Boycott Or Not?

[Mattyblue]

The fact even with the diminished gates we get these days, a significant number of the remaining rump still boycotted one of the few Saturday 3pm’s we get is a decent enough sign for me.

 

[Gav]

1 hour ago, SIMON GARNERS 194 said:

No friends of this Club right there that's for sure!

I may come out of retirement, how the hell are those 2 morons allowed to sit there each week in relative comfort unchallenged?  

They should be surrounded by stewards, with the fans giving them pelters for 90mins, like the Celtic fans against Rangers a few weeks back.

Where are my Gazelles…..

[StHelensRover]

I don't think 4-5k boycotted, probably more like 2500, but we'll see what the police stats say compared with other recent Saturday games.

Doesn't sound like much but it's probably around 25% of the remaining attendees these days, so it's a decent number.

As many have pointed out, 22k+ home fans on most weeks just before the Venkys bought the club, now 8.5k season ticket holders and a few hundred walk-ons is what we're down to. The 15 year gradual boycott. I wonder/fear how low attendances could get before something happens.

[Tricky]

Will you all be back at Ewood next week after the pointless exercise then?

[...]

Onto the next one 

[...]

7 minutes ago, Tricky said:

Will you all be back at Ewood next week after the pointless exercise then?

If it brought attention to our current situation it wasn't pointless. 

[Penwortham Blue]

4 minutes ago, StHelensRover said:

I don't think 4-5k boycotted, probably more like 2500, but we'll see what the police stats say compared with other recent Saturday games.

Doesn't sound like much but it's probably around 25% of the remaining attendees these days, so it's a decent number.

As many have pointed out, 22k+ home fans on most weeks just before the Venkys bought the club, now 8.5k season ticket holders and a few hundred walk-ons is what we're down to. The 15 year gradual boycott. I wonder/fear how low attendances could get before something happens.

The real count number is within this or match day thread, the boycotting number is significantly more than what you’re suggesting. My guess is circa 50% of the remnant core support stayed away, so 5,000 / 6,000, that is significantly more than I had hoped, enough is enough !

[StHelensRover]

There's going to be some fans are are very gleeful that the ground wasn't completely empty today and will be smug and crowing about it, best to ignore any of that and not take the bait. 

[RevidgeBlue]

9 minutes ago, Tricky said:

Will you all be back at Ewood next week after the pointless exercise then?

Only "pointless" if you're fully on board with what ever the fuck it is that the owners, management and Ismael are trying to achieve.

[Penwortham Blue]

9 minutes ago, Tricky said:

Will you all be back at Ewood next week after the pointless exercise then?

Thousands stayed away ! You might call that pointless, I call it making a point and a start to saving our club from 15 years of neglect.

[Dreams of 1995]

11 minutes ago, Tricky said:

Will you all be back at Ewood next week after the pointless exercise then?

Why was it pointless Tricky? There were significantly less people there today. It only takes 3 thousand less fans to be around 30% of season ticket holders telling you they are willing to walk away if things don’t change

Are you happy to lose that 30%?

[...]

6 minutes ago, Penwortham Blue said:

The real count number is within this or match day thread, the boycotting number is significantly more than what you’re suggesting. My guess is circa 50% of the remnant core support stayed away, so 5,000 / 6,000, that is significantly more than I had hoped, enough is enough !

Has to be more.than 2.5k surely

(Pic  miller goal from corner)

[RevidgeBlue]

I asked my mate who attended to take a video of the crowd.

He and his son didnt think there was much difference to normal but I have to say it looks exceptionally sparse to me.

Despite all this 11,600 bollux, which Im sure no-one is fooled by, the Club will know the REAL numbers and I'd imagine they're absolutely shitting themselves at the prosect of a catastrophic drop in ST revenue next time round.

Keep plugging away boys and girls of The Coalition. Rome wasn't built in a day.

[J*B]

7.6K is the police number supposedly. 

[Rogerb]

Actual attendance on a par with an early Carabao cup game

[Dreams of 1995]

I will wait for the police numbers. That will give the coalition the ammunition they need. 
 

Over 1000 Watford fans. If the 7.6k figure is real, that is around 25% of home fans who have said they aren’t going to bother again if things don’t change. Very worrying times for the club

[Tricky]

13 minutes ago, Penwortham Blue said:

Thousands stayed away ! You might call that pointless, I call it making a point and a start to saving our club from 15 years of neglect.

And during all that time, between you, have come up with this? Well done, you showed them alright 😆

Back to BAU next week once the realisation drops 

 

14 minutes ago, Dreams of 1995 said:

Why was it pointless Tricky? There were significantly less people there today. It only takes 3 thousand less fans to be around 30% of season ticket holders telling you they are willing to walk away if things don’t change

Are you happy to lose that 30%?

To what achievement, venks won't budge easily 

[Gav]

3 minutes ago, Tricky said:

And during all that time, between you, have come up with this? Well done, you showed them alright 😆

Back to BAU next week once the realisation drops 

 

To what achievement, venks won't budge easily 

Why don’t we just sit on social media and do bugger all like you, that’ll show em!

[benhben]

There's some absolute muppets on the Blackburn fans FB page. One guy seems happy enough with venkys because L1 is full of ex prem sides. Weve no hope with both venkys and fans like that. Im giving up and paying no more attention.

[glen9mullan]

I would like to thank everyone who chose not to go today as your symbol, that this is bigger than 22 men chasing a piece of leather on the pitch. Id like to personally thank everyone who has supported the coalition and even further given me so much support over the years to try and keep up the good fight against all the adversity that comes with putting your head above the parapet. At 10am yesterday i got the news we all dread, as one of my parents sadly suffered a heart attack and were blue lighted to Blackpool straight into surgery and not in a great way.  In a strange way, it galvanised my spirit of why we do what we do. Without my parents. Id not be here. Id not be a rovers fan and certainly not be so invested in trying to protect it.

Emotions are running high, always are after a game, and the dust settling will evolve in the coming days.

Whats next is the burning question?

For me, its take stock, evaluate, listen, and then the picture will become clear

[Penwortham Blue]

19 minutes ago, Dreams of 1995 said:

I will wait for the police numbers. That will give the coalition the ammunition they need. 
 

Over 1000 Watford fans. If the 7.6k figure is real, that is around 25% of home fans who have said they aren’t going to bother again if things don’t change. Very worrying times for the club

Where are you getting your numbers from, 25% would be of concern but basis the police number, it is more like 50% ! 6,000 home support against a normal Saturday 1500 kick off core of 12,000.

[Dreams of 1995]

15 minutes ago, Tricky said:

And during all that time, between you, have come up with this? Well done, you showed them alright 😆

Back to BAU next week once the realisation drops 

 

To what achievement, venks won't budge easily 

These people who boycotted are telling you they will stop going unless something changes. There was a significant amount of ST holders who didn’t attend today

If they don’t renew next season, it is very worrying for the club. That is the worry here. Maybe you should do more to listen to those fans. You have far more in common with boycotters than yoy do with the owners. I know whose side I’d rather be seen to be on

[StHelensRover]

12 minutes ago, benhben said:

There's some absolute muppets on the Blackburn fans FB page. One guy seems happy enough with venkys because L1 is full of ex prem sides. Weve no hope with both venkys and fans like that. Im giving up and paying no more attention.

I hate Venkyclappers more than Burnley.

Burnley fans hate Rovers and would love nothing more than for us to lose every single week and fall through the leagues, that feeling goes both ways.

Given that, does it strike any of the Venkyclappers as unusual that every single time we've played Burnley in the last 15 years, they've spent half the game chanting about how much they love the Venkys and waving Indian flags at us? 

"But they're keeping us going, no one else would put the money in, FFP etc. They're doing their best, no one else would buy us, no one else could do better"

Yeah that's why Burnley fans wave the Indian flags and chant about them every time we play then.

Edited 1 hour ago by StHelensRover

[Goozburger]

24 minutes ago, Mattyblue said:

The fact even with the diminished gates we get these days, a significant number of the remaining rump still boycotted one of the few Saturday 3pm’s we get is a decent enough sign for me.

The boycott being "decent enough" for you is no good. No good. If it was to truly work, it had to be "decent enough" to those that will give it traction. The media. The owners (recognising it as a sign). Or whoever else it's supposed to bring attention to. You are already in support of it. So what good is it if it's just good enough for you? It's not swaying anybody's opinion to alter the course of history.

Who would be willing to take on the burden of our losses? Even with a bumped number of ST holders (let's say that would happen with new owners), you're still staring annual losses of several million or more a season just by standing still, as well as keeping onside with FFP rules and avoiding points deductions and fines. So who is going to take that on? I keep hearing "Venky's won't sell". I don't know who is close enough to them over in India to know that first-hand, but forget that for a moment... Where is the queue of buyers? I really doubt any business-minded person with "ambitious" intentions would think we're a profit-making project to have at.

If the owners weren't paying players and bills, I'd feel differently. Scoff. Call it a low bar. But the ingredients particular to Sheff Wed, for example, aren't there. At least they had absolute full validity and full support to put on a full boycott. Their owners were not keeping to their financial obligations. 15 years on, despite our downfall being of the Venky's own making, they are still, at the very least, standing up to their financial obligations. Nobody can deny that unless they were not paying the bills.

There is simply no validity or wider acceptance for a boycott in our case. It was never in a million years going to get external support because the elements are simply not their for wider sympathy, recognition, and so on. You can feel sorry for yourselves about it, but until you have an Oyston or a Chansiri TRULY witholding the dosh from people that are owed it, a boycott that results in a few thousand less than a normal attendance is going to do absolutely nothing.

[Penwortham Blue]

1 hour ago, Ossydave said:

As empty as it looked, I expected it to be worse. Suppose we’ve become used to it always looking empty now though so not much impact today sadly. 
 

Worth a try, not particularly successful though. 

The police numbers don’t lie, thousands stayed away and to my mind, it has been extremely well observed.