Burnley will become something akin to a war zone tomorrow morning as we get ready to welcome almost as many visiting supporters as there are holes in Blackburn Lancashire. It's the first local derby for three seasons and the first at this level since the 2000/01 season when, as they did in the Premier League, Blackburn won both encounters.
Undoubtedly it is time for a change of fortune the opportunity for many Clarets to see a first win against our local rivals. I'm more fortunate than many. Due to my age it has enabled me to see Burnley beat Blackburn in league games on ten occasions but for so many Burnley supporters it is something that has never been experienced.
Realistically it is probably the best opportunity we've had since that last win in 1979. They still have a bigger squad than us in terms of finance but it's not the gulf we experienced when Stan Ternent spoke of the relative cars each club could afford.
New captain Jason Shackell will be experiencing is first derby, as will many of the players with only Michael Duff and Martin Paterson, from our team, likely to have played in one before. "I didn't really know how big it was until I came here," said Shackell. We had a derby in the first game of the season against Bolton but they soon said 'if you think this is big, wait until Blackburn' so I had the gist of it right from the start of the season."
Looking forward to the game he added: "We know how important it is for the fans and anyone who thinks it isn't just as important for us would be wrong."
Each of those players need to be up for it tomorrow. We need everyone of them firing and hopefully it will be the supporters in the home stands who are coming home the happiest.
You have to go back to 1978 for the last home win, and the last home goal against them. Let's make that change with the likely line up: Lee Grant, Kieran Trippier, Michael Duff, Jason Shackell, Ben Mee, Brian Stock, Dean Marney, Chris McCann, Ross Wallace, Charlie Austin, Martin Paterson. Subs from: Brian Jensen, David Edgar, Danny Lafferty, Marvin Bartley, Cameron Stewart, Junior Stanislas, Danny Ings, Sam Vokes.
Very quickly we now move on to our visitors.
Blackburn are back in the Championship after a stay of eleven years in the Premier League. Their demise was celebrated in our part of East Lancashire on the night they lost to Wigan at Ewood Park, on a night when the entertainment went beyond the result when the chicken was let loose on the pitch.
Agent Kean was the man then. He became a hero of Burnley fans, the manager who replaced Sam Allardyce and then went on a season and a half long run when the fans at Ewood Park turned on him at every opportunity. They didn't know, or weren't prepared to realise, just how good a man they had.
Shebby Singh arrived in the summer and quickly started belittling our favourite agent. He didn't stop at that either. He had a go at a few of the players and suggested they were somewhat past their best.
That eventually saw the end of Kean and he was recently replaced by ex-player Henning Berg who had previous managerial experience back in his native Norway.
Agent Berg, as the Burnley fans are now calling him, has experience of this game having played in it twelve years ago. Alongside him that day was David Dunn who wasn't in the team in midweek. If he plays, he will be relieved to know that Kevin Ball has now retired.
Right now they are considered favourites but they will arrive at Turf Moor on the back of two home defeats in the last week. They lost to one of the form teams in Millwall and followed that up with a defeat against Bolton for whom former Claret Chris Eagles was the star.
Defeat is something we hope they'll suffer for a third successive game. It's going to be tense, it's going to be a tight game but hopefully it will be us coming out with the points for the first time since that win at Ewood in April 1979 when the goals were scored by Brian Hall and Tony Morley.
Suggestions are that Berg will stick largely to the team that played Bolton. That team was Paul Robinson, Martin Olsson, Scott Dann, Raheem Henley, Grant Hanley, Mauro Formica, Danny Murphy, Dickson Etuhu, Jordan Rhodes, Josh King, Ruben Rochina. Subs: Jake Kean, Gael Givet, Jason Lowe, Morten Gamst Pedersen, Markus Olsson, Simon Vukcevic, Colin Kazim-Richards.