ROVERS fans have come in for a fair amount of stick in recent seasons.

On that dark and dismal, wet and rainy December night in 2011 boos and jeers aimed at Steve Kean rang around Ewood Park as we slumped to a 2-1 defeat to Bolton.

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It was a game that personified the spiral our beloved club was heading down. And yet, at the time, it was the supporters being derided.

It was not the owners who had come in and sacked Big Sam, nor was it his replacement who was overseeing the demise of our Premier League hopes.

We were lambasted for the hostility that was directed at Kean and perhaps blamed for the situation we found ourselves in.

So it was nice to see some of those oh so negative national newspaper sports reporters – who are only interested in clubs from Manchester, Merseyside or London – heaping praise on our travelling horde after Sunday’s game.

There were heroics on the field, particularly from the back four, but the real heroes were those who packed the Anfield Road End and stood tall for 90 minutes.

It was a day as much to remember the past as it was one to think of the future.

Nobody expected a win, few would have predicted we would take anything. But it was the ideal opportunity for the fans to wear their colours with pride, back at a stadium the like of which we had become accustomed to playing in, and look back on two decades of success which are now, sadly, consigned to the history books.

The beauty of football is that it is all about the past. Especially for clubs like ours.

Everyone wants to talk about their club’s achievements and the special games they have witnessed, yet few are blessed with the stories supporters of Blackburn Rovers can tell the past couple of decades.

We deserved that day out at Anfield and we deserved that result and the chance to take on the Premier League’s form team at Ewood Park.

And those special fans who travel week in and week out to away games up and down the country deserve the recognition they have been given.