Division One: Blackburn Rovers v Swindon Town - Peter White's match preview

ALAN Shearer was disappointed about being booed on his recent return to Ewood Park.

But Swindon Town player-manager Jimmy Quinn can probably remember being jeered when he was still a Blackburn Rovers player!

It wasn't particularly his fault but, with Rovers rooted to the bottom of the then Second Division in December 1986, the fans needed a scapegoat or two - and Quinn fitted the bill, finally being allowed to return to Swindon where he soon regained his old form.

Being a target for the fans, however, is where any similarity between the two number nines ends.

For Shearer's personal salary is reportedly even more than the £25,000 per week that crisis-club Swindon are currently losing. And that, in turn, means that Quinn's efforts to stage any sort of a salvage act at the foot of the First Division are virtually doomed to failure.

Not that the much-travelled former Belfast boy would ever dream of giving up the cause - no matter how lost it might seem to others.

Before holding his team meeting for tomorrow's clash with Rovers, Quinn first of all had to meet the administratiors called in to ensure there is some future for football at the County Ground, whatever the division.

Things are so bad that, for Quinn and his remaining staff, it is all about survival in the long term, not just staying up this season.

And, at the age of 40, the manager himself is still being forced to turn out - going on as a substitute against Grimsby last Saturday and looking one of Swindon's better players.

He might even have to start tomorrow, though a touch of flu makes him doubtful. "It's not something you expect to be doing when you're 40, but we haven't really got anybody else," he said after having to sell off so many of his playing assets.

"I took over a struggling side in October 1998 and we managed to stay up last year.

"But now I have a lot of young lads in the team who are really there too early. I've had to sell players just to pay the wages."

Quinn is used to playing - and managing - under pressure but the financial straitjacket at Swindon is making his current mission an impossible job.

"It's like trying to plough a field with a toothpick, I have never known anything this bad," he said.

"But there's an old saying - 'Cry and you cry alone, laugh and the world laughs with you.'

"So you might as well be positive and I haven't written off our chances of staying up."

Tomorrow, Swindon can only play for the present, as their future remains in serious doubt.

"I have 12 players out of contract at the end of the season and we are not in a position to offer anybody new contracts," added Quinn.

"We don't even know what league we are going to be in, never mind the financial position with the administrators in here."

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