Queue reports from Ewood this morning would be much appreciated !!

Just read through the ClaretsMad thread re tickets and them questioning the segregation. To clear something up if you remember in 2000 they had 5,500 tickets with the front rows of the bottom tier blocked off with netting and also netting up the side. All Rovers have done now is move the 'side' segregation from the Darwen End to the home areas. Obviously Rovers or the police want to keep distance between the two sets of supporters at Ewood. The Burnley fans should be grateful it's been done this way round this time so they've got the extra 1,500 tickets in their end. If it's a sellout both ends it's us that lose out. I know this should be on their board but I really can't be bothered registering and I'm sure one of our registered or un-registered 'guests' will pick up on it.

Sorry Tris mate but you're talking a bit of claret. I didnt get the cup scheme because I miss a few games every season due to work. I've missed the first game this year (WBA) and about 5 last year and also have to bend work commitments to make several others. I didn't see the point in getting the scheme when I might not be able to make every game. No the package through the post to tempt you to be a season ticket holder quite clearly stated that we'd get preference over non season ticket holders for cup games. That was a perk of my guaranteed money up front. Tonight that doesn't feel like the case. However.. .... I agree that the ticket office can't be expected top cope with demand on current staffing levels and can't comment on the practicalities in terms of money, staff etc... to increase the people working in there at short notice. As I've mentioned I'm just going to have to try my best and sort this out one way or the other. I only live and work a few miles from Ewood. What if I lived further away? I don't want your sympathy but a bit of understanding wouldn't go amiss.

Just to correct you Clitheroe-Claret the resaon there's only around 7000 seats available in the Darwen End is because the bottom 7 rows are covered with netting presumably to stop pitch invasions. The extra segregation areas are the Darwen End side of the Riverside and JW stands to the side of the pitch. I would presume the reason for this is to stop coins etc.. being lobbed across into them areas. There is not a cat in hells chance that these seats would be sold to Burnley fans.

Cough. Hmm, T'internet is the only way, cough, I can see that this would have been resolved easier. Cough splutter. Bit late for the Burnley game though.. Cough Cough I can feel a Sicky coming on tommorow. ah, ah, aahhhchooooooo

It'll be interesting to know if that's the case GG. last time it was 12 O'Clock on a Sunday which may have legally meant pubs should be shut anyway. However next Tuesday I can't see how they can shut the pubs. At what time do they do it? 6pm? 4pm? 2pm? Even if the immediate vicinity has no pubs other areas will just end up busier. How far away do they shut the pubs? Fox / Ewood Arms etc... Navi , Ivy, Uncle jacks etc... Welly? OakTree? Golden Cup? Do the police risk keeping the Fernhurst available for Burnley fans so that they can have a heavy police presence near enough. Surely every Burnley fan that travells of his own accord won't be able to be picked up and sheperded to the ground? Are they better off in the Fernhurst or walking around wherever they wanted? Will the Fernhurst even want to open? Basically we don't know but the longer it goes nearer the game with nothing in the LET the more I expect it to be business as usual.

I left trying to get my ticket till this afternoon because I thought no rush. I intermitently rang (about every 15 mins) this afternoon but couldn't get through. I've since found out that queing at Ewood was at least an hour all day. Also at lunchtime when a neighbour went down apparantly he says that all ticket office windows were open and a guy was told that due to this they weren't taking any orders over the phone at that time. If I can't get through tommorow on the lines I'm going to have to try and find a way to take 2 hours out of work tommorow to get a ticket - something I know is going to be very difficult and that I wouldn't like if any of my staff tried to do it at short notice. Not happy. I'll find a way though

Has anyone been to the ground late morning / lunchtime today. Interesting to know how the queues are as I may need to 'bunk' off work at lunch tommorow to get mine. I'm having no luck on the phone and even if I got through probably couldn't sit there for 30 minutes.

If I didn't know better I'd say he fully expects the Darwen End to be left in 'a bit of a state' after next weeks game and he's trying to get his justification in now. "yes we may have ripped up most seats and completely gutted the DE concourse but you scum threw a coin at our winger!"

Finished 0-0 Suits us! Southampton far better side but couldn't score.

Any closer to uploading the photo's Paul? As one of the people that couldn't make it I'd love to see what the mass of blue and white in the cricket field stand looked like.

Surely thee jest. A Wegerle style last minute winner will go down well then.

With all the talk of the Cup replay let us not forget Southampton are away at West Brom tonight. I'll be happy with either a West Brom victory or a draw. A Saints win puts us within 6 points of the drop zone again and will once again cause us to be looking over our shoulders, especially with Everton, Arsenal and The mancs coming up. Come on The Baggies !

I hope they've got that pitch covered. What an anti-climax if the arctic weather that's meant to be coming leads to the game called off!

They can't win really though. Look at the bees average home crowd. I wouldn't say they couldn't win. All they had to do was restrict sales to season ticket holders only for a couple of days. Some of our fans are moaning. Imagine being a Brentford season ticket holder despite their poor attendances and travelling to many away games. Then missing out on that game. More club stupidity. Their manager (forgets his name) was on Sky predicting "Bee's fans being all over the ground and if theirs trouble or a 'disaster' (surely a poor choice of word) some people will need to take a look in the mirror." That somebody will have to be Brentford FC themselves!

Biggest ticket cock-up this weekend has to be Brentford for their cup tie at Southampton. They turned down the option of 4,750 tickets in favour of 3,200 as they had to pay for any unsold tickets. (Shades of Celtic!) Then they put them on sale straight away open sale with no preference for Season ticket holders or club members! I can imagine the thread on here if we ever did that! link

I had this ready a couple of days ago but didn't want to post it on the other thread as it was going downhill so......... .... I've read in a few different places Burnley fans saying they don;t feel our team on Sunday is as good as that of December 2000. Therefore I thought I'd compare the two teams:- Friedal 2005 V Friedal 2000 Remember when Brad signed. The general feeling was why get in a guy that failed at liverpool when Filan is doing so well. However over the last 5 years we've seen the difference between a good keeper and a great keeper. However I have to say that over the last 12 months Brad's standards haven't been of the same quality as his previous 3 years. Don't get me wrong he's still very good but i feel that 5 years ago, when he was taking the full force of Paytons crude, deperate lunging studs on his thigh, he was slightly better. Rovers New 0 - 1 Rovers Old Neil V Curtis In 2000 we thought Curtis was Prem class. However he mysteriously disappeared from sight once we got promoted leading us to believe he wasn't good enough. Or was he another Souness fallout? His career since Rovers maybe proves it was the former. Neill is hardly great but takes this one. Rovers New 1 - 1 Rovers Old Todd V Taylor I've put Toddy up against Taylor to help the current squad's cause because despite being our best defender he isn't going to beat a 2000 model Berg! RN 2 - 1 RO Nelson V Berg Sorry Ryan! 2-2 Nissa V Bjornebye Sorry but I think Stig takes it. His distributions was woeful but a defenders job should be first of all to defend and on this score he's better than Johannsen at full back. I can't recall a winger actually skinning him and his positional sense (and his offside awareness - watch the norwich highlights again and watch Nissa play them onside for every 1st half chance) make him the choice. 2-3 MGP V Duff Poor old Morten. Brought in early season with the task of replacing Duffer he never really had a chance. There are very few players who could waltz through defences like the mercurial Irishman and for the next few years the Rovers faithful are probably going to compare every other left winger to him. MGP has had more pages than Savage and Ferguson without even playing and even managed to bring Anglo - Norwegian relations on the board to breaking point. And now he's up against Duff here aswell. Poor Morten. RN 2 -4 RO Emerton V McAteer If we're talking the McAteer that shone like a beacon on Turf Moor in December 2000 then Emertons knackered. However most of the other time Jason flattered to live up to his Liverpool gloryboy image. Emerton also has failed to live up to expectations but may be suffering fromthe 'Duffer' syndrome (see above). Brett takes it - but not by much. 3-4 Tugay V Dunn Tugay when he first arrived would be prefered over the pie-munching Dunny that we offloaded to Birmingham. However Tugs has now got a bit older and started to confide in his invisible friend a bit more these days and, back in 2000, Dunn was still a hot England prospect who seemed to be able to run a bit. His contribution to our promotion was immense IMO and takes this battle. 3-5 Savage V 2000 model Flitcroft I've put 2000 model Flitcroft but to be honest there's not much difference because Flitty never had pace. The only major change is we now know what he was doing in his spare time back then . We were told that Savage had more to his game than passion , energy and running but as yet I've yet to see it in a Blue and White shirt. However that's roughly what Flitcroft has been about over the last 9 years and i think Sav takes it. 4-5 Gallacher V Bent Time may prove Gally to be the better player. However on prem form at the minute it's Marcus who I'd rather see back in blue and white. However back in 2000 he didn;t look the player that he seems now. I'm going to call this a draw. 4-5 Dickov V Hughes Sparky still put in the effort but, unless it was a cup final, his mobility was seriously hampered by the time he arrived a Ewood. Dickov certainly doesn't suffer from the same problem. He can be as petulant as Hughesy too! FINAL SCORE Current Rovers 5 - 5 Old Rovers Therefore by my calculations we should win 2-0 !!!!

According to todays LET is Todd get's a booking this aft against Norwich he misses the Burnley game. That may mean Ammo Let's just hope Andy's on his best behavoir!

I've no interest in whether in my lifetime I see us play Colchester or Cardiff in the FA Cup. However .........

A couple of reasons may have contributed. First of all the 'fear factor' of people travelling t'turf has been broken by the last visit and the excellent organisation. I knew people (not many) who really thought the away fans would be in danger back in 2000. This was proven not to be the case. Also maybe, just maybe, the magic of the FA cup has finally reared it's head. Like it or not we probably will come across Burnley in the next 12 years in the league. (I've already stated that in 5 years time i unfortunately expect us to become a Championship side due to finances / stature but thats for another thread). However we may well never ever get Burnely again in the FA Cup. Or it could be another 40 odd years. That's why it's so special (and I'm so miffed I'm away that weekend). I still take your point that it's strange that it seems we could have sold this twice over.

Please tell me that's a joke. Think I'll read all the descriptions of the strikers that played before my time at work tommorow before I cast my vote.

They're very similar to when we won the league although we did have a world class player in Shearer. The rest of the team was an effecient cog which worked very well which is how I see Chelsea. Anyone who saw Rovers win away at Everton and QPR in '95 will I think see quite a few similarities between them games and the game tonight. After them games I'm sure the home fans were probably saying that we weren't that good. At the end of the day if you keep grinding out result after result away from home then thats enough. Don't forget Arsenal last year were freakish which we'll may well not see again for a while.

We certainly fought hard but i have to say I'm disappointed (which I didn't think I;d be saying after a close 1-0 defeat tonight). In the final third of the pitch we were again extremely poor. We know thats our problem and it showed again. I know Chelsea are an outstanding defensive unit but we hardly ever looked like creating anything. Second half we couldnt even keep possession of the ball around the edge of their box. Also Hughes was either way to negative or tactically niave. To leave Dickov on his own more or less all game was as frustrating for me as it was for Dickov himself. If J Johnson is the only striker on the bench and we are 1-0 he has to come on surely. A better option given the way we were lumping the ball upfield would have been to put Amo up front which shows how desperate we are. Far be it for me to praise the 'tached scottish one but if that had been Souness in the last 5 minutes we'd have had 4 strikers on the pitch. I just felt like we never had a real go at them. (Although we certainly had a 'go' at them in the other sense!) Don't get me wrong there were plenty of positives as have been mention on other posts so I won't repeat. At the moment though I'm just too frustrated to be proud and look on the bright side.

I think both camps have a point here. It was one of the most watchable game in ages and the tackles and confrontations I can live with. When Henry is that wound up in the game that he bangs the ball into the turf after a foul is given against him fine. Why does he need to be booked? He's just caught up the the passion and excitement around him. I thought Poll (who is NOT a fave ref of mine) did well in the circumstances. However sometimes things can go to far. Like spitting Diouf last week, Ashley Cole needs the FA to act over his dispicable dive in the first half. Also Rooney should have walked for the language he gave the ref. I can sort of understand a player in the heat of the moment telling a ref to F Off but Rooney seemed to tell him where to go about 5 times in the same converstation. One red card for it and he will think twice before doing it again. However if you headbut someone you walk. That's black and white. Fair play to Man U though. Everyone hates them but in games it really matters they don't half dig in.

True it was a horrendoues tackle. Even from the back of that hoorible stand I knwe Ball was walking the minute it happened. I think the tunnel is still in the same place. I'm pretty sure Burnley haven't had the finances to move it into the main stand.