IT may be 15 years since Stuart Ripley last pulled on a Blackburn Rovers shirt – but it is a club that he still holds close to his heart.

Ripley lives a stone’s throw away from Rovers’ training ground in Brockhall Village, gets to their matches when he can and keeps up with their progress through the pages of the Lancashire Telegraph.

And, like all Rovers fans, he is hoping star striker Jordan Rhodes will remain at the club for a long time to come.

“I’m from Middlesbrough originally and that’s my team but Blackburn are very close to my heart,” said Ripley.

“I read the local paper and living in Brockhall I see the lads around and talk to them.

“It has been a turbulent time but it seems like the ship has been steadied a little bit of late.

“They’ve got some talented players in the team and if they can get one or two more I think they’ve got the potential to challenge for the play-offs.

“Jordan will be key. Whenever I’ve watched him I’ve been very impressed with him, his goalscoring statistics are absolutely fantastic.

“He might want to get involved in the build-up a little bit more but then again that’s maybe why he scores so many goals by getting on the end of things.

“He’s worth his weight in gold. Those sorts of footballers are few and far between.

“There are plenty of footballers who can do what I did or what midfield players do but it’s the lads at the sharp end who put the ball in the back of the net who are worth something – and Jordan is certainly something to Rovers.”

Modest Ripley knows a thing or two about top forwards after playing alongside Alan Shearer, Chris Sutton and Kevin Gallacher at Ewood Park.

Shearer and Sutton scored 49 goals between them as Rovers memorably won the Premier League title in 1994-95.

“There are times when I’m watching the television and see how huge the Premier League has become that it surprises me that I was actually out there winning it close to 20 years ago,” said Ripley, the scorer of Rovers’ first ever Premier League goal.

“It was a great moment in my career.”

Ripley hung up his boots in 2002 and is now a sports lawyer after graduating from the University of Central Lancashire in 2007 with a first class degree and then going through Law School.

He works as a consultant for major law firm Brabners Chaffe Street and is a member of the Football Association’s Judicial Panel, a role in which he has presided over a number of high profile cases.

“It’s been interesting and it’s kept my mind occupied as I didn’t want to dwell on the loss of my football career, which is a problem for a lot of footballers,” said Ripley, whose 20-year-old son Connor is a goalkeeper at Middlesbrough.

“You need a goal and aspirations after football and something to look forward to rather than look back all the time.”