He said "Personally I've tended to blame Gallagher for us going down."

I'll have a £30 bet with you that Preston don't make the play-offs this season. Loser pays the £30 to the winner's charity of choice. Deal?

We don't have a great record in recent years when playing on a Friday... 7 April 2023: Lost - Rovers 0:2 Norwich 10 March 2023: Lost - Stoke 3:2 Rovers 15 April 2022: Lost - Peterborough 2:1 Rovers 2 April 2021: Lost - Wycombe 1:0 Rovers 12 March 2021: Lost - Rovers 0:1 Brentford 12 February 2021: Lost - Rovers 1:2 Preston To put a positive spin on it, we're definitely due a win on a Friday!

Ticket office told me this morning that our allocation was 1,253.

Does anyone know of anybody who is still looking for a ticket for Sunday? My mate now has two spares which he will sell for face value. Please DM me if you know anyone who would be interested. Thanks

Having read the decision in this arbitration case from 2020, I think it may come down to which document wasn't filed before the deadline and how soon after the deadline it was filed. The guidance (page 10 of the arbitration decision) says that a club will be deemed to have met the deadline if the EFL office receives the appropriate registration or loan form before the deadline. Other related documentation (e.g. transfer agreements, contracts) can be submitted late provided the EFL office receives them "immediately following" the deadline. The guidelines also say that the transfer agreement/contract must have been agreed before the deadline though. https://www.efl.com/contentassets/c9fc5dceaa7f4b62b81dca0b9e2f7c9d/201028-nottingham-forest-football-club-v-the-english-football-league.pdf

Does anyone know if you can pay on the gate at Lincoln tomorrow? Thanks

It was mentioned in the article from the Rovers website to which roversfan99 provided a link yesterday (further up the page): "Having fractured a metatarsal against Wycombe Wanderers back in April, Rankin-Costello recovered to feature for the Under-23s in the draw against Leicester City last month. However, a tweaked hamstring has stopped the versatile midfielder in his tracks, with the number 11 still a couple of weeks away from joining in full training."

Thanks Wiggy. I have contacted the club as suggested so let's see if anything materialises!

Ah, I see. That will be annoying if that's still the case. I'll ring the club to find out as you suggest. Thanks for the reply.

Does anyone know what sort of time the players tend to leave the ground after the game? Is it long after the final whistle? I'm taking my two boys to their first Rovers game on Saturday and I'd like them to get their photos taken with some of the players if possible. We live in Leicester so it's no easy feat to keep a 4 and 7 year old supporting a mid-table Championship team which is 100 miles away when all their mates support Leicester. It hasn't helped that while we've stagnated in the Championship, Leicester have decided to win leagues and cups, challenge for the top 4 in the Premier League and play in Europe just as I'm trying to convince my lads of the merits of supporting Rovers! To be fair to my boys, my indoctrination has been working and they've stuck with Rovers so far despite the repeated attempts by their friends and my wife's family to convince them to support their "local club"! I just need to get them more emotionally invested in Rovers and so hopefully taking them to their first game and getting photos with some of the players may help to achieve that!

According to stats posted on their Oatcake message board, they are the most improved team in the league since 5th Nov (about three weeks before we played them away). Prior to 5th Nov, they were accumulating points at the rate of 0.5 points per game whereas that rate has improved to 1.4 PPG since 5th Nov. We are the joint second most improved team (along with Boro) since that date, accumulating points at the rate of 1.2 PPG before 5th Nov and 1.8 PPG afterwards. Stoke are clearly still very inconsistent but they have undoubtedly improved significantly since we beat them away in November.

I'm going to the game tomorrow and it occurred to me that I couldn't remember seeing us win or even draw at Stoke. I had a look on the Soccerbase website at our head-to-head record against Stoke to check whether I was right and discovered that I have been to watch Rovers at Stoke five times and we have lost each time. I first went in 1988 when they beat us 2:1 bringing our 20+ game unbeaten run to an end. Since then, we have lost four and won two games at Stoke. Needless to say, I missed the two wins but was there for each of the defeats. That got me thinking about whether I have any other bogey grounds and two immediately came to mind - West Ham and Leicester. Having checked on Soccerbase, I have discovered that my records at those two teams’ grounds are: Leicester Games: 8 Wins: 0 Draws: 3 Losses: 5 West Ham Games: 10 Wins: 0 Draws: 2 Losses: 8 So, I have watched Rovers play 23 times away at those three teams and I have yet to see us win. I’m hoping to break that duck tomorrow…… Does anybody else have a personal bogey ground that beats my records at Stoke, Leicester and West Ham??

The supposed play-off curse of the highest finishing team is actually a fallacy. Since the play-offs were introduced in the 1988/89 season, the team that finished highest (of the four play-off teams) in the league has been promoted more often than the teams finishing in the three lower positions. Here are the stats: Championship Third place: 10 promotions (37%) Fifth place: 7 promotions (26%) Fourth place: 5 promotions (18.5%) Sixth place: 5 promotions (18.5%) League One Third place: 9 promotions (33.5%) Fourth place: 7 promotions (26%) Sixth place: 6 promotions (22%) Fifth place: 5 promotions (18.5%) League Two Fourth place: 13 promotions (48%) Fifth place: 5 promotions (18.5%) Seventh place: 5 promotions (18.5%) Sixth place: 4 promotions (15%) Thankfully we bucked the trend in 1991/92 by finishing sixth and getting promoted through the play-offs.

Does anyone remember much about Bobby Svarc's time with us. He was a few years before my time but I am aware of the name. I ask because we had a plumber fixing our boiler last night and we got chatting to him about football (as you do) and he said that his dad grew up with Bobby Svarc in Leicester and was good mates with him. I had a quick look at him on Wiki and he seemed to have a decent scoring record throughout his career albeit at a relatively low level. I was just interested if anyone had any particularly strong views on or memories of him.