WCXX

A party had come up from London, spending the day dancing in front of the television cameras, panting out their enthusiasm for Louis.

By six o'clock, an hour before kick-off, the traffic was gridlocked, as mum and dad taxis deposited their passengers. Normally a Rovers reserve team fixture will pull in a crowd of a couple of hundred, largely friends and family. Plus a couple of diehards like Mickey, a season ticket holder who likes to see how the youth squad is developing.

"It's only cos he's here," said Mickey, surveying the sizeable crowd. "Most games you can count the crowd on the fingers of one hand."

It would have taken a lot of hands to count them last night. There were more than 5,000. If football wants to attract a younger, female audience, here was a clue what to do: put a member of a boy band on the bench. And how the club relished its tie-up. In the stadium shop's window was a picture of Tomlinson in a red Donny top. Inside girls were lining up to buy Tomilinson 28 shirts.

Past the turnstiles (admission was £7 for adults, £3 for under-16s) women were offering tickets to the half-time draw. The prize? A package of One Direction goodies.

Not that many there noticed, but Rovers reserves were playing Rotherham, a local derby.

"We hate Rotherham," said Mickey.

Most of the crowd seemed utterly immune to such antipathy. They were here for one reason only.

"And these are the Rovers substitutes," came the announcement over the public address system. "Lewis Ferguson, Ben Haskins and … Louis Tomlinson." At that, the girl behind Mickey appeared to wet herself. "Blimey," Mickey said. "That's a bigger roar than we get on a Saturday for the first team. Just from her."

It was, though, as nothing to the noise that greeted Tomlinson's first touch, when the ball cannoned off his shins into the path of an opponent. "Louis I love you," squealed half the main stand.

Not that this seemed to satisfy Mickey. With the game petering out to a 0-0 draw, he was discontented. "I tell you what," he said. "If this is all we've got in reserve, we really are knackered."