From England's perspective, yes, as they have no control over it.

It's why I keep renewing, when they do go there'll be 50000 banging the doors down and I don't want to miss out on a seat.

England are in the World Cup final and play either Argentina or Croatia in the final. Is it luck which determines who they play ?

It'll be him trying to sell another Academy graduate.

I play football with two Rovers fans who both handed back their season tickets years ago due to the Venkys (one goes away occasionally). I'm friends with another Rovers supporting couple who also no longer go due to the lack of interest from the owners. Anecdotal, yes, but that's five Rovers fans right there. As we've repeatedly seen against Burnley / any cheap ticket offer games, the fan base is still there. 13k does not represent a sizeable portion of our fan base, just the absolute worn-to-the-nub hardcore.

Figured I'd start a topic for this seeing as it starts tonight. Anyone else planning on watching this? I reckon it's gonna be a really good tournament, I think teams are going to take it seriously. I feel no affinity towards City or Chelsea so I've decided to follow Bayern for the tournament seeing as our England captain is leading the line. Looking forward to seeing Messi tonight on the world stage again.

Well, I'd want the judge to be donning the proverbial black cap!

Doesn't change my opinion of him at all. Absolute legend for what he did for us keeping us up almost single handledly. Not gonna hate on him for having ambition, sadly something our club lacks. If he plays against us he'll get a warm reception from me.

He scored 33 goals in the previous season and kept us up. Could not give a fuck what he did in pre-season as we all knew he was being sold 🤷🏻‍♂️

Made up with this, good lad, gooood lad! Brilliant stuff, still love you Sammy lad, great lad, brilliant stuff! Certainly won't receive a warm reception from me.

Would of been a miles better decision to keep that to himself 🤣 But…. Im not going to crucify him, shit happens. If he’d of snapped his ankle in pre season against dog and duck he never plays a premier league minute. Sometimes got to be selfish to get what you want! if I had to sell my mother to a Moroccan fella to play in the masters, I wouldn’t think twice about it! 🤣

Thank you - after a lot of digging I’ve finally tracked down the relevant regulations. My apologies to you, @Andy and @chaddyrovers Something else to file in my I was wrong book (it’s a big book!) Here’s the reg(s)…

Of course, it is still an achievement to win these games. The likes of Colombia, Sweden, Switzerland, Senegal, Ukraine, Denmark etc are not mugs, but equally they are not the elite countries and before the draw is made, you would absolutely take those games in the knockout stages. To beat them is an achievement and I have never said otherwise, even if you are the favourite, to win these games even as favourites pretty much every single time is an achievement and Southgate does deserve credit for that. But whether its the draw at the start, or whether its other group stage results causing bigger teams to fall onto the other side of the draw, none of that is under England's control. Winning our group removes the luck in terms of the last 16 tie as we warrant a favourable draw if we do that, but beyond that, it is all luck. You can't escape that. That causes issues when comparing different managers across different tournaments. For example, Sven had quarter finals against Brazil and Portugal twice. Whenever Southgate faced that level of opposition, he also fell short, he just was fortunate that it came later in tournaments. To win the extra games in between is both an achievement to win those games and also lucky to avoid the bigger nations. When we did face the elite, ie Spain and France, we lost. You could argue that Germany is the exception to the rule, not quite Spain/France but still a strong team, and equally you could argue that Italy and Croatia aren't the very elite either. You especially consider that we have played Switzerland, Ukraine and Sweden at the quarter final stage, so beyond the last 16. We also faced Denmark, Croatia and the Netherlands in semi finals. Even Italy in a final, you would absolutely take those at that stage before the tournament rather than the likes of France, Spain and if its a World Cup, Brazil and Argentina. All of those draws are down to luck.

i can exclusively reveal the info is that the ground staff have received new mowers,well not brand new,that would be frivolous for a club our size🙂

Doubles a very different game than singles. England lose to Germany in the last 16 of the World Cup and Littler has a very quick handshake and gets off stage in a bit of a huff. Crowd may have got to him, but he needs to remember how the crowd have been against his opponent early in his career when he was a novelty (see Fallon Sherrock). Needs to learn how to lose.

No it isn't. Let's do a a full 4 page bicker

Four Tops - I’ll Turn To Stone

I wouldn’t say c13,000 people as regular match goers is a small minority of the fanbase. Obviously plenty down on what we had in 2010, but it’s still a sizeable sample of people for a club of our size. We need to face facts, away from brfcs the majority of the fanbase just shrug their collective shoulders when it comes to the regime.

There’s loads of other sites that say the same thing , but here is one. https://www.sportbible.com/football/what-is-pre-contract-agreement-transfer-deadline-day-923365-20230130

Which sadly reflects a small minority of our fan base these days.

Nixon has some Rovers tittle-tattle tomorrow

If Batth had agreed a deal with Derby we would all know he never. Whether officially and unofficially. Derby could announce but the player won't join until July. Correct? The fact remain Batth hasn't join Derby which was the main point I was making today.

How is a pre-contract agreement anything other than seeking to register with another club? If your position is correct then the regulation I quoted is completely redundant. I can’t find that one month rule, do you know where you’ve seen it? (and Ennis was announced over a month before his contract expired…) (yes I know I said I was out, but felt it was courteous to reply since I was quoted).

You’ve posted the regulation that says the player shall be free to seek registration with any club of his choice at the expiry of his current contract. Which is correct. But you can sign a pre-contract agreement with another club. Plymouth wanted to keep Ennis and offered him a contract, but he rejected it to move to Ewood. He signed a pre-contract with Rovers and Rovers announced it. His registration moved to Rovers on the 1/7/23 For overseas transfers you can sign a pre-contract with 6 months left. For UK to UK transfers it’s within the final month of their contract. If Derby had agreed with Batth and it was signed off they could announce it.

For oversea transfers yes, for domestic no. Anyways as I said, I’m out.