The current crop of Rovers players will be on hand to help induct club legends in to the inaugural Ewood Hall of Fame this week.

The Blackburn Rovers Former Players Association has organised the sell-out event to celebrate the achievements of some of the club’s star names.

Record goalscorer Simon Garner, appearance holder Derek Fazackerley, and club legends Bryan Douglas, Ronnie Clayton, Brad Friedel, Alan Shearer and Bob Crompton, who led his hometown club to glory as a player and as a manager, are the first seven to be inducted.

David Raya, Bradley Dack and Danny Graham will be hand out the awards at the ceremonial dinner at Ewood Park on Thursday, with committee chairman Ken Beamish hoping it will become an annual event.

Beamish, who served the club as both a player and commercial manager, said; “Part of the evening is the presentation of awards to these inductees.

“What we’ve brought about, with the help of the club of course, is the likes of Graham and Dack presenting the awards to Shearer and Garner, and Raya to Brad Friedel.”

Garner, Fazackerley, Shearer, Friedel and Douglas will be all present at the event, while Clayton and Crompton will be represented by family members.

“Going forward we are going to introduce it to the supporters. In the first instance to get it going, it was those players who were outstanding in the Blackburn Rovers record books,” Beamish added.

“The leading goalscorer (Simon Garner), most appearances (Derek Fazackerley), Alan Shearer for his achievements in the time he was with us, they were obvious people, Bryan Douglas and Ronnie Clayton as well.

“Going forward, we want to bring it in to the supporters minds.”

Dinners to celebrate the club’s Premiership win in 1995, and the Full Members Cup success of 1987, are among those to have been organised by the BRFPA.

On the reason behind the Hall of Fame, Beamish said: “We had three anniversary dinners, but the next anniversary would be 2022, which would be 20 years since the Worthington Cup win.

“We thought about what we could do going forward that would bring a regular Former Players Association event together. We came up with the Hall of Fame idea.”

The event sold out within 48 hours of going on sale. Around 370 people will pack in to the reception room at Ewood Park, with Beamish admitting the take-up did take organisers by surprise.

“I think it did. We have had a number of events over the last couple of years, and the other one that went very quickly was when we had the anniversary of the Premiership win,” he said.

“Hopefully going forward we continue with it, and the supporters’ involvement brings it down to earth.”