Rovers keep sense of perspective

As you perused the Lancashire Evening Telegraph, the newspaper at the heart of Blackburn and its football team, you wondered where Margaret Thatcher was when she heard that the club had made it through to the Worthington Cup final.

In the wake of their 6-3 aggregate defeat of Sheffield Wednesday on Tuesday night, the Evening Telegraph had contacted every politician with even a passing interest in Rovers. The Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, sent his congratulations from Africa, as did the leaders of Blackburn, Darwen and Hyndburn councils. There was, however, one absentee. Baroness Thatcher of Kesteven, listed alongside Mr Straw as an honorary vice-president of Blackburn Rovers, did not give her views on Andy Cole's sublime performance at Ewood Park.

Mrs Thatcher had been in the House of Commons for less than a year as MP for Finchley when Ronnie Clayton led Blackburn out in the 1960 FA Cup final, which was badly lost 3-0 to Wolves. It was to be the club's last major final until now.

It came at the end of a season not unlike this one. Blackburn were at the wrong end of the old First Division and escaped relegation – a fate suffered by Luton and Leeds – by three points. This morning the margin of error is two points and it is just possible that the game which will have to be postponed to make way for the Worthington Cup final, the home match with Ipswich, will be as important.

Damien Duff, who made the third Blackburn goal for Cole to settle Ewood's nerves after Garry Flitcroft's sending-off, commented that his team-mates had kept a sense of perspective. "I wouldn't say the lads were really going mad in the dressing-room," he said. "The league is the most important thing; this is just a big bonus." Flitcroft will appeal against his dismissal but unless Mike Riley's red card is reversed, the Blackburn captain will only appear at Cardiff if they hold Millwall to a draw in the FA Cup on Saturday and win the replay.

Jack Walker's death in August 2000 deprived the club's benefactor of the chance to see Blackburn promoted back to the Premiership and reach a final, which, Graeme Souness remarked in the afterglow of Tuesday's victory, "was always his dream".

Nevertheless, Walker's trust fund ensured Souness would not be burdened by Blackburn's substantial losses and could afford Cole, whose goals ought to ensure safety, which would have been far from guaranteed had he had to rely on Corrado Grabbi, who for nearly £7m has found the net just twice.

Duff, recalling the way Cole, who averages a goal a game in the League Cup, slid home his low cross that restored Blackburn's three-goal aggregate advantage, said: "I have been putting those sorts of ball in all season and have been waiting for someone to get on the end of them. I knew (when I crossed) that Andy would be there."

Blackburn are just the kind of club you would expect to reach the Worthington Cup final – not too big to ignore the competition but strong enough to overcome determined lower-division opposition. Leicester under Martin O'Neill perfected the method.

Two League Cups and another appearance in the final cemented O'Neill's reputation at Filbert Street and this may do the same for Souness, two years after taking over a club floundering uncomfortably in the backwaters of the First Division.

"I don't think I have been a lucky manager," he said at the start of the season, reflecting on his decision to leave Rangers for Liverpool in 1991 and then take an eclectic series of jobs in Lisbon, Istanbul and Turin. Maybe, finally, Souness's fortune has turned.