Excellent news re- henry the vacumn cleaner. He can play in away matches without the expence of providing him with a kit! His position will be sweeper!

So there it is. A defeat and no points from Southampton. I'm gutted because we deerved more from this game for our 2nd half performance. I lay the blame in two places:_ Firstly and most importantly, our manager, Graeme Souness. How can he expect to get any points if he only chooses our best players and best formation at half time? How does he expect them to only play for 45 minutes and get a result?? We had a 95% fit squad and he plays Emerton, Matteo and Flitcroft out of position!!! Two successive games he has made a double substitution at half time which indicates he has picked the wrong side in the first place; for the two games WE NEEDED TO WIN. Souness either buck up or pack up. Secondly, the referee, Andy D'Urso. Now I'm not one to slag off refs; honestly. I believe "the ref is always right" even when he's made a mistake. But if you're going to give a penalty in the last few minutes to any side when the scores are level it has to be a blatant, obvious foul. If that jump by Short was a pen, then both sides should have had 5 pens each throughout the game. A niggling little thought came to me that D'Urso had been bribed by someone, but I'd better not suggest that. Gutted

In my opinion there are only five of these to choose from. Harry Leyland was a character who was fair to poor one game and unbelievably brilliant the next. Terry Gennoe; a great servant but not worthy for best ever. That leaves Brad, Fred, Roger, Tim and Jim. I never saw Jim Arnold play.I was living abroad at the time. I believe he was good but that's it; can't comment. Brad and Tim are (were) good shot stoppers. The best two keepers I've ever seen for Rovers are Fred Else and Roger Jones. However Roger did it at level 3 whereas Fred did it at level 1 Therefore my vote goes to the mighty FRED ELSE who was brilliant even though he wasn't very tall. He was also a folk hero at PNE where he played before joining Rovers.

Pete, you've come up with a brilliant way of describing the four divisions of football in the English League........LEVELS! Let's all refer to them as "levels" from now on. Has anyone noticed in the new match programme that our brilliant league championship wins of 1912 and 1914 (Level 1)are classed on a par with runners up 2000-01 (Level 2)???!! Also in that match programme I've discovered that Darren Bent has scored for us against WBA. Has he ever PLAYED for us? Back on subject, we'll be lucky to scrape a draw with the Saints. 2-2

Glad to see someone has mentioned John Byrom. As well as being a cult hero for us he is definitely a cult hero for Bolton Wanderers. What about Malcolm Darling?

It will come as a mighty surprise to all of you that right at this moment I'm listening to Niccolo Paganini Concerto for violin and orchestra No 1 in D major. I just shove the CD into my i-mac's mouth and click track one. Up the Rovers

I've been off the board for nearly two weeks and was shocked to find I could not get straight back into it. Got there eventually.I love the messageboard and ICBINF board, too; especially the word association thread ( along with Al, American, Rachrover and many others). THIS SITE MUST NOT FOLD! It is one of the best footy supporters' sites in the country. And that spreads the good word about Blackburn Rovers in its entirity to all who visit the site ( e.g. Mickey's No1 fan from Sunderland and Jezzard of Fulham to name but two). There seems to be a lot of confusion as to how to get regular, even donations to sustain a good site. It's no good saying "Ive set up a standing order (for £??) so that's my bit done."!! Hows about doing something like the way badges were sold? (Paul??) Invite members to pledge to donate, and, as they do, list them. OK, we need £1600 per year to have a good site. Members pledge to donate a maximum of £30 pounds per year. Listed on a thread would be (initially) 4 members (£400) Then 8 members (£200) and so on until maybe a maximum of 120 pledged to pay £13.33 per year. I think we could get around 130 to do this. An annual payment would suffice instead of monthly payments of £1 or £2. I would willingly contribute to this if there were a planned organisation like with the badges. Doesn't matter about how many visit the site, posters or readers only. What counts is those of us who do not want the site to fold. Shamefully (he says) I haven't contributed anything to the site yet. But I am prepared to do so if it is organised correctly rather than willy-nilly donations. Oh I did buy four badges but I don't class that as contributing directly to the running of the site.

Houllier, Lucas Neill and now Gerrard - class lot those Liverpudlians. On a COMPLETELY tangential note - the media's espousal of the name Chelski is somewhat inaccurate imo. With the mighty weight of 1 years History A-Level study of Eastern European history and a sketchy knowledge of the odd Russian footballer's' names, I can happily announce that the addition of ski at the end of a name is actually Polish. And, although some parts of Poland have been owned by Russia for long periods of their history - Poland is Poland and Russia is Russia. Abramovich is Russian and not Polish and Olisadebe is Polish not Nigerian... ... ...ANYWAY - from now on we call them Chelseovich. How about Chelserov, or Chelserova ?. If a rich Russian bought us would we be called "Blackburn Rova" or "Roversova"?

I can't remember that having sex with a beautiful woman caused me to :- bite my nails to the quick; sit for 90 minutes all tensed up inside; wonder if a heart attack would ensue; grind my teeth in utter frustration and scuff my shoes on the ground in despair as I walked away despondently afterwards.

No. Italy would win every time

I thought Ken Brooks last posted in August 02. We had been in contact by e-mail through this site previous to that date. I e-mailed him about 6 months after Aug 02 but got no reply. I presumed he'd died because he was knocking on eighty. I don't like it when someone familiar suddenly stops posting.

Spot on, Paul. There is a massive gulf between the way England play and the way France play. The best team were losing 1-0 for 45 minutes tonight. I had hoped for a 1-1 draw at 87 minutes (before Heskey commited the foul which led to Zidane's free kick and goal) but, though gutted, cannot complain about the result. The French people, through their government's policies over several decades, have produced QUALITY footballers; as well as a quality rail network and other quality stuff. WHEN OH WHEN will a British government start to do similar?? I know England are not Britain but you get my meaning?

Precisely my point several pages back. May I make humble apologies for going off topic with this, the Pedersen thread The language thing should have gone onto ICBINF site.

we take our time to learn your language, so then its only fair that you do the same, right? In Europe people learn their own language and English. It's a fact. For us to learn a second language to suit everyone we'd have to learn Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, Dutch, German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Romanian, Hungarian, Russian ad infinitum. Although we are jolly nice intelligent people over here we are NOT linguistic geniuses.

I'd rather have MickeysNo1fan. She's a nice Sunderland lass with a "blummin" nice accent. I bet you eat too many pies, are big-headed and don't do enough exercise, just like your hero.

Just been listening, again, to a CD that was sent to me from a friend who returned to South Africa. It's called "Lekker Stoutgat Rugby Treffers"; South African rugby team songs. I played it for some Afrikaaner friends of mine who were most offended because it's all dirty words. However, I think it's great. I can't understand a bleeding word (apart from "Titties Groot") Shall I get my coat?

Surely it's time for Souey to experiment a bit and try Gresko in front of Gray and let them swap positions as much as they think fit. It was tried once for half a game and was awful but maybe a second chance may show us the promise of a good combination. We've only got the double over one team this season (am I right?) and that is Everton. So come on Rovers and get another. I missed the 5-1 win over Wolves and the 1-0 win over Man Utd so have only seen 3 home wins this season (for £320!!) Everyone expects a bore draw. I hope not and forecast a good win for The Rovers 4-2. Cummon U Blues

Andy Todd brought solidity and credibility to our defence. He was one of the best players of the season.....currently in third place with messageboard voters. However he has no true professionalism. Like many others he spits his dummy out. IMO two players at Rovers who have shown true professionalism are Nissa Johannson who has waited patiently despite putting in an excellent performance v Man City and being dropped to fifth choice , and Egil Ostenstad who never whinged once whilst relegated out of the main squad yet kept fit training with the youth squad before regaining his place in the first team. Aspiring players should use these two as roll models. Bye Bye Mr Todd. Go back to Burnley. You may do OK there.

It wouldn't surprise me if an accident happened to Jonny Wilkinson between now and Saturday. If he does manage to start the game watch for him being stretchered off after 5 minutes. I hope I'm wrong. I'll be cheering our English boys on;in front of the telly.

I'm 59 until April 10th.So I reckon I'm 4th oldest because I know of one member who is over 70 but I'll let him tell you himself if he so wishes. :'>