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old darwen blue

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Everything posted by old darwen blue

  1. The Resurrection Shuffle - Ashton Gardner and Dyke With Blackburn’s own, Tony Ashton
  2. The Crazy World of Arthur Brown - Fire
  3. If Young is still being considered for the national side and talked about being able to play in multiple positions, then how is he shit?
  4. As much as it really pains me to say this but I thought that Tarkowski chap had a cracking game.
  5. Simon Park Orchestra - Eye Level
  6. Just came across this on YouTube. I’ve so far watched about twenty minutes and he’s hilarious. It was filmed at the Thwaites theatre in 2003 and I recommend watching if you’ve got a bit of spare time and fancy a laugh.
  7. Sabrina - Boys, Boys, Boys ?
  8. Motörhead - The Chase is better than the catch
  9. Status Quo - Roadhouse Blues
  10. Sex Pistols - Holidays in the Sun
  11. Mink deville - Spanish Stroll
  12. Van Halen - Running With The Devil
  13. Tony Mowbray remembers the flurry of text messages from fellow managers inferring he was a “glutton for punishment” upon taking over at Blackburn Rovers. The doubters have long since dried up. The 54-year-old spent a rare day off at home on Teesside on Thursday, one which coincided with his sons’ snowbound school being shut. He, and his family, spent it sledging together and it is tempting to suggest this was the only occasion in recent months in which his fortunes have gone downhill. Mowbray has just marked a year in charge at Ewood Park with his side at the summit of League One and hosting third-placed Wigan Athletic tomorrow in a fixture pivotal to promotion hopes and also laced with symbolism. That was not the plan, of course. The frustration at being unable to save the club from relegation on the final day of last season, despite accruing 22 points from his 15 games in charge, losing just three, has been channelled into trying to return at the first attempt. The push is underpinned by experience and common sense. Mowbray stressed the importance of keeping the likes of Charlie Mulgrew, 31, Danny Graham, 32, and the 27-year-old Corry Evans, while acknowledging they probably did not envisage themselves in English football’s third tier, and with some clever recruitment, plus an infusion of youth, progress has been made. The central defender Mulgrew and striker Graham have each scored 12 goals this season. Mowbray likens the club to a vessel that is no longer floundering but must continue to stay on course. “It is going all right,” he said. “We haven’t achieved anything yet, but we seem to have turned, if you want an analogy, this tanker around from facing the wrong direction. “Blackburn Rovers shouldn’t be in League One and it was a dangerous time to be relegated. We had 12 players out of contract, none of them re-signed basically because of the salary drops from Championship to League One, so we had to rebuild the squad. “We managed to keep some key players and, if we are being honest, they would have liked to have seen what was out there in the world for them. They wouldn’t see themselves as League One players, but I took a pretty firm stance. They were going to have to be the backbone of the team to try and get us up.” Mowbray would have walked away last summer if the Indian owners, Venky’s, had not backed his vision. He had enough of crisis-management and working on a shoestring at Coventry City, a spell that ended with him resigning in September 2016. New signings were made, among them the midfielder Bradley Dack from Gillingham for £750,000, Blackburn’s leading scorer with 14 goals and four assists, and Venky’s financial commitment to keeping Blackburn as a Category One academy has helped to nurture talents such as the home-grown defender Ryan Nyambe and Barcelona-born goalkeeper David Raya, who has been in the system for six years. Blackburn’s under-23s are top of their league and the under-18s in the quarter-final of the FA Youth Cup. Mulgrew has scored 12 goals this seasonPaul Currie/BPI/REX/Shutterstock “I did have some experienced football managers texting me saying; ‘You are a glutton for punishment to take on Blackburn after Coventry,’ ” said Mowbray, whose side have scored more goals than any other team in the division and lost just once since October. “But it is in the belly, really. Every football manager thinks he can turn things around — we all feel we have some magic dust to sprinkle on a team. “But if the support level wasn’t going to be there, I would have gone in the summer. I had been at Coventry with no money, no facilities, no revenue. You are left with no backbone and no foundation. I didn’t want to have to add 20 players and build from nothing.” One aspect that is being pieced back together, bit by bit, is the relationship between supporters and the club. There were 12,000 at Ewood Park for the most recent home game, a 2-0 win over Bury, a number that reflects the erosion of trust caused by Venky’s past excesses. It was a home defeat to Wigan in May 2012 that sent Blackburn hurtling through the Premier League’s trapdoor in front of a mutinous crowd of 26,000. A victory tomorrow would take the hosts nine points ahead of one of their rivals, who have four games in hand, and Mowbray recognises the fixture’s importance. “Football is all about expectation whether you are Manchester City expected to win the Premier League or Blackburn expected to get out of League One,” he said. “The away support has been fantastic. We have virtually sold out every ground we have been to — even Wimbledon on a Tuesday night at the end of February we took a massive allocation. “The home support has, at times, been anxious but only because they are desperate for the team to do well. That’s fine. I understand that. When I think back to us beating Shrewsbury, one of the teams up the top all season, there was a huge waft of support behind the team, and a unity between the football team and supporters. I’m sure Sunday will be the same.” It took Leeds United three seasons to emerge from the wilderness of League One, Sheffield United six, so Blackburn’s past counted for little. Promotion would be a step forward, but no more. “We wanted to stop the decline,” Mowbray said. “Sometimes it is hard when a team’s morale is down, you lose good players, the fans are not happy and it’s not a good environment in the stadium. To get people believing again was a test really. Now we must push on.”
  14. Iron Maiden - Two Minutes To Midnight
  15. Bob Seger and The Silver Bullet Band - Hollywood Nights
  16. I thought Hart had been sent out on loan to Rochdale?
  17. Saxon - See the Light Shining
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