TUGAY scored 13 goals for Blackburn Rovers with 12 of them coming out of the very top drawer.

But when pressed on what his favourite strike for Rovers was, Tugay, as enigmatic as ever, said: “The ones I like best are the ones that won Blackburn three points.

“I will not pick one goal.”

Well, when Tugay scored Rovers invariably won, with 10 of his 13 goals coming in victories.

His first for the club came in a 7-1 success at home to West Ham United on October 14, 2001, a 25-yard bullet dispatched back across Shaka Hislop and into the top corner.

His second followed less than three weeks later, in a 2-1 triumph at Southampton on November 3, 2001, and was once again from distance and once again stunning.

Tugay’s two goals that followed, in a 4-1 home win over Charlton Athletic on January 12, 2002, and in a 2-0 home victory over Arsenal on March 15, 2003, were from closer range but no less than impressive.

His fifth goal for the club, an unstoppable 25-yarder in a 4-0 success at Birmingham City on December 6, 2003, earned him the Peter White Memorial Trophy for goal of the season.

But it was his seventh, in a 2-1 FA Cup triumph at home to bitter rivals Burnley on March 1, 2005, that provided Rovers fans with even greater joy.

Asked about his goal, which was struck from 30 yards and took a wicked deflection off Micah Hyde before wrong-footing Brian Jensen, Tugay said: “I’ll always, always remember it. I know the story.”

His eighth and ninth goals for the club will go down in Rovers history as two of their greatest, a wondrous volley direct from a Morten Gamst Pedersen corner to seal a 2-1 win at home to Fulham on the opening day of the 2005-06 campaign, and a breathtaking piece of skill and shooting in a 3-0 home victory over Basle in the UEFA Cup on November 2, 2006.

But he bettered those efforts in a 1-1 draw at home to Tottenham Hotspur on November 19, 2006.

A cross into the box was cleared as far as Tugay who, in the blink of an eye, sent an incredible 25-yard volley past current Rovers goalkeeper Paul Robinson into the back of the net.

The goal did not, however, earn him the Peter White Memorial Trophy for the second time.

But Tugay did go on to reclaim the award, named in honour of the late Lancashire Telegraph reporter, with an on-the-turn 35-yard rocket in a 4-2 home success over Reading on October 27, 2007.

His final two goals for Rovers came in a 3-1 home triumph over Newcastle United on December 1, 2007, a classy finish with the inside of his right foot but a tap-in by his standards, and in a 3-2 defeat at Portsmouth on November 30, 2008, a brilliant low drive from 30 yards after he had been invited to shoot.

And the remaining goal in Tugay’s cannon, one the man himself even describes as ‘lucky’?

It came in a 2-1 home loss to Portsmouth on March 27, 2004, a shot from a short corner which took two deflections before trickling over the line.