--- source: thedugout.football generated: 2026-06-09T18:33:55.276Z last_updated: 2026-06-09T10:45:00+00:00 data_provider: API-Football canonical: https://thedugout.football/clubs/blackburn-rovers/news/aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cubGFuY2FzaGlyZXRlbGVncmFwaC5jby51ay9zcG9ydC8yNjE3Nzg2MS5tb3dicmF5LWFuc3dlcnMtaW1wb3J0YW50LWJsYWNrYnVybi1yb3ZlcnMtcXVlc3Rpb24vP3JlZj1yc3M --- # Tony Mowbray answered most important Blackburn Rovers question without a word - **Source:** - **Published:** 9 Jun - **Club:** Blackburn Rovers - **Original URL:** https://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/sport/26177861.mowbray-answers-important-blackburn-rovers-question/?ref=rss They say a lot can change on a phone call in football. But for a while, nothing changed for Tony Mowbray. "I've had lots of phone calls - and I say that with total humility - over the last six weeks-two months; people offering me jobs," he revealed. "I haven't been energised enough. I know my body, I know how I feel. And I hadn't thought any of those job offers had been right for me." But when the phone rang from Blackburn Rovers, it felt different. HE felt different. Mowbray's health battle has been well documented. He stepped away from football, from his role as Birmingham City boss, in February 2024 after being diagnosed with bowel cancer. Within a year he was cancer free and back in the dugout, returning to West Brom in January 2025 for a second, albeit brief, spell in charge, after missing out on the Championship play-offs. More:How Blackburn Rovers' transfer structure will work under Tony Mowbray With hindsight, it might have been too much too soon. But Mowbray is more than ready for his Rovers return. "It's only really been the last within the last month or so that I've felt energised," he explained, addressing the media in his first press conference back at Brockhall, a little more than four years after his last. "I wake up in the morning, I bounce out of bed. I take the dog for a long walk... looking for things to do, really, and there isn't anything when you're out of the game. It's the only thing I've done all my life since leaving school." It was a choice, perhaps on both sides, that Mowbray and Rovers parted ways at the end of the 2021/22 season and end of his Ewood contract. "At the time it was probably the right thing for me. I remember sitting here and saying I need to go home and be a good husband and a good father to my children," the 62-year-old reflected. "Some of that panned out and some of it didn't. I didn't expect to get as ill as I did and spend so much time in hospital having major operations, going through chemotherapy. But it's given me a new look on life. Media duties for Tony Mowbray (Image: Lancashire Telegraph) "When I look round The Christie Hospital in Manchester and see the hundreds of very seriously sick, ill people with their bandanas on and no hair and looking very frail it makes me feel how lucky I am in life really." But while Mowbray is grateful for his health, he wanted the fulfilment that football brings him. "I've got a lot of friends who say 'just retire, you don't need the pressure, the hassle, people telling you that you don't know what you're doing, your team's rubbish'," he said, almost bracing himself. "It's like, we win and we're great, we lose and we're rubbish, and I think people who care about me and love me don't want to have to read why I'm so terrible because we got beat, I didn't pick the right time, I didn't make the right substitutions. I've lived with that all my life really, either as a player or a coach, and I can face it and take it on the chin," he said, at his formal re-unveiling. "I need more in my life. "I'm not ready to retire." Mowbray spoke more about his appetite for the game, about how it had changed, evolved and his greater appreciation for it after illness. More:Latest on Blackburn Rovers coaches as Tony Mowbray makes transfer admission Understandably, that has been a fair question on the lips of Rovers fans. Sometimes, seeing is believing and Mowbray carried himself with the warmth that you'd expect but his hunger for this project shined through. He is ready for this challenge and knows exactly what he is walking into. He spoke about the importance of trust, between himself and his players and staff, but specifically between himself and those running the club. One would have thought that relationship might have fractured towards the end of his last tenure. Although Mowbray said that the timing of his Ewood exit was "probably the right thing", it didn't seem to be handled in the right way. To allow the contract of a manager who had restored Championship football in his first full season, stabilised the club and had the respect of the dressing room and the vast majority of supporters run down with a lack of communication and confirmation about his future lacked respect, from the outside looking in. But if Mowbray himself felt that way, there are no grudges - only gratitude, to Blackburn Rovers and beyond. "As when I was ill the football world was very much there supporting me, behind me, with thousands of messages coming to my phone," said Mowbray of the reaction to his return. "And my personality is not to stick a thumbs up on them, it's to try to reply to them, so I've been sitting up until one in the morning replying, trying to get the numbers down of the people that I need to get back to. "It makes me feel what an industry, what a life I've had, and I hope there are some more important stories to tell as we move forward."