AFTER watching the recent home games against West Brom and Norwich, I feel compelled to point out blatant facts to the management team at Ewood, that they can't (or won't) see and, yet, are seen by thediminishing thousands of fans.

1. The team is crying out for a goal scorer, a man who can regularly put the ball in the back of the net and sniff out chances (a type of player similar to Simon Garner or David Speedie).

2. The team tactics leave a lot to be desired. There are too many long punts upfield to forwards who cannot head the ball or hold it up. There are too many anonymous playmakers in the middle - players who receive the ball out wide and cannot avoid the first man when attempting to cross the ball. Basic passing of the ball to a team-mate yards away goes astray and opponents are yards quicker to react to the ball.

This list becomes endless and begs the question: "What do they do in training at Brockhall?"

3 What is wrong with the youth product that has been heavily invested in - the likes of David Dunn - who cannot get a game yet are good enough and clearly more passionate than many of the senior professionals who are currently being picked?

4 As the season slowly dwindles to its inevitable quiet, sad ending, the club needs to take stock and act before it is too late, ready in preparation for the next campaign and do something which has been needed for the last two seasons now. This is to clean up the squad and get rid of the deadwood and the greedy prima-donnas, who do nothing but strut around the park just waiting to collect their £10,000 per week wages, and go back to good, honest professionals who care for and want to play for Blackburn Rovers and bust a gut for the good of the team.

This situation must be addressed rapidly before the club gets into a situation it cannot get out of and turns into the one of the many fallen giants of yesteryear which are wallowing around the bottom two divisions.

Fans cannot and will not continue to pay ever-increasing amounts of ill-afforded, hard-earned monies to watch a team play that does not care.

TONY HART, Azalea Road, Blackburn

English directive

IN REPLY to Paul Collis concerning "Helmet madness" (Sports Letters, February 29), the reporting in the Lancashire Evening Telegraph may have been misinterpreted.

This is not a directive from the Lancashire League, but a proposed directive from the English Cricket Board and Brian Murray, our deputy chairman, was informing all clubs that this directive was most likely going to be law before the commencement of the season. No official directive has yet been received from the English Cricket Board.

The Lancashire Cricket League is affiliated to the English Cricket Board, so it has to abide by the Board's directives.

LIONEL COOKE, Secretary, Lancashire Cricket League

Fans not to blame

I HAVE been a Rovers season ticket holder for more than 30 years and will continue to be, so I am surprised to hear the management calling the fans and blaming us for not supporting the team.

It is not a matter of the fans not supporting, it is the lazy, overpaid players who do not support or give a damn for the club or the fans.

Win, lose or draw, they still get their extortionate wages.

They will all be well on their way to being millionaires by the time they leave Rovers.

They seem to turn up for a match and just go through the motions.

We don't see it that way - if you don't beat the bad Division One sides, you don't go back into the Premiership.

Let's face it, we have paid millions for our four strikers - they get paid between £10,000-£15,000 a week and not one of them could hit a barn door from five yards. But why should they care? When Nathan Blake misses an easy chance, he just has a good laugh.

It's a joke to him - but not to genuine fans like me. Some of us want to go back to the Premiership.

I wish someone at Ewood would explain to me why we can play so well int he Cups against Liverpool, Leeds and Newcastle, and yet get run ragged in Division One against clubs which struggle to raise a team.

Take me back to players who care - Don Martin, Simon Garner, Speedie, Hendry etc.

Don't blame us; blame the players.

G WESTWELL, Albert Street, Blackburn

Honeymoon periods

WHEN football teams change managers they often enjoy the phenomenon known as the "Honeymoon Period," which lasts approximately six to eight weeks.

During this time, the players train hard and raise their game, presumably in fear of being dropped by the new man. The fans respond to the performance on the pitch by being more vocal in their support, thereby encouraging the players to make even greater efforts.

The team wins games, points start to pile up, the manager wins the Manager of the Month award.

Unfortunately, this honeymoon doesn't last. The players, feeling secure in their positions, become complacent and fail to keep their standards up, both in training and on match days. After a few mediocre games, the points stop coming in and morale drops. The team starts slipping down the table.

The fans, expecting the team to play with passion, notice the lack of effort from their team and respond vocally. Eventually, many of the fans start jeering and look for a convenient scapegoat.

Then, the manager is sacked, given a huge cash settlement and it is back to square one.

The solution?

Change the manager every couple of months and enjoy a permanent honeymoon! The new managers should be on short-term contacts, with a maximum three months at the helm.

Any successful managers should only be re-employed after a suitable period has elapsed, a year or so should do.

Not only would the team benefit from the honeymoon factor, the club would save on severance pay.

ANDY BERRY, Duckworth Street, Darwen

Bradford memories

REGARDING Harold Wood's queries (Sports Letters, February 29). I have a history of Bradford Park Avenue and the last time they played a league game at Turf Moor was April 19, 1947. Park Avenue won 2-1 in front of a 32,905 crowd.

Future England manager Ron Greenwood, who was born in Worsthorne, and Len Shackleton played for Avenue that season.

The replayed Cup tie against Bradford City was a fifth-round match played in February, 1960.

Sky were a Third Division side and were 2-0 up at Valley Parade. The Clarets scored two late goals to save face.

Burnley won the replay 5-0, in front of 52,850 fans.

Some old romantics reformed Park Avenue in the late 1980's and they play in the Northern Premier League. And, thankfully, have changed their hooped "rugby shirts" for something more pleasing to the eye.

Another point of local interest is that in the 1920's, Park Avenue played at Seedhill, Nelson, when Nelson had a league side.

In 1926 more than 14,000 packed into Seedhill, which I belived is a record crowd at Nelson. During the five years Nelson played league football, they played friendlies against Real Madrid, drawing in Spain and winning at Seedhill. How times change.

PETER DURKIN, Colne Road, Burnley

Contract madness

THE new set-up of giving contracts to hand picked players from the County Cricket teams, will not sit well with everyone. Although supporters of the game would welcome a successful English Test team, there is no guarantee that the new system will work.

Counties and fans alike will be loathe to release their star players sacrificing any chance to bring success, on the altar of a chance to produce a winning team at national level.

The cricket board already have the first pick of the best players. County success seems of little consequence to them. Am I wrong in assuming the present way of things produced classy competitors - eg Washbrook, Hutton, Hardstaff, Barrington, Laker, Lock, Trueman, the list is endless.

It seems to me if you have players good enough, true competitors, the team would pick itself, without proving detrimental to the teams at County level. Another way to be fair to players constantly releasing players would be to allow them further stars from abroad, to cover in their absence.

K SOWERBUTTS, Southwood Drive, Baxenden

Cheap jibe

NEVER at a loss for a cheap jibe (especially if it concerns Manchester United), Peter White surpassed himself in bad taste with his comments (LET, March 1) on Kenneth Wolstenholme's quotation.

He knows exactly what the former commentator was referring to and I think his comments were entirely unnecessary. Of course, once again, a Manchester United player was involved.

The same club figured in two other paragraphs of his so-called whimsical column.

KEITH REYNOLDS, Hindle Street, Darwen

Bad ref

AT the "Evening with Tony Parkes' the Rovers manager said that referees had not been poor in the league this season. Had he met the referee of the West Brom game before?

He was a disgrace and he ruined the match. However, Rovers won and despite a poor performance, we still earned three points.

JOAN PERCIVAL, Little Harwood, Blackburn

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.