Source: Telegraph
Sam Allardyce alerts Blackburn of the danger presented by lowly Blyth Spartans
Blyth Spartans v Blackburn Rovers Kick off: 8pm MondayTV: Setanta Sports 1[LNB]Allardyce takes Blackburn Rovers north-east to non-League Blyth Spartans on Monday conscious his new team are cast as potential fall guys in the final act of the third-round drama. [LNB]His intention to call on understudies will serve only to heighten anticipation of a momentous spectacle on the modest Croft Park stage. [LNB]He knows better than most that the Cup has a fiendish capacity for belittling the bigger clubs. This time of year evokes an experience he feared had dealt a fatal blow to his managerial ambitions. [LNB]Allardyce was assistant manager to Brian Talbot at West Bromwich Albion in the old Second Division when they were beaten 4-2 at home by non-League Woking in a third-round tie 18 years ago. The pair were dismissed days later. [LNB]''It was horrendous, absolutely awful,'' Allardyce said, shuddering at the very recollection. ''We'd been hanging on in the League and the threat of the sack was hanging over us all year. That defeat in the Cup was the end. [LNB]''Brian was talking about resigning as we sat in the dug-out during the last few minutes of the match. I told him he couldn't do it, that it wasn't the right thing to do. Later in the week we were gone, anyway. [LNB]''It could have finished me. I couldn't get back in football. I was nearly lost to football forever. Nobody else wanted me as coach. They can keep the romance of the FA Cup as far as I'm concerned.'' [LNB]Although he was spurned by the English game and driven close to despair, Allardyce found an improbable way back seven months later. He was offered the chance to manage Irish club Limerick. He took the view he had nothing to lose and, as time would prove, he had everything to gain. [LNB]He laid the foundations of his managerial career from basic materials and acquired a healthy perspective that prepared him for every subsequent challenge. Spartan though Blyth may be, nothing can shock him after the cultural conditioning of Limerick. [LNB]''Blyth won't be as spartan as Limerick, with horses pegged out on the grass next to the ground,'' Allardyce said. ''We had a breeze-block wall around the pitch. The dressing rooms got burned down and we had no insurance to rebuild them so we had to change in portakabins. We had a shower but couldn't all get in at the same time. [LNB]''But Limerick were the only club who wanted me and I enjoyed myself there. If you're winning it's what you're in the game for and we hardly lost while I was there. We won the Championship easily. Going to Blyth won't faze me.'' [LNB]Allardyce, unbeaten in three matches at Blackburn, is likely to be still less concerned that his connections with neighbouring Sunderland and Newcastle will stoke hostility towards him. But he does acknowledge that the cosseted modern Premier League player can be disorientated outside his comfort zone. [LNB]''I'm sure a lot of our players will have experienced something like this along the line, but it's true to say some players at this level are pampered a bit,'' he said. ''You hear people talking about it being difficult to go to Portsmouth because it's an old ground and hasn't got the luxuries now expected of the Premier League. [LNB]''It's about positive mental attitude, accepting the surroundings and making sure you lift yourself to produce your best performance. The Premier League gives you the stimulus to walk out and do your best. This is the third round of the FA Cup at Blyth Spartans. [LNB]''The other challenge is that some of the players will not have played for me yet and I want to see them tell me they are worth selecting when the opportunity comes along. Otherwise, I will be putting a cross in the box instead of a tick.'' [LNB]Blyth's form in the Blue Square North has been distinctly less assured than their progress in the Cup this season, but Allardyce's scars from painful skirmishes past should be warning enough that Blackburn cannot afford complacency. [LNB]''Their league form doesn't matter in the Cup,'' Allardyce said. ''Lower League and non-League clubs generally play above themselves on the day and if you slip up it could be very embarrassing. [LNB]''The pitch could be hard and difficult and the presence of the television cameras is another incentive for there to be heroes on the night.'' [LNB]Meanwhile, Graham Fenton, a lifelong Newcastle United fan, is synonymous on Tyneside with wrecking his hometown club's title hopes as a Blackburn player, writes Bruce Maxwell.[LNB]The two goals Fenton scored in a 2-1 win at Ewood Park in April 1996 signalled the beginning of the end of United's challenge under Kevin Keegan.[LNB]However, all is now forgotten as Fenton, Blyth Spartans' assistant manager, prepares for tomorrow's FA Cup third-round tie against Blackburn at Croft Park.[LNB]'I just wish I'd done it every week,' reflected Fenton. 'I got a bit of stick about it, but if I'd have done it every week, then I could have been a multi-millionaire. It was blown out of all proportion. Most people seemed to realise I was just doing a job, but it wasn't nice.'[LNB]Blyth – a former colliery town 13 miles north of Newcastle – is a hotbed of support for United, something that won't be lost on Blackburn manager Sam Allardyce, who left the club almost a year ago.[LNB]Fenton said: 'Sam will probably be expecting a bit of stick and there'll be people behind him in his ear, but he's been around the block.'[LNB]Fenton, now 34, could be on the bench for Blyth, but 'only because we've got so few numbers,' he said.[LNB]
