Dunn at the double as he makes up for lost years
Blackburn Rovers 2 Birmingham City 1
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Your support makes all the difference.The tune for "Bring on The Dingles", the favourite chant of Blackburn Rovers' fans when taunting hated neighbours Burnley, is identical to their other overused lyric: "Dunny For England."
Ewood Park chose to sing just the Burnley version last night as they face the Clarets at Turf Moor this weekend but David Dunn can feel put out that they did not give the other version a blast after his two finishes helped defeat Birmingham City.
Goals against former clubs do not get much sweeter - or more different - than his two here and he must wonder what might have been if his three-and-a-half years at St Andrews following his £5.5m move from Blackburn in 2003 had not been such an injury-riddled disaster. Dunny For England? Who knows?
"The outstanding quality of his goals was the difference for us," manager Sam Allardyce said. "If we had had him mid-season he would be in double figures. He was the difference."
He opened the scoring after five minutes when a Chris Samba punt was headed into his path by City's Roger Johnson which allowed him to brilliantly volley past Joe Hart from outside the box. Aside from that, and a late Dunn effort ruled out for a foul, the first half did little to stir the blood, although Dunn's heated words with team-mate Michel Salgado at half-time was an entertaining diversion.
The game followed the same pattern after the break – long periods of inactivity followed by brief spurts of excitement – as James McFadden equalised for Birmingham before Dunn scored his second. McFadden's goal after 55 minutes was a moment of genuine class as he superbly curled in a free-kick. Although Dunn's response 12 minutes later was slightly more agricultural, it was certainly effective. The man of the match bundled home El-Hadji Diouf's corner to restore an advantage they were not to squander.
The Birmingham manager Alex McLeish was not happy with his side's defending or the fact that Diouf's decisive corner was taken from outside the "quadrant". "There's no doubt he [Dunn] is a good player but they were gifts," he said.
Blackburn Rovers (4-4-2): Brown; Salgado, Samba, Jones, Olsson; Dunn (Emerton, 87), Pedersen, Nzonzi, Andrews; Diouf (Hoilett, 69), Kalinic (Roberts, h-t). Substitutes not used: Bunn (gk), Nelsen, Chimbonda, Di Santo.
Birmingham City (4-4-2): Hart; Carr, Ridgewell, Johnson, Dann, Bowyer; Ferguson, Fahey (Phillips, 79), Gardner (Larsson, 74); Jerome (Benitez, 73), McFadden. Substitutes not used: Taylor (gk), Parnaby, Gregory, Vignal, Marcos, Madera.
Referee: M Clattenburg (Tyne & Wear).
Booked: Blackburn Dunn, Andrews; Birmingham Carr.
Man of the match: Dunn.
Attendance: 23,856.
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