FOR THE unacquainted, his comments may have seemed mildly ludicrous, but Mark Hughes stoked up the recent debate about derby games yesterday by suggesting that Blackburn Rovers’ rivalry with Burnley is as big and impassioned as that between Real Madrid and Barcelona.
Hughes may merely have been poking fun at Barry Ferguson’s claims this week that he left Ewood Park to return to Rangers partly because a Lancashire derby with Bolton Wanderers failed to rouse him in the same way the Old Firm collision of Glasgow’s great rivals did, but the Blackburn manager has sampled enough local rivalry for his opinions to count for something.
Blackburn visit Burnley in the FA Cup fifth round tomorrow, and while Turf Moor may not quite match up to the Nou Camp or Bernabéu, Hughes insists that this particular Lancashire derby compares to El Clasicos he experienced as a Barcelona player, not to mention the derbies he played in during his respective spells at Manchester United, Everton, Chelsea and Southampton.
“I have been involved in derbies all over the world, Barcelona versus Real Madrid, the Manchester derby, the London derbies with Chelsea and this is up there with them,” Hughes, who won the Cup four times as a player, said. “It’s very difficult to put one against another and I was just fortunate enough to play in those derbies. They are very special games and this is another special game.”
Hughes believes most people will be unaware of how big a rivalry exists between the two clubs and admitted that he was taken aback by it when he first played for Blackburn against Burnley at Turf Moor in December 2000. Blackburn won 2-0 and repeated the feat four months later with a 5-0 win at Ewood Park, the last meeting between the two. “Those who are not familiar with the rivalry here will be surprised by the intensity of it all,” Hughes said.
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“I certainly wasn’t aware of the strength of feeling until I was involved in it for the first time. I never used to see it as intimidating, I used to find it stimulating and I would hope my players find it stimulates them as well. I would be disappointed if they didn’t.”