew how to organise teams to win football matches and both took us out of the old Third Division.

Kenny Dalglish and Ray Harford where the perfect managerial combination. They worked as a partnership with Kenny able to attract the top players and inspire them while Ray was able to turn them into a championship winning team with his work on the training ground.

Roy Hodgson, during his first season, produced some of the most attractive football that I have ever seen played by a Blackburn side. I thought we were far too hasty in getting rid of him and would have preferred to keep Roy and offload one or two of the players who were causing problems in the dressing room. I still believe that Roy would have kept us up if we had kept faith with him.

Graeme Souness turned a club on the slide back into a winning outfit and made some wonderful signings - Brad, Tugay and Andy Cole - as well as one or two that were rather less than impressive. His final eighteen months at the club shouldn't be allowed to mask the excellent work that he did before.

Mark Hughes brought a professionalism to the club that enabled us to achieve far more than our resources really should have allowed. Two FA Cup semi-finals, a League Cup semi-final and two European campaigns, including our best ever European run, speak for themselves. One of the best managers this club has ever had.

I just hope that by the end of the season I can add Paul Ince to my list of memorable managers.

[CrazyIvan]

Personally, I would have to say Kenny as that was the club I first saw way back in 1992 on TV. (I lived in Brum and was too poor to travel to Rovers in those days). I started watching Rovers the season after relegation and got my season ticket the next season so Souey definitely goes down as my favourite as a season ticket holder.

[tcj_jones]

Souness was a real character and I really enjoyed his reign at the club. It was just a shame that things soured toward the end of his tenure. I hope he gets back into management soon.

I consider Hughes a superior manager, the same with Kenny, who will always be a legend, but the former just wasn't as charasmatic and the latter came and went before I really started supporting the club proper.

[gumboots]

Don't go back far enough to remember anyone before Hodgson. Personally I liked early Souness. The Worthington Cup was one of the things I loved - not just the winning and making spurs fans cry but the way he insisted Mark Hughes, who had played out of position because of injuries and suspensions and was at the time the Wales manager playing his last game at the Millenium go up for his medal first, despite being told that wasn't how it was done. I know things went wrong at towards the end and when he went we were relieved but at his best he was class. Didn't care what anyone thought of us, gave us some great phrases which still get quoted on here, went with Matty, Dunny and Duff and seemed to feel that with players like that we were almost invincible, and we were. Remember Brad being asked after the final what the manager had said to the team prematch and Brad's answer was "Win at all costs" Sums up Souness's mentality at that time. I was glad when Newcastle took him because it meant he went before things here went really sour and we had to sack him. We had fun during souness's reign and I'd like some of that back, please.

[Duff's Minder]

Probably Don Mackay for me. Got us into the play-offs and won a trophy before we had any money and always came across well in interviews. He was a little hard done by when he made way for Kenny but never forget it was Don that signed Speedie!

[92er]

Souness.....

Won more than Dalglish,Harford,Hodgson and the disaster Kidd put together.

So winning promotion and the League cup is better than winning promotion and the Premiership?

John Carey, the first version, by a country mile.

I've been thinking for some time what a good manager he was. I don't know if the success of the 59 youth team was down to him or his predecessor in terms of getting them lined up for the club etc, but he did a great job for us.

My favourite, and best line up is Kenny, and joint equal JC and MH.

[den]

What about the side that Jack Marshall put together, - Marshall's misfits? Brilliant team and management.

[Jolly Giraffe]

Probably Don Mackay for me. Got us into the play-offs and won a trophy before we had any money and always came across well in interviews. He was a little hard done by when he made way for Kenny but never forget it was Don that signed Speedie!

Didn't he also sign Steve Archibold and Ossie Ardiles?

Happy days......

[AggyBlue]

Jim Smith.

Great attacking football. Great to watch.

If you include the flying fullbacks, very often it was a team with five wingers.

[Manc Rover]

Souness for me. Restored our belief as it was the most important appointment the club could make. We were in serious danger of doing a Leeds/Derby/Forest but he came in, made some amazing signings, got the likes of Dunny, Jansen and Duff playing great football and got us straight up. We never looked back for a few years and although it went pear shaped towards the end of his tenure, the guy was a class act (er except for signing Grabbi of course).

I think we've been blessed with some great managers, god only hopes the latest one comes into that category!

[allanncd]

Howard Kendall took a relegated rabble from the depths of Div 3 (L1 as now) to promotion in the first season 1979/80 with an unbelievable run of results in second half of season plus nearly beating an excellent Villa team in FAC R5. Following season missed out on promotion to Div1 on goal difference. Perhaps not the most entertaining team despite including Duncan Mckenzie but certainly the most organised.

[dingles staying down 4ever]

Howard Kendall took a relegated rabble from the depths of Div 3 (L1 as now) to promotion in the first season 1979/80 with an unbelievable run of results in second half of season plus nearly beating an excellent Villa team in FAC R5. Following season missed out on promotion to Div1 on goal difference. Perhaps not the most entertaining team despite including Duncan Mckenzie but certainly the most organised.

He would have been for me except he got shut of McKenzie for Busby.