The games that really choked you

[Leonard Venkhater]

On 19/03/2023 at 22:10, Tyrone Shoelaces said:

Quite right too. Even school boys don’t make mistakes like that. It cost us a win a well deserved win.

I am sure the great John Barnes had a similar moment, which lost the title to Arsenal at Anfield.

With only seconds to go, Barnes had the ball on the right, approaching the Arsenal end.

If only he had held onto the ball or passed to team mate, Liverpool would have lost the game 1-0, but won the title.

Instead, he crossed the ball -to nobody- in the Arsenal area. The keeper blasted the ball high into the Liverpool half and the rest is scouse heartbreak.

So Derbyshire and Gallagher are in exalted company!

[Groundhog]

On 19/03/2023 at 23:06, Tyrone Shoelaces said:

It doesn’t show the Derbyshire dropped bollock on that.

I was at this game but this incident totally escapes me, what happened again?

Thinking about players that single handedly affected games: that **** David Goodwillie coming on in injury time against Brighton at home in 2013, and immediately giving a stupid penalty away so we drew 1-1, that one hurt. Not an important game but it just summed up the shitshow at the time.

[oldjamfan1]

14 minutes ago, Groundhog said:

I was at this game but this incident totally escapes me, what happened again?

 

Derbyshire basically gave the ball away to a City player when he could and should have either put it in Row Z or at the very least knocked it into the City defensive corner.

I should add that Travis committed a monumental blunder on Sunday that he got away with - quite what he was thinking of with that back pass God only knows?!

Edited March 22, 2023 by oldjamfan1

[Tyrone Shoelaces]

16 minutes ago, Groundhog said:

I was at this game but this incident totally escapes me, what happened again?

Thinking about players that single handedly affected games: that **** David Goodwillie coming on in injury time against Brighton at home in 2013, and immediately giving a stupid penalty away so we drew 1-1, that one hurt. Not an important game but it just summed up the shitshow at the time.

We’d manage to regain possession with seconds to go and Derbyshire broke away with the ball at his feet in the old inside right channel in our half. City had players back so there was no chance of him scoring. All he had to do was run the ball as far into the corner as he could and try and retain possession. Instead he carelessly passed the ball back to nobody in centre midfield where it was immediately won by a City player. They put the ball in our box and scored the equaliser. 
 

I was fuming. Two points we were desperate for at the time thrown away. I don’t think Derbyshire played for the first team again.

Edited March 22, 2023 by Tyrone Shoelaces

[Admiral Nelsen]

9 minutes ago, Groundhog said:

I was at this game but this incident totally escapes me, what happened again?

Thinking about players that single handedly affected games: that **** David Goodwillie coming on in injury time against Brighton at home in 2013, and immediately giving a stupid penalty away so we drew 1-1, that one hurt. Not an important game but it just summed up the shitshow at the time.

 

Rather summed up his time with us. I've no time for Goodwillie for obvious reasons - but the abuse he got online after giving away the pen was a real eye opener for me. Pages and pages of really nasty stuff direct to him straight after the final whistle. Why any footballer would have public social media is completely beyond me if that happens to a second division player. 

[Tyrone Shoelaces]

12 minutes ago, oldjamfan1 said:

Derbyshire basically gave the ball away to a City player when he could and should have either put it in Row Z or at the very least knocked it into the City defensive corner.

I should add that Travis committed a monumental blunder on Sunday that he got away with - quite what he was thinking of with that back pass God only knows?!

I remember a similar incident to the Travis one when we were playing United at Ewood in the first game after the big freeze in 1963. 
 

United’s goalie had the ball in hand after a Rovers attack broke down. Fred Pickering’s boot lace had come undone so he bent down around the penalty spot to tie it up. The United keeper threw the ball out to Ute’s Albert Quixall about 35 yards from goal. One of the Rovers players pressed Quixall rapidly so he turned around and passed the ball back to the keeper. Just then Fred stood up ! The ball went straight to him. He trapped it with one foot and side footed the ball past the keeper with the other ! 
I was right behind the goals at the Blackburn End and I had a Birds Eye view of the incident.

Fred had got married that morning and both teams formed a guard of honour for him when the teams came out. Then Quixall gave him that wedding present. It ended 2-2 unfortunately.

Edited March 22, 2023 by Tyrone Shoelaces

[oldjamfan1]

11 minutes ago, Tyrone Shoelaces said:

I remember a similar incident to the Travis one when we were playing United at Ewood in the first game after the big freeze in 1963. 
 

United’s goalie had the ball in hand after a Rovers attack broke down. Fred Pickering’s boot lace had come undone so he bent down around the penalty spot to tie it up. The United keeper threw the ball out to Ute’s Albert Quixall about 35 yards from goal. One of the Rovers players pressed Quixall rapidly so he turned around and passed the ball back to the keeper. Just then Fred stood up ! The ball went straight to him. He trapped it with one foot and side footed the ball past the keeper with the other ! 
I was right behind the goals at the Blackburn End and I had a Birds Eye view of the incident.

Fred had got married that morning and both teams formed a guard of honour for him when the teams came out. Then Quixall gave him that wedding present. It ended 2-2 unfortunately.

As Bill Shankly famously said "Who gets married in the bloody football season?" 🙂

[Ricky]

Chelsea in the FA Cup semi for me. 

[Commondore]

The relegation season under Kean when we lost after going ahead against both Liverpool and bloody Sunderland. Remember feeling a rising realization that things were going very, very wrong after those two games. 

[roverandout]

Regarding the celtic game. Flitcroft opening his mouth with the boys against men baloney only inspired celtic in the second leg

[Upside Down]

On 22/03/2023 at 01:55, dingles staying down 4ever said:

Speaking of Tevez, Im surprised no one has mentioned the West Ham game where the Premiership did everything possible to stop them going down.

That more than choked me. That game was fixed. Then they were allowedtostay in the league. Unbelievable, the beginning of the end for footballwas that.

The Celtic games were probably the worst. We were far better than them but just wouldn't have a shot for some reason. 

[Admiral Nelsen]

11 hours ago, roverandout said:

Regarding the celtic game. Flitcroft opening his mouth with the boys against men baloney only inspired celtic in the second leg

 

Stupid thing to say in retrospect - the amount that it still comes up from Celtic fans and former players shows that it really hit a nerve. 

 

To be fair to him though, it was a pretty accurate description. They made it much tougher at Ewood, but we should have absolutely smashed them at Parkhead. 

[Bbrovers2288]

21 hours ago, Admiral Nelsen said:

 

Stupid thing to say in retrospect - the amount that it still comes up from Celtic fans and former players shows that it really hit a nerve. 

 

To be fair to him though, it was a pretty accurate description. They made it much tougher at Ewood, but we should have absolutely smashed them at Parkhead. 

I imagine it would have came from the mouth of the manager at the time and repeated to the press in fairness 

[SuperBrfc]

Chelsea in the FA Cup semi is the biggest one for me. We had them on the ropes for a while. Then that Morten header happens. None of us are likely to forget it. Imagine how Morten must feel whenever he thinks about that game.

Another one I was gutted about, might be a bit left field. Birmingham away in April 2006. We entered April with a genuine shout of nabbing 4th place and with it Champions League football. We were only 2 points off 4th at the start of the month. However, draws against Wigan and Portsmouth set us back a bit before we got to that Brum game. Big club away was our game in hand on 4th placed Tottenham. Win and we would cut the gap on them to 4 points with three games remaining. Lose and our top 4 chance was as good as over. We lost 2-1 and I can remember feeling particularly gutted that night.

Might have been me being greedy, I suppose, but it points to the brilliant job Sparky did. To go from trying to avoid relegation a season earlier to achieving a top 6 finish the following season, with a player like Bellamy in the side and us landing a number of blows on the big heads. Superb. One of the best and exciting Rovers teams and seasons in my lifetime.

[R0verb0y]

On 19/03/2023 at 21:04, rigger said:

On the same day as we won at Bristol, Preston couldn't hold Swansea at Dumpdale. Swansea went up, we didn't.

With added misery as we passed their coaches on the south-bound carriageway as we were on our miserable way home.

Speaking from memory, wasn't that the last season when only two teams got promoted?

[oneandycrawford]

12 hours ago, R0verb0y said:

With added misery as we passed their coaches on the south-bound carriageway as we were on our miserable way home.

Speaking from memory, wasn't that the last season when only two teams got promoted?

No - 3 up by then. West Ham making 2023 Burnley look average in comparison! At 3 points for a win and 46 games would give WH 103 pts. Particularly when draws were more valuable back then in comparison - I suspect with 3 points for a win they might have looked to convert some of those away draws into wins.

Edited March 27, 2023 by oneandycrawford
Additional comment

[rigger]

8 minutes ago, oneandycrawford said:

No - 3 up by then. West Ham making 2023 Burnley look average in comparison! At 3 points for a win and 46 games would give WH 103 pts. Particularly when draws were more valuable back then in comparison - I suspect with 3 points for a win they might have looked to convert some of those away draws into wins.

It could have been worse, look at what happened to Notts County.

[MarkBRFC]

Definitely the FA Cup Semi in 2007 for me.

Seen most things you could hope to see as a fan live -

Play Off Final and winners

Premier League Title

League Cup win

2 Promotions

European football

An FA Cup final just finishes the list,.

 

[oneandycrawford]

2 minutes ago, rigger said:

It could have been worse, look at what happened to Notts County.

Lots of teams in there fallen on hard times - Wrexham (until recently), Grimsby, Oldham, etc. Not a great year for the city of Bristol either. By the end of the season must have been a interesting race to see who finished next to bottom - the most-depressing bragging rights ever!!

 

Never realised before but if Preston had drawn with Swansea they'd have stayed up at the expense of Cardiff and stopped Swansea going up - that'd made them popular in S Wales!

[oldjamfan1]

On 24/03/2023 at 07:50, Bbrovers2288 said:

I imagine it would have came from the mouth of the manager at the time and repeated to the press in fairness 

A surprisingly large number of Celtic fans still think it was a Souness quote. They are taken aback to learn it was actually our captain that said it.

[R0verb0y]

54 minutes ago, oneandycrawford said:

No - 3 up by then. West Ham making 2023 Burnley look average in comparison! At 3 points for a win and 46 games would give WH 103 pts. Particularly when draws were more valuable back then in comparison - I suspect with 3 points for a win they might have looked to convert some of those away draws into wins.

Thanks for this, @oneandycrawford. In what you've attached, there's almost a lesson for this season.

It's not quite like like back then - when we missed out on an automatic promotion place on goal difference - but G.D. will make a difference between where we fit in among the group of teams who miss out on automatic promotion and have to play off with neighbouring teams.

Memo to Gregg: Please find us an goalscoring forward to sign during the next transfer window!

[berkshireblue]

Not only did we pass Swansea coaches at one the services with a bridge linking north to south there was a big scrap over the motorway 

both my brothers were on a coach that stopped at the services and the majority went across to confront the jubilant Welsh 

I was too young to be allowed to go 

in hindsight best we never achieved back to back promotions was an ageing team and 1992 had a much better outcome 

 

[oldjamfan1]

12 hours ago, berkshireblue said:

in hindsight best we never achieved back to back promotions was an ageing team and 1992 had a much better outcome 

 

I can’t agree with the first sentence of this quote. Howard was a canny manager and I think he would have stayed for at least a season had we gone up. The gap between top flight and the old second division was not exactly a chasm in those days either. 
 

I agree with the ‘sliding doors’ aspect right enough.

Edited March 29, 2023 by oldjamfan1

[Upside Down]

Yes I can’t understand not wanting to go up to the top division. Isn't that the whole point of playing and watching the game?

[dingles staying down 4ever]

On 28/03/2023 at 16:47, berkshireblue said:

Not only did we pass Swansea coaches at one the services with a bridge linking north to south there was a big scrap over the motorway 

both my brothers were on a coach that stopped at the services and the majority went across to confront the jubilant Welsh 

 

 

There was also Widnes Rugby League fans also in black n white going the other way at Hilton Park which were mistaken for Swansea fans. Im presuming they were on the way down to Wembley for the Challenge Cup Final.

Edited March 30, 2023 by dingles staying down 4ever