Blackburn Rovers: Mum creates newspaper for football-obsessed son

BBC News

08-02-2025

The mum of a young Blackburn Rovers fan has revealed the great lengths she goes to in order to make sure her son stays up-to-date with the latest club news.Debbie Allingham creates a Rovers newspaper for her nine-year-old, so he can read all about transfer news, football results and the updated league table when he wakes up in the morning."On transfer day I stayed up late so it was one o'clock in the morning when I was printing all of the updates," she said."It's a fabulous club for kids, they're absolutely brilliant with them."
Ms Allingham, who used to live in Blackburn, but now lives in the north east, said she still goes to matches at Ewood Park "to cheer the boys on".She said her son had "chosen to follow Blackburn and he absolutely loves Rovers"."The players are really engaging with the kids, they're so accessible to them and it's just a joy to share with him, the real love he has for the club," she said.He has to go to be before the matches finish during the week but he sometimes gets to stay up before half time."He can quite often go to bed when it's nil-nil or we're lagging behind," she said. "And he's always keen to know exactly what's happened first thing in the morning."So we print it out and he can study everything the next day, have a look at the league table, do a bit of maths over his Cheerios."Ms Allingham said her son was "pretty confident we are going to make the play-offs"."I do try and coach him anything can happen in football," she said, "so let's just wait and see."
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