Up and down the Welsh principality today children will celebrate St David’s Day with school concerts wearing the national emblem of either daffodil or leak; somehow I suspect in his childhood Mark Hughes was one who wore the leak; eating it raw and breathing out the fumes in the direction of classmates. Today more than likely Hughes will be wearing the daffodil, however tonight I suspect he will be breathing heated fumes of passion, driving his players on to glory in the FA Cup replay against Burnley at Ewood Park. Whilst Hughes’s team will provide the artillery in an attempt to vanquish the foe, Rovers supporters will need to provide the back up, driving the team on to glory. The eleven players on the field can do their bit, but the fans must be the twelfth man, in a near capacity ground they will need to be in full voice from kick off, forgetting personal dislikes of individual players, to salute and cheer on the team as a whole. To the Welsh it is commonly believed that Owen Glyn Dwr was the last true Prince of Wales, but tonight, quite fittingly on St David’s Day, Rovers supporters will crown Mark Hughes, Prince of Ewood Park, if his team beat the Dingles. It’s worth remembering that it could be another forty-five years before these teams meet again, so make your voice heard and in years to come you can celebrate the 1st March, St Davids Day, with your grandchildren saying I did my bit the last time we beat the Dingles.

The away game against Liverpool, has been officially re-scheduled for Wednesday 16th March with an 8.00pm kick off.

Rovers supporters have until 7pm tonight. Monday 28th February to get their ticket for tomorrows FA Cup Replay game against Burnley. According to the official Rovers web site there are only 1,500 tickets left.

After all the talk of so called frustration in getting tickets lets get things in to perspective. Four Rovers supporters chatting on brfcs messageboard. Names are changed to protect the guilty. Mick: Well I got my ticket for Burnly game, queued up for over an hour and a half at ground Monday morning. Gary: Oh I got mine with credit card over phone, took over an hour Tuesday morning. Terry : Got mine this morning took me just under an hour queue at ticket office. Eric : Who'd a thought thirty years ago you’d have to queue or phone to get a ticket to watch Rover v Burnley. Mick: Aye. In them days, you just had to turn up on match day and queue along road and pay cash at turnstile Eric: Aye but if it were a cup match we had to get up half an hour before we went to bed, to queue for tickets after working twenty-nine hours in mill. Gary: Aye in pouring rain and snow, with icicle dewdrops hanging from your nose. Eric: And don’t forget if weather were bad you had to walk to ground. Terry: Aye no trams or buses ment frozen feet, and you had to stamp about to keep warm. Mick: In hob nailed boots, that clattered on cobbles. Eric: But the your feet always felt colder if turnstile closed before you got in. Garry: The best we could manage then was to climb the hill and watch game through the gap between the Riverside and Blackburn End Stand.. Terry: But you know, we were happy in those days, though we were poor. Mick: Aye. Even the club was poor. But we were happy. Eric: 'Aye your right. we was happier then and we had nothing. We used to stand on terraces. Garry: Terracing? You were lucky to have a terracing after Burnley fans removing Darwen End roof Terry: You were lucky to have a roof *We* used to have to stand in toilets to keep out of weather! Mick: Ohhhh we used to DREAM of keeping warm in toilet, with a foot of urine spashing about to keep our feet warm! Would have been a luxury to us. We used to get warmth from jumping up and down on terrace. Half expecting someone to spill Bovril down your back. Eric: Well when you say Bovril, half the time it was urine Garry: Aye they were happy days, there were no piped music, no big screen entertainment and no drummer, we had to make up songs to sing to get atmosphere going. Mick: But you try and tell the young people today that... and they won't believe you ALL: No ney never.

Rovers v Burnley 5th Round Replay. Season Ticket holders have until close of business tomorrow, Friday 25th February to claim their own seats. The ticket office will be open also on. Saturday between 9am and 4pm Sunday between 11am and 3pm Link to Official Site,

For the last half hour there has been no service available and you get cut off.

Rovers v Burnley 5th Round Replay. DEADLINE EXTENDED SEE BREAKING NEWS. Season Ticket holders have until close of business tonight, Thursday 24th February to claim their own seats. Demand for tickets have been high, with lengthy queues at the ticket office and on telephone lines, so please be patient. If for some reason you cant meet tonights deadline, you should still be able to get a ticket, but there will be no guaranttee of getting your own seat. Tickets are currently on sale to ALL ROVERS SUPPORTERS with a data-base history of purchasing tickets. Prices in all areas are: Adult £20 Senior Citizens £10 Young Adult Season Ticket £10 Juniors £5 This is an ALL TICKET game and no tickets will be available on match day. This game is NOT being shown on TV, so dont miss out.

Rovers 19 year old striker Jemal Johnson has signed a new two and a half year extension contract, keeping him at the club until 2007. The official Rovers web site is quoting the New England born striker as saying. "I'm really happy to have been given a chance to further my career. If I keep working hard I'm sure there'll be better things to come. "It has been a good experience for me playing against big teams and being involved and I hope to be a first-team regular." Meanwhile whilst the first team squad are away training in Dubai, Paul Dickov has remained at Brockhall, in order to have treatment to his groin injury.

A young Rovers reserves team held Leeds United to a 0-0 draw, in blizzard conditions last night, to gain a valuable away point, in front of a crowd of 159.

During the season members of www.brfcs.co.uk have been voting for the greatest Rovers players, each month voting in a poll for the greatest player in each position to make up a team of all time greats. Members have presented cases for individual players, providing personal experiences of watching individual players or researching historical documents to put the case for players who wore the famous blue and white shirt well before many of the site members or readers of this editorial were even born. The final selection and voting now complete the Greatest All Time Rovers team is, Brad Friedel. Bob Crompton. Mike England. Colin Hendry. Graeme Le Saux Bryan Douglas. Ronnie Clayton. Jimmy Forrest. Damien Duff. Alan Shearer. Simon Garner. For more on this article Click Here

Heck for personal reasons, Im not pleased with this draw. Whilst Wilcox is out injured Leicester will have another two players wanting some revenge. Gillespie and Nathan Blake.

Subject to overcoming Burnley in the replay of the 5th Round of the FA Cup, Rovers will play Leicester City at Ewood Park in the next round of the cup. Full Draw. Newcastle v Tottenham or Nottingham Forest Southampton or Brentford v Manchester United Bolton v Arsenal or Sheffield United Burnley or Blackburn v Leicester The ties will be played on the weekend of 12-13 March.

In response to your comment directly above Paul, either the bloke behind baz and myself liked the sound of his own voice, his partner was suffering from alzimers (spellcheck) or she had never seen a rovers game in her life before. From the constant drivel from him about players and club history it was quite evident that she had no idea what was going on or was just to polite to tell him to shut up. Ive no objections to gaining new fans but situations of this type of jolly must cheese off the die hard fan unable to get tickets.

Lots of coincidences so far. Cardiff - Mark Hughes. Colchester - Neill Danns Burnley - local derby what odds Newcastle

Mark Hughes has expressed his concern regarding security arrangements at yesterdays derby with Burnley, especially the pitch invation by a supporter who squared up to Robbie Savage. Hughes is being quoted invarious media sources as saying: “What if he’d had a weapon with him. “God forbid, he could have been carrying a knife. That sort of thing should not happen in this day and age. “With all the increased policing and stewarding in place, that was disappointing. “For three people to encroach on the pitch was poor.” Editorial Comment. From what I did see of the organisation outside the ground, the Lancashire Police, who had cancelled all leave in order to marshal this game, which including the escorting of over 80 coaches of Rovers supporters the 10 miles to and from Ewood Park to Turf Moor. should be commended, however within the ground the security arrangements left a lot to be desired with more than one pitch invasion by some mindless individuals, firstly at half time someone who thought it was amusing to run around the pitch with a flag, secondly during the second half, a male streaking break dancer, whose manhood was questionable bearing in mind the severe cold weather and thirdly which was more worryingly, a fan who encroached on to the field of play to challenge Savage. After the first incident one would have thought that ground security would have woken up to the problem, yet twice more fans where unchallenged as they freely gained access on to the field of play. Maybe I'm being unkind and this is the normal behaviour for Turf Moor, which is a throw back to times gone by, with wooden seats, urine flooded toilets and dark tunnel concourses where shuffling of feet is the order of the day as you attempt to manoeuvre 10 to 12 abreast between gangways and exits.

The Rover Annual Accounts for the year ending 30th June 2004 showed a down turn in turnover, principally due to the lack of success on the playing field last season. However the legacy of Rovers greatest supporter Jack Walker lives on and is doing Blackburn Rovers very proud with teams such as Rangers, Leeds, Man City etc etc….. all slavering in the queue to swap places with us. For our expert's analysis of the Annual Report click HERE

Once again this year we have to thank philipl for his expert analasys of the Rovers accounts. Rovers Accounts for the Year ended 30 June 2004 When Jan sent me a copy, she wrote cryptically “not very impressed” by way of a header. As she is a lady of numbers, I bow to her judgement but my reaction is that these accounts are in the ball park of what I had expected. A £5m loss after a £7.7m profit on the player transfer account is only marginally outside of the £10 to £12m non-player trading loss I had been forecasting given the early cup exits, the marked decline in attendances and the big fall in Premiership placement monies (6th to 16th equals goodbye £5m- ouch!) I know I was asked to review the numbers but for once I think the most significant elements in the Annual Report are in the words. Let me quote selectively from the superb (and I mean it- brilliantly written and easily the best season summary I have seen on 2003/4) Chairman’s Report signed by Rob Coar: “Several players left before, during and after the campaign…(he details each one)…As ever, we were grateful to each and every player for individual contributions in Rovers’ cause and wish them well for the future.” Two paragraphs later… “In September 2004, Graeme Souness left the club to take over the managerial role at Newcastle United.” Hmm. Dry ice or hemlock in your coffee, sir? The really great news is buried in the Chief Executive’s report: “The strategy underpinned by a healthy balance sheet that will be further strengthened by the conversion of £14m of loans into capital during 2004/5.” Let there be no doubt, the Will of Uncle Jack lives and is doing Blackburn Rovers very proud indeed. Not only is the great man providing a nice little earner equivalent to 5,000 bums on seats per match through the trust fund endowment (so 20,000 equates to 25,000 attendance when you look at how Rovers rank on attendance tables), but the Walker Trust is converting £14m of loans in the club into shares as well. We “only” paid £679K of interest on some pretty chunky borrowings so I guess the Walker Trust influence came in that direction as well. At the end of last season, I pointed out that two more seasons of £10m plus losses would wipe out the club’s positive balance sheet. Now with this capital infusion we can afford to run at last season’s bottom line of minus £5m for another seven years. Not nirvana but Rangers, Leeds, Man City etc etc….. would all be slavering in the queue to swap places with us. To the numbers. Turnover fell from £45.4m to £40.8m. Within that drop, Matchday income decreasing from £8.5m to £6.8m is a real villain- the townsfolk of Blackburn take a black mark and write “I am undeserving of a Premiership football club” on every wall in Burnley this Sunday. Commercial income was remarkably robust- only sliding from £12.9m to £12.2m; Ken Beamish comes up trumps again and we’ll forgive him addressing Ewood like he’s talking to the public conveniences at every half time draw (“Ladies and Gents”?). Media income only dropped from £24m to £21.8m despite the £5m hit for loosing ten places in the Premiership. Perhaps strengthened by the media boys’ planning our early season coverage based on the previous 6th placement but much more buoyed up by the Premiership’s new £180m a year international TV rights deal kicking in. There had to be a good reason why there are so many Norwegians posting…. Of course, in the expenditure column, there is only one line that matters- Wages. The club managed Payroll costs down from £35.5M to £31.3m and as John Williams observed, that payroll was designed to sustain a 10th place budgeted finish. So although the club managed its outgoings to get wages below 70% of turnover, on the field performance meant that wages only dropped 1% in the share of revenue. Any nice words for new Manager of Newcastle?.. I’ll move on. John Williams commented in his interview on Radio Lancashire recently that he detects a new sense of realism coming into Premiership wage structures. On that basis £70k a week plus a loan fee was never feasible for Rovers relieving Depor of Pandiani once Sullivan told Bruce “do what it takes to beat Blackburn for the signature”. Poor lad thought he was going to Florence as well. Total direct employment by the Rovers actually increased by one despite the drop in wages overall. Not quite Animal Farm. Lot’s of things which Jan would no doubt find as interesting as a hooped jersey in the detail but I will simply skip to some numbers that caught my eye. John Williams and Tom Finn are worth every penny of the modest increase which took their combined packages to £429K and anyone who disagrees is a dingle (or a drog). Nice to see £500K being invested in new fixtures and fittings- presumably training equipment and the like but perhaps a contribution to the new catering regime at Ewood. Plenty of evidence of strong cash flow management in the movements of several balance sheet items- it has the look of a well managed business if you forgive it for being involved in football. To three conclusions: -Had Duff not been sold for £17m, these numbers would have been truly horrible but your’s truly would also have been spared the loosing battle on the message board with Dado Prso when the ###### ran hame to his mammy rather than face the big boys from Colchester. (didn’t I write skip? Sorry) -If anyone wants to know what our long term annual transfer budget might be? Here is a hint- we have now had two consecutive years of £11m amortisation on the player account. -“Our business strategy remains the same. We are in the business of winning football matches and staying in the Premier League.” Amen to that and John Williams.

continued from front page. For Rovers and Dingle supporters the Old Firm game pales in to insignificance with rivalry going back to when the football league was formed, and even though the clubs are now leagues apart the rivalry continues, with each club supporter ready to rub the others nose in the dirt after any defeat or poor publicity. Rovers' supporters even at one point when Burnley was threatened with relegation from the football league chartered a plane to fly over the Dingle Dome pulling a banner stating "Staying Down for Ever." Whilst the Old Firm game takes place 4 or 5 times a season the East Lancs derby is a rare event and in recent history when ever the clubs have met Rovers have come away victorious, their most recent victory being the 5-0 thrashing of Burnley on the 1st April 2001, in fact its over 25 years since Rovers last lost to Burnley in the League. However a more significant statistic is that Rovers haven't lost to Burnley in the FA Cup for more than 45 years, back on the 28th January 1959, Rovers first season back in the old First Division after ten years out of the top flight. Rovers however got their revenge the following season knocking Burnley out of the Cup 2-0 in the quarter final replay after a pulling back from 3-0 down to draw in the first game. This Sunday 3955 Rovers supporters will be transported in around 70 coaches supplied free by the club, flanked by police outriders along the M65 to the Dingle Dome, like Royalty visiting to poor and needy, ready to cheer on the players fortunate enough to be given the famous blue and white shirt in Mark Hughes master plan to extend Rovers statistical dominance of East Lancs derbies. For most of the players this will be their first experience of one of these derbies, only Brad Friedel, Matt Jansen and Craig Short are still on the books as players, who played in the last encounters. However Mark Hughes will know what this game is all about and what it means to the supporters, having played for the Rovers in the last two derbies in the 2000-2001 season, which Rovers won 2-0 at the Dingle Dome and 5-0 at Ewood Park. Make no mistake, the atmosphere will be electric on Sunday and the roar as the players enter the arena will be heard 10 miles back down the M65, where those unfortunate not to have been successful in obtaining a ticket will fill ever bar and club or in the comfort of their living rooms watching live TV coverage. And when the final whistle goes Ferguson will hear the roar of 3955 Rovers supporters overshadow the Hamden roar as they celebrate. Defeat is not being considered nor is it an option.

Barry Ferguson recently stated that the reason for his need to return to Rangers was when he realalised that the Lancashire derby between Rovers and Bolton paled in to insignificance against an Old Firm game. Ferguson was quoted as saying. "There were 27,038 at the Reebok and I have to be brutally honest. That's when I looked round and Rangers really started tugging," This Sunday for two sets of supporters no more than 10 miles apart along the M65 the real Lancashire derby takes place, although for Rovers supporters the opposition are classed as a small town in Yorkshire, whose supporters were once suggested by a prominent MP, to be able to eat bananas with their feet. Continued - Click Read Entire Article

This Sunday 3955 Rovers supporters will be transported in around 70 coaches supplied free by the club, flanked by police outriders along the M65 to the Dingle Dome ready to cheer on the players fortunate enough to be given the famous blue and white shirt in Mark Hughes master plan to extend Rovers statistical dominance of East Lancs derbies. Make no mistake, the atmosphere will be electric on Sunday and the roar as the players enter the arena will be heard 10 miles back down the M65, where those unfortunate not to have been successful in obtaining a ticket will fill ever bar and club or the comfort of their living rooms watching live TV coverage. Click Here for Fans Views and Predictions

Gav, I'd demand a recount. or are we still waiting for the Florida Rovers vote.

Morph, the Guardian are known historically for miss printing words .

NOTICE TO MATCH TICKET HOLDERS Rovers supporters with match tickets for Sunday's FA Cup game at Turf Moor who have not claimed their coach ticket, have until 5-30 tonight (Wednesday) to collect them from the ticket office. Lancashire Police have appealed to all Rovers supporters with match tickets to use the coach facility provided by the club.

Valentines day is every day. yuk give me a bucket

debs Heck only two games - that doesnt make you a lucky charm. I vote for debs, she knows my face - gav doesnt Second thoughts Gav getting a ticket would be compensation for loosing his shelf.