ARTE ET LABORE

Lying by the pool this afternoon after another hike across the fascinating lava landscape of Gomera and ignoring the "alternative" lifestyle group batheing naked in a nearby bay, I listened to Talksport on my phone. It's not a radio, I'm hours away from the two Mikes who were chatting to an ardent Blackburn Rovers FC fan about the impending demise of one of the great historic clubs.

The Venkys, Indian chicken farmers, have run the club for a number of years now, without watching many games and instigating the club into a huge debt. There is no money to buy players, dwindling attendances, managers have come and gone and the Rovers lie close to relegation from the Championship. I guess other clubs are in a similar plight, but poor old Rovers, one of the founder members of the Football League are in a state.

Will the coming Cup tie help at all? Unlikely bearing in mind the size of the debt.

I fear the school that provided the majority of players at the birth of the Rovers in 1875 has lost its way in the world of football too, as Queen Elizabeth's Grammar school, once one of the top footballing independent schools in the country, have also slipped away into obscurity.

Old boys, John Lewis and Arthur Constantine, arranged a meeting at the town's Leger Hotel in November 1875, gathering 17 "men" to join the club. The first match was played in December at Oozehead Farm against Church (1-1), where the newly formed team played on a boggy pitch with a pond in the centre. The pond was covered with planks of wood before kick off!

Three years later the Rovers joined the Lanchashire FA along with Darwen and Blackburn Olympic, their local rivals. In 1882 they were beaten by the Old Etonians in the FA Cup final, becoming the first "provincial" team to reach the final.

In 1884 the Rovers went on a remarkable FA Cup run that ended with a victory over Queen's Park (of Scotland), at the Oval.  The next year the Rovers won again, beating Queens' Park and in 1886 they beat West Bromwich Albion to make a hat trick. Needless to say the club was managed by a Scotsman, Thomas Mitchell, who signed Scottish professionals as they crossed the border hoping for employment in the cotton mills.
In 1885-6 season the club spent £615 on players wages.

In 1888 the Rovers joined the newly formed Football League, settling at Ewood Park a year later and by 1891 they had won the FA Cup 5 times. What ever happens to the Rovers in the next year or so, heaven forbid, they have left their mark indelibly on English football, being one of three clubs to have been founder members of the Football League and the Premier League.

FA Cup winners 1883-4