The formal name of the club is Blackburn Rovers Football Club, and they known by many nicknames, the most popular among which are Rovers, the Blue and Whites, and the Riversiders.

Founded in 1875, the squad host matches at their home venue of Ewood Park, in Blackburn, Lancashire, England, which has a capacity of just over 31,000.

The owners are the Trustees of the Jack Walker 1987 Settlement.

The chairman is John Williams, while the manager of the club is Sam Allardyce.

Blackburn won the Premier League in 1994-95, beating rivals Manchester United to the post, a year after they had ended in second place on the Premiership rungs.

Barely four years after winning the championship the Riversiders were relegated. Three years later they were back.

In two matches played this season, Rovers have a win and a loss; they won 1-0 in their opening match against Everton, and lost 2-1 to Birmingham City on the second weekend.

Pre-season Review:

Blackburn finished in 10th place, in last season’s Premiership campaign. They also got to the semi final at the League cup.

This relative good showing will put a weight of expectation on Sam Allardyce.

Transfers have been conspicuous by their relative absence at the Blackburn headquarters.

The following players comprise the Blue and Whites:

Robinson, Salgado, Samba, Olsson, Jones, Nelsen, Givet, Kalinic, Dunn, El-Hadji Diouf, Pedersen, Emerton, Bunn, Nzonzi, Hoilett, Andrews, Chimbonda, and Mame Diouf.

Their goalkeeper, Paul Robinson, got called up to represent England in a friendly against Hungary, and Blackburn called on Frank Fielding, who had never played for the Ewood Park side, to stand in for him.

The generously built Christopher Samba’s all-round skills as a goal scoring defender must make him Blackburn’s man for every occasion.

Alan Judge is back from Plymouth Argyle where he had been on loan over the past 18 months. Judge could get several starts this season in the absence of signings.

Manchester United’s Mame Biram Diouf is in on loan and expected to add to the goal count.

Yildiray Basturk has departed after an all too short tenure at Ewood Park after a less than impressive outing.

Steven Reid has left for West Bromwich Albion.

Blackburn will try to top last year’s good performance, and you can expect some Allardyce moves to strengthen that resolve while the transfer window is still open.

I expect Blackburn to do as well or even better than last year, with the black cloud of possible relegation lifted.