Blackburn v BORO (The Championship)

                                            21^st March 2026 (ko 12.30pm)

Sit yourself down with a pot of tea and some cake and/or a sandwich, or a beer and crisps or maybe even a bottle of wine and some cheese.  If you are feeling thirsty, perhaps two of your drink of choice, because I’m not sure where this will take us, or when we might arrive at our destination. Better get the stocks in and make yourself comfortable.

This Match Preview might easily have begun with a reference to how Time can act cruelly, and not only in terms of the health of some of the members of this Blog.  There might have been 4,000 (pot) holes in the roads in Blackburn, Lancashire, at the time “A Day in the Life” was issued as part of the Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album in 1967 but, as a result of the passage of time, 4,000 is hardly likely to scratch the (road) surface these days. I am making an assumption here: that roads in Lancashire are maintained in a similar manner to those in North Yorkshire so, whatever their condition, repairs can only be expected if the Tour of Yorkshire or the Grand Depart of the Tour de France is routed to pass along the roads in question, or unless a fatal accident has occurred on that particular street.

Following a football team can be a maddening enterprise. We can look at the distant past, during the early years of the Football League or even the early years of the Premiership/Premier League (now 33/34 years ago).  Nobody will be alive now who followed football in the early years at the end of the 1880s or pre WW1, so football events then will be history rather than memory. Contemplating more recent results may also invite “glass half full/glass half empty” comparisons, as has been mentioned several times in Diasboro dispatches (including in the last thread about the Boro v Bristol City game).  We can even look differently at results from earlier in this current season to the way we look at results in the last few weeks, particularly if a great deal appears to hang on those results.  Views may change from match to match and even from day to day, when the dust has settled after the latest euphoric win, point rescued or a dismal defeat in a performance which invites depression. Perspectives change and may change again after the next game.

The Past.

I will try to keep this briefer than might have been the case (though my efforts may be in vain).  Blackburn Rovers is one of only three clubs which were founder members of both the English Football League AND the Premier League (then known as the “Premiership”), those leagues being formed in 1888 and in 1992 respectively. The no-doubt very proud triumvirate comprises Aston Villa, Blackburn and Everton.  Throughout the years Blackburn Rovers has scaled Himalayan heights that Boro supporters could only dream of. The Top Tier League title, under whatever name, has been won by Rovers on three occasions and the FA Cup has been won 6 times.  Under the current SkyTV version of football we all know and love so much (*cough, cough*) Rovers finished in 4^th place in 1992-93 (the first year of the new Premiership, which was the first year of Rovers’ return to the Top Tier after promotion). Rovers improved to be runners-up in 1993-94 and Champions in 1995-96 – funded by Sir Jack Walker’s largesse.  Performances subsequently declined and the club was eventually relegated to the newly-named Championship after 7 seasons, at the end of the 1998-99 season.  Sadly, Sir Jack died in August 2000, shortly after having placed substantial sums of money and the club’s ownership into a Family Trust which he must have hoped would secure the club’s fortunes well into the future.

(Interestingly, Boro and Blackburn Rovers were BOTH promoted from the Old Second Division in 1991-92 and were therefore both promoted into the inaugural Premiership together with Ipswich Town for the 1992-92 season, thus ensuring Rovers’ founder membership.  The initial TWENTY TWO members of the league included Arsenal, Villa, Chelsea, Palace, Everton, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United, Nottingham Forest and Tottenham Hotspur - but for how much longer in the case of the latter?  But whilst 11 of those ”founder” teams are currently EPL members, there are 11 founders who at present are not: Blackburn Rovers, Coventry, Ipswich, our favourites from Middlesbrough, Norwich, Oldham Athletic, QPR, Sheffield United, ill-fated Sheffield Wednesday, Southampton and Wimbledon.  Perhaps three of those former and founder PL members will return to the fold at the end of this current season?).

The security of Rovers’ future that had been intended by Jack Walker was not to be, despite the fact that Blackburn achieved promotion back to The Big Time only two seasons after relegation and the club was able to remain in the Top Tier for the following 11 seasons.  The League Cup was won by Rovers at Cardiff (of Blessed Memory) in February 2002 but that was the only further silverware gained before the club was relegated again in May 2012.  Rovers has been a fixture in The Championship ever since (apart from 2018-19 when the club spent a solitary season in League One). Far from representing a giant of the game, Blackburn Rovers represents just as much a part of The Championship furniture these days as Middlesbrough.

The Family Trust sold the club to its new corporate owners, Venky’s London Ltd, in 2010 and the most neutral comment it is possible to make is that the sale was the cause of much criticism of the Trust and its trustees, and the new ownership has come under mounting ill-feeling as it proved incapable of reversing the club’s apparent decline following relegation in 2012. In the last few years the club has finished 8^th in the Championship (2021-22), 7^th (2022-23), 19^th (2023-24 when a further relegation was averted only by beating Champions Leicester City on the final day of the season) and 7^th again in 2024-25. So not even a Play-Off place was gained during those seasons. However, on Monday 16^th March 2026 and despite helping out Boro with a come-back 2-1 win against 10-man Millwall in London on 14^th March, Blackburn remains in a lowly 19^th league position and only 3 points ahead of an in-form 22^nd place Oxford United. A descent into the 3^rd Tier is a much more realistic proposition than a still mathematically possible (but enormously improbable) finish in the promotion Play-Off positions.  From the perspective of its past, Blackburn Rovers appears to be living the nightmare of its present.

So Blackburn Rovers has been a giant of English football and has scaled the peaks (winning the League title 3 times and the FA Cup 6 times) which supporters of our beloved Boro could only read and dream about. It has had an owner and benefactor in Sir Jack Walker who did all he could for the club he loved even though that legacy may appear to have been frittered away in recent years. We at Boro are very loyal towards our club’s owner/Chairman (there can’t be many clubs where the Chairman’s name is regularly chanted by the crowd) but if there were a League Table of Good Chairmen, Sir Jack would at least be a realistic contender for the title.

Recent Form:

This could get messy, but I will try to avoid that!  In recent games (most recent first), we can see the results as follows:

BORO -  

   Sat 14 March      Boro   1 – 1   Bristol C      (H)    D

   Wed 11 March    Boro   0 -  1   Charlton      (H)    L

   Sun  8 March     QPR    0 -  4    Boro           (A)    W

   Mon  2 March     Birm   1 -  3    Boro           (A)    W

   Tue  24 Feb        Boro   1 – 1   Leicester      (H)    D

   Sat   21 Feb        Boro  1 – 1  Oxford          (H)    D

BLACKBURN:

   Sat   14 March    Millwall 1 – 2    Blackb’n     (A)   W

   Wed 11 March    Oxford  1 – 0    Blackb’n     (A)    L

   Sat     7 March    Blackb’n 1 – 1  Portsm’th   (H)    D

   Sat    28 Feb       Derby    3 – 1  Blackb’n     (A)    L

   Tue    24 Feb      Blackb’n 1 – 2   Bristol C    (H)    L 

   Fri      20 Feb      Blackb’n 1 – 0   PNE          (H)   W

Current status:

BLACKBURN (19^th in the table)–

      Played 38, W11, D9, L18 (GD -13).     42 points

BORO (2^nd in the table) –

      Played 38, W20, D10, L8 (GD +22).    70 points

So, despite how things may feel at present, Boro with DLWWDD has gained 9 points from the last 18 available (4 games at home and 2 away) whilst Blackburn from its WLDLLW has gained 7 points (3 games away and 3 at home).  Boro’s two wins have both come from its away fixtures whilst Blackburn has had mixed form in its home matches (W1, D1 and L1).

Our Opponents:

Our very own Aynsley Pears (27 years) and previous player Adam Forshaw (now 34 years old) play for Rovers. In the backroom staff Jordan Rhodes, formerly of this parish, joined Rovers as the club’s Loans Manager last September, and Rudy Gestede is the club's Head of Football Operations! Michael O'Neill was appointed manager on 13th February (5 weeks ago), with his time shared being with management of the Northern Irleand team.  Todd Cantwell (27 years, a midfielder who has scored 5 goals so far this season) captains the club, having joined Rovers from Glasgow Rangers and previously having been on loan at Bournemouth.   The team appears not overly blessed with goalscoring talent this season, so some may say that is a similarity with Boro. Yuki Oyashi currently has 8 goals (1 pen), Andri Gudjohnsen 7 goals and Mathias Jorgensen with 5.  Mildfielder Ryoya Morishita has 7 assists so far and Cantwell 3 in addition to his 5 goals.

Blackburn is believed to have spent about £13.2M on player purchases for this current season (though if the club’s market activity is as opaque as Boro’s, the figures may, or may not, be totally relied upon), and the club is believed to have recouped about £14M from player sales. Perhaps following Chelsea’s sales and acquisitions model, Rovers has at different times loaned out a total of 15 players so far this season!

Sean McLoughlin (29 years old defender currently on loan from Hull City) apparently accepted that “Home truths were given” following the disappointing defeat at fellow relegation-strugglers Oxford United last Wednesday 11^th March and the “discussions” must have had the desired results as promotion-chasing Millwall were leading 1-0 on Saturday but, having had a red card shown to Sturge in the 59th minute, the Lions collapsed late in the game with Jorgensen scoring in the 80^th and 85^th minutes to secure Rovers the 3 away points.

Blackburn made over 7,000 away tickets available for this fixture but it will be no surprise to hear that with Boro’s fanatical away support, those tickets swiftly sold out.  Somebody must have realised that “Away Season Tickets” for Boro supporters appear to offer better results than the Home variety.

What about the game?

Blackburn’s last result was the already-mentioned magnificent 3 pointer away to a Millwall team which had been on a run of 4 successive wins. It is difficult to assess whether that result would have been greeted more enthusiastically in Lancashire or on Teesside, irrespective of the fact that Millwall had a player sent off with more than 30 minutes to play. The defeat prevented Millwall from climbing above Boro into second place in the league table, on level games played. Had Rovers lost, that team would currently be in the bottom three.  Rovers fans are probably feeling a little better about life now than last Saturday morning, whilst still believing the club to be that mythical beast: a “sleeping giant”.  Even the passage of a few days can freshen the perspective.

Blackburn’s recent form at home has been poor whereas Boro seems recently to be more at ease, more confident and more successful away from home. To be honest, I’d say Boro currently has more chance of getting three points at Blackburn, especially with more than 7,000 Boro supporters in the stadium, than at the Riverside against Rovers.

I am tempted to predict a Boro win, but I am conscious that momentum has been shifting away from Boro since that away defeat at Coventry four weeks ago on 16^th February. Boro had just returned to the top of the league, having relentlessly hunted Coventry down with 6 successive Championship wins (and some wonderful football): against Southampton (4-0 at home), West Brom (2-3 away), Stoke (1-2 away), PNE (4-0 at home), Norwich (1-0 at home) and then a glorious win against Sheffield United (1-2 away).  At that stage Boro’s confidence was sky-high and people were assuming Boro would be a shoe-in for the Championship Title. The debate was whether Coventry, then experiencing something of a “wobble”, or one of the chasing pack would accompany Boro to the Premier League via automatic promotion. The Coventry defeat appears to have taken the wind from Boro’s sails precisely at the time of the season when a favourable wind is vital. Luckily for us, it appears that some of the chasing pack has also recently entered the Doldrums. 

I don’t want to jinx anything.  But suddenly 3 points would be VERY welcome and might help settle some nervous dispositions around here.  Of course, Ipswich plays Millwall at home (so one or both of them must drop points) at the same time that Boro plays at Blackburn, and 5^th placed Hull – five further points behind Ipswich and Millwall – will be at home against hapless Shefield Wednesday later the same day.  A win for Boro and a draw between Millwall and Ipswich would see Boro 4 points clear of both those two clubs with the season coming to its climax. I might be able to cope with that. Such results would certainly change perspectives and would cause more Middlesbrough glasses to be considered half-full than half-empty.

I began by reflecting on the way that Time affects things and people. If a Blackburn Rovers supporter had been asked, at the time when Sir Jack Walker was in the Boardroom and when Shearer and Sutton were terrorising defenders up and down the country or, later, in December 2001 when the club had just paid £8M to Manchester United to sign Andy Cole, that supporter would have been hoping to challenge for the League title and maybe other silverware rather than (as now) looking over the shoulder at the trapdoor to League One (Tier Three).  Equally a Boro supporter (no names, no pack drill) who at the start of the season thought Boro might, with a favourable wind, have a chance of finishing 8^th or 9^th in the table, would almost certainly have greeted with unrestrained pleasure a situation where Boro found itself in 2^nd position in the table towards the end of March and still with automatic promotion in its own hands.  If Boro wins its games promotion will follow. A final 8^th or 9^th position which might have seemed “OK” in August 2025 would now seem particularly underwhelming.  In fact, from here, 8^th or 9^th place in the table would amount to a devastating collapse in form by the end of this season.  Time has moved on.  New parameters have been set.  We can’t forget the last seven and a half months. Mount Everest must look high, almost unattainable, from Basecamp but if you’d already reached the Hillary Step any failure to summit from there would feel like the end of the world.

It’s all relative.  It is about perspective.  A modern supporter of Arsenal or Manchester United would be horrified even to contemplate the possibility that their team could be in The Championship.  They would no doubt feel their “natural place” to be at the top end of the Premier League fighting for titles and European glory.  Hartlepool supporters – no, even Blackburn Rovers supporters with all their history of successes ancient and modern - would snap our hands off to be in Boro’s position at present.

This morning I watched a YouTube interview/podcast by Gabby Logan and Mark Chapman, interviewing the current Community Director of Wrexham AFC, Humphrey Ker.  Founded in 1864 (when dragons still flew over the mountains of North Wales and neither Blackburn Rovers nor Middlesbrough existed as professional football clubs) Wrexham was in the Twilight Zone of non-league football, its better years only a memory, when Hollywood came calling in February 2021.  Ker said in the interview that, asked to search for a football club for the Hollywood stars to buy, three names were at the top of the list: Aldershot, Hartlepool and Wrexham.  The owner of Hartlepool wanted to be paid £2M for the Club.  Wrexham was then owned by a Supporters’ Trust, which sought a sale price of a nominal £1 if only £2M could be made available to discharge the club’s debts – so guess which most appealed to Reynolds & McElhenney.  When a list of “What Might Have Beens” is eventually compiled, supporters of Hartlepool United must have pride of place, as they jealously look on.  Previously in the same league as Hartlepool, Wrexham has achieved THREE successive promotions and might be in with a chance of Premier League football via this season’s Play-Offs. Hartlepool remains in what we might think of as the old Nationwide Conference – the Fifth Tier in English football - whilst Wrexham supporters are living the dream.

Meanwhile Wrexham is said to have more commercial deals than most (apart from the very largest clubs) in the Premier League and a further, record breaking FOURTH successive promotion would propel Wrexham into the Giant league.  Its commercial success feeds off its American and world media exposure.  The prime shirt sponsor for Wrexham is United Airlines (the largest airline in the world in terms of available seat miles, revenue seat miles, mainfleet size, the number of mainline employees and destinations served) in a deal worth £5-6M per year.  By way of comparison Hartlepool’s shirt sponsor is Workwear Express (previously it was The Prestige Group which has taken up the stadium naming rights) and Boro’s is Unibet but has previously been the Pawnbroking company, Ramsdens.  That is not to denigrate the North East teams but it was only 5 years ago that Middlesbrough dwarfed Wrexham and Hartlepool would have considered itself at least a peer of the North Wales club. So we don’t need to go to ancient history, back to the 19^th Century or even 30 years to the early years of the Premier League, because even the last few years offer a different perspective.  What to expect, what to dream of, or what might seem pie-in-the-sky.

Should Boro win the game, the team will remain in second position in the league and will face later fixtures against Millwall and Ipswich that could define the season – a great success or an unexpected “nearly”.  The reality is that even if Boro were to come a cropper against Rovers on Saturday the season would still not be “over”.  Subsequent wins against Millwall and Ipswich, combined with other results could make this frenzy of navel-gazing seem almost amusing in retrospect, in less than 2 months time.  Hopefully we can then all look back at the self-doubt of March 2026 from the perspective of a team that secured automatic promotion to the Premier League (with or without Wrexham following in the Play-Offs). A win against Blackburn would certainly lift the spirits and make the world seem a rather more agreeable place. But, if it’s all fine with the rest of you, I’d very much prefer NOT to have to secure that agreeable possibility by needing to go to Wrexham for the required points in our final game on 2^nd May.   

The issue of course is that Boro finds it difficult to score goals against teams that stand-off, playing the “low block”.  Teams struggling in the league and who are concerned that a rampant Boro will tear the team apart, will not take any risks against Boro, especially at the Riverside, Luckily, this game will be played in Blackburn!  Teams who themselves are confident, believing they can beat anyone and believing THEY can gain promotion, or teams in a desperate struggle for points, are much more likely to attack Boro and therefore leave gaps for Boro to exploit, especially when those teams are at home.  But the fact we realise this, means that professional coaches with all their statistical analysis as well as the “eye test” will be even more aware of the position.  I have previously suggested that there may be times when Boro should mix up the tactics, to be less predictable. More directness, running at the opponent (rather than always trying to create triangles) and taking earlier shots, rather than always playing pretty passes but creating no clear opening.  Boro MUST find a way to create openings, and take those opportunities, against all types of formations likely to be met during the season because the prize is just too rich to allow any other possibility. And the prize may be out of reach next year, so the time to strike is now.

I will be very nervous listening to the BBC Tees commentary on Saturday lunchtime.

Forever Dormo        16^th March 2026

PS. How did everyone do on the consumption front? Maybe if I’d prepared properly, I could have offered a prize to the Blog member who drank the most before reaching the end of the starter piece.  Did anyone finish their second bottle of wine?

                                17^th March 2026