During the aftermath of the elated scenes which saw a majority of the 3,860 Rovers fans, who travelled to support the Blues during their 1-0 victory over Doncaster Rovers, invade the pitch to celebrate Rovers’ promotion back to the Sky Bet Championship at the first time of asking, Rovers’ manager Tony Mowbray summed up his emotions to BBC Radio Lancashire and the clubs’ media team.
Mowbray spoke to BBC Radio Lancashire regarding his ambitions for the future and how he believed that Rovers could compete in next season’s Championship, if given the tools.
“The dressing room is bouncing to be honest, it’s really amazing to see how professional people, who have spent the whole season listening and taking in what I had to say, can suddenly turn into small children! Despite their outburst of emotions, it is a long hard season and their celebrations are justified. Back in August, when we lost 3-1 to Doncaster in the reverse fixture, the fans let the team know that their performance wasn’t good enough and that they expected better from their players. The good thing, looking back, about that, was that the players reacted and went on an incredible run of only having 1 defeat in 33 games, which has allowed us to achieve promotion at the first time of asking. Now we must try and make it 1 defeat in 35 by winning our final 2 games.
“I’m delighted for the players and of course, the fans, because hopefully the club is now facing in the right direction and heading back upwards. It’s a big summer for me, because I’m hopefully going to India to see if we can get some help financially and there are going a lot of clubs in the Championship who are still receiving parachute payments. I think I calculated around 12 clubs, including the 3 from the Premier League who will still be getting the payments. It’s probably not the time to talk about money and budgets, but I want to try and compete next season, just like the likes of Sheffield United and Millwall have done this season and I don’t see why we can’t use the momentum and camaraderie of this season moving into the Championship.
“Tonight, the players are enjoying the fruits of their labour. A lot of the lads live in the world of social media, so there are a lot of phones in people’s faces and singing songs, but I’m happy for everyone to be honest. I was telling someone before, that I just looked at my phone and within half an hour, I had 98 text messages, which shows that people care. Although they might not come to every game, or you might not speak to them every day, but they care and they want your football team to do well and it’s really special that people take the time out to congratulate you.
“In terms of where this achievement ranks among what I’ve achieved in the game, this is up there. Obviously, I’ve won the Championship with West Bromwich Albion, which is a pretty special achievement, I’ve had playoff finals, one of which was my last game as a player, when I was part of the Ipswich Town squad that got to the Premier League. It doesn’t matter about me though, I’m just delighted for this club as it was spiralling in the wrong direction with a lot of negativity surrounding it, but I’m happy that this group of players have managed to galvanise with each other and turn that negativity into positivity this season. The overexcitement of the supporters tonight is understandable, especially after the torture they’ve had over the past few years, but it’s important that we continue and not let them down next season.
“In this day and age, you’re only 1 or 2 bad results away from having real negativity, yet I haven’t felt any negativity around us ever since I’ve arrived. I don’t look at social media or read the papers, I just focus on my job and do it how I believe it’s right and if there has been any negativity this year, I haven’t felt it. What I have felt however, is the support of the fans and the people who come to the games to see their team fight, tackle, close down and create chances. The town of Blackburn is like where I’m from. I’m from Middlesbrough, and they’re both industrial areas where people work hard to earn their money and that’s what they want their football team to do, which is what I’ve tried to bring to this club. If we can add similar amounts of quality next year as we did this year, then we should be okay.
“We just want to finish off the next 2 games the best we can whilst also having fun knowing that we’re safely up. We go to Charlton next, an ex-Premier League team like ourselves, but it’s a big test for us because they have good players. We’re quite proud of our record of 1 defeat in 33 games, so we’re going to go into our final few games looking to come out with maximum points.
“I know how footballers work having been one for 18 years. You need to inspire them and motivate them so that they can go out on the pitch and do their job. I could see, earlier on that they were a good set of lads, we did however have a problem when I first arrived, but we eradicated that quickly and never looked back. After the unrest of the 3 international breaks, we managed to galvanise ourselves and push on to great success. The stats are there for everyone to see and I’m immensely proud of the lads and they deserve amazing credit. Saying that however, we do know that next year is going to be extremely tough and we’re going to have to work hard in order to succeed.”
Speaking to the club’s media team, Mowbray hinted at something regarding former Rover, Connor Mahoney, amid talking about the Rovers celebrations in the dressing room and his personal schedule.
“After games, my emotion is generally relief. You put so much work into the preparation for each game, you spend hours upon hours studying your opposition and put a lot of emphasis on how to break them down and how to set up so that they can’t break you down, then you have to go onto the grass and get it through to the players. With so much work going into each game, it’s always a relief when the whistle goes and you’ve come away with a positive result and so I sit there and let the emotion drain out of me. I don’t think I’ve ever sought the spotlight in life, I’m a family man with 3 amazing kids and an amazing wife who I’m looking forward to spending some time with tomorrow before I drop the kids off at school. I try to balance my life between my family and football, so after that, I have to go down to Ewood as I have a meeting regarding Connor Mahoney, so I’m instantly back working again, but we still have 2 games to go which means preparation that I need to start on in order to get the lads ready for Charlton on Saturday.”
