Rovers escape strike by Jordan Rhodes — but they will soon cross paths again

At least Jordan Rhodes didn’t score when he came on as substitute for Middlesbrough last weekend against the team who he belonged to the week before, Blackburn Rovers. Surely somebody from the Ewood regime could have inserted a clause in Jordan’s contract specifying that he wouldn’t make his debut against Rovers. It could all have ended so horribly. Eventually we made off from Teesside with a point as the bottom of the Championship ladder still looms all too close. But Jordan is there for good. He may well earn promotion with Boro this season but the fact remains he is now living in a dump. The conurbation of Middlesbrough wins many folks’ vote as one of the bleakest, grimmest urban environments anywhere on the planet. Yet the drive there in from most directions is a paradox. Rolling hills and the dales of the North Yorkshire countryside don’t prepare you for the harsh concrete and chemical conglomeration of Middlesbrough itself. In winter under dark skies the flames from the various chemical factories can make the landscape appear like something off the set of a science fiction movie. Down the years I have never visited Middlesbrough or passed through it and seen the sun shine. Weird fact. My first brush with the place came in the late northern spring of 1974. I almost finished up as a student there. Bully Burkett, of Langho fame, and myself hitched to the North-East and stayed overnight in student digs ahead of interviews at Teesside Polytechnic. But Bully had also applied for plenty of universities. We both had a look round the town that night and decided it wasn’t for us. A student guide offered his advice: “If you come here you at least will be able to watch First Division football.” He was right. Jack Charlton had just taken Boro up to the top flight at their old home of Ayresome Park. It didn’t really sway me. Bully was okay though. He had plenty of options. I hadn’t bothered applying to universities so Teesside was potentially on the cards. Come exam results time, Bully semi-botched his A-Levels and I did well enough to land a spot at Birmingham University via the clearing house. For Bully it was destination Teesside. But I seem to remember he liked it. He must have done cos he was never heard of again in the Ribble Valley regions. Does anyone know where Bully Burkett is? Last heard of in the mid-70s… It’s one of life’s mysteries. My next visits to Middlesbrough were football-related. I did indeed finish up in the North-East at a later date on the sports desk of the Shields Gazette. Covering Newcastle United took me to Ayresome for a rather odd derby clash in the early 80s. The red contingent were frothing at their collective mouths over a visit from the Geordies, who in turn seemed to view the prospect with some disdain. I’m told the real grudge match is with the visitors from slightly nearer, Sunderland. Apparently it was the then Rokerites who christened the Boro followers as smog monsters on a account of the chemical industry connections and jokes about air pollution. Trips to Boro with Rovers down the years have yielded mixed fortunes at the old Ayresome arena and the new sleeker Riverside Stadium, which was opened in 1995. November 1982 brought a spectacular 5-1 rout by Rovers. The Blackburn contingent of Steve and Audrey Duckworth, Brian Haworth, Ian Drummond and Andy Turner enjoyed a fine weekend which included party time in Darlington on Saturday night after the game courtesy of Geordie host Ged Clarke, who was busy as a reporter on the Evening Despatch at the time. The following year saw another win — this time 2-1 — with me encamped back in the press box while virtually the same visiting personnel met me afterwards for more smiles and a Saturday night pub crawl around the west end of Newcastle-on-Tyne. Of course, it’s not all been sweetness and light. A soggy solo train journey back to London after a last minute defeat in the rain at the Riverside in the relegation season of 1998-99 was only made bearable by discovering a pub hosting a wedding do outside Darlington station that sold pints at a pound a go. Aye, some strange connections with the oddity that is Middlesbrough. And it’s not over yet for in a matter of weeks, on March 1, we have to face Jordan Rhodes again. This time in a rearranged fixture at Ewood. So our former hitman may yet have the last laugh for the smog monsters. But his new home will still be a dump.

Welcome to Wolverhampton Wanderers, but for Jose Mourinho it’s all ‘me, me, me…’

Just as the Ashes series seems to hurtling along at unpredictable, breakneck speed comes a perhaps unwelcome sideshow. The return of the English football season. Who knows what will happen at Trent Bridge as the fourth Test gets underway? After fears of overkill the ding-dong to-ing and fro-ing of fortunes has been captivating viewing. But alas in England at least, the cricketing collision between the best of enemies is about to be knocked off the sporting centre stage by the reappearance of the winter game. Every year I say the football season comes round too quick and every year its re-emergence seems ever more rapid. Already we’ve had two supposed highbrow managers mouthing off like moody schoolkids at the end of the Community Shield at Wembley. Chelsea’s Jose Mourinho and Arsene Wenger, of Arsenal, obviously don’t like each other. But Mourinho just seems more annoying than analytical as his post-match quips become increasingly tiresome. Already some pundits are tipping a two-horse title race between moneybags Manchester City and cashed-up Chelsea. Yawn. As Roxy Music once sang: “The Same Old Scene.” For me, the season offers little but dark forebodings about what is likely to happen to Blackburn Rovers in the Championship. My in-built pessimism seems to have solid grounds this time around as Rovers have been forced to endure a transfer embargo as part of not complying with Financial Fair Play, whose rules make as much sense to me as algebra used to. So a season barnstorming towards promotion is highly unlikely. In fact, given the circumstances, I will settle for mid-table security as I fear something potentially worse could be lurking around the corner. I may be subliminally jealous of us not being in the Premier League anymore but at least we are in a Division with fellow teams who are proper football clubs rather than franchises. I have yet to see groups of people walking around the Adelaide suburbs wearing Sheffield Wednesday or Nottingham Forest shirts. Unlike the plastic glory-grabbing sheep who have slavishly attached themselves to the relatively recent phenomena of Chelsea and Manchester City. Yet both these clubs were similarly bracketed with the rest of us in the years BC (Before Cash). As the season starts, Rovers renew acquaintances with grandly esteemed Wolverhampton Wanderers. The Old Golds of the West Midlands, like Rovers, were one of the founder members of the original Football League in 1888. That is a historical pedigree that Chelski and those clowns from the Kippax will never be able to lay claim to. Our paths have crossed regularly. For me, the FA Cup final of 1960 is a bit too early to have entered my memory banks. Maybe it’s just as well given the tales my dad used to tell me about the 3-0 drubbing inflicted on us in the so-called “Dustbin final.” Rovers’ performance was apparently so poor that the players were pelted with rubbish as they left the arena. A few years later I was all grown up as a nine-year-old in 1964-65 season and sat in the old Riverside stand with my dad as Rovers handed out a 4-1 rout with a young bloke called John Byrom just beginning to make a regular impact up front. There have been defeats as well. I remember John Richards racing away to punish us late in the season at Ewood as Wolves headed towards promotion from Division Two in 1976-77. Yet, earlier that campaign Rovers had managed a 2-1 win at Molineux to set the seal on a weekend of riotous student house parties in Birmingham which were heartily enjoyed by BRFC visitors from the north, Brian Haworth, Phil Poole, Steve ‘Nags’ Duckworth and Ian ‘Nev’ Drummond. In those faraway days house parties meant parties in student houses rather than folk dancing around disused warehouses poppin’ pills to the din of ‘thump thump’ music. As I recall, Byrom (again), now an old-timer returned from a decade’s service with Bolton Wanderers, nabbed both goals on the Saturday afternoon, the last set up by ex-Wolves icon, Dave Wagstaffe. When the goal went in, the whole Wolves crowd even applauded their hero Waggy. Nice touch. However, the away trips to Molineux hardly rate as memorable, craic-wise. There are a couple of humdrum pubs amid a concrete wasteland as you leave the train station. Then it’s a walk under a dark underpass which looks eerily reminiscent of some scenes from A Clockwork Orange. In the old hooligan days, it was a nervy stroll that would not be depicted on postcards. In August 2003, like this coming weekend, Wolves brought the season in at Ewood. Gabs and me grabbed a lift from London from former Sydney Morning Herald mate, football scribe Mike Cockerill, who was on duty in the UK and wanted to check out the debut of Aussie midfielder Brett Emerton. Mike chose his game well. Emerton scored as Graeme Souness’s team swept aside the newly-promoted Wolves 5-1. Gabs, me and Phil Poole (again) had to apply suncream as we watched from the Walkersteel stand. Gabs felt sorry for “poor little Wolves.” A phrase that has stuck. She has yet to embrace the vagaries of sport which means you have to enjoy the good times while they are there. A repeat of 2003 would be nice this weekend, as I check out the outcome from 12,000 miles away. So would an England triumph at Trent Bridge. Football has returned. But I just hope Mourinho keeps his trap shut so we can take in what’s happening elsewhere.

Triple J spans the years to prove music makes the world go around

Time flies by… My blog has been off the air recently because the computer has decided to take charge again. Sometimes, I hate technology. It’s rather like the days of yesteryear when the old pirate radio ship, Radio Caroline, had to stop transmitting because of a broken mast or similar ailment. You need to be of a certain vintage to appreciate that but I believe the former pirates of the high seas of the 1960s have joined the mainstream of broadcasting and still exist in a modern form. It’s fitting to be nattering about music because I have enjoyed radio station Triple J’s forays back in time to celebrate its 40 years of existence. Two separate hours per day were allotted to each year with various tunes given an airing. I managed random listenings across the 20 days. With 1975 the starting point as ground zero, it was fascinating to reflect on which tunes had stood the test of time. Also some numbers were like a slice of time travel, transporting you right into the very epoch of when they were first heard. And the selections were quite eclectic. The supposed alternative station was not afraid to throw in some seemingly well-worn standards as well as some radical rants and raves which are best left where they were. For instance Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody will always take me back to my first term at Birmingham University. The song was the number one single in the UK for what seemed forever. Time passes slower in your youth. That same year the Sensational Alex Harvey Band was riding roughshod along the UK live circuit. And Pink Floyd played Knebworth – one of those legendary festivals, where everyone of a certain age claims to have been there. But I still remember the spitfires swooping low as the band were spaced out somewhere amid Dark Side of The Moon. I also remember watching proceedings as part of a vast expanse of humanity. But that didn’t stop one of our throng, the legendary Steve Duckworth, known to all as Nags, announcing in the middle of the afternoon he was “going to the pub.” Nags disappeared to Gawd knows where for some time. I had almost forgotten about him til the crowd near us all started turning around to see what was going on in the opposite direction to the stage. There, staggering along though the endless groups of cross-legged and flaked-out music fans, was Nags. His mission had not been in vain, because despite struggling to keep his balance in his arms he was carrying a huge stack of tottering beer cans. I can’t remember what kind of ale. In those days it would probably have been the ever dangerous, new-to-the-market Breaker. It was a form of malt liquor that sent most folk deranged. Nags had a liking for Breakers, I recall. The cans were dutifully shared round as the bands – Captain Beefheart, Roy Harper and more ‑ played on. Floyd melancholia surfaced in another remembered trip from late 1975. This time myself, Ian ‘Nev’ Drummond, Al Denby, Alex Carlos, Phil Poole and Mick Edmondson were heading towards the West Country under dark, brooding November skies as the gloom of an English autumn took a firm grip. Big Al was behind the wheel after a raucous night on the Birmingham pub circuit as the Floyd tape provided fitting road trip music. Destination Bristol. To see our beloved Blackburn play the other Rovers. It ended as a 1-1 draw. Dunno why, but the Floyd’s album Wish You Were Here always takes me back to those days – just after its release. The reflective and atmospheric Shine on You Crazy Diamond is an instant throwback to that Brum Univ era and that weekend in particular. And it even got a look in on Triple J’s countdown. Or maybe I imagined it. These days the years all seem to merge into one as listening habits change and old age kicks in. But for a while, Triple J made each time slot a journey to where your mind wanted to go. It just shows the highs and emotions that music can stir. Then last weekend, those ol’ troupers, The Who, played a monster double bill back home at Hyde Park and Glastonbury. They never seem to tire. Was it really way back in 1976 when I saw ’em at the big Charlton Athletic festival? Amazingly, it was. It’s seems like sommat off a Doctor Who episode but it really happened. And it is still happening. I don’t get to as many gigs these days, but I’ll be checking out a refugee from The Smiths, Electronic and The The among others – Johnny Marr ‑ when he and his band touch down for a night out at the Gov in Adelaide on July 21. The past may have been fun but there’s no time like the future.