Division One: Crewe Alexandra v Blackburn Rovers - Andy Neild's preview

TONY Parkes and Dario Gradi may be standing in opposing dug-outs at Gresty Road tonight, but the pair stand united when it comes to loyalty.

Both men have been fantastic servants to their clubs during an era when football's fat cats have made a nonsense of the term contract.

Gradi is the longest serving manager in English football, having occupied the Gresty Road hot-seat for the last 16 years.

Parkes, meanwhile, has occupied the Ewood caretaker's seat five times in a similar timescale.

But that's where the comparisons stop.

For, whereas Gradi faces a weekly struggle to simply field a team to compete at this level, Parkes currently has an embarrassment of riches at his disposal.

And even he admits he would trim back the Rovers squad and follow Gradi's lead by giving youth a chance at Ewood if he had his way.

"My job is very difficult at the moment. There are too many players here for 11 or 16 places," said Parkes.

"We've got 22 or 23 first team players who I could play with no problems at all and we could put out two teams.

"But the players will just have to go along with it because I'm only going to pick 11 and five are going to be on the bench.

"So there's going to be seven or eight disappointed players and there could be three or four internationals in that.

"I think we need 18 or 20 players then you can have younger players coming through and I think that is the way forward for Blackburn." Gradi is already doing that but for him it's a case of necessity rather than choice.

In nearly two decades with the Alex, he has churned out a conveyor belt of young talent only to watch the big clubs come in and prise them away. Liverpool's Danny Murphy, Barnsley's Craig Hignett, Derby's Seth Johnson and Rovers' Ashley Ward are all products of the Crewe academy.

And though the money raised has kept the club afloat, it's left the team stuck in a football siding.

"He's done a wonderful job," said Parkes.

"Most of his players are footballers and they've been taught to play football.

"But whether what Crewe do would be good enough for a lot of other clubs, however, I do not know.

"They fight relegation a lot and they are near the bottom of the league a lot of the time but the club stick with the manager because of what he does.

"He sells players, brings money into the club and the board of directors see that he's doing a good job.

"Their position in the league is not always a problem for them. That's how they run the club."

Crewe's 2-0 victory over Portsmouth on Saturday at least hauled them off the bottom of the table but they are still anchored in the bottom three.

Parkes won't be fooled by their lowly league position, though, and he is preparing his side for another tough scrap, hot on the heels of Rovers hard-earned victory over Fulham.

"Crewe are no different to a lot of the other teams in this league," said Parkes.

"They are a good footballing side and we will have to play well to get anything from them.

"They had a good win on Saturday but we hope we can perform like we did at the weekend and get another win.

"The lads gave a good performance against Fulham and hopefuilly we can go on from here and get a few

results together."

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