A fan's-eye view from Ewood Park, with Phil Lloyd

WALSALL at home. The fixture, above all others, guaranteed not to set the pulse racing, nor the turnstiles clicking. Crewe have a certain cuteness, Stockport have 'derby' match status, Grimsby have...well, fish actually. When you reach Walsall, you know you've reached the little time!

So why was it that last Saturday's game had such significance for my family? Simply because, even before September is out, my elder daughter has seen her last Rovers match of the season.

Now you might think this is an extreme reaction to Rovers' slow start to the season, or the fact that a substantial part of our success or otherwise in the games ahead will rest on the shoulders of Nathan Blake and Darren Peacock. Less cynical fans will think it is sheer folly to go to the other side of the world for a year and miss what is sure to be an exciting, roller-coaster ride back to the Premiership.

Claire herself probably inclines to the latter view. But this week, while you are reading this column and the lads are girding up their loins to take three points from Swindon, she is en route to New Zealand. So, Walsall at home was, against all odds, a special game. What memories would it give her to take away? Most important of all, a home win - anything less and the temptation to forsake Ewood forever and to take up those major Kiwi pastimes of rugby, bungee jumping, or sheepdog trialling might just have been too strong. Next, two neat, well crafted goals and a few near misses - they wouldn't perhaps keep you or me going until next season, but that's what she's got.

Most of all, I think, she's taken away the rare but encouraging sight of a Rovers team totally bossing the midfield from start to finish. Per Frandsen and Lee Carsley were the rock on which Walsall's feeble efforts foundered and the springboard for some serious assaults on yet another massed defence. The Rovers fans, Claire included, were not slow to recognise the impact of our new man. As the song nearly goes: 'What a difference a Dane makes'!

I'm daft enough to think that, early in May, I might just get a long-distance call (reverse charge of course) from Down Under: "I'm coming home now, Dad, get me a ticket for the Man City game. I want to be there when we win promotion!"

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.