A personal crossroads (leading to Rovers items for sale)

[SamTheShrew]

Hi all,

With a heavy heart I have decided to sell most of my Rovers items I have accumulated across the years.  I have put a thread in the for sale and wanted forum, but wanted to draw attention to it here as I know it is not that used anymore, and wanted to offer you fine supporters the chance to take a look before it goes on any auction site. the listing

I started following the Rovers as a football mad ten year old back in 1994.  Hailing from Stafford, Wolves were originally my team, but they didn't quite do it for me, and having flirted with being a Norwich fan (due to their UEFA cup run in 93), I found the Rovers.  You might think, how can you just choose a team like that?  I'm sure it helped that we were well on the way to success in the Premier League, but it was Tim Flowers and a certain 90s goalkeeper shirt that made me fall in love with all things Rovers.  The 90s were all about the shirts for me - I lived in them.  What fantastically garish designs, particularly the goalkeeper shirts.  I loved that shirt, and was gutted when I couldn't get it.  Thanks to the internet, I now have it as one of my prized possessions all these years later (and is certainly not for sale!) 
https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.lancs.live%2Fsport%2Ffootball%2Ffootball-news%2Ftim-flowers-blackburn-premier-league-18140251&psig=AOvVaw3AerLGukHJUmoNQSBguXCg&ust=1704115306165000&source=images&cd=vfe&opi=89978449&ved=0CBIQjRxqFwoTCPDF_a_iuYMDFQAAAAAdAAAAABAD

My dad, an old Gunner hailing from Woolwich, supported me in this developing passion for Rovers, and took me to my first game against Arsenal at Ewood in 1996/97.  Sadly Ian Wright was too hot that day, but my love affair was well and truly in place by now, and we journeyed up the M6 many more times over the years, spending great time together at a great club.  Dad also grew to become a fan, loving how much of a family club Rovers was.  He always commented on how friendly everyone was who worked there or who answered the phones.  

As I was going through my collection, I had great nostalgia for all of the players and teams I have seen over the years.  What players who have graced this famous shirt, and some great teams. Whilst I just missed out on the Title winning team, the 2000/01 team and the 06/07 and 07/08 Hughes teams made me proud to be a Rover.  Although I was an outsider, not from Blackburn, I felt like one of you everytime I set foot in Ewood, and it was an absolute pleasure for both of us every time we came to Ewood - thank you.

And then 2010 happened.  

Venky's and Kean literally ruined my passion for football.  If we lost, it used to ruin my weekends.  I hurt with you all, feeling helpless from afar.  And then I became apathetic, and I've never got it back.  They killed the club I fell in love with, the one my dad also adopted as his own, and I've just learned to not care, to do something else at weekends.  I've also grown up and have 3 children of my own now, so finding something else to do at weekends is easy.  I see the results, smile if we win, and shrug if we lose, before moving on.

It's been great to see the club get back to some sort of standing since those dark days, but it still hurts to know that the club I chose no longer really exists in my eyes.  It's a shell of its former self.  I always wondered how my dad could choose to support another team (I felt that I could never do that), but then I realised that he did it for me and for the time together, knowing that he couldn't get to Arsenal that easily, living where we did anyway.  Sadly, I can't make it to Ewood easily now anyway, and that time together is not there anymore, having lost dad to Motor Neurone Disease in 2019.

I now consider myself a bit of a football Nomad.  I rarely watch it, and the 2 minute Rovers highlights don't really give me enough to create any passion.  I have a bit of a void in me there.  I will always support Rovers, they will always be my team, but I shall be letting my children pick their own team, and I hope that, like my dad, I can find some passion in football again through their chosen path, whatever that may be.

So that is why my collection is for sale.  I hope to raise some funds for a family holiday as well as continue to support the MNDa charity, and hopefully, give something back to Rovers supporters as well.  I truly hope that Rovers, this once great club that I adopted as my own, can move on in the future, and become what it was before.  Keep flying the blue flag - you deserve it for still being here.  Thank you for making me and dad feel so welcome over the years.  Great memories that I cherish. 

Happy New Year to you all.

COYB   

[Mattyblue]

Feel few to do what you want, but you are just going to give up on one of the greatest thrills in life, getting your own children following in your footsteps?  

You’ll just let them be another one of millions with a City shirt on? Something they have zero connection to? Instead of being part of something shared with you? These owners will leave, we will rebuild this club, why not be part of it with your own family?

[levi]

5 hours ago, Mattyblue said:

Feel few to do what you want, but you are just going to give up on one of the greatest thrills in life, getting your own children following in your footsteps?  

You’ll just let them be another one of millions with a City shirt on? Something they have zero connection to? Instead of being part of something shared with you? These owners will leave, we will rebuild this club, why not be part of it with your own family?

I'd agree 100% with this post

I don't live local anymore but i've passed supporting rovers on to my nearly 13 year old son....all his mates 'support' the big clubs and i half expected him to start doing too when he got to the age where he chose what tops he was putting on

He's properly caught the bug now and we get to a handfull of home games a year plus probably the same number away games that we can fit around his football on a saturday/sunday mornings....when we don't go we watch the games together on iptv

Try to get your kids involved you won't regret it

[wilsdenrover]

3 minutes ago, levi said:

I'd agree 100% with this post

I don't live local anymore but i've passed supporting rovers on to my nearly 13 year old son....all his mates 'support' the big clubs and i half expected him to start doing too when he got to the age where he chose what tops he was putting on

He's properly caught the bug now and we get to a handfull of home games a year plus probably the same number away games that we can fit around his football on a saturday/sunday mornings....when we don't go we watch the games together on iptv

Try to get your kids involved you won't regret it

They might though 😁

[oldjamfan1]

This thread/post makes me sad. Sorry for your loss @SamTheShrew that must have been difficult.
 

Aside from that we couldn’t be further apart in terms of how we view The Rovers.

If anything, this sums up and confirms for me that the introduction of the premier league and the Sky TV saturation of live games for the last 30 years has created a generation of fair weather supporters.

I hope you get a good price for your stuff 🍻

[Mattyblue]

Amazes me how common this is and increasingly so from what I can see.

Lad I’m friends with on Facebook who is from a *staunch* Rovers family, he himself sat a few rows in front of me until fairly recently, posted a pictures of his kids the other day in Liverpool shirts, someone commented aghast and he’s all ‘I know mate, it’s because they love Salah’, they are about 5 and 7 by the looks of it.  Just tell them straight ‘we are Rovers fans in this family’, end of discussion - weak. 

[DeeCee]

My grandson supports manure so mother (always been Rovers) goes with him and granddaughter to open days, etc etc.

Glad son in law still is staunch Rovers 😳

[Exiled_Rover]

4 hours ago, Mattyblue said:

Amazes me how common this is and increasingly so from what I can see.

Lad I’m friends with on Facebook who is from a *staunch* Rovers family, he himself sat a few rows in front of me until fairly recently, posted a pictures of his kids the other day in Liverpool shirts, someone commented aghast and he’s all ‘I know mate, it’s because they love Salah’, they are about 5 and 7 by the looks of it.  Just tell them straight ‘we are Rovers fans in this family’, end of discussion - weak. 

My nephew in Coventry is being poisoned by a Liverpool fan (friend of the family) who went as far as to buy him a Liverpool shirt for his birthday. His dad is a lapsed PNE fan and obviously my sister is a Rovers fan. I don't understand how it happens - I'd bin the shirt if I was his dad. 

[SIMON GARNERS 194]

5 hours ago, oldjamfan1 said:

@SamTheShrew

If anything, this sums up and confirms for me that the introduction of the premier league and the Sky TV saturation of live games for the last 30 years has created a generation of fair weather fans.

Hear! Hear!...i sadly had my post removed for roughly making the same point.