Blackburn Rovers 0-1 Burnley

Blackburn Rovers 0-1 Burnley
Ewood Park
Sky Bet Chamionship
Saturday 24th October 2015

Not convinced by this programme cover.

Having been to many 'big' local derbies in previous years, when Burnley were relegated from the Premier League at the end of the 2014/15 season, I was determined to get to their local derby with arch-rivals Blackburn Rovers the following year, and add that to my list.

My only previous visit to Ewood Park was to see Rovers against Portsmouth quite a few years earlier. On that occasion, in September 2007, they lost 1-0 in a pretty drab game with Kanu scoring the only goal, whilst Tugay and Robbie Savage went around kicking everyone in sight.

With many Blackburn fans unhappy that Gary Bowyer was still their manager, tickets for the game were relatively straightforward to come by and after exchanging a couple of e-mails with the club's ticket office, my wallet was soon almost £30 lighter and I was off to what promised to be a special East Lancashire derby.

A very empty (and wet) Ewood Park.

Burnley, unlike their nearest and dearest, had enjoyed a relatively good start to the season and were firmly in and amongst the promotion mix at the time. The feeling (or fear, depending on who you support) was that the Clarets would turn up at Ewood Park and dish out what is known in these parts as a good, old fashioned tonking.

The journey to Blackburn was less than eventful, with a two-hour coach ride to Leeds passing smoothly, before an hour-long journey on the train to my final destination. Luckily, for passengers, the local police force had made this trip a 'bubble' for visiting fans - thus meaning it was eerily quiet in terms of passengers numbers when the train passed through Burnley Manchester Road, en route. Once I was in a wet and drizzly Blackburn, a short 10-minute bus ride to the ground was required and I was outside Ewood Park for about 10.30am.

Weather conditions couldn't have been worse.

With weather conditions threatening to deteriorate further, I opted to head straight inside. Then came the task of trying to keep warm, as with the exception of a few stewards, I was one of only a handful of hardy souls already in the ground. The atmosphere didn't improve much by kick-off, surprisingly, with less than 20,000 turning out - and 6,000 of them were away fans creating a racket in the Darwen End.

Despite a goalless first half, during which not an awful lot happened and many of those watching on TV may have been bored, Blackburn kicked into life in the second half and went close on a couple of occasions with both Tom Lawrence and Jordan Rhodes squandering brilliant opportunities to send Rovers fans into raptures. Burnley's threat was less than sporadic, but just after the hour mark they made the hosts pay thanks to a sublime effort by Scott Arfield.

The Darwen End which housed the Burnley fans.

Rovers did their best to rally in the closing stages, but when it's not your day, it's simply not your day - that was proved in the dying minutes as an effort by Craig Conway rattled the upright, and despite further pressure, the hosts couldn't force an equaliser.

The journey back to Nottinghamshire was straightforward. A quick walk to the station resulted in being able to catch an earlier than expected train, which also subsequently meant that I was able to catch an earlier than anticipated return coach too. Once home it was straight to bed, as I'd been suffering with a severe bout of man flu for most of the day!

The visiting fans and players celebrate at full-time.