introduction

[Puffsan]

Hello, im a 25 years old economy student from Oslo Norway.

Almost every football fan in norway who follows a english football club (in whatever league) have a story on how they startet to support that team. either their father supported the same team, it was the first team they saw on tv, they fell in love with a player etc.

This is how i became a rovers fan:

When i was 7 years old my oldest brother bought the computer game Championship manager 93. He invited our uncle over (who is a nottingham forest fan since the 70s) to play this game with my and my second older brother. My oldest brother wanted to be manchester united, my second brother wanted to play nottingham forest with my uncle and i didnt know who to play. since i was only 7 years old i didn't know any english football clubs. My oldest brother said to my uncle "well he can play blackburn, their pretty good. They finished second."

So i played Blackburn Rovers, and an everlasting relationship was created.

It did not go very well with my first shot at being a football manager (but i still had significant better results and win% than steve kean) and i think i finished around 14-15th place.

My first favorite player was actually Paul Warhurst (since he was the guy who scored all the goals on that cm93 save). Later Alan Shearer became my biggest hero along with Colin Hendry.

I became a member of a norwegian rovers supporter club and got a monthly magazine with interviews, match reports etc.

Biggest moments as rovers supporter: Since i was so young i didn't follow rovers that much during their premier league winning season, so unfortunatly i don't have any memory of us winning the title.

One of the best memories i have as a rovers fan was the season we beat nottingham forest 7-0 at ewood. My second oldest brother had become a die hard forest fan, and i remember him telling me that they had not lost in 35 matcher (or something like that) and that they were gonna crush us. They joy was huge when we crushed them 7-0, i kept mocking my brother for weeks. I got beat up alot but it was so worth it. Then my brother said "when you come to city ground we're gonna crush you" We won 5-1 against them on city ground the same season and the humilation was complete.

worst momenst as a rovers supporter:

I rembember that saturday morning like it was yesterday. the phone rang in my house and my brother picked up the phone. It was my uncle and he wanted to talk to me. he said to me with a sad voice "alan shearer has been sold." Instantly the phone dropped from the grasp of my hand and i ran to my room and cried for hours.

Another "bad" memory was the legendary goal by stan collymore on tim flowers, when i bounced off that little mark he had made. This was very tough for me to swallow as many of my closest friends were liverpool fans, and of course the relegation year was sad times.

my interest dropped when i was about 13-14 years old. I stopped playing football, started with american footbal instead and had other interests for many years, but deep inside i was still a rovers fan, buying shirts now and then. I got my interest back when the norwegian broadcaster TV2 bought the rights for premier league. Now i can watch every game live on my tv, via their internetstreaming or on my iphone if im not home.

I have only watched rovers live once, when i was a kid rovers played a show match vs a local team during the norwegian kids tournament Norway Cup. When i'm done with my degree and get a job with a regular income im looking forward to taking my first trip to ewood park and watch them. It will probably be next season, and hopefully we are still in the premier league, steve kean is long gone, and venkys have got their minds straight or have sold the club.

cheers