2nd-4th November 2007 - It's Football-tastic Up North!!!

Blackburn. Not a destination that most people would first think of when planning a weekend trip away. But did you know that in Blackburn you can step back in time to an earlier age and discover the treasures of a bygone era? The history of Blackburn travels back many centuries: Bronze Age people lived here and the Romans certainly took a passing interest. A fine Roman museum now exists at the village of Ribchester to the East of Blackburn in the Ribble Valley.


When travelling through Blackburn, an ancient Roman, Marcus Hughesius, dropped his leather water pouch and bending over to retrieve it accidentally kicked it. A fellow Roman kicked it back to him. Marcus bought it under control, flicked it up in the air and volleyed it back again. Loads more Romans joined in and all had a splendid time kicking the pouch around an open field for around 90 minutes. "I shall call this game footius and the park we played it on Ewoodium". To this day the game has continued in Blackburn, but not just as the preserve of Roman nobility with their motto ' Ponis mei caput filius’, it's even been known for a Savage to play it there too.

Lynda and me, together with Lynda's splendid brother Neil, his equally lovely wife Maz, made the what should have been 3 hour'ish trip to Blackburn - actual time 5 hours thanks to the roadworks all the way up - for a weekend of football, fun, food and one or two drinks. Lynda had made sure we were properly fuelled for the trip, having picked up four massive pasties on her way home that day, which were soon demolished.

Our first appointment was at 7 o'clock when John our host was picking up Neil, or Lightning as most people know him as, and me from the hotel to whisk us off to a Sportsman's Dinner at Ewood Park, the home of Blackburn Rovers. John is yet another splendid fellow whose only fault is that he supports Blackburn first and Liverpool second. Thanks to the slow trip up we only made it to the hotel with five minutes to spare before we were being collected. A record-breaking shave and change later the boys set off for Ewood leaving Maz & Lynda not entirely sure what their evening would bring.

Once at Ewood we met the rest of our table guests, including Norman, Tony and Davey - all great company and able to drink to Olympic standards. It wasn't long before we were putting those skills to the test as we eagerly laid into the very acceptable beers and wines on offer. The excellent meal over and our guest speaker got to his feet. Footballing legend John Aldridge. 'Aldo' has had a great career to draw on for his material; Newport, Oxford, Liverpool, Real Sociedad, Tranmere and the Republic of Ireland. A brilliantly funny and thoroughly engaging speaker, John was the perfect after-dinner speaker. Lynda, Maz, Lightning and I share a joke that everywhere he goes Lightning knows someone. Well clearly we knew our table guests but what I hadn't realised is that he also knew the speaker! He and Maz had holidayed with 'Aldo' some years back so off he skipped up to the top table for a spot of reminiscing with the great man.

By the time he got back to us the comedian, Sean was just starting his turn. This guy is brilliant. A scouser whose non-stop delivery had us in stitches, he’s one of those brilliant comedians that don’t tell jokes but just remark on what they’ve seen and what’s happenning in the room. By now we were all, to use a medical term, bollocksed. The drink had caught us up and Neil was trying on the jackets of just about everyone else on the table, including Davey’s who is half Neil’s size! Neil looked wonderful of course and no-one except him dared stand up and go for a pee for fear of having it mercilessly ripped out of him by Sean, which is exactly what happenned. At almost six and half feet tall, wearing a jacket six sizes too small for him, his shirt covered in red wine and his tie tied like a bow tie, he wasn't going to be easy to miss. We don’t remember much about getting back to the hotel, but we were grateful that we managed it in one piece and in the correct bedrooms. An excellent night.

The next morning, after the mother of cooked breakfasts and catching up on what the girls had been up to last night – a pretty dodgy meal in the hotel, a couple of drinks and a bit of TV - we headed for Preston to do a bit of shopping. Neil and I ‘shopped’ for about an hour then dived into the Corn Exchange to watch the Arsenal v Man Utd game on a giant screen. After the previous night though we were slightly fragile and consequently were the only blokes in the place nursing cokes during the game. A good game and a predictable draw, although Arsenal left it till the dying moments to bring it back to 2-2.

We met up with the girls who were now toting a reasonable number of carrier bags, grabbed a bag of chips and shot off back to the hotel. Once again John and his wife Beverley kindly collected us (all four of us this time) from the hotel and took us back to Ewood, this time to watch Blackburn play host to Liverpool in the Premiership. Again there were a number of us going to game but we were in separate parts of ground. We four sat with Sue & Norman – parents of Balckburn mid-fielder David Dunn and thoroughly enjoyed what was a pretty thrilling 0-0 draw.

After match we all met up in an excellent Indian restaurant close to our hotel. By now Neil and I had our beer appetites back and we all enjoyed an excellent evening’s food, drink and company.

If Saturday’s breakfast was the mother, Sunday’s was the mother, father and grand-parents. We needed it to be as we were heading straight off for home afterwards. The journey back was a breeze – apart from Lightning’s car breaking down on the M6. Thankfully it turned out to be something very minor and so we made it back home in three hours. Safe, full, tired but very pleased with the whole weekend.

Thanks to everyone that made the weekend as good as it was. To our hosts for their hospitality and especially to Neil & Maz for their excellent company.