Tyrone Shoelaces

£2 mill wasted so far. What do you think he'd be like at centre half ?

Yeah a very soft pen. He'd ballsed up the shooting chance so he was looking to fall over.They make me tired.

Bloody Hell, how bad was that first half ? One team's playing stood still football and the other is actually running. It's like watching Rovers on a bad day. Dack is better than Mount and I only realised Sancho was playing about 3 minutes ago. A great cure for Insomnia. Henderson and Rice = Evans and Smallwood.

" In a very good mood ? " A trip to Wales will soon cure that.

Actually I make it 4 centre halves loaned out Phil. Mulgrew, Magloire, Wharton and Platt.

I like Johnno a lot but as far as I can see there has been no discernable improvement in our style so far this season. In fact from a goal scoring point of view you could say we've gone backwards. Maybe he's not been able to have any say in the real nitty gritty of the first team and he's just been sidelined into a stats man/ warm up guy.

Nyambe and Williams at centre half ! You'd get 42 games out of 42 with Matt Woods but he looked like he'd been carved out of a block of marble !

Yep, I've seen a few but Duffer was No 1. Mike Harrison No 2.

I thought Duffer was also a Celtic fan as a youngster.

Yes and who signed him ? Was he ever scouted ? It was a signing than seemed to be a last minute " We've got a bit of money, who can we spend it on ? " type of signing. At the time we weren't crying out for a left back.

Coleman also had Aaron Ramsey in outstanding form at that time. No point anybody speculating. It'll be a completely left field appointment. most of their managers have been out of the blue. Who had Kean, Berg, Appleton, Coyle, Mowbray in their lists of 20 most likely candidates ? Only Lambert's appointment made any real sense in my opinion.

Yep, when I was growing up Football and a bit of Cricket was all there was to do, so that's what you did. You were outside with a ball, jumpers for goals, small scale games, maybe 4 or 5 a side. You were either on the ball or tackling an opponent who was on the ball all day long. Playing " Walley " under the street lights at night. The ball skills, passing with both feet was second nature. Beating players with the ball at your feet etc. I live facing a huge common, you could probably get four full sized football pitches on it easily. There's not a kid on it playing any sort of sport 99 % of the time. Anybody who knows Rochdale will know " Lenny Barn ". It is a huge grassy area just outside the centre of town bequeathed to the youth of the town by a wealthy local family in the 1920's. . When I was playing sport there was a hockey pitch, three football pitches and two rugby pitches plus a cricket square. We were down there in Summer and at weekend in Winter all the time. On a Sunday afternoon it would be packed with kids playing, mainly football. These days I can walk down there and there won't be anybody playing anything ! You don't get good at sport watching it on TV or playing computer games. I was reading the other day that the authorities are worried about the number of obese kids at school today. On my wall at home I've got an old school photo, It's of the " Upper School " March 1964. There probably about 250 kids on the photo, 15,16,17,18 year olds. Of that 250 there are possibly 3 or 4 that you could call obese. If you did the same photo at the upper school I worked at recently it'd probably be more like 50 to 60.

When I had my scrapbooks out the other day i read some of Alf Thornton's old Match reports from our golden era of the early 1960's. They were proper blow by blow accounts of the games that filled most of a page in the " Last Sports ". In most of the games there were more attempts on goal than we get now in a month of games with this current Rovers team. It was end to end stuff and nobody came to " Park the bus " no matter how badly they were getting out matched.

Neither of Bell or Hart is the answer I'm afraid. In fact if you put them both together as one they still wouldn't be the answer.

He just plays within himself for us. One of those guys who if he worked in industry he'd always be stood by the time clock at 4-25 pm. Ready to go, first in line to clock out every night. We've all worked with them, their heart isn't in the job but it pays the bills.

He seems to get injured a lot for a centre half.

RE your last sentence Tom. If you try and stand still in this game your end up going backwards, rapidly.

Neither is Del there to be honest.

It's rugby union, just leave it at " a man kicks the ball ".

The partial report is by the great Alf Thornton in " The Last Sports ".

Some more cuttings including commentary on the best goal I ever saw at Ewood Park. Bryan Douglas V West Brom Easter Saturday 1963. There's a team photo- who can name all the players ?

There are more but the computer is playing up. No 2 son trying his best.

As per requested some old Rovers cuttings . Mainly Bryan Douglas.

Who, Shearer and Sutton ?