The Lions return to Nethermoor on Friday night for our penultimate home friendly ahead of the 2026/27 campaign with Blackburn Rovers making the trip to LS20 for a 7:30pm kick-off.
Ian Richards’ men will be ready for friendly number five against the side where it all started for our gaffer.
Tickets will be available to purchase from our turnstiles on Saturday priced at:
- Adults: £10
- Concessions (Over 66s/Students/Registered Disabled): £5
- 11-18 Year-Olds: £5
- Accompanied Under-11s: £1
2026/27 GAFC season ticket holders can gain half price entry to all our home friendlies.
All turnstiles will accept card payment for entry except turnstile 4 which will be cash only, if you are wanting to pay with cash you must use turnstile 4.
‘The Lions’ magazine will be on sale for £3 from sellers near each turnstile and our Club Shop.
Cash payments are accepted for magazines and 50/50 cash draw tickets, although if wanting to pay by card for the magazine you can do so in the Club Shop with selected 50/50 sellers also accepting card.
Food and drink from The Lions’ Diner can be paid for by cash or card and the clubhouse accepts and prefers payment by card.
Team News
The Lions were boosted by Jordan Thewlis’ return on Tuesday night but the striker was withdrawn in the last few minutes of the game so may not be available for this one.
Kyle White also left the pitch with an injury just 22 minutes into the contest with Garforth.
Richards was also without Harrison Hopper and Lucas Odunston and we are yet to see Will Longbottom, Frankie Sinfield or Jack Emmett get any pre-season minutes.
The Opposition
Blackburn’s academy is regarded as one of the best in the north of England with their U21 side competing in Premier League 2.
Rovers’ U21s had a tough season last time out finishing 28th out of 29 teams in the division with only local rivals Burnley sitting one point and one place behind them.
Their senior side has not competed in England’s top division since 2012 when they were relegated with Bolton Wanderers, who have also not returned to the Premier League since, and Wolves.
The U21s also played in the National League Cup last season but finished bottom of group A, all other U21 sides in their group failed to qualify for the knockout stages.
The academy at Ewood Park has developed a number of recognisable pros over the years including Adam Wharton, Scott Wharton, Phil Jones, David Raya, Damien Duff, David Dunn, Grant Hanley and former Lions goalkeeper Steven Drench.
In their pre-season Rovers’ U21s face Marine, Prescot Cables, Warrington Rylands, Avro and Preston North End.
It has been a busy summer for the academy with Gregory Vignal leaving his post as manager at the end of the 2025/26 campaign.
Rovers moved quickly to appoint U18s coach Paul Butler who joined the club in 2023.
Follow the game
If you cannot make it to Nethermoor we will be providing live match updates on X (formerly Twitter).
What they’re saying
Following the win on Tuesday Simon Bullock spoke to a happy Ian Richards who said: “It was everything you want from a pre-season game, competitive against good opposition and we found ourselves in different situations, at the end we couldn’t bring a sub that had already played back on so we had to finish the game with 10 men.”
“What’s really pleasing is we have got another clean sheet and won another game, winning is a habit. They’re the standards that you want going into the full season.”
“The only negative to take from it is Kyle, he felt some tightness in his calf but hopefully we got it early and Jordan tried to come back but still felt some issues with his calf.”
Talking about the goal from Charlie Staniland Richards said “It was an excellet goal, our best move of the half brought us that. Charlie made a great forward run and a good first time finish, it was a really well constructed goal – that is how we want to play.”
Ian also had praise for his first new signing of the summer Cam Wilson “Cam did well when he came on, he makes good decisions and glides with the football. I thought him and Amir linked up really well and we want them to score but scoring goals in hard, what is more important is that we are creating those chances and we definitely did that in the second half.”
Looking ahead to Friday’s game Ian said “Blackburn are one of the top academies in the country, it will be different to the other games we have had so far and that is what we want. There may be times where we have to defend a little bit deeper and be a bit compact but there will also be times when we can go and press really aggressively and win the ball high hurting them with our pace, energy and power.”
