Rovers need a comfort break
BLUE-EYED BOY’S BLACKBURN VIEW
AT the exact time I write this, 37 years ago to the day, I was stood at Knuzden traffic lights with a bag of butties and cans of Stein lager awaiting the Accrington Branch of Rovers Supporters Club coach to St James Park.
Exeter, not Newcastle. We were going full tilt for promotion from Division Three.
I’d run out of Persil vouchers for cheap train travel and knew Paul Astley, now sadly no longer with us, who ran the coach operation so decided to “slum it” on the Aspdens yellow and black bus which didn’t even afford the luxury of an on-board toilet.
A “comfort break” meant pulling into the services, or even less edifying, onto the hard shoulder and dozens of blokes disappearing as best they could into whatever foliage was available for cover. Or, for those less bashful, simply not bothering.
With the stink of stale sandwiches, cheap beer, sweaty male flesh and the cumulative odour over a period of hours of all conceivable bodily functions it wasn’t for the feinthearted, so imagine my surprise on seeing a couple of teenage girls among the be-denimed, cheap training shoe-wearing throng.
The shyer of the two lasses, a pretty redhead, caught my eye. By the end of the game, which we lost 2-0 to end a run of 15 games dropping just a single point (and a record run of eight consecutive victories) I was fairly smitten.
I was particularly impressed by how she’d steadfastly ignored boos and jeers from three sides of the ground as, wearing a Rovers scarf, she was accompanied by stewards out of our paddock round the running track to the only female toilet in the stadium behind Exter’s home end.
The young girl in question is now my wife and mother to our kids, although it was a complicated tale and at one point we didn’t see each other for 20 years.
In the interim, as they say, I was in the same rela- tionship for a long time ... just with a lot of different women!
Supporting a football team is the opposite though.
Whatever the ups and downs, highs and lows, however intolerable it seems at times, divorce or a fresh love interest isn’t an option. At least not for my generation.
If it was, days like Saturday would precipitate it.
Another absolute horror show, in full view of the kids, it would be a tipping point if it was any other kind of human endeavour gone sour.
In actual fact, we are booked to go to our only away game this season at Forest on Friday and even my Mrs, an infrequent attendee at games these days, will be present as we meet up with friends from our spells living in Not- tingham and re-visit some favourite old haunts.
But if any hope remained before that Barnsley abomination, I very much feel we blew our last shot at survival by losing so comprehensively to the Tykes.
If Tony Mowbray was, as so many were keen to credit him, responsible for an instant improvement in performances following Owen Coyle’s departure, he surely cannot be fully absolved for the dip in standards which culminated in Saturday’s most shockingly abject of capitulations.
I don’t know if he was simply trying to justify being so comprehensively out-though and outfought but if he gave Barnsley as big a build-up before the game as the shower of praise he lavished upon them after, no wonder our lot came out looking as afeared and tentative as if they were up against Bayern Munich.
The injuries to Lenihan (unfortunate) and Mulgrew (not exactly impossible to predict) left him with little option in the centre-back positions but though the opening goal was yet another simplydefended set-piece aberration (“at least this bloke knows how to set a defence up,” they were telling me a few weeks ago) and the second a wasteful piece of profligacy in possession by Hoban there were men all around the field with as little to be proud about as the execrable Wes Brown and his partner.
There are ways to lose if you’re going to be defeated.
It was significant that Barnsley were able to bring on two out and out goalgetters in Tom Bradshaw and Adam Armstrong as subs late on.
So we’re off to Forest hoping for a turn-up and a twist in the relegation saga but based only on history’s capacity for throwing up quirks, not on any firm evidence.
Finally we all join in sending our good thoughts and best wishes for a full recovery to those injured in and affected by the awful accident outside Ewood on Saturday.
A peaceful and enjoyable Easter to everyone else, however taxing our predicament on the football field.