English Premiership

Blackburn Rovers

Blackburn Rovers Football Club (pronounced /ˈblækbərn ˈroʊvərz/ ) is an English Premier League football club based in the town of Blackburn, Lancashire.

The club was established in 1875, becoming a founding member of The Football League in 1888. It is one of only three clubs to have been both a founder member of the Football League and the Premier League (the others being Aston Villa and Everton). In 1890 Rovers moved to its permanent home at Ewood Park. Prior to the formation of the Premier League in 1992, most of the club's successes were before 1930, when it had gained league and FA Cup trophies on several occasions. Relegation in 1966 was followed by 26 successive seasons of football outside the top flight.

In 1992, Blackburn were promoted to the new Premier League a year after being taken over by local steel baron Jack Walker, who installed Kenny Dalglish as manager. In 1995, Blackburn became league champions, having spent millions of pounds on players like Alan Shearer and Chris Sutton. However, the title-winning team was quickly split up and, in 1999, the club were relegated. They were promoted back to the Premier League two years later, just after Walker's death, and have been in the top flight ever since. During this time they have qualified for the UEFA Cup four times: once as League Cup winners, twice as the Premier League's sixth-placed team and once via the Intertoto Cup. The 2009-10 season marks the club's 70th nonconsecutive year in the top flight.

The club's Latin motto "Arte et labore" , the club's translation of this is "By Skill & Hard Work".

Reserves

As of 28 January 2010

Academy

As of 28 January 2010

Notable players

For a list of notable Blackburn Rovers players in sortable-table format see List of Blackburn Rovers F.C. players.

Awards

Goal of the season

The Peter White Memorial Trophy is awarded to the player winning the goal of the season competition, which started in season 2000–01. Winners are as follows:

Club honours

Team colours and badge

The Rovers kit have always been fundamentally the same; two team colours split across the shirt. One sleeve and one side of the shirt would be each colour. The shorts started white and the socks dark blue. Although the sock pattern and colours would change, everything else, for the most part, has not been touched since 1905. Since changing to white shorts in recent years, the home kits have had dark blue shorts since 1904, when they were changed for a year, then rejected and changed back. Blackburn Rovers colours for 2007-08 as voted for by fans. For 2007-08 the traditional blue and white remains, however the away kit is a brand new idea using the existing away colours (black & red) for the first time in a halved formation.

During the 2007-08 season the club were sponsored by Bet24 and their technical sponsors were Umbro. 12 March 2008 The club announced that Crown Paints would be their new club sponsor as of 2008–09, the Lancashire based company signed a three year deal with the club. For the 2008/09 season, the club decided to relegate the Black and Red halved kit to being their 3rd kit, and had an all Black (shirt and shorts) kit as their away kit, with a small blue and white halved patch directly underneath the chin at the top of the shirt.

Previous shirt sponsors:

Perspex (1984-91)
McEwan's Lager (1991-96)
CIS (1996-2000)
Time Computers (2000-02)
AMD (2002-2003)
HSA (2003-05)
Lonsdale (2005-06)
Bet24 (Trading name of Modern Times Group (2006-08)
Crown Paints (2008-11)

Grounds

Main articles: Leamington Road and Ewood Park

Blackburn played at Leamington Road from 1881 until 1890, when they moved to their current home, Ewood Park. Ewood is the oldest consecutive home of a Premier League team, Blackburn having been there longer than Chelsea and Liverpool have been at their present homes, even though their stadia were constructed first. This stadium sits on the bank of the River Darwen in Blackburn, Lancashire. Blackburn is one of only two football clubs (the other being the Wanderers) to win the FA Cup for three seasons in a row, retaining the exclusive right to place their club logo on the corner flags, despite these victories being achieved at their previous stadium. Ewood Park is also the only football ground in the Premier League to have a multi-faith prayer room.

Supporters

Blackburn Rovers supporters have formed several support clubs related to the team, and almost all of them are partially focused on making trips to Ewood Park easier. In addition, although Rovers home games are the least attended in the Premier League for the size of the stadium, on average nearly an amount equal to a fifth of Blackburn (pop. approximately 100,000). Blackburn also have a very vocal support group when it comes to big decisions being made for the club, a support group created on a media site, objecting to the appointment of Sam Allardyce as replacement for outgoing boss Mark Hughes for instance.

There are also several official/non-official Rovers message boards which are frequented by supporters from all over the world, such as:

Official Rovers messageboard
Unofficial messageboard
No rules / no politeness messageboard
Free forum: Blackburn Rovers spammers

In January 2006, Blackburn Rovers Supporters Football Club (BRSFC) was formed by a group of Blackburn Rovers supporters through the clubs official message board. This team is not one of a group of breakaway teams such as FC United of Manchester (Manchester United) which was created by disgruntled fans in the wake of Malcolm Glazer's takeover at Old Trafford. BRSFC enjoys an affiliation with Blackburn Rovers Football Club and are registered with the Lancashire Football Association.

Main rivals

In an extensive census on FootballFanCensus.com in December 2003, the surveyed fans placed Burnley as a rival of Blackburn Rovers. The match is considered a local derby and Burnley are currently the closest located team to Blackburn in the Premier League. This derby dates back to the 19th century. The two clubs are eight miles apart and on some occasions violence has broken out. When the two teams play each other, it is known as the East Lancashire Derby .
Blackburn also have a long term rivalry with Bolton Wanderers
Manchester United is a team located close by to Blackburn Rovers and so are considered a rival by the fans. The rivalry was fiercest in the mid nineties when Blackburn Rovers and Manchester United fought closely for the Premier League title
Other Premier League clubs nearby include Manchester City
The local rivalry between Blackburn and Preston North End goes back over one hundred years. In 1888 Preston refused to play a match against Blackburn due to their reception by the Blackburn fans

Statistics and records

See also: Current squad statistics for Blackburn Rovers F.C. season 2008–09

As of and including 2 May 2009

Premier League appearances

Statistics from The Premier League only (1992-99, 2001-)

Blackburn Rovers official website
Blackburn Rovers News - Sky Sports
Blackburn Rovers Independent Supporters Association website
Blackburn Rovers F.C. on BBC Sport: Club News – Recent results – Upcoming fixtures – Club stats