Harford's fall and the dying dream

Norman Fox looks at the problems facing Blackburn in the hunt for continuity

Ewood Park is an imposing monument to Jack Walker, the multi-millionaire who had a vision that one day soon Blackburn Rovers would be up there with Manchester United and AC Milan, not just in bricks and mortar but competing with them in some European Super League. With the inevitable resignation of Ray Harford and Rovers struggling at the bottom of the Premiership, the monument is starting to turn into something that perhaps it was always destined to become - Walker's Folly.

Harford's experience at Blackburn almost ran parallel with that of the club itself. Here was a man from an ordinary managerial background who had rarely been offered a lot of spending money.

Harford left Luton not, as was widely reported, because the chairman, Brian Cole, said he failed to smile, but for all the usual reasons of lack of money and resources. He had earlier departed Fulham, who never have any money, and his time at Wimbledon was more a matter of surviving and selling than enter- taining visions. He went to Blackburn at the time when Walker had already spent the sort of money on getting Kenny Dalglish and a squad of expensive players that would have bought his previous clubs' fittings, fixtures and players put together. The new life of luxury was obviously a shock to Harford's system.

Clearly the question was, and remains, whether Walker's conspicuously aspiring modern Blackburn, rather than the people's infinitely more modest Blackburn of the past, could attain permanent high status. Bobby Gould, who worked with Harford at Wimbledon, said: "Suddenly he was faced with something that was super-big. So was Blackburn. Maybe it came too quickly." That is the crux of Blackburn's problems. Having spent so much so quickly and achieved the championship, the major problem was always going to be one of continuity. His years at Liverpool had taught Dalglish that continuity was not something to be bought.

The moving of Dalglish to the over-paid, under-worked position as director of football, and the selling of Alan Shearer to Newcastle United, cut away the tap-roots of the club's dramatic growth. Walker himself described Shearer as "the making of our success".

Without Dalglish's experience and contacts, however, Blackburn would not have won their title. It was Dalglish who persuaded Shearer, particularly, that the club was "going places". But in reality Dalglish wanted rehabilitation after his near-breakdown at Anfield, not responsibility. Eventually he became far from convinced that the squad had the depth of quality to defend their title, let alone progress in Europe. He was right and could hardly have been surprised when a lot of cynics, even on Merseyside where he is adored, said they had sensed the same situation at Liverpool, where, allegedly, he wanted out before being associated with an ailing side.

The club's present situation demands a reminder that before winning the championship in 1994-95 they had not won the title for 81 years and were last seen as even a moderately significant force in the land more than 30 years ago. Perhaps if Dalglish had decided to put up with the pressure he so hated they would have built a lasting future in the top layer of the Premiership.

There is an obvious comparison with Newcastle, where Kevin Keegan seems to have put together a structure that can last at the highest level. There is also no avoiding the fact that on Tyneside there was always a strongly held belief that sooner or later the club would regain their rightful place among those at the apex of British football. At Blackburn, that feeling has never had a convincing foundation. When unexpected riches came their way, the necessary infrastructure of deep belief in themselves and hungry expectancy was simply not in Newcastle's league. An ominous thought.