I AM not quite as old as Edward Flatt, but for me and some of my contemporaries, the Rovers team of the century will always be the one which won promotion to the old First Division and reached the sixth round of the FA Cup in 1939.

The 1938-39 football season was of course, the last one to be completed before the outbreak of the Second World War, and this may be one of the reasons why oldies like myself remember it so well.

Professional footballers in the 1930s were a very different breed from their counterparts today.

They were much closer to the general public and in Blackburn you would often spot a member of the Rovers team in the town or at the cinema or some other place of entertainment.

And yes, if you got on a bus in an area where one of the players lived or was in digs, you might just find yourself sat next to him.

There was no greater thrill if you were then just a schoolboy who passionately supported his local football team and idolised every member of it.

The team which played for the Rovers that season is the one we shall never forget.

Jim Barron was in goal, Billy Hough and Walter Crook were the full backs, Arnold Whiteside, Rob Pryde and Frank Chivers were the half backs, and the forwards were Billy Rogers, Len Butt, Jack Weddle, Albert Clarke and Bobby Langton.

Sixty years on, we can still recall Clarke scoring 17 goals in the first 18 matches of the season, and those special penalty shots of Butt when the ball barely left the ground and just crept inside the goalkeeper's left-hand post. We also remember Langton's arrival on the scene and his capture of the left-wing position from the more experienced Billy Guest and Harry McShane - father of TV's 'Lovejoy'.

In April 1938 the Rovers only just escaped relegation to the old Third Division and throughout the thirties, the club's fortunes had been in sharp decline. In 1936 the Rovers were relegated to the Second Division for the first time in the club's history, and worse was to follow in 1937.

That was when the Rovers were knocked out of the FA Cup by their near neighbours Accrington Stanley. Some new players were signed following that debacle, but it soon became obvious that if the club's fortunes were to be improved, there would have to be changes at the top.

After calling in the legendary Bob Crompton in March 1938 to assist in the struggle against relegation, the directors waited just two more months before appointing him as the club's new manager.

We all felt that better times might be just around the corner and we were not to be disappointed. With two signings in the close season, the promotion of two reserve team players and one astute positional change, Bob Crompton quickly transformed a team of relegation strugglers into one which in 1939 made us all proud to be supporters of Blackburn Rovers.

BILL OFFICER, Preston Old Road, Feniscowles, Blackburn.

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