MUTINY is in the air at Ewood, despite a second successive win which keeps Blackburn Rovers' play-off hopes afloat.

And, while Rovers are still travelling rubber-dinghy class rather than by luxury liner, the all-consuming fear is that the present obvious state of disenchantment between supporters and team will ultimately see their craft sink.

When boos and jeers are the lasting memory from a game that has been won, you don't have to be Inspector Morse to detect there is something seriously wrong.

If you buy a flawed product for 15 or 20 quid from M & S, you return it and get your cash back. Unfortunately, football doesn't deal in refunds so fans have to express their protests by whatever means available and there was ample to grumble about in Saturday's shoddy show.

Yet, ironically, the biggest moans over a double substitution proved utterly misguided as the two changes won the game!

But there is another sinister side to the situation, with an uneasy feel that the general atmosphere at Ewood is destroying any advantage the team might have by playing at home.

How long, for example, since the fans chanted the name of an individual player? The fact is their real heroes have all been sold off, like the family silver.

It culminated in the previous week's show of frustration when the fans made a point by turning to chants of "One Simon Garner" and "Speedie".

Some might laugh, but these things speak volumes for the feelings of supporters gutted by the greatest decline and fall since the Roman Empire quit the building industry.

There was plenty for them to be indignant about on Saturday, the saving grace being victory which, even though it was deserved, did not look like coming until the double substitution.

In that sense, manager Tony Parkes could say that he who laughs last, laughs loudest.

But the last thing Parkes would do is laugh, because he has the long-term good of Rovers at heart.

And he is genuinely concerned for it.

Little wonder after a game where the emotions swayed more than the Anfield Kop in Liverpool's heyday.

Ewood fans did not know whether to laugh or cry, cheer or jeer as they went from despair to delight in a matter of six second-half minutes against a poor West Bromwich Albion side on another agonising Ewood afternoon.

Yet the subs introduced and players withdrawn prompted the biggest boos of the afternoon.

The fans, as well as managers (and journalists!), can clearly get it wrong.

Besides, for my money, you could have chosen from seven or eight Rovers players to be replaced and none of them could have argued.

Keith Gillespie and Nathan Blake have been on the other end of such switches but they turned this game on its head when it had seemed as though the only thing we would be writing was an obituary of the season.

Rovers had restored Damien Duff to the starting line-up and conjured Per Frandsen out of nowhere for a surprise return, with Jason McAteer switching to the right.

But it looked doomed to failure, despite Rovers generally bossing the game.

West Brom scored in the 14th minute when Richard Sneekes' 30-yard free kick ricocheted to Matt Carbon and he coolly steered his shot into the far bottom corner from a dozen yards.

Rovers had begun quite brightly but the mood in the ground was, unsurprisingly, turning against them.

Three glorious chances came and, yet again, were spurned.

McAteer was a little unfortunate in that the ball would not drop quickly enough and his shot was at a comfortable height for the keeper to save.

Then Ashley Ward broke through but was thwarted by the tackle of the game from Larus Sigurdsson, the fans claiming for a penalty.

The best of the lot, however, was a free header for Matt Jansen from Simon Grayson's right-wing cross. It went three yards wide.

Meanwhile, West Brom could have gone to 10 men when Sean Flynn was booked for an awful challenge but escaped with a warning after sarcastically applauding the linesman.

With highly-rated striker Lee Hughes falling over 'injured' far too easily and one of poorer officials of the season in charge, it all became a bit unsavoury with a rare flood of bookings.

The second half didn't hold out much hope and Hughes, staying on his feet for once, might have made it 2-0 in a rare attack but Alan Kelly came to the rescue.

It was followed, almost immediately, by the storm of protest over the subs.

How wrong can you be?

In the 70th minute, Grayson crossed deep from the right, Blake headed back across goal and Gillespie, under pressure from the keeper, tapped in by the post.

Three minutes later, Garry Flitcroft was desperately close to a winner but it soon arrived.

Gillespie's free kick saw Blake challenge a defender in the air, the ball dropped and came off another West Brom man for Christian Dailly to pounce and hook a fierce right-foot volley high into the net from 12 yards.

Game, set and match but it could so easily have been the end-of-season party.

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