WITH sons named Jack and Walker, you would think football fan Jim Ray was a regular among the Ewood Park faithful.

But the family's transatlantic love affair with Ewood Park only began after a browse on the Internet discovered the matching names.

Jim, of Portland, Oregon, decided to support the premiership side after discovering the similarity in names at the start of this season.

He said: "I've long been a soccer fan, but I have never really followed a particular club team.

"In the last couple of years it has become very convenient to follow almost any club in the world through the Internet and as my two boys Walker and Jack have been playing soccer we wanted to follow a "real" team in the Premiership.

The trio had tentatively picked Blackburn when they noticed Jack Walker was the owner.

Jim added: "There was no turning back, Jack and Walker were on a mission!"

The family was interested in the then newly-appointed manager Roy Hodgson and looked deeper into the history of the club which revealed that Blackburn and Portland were both around the same size. "The basketball team here gets little respect from the media despite their annual placement in the tables, so there was some resonance for us as we realised how the London media ignores the Rovers."

Jim found ways of keeping Jack and Walker interested in Rovers and even tried to get their school team to change their name to Riverdale Rovers.

"Jack and Walker have become regular ambassadors for the Premier League and Rovers in particular.

"One day I called home to tell Jack that we beat Aston Villa 4-0. He yelled out "Yahoo!".

"While we are not from Blackburn and don't have the same deep tradition to draw on, Jack, Walker and I feel the same sense of elation when Rovers win and the same sense of sadness when they lose as does anyone with blue and white blood in Blackburn."

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.