THERE are certain traditions that simply endure.

If it's Christmas, you just know there will be some soggy Brussels sprouts on your dinner plate.

If it's New Year, you can bet there'll be someone launching enthusiastically into 'Auld Lang Syne', who hasn't a clue what the words are.

And if it's the first weekend after the New Year, football managers, coaches and fans across the land will be trotting out the usual tired old clichs about 'the magic of the FA Cup'.

Well pardon me, but it didn't feel very magical at Ewood on Saturday.

As with Wigan and Kettering in recent years, the party was almost exclusively enjoyed by the visitors.

Rovers, like some latter day Tommy Cooper, bumbled around failing miserably to produce a rabbit out of the hat. Or, for that matter, a goal into the Chester net.

Try as I might at half-time, I couldn't imagine Graeme Souness wearing a fez and chuckling at his own team's ineptness.

But we needn't have grumbled. One other FA Cup tradition that seems to endure is that Rovers don't slip up on the non-League banana skins that periodically cross their path.

We may have had some uncomfortable moments down the years (as against Chester) but in the end, like Kettering, Welling, Kidderminster, Stafford, Matlock, Willington and Altrincham before them, our opponents had to settle for a 'magical' experience. And, ultimately, defeat.

At the same time, Rovers extended a few other FA Cup traditions on Saturday.

Traditionally nowadays, the third round means you don't play your first choice team. Traditionally, too, you spend a lot of time explaining to media and supporters that this does not mean you are underestimating the opposition.

Mr Souness got it just about right by blooding youngsters Dunning and Douglas and by giving Mahon and Hignett a prolonged taste of the action. He also let loose Marcus Bent late on, to shake the side out of its collective lethargy.

Now it is a pretty safe bet that Rovers won't be one of the teams gracing this year's final on Cardiff's not-so-hallowed turf.

It's become a tradition.

Our custom is to bow out of the competition in its middle stages, at home. So, when the Bald Eagle swoops in later this month, Rovers fans can be forgiven for expecting him to carry off our cup dreams in his talons.

After seven consecutive years of crashing out at Ewood, it's become something of a tradition for us!