The recent talk of the ESL and the changes made to the Champions League format got me thinking back to our Champions League campaign in the 1995/96 season. I was a kid at the time and remember watching all of our European games on ITV that season. Of course, with the way things are looking there is little chance of Rovers playing in that competition again. I've always wondered what the atmosphere was like at Ewood for those games in 1995. We had Spartak Moscow, Legia Warsaw and Rosenborg visit Ewood. My questions for those who attended the games are: Did any of those teams bring a sizeable away following to Ewood? Which of those visiting fans created the best atmosphere? I thought I read somewhere that one of those sides only had 50 fans over and they were placed in the JW upper tier towards the Darwen End. Is that true? As someone who has a vision of 5,000 Dortmund fans stood in silence in the Darwen End as Rovers stuff them (Ha!), I'm just curious to know what the atmosphere was like. After all, the only reason we are all unhappy with 15th in the Championship because we keep thinking about 1995. So why don't we go back there in this thread? 😁.

There have been many aimless, wasted seasons under these owners. With the exception of 13/14, the rest have been forgettable, imo. I'd have the end of the 15/16 season second to this one in terms of boring finishes. This season tops that, for me. Our season was over in February. The manager was making baffling comments every week. I'm results based, no, I'm performance based, Hang on...we've got the third best passing stats...the stats guys are telling me...erm, I don't look at the table... I don't care where we finish...it isn't 1995 anymore, I hope the fans understand. Most of that said as we went on a run of 2 wins in 17. Add to that the pandemic, an empty stadium and it being a case of 'ifollow or nothing' if you wanted to watch a game, it all made it a long, drawn out end to the season.

It was an excellent display. I remember Duffer being unplayable that day, they just could not handle him. What a way to grab a UEFA Cup spot, on the final day and infront of that pretentious mob. A year on from Cardiff too. I loved how Rovers would often throw a spanner in the works. The line "they still have to go to Ewood Park yet, that's not an easy place to get a result" sticks in my mind. It wasn't just pundits either, other fans recognised that too. A world away from today, sadly.

Keep on sharing, Mercer. We hear nothing but bullshit and propaganda from the likes of the LT, journalists on twitter and the facebook brigade. All who are way behind the curve. Personally, I'm glad to hear of any potential news or developments at the club from posters on here. It brings a bit of hope. Yes, things don't always come off, but with these unpredictable owners things can change on a whim.

Does anybody have the 2002/3 season review? I'm guessing it was on DVD by that point. There were a lot of good moments that season, topped off with the way we ripped Spurs apart on the last day of the season. I would love to see some of that season on here (or the brfcs YouTube), if possible.

Fair play to Armstrong for his goal tally this season. One of few positives in an abysmal season. Back to back hat-tricks too in the last two home games. An impressive ending for him personally. To have a 28 goal striker and finish as low as we have is a disgrace. Another season wasted where we had a forward bagging the goals. It happened with Rhodes and Gestede, it's happened again with Armstrong. How we replace his goals next season, I don't know.

Wasn't there a rumour a year or so ago that they were looking to get a new investor on board? I'm sure I read something along those lines. I really hope there is something in it. They currently don't seem to realise or care that they are not too far away from a Premier League windfall were they to have promotion as a serious aim. A new investor might be able to get that through to them.

It was exciting to watch. We had the perfect mix of experience and youth and we had good finishers in Jansen and Bent. Most importantly, we had a winner as manager. So many good memories from that time. Thrashing Premier League Derby 5-2 in the FA Cup was a personal favourite. The 4-1 drubbing we handed out at the Reebok, the 5-0 win against that lot, the 1-0 promotion sealing win at Deepdale. Couldn't hope for a better season than that. The current squad is miles away from that. I'd love to talk about the current squad and the football as it is. However, the entire setup, the manager situation, the lack of hope, the lack of direction and ambition...it all leaves me with no good feeling about present day Rovers. It isn't due to us not being in the Premier League. It's the fact that the club is being allowed to flounder by the owners, leaving us with chumps at the helm who talk utter drivel as we head towards League One again. There is no plan, no progress being made, yet we are supposed to be grateful to Venky's and Mowbray is the best we can hope for. I despair.

Ah, I think you have got the seasons mixed up there. That Tugay game was during the following season. We did play Liverpool at Ewood three days before the said Birmingham game. We lost 1-0 with Robbie Fowler scoring a dodgy offside goal at the Blackburn End. I can't believe that was 15 years ago. I'd love to have that feeling back, where Monday would arrive and I was already looking towards Saturday.

Yeah, we won 2-0. Bent got the opener, but the game is mostly remembered for a brilliant solo goal from Duffer. Duff's goal is at 21:51 on the vid below: I remember being gutted about the result that night. That was our game in hand which we needed to win to close the gap on 4th place. We had a genuine chance of nabbing a top 4 spot ahead of Arsenal towards the end of that season! It feels surreal even typing that out right now. I miss the days when I was excited about our matches. I feel nothing in relation to Saturday's game. There have been many moments like that not just this season, but over the last 10 years. Bloody awful feeling it is. The pillocks in Pune have no idea how much damage they have caused. To those that say "we could be Bolton or Wigan" we could also be Leicester if this lot employed the right people at the club and let them get on with it. They have the funds to do it, but sadly there isn't a football brain amongst any of them.

We're getting so much time and space in the middle of the park but we don't have the quality to do anything about it. Frustrating to see our players take a heavy touch or simply overrun the ball. That was a poor effort from Rothwell at the end.

I want Armstrong to rack up the goals in these last two games. There's still a slight chance of him beating Toney to the top scorer award.

Tony Mowbray, football genius! Quick, Balaji, get that new contract infront of him 😁.

It's normally true with Venky's. However, for some reason these signings from Boro or with Boro connections seem to get done quicker than normal. I wonder why that is... I think this one could happen. We're desperate for a forward. Armstrong is likely to be off. We're clearing a few off the wage bill in the summer, Downing probably being one of them. I can see some of those wages being put towards Assombalonga. How he fits into this Bayern Munich style of football we play, I don't know, but I'd take him on a free as long as the wages aren't crazy.

Going off that interview, he looks and sounds like he has had enough. He needs putting out of his misery. This isn't doing him or any of us any good. As other posters have said, he probably can't believe he is still in a job. It's crazy that we have owners who refuse to do anything. Go on numerous losing runs? No problem. Fall away drastically from the top 6? No problem. Waste £12m on two duds? No problem. Win 2 games out of 17? No problem. Is there any other club in England where this would happen? There are a few bad owners out there, sure, but I don't think any of them would act (or refuse to act) like this lot are doing. Nobody is getting any enjoyment out of this. Mowbray's had enough, a lot of the fans have had enough. Bloody do something, Venky's!

Absolute crap. We have a manager who has a face on when we win by going direct. Yet it doesn't matter if we lose as long as we tippy tap it about pointlessly and win the possession stat. That was utter garbage. He's already got his excuses in for next season. "It's going to be difficult to get promoted even if we have money to spend". For you, Tony, it will be impossible, but not for a proper manager. The pillocks in Pune have to act this summer, surely!

I agree, they've just handed the Carabao Cup to City. I can't help but feel the timing of it is a diversion tactic to take some of the focus away from them signing up to the ESL. Not so long ago the talk was that it was too expensive for Spurs to sack Mourinho. It wouldn't surprise me if they have already received some sort of payment for signing up to the ESL. When you consider what they stand to make for taking part in it the £30m or whatever it takes to sack Mourinho suddenly doesn't bother them.

Spurs? Haha. The equivalent of a snooker player down the club who gets 20+ breaks now and then thinking he can mix it with Ronnie O'Sullivan, Neil Robertson and the like. As for the proposed idea, let the greedy gets clear off. Watch them squirm when the novelty wears off and they are desperate for a return to domestic football. There should be no way back for any of them who sign up for this league.

Relieved to see us get that over the line. It's a good job there's no VAR in the Championship. I thought we had blown it at the end, it looked like a stonewall penalty for Derby. Armstrong could have had a hatful today. He was a danger throughout. Harwood-Bellis was solid, Elliott looked much better today than he has recently and Kaminski pulled off a few vital saves to keep us ahead. Nobody else stood out for me. It's worrying how poor our defence looks overall. Derby were able to get at us with ease and just look at how much space Lawrence had for their goal. There's no chance Mowbray will address this in the summer, he's had years to fix it. If he stays next season, we are in big trouble. This club needs a major boost in the summer to spark everybody's interest again. Balaji likes grand gestures, doesn't he? Put £12m down and get on the phone to Max Allegri (Yeah I know, I can dream) Of course, it doesn't even have to be that big of a move, just somebody who has a bit about them and who will do everything they can to win games and move the club forward. Get rid of the boring one first and let's move from there.

It always come back to the money excuse in the end with Mowbray. How it takes such and such an amount to get promoted etc. If that's the case, why did he tell the owners to put their money away when they wanted to fund an immediate push for the Premier League after our promotion from L1? His own words were that he "had to calm them down". No manager in their right mind would say no to owners who are willing to splash the cash. Now money is the reason we can't be near the top end. It doesn't add up. Unless the initial story about "calming them down" was bullshit.

Brilliant pass from Holtby for the goal. Davenport has made some good forward passes too. Actual meaningful passes from them two that got us in behind. Shows how useless the rest of the sideways tippy tappy stuff has been all season.

It will be a surprise if the stitch pitch gets installed in the summer. Waggott has said it will cost £2m and that he "needs to find this from somewhere". That obviously means the owners won't be paying for it. Do I believe he will 'find' £2m for it? No, I don't.

They have been impressive, haven't they? They have some handy players too. Would happily have their manager and Sima here. Of course, that's just wishful thinking and never going to happen. I wish our so called European scouting network was actually up to scratch. There are some good 'uns out there who could improve us but the clubs lacks imagination at the moment. I really don't want to see anybody with any connection to Middlesbrough join us in the summer.

This is why comparisons are being made with Kean. He might not be as bad as Kean was, but some of the crap he comes out with is certainly on his level. Kean said something similar about Nelsen, yet Nelsen was fine and was swiftly moved on to Spurs. I suspect Travis may have stood up to him or spoken out about something hence this latest stint of him not featuring. For me, Mowbray has ruined Travis in terms of development. A couple of years ago it looked like we had a player on our hands. He was making driving forward runs, I remember him looking really good at Newcastle in the FA Cup, for example. That player has disappeared since then and been made to play crab football like Evans and Smallwood. The dynamism has been coached out of him. So many players are regressing under this manager, yet he talks as of developing players is one of his strong points. The delusion is something else.

How he didn't allow Dortmund's equaliser to stand I'll never know. A shocking decision.