I'll never forget my time in Kenny era

WHEN Kenny Dalglish was unveiled as the new manager of Blackburn Rovers in 1991, no one was more surprised than the players themselves.

There had been some speculation knocking about in the Press but we genuinely didn't have a clue that he'd been earmarked as the replacement for Don Mackay.

We eventually got to know a couple of days before we played Plymouth in mid-October and we didn't actually get to meet him for the first time until the day of the game itself.

He came into the dressing room with Ray Harford an hour before kick-off and introduced himself.

We all shook hands - it was a brilliant moment, an unforgettable experience.

Here he was, one of my heroes, the player I'd tried to model my game on and now we were going to be on the same side.

I was like a schoolkid - totally gobsmacked.

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I'd played against him a few times in cup matches and just to be on the same pitch as him was a thrill.

I used to turn off in those games and watch him work the ball and think 'flippin' heck, what a wonderful player'.

In fact, I like to think my game was quite like his.

Neither of us were out-and-out strikers, though we both scored our fair share, and I was as happy making 'em as banging 'em in. Just like Kenny.

If it hadn't been for the accent, no one would have been able to tell us apart. I wish!

Those first few minutes of meeting Kenny and Ray had a lasting impact.

Kenny can make an impression just by walking into a room because of who he is and what he's achieved.

All the players were on a high.

The money was there, that was apparent, now it looked like we'd signed the manager who'd be able to make the best of it and give the club what it had been chasing for so long.

I definitely raised my game that day; I wanted to be picked for the next one. I scored two great goals in the Blackburn End and we won 5-2.

Great, I thought, that should see me picked next week. But I wasn't, I was on the bench. And we lost away at Swindon. I learned a quick lesson - never assume anything with Kenny Dalglish.

Interest in the club suddenly rocketed, to the point that crowds would flock down to Pleasington just to watch us train.

But this sudden surge had nothing to do with me or my team-mates, or even what we were doing on a Saturday afternoon; fans just wanted to watch Kenny playing five-a-side.

That in itself was a boost for the players. Kenny set standards during his career that all footballers should aspire to and training was given a new spirit - it became very competitive. Who wouldn't want to impress the new boss?

One of the weirdest ideas he had - at least it seemed weird at first - was to stop us wearing tracksuit bottoms.

He even instructed that we had the pockets in our shorts sewn up. The thinking was that you can't play a match in tracksuit bottoms and there ain't no pockets in match shorts. The more cynical members of the squad reckoned it was just to keep us moving, a fitness-by-necessity regime, because when the wind's up at Pleasington you may as well be north of the Artic Circle.

I've not trained in tracksuit bottoms since. Good habits die hard.

Within a few weeks we were closing in on the teams at the top after sorting out most of our problems in training where Ray would take the bulk of the sessions.

He was definitely in charge. Kenny would only really join in for the five-a-side at the end. Ray was coach, he took the training; Kenny was manager, he picked the team. It was a canny partnership and even Jack Walker had started to sit in on team talks before games by this point.

He was like a dutiful child sitting quietly in the corner, hanging on every word. Despite the millions, despite all his success, I genuinely believed he'd have swapped the lot for a single game in a blue and white shirt. God Bless him!

As our promotion charge gathered momentum, a number of players arrived to bolster the ranks - Gordon Cowans from Villa, Alan Wright from Blackpool, Colin Hendry, who returned from Manchester City, to name but a few. All a far cry from the old days when previous managers had had to monitor the number of tea-bags used for brewing up because the club was so skint.

But I was more concerned with the strikers. We already had depth in my position but it was only a matter of time before Kenny started to look at bolstering the forward line.

Mike Newell, who had worked under Ray at Luton, was signed for £1.1 million from Everton.

It was the club's first ever seven-figure signing and while the figure didn't make any particular impression on me I thought, hang on a minute, now we've got Newell, Speedie, Livingstone, Johnrose and Gayle. And me. I knew I was being pushed down the pecking order.

If I'd thought it before, I knew it now - I was only going to get the odd game from this point on.

But I wasn't about to knock on Kenny's door and wave a transfer request in his face.

I'd been at Blackburn since 1976 and now, finally, it looked like we might achieve what we'd threatened for so many years - and I wanted to be part of it, I wanted to be there when it happened.

By the New Year, we looked certainties for promotion after storming to the top of the table but a major losing streak in the spring then saw the unthinkable happen and we dropped out of the play-off zone altogether.

Suddenly, we needed a win at Plymouth on the final day to be sure of a play-off spot, which we got courtesy of a Speedie hat-trick.

Then we scraped through the semi-final after a backs-to-the-wall display against Derby at the Baseball Ground, which set up a meeting with Leicester at Wembley in the final.

While I knew there was no way I'd ever be playing, or that I'd even be considered for the bench, it was still one of my best day's in football.

I'd played my part that season and had been proud of my achievements, despite the limited opportunities.

And I've Kenny to thank for the memories because he made sure I was among the three non-playing squad members assigned a seat on the bench that day, even though my bum barely touched it all afternoon.

My memories of the game itself, the most important in my sixteen years at Blackburn, are vague because I didn't actually watch much of the second half - I was too busy smoking myself into an early grave.

It would be wrong to say I was nervous, I wasn't. Shuddering wreck would be a more appropriate description.

Thank god for the portaloo half way up the tunnel, which became my very own smoker's corner.

I was in there every 10 minutes having a fag because I was so nervous.

Thankfully, we won. We were up. And so was my time at Blackburn.

The celebrations were, of course, incredible. On the pitch and off it.

And the reception we were given at the Town Hall was another brilliant occasion, though one tinged with a touch of poignancy for me.

The crowd launched into a lengthy refrain of 'There's only one Simon Garner' and, drunk on a combination of beer and emotion, I conducted it.

I knew it was the last time I'd hear it as an employee of Blackburn Rovers and I milked it for all it was worth.

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