Arsenal 2 – 0 Rovers: Sing Up Rovers!

By: Dan Clough | February 12th, 2008

Last night I went to The Emirates and was shocked at the support given to the Rovers by our own fans.

There were quite a few for a Monday night, although I suspect many were from the London area, and when I walked into the ground everyone was singing on the concourse and I was ready for an electric atmosphere.

I’ll admit, I haven’t been to an away game that was a long way from Blackburn since a trip to Southampton in 2004, in which we never stopped singing despite a terrible match and a 2-0 defeat.

However, I took my (enormous) seat in the impressive Emirates Stadium, which it has to be said is nothing short of amazing, among what has to be some of the quietest travelling support imaginable.

An early goal for Arsenal didn’t do anything to help this either. Rovers picked up the pace in the last 20-25 minutes of the first half and dominated proceedings but were unable to knock in the equaliser. During this period of domination the spirits in the ‘green quadrant’ lifted a little and we were able to get the odd ‘Mark Hughes blue and white army’ and ‘Barmy Army’ going. But apart from that it was shockingly poor.

In the second half Rovers weren’t at the races and an awesome and efficient performance from Arsenal, who tremendously improved their chances of winning the league as the gap now widens to five points, saw Rovers comfortably beaten. In fact, had it not been for Brad ‘Hero’ Friedel the deficit could have been much worse.

It was during this second period that the poor support of Rovers fans was exposed. At times, I was embarressed! Chants from the home support of ‘Stand up, if you hate Tottenham’ were met by signals of 5-1 from our fans (from when Spurs beat them in the cup this season). Now what the *&@! is that about? Do we care about Spurs? No. Do we really care about Arsenal other than when we are playing them? No. We are losing 1-0 to one of the finest teams in the country and all the fans can do is jeer their fans about a pointless cup match they didn’t even want to win in the first place!

The one time I felt proud to be a Rover during the whole game was when Bentley took a corner right in front of us. A chorus of boos came from the home support (fickle idiots) while we gave him a rapturous applause and made more noise than at any other stage during the whole match.

Rovers fans. Sort yourselves out!