THE past few days have been difficult ones for everyone connected with Blackburn Rovers.

But, with a new season almost here, the time for looking back has gone, we must look forward and be positive and I want to stress one thing to all our supporters.

It is my devout intention that Blackburn Rovers WILL be successful again. We aim to challenge for the championship and the cup competitions and I am confident that we will bring more silverware to Ewood Park.

Personally, I was devastated when Alan Shearer made his decision at the end of last week to join Newcastle. It was made even worse by the fact that I was sure we had succeeded in persuading him that his future lay with Blackburn Rovers.

After several hours of discussions in Jersey last Thursday, with my wife I opened a bottle of champagne to celebrate. So imagine how I felt when it all changed.

I know that club chairman Robert Coar felt exactly the same way, as he was involved with me in hours of talks during last week to try to keep Alan at Ewood. Clearly our supporters suffered similar feelings. But you must be told that we did EVERYTHING in our power to try to persuade Alan to stay.

That included offering him the chance at a future stage of making him player-manager of the club if he felt that was what he wanted to do when he came to the end of his contract in three years time.

He was also looking to move house and we were prepared to buy his present one and take on the burden of selling it to facilitate things.

Blackburn Rovers would have done anything within their powers to persuade Alan Shearer to stay with us and, as I have said, we thought we had done so. That was how we left it on Thursday, with just one or two minor adjustments to be made.

The following day the bombshell dropped and the whole situation had turned around.

No matter how much it hurt, we had to respect his decision and negotiate a transfer with the club he wanted to join.

It means that we have lost two players who had probably played more games than anyone else for us in attack.

Let me assure the fans, there is money available and, if the right opportunity arises, we will pursue it. Make no mistake about that. The club have been actively looking to strengthen the squad all summer. But I must also remind them that we have a lot of front players already at Ewood challenging for those positions and we have a lot of faith in them.

Chris Sutton is now fighting fit again, Paul Warhurst and Kevin Gallacher have put their injury problems well behind them and we signed two younger players during last season in Graham Fenton and Niklas Gudmundsson.

We didn't sign these players just to make up the numbers. The events of the past few days have been a setback but it is one we will overcome with the help of our supporters.

We still have a very strong squad and I am determined that we will be pushing for honours this season. I have always been straight with our supporters. That is why I wanted them to know the facts about what really happened over the transfer and WHEN it happened.

The only thing I would ask from you in return is to show a little patience, not jump to any pre-conceived ideas and, most of all, be positive.

Because, despite what has happened, I am.

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