Pete Barrow: Time to cotton on to the biggest clash of all

Oct 16 2009 by Peter Barrow, Huddersfield Daily Examiner

ARGUMENTS have raged for years over just which of football’s many derby games is the most strenuously contested and most heartfelt by the fans.

From Liverpool to Glasgow, and from the Tyne and Wear to North London, fans will claim that their local showdown transcends them all.

Having friends either side of the Mersey divide, having lived near Glasgow, having studied down south with avid followers of both the Spurs and the Gooners, and after a short spell at college in the north east, I would hand the ‘Auld Firm’ a points win – but only marginally. This debate, though, regularly misses the biggest of them all.

Now I know you think that ‘the Manc so-and-so’ has deliberately left out the City v Salford showdown, well yes I have – but that is not the Titanic clash I’m thinking of.

The Manchester derby doesn’t count because the Reds regard City as a joke, but over the years so have Blues fans and have been far quicker (and been far more witty and eloquent) in putting down their own club – thus spiking United’s guns and taking all the fun out of it.

On Sunday, for the first time, the biggest derby of them all will be played out in the Premiership as the cotton mill clash is staged at Ewood Park.

I know for many of you East Lancashire is merely a mythical land that lies over the Pennine hills, but believe me when I say Blackburn v Burnley is a rivalry that is second to none.

The phrase ‘you have to see it to believe it’ has never been so apt than when it comes to Rovers and Clarets fans.

Having committed a reasonable percentage of my working life to East Lancashire, I have witnessed first hand the outrageous levels of acrimony that exist because of the pride in town and club over the eight-mile divide down the A678.

Of course there is animosity in all local rivalries, but the back-biting between Clarets and Rovers fans is continued almost on an ‘every minute of every waking hour’ basis judging by the office I worked in – and the clubs have rarely been in the same division of the league for the last couple of decades.

In fact the pressure to declare which side you are on, even if you don’t come from East Lancs, is incredible.

After being branded a ‘closet Claret’ I took the only sensible option and declared unswerving allegiance to Accrington Stanley – or copping out as it is otherwise known.

Remember these two clubs were founder members of the Football League in Manchester’s Royal Hotel back on April 17, 1888 – 121 years is a long haul when it comes to being derby rivals.

And things were so hot back in 1891 that FA president Sir Charles Clegg travelled from Sheffield to referee the derby at Turf Moor, a game in which Rovers refused to hand the ball over in protest at a disallowed goal.