CCC - Team of the Week - Shirley

From last week's Blackpool you can get to Blackburn on a 40minute train journey for less than £15, via the M55, M6 and M65 motorways or in five easy moves as per many quiz magazines:
Black-pool
         -porl  (is in the Urban dictionary)
         - orn   (letter deliberately missed off so it won't get quarantined in work emails)
         -born
Black-burn

Whilst Lyn's tea declare Preston their arch rivals, as far as the CCC is concerned Shirley's Blackburn is their local derby whilst Margs' Bolton is nearer to them.

So why did Shirley choose Blackburn? This is the lady who lead the Euro Championship predictions competition for a considerable time and came a very respectable 3rd or 4th so her knowledge of football can not be underestimated. 

Was is the fact that the owners have promised to sack the manager Steve Kean if they loose three games in a row and she is hoping for a new aspiring manager?  Was the name Rover the name of a former pet dog? Or did the section on the web-site called Ewood emails catch her eye?  Maybe she liked the sense of humour shown by the fans when they let loose a chicken draped in club colours at last season's Premiership match against Wigan.  The act was a protest against the owner's Venky,  an Indian chicken meat processing company.  Perhaps it is the hope for free chicken? 

However, maybe with Shirley's footballing knowledge it was the fact that the captain of the New Zealand All Whites, Ryan William Nelsen signed for Blackburn on a free contract in January 2005.
6 months later he signed a 3 year deal taking his place in a strong Premiership defensive lineup having been awarded a work permit on appeal after the initial application had been refused due to New Zealand being ranked outside the top 70 in World Fifa rankings (are they really?).  He played in the team in the Uefa cup and the highlight of his career must have been when Portsmouth bid for him although it was rejected by Blackburn.  He became captain and signed a new deals which should have kept him at the club until the summer  of 2013 but under Steve Kean he was demoted to vice captain and after a knee injury  in 2010-11 season  he signed for Spurs and the the manager who likes a big squad, Harry Redknapp in January 2012.  Perhaps Shirley missed that bit and thought he was still there?

One final possible reason is that Shirley herself came from Blackburn. We all know about the boat journey over, but did Shirley in fact hail originally from Blackburn, near Hawkes Bay in New Zealand?







In footballing terms, Blackburn founded in 1875 had their greatest successes pre 1930s.  That was until 1991 when they were taken over by steel baron Jack Walker and a year later they signed Kenny Dalgish as manager and with the likes of Alan Shearer (record fee of £3.5million) and Chris Sutton playing for them in 1994-1995 season they became one of only five teams to win the Premiership title (what a boring competition that is - anyone could win CCC).  One of the classic matches of that era was the FA Cup match played on 8th January 1994 where Blackburn took the lead three times only for Portsmouth's Alan McLaughlin to equalise each time. Amy, you won't remember - but I was there :-)