YNWA looks at the careers of some of those who have played for both Blackburn Rovers and the reds, as we prepare to entertain our Lancashire rivals on Sunday.

Current double agents
Left-back Stephen Warnock played 67 reds games, notching once, before moving to Blackburn in January 2007 for an undisclosed fee. He has so far turned out sixty times for Rovers, getting on the scoresheet three times. Brad Friedel has now appeared 351 times between the sticks for the Ewood Park outfit, proving a far greater success than during his time at Anfield, when he could only make 31 appearances.

Stéphane Henchoz was the most recent ex-Rover before Bellamy to ply his trade in L4. The Swiss centre-back spent his first two seasons in English football with Blackburn, making 82 appearances, then joining us after they were relegated from the top-flight for £3.5m in June 1999. He played a total of 205 times for us, helping us to claim five trophies in 2001 as well as another League Cup two years later, and is back at Ewood Park for a second spell, so far playing sixteen games, although he has yet to make an appearance this campaign.

The management
Kenny Dalglish led both sides to their most recent League title wins. While Kenny was the boss at Ewood Park, he made ex-reds reserve Mike Newell one of his first signings, for £1.1m from Everton, and he went on to strike 48 times in 167 Rovers games. David Speedie also played under Dalglish at Ewood Park as they reached the top flight, scoring 23 times in 36 games, having been one of his final acquisitions as Liverpool manager, netting eight times in fourteen reds games. Ewood Park was until fairly recently awash with ex-reds. Boss Graeme Souness had Phil Boersma and Dean Saunders on his coaching staff, with all of them then joining him at Newcastle United.

Goalkeeper Ned Doig was part of our 1904/05 promotion-winning team, and became our oldest ever player after 53 games, aged 41 years and 165 days. Blackburn had been his first English club, before he spent fourteen seasons at Sunderland. Jim Furnell played the final thirteen games of 1961/62, as we finally returned to the top flight as Second Division champions. He then lost his place to Tommy Lawrence, and made just 28 appearances in total. In the early 1980's he was Bobby Saxton's Assistant Manager at Ewood Park.

Recently at the back
Gérard Houllier sold Stig Inge Bjørnebye and boyhood red Jason McAteer to Blackburn, as well as Brad Friedel. McAteer played 83 times for Rovers after signing for £4m in January 1999, while Harkness arrived from SL Benfica that August, just five months after Houllier had shown him the door. Bjørnebye remained at Anfield for another year, before being signed by Graeme Souness for £300,000. He went on to make 67 appearances for Rovers before being forced to retire due to an eye injury, 46 more games than Harkness managed while at Ewood Park.

Jim Beglin also had a brief six-game loan spell with Rovers towards the end of his career, after he had moved on to Leeds United. He had worn the reds jersey 98 times in his time in L4. Markus Babbel spent a season on loan with Rovers, netting three times in 28 games. He had previously enjoyed a fantastic debut season with the reds, before he was cruelly struck down by Guillain-Barré syndrome, which restricted his reds career to 73 games in which he bagged six goals. Dominic Matteo moved to Ewood Park from Leeds United on a free transfer in July 2004, and played 39 times for them before joining Stoke City on another free in January 2007.

Before and after the war
South African winger Bob Priday only made forty reds appearances, grabbing seven goals, as his rival for a spot in the team was usually Billy Liddell, and so he left for Rovers in March 1949, for whom he scored eleven times in 44 League games before joining Northwich Victoria. Ten years later, Louis Bimpson made the same journey, after 39 goals in 102 reds appearances. He appeared for Rovers as they lost the FA Cup Final the next year, as well as netting five goals in 22 League outings prior to another move, this time to Bournemouth. Scottish forward Bill Kinghorn signed from Queens Park in April 1938 and netted four times in nineteen reds games. Blackburn were one of many clubs he guested for during the war.

Even further back
Billy McOwen, the Englishman in our ‘team of the Macs', arrived at Anfield from Rovers, and kept goal in 23 of our 28 League games in our first season in the Football League, as we stormed to the Second Division title in 1894 without losing a game, and conceding just sixteen goals. He then left the game to return to his career as a dentist! Inside-left Hugh Morgan struck eighteen goals in his 68 reds outings and won a Scottish cap, before joining Rovers in June 1900 where he ended his career. Two years later, forward Edgar Chadwick arrived at Anfield, netting seven times in 45 reds games. He had begun his pro career at Blackburn.

More recent double agents
Craig Bellamy signed for Blackburn Rovers from Newcastle United for £5m in July 2005. He bagged seventeen goals in 32 games while at Ewood Park, before the reds activated the £6m get-out clause in his contract in June 2006. He managed to notch just nine times in 42 reds games, including in the Anfield meeting with Rovers last season. He was sold to West Ham United after just one year at Anfield, fetching £7.5m.

Florent Sinama-Pongolle moved to Blackburn on loan in January 2006, and netted just once in ten games, a defeat at fellow Champions League hopefuls Tottenham Hotspur. He struck nine times in 66 reds games following his arrival from Le Havre in July 2003, although the deal had been struck two years earlier, and is now playing for Real Club Recreativo de Huelva after a season-long loan spell in Spain. David Thompson left Rovers for Wigan Athletic on a free transfer in January 2006, after a total of 84 games following his £1.5m switch from Coventry City in August 2002. He had bagged five goals in 56 reds outings. Howard Gayle only made five first-team appearances for the reds, with his finest hour coming in our European Cup semi-final at Bayern München in 1981. He later made Rovers one of his several post-Anfield employers, grabbing 29 goals in 116 League games.

Other double agents
John Bovill signed from Chesterfield Town in April 1911, and went on to bag seven goals in 29 reds games before leaving for Linfield three years later. He had been at Blackburn before joining Chesterfield. Wrexham-born forward Reg Blore only played one senior reds game and moved on to Southport in July 1960 and after a brief spell with Blackburn he joined Oldham Athletic, for whom he made nearly 200 League appearances as a midfielder. Scottish winger Patrick Gordon moved across the park in 1893 and bagged eight goals in thirty games before moving to Ewood Park a year later.