IT was satisfying to send 7,000 Yorkshiremen packing after our 1-0 win at Ewood on Saturday.

Our Leeds counterparts appeared to have a belief that, due to their massive supporter numbers, they had a divine right to take three points from the game.

It is a regular weapon used by big city clubs to tell us they are better than us.

Fans of Manchester United, Liverpool, Leeds, Newcastle, Norwich and the rest will say ‘you haven’t got any fans’ as a reason for us not to deserve any success.

We are a small club and we have punched above our weight over the years so our supporter numbers grew.

Premier League champions and regular competitors in the top flight over the past couple of decades has led football fans to believe Blackburn is a big city and, in turn, a club that should regularly attract 30,000 supporters to its home games.

Let us not forget that before the heady days of big spending Uncle Jack, we were a second rate Division Two outfit with gates of about 6,000.

Success and glamour inevitably brought in new fans.

Supporters who had previously not wished to stand on dirty terracing were attracted by the glitz of the Premier League and our new all-seater state-of-the-art stadium.

We had our day in the sun and mixed with the big boys as if we were one of them, but let’s face it, we never were.

Blackburn is an industrial town with a relatively small population.

Within 25 miles there are numerous big city clubs that take people from our potential supporter-base.

On top of that, the last couple of seasons have seen a number of catastrophic decisions taken by Venky’s and Rovers slip into the Championship.

The football isn’t always particularly entertaining and the majority of fans are pretty disillusioned.

The fact Saturday’s gate was above 20,000 means there were about 13,000 Rovers fans there on the day. To be fair to us, that is a decent amount for a town our size.

So well done Leeds. Your support was very good.

It’s just a shame they don’t dish out points for that.