Peter White compares present with past

I CAN remember the scene, as though it was yesterday - rather than nine eventful years ago.

Standing outside Villa Park on a Wednesday night at the end of September 1987, innocently minding my own business as much as that is possible for a newspaperman, I was suddenly harangued by a Blackburn Rovers director.

The basis of his bitter verbal attack was a comment piece I had written a couple of days earlier in the wake of a third successive Rovers defeat suggesting that the club were heading for the Third Division unless they took immediate action.

It was, said my friend from the boardroom in so many words, over the top, premature - after 10 games - and scaremongering without justification.

Fair enough, we're all entitled to our opinions and we didn't fall out over it, no grudges were held and I still consider him a friend.

Personally, I was probably even happier than he was when Simon Barker's goal earned Rovers a 1-1 draw against Villa...and set them off on a club record run of 23 League games unbeaten!

Rather than eat humble pie, of course, I claimed the credit for the dramatic improvement, pointing out it was a positive reaction to the criticism. The point of telling this little tale is to illustrate that you never know quite what is around the corner in football.

I clearly didn't before that game at Villa Park!

One thing you can be sure of, however, is that unless Blackburn Rovers produce a similar sort of transformation very shortly, then they are going to be down among the dead men on a permanent basis.

Just look at these figures:

Played nine, won one, drawn one, lost seven

Played nine, won one, drawn five lost three

Played nine, won one, drawn two, lost six And compare them with:

Played nine, won none, drawn three, lost six

The first three are the Rovers record from the start of seasons1965-66, 1970-71 and 1978-79 respectively.

Look familiar?

They should because in each of those seasons, Rovers were relegated.

The final set of figures represent this season's return.

Of course, there are lies, damned lies and statistics.

But, early days or not, the danger signals are abundantly clear.

Should I meet up with my friend - he's still on the board - at Hillsborough on Saturday, I am not anticipating a verbal assault.

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