ON the weekend that heralded the arrival of British Summertime, it was only a Winter's tale at Ewood Park - referee Jeff Winter.

The fans who had flocked to Ewood, hoping to see Garry glitter and a contest between two equal teams - in numbers as well as League position - were stunned when Ewood's new £3 million man stayed on the field substantially less time than it took Rough Quest to go round Aintree.

Garry Flitcroft goes down in the record books as the man who, arguably, made the most sensational debut ever for Blackburn Rovers.

Sadly, it was for all the wrong reasons and may well go down in the record books as the shortest.

The decision to send off Flitcroft for a third minute aerial challenge on Everton midfielder Tony Grant - who happily suffered no real damage - not only made it Garry Gloom, rather than Glitter, it also went a very long way to deciding the game.

At the moment of impact between Flitcroft and Grant, few in a near full house could have felt the red card was about to be shown, despite Everton boss Joe Royle's post-match condemnation of an "awful challenge".

Despite too Duncan Ferguson's apparent need to extract instant "justice" on the spot - an action which, in my opinion, may well have turned out to be a crucial factor in the decision.

Flitcroft made his challenge leading with an arm raised and that is not a sensible thing to do, especially in an era when too many are looking for something sinister. He also clearly made contact but I do not believe that there was any vindictiveness or malice in the challenge.

Referee Winter clearly felt otherwise, though it looked more a case of underlining what Mike Newell said in the calm of the car park after the match.

That too many of today's officials are incapable of judging intent and what really is deliberate and what is not.

Naturally hyped up and eager to make a big impression on his first appearance in Rovers colours, I believe Flitcroft's "crime" was of being over-impetuous but not of deliberately trying to injure Grant.

The referee's angle presumably suggested otherwise to him.

But I also suspect that Ferguson's knee-jerk reaction could well have had a major bearing on what happened next.

Mr Winter was quicker on the draw than Bruce Forsyth in a TV game whose title I can't quite remember.

But it's all about cards and the referee was quite handy with those. Well, he was in the opening stages but, after his early flourish of red and yellow for several players, he then seemed to decide that talking to players was better than cautioning them.

A pity for Flitcroft he didn't do it the other way round but least one Rovers man will be thankful that the referee's standards suddenly seemed to change.

It was, however, too late for the new boy and, when his dismissal has long been forgotten, the result will still stand in the record books.

And hard though Rovers battled for some reward, it was almost inevitable that they would eventually crack.

Losing a man so early, it became a matter of whether Rovers could deny Everton the first goal or even snatch a surprise lead themselves. While they had something to hang onto, they had a slight chance.

They lasted for well over an hour. But once Daniel Amokachi opened the scoring the end was in sight.

The game threatened to boil over in that opening spell with tempers rising after the shock dismissal and Everton lost two players to injury, one incident costing Chris Coleman a booking for a bad foul which led to substitute Paul Rideout's replacement.

Rovers did really well in the first half and more than held their own, though they couldn't produce too much in an attacking sense, despite managing to win a number of corners and putting together one or two moves of real promise.

They had to leave Mike Newell in a lone role up front and, for some strange reason, Royle maintained his three centre-backs system against the lone striker.

Newell ran himself into the ground to keep them occupied but you would have thought Everton might have committed their extra man forward to press home their advantage.

Andrei Kanchelskis was clearly the danger man but Rovers managed to channel him inside for much of the time, therefore cutting off Ferguson's supply and the Scot didn't offer much against a defence in which Nicky Marker excelled.

But 10 against 11 for 87 minutes is a huge handicap and usually bound to tell eventually.

Rovers, despite missing two key players in Colin Hendry and Alan Shearer, actually started the second half the better but, once the first goal went in, there was an inevitability about the outcome.

An Andy Hinchcliffe corner on 71 minutes fell kindly, from a Ferguson miskick it seemed, for Amokachi to smash in the opener. That was the crucial blow for Rovers as they had to push forward and, six minutes later, Kanchelskis broke quickly to flick the ball across. I am not sure it was going in before taking a significant deflection off a defender and the winger might yet find it is taken off his total when the committee meet.

Rovers left just three at the back as they tried to salvage something but it rebounded on them in stoppage time when Kanchelskis broke again from a pass by the impressive Grant and the Russian - taking full advantage of tiring defensive legs - finished superbly, clipping the ball over Tim Flowers, pictured above right.

On the plus side, Rovers showed spirit and it was good to see Ripley back on song until, like the rest, the loss of a man told on him.

One wondered why, with defenders weary towards the end, the other new signing Gary Croft was not sent on.

I suspect that, in the circumstances, it was thought that exposure to the late problems could have meant a double debut nightmare and that was the last thing needed.

The goals which decided the scoreline came in the last 20 minutes but the decision that really decided the match was made in only the third.

And for Rovers fans that meant a winter of discontent.

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