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

JUST as well there hasn't been anything to talk about on the pitch this week, as there have been enough off-field talking points to last until well after closing time.

Our erstwhile centre-forward and hero-turned-villain, Mr Shearer, has been attracting very little favourable comment in the press.

That's until of course he mauled a hat-trick against the mighty Luxembourg, much as he used to against those footballing maestros from Bolton, Forest and QPR.

Most Rovers fans see Shearer as a spent force at the highest level, and are glad that we saw his best years.

Given that Shearer has plumbed a few depths in the three years since he departed Ewood, it was somehow apt that another fallen idol should re-emerge in the same week, also mouthing off to the media.

Technically, Roy Hodgson is right that Rovers are in a worse position than when he left. Were I to meet the said gentleman, I would feel obliged to shake him warmly by the throat and persuade him to take some of the 'credit' for what we achieved last season.

For someone so well-practised at applying whitewash, our former manager does remarkably well to keep the splashes off his expensive overcoat!

Which brings me to the internationals. Every time there's a jamboree of fixtures for the home nations, I end up feeling confused. Do I patriotically and blindly follow the country of my birth (I know I should, but watching England reminds me of what someone once called 'death by exposure to boredom')?

Or do I forswear allegiance to Queen and country and nail my colours to a foreign mast, on the basis that watching Scotland or Ireland at least allows me to check on the form and (praying for no more injuries) fitness of so many members of the current Rovers squad?

It's such a difficult call.

One event at the weekend probably said it all.

For all that I enjoyed Michael Owen's first goal at Wembley for England, and delighted in Alan Kelly's heroics for Ireland, the thing that made me feel passionate (in a football context) more than any other last Saturday concerned a match that didn't even take place.

How on earth could the so-called experts on the Pools Panel think that Swindon would have managed a score draw against Rovers?!

I hate blank weekends. I'd rather we were playing...yes, even Tranmere!

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