Blackburn
Rovers and the forces of history
So, the news from our dear friends down
the road at Deadwood Park is that the shortlist for short term candidates who may attempt
to manage the downhill juggernaut has been agreed, and the next hapless victim –
sorry, manager - will be unveiled shortly. Perusing the shortlist, it seems about evenly
divided between sad yesterday’s men whose best years are behind them and unproven
tyros whose careers have yet to nosedive. Who should they appoint? Members of the former
camp – your Venableses and Kinnears – as blokes who have seen better days and
have little to look forward to, would at least find themselves able to fit in naturally
with an institution in steep decline. The latter, apparently more promising managers,
should of course run a mile. Deadwood Park is a graveyard of talent, the altar on which
many an apparently promising career has been sacrificed. Just ask Kevin Davies. Consider
what fate befell Woy Hodgson and most recently Brian Kidd, allegedly future England
managers both, until they took the cursed Walker shilling and chose to sip from the
poisoned chalice that is the manager’s job at Deadwood Park.
We might have our preferences – I
understand the name of chris waddle featured strongly in a recent poll – but it does
not matter who takes over the job. For they are predestined to fail. Whatever mysterious
forces shape this earth simply will not tolerate a situation where Blackburn rank higher
than Burnley at the start of the next millennium. As the new millennium dawns when 2000
gives way to 2001, this means that this is the season that our paths must cross. We go up
and they go down. That’s the way it will be. Shuffling managerial hot seats is simply
rearranging those Titanic deckchairs once more.
What we are seeing is nothing less than the
forces of history at work. The wheel of history turns, and now it is our turn to be on top
of the pile. An epoch-making realignment of Lancashire football is underway, and Burnley
are set to re-emerge in their rightful place triumphant at the top of the pile for at
least a generation. For too long, the pecking order has been
Blackburn-Burnley-Preston-Blackpool. Now in the crucible of history a new and more
realistic hierarchy is being forged. It reads: Burnley-Preston-Blackburn-Blackpool. This
will be the new paradigm. (Bit of a pisser for Blackpool, but there’s always someone
who has to be last.)
Our role in this realignment is not simply to
celebrate it, although this is of course important. For the last few years we have had to
endure the taunts of superiority from the handful of old supporters who preceded
Walker’s windfall, as well as the indifference of the new breed of star-struck
success whores, now thankfully disappeared. Now the boot is firmly on the other foot. It
is our turn to drink long and lustily at the deep well of Schadenfreude. Whatever they may
try, they are losing games to cheaply assembled, indeed near-bankrupt first division sides
almost as rapidly as they are shedding fans. Whoever comes in will, we assume be given the
usual sack of £30 million and will duly be sacked once they have run through it all. It
will not make a difference. They will go down. They say it couldn’t happen? They said
that last season.
Meanwhile, sensibly run by Kilby, modestly
stewarded by Ternent and well supported by us, we are poised to hit division one at just
the right time. The pressure of greed will inevitably hive it off into premier league two
and let the rest go hang. This is bad. We will however we a part of it. This is good. Once
there, we shall reap the financial reward, with Ingleby to make the most of it, and never
return from whence we came.
We shall pass them on the way, ships in the
night. Our rise will correspond with their fall. We should wave as we pass them, then
continue on our separate paths, our trajectory happily upward, theirs at best flat. I know
that there are some people who would prefer for us to have the opportunity to beat them
home and away in the league next season, but I suggest we should instead offer to
reinstate the annual friendly as a favour to our sad cousins.
So what is our role in this, aside from making
merry and rejoicing to the fullest? This dream is tantalisingly close to becoming reality.
We can help to make it happen. We must support, in numbers and in noise, as much as we
can. We must throw our weight behind the team to the maximum. We must all play our part.
Firmo
18 November 1999
