The Official Club announcement.

Jansenpresty- the answer is in the thread. 'drog- exiled Rovers supporters do not contribute nothing, the answer is in the thread.

They are not dodgy channels from Timbuctu. They are 100% legitimate stations which have bought the rights but whose satelite coverage also crosses the UK and from which they can derive no legitimate revenue. Have there been any UK ads in English on those channels yet? The interesting question is whether Sky is beginning to see domestic subs decline in areas around pubs showing illegal transmissions? As soon as that happens, the football clubs won't need to act as Murdoch's men will be in there sorting them out. From what I understand, illegal carriage of football is much more difficult for pubs in some places (London and the West Midlands) than others (Blackburn) becvause the local police and clubs are much tighter. Of course after two seasons of poor quality entertainment, it could be the Rovers Board are deliberately not chasing these offending pubs preferring to re-establish a loyal following before the legal chop comes. But that would be too clever by half.

Shilito, Bolton have those two games in hand so they are the only club which has 4th place in its own hands to win or lose. The other three clubs are dependant on Bolton slipping up. As for Rovers, Bolton are only one point behind, two games in hand and have a much better goal difference than us. I'd say the odds are about right. We are going to have to have a fantastic end of season run to get 4th place because at the moment we are the back markers of the four clubs in contantion. At least today's results push Newcastle further out of contention for the UEFA Cup and give the Mancs a bit more to play for when they play Bolton, Arsenal and Spurs.

Actually, got my numbers wrong- that average is 150 miles one way, so 300 miles round trip and well over 170,000 miles in total. Given I lived 210 miles from Ewood, you can see the high proportion that were home games. As for sponsoring match balls, buying season tickets etc., done all that many times.

Just read on the official site that Liverpool TURNED DOWN the offer of playing on Sunday 16 the first time Rovers offered it to them. Of course they were still in the Champions League. This is one massive exercise in Liverpool hypocrisy.

Sav misses just one game. Rather chuffed that I suggested it could be 3-2 to the Rovers. Well done jim- there's a reply to your's and Revidge's posts somewhere back in this thread. On the official thread, a certain Mr Grooby has this to say: "Does the town deserve a team as high in the league table as they've got? "Sub 19000 doesn't allow us to compete in the transfer market. When the undoubted threads start at the end of the season about "How much have we got to spend?" remember that our attendences are down so much that any rise in the league table is taking away our spending power." He also goes onto say that the attendance figure is actual bodies in the ground and that he didn't know the turnstiles broke down. On that basis, 18,681 must be the figure at 2.45 and will exclude everybody whose tickets were not scanned.

Except they might get moved for Sky to Sunday or Monday. Don't think about 2 September- there won't be a game bacause its an International week-end when England play Andora. Of course you might hit lucky and catch the third round qualifier against AC Milan in the Champions League...

Confirmed on the official site- getting the second yellow reduced his ban to one game but he remains dangling on 9 yellows and one yellow away from a two match ban. There are no appeals for yellow cards so the double yellow equals red stands. As I've said before, successfully appealing one of the yellows simply doubles his immediate suspension.

Apart from slipping a bit on goal difference, the Champs League race is as you were. But, this afternoon has done our UEFA chances a power of good with the likes of City and West Ham losing. The Wigan home fixture in two weeks' time is also a case of having UEFA qualification in our own hands. Intertoto (if we need to fall back on that) is getting closer to being secured having beaten Boro today- 15 points ahead- whilst Everton are six points and 15 goals behind with just 8 games left.

Boo, Spuds score.

Don't appeal then he's banned only for the Sunderland game.

A Boro match report Two stunning stats- we had three shots on target and scored from all three. Thinking about a similar 100% strike rate was Mr Foy- we commited 12 fouls and received 4 yellow cards) including two for Sav.

It seems the better we get, the worse the crowd becomes. How many Boro fans there today? More to the point, how many folk watching live feeds in local hostelries? Bellamy is a magician- that guy got us all three points today (McLaren was scared stiff- three centre halves against one forward for 25 minutes of XI against X?) Is there a bit of an anomaly/silver lining to Sav's unjust sending off? On one booking Sav was up for a two match ban (ten bookings). When he walked he got a one match ban for two yellows and is back to nine yellows. Or is there a rule I don't know about?

I've just looked at my list of games I've been to. Between leaving Blackburn and getting a base in Malta. I averaged 21 English games a season I averaged travelling 150 miles a game ...and did that for 28 seasons Which works out as travelling 88,000 miles watching domestic football. Just sick to death of people who live close to Ewood criticising other people for.... (I presume that you are going for a drink before the game- easy relaxed preamble to the game and you are still able to post 99 minutes before kick off)

The buttock- clenching fear of failure and emotions when you miss out are very much part of the shared experience of following a football club. Take that away from the football experience and a lot of the loyalty which saw the Mancs fill OT in the old second division would go too. UEFA are rattled judging by the speed of this response. I made a mistake, Monaco with their 5,000 crowds are not part of the G14.

This Boro web site makes a convincing case for a Boro win this afternoon. Another Boro site- Fly me to the Moon has this to say: "Fmttm Prediction: Boro to hold Blackburn to a draw. Maybe even a repeat of the 2-2 draw we managed a couple of Boxing Day's ago. There will be a big and very young crowd cheering us on today, Rovers running those £5 under 16 tickets again. Such a good idea. All clubs need to do everything they can to get schoolkids back to live football." I will be very surprised and extremely disappointed to see a sub-20,000 gate today.

G14 look to avoid the "lottery" of having to qualify Some interesting posturing- They need certainty of Champs League millions for future planning they say. Domestic football is the core of their activity they claim (oh yes and with control of the Champs League they are not going to dictate to the national teams and domestic leagues are they?) Membership of G14 is closed so no place for Abramovich or Fart Freddie (that was a genuine typing mistake but why correct it?) Will be interesting watching two of football's most unloved organisations- UEFA and G14- going toe to toe in a battle of strength. As I see it at the moment, the G14 position is too weakened by anomalies to work. Yes Real Madrid, Man U, Arsenal, AC and Juve are massive clubs but they all have massive weaknesses (Madrid City Council, Glazers, Ashburton Grove debts, Berlusconi's fate when he has lost the Italian Election and no fans respectively). The Rovers can quite comfortably look the likes of Leverkusen and Eindhoven eye to eye financially and has a more impressive trophy cabinet than Leverkusen by far whilst Burnley would be embarassed to get Monaco's home gates. On that basis only the recently cleaned up Barca looks to be a true mega-club. Oh and Clelsea who could turn nasty and with £7bn in cash, Roman could cause mayhem just by showing them what he is capable of without actually having to do anything. If he wanted some fun, £100m cash bids by Roman's friends to buy out current owners could quite easily see a third of the G14 change hands. If this sees the light of day, I think it could be time to refer the G14 to the European Competition Commissioner on the basis of an abusive cartel. If the EU found England's TV rights anti-competitive, the G14 running the Champs League as a closed shop surely stands no chance.

This is terrible news for the lad. With it being a hamstring injury, the question has to be asked whether the surgery in the States has failed. If that is the case, his whole career is at risk. I guess this points to Dunny being at Brum in the Coca Cola league next season.

Boro will be coming to Ewood elated by the UEFA draw. Whilst the strength of the remaining teams should not be underestimated, Basle should be beatable and then they get the winner of the Bucarest derby in the semi (that could be tricky given the teams both of them have knocked out on the way through). Sevilla and Schalke are in the other half of the draw and so one of them is likely to make it to the Final.

Good points in that article. Clutching at straws: - Unlike the other Managers mentioned (including Sir Bobby), we have a Manager who knows what it takes to win the Prem and have a decent CL run year in year out, - I strongly suspect the signing of Zura and the contract extensions offered for Dickov and Tugay are indicative of Hughes preparing a squad deep enough on quality for the CL. Wouldn't be surprised if neither of those extensions are signed until/before we know we have got UEFA at least. - With those three on board, the summer signing requirements begin to become more manageable providing we don't spend all our time fending off raiders for our players. As Hughes has said, European football makes the type of player he wants to sign more interested in Rovers. That is probably an indicator he has some top class Bosman or near Bosmans in his sights. That Bosman thread might not be dreamland after all. Back to reality: - It is going to require an extraordinary effort by Rovers to qualify for the CL although I do think we would need shooting if we fail to qualify for the UEFA from the position we are now in. - So CL is a dream, an attainable dream but still a dream. Nice to see the Telegraph sharing the dream but saying beware the wicked witch in the fairy tale.

I agree with the posts from Darth Paul and Billinge End Blue. For what its worth: - my anger was how this suddenly became an issue for LFC AFTER they had lost to Benfica. I hope the FA and Premiership have noted where their competitions stand in Liverpool's very obvious order of priorities: 1 Champions League gazilions, 2. HJC 3. the rest. - Rovers were probably stuffed BEFORE LFC made the announcement of asking us for a change. Parry would have used his influence from having been the Prem's founding Chief Exec to square away the Premier League and Sky before they publicly announced their request. - No doubt LFC's hairtrigger posting of the announced change yesterday afdternoon bounced the Rovers out of a position Rovers were still negotiating on. - I wonder (and hope) that having heard little from the Norwegian supporters means something is being done to help with rearranging their trip rather them being too disappointed/disaffected to post.

Does it going out on Sky1 mean its no longer PPV? In which case are the clubs going to compensate the fans out of their increased Sky money? I hope the Rovers have done a sly deal to move the Chelsea game to the last Wednesday of the season as part of all this. Our game clashes with the FA Cup semi-final.

On the official site, Lee is complaining that Liverpool FC have no right to make that announcement.

Irish paper claiming a quote from Hughes that it is going to Sunday 16. Too late Phil!