Blackburn Rovers & The 5000 Club.

English football history is littered with milestones. The creation of the Premier League; Treble winning seasons of both Manchester Clubs; England winning the World Cup; the creation of the football league itself.

In 1888, Scotsman William McGregor founded the football league and 12 clubs began playing each other home and away. These clubs were Accrington, Aston Villa, Blackburn Rovers, Bolton Wanderers, Burnley, Derby County, Everton, Notts County, Preston North End, Stoke,West Bromwich Albion and Wolverhampton Wanderers. Since then, six of these clubs have managed to play 5000 league games. Preston, Burnley, Wolves, Derby, Bolton & West Brom have all achieved this feat and the latest to join the elite club is Blackburn Rovers.

Now, I know what you’re thinking…here we go, another article about how great Blackburn are! But honestly, that’s not it. I’ve been down that road for Heart of Football, I’ve done that and Jack Walker knows I’ve got the football shirt. After all, our biggest rivals Burnley and Preston got their first anyway.

Preston North End were the first to reach this milestone when the faced Derby County in 2020 and West Bromwich Albion became the 6th club to reach 5000 earlier this year when they face Sheffield United. Blackburn Rovers hosted Middlesbrough at Ewood Park for their 5000th league match and certainly wanted to celebrate the occasion with three points as they ran out 2-1 victors. Shame it was not quite the ten goal thriller like the one against neighbours Accrington in their first ever league fixture. A win looked to be wishful thinking ahead of the match as of the six other clubs to reach the 5000 mark, only Bolton Wanderers actually managed victory in this fixture with an emphatic 5-0 demolition against Peterborough United. All the other clubs lost their anniversary match with the exception of Burnley who managed to record a 1-1 draw with Manchester United.

Back in 2020, when Preston reached their 5000, Blackburn Rovers were actually 9th on the list with both Wolverhampton Wanderers and Bury ahead of them. Bury, of course, dropped out of the football league and dissolved a few years ago which scuppered their chances of reaching 5000 matches anytime soon. Wolves, however, can’t be far off achieving this feat. Of course, how quickly you accumulate league matches very much depends on which division you are playing in with Premier League clubs playing 38 games a season as opposed to 46 in the Championship, League 1 & 2 so I would like to think that the main reason Blackburn Rovers have taken a little while longer than some of their counterparts is their years in the top flight…

In any event, I know I am not alone in my Blue & White bias because dozens of video messages have flooded the social media accounts of Blackburn Rovers from former players ranging from club legends like Colin Hendry, Simon Garner, the original SAS – Shearer & Sutton to more recent alumni, some how have only spent limited seasons at Ewood like Ruben Rochina, Yakubu and Jan Paul van Hecke who was only on loan, all with the same outpouring of love and pride to have played a small part in the history of the club that is still so near and dear to their hearts.

And on that note, I join them in saying congratulations to Blackburn Rovers on their long and storied history…here’s to the next 5000!