YESTERDAY morning, 4.35 am: arrive at Ewood Park on mission "obtain Celtic ticket".

Suffering badly with heavy cold, 56th in the queue. By 6.30am 310 in queue.

Shortly before ticket office opens at nine, people joining the back of the queue now approaching 1,000 plainly have two chances of getting a ticket. The first is none. The second can't be repeated in a family paper.

Five hours after start of operation, mission "obtain Celtic ticket" accomplished as sought-after unrestricted view ticket finds its way into clammy mitt. Mental pat on back to self for being so dedicated.

Would have to go some though to beat the two lads at the front of the queue who arrived at 8.30pm the night before.

Guys: you are officially completely barking but good effort.

Ever since the draw was announced the club seem to have been completely out of sync with the mood of the supporters regarding this tie.

The delay in announcing ticket details was interminable. When they were finally revealed, it was not good news.

Whereas Celtic had been generously granted a whopping 25 per cent of capacity with perfect view at Ewood we had apparently been either unable or unwilling to negotiate anything in addition to the mandatory five per cent figure stipulated by UEFA.

As seasoned travellers right down to the fairest-weather fan dreamt of a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Parkhead, the club issued a naive statement that the ridiculously paltry allocation of 2,800 would suffice.

To make matters worse 900 seats were restricted view, some severely restricted. And, apart from Sofia, no preference for regular travellers.

The season ticket holder who hadn't been away for 20 years could profit at the expense of the hardy soul who never misses a match home or away.

After several years of impressive gains on the PR front, let's hope the inevitable loss of goodwill is not too serious.

Thankfully while off-the-field arrangements left much to be desired the team finally clicked into top gear on it.

The match had something for everyone. A sending off, dodgy penalty, even dodgier defending, Shearer's 300th, Matt Jansen's return, and an overall scoreline which surpassed pre-match expectations.

From a Rovers perspective the most important of these by far was the heartwarming sight of Matty returning to competitive action and looking surprisingly sharp.

I must however be turning into a right crotchety old git.

While we stuck five past a team which qualified for the Champions League last year I was far from satisfied with aspects of our performance.

Quite incredibly we went from 2-0 up against ten men to 2-2 for the second time this season.

And but for a linesman's flag it would have been 2-3.

I have to confess I turned the air blue for a minute or two but fortunately an impressive revival left my earlier invective looking rather silly.