We hate Blackburn Rovers. Their run-in with United for the Premiership title last year suggests that the two clubs should have a natural dislike for each other. And they probably have. But for all their new-found wealth and their flirtation with the big-time, Rovers just can't escape from the fact that their arch enemy is not even a team in the Premiership, but little old Burnley, eight miles down the road, who have been hating Blackburn since the days when Ewood Park looked more like a tram shed than the fantastic stadium that stands on the same site today.

As a Burnley fan, I, like many others, have found the seemingly unstoppable rise of those bastards in the harlequin shirts more than a little disconcerting, especially after the fun of the late eighties when Blackburn entertained the rest of North-East Lancs by losing in the play-offs three years on the trot. Strange as it may seem, it was easy to feel a bit sorry for them in those days. They didn't have much money, but under Don Mackay players like Scott Sellars (before he went to Leeds), Shearer (Duncan) and ginger-haired Irish midget Noel Brotherston played some entertaining football.

Then Dalglish arrived, Jack Walker opened the key to the bank vaults and things started to go badly wrong, though even then they blew a massive lead at the top of Division One and only managed to sneak into the Premier League via the play-offs. (Eagle-eyed Rovers fans may spot that Burnley got into Division One via this route last year after finishing 13 points behind third-placed Plymouth, and then rubbing salt in the wound by beating them in the 'semi-final' but that's another article if you can be bothered to write it.)

Talking to other Burnley fans, feelings are split on what the current attitude to Blackburn should be. Some of the older, more mature fans accept that they're moving in different circles now and think it's a bit mean to constantly hope they fail. But the die-hard's attitude is much more fun: all that money being invested in a bunch of superstars who probably wouldn't be seen dead within 50 miles of the ground except on match days just makes them easier to hate.

For myself, I tend to start the season looking for their result every week, hoping they've lost, but then as the winter draws on and they keep on winning it becomes too stressful. The disappointment of watching the Clarets struggle to survive in Division One is bad enough without the added irritation of another Rovers win. But Burnley fans are getting a little irritated by the Rovers backlash that has taken hold in recent weeks in the press. 'They're too direct'; 'They're too predictable'; 'They're too good'; 'They've got too much money'. Listen, if the rest of the country wants a team to hate, hate Arsenal. Blackburn are ours.

However, despite the fact that they've got much more money than us, a brilliant new stadium, their own radio station and a squad of players everyone's heard of who seem to win 3-0 every week and get more good PR than Roy Race in the process, there are still a few consolations to hating Blackburn. The first thing is that they havn't won anything yet. I think most Burnley fans would be reasonably happy to watch Blackburn bring in all these great players and have a few good seasons in the top flight, so long as they don't actually win any trophies. Then when Shearer, Sutton, Flowers and co realise it's not going to happen, they can all wander off somewhere else and leave Atkins, Slater, Pearce and the other number 23's and 24's to fight off relegation.

The second consolation is the great cup performances. How we chortled last year when Darren Pitcher put them out of the FA Cup, though it didn't make up for the fact that Charlton had already put us out in the previous round, denying us the one tie that all Clarets dream of. How we sniggered when Lee Clark did the same thing for Newcastle this year. And oh, how we guffawed when the plucky part-timers of Trelleborgs put them out of the UEFA Cup. The only thing funnier was the interview with Graeme Le Saux in The Guardian a few days later when he revealed that things had started to go wrong when the Rovers players had ran on to the pitch for Ewood Park's first European tie only to find the ground half-full.

Which brings us to the Burnley fan's ultimate, undying consolation. Yes, here it is, the killer punch that every Rovers fan dreads. The people of Blackburn really don't deserve a decent team. They couldn't be bothered to fill the ground for a European game, or for the FA Cup third round replay against Newcastle, and when it comes to big away games for the Rovers, the home team's first job is to lay off half the staff from the visitors' end tea hut as they won't be needed. And that, despite the massive amount of money they earn, is why every football supporter in the land should feel truly sorry for Blackburn Rovers players and why, ultimately, they'll all go to a club with decent support sooner or later.

Sour grapes? Undoubtedly. Wish we had half your money? Quite possibly. Factual inaccuracies about the players who were in the team in the play-off era? More than likely. But there's no denying the fact that Rovers' support, despite being top of the League, is pathetic. Harsh, perhaps, but fair.

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