Garner given debut, but boss didn't know his name

But, had things panned out differently, I might never have made my debut for the club at all because of the financial constraints in existence at Ewood in those days.

It was towards the end of the 1976-77 season and Jim Smith, the first team manager at the time, spoke to me in the tunnel after a midweek reserve game.

"Right, I'm going to take you to Southampton on Saturday for the last league game of the season. Nothing to play for. I'm going to give you your debut."

It wasn't exactly out of the blue because I'd been playing well and I knew Jim had been saying a few nice things about me.

All the same, I was chuffed to bits. Or I would have been.

"I can't play boss."

Jim and John Pickering, who was manager of the youth team at the time, looked at each other and then at me.

An explanation was required. I think they thought I was taking the mickey and I wish that had been the case.

In those days you either signed Football Association forms or Football League forms. If you signed FA forms, your club had to give you £250 as a kind of welcoming arrangement.

If you signed League forms, it was £500.

I was coming up to 17 and they had to offer me some kind of professional deal but, hardly the richest club in those days, I scrawled on the FA's dotted line and not the League's.

No signature. No right to play in the League. No debut. And nobody had told Jim.

The single benefit was that I got a pay rise to £45 a week. Blimey -- I was nearly rich!

I finally did sign the forms that summer but it was more than a year before I got another chance with the first team, by which time Jim Smith had left and the club was hurtling towards the Third Division.

It was terrible. It was the spring of 1978, we were well-placed in the league and then he upped and offed to Birmingham.

There's Only One Simon Garner...available to buy now.

For Blackburn it was a disaster but as a career move for Jim, you could understand it because Birmingham finished the season mid-table in Division One.

Nevertheless, it was a big shock when Jim left. Obviously, he thought I was up to the job and there was a link through him back to Boston but managerial changes were something I, like most players, had to get used to.

Jim looked after me too. I'd had a bit of trouble when I was an apprentice from Pick because of my smoking.

"You've got to stop smoking. I'm going to tell the manager."

I thought 'naff off John, I'm not at school.' I carried on smoking and he found out again.

"Go and see the manager."

So I had to go and see Jim. I went up into the Bald Eagle's nest which, like the apprentice accommodation at the time, was located in Nuttall Street.

"Come in Simon."

I sat down.

"What's this about you smoking?"

I babbled something or other and watched him, sitting behind his desk, sucking on a fat cigar.

"Look Simon, Pick wants me to sack you. He's serious. But I'm not going to do that. Just be careful when you're smoking -- don't get caught."

Then he offered me a cigar. Imagine Sir Alex Ferguson doing that with David Beckham now!

When Jim left, the club appointed Jim Iley as his replacement from Barnsley. What a shambles.

I've not many nice things to say about Iley, other than he was the man who gave me my belated debut.

He was a very dour, down-to-earth Yorkshireman with absolutely no sense of humour. Compared to him, even Howard Wilkinson was like Ken Dodd.

His training methods were bizarre he didn't seem to know anyone's name. But while he didn't know me from Adam he gave me my debut.

August 29, 1978. St James' Park, Exeter. League Cup. Exeter City 2 Blackburn Rovers 1. Garner plays in midfield and doesn't do an awful lot to catch the eye.

September 9, 1978. St James' Park, Newcastle. League Division Two. Newcastle United 3 Blackburn Rovers 1. Garner comes on as a substitute for John Aston and sees his first four minutes of league action.

September 16, 1978. Ewood Park, Blackburn. Blackburn Rovers 1 Leicester City 1. Full League debut about which I remember nothing whatsoever.

So almost a year after I was originally due to get my chance, I had finally made the breakthrough into the first team and I was on a high because I was in the side.

But the club as a whole was on a big downer and we were heading out of the division.

Eventually, Jim Iley got sacked on November 1, 1978. Two days later, we then played Fulham at Craven Cottage. They needed to win to go top. We were bottom and without a manager.

However, it finished Fulham 1 Blackburn Rovers 2 as Garner scores twice. His first goals at senior level.

Despite the incessant managerial changes and the fact the club were so hard up, I still enjoyed those early days at Rovers. Life seemed so much simpler then.

I was 16 when I left home and signed for Blackburn after the club had spotted me playing for Boston under Howard Wilkinson.

In those days the apprentices lived in a terraced house on Nuttall Street, right next to Ewood Park itself -- a far cry from the Academy set-up which is in place now.

Thinking back, it was hardly glamorous. But then, neither was the club at the time.

We had to get to training on the bus once we'd moved out of Nuttall Street into digs and pay for it out of our own pockets.

I was always skint but fortunately there was a tobacconist on the corner at Darwen Circus who sold fags in singles. God knows how else I would have managed!

There's Only One Simon Garner...available to buy now.