I AM now able to confirm the 16-man squad for the legends match to raise funds for the Blackburn Rovers Former Players’ Association.

A lot of hard work has gone into putting the squad together for the match against a supporters’ XI at Ewood Park on May 22. The kick-off time is 7.30pm.

The squad John Filan, David May, Jeff Kenna, Simon Grayson, Tugay, Craig Short, Stuart Ripley, myself, Simon Garner, Mike Newell, Craig Hignett, Mark Atkins, Lee Richardson, Paul Dickov, Colin Hendry and Keith Gillespie.

Getting sponsors and someone like Tugay on board recently definitely helped to attract other players.

We probably invited about 40 players.

Unfortunately people like Alan Shearer and Andy Cole had other commitments on the day which meant they couldn’t play.

Bobby Mimms was on holiday and Brad Friedel is away with Spurs. Alan Wright, Michael Gray, Matt Jansen fly out to a PFA event abroad that day.

We asked Michel Salgado as well but unfortunately it was going to prove very expensive to bring him over and with it raising funds for the ex-players we couldn’t quite afford to do it.

But we’ve got people like David May who have won the Champions League, a number of our title-winning squad and cup winners.

Some people have not responded yet and maybe their addresses have changed, so we might still hear back from others to add to our squad.

Tickets are on sale now from Ewood Park and there are other packages available as well for the game.

It’s hard to know what the attendance might be at this stage but if we could get 1,500 that we be good and if we could get 3,000 that would be great. Hopefully we can fill the Jack Walker Stand to see a lot of the old players.

It’s a great get together for the players as well and it’s raising money for the former players who didn’t earn as much money as people do now.

Some need hip operations and are struggling to walk. The PFA help but the BRFPA help too so it’s all for a good cause.

The BRFPA are grateful to the Cardboard Box Company and Heritage Envelopes for kindly agreeing to sponsor the event.

n IT’S good news that Rovers are safe from relegation now, and I think the owners should come over here now for a month or so to come and sort things out at the club.

They haven’t really spent that amount of time in Blackburn since they took over but if they could come over for a working holiday and speak to people and find out everything that needs to be addressed, that would help to sort of a lot of things out.

Otherwise you are getting four or five directions from people, when you need one direction.

It’s not been a nice season, not one to remember, but it’s nearly over now and the club has to start planning for next season.

Players will be playing for contracts in the last game of the season and trying to prove themselves to whoever the next manager is, whether that is Gary Bowyer or someone else.

Gary has done a great job. He was asked to keep the club in the division and he has done it.