Blackburn Rovers 1995/1996 season

[Nuttall is lost]

Hi,  New to the forum.  Bit of a blow in I so expect some flak and maybe deservedly so!😃 I was an Irish child supporter of Rovers from the early 90s.  Went to a game in 1993 before the new stadium was built and was at the famous Blackburn v Newcastle game in 1995.   Fell out of love with football in the early 2000s.  My father passed away recently and have been nostalgic for the old times we shared together.  I started supporting Rovers as a 10 year old in 1992 seeing Alan Shearer bang in the goals.  The kit was very distinctive as well. The blue and white halves!   Upon my request my father wrote to the club in spring of 1993 and said we would be coming over for a game.  I am 90% sure it was Julie in the office who wrote back saying call in when we arrive.  So months later that's what we did.   We got a great tour of the old Nuttall Street Stand and the oak panelled boardroom.  Then we were told to come back the next day.   We were brought up the stairs to the bar where the players were having their pre match meal!  Got to meet all the players including Shearer . Kenny was not there but still!  Kevin Moran the captain sat with us and we talked about Ireland.  It was brilliant!  It was such a homely club and didnt expect to meet any players!  I thought they would be totally separate from fans.

I was last at a game in 2003 in the league cup.  Great to see the Rovers doing well this season.  I recently read John Dueren's excellent book called 'Rovers Revolution'.   I just wish he had gone and explored in more detail the 1995/1996 season.

I still can't get my head around the decline of Blackburn.  I simply cannot understand why Dalglish stepped aside weeks after the Title win.  Blackburn in the Champions League, lots of money to buy big names, the reputation of the club at an all time high, new stadium etc..   To step aside was bizarre.  He could have built on his success and continued to challenge for honours.

Then Ray Harford took over and don;t want to speak ill of him but was an utter disaster.   I simply am bewildered how he let Slater, Batty and Atkins go and brought in the likes of Matty Holmes!  I mean Matty Holmes!  Bohinen was acceptable and did well initially but the club had the resources and wasted them.

In a way I am more fascinated by the 1995/96 that the previous season as it really was disastrously run and struggle to understand how this was allowed to happen.

What are Rovers fans thoughts now looking back?  I know the true fans will say this is where he club has always been and the 3 glory seasons were an outlier in their history but I still wonder what might have and should have been.    Apologies for the long winded post.

Edited February 4, 2022 by Nuttall is lost

[oldjamfan1]

27 minutes ago, Nuttall is lost said:

 

What are Rovers fans thoughts now looking back?  I know the true fans will say this is where he club has always been and the 3 glory seasons were an outlier in their history but I still wonder what might have and should have been.    Apologies for the long winded post.

I'm afraid this spoilt what was otherwise an interesting post. Rovers have had many more than just the 3 'glory seasons', even if you believe that football didn't exist until 1992, which it most certainly did.

For what it is worth, 1995/96 was Jack's biggest mistake. For all the reasons you have alluded to.

[MarkBRFC]

I personally think Kenny wanted to go out while on top, he actually wanted to leave during the title winning season to go back to Liverpool i believe?

Also Harford wasn't the right man to carry on the success, if Kenny was to step aside i don't think his right hand man was the one to take the club to another level.

Not strengthening the squad when in that position when we could probably have had our pick of players was also a huge part of the failing.

A quality player in each central position would have set us up to challenge and possibly win another title in the next season or two.  I remember at the time thinking Southgate and Ferdinand would have been great signings.

Whilst it was an amazing time and i'm so glad to have witnessed it, we could have so much more. There is no reason why we couldn't have dominated the mid to late 90's before all the oil money started coming into the game.

Edited February 4, 2022 by MarkBRFC

[Nuttall is lost]

12 minutes ago, oldjamfan1 said:

I'm afraid this spoilt what was otherwise an interesting post. Rovers have had many more than just the 3 'glory seasons', even if you believe that football didn't exist until 1992, which it most certainly did.

For what it is worth, 1995/96 was Jack's biggest mistake. For all the reasons you have alluded to.

I think you know what I meant though.  Yes the club had promotion pushes but they were a perennial 2nd division side with near misses for the majority of 'modern times'. The clubs successes of 100+ years ago were a bit before my time.

No I dont believe football started in 1992.  I used to watch the old first division on ITV and of course the 1990 World Cup which got me addicted to football. I watched Hillsborough unfold live on tv for example.  I fell out of love with football for a long time due to being a bit disillusioned with 'the modern game'.  Players were no longer regular blokes on good money but primadonnas on mega money and the game had become less physical and playacting etc

I limit myself now to going to my local team in the League of Ireland and the Ireland national team games home and away.  

P.S. for the older generations I met a lad called Gary Tallon back then.  His career went a bit south though.

[simongarnerisgod]

i think kenny wanted a real crack at the champions league and to put it bluntly,the way the team was set up to play in the premier league it was`nt the right way to play in europe,kenny wanted some continental class but jack would`nt give him the funds,he stepped aside and the rest is history,ray harford was a fantastic coach but a poor manager

[Nuttall is lost]

21 minutes ago, MarkBRFC said:

I personally think Kenny wanted to go out while on top, he actually wanted to leave during the title winning season to go back to Liverpool i believe?

Also Harford wasn't the right man to carry on the success, if Kenny was to step aside i don't think his right hand man was the one to take the club to another level.

Not strengthening the squad when in that position when we could probably have had our pick of players was also a huge part of the failing.

A quality player in each central position would have set us up to challenge and possibly win another title in the next season or two.  I remember at the time thinking Southgate and Ferdinand would have been great signings.

Whilst it was an amazing time and i'm so glad to have witnessed it, we could have so much more. There is no reason why we couldn't have dominated the mid to late 90's before all the oil money started coming into the game.

Yeah I heard that he wanted to go back to Liverpool but still it doesnt make sense.  Liverpool had had a good season and Roy Evans was going nowhere yet Kenny still stepped down.   Someone told me that he had had a falling out with Walker but it never seemed that way looking from the outside. 

I recently watched back some of the games on youtube of 1995/96 starting with the Charity Shield.  A few injuries but he played Chris Sutton in defence. Ok he had played there for Norwich for a time and there were inuries but you dont split up the most potent strike force in England surely?   He also seemed to play some players out of position from what I recall. 

I also looked back at the Champions League games.  The team selections and subs bench were awful.  Young kids.  I think Nicky Marker was playing in a lot of those games too.

[booth]

4 minutes ago, Nuttall is lost said:

Yeah I heard that he wanted to go back to Liverpool but still it doesnt make sense.  Liverpool had had a good season and Roy Evans was going nowhere yet Kenny still stepped down.   Someone told me that he had had a falling out with Walker but it never seemed that way looking from the outside. 

I recently watched back some of the games on youtube of 1995/96 starting with the Charity Shield.  A few injuries but he played Chris Sutton in defence. Ok he had played there for Norwich for a time and there were inuries but you dont split up the most potent strike force in England surely?   He also seemed to play some players out of position from what I recall. 

I also looked back at the Champions League games.  The team selections and subs bench were awful.  Young kids.  I think Nicky Marker was playing in a lot of those games too.

He didn't have a falling out with Walker, he just wanted to sign players and JW wanted to be loyal to the players that won the league. Dalglish was still in the changing room at matches and around the club. If he'd fallen out with Walker he'd have left straight away. Kenny was a difficult person to follow, quite charismatic and obviously a very famous name in the game that had just won the league. Harford had no chance but JW convinced him to give it a go. JW was too loyal and making decisions from his heart, probably due to being overwhelmed by being the owner of the champions of England.

[magicalmortensleftpeg]

Looking back, I’m more grateful for what we had than bitter about what we lost. How much money have clubs such as Spurs spent trying to win the title? Liverpool only won it for the first time a couple of seasons ago. 

The reality is that we should have had more ambition going into 95/96 but the economics of football were changing rapidly. Within a few seasons, the cost of buying a top PL player rose significantly. Jack’s money wouldn’t have kept us fighting at the top for long, even if we had done better in 96.

It says it all that Jack’s legacy still saw us become an established top half PL side throughout most of the 2000’s despite relegation in 99.

[Mattyblue]

Like Mark said it wouldn’t have lasted once the oil money came in, but there was nothing stopping the club challenging for trophies from 95/96 until the early 2000s. 

From Jack down the club made a lot of strategic mistakes post Anfield.
 

[Nuttall is lost]

A strange stat is Sutton failed to score 1 league goal that season.  Ok he was injured for a while but that shows the confidence he must have lost with Harford selecting Newell in his place from almost Day 1.

 

 

[G Somerset Rover]

38 minutes ago, Nuttall is lost said:

A strange stat is Sutton failed to score 1 league goal that season.  Ok he was injured for a while but that shows the confidence he must have lost with Harford selecting Newell in his place from almost Day 1.

 

 

He was also having stints at centre half in 95-96. I remember him launching one up field for Shearer’s hat trick away to Spurs that season. 

[Nuttall is lost]

7 minutes ago, Gavlar Somerset Rover! said:

He was also having stints at centre half in 95-96. I remember him launching one up field for Shearer’s hat trick away to Spurs that season. 

Yes LOL.  I think he was in defence for Newell's 9 min hatrick against Rosenborg aswell.

That was crazy.  He must have been thinking what is going on here.  I was signed as Britains most expensive stiker and now Harford has me at centre half if I play at all,

[ben_the_beast]

7 hours ago, magicalmortensleftpeg said:

 

It says it all that Jack’s legacy still saw us become an established top half PL side throughout most of the 2000’s despite relegation in 99.

And it continues still. The academy continues to be the life blood of Rovers. 

I live on the South Coast near Portsmouth. Albeit a decade later they saw an FA cup won through some significant spending. They saw no investment in the club infrastructure and now, even though they've wealthy American owners, simply cannot seem to get out of League 1. That's the difference and that is what Jack did for us. He gave us our training facilities, our academy, our identity. And we live through it to this day.

[47er]

7 hours ago, Gavlar Somerset Rover! said:

He was also having stints at centre half in 95-96. I remember him launching one up field for Shearer’s hat trick away to Spurs that season. 

He regularly played centre-back for Norwich before we signed him.

Was centre-back at Ewood in that famous 7-1 thrashing!

And again when he went to Chelsea and couldn't score.

[Nuttall is lost]

Its funny but I cant recall Mike Newell getting any game time even as a sub during the 94/95 season yet he and Sutton seemed to have role reversals in 95/96 with Sutton hardly playing and Newell being everpresent.  The 95/96 season the squad was actually weaker than the 94/95 campaign.  Gale, Slater and Atkins while no world beaters were better than what replaced them.  Whose idea was it to sign Matty Holmes???  I think he played around 10 games and was never played after that. 

 

[Tyrone Shoelaces]

There’s an interesting article on Damian Duff and his new career managing Shelbourne in today’s “ Guardian “.

[MarkBRFC]

On 05/02/2022 at 00:48, Nuttall is lost said:

Its funny but I cant recall Mike Newell getting any game time even as a sub during the 94/95 season yet he and Sutton seemed to have role reversals in 95/96 with Sutton hardly playing and Newell being everpresent.  The 95/96 season the squad was actually weaker than the 94/95 campaign.  Gale, Slater and Atkins while no world beaters were better than what replaced them.  Whose idea was it to sign Matty Holmes???  I think he played around 10 games and was never played after that. 

 

Two starts all season.

Plenty of sub appearances though.

0 goals.