The Guardian uses the Boro match report to comment on Rovers' lack of support.

Determining point of the season. Win and we lay the UEFA bogey plus have four more European nights to look forwards to no doubt popping out of bag 4 in the UEFA draw with 3 higher ranked clubs already waiting for us but what the hell- boro and Bolton topped their groups last year so we should be ok. Lose or draw 3-3 and all last year's good work in coming 6th are down the loo. What is there left to kick-on with? Rovers to win 3-1 in front of 19,000.

50 transfers worthy of further investigation... Looks like the Stevens Report will be as big a damp squib as the Panorama programme. I thought he'd been hired to do the investigating?

It is highly improbable that Nonda will recover the explosive pace he had before that horrific break but Sparky keeps saying he hasn't reached full fitness level yet and that must be a promising sign that there is much more to come from him. What I do like is his directness which for a team that tends to pass it about is a valuable dimmension to his game. He has good touch and if he and Benni get an understanding going so he rather than the opposing centre-half is the recipient of Benni's flicks, it could be a very exciting season to be a Rover. Incidentally, what happened to Chris? It was back to Shabani yesterday.

Not necessarilly a bad draw- result on the night after extra time and penalties. Great for Rovers' supporters that we will be getting probably the best team in Europe at Ewood a second time this season. We've beaten Chelsea in the recent past and gave them a bit of a fright when they came to Ewood during our poor start. Chelsea will have not been wanted a trip to Ewood, that's for sure.

Not particularly funny nor accurate but a Boro preview that is a bit different.

There is also Ewido anti-spyware from AVG as well. You have to manually update and run it in the free version but unless yyou are coming into contact with naughty sites and e-mails, running it overnight once a week or so is fine. It usually picks up a tracker or two coming from somewhere.

Just out of curiosity, is anything happening about the live screening of matches? It does seem that the collapse in Rovers' support has coincided with games being available in pubs, the 50 minute highlight programme and the drummers. I think the other reasons such as lack of local lads is somewhat peripheral to the argument. If it were true we would have seen a massive loss of support when Duff and Dunn were transferred but that season was well within trend.

Just out of interest jim, were there any drummers at that Charlton game back in 2002?

I was at a meeting in Central London that day and saw the results coming off one of those old tickertape machines. Middlesbrough 1 Blackburn ("we lost today" says I) 5- stood there dumbfounded. I think we won 3-0 at Ayresome the next season and won the two after up there as well. If there is any pride or motivation up in Boro these days, Rovers are in for a torrid opening 20 minutes after Wednesday's Boro result.

It would be fantastic to see a 20,000+ crowd on Thursday to show that dropping ticket prices really does work.

I'm surprised this thread has even reached page 2 Chesh. This is a non-starter if ever there was one.

The Lancashire Telegraph quizzed the Rovers about the Todd tapup but did not get much out of the club ahead of the Panorama screening. Another Rovers web site claims to have more detailed knowlege of the Todd, Neil and Harrison situation. If this is true, it is encouraging all round for the Rovers.

That must have been the most amazing game to have been at. I can remember perhaps two games in the 40 odd years I've been following football in which 4 goals have been scored in 5 minutes but for 4 goals to be scored on the last three minutes + injury time is something else. I wonder if football attendances are falling because two many fans like posters above have zero imaginations and no sense of the wonder and potency of football?

I don't know which post you are referring to but that's an agent called Charles Collymore whom Mike Newell has named and not Lucas Neill's man. Guardian says Panorama will name names and will play a tape of Kevin Bond when he was with 'Arry at Pompey Big sam expecting to be named. Profile of Collymore that puts him in a good light.

Stephan Henchoz will probably be playing. I doubt of any our injured trio are close enough to a come back to get a run out and I wouldn't dare approach Andy Todd if he has to turn out for the stiffs.

Woodgate is showing just what a class player he is and the rapidly recovering Huth might be back to make his Boro debut. So this could be the tale of two defences- Boro's rapidly improving and our's.... Nasty wake-up on this one. Boro 2 Rovers 1

'Arry has been quoted before as saying that he likes Todd as a hard player.

Just edited it to get rid of the first few paragraphs of point scoring against other posters. I agree- all four points are worthy of taking forwards although quite how you would handle policing the illegal and not so damaging to Rovers coverage of away games compared with the illegal and very damaging to Rovers home games in pubs is an interesting one.

So what's all this got to do with Rovers v Man City??? Great to see Rovers up and running again. Obviously concerns about central defence and midfield but it sounds like Mokoena did a great job on Barton which turned the game. Nonda seems a very promising signing with his speed and direct running whilst Benny grabbed his third of the season in six games. Hope he keeps that ratio up! And well done Gally. Not forgetting two goals coming from free kicks- Rovers' work on the training pitch coming good again.

Any result from the West Ham v Newcastle game puts 9th out of reach and we need Spuds , Arsenal and Liverpool not to win to keep 10th in reach. I think we will have to resolve ourselves to being in 11th IF we get the win- cannot see Spuds not getting a win against Fulham at home.

Paul, there is an incredibly popular Rovers supporter from Lancaster by the understandable nickname of Bomber who did brilliantly in the Fans' hit the crossbar competition at half time at Pompey last season triggering all the Rovers fans humming Dambuster in his honour. So that one has an entirely innocent origin/alibi. On the other hand, compared with previous trips to Europe (particularly Ankara) from which Rovers fans came back having had a wonderful time without upsetting the locals, it appears that 20 or so lowest of the low made the Salzburg trip and upset the rest of the Rovers supporters and the good folks of Salzburg in equal measure. If we do go through and get two more guarranteed away trips, I wonder who will be the first to drop off from following the Rovers in Europe as the novelty wears off: - the ignorant Nazi neanderthals; - or the decent majority of Rovers fans who have the time of their lives following the club?

I hope the club has had the presence of mind to go onto the offensive on this one - writing to Souness to seek his views, the Express for any assistance and talking to Stevens about engaging him to look into this Dunn transfer, the Perez transfer and any other now questionable transactions at the behest of the Rovers board.

The Express seem to be having a bit of a downer on rovers- that's the second lump of dirt coming at Ewood from their direction. Will be interesting to find out what the club will do if it transpires Souness deliberately contrived to force Dunn out to take a dodgy transfer deal. Then there are the large payments to Rangers for Ferguson, Man U for Cole and Ternana for Grabbi... Quite a few million there. Not forgetting the Amo purchase. http://football.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/...1873952,00.html The Guardian taking a sanguine view of the forthcoming Panorama programme.

The best bit is watching Trap throw a wobbler over a Rovers goal- fantastic sight after years and years of watching him doing the same in Italy.