The highly esteemed Blackburn Rovers Football Club Supporter's forum got in touch and here's what transpired.

The first chunk is their man Phillip's 'pre match prattle' so to speak - and if you click on the link beneath that you get the relevant page on their forum and so their responses. 

I thought the 'who needs Eurostar when you have Tottenham Hotspurs - our portal into Europe. Bring 'em on' was good...

"When the Premier League fixtures for 2008/9 were announced in mid-June I wonder how long the odds were against the Spurs v Rovers fixture on 22 November being a relegation 6 pointer pitching 19th against 18th? Something pretty astronomic I would imagine.

Spurs at the time had done a lot of early shopping including snaffling the destroyer of England's Euro08 chances, Luka Modric, one of the hottest properties in Europe. There was disquiet surrounding Berbatov but Spurs seemed to be in reasonable control of the situation and the club was more famous for its embarassment of having an excess of £10m+ strikers than being in danger of having no target men at all.

Equally, Rovers were being linked with calibre of Manager targets befitting a club regularly qualifying for Europe from the world's richest league- Advocaat, Ten Cate, Laudrup et al as well as the most recent England boss and the guy many had tipped to have been an English England boss although the fans were totally disdainful of both McClaren and Allerdyce (me included!). And the transfer fund of £10m whilst nothing to disturb the Premier rich boys league was significantly more than Hughes had spent net during the whole of his time at Ewood. There seemed every prospect of it being boosted by the £5m compo yanked out of City before they could talk to Hughes and another £3m donation from the Walker Trust. Bentley was being a drunken fool in front of the Sky cameras on the Costa Lampard but surely a new Manager of sufficient gravitas would be appointed to sort that idiot out?

In the event, both Bentley and Berbatov departed and Robbie Kean jumped ship as well leaving both clubs looking at how Villa had managed to ride the Barry storm (and pinch Friedel which prompted the other Spurs/Rovers trade bringing Robinson to Ewood). More poignantly, when the dust had settled at midnight on 1 Setember, Rovers and Spurs stood alone in the transfer league table having made substantial and surely wholly unintentional profits from the previous two months' window of trading activity/inactivity.

Those of an economic bent would argue that both clubs' disinvestments in footballers alone would qualify them for tumbling from Euro tyros to relegation sweaters but as we all know, there is much more to the story than that.

Harry Hotspur (http://www.oleole.com/blogs/harryhotspur), a doyen of the football club blogerati and at times total pain in the side (and other parts of the anatomy) of Tottenham's owners and management and other Spurs' fans has kindly agreed to help enlighten us following on from Rovers' abject surrender and Gomes' special at Craven Cottage last week-end (and despite of, or perhaps inspired by, a bad chest infection):

1) Does 'arry walk on water?

HH:  No, but he does occasionally skim across the surface like a well propelled flat shiny thing.

2) How could Ramos be so fantastically good in Spain and a complete dud at White Hart Lane?

HH:  Despite a decent CV, that guy had too many things not going for him. He was as about as interesting to listen to as Stephen Hawking and his people skills were non-existent. Motivationally he had the midas touch in reverse. Never undervalue the fact that where he came from they didn't put the kettle on.

3) It must be so frustrating to be the best financially managed club in the Premier League yet you famously buy rubbish players every transfer window

HH:  Untrue. In the main, we historically buy good players and fail to get much out of them.

4) How is David Bentley?

HH:  He's stuck on level 6 of Dragon Quest SwordsThe Masked Queen And The Tower Of Mirrors.
OK - He's happy Ramos is gone.
My guess is he's looking forward to settling in, assisting more, scoring more and establishing himself as an England player.

5) You are the archetypal marzipan layer club- you wrecked Rovers' team by buying our best player but Man U and Liverpool do the same to you. Are you going to join the cake mix or the icing?

HH:  First of all I want to make it quite clear I hate Jane Asher and when she was voted out of Maestro that was a happy day in our house.

There's a food chain alright. And it's built on the desires and appetites of the players.

I haven't got any time for the idiots that say a Chairmen shouldn't have sold Player X or Player Y.  Contracts or not you can't MAKE someone play for you.
At the end of the day clubs are at the mercy of the whim of their players.

6) Paul Ince- should Rovers keep him or fire him?

Fire him out of a cannon.

Ever heard of the Peter Principle?
Your problem is who you would lure if he went?
I mean, we're frequently as rubbish as you, but we're never linked with the Ian Dowies of the world.


7) Who is going to get relegated this season?

HH:  West Brom are gone. West Ham would be nice and I always wish it on Fulham.
The mathematicians will start drawing up their shortlist at Christmas.
Newscastle would be hilarious and if their home form collapses they're gone.


8) Any special memories of playing against Rovers in the past? (I can think of one in Cardiff)

HH:  Would you be very deeply offended if I said, "None." ?


9) How many are you going to beat us by?

HH:  That's a generous question but I think a messy 2-2 draw is on the cards.
A game of two goalkeepers, perhaps?

Ah well, that's me told re my persistent criticising of Ince for selling Bentley or perhaps Harry is toeing the WHL party line.. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif)

My recollections of Rovers at WHL include some cracking wins for Rovers not least the 3-2 at WHL which I think was the last appearance of the SAS together (albeit only for the 5 mins Sutton appeared as a late sub but enough to set up Shearer for a fulminating late winner), the 4-0 season ticket confetti game and Samba's wonderful late strike last season. But I can remember two very honourable 3-2 defeats in which Rovers played the Spurs off the park and still lost; 1965/6 and 2005/6 (the Bellamy/FSP double act where we maintained 85% posession for 20 minutes).

I also remember the 4-0 thrashing we took in the old second division in Jim Smith's wonderful season at Ewood and fear that is the precedent for Sunday as surely Gomes will be dropped.

In truth I can scarcely see an honourable defeat let alone a Rovers win this coming week-end. But if we do win, it will feel like Cardiff all over again.

Finally I asked Harry what prompted him to start the blog?

HH:  I wanted a wall for the wise and the witty and the winos to write on.


The pleasures and pitfalls?


HH:  The pleasures are endless.
The mob that contribute and make the blog what it is and are exactly the the sort of degenerate superstars you would want to talk to in the pub about your club.

The pitfalls are as in real life.
Dull people.

What does the club think of your blog?


HH:  I'm sure senior personnel at The Lane couldn't care less about me. I'd like to maintain that relationship.


http://www.brfcs.co.uk/mb/index.php?showtopic=20215&st=0&#entry693370

HH:Billy, you're a Spurs fan. What happened there, mate? How did you get hooked?

BW:My family are all big spurs fans, and grew up about 300 yards from the ground. My dad even played for spurs when he was younger so there was only ever one team for me.

HH:If I had to push you for your fave all time Tottenham Player?

BW:Gascoigne - without doubt.

HH: Your first /or most memorable Spurs game?

BW:Has to be the 5-1 against Arsenal last year, as me and my agent watched it in an Irish Bar in New York, sitting next to the only 2 gooners out there! We went bananas at every goal that went in - surprised they didnt throw us out. First game was against coventry - we lost so not one to remember really.

HH: You've rubbed shoulders with some of the world's greatest footballers. What a job. But who'd be best to go for pints with?

 

This season's most substituted Liverpool player, Bob Keane has become the latest grotesquely overpaid working class mercenary to fall victim to Barrys, sources said today.

The unpopular Republic striker's supersonic penthouse apartment was unfortunatley broken into on Saturday. Thankfully the Keanes we out at the time as Bob was pointing at some Georgians.

The crack team of cat burglaring Barrys are believed to have stolen, 'expensive and wonderous trinklets' that were beyond the reach of what police are calling, 'ordinary decent people who actually work for a living.'

Keane, 28, had been using the flat in the City Of Culture, Liverpool while he searched for a more vulgar crib after his sidewinding move from Tottenham.

Over the past two years six Anfield stars, including Steven Gerrard and former Red Peter Crouch, have been burgled.

Police Chief Rob Deydodoughdontdey said the matter was being treated very seriously and are appealling to anyone who may have witnessed men in track suits with permed haircuts and moustaches acting suspicously near Mr Keane's home.