WHILE former Blackburn Rovers boss Howard Kendall does not envy the stress that Sam Allardyce is under as the club’s modern-day manager, he knows times have changed for the better in terms of finances.

Rovers are by no means the wealthiest member of the current Premier League, but the money on offer in the top flight should mean that they are not lacking for income while they remain at the top table.

It is all a far cry to Kendall’s time as player-manager at Ewood Park between 1979 and 1981.

It was Kendall’s first job as a boss and he came within a whisker of guiding them all the way from the Third Division to the top league, paving the way for a managerial career that saw him win two league titles and the European Cup Winners’ Cup in the first of his three spells with Everton.

But times were hard off the field.

“Financially it was a real struggle at Blackburn,” recalled the 63-year-old, who moved to Ewood after a spell as player-coach at Stoke City – Rovers’ Premier League opponents tomorrow.

“It wasn’t that we had to sell players, it was just the wage bill and the club had to save money wherever they could.

“In one board meeting someone seriously asked if we could send things out using second-class stamps rather than first-class stamps.

“It was so different because we didn’t have the facilities they have now either. We were turning up in the morning and saying, ‘Where are we going to train today?’ “But I enjoyed it there. In the first season we had a tremendous run and won promotion at Bury.

“Then in the second season we missed out on another promotion on goal difference. We won at Bristol Rovers on the last day, but Swansea won at Preston.

“That was a disappointment, because two successive promotions would have been tremendous.”

Kendall has not been involved in management since leaving Greek side Ethnikos Piraeus in 1999, and he has sympathy for Allardyce as the current Rovers boss undergoes minor heart surgery today.

“The pressure has increased now,” he said.

“It’s a very difficult job. You were switched on 24 hours a day and then when you had a day off you were flying out somewhere to watch a player - not that we had the money to do that when I was at Blackburn, though.

“I enjoyed dealing with the press but you did get people ringing you up at 11 or 12 at night asking you if you were interested in a player.

“I understood it was their job to do that, but it got a bit much at times.”

Kendall had harboured managerial ambitions as his career came to its close and remains grateful for the chance he was given, first at Stoke as a coach, then at Rovers as a manager.

“I was grateful to be given the chance and I feel privileged to have been involved with clubs like Stoke and Blackburn,” he said.

“I was a player at Stoke and the manager Alan Durban said, ‘Why don’t you become a player-coach?’ “Later on Stoke were still in the First Division and I was told I wasn’t going to play much, but I still really wanted to keep playing.

“Blackburn gave me the chance to do that and they got two for the price of one, like you see in the supermarkets now, because they were getting a player and a manager.

“Jimmy Armfield had a hand in it because he was an advisor at Blackburn then and he recommended me.

“It was difficult at first because when I was on the field, when things were going wrong the rest of the players would just look at me and say, ‘Why don’t you fix it?’ “I told them I was just one of them on a matchday.

“But after we got through that it went well. Even though they had just been relegated to the Third Division, I inherited a good squad. In my time there we had Tony Parkes, Duncan McKenzie, Jim Arnold and Simon Garner.

“But in the end I got the offer to manage Everton and there wasn’t a decision to make really. I had spent a long time there as a player.

“It was the same later in my career. Things were going great at Man City, but when Everton came in for me I went back.

“Things were going well at Sheffield United, too, but when Everton came in for me I went back.”