Well the opening game isn't on the Friday or Sunday at least. Let's just hope it doesn't end up at 8pm on Saturday or something ridiculous.

Leeds or Wednesday away would be OK. Probably be Boro or Sunderland.

It's the equivalent of a goalkeeper who is not great on shots and crosses, but gets picked because his distribution is good. 🤔 On the game, in general would we have lost had we not declared. I'd be fairly sure no. Could we have still won had we not declared. Potentially yes. The declaration was wrong and led to defeat.

I just think its double standard to eliminate betting companies but then have a vaping company. If you are eliminating one on moral grounds you surely eliminate the other. It never bothered me when we had beer on the front (I drink), or betting companies (I gamble), so even though I don't smoke / vape it shouldn't bother me that Totally Wicked sponsor. As I said, its just the double standards of turning down what I think SW said would have been a better deal from a betting company (before Recoverite) to ultimately now be sponsored by TW.

One of the annual footballing rituals tomorrow. When somebody ITK confidently 'leaks' the Rovers fixtures only for it to be proved a load of rubbish less than 24 hours later.

Burnley are at home on Boxing Day also.

OK. But that's different from your original two posts which I have quoted below. In your original posts you sounded like you were just talking about people who could afford to go and decide not to go. Venkys / The Owners wasn't mentioned. I agree with you to some degree on that point, but I think the number of people who say they don't go because of the owners is fairly small in my experience.

The big screen in the Blackburn end fanzone to not look as blocky as a Commodore 64.

I’ve read it all again. You said that you and the people around you complain about people who ‘choose’ to stay away. I’ve given you 3 examples of people who choose to stay away. People who maybe would be tempted by lower prices. All are people who used to go ‘when the going was good’ but don’t now. They are the ones you originally said you sat at Ewood and complained about. In the three examples I gave I just want to know, if you saw them face to face, what your complaint is?

That’s who you are complaining against but what is the actual complaint? Of the group I used to go with in the 90s, one has moved about 45 mins away and now has kids. He didn’t get a ST when he moved away and has gradually stopped coming altogether apart from the odd game here and there. He’s brought his young son a couple of times recently. Another stopped going because he was pissed off that Kean wasn’t sacked and didn’t want to go whilst Kean was in charge as he felt he was having the piss ripped out of him. That first two seasons in the championship were a shambles off the pitch so he didn’t go back. Now he just does other stuff at the weekend .He will come now and again, generally if we have a night out planned after, but says he honestly doesn’t miss it. The third, interestingly, stopped having a ST as he was missing a lot of games due to shifts. The only time he got one was in the Darwen End when they were reduced to £199, but still ended up missing a few and didn’t renew. He still goes on the freebies from our group or for cheap games. He is a prime example of a fan who may be tempted if he thought the cost was cheap enough to fall into his ‘easily disposable’ bracket. None of them would say “If it weren’t for Venkys I would go back”, although Venkys clearly drove the second lad away. So my question again, is what are you actually complaining about them? Out of interest, I think a £200 season ticket with a free kids ticket would interest one and three although I appreciate that’s too big a price drop.

Why would you complain about people who could afford it but choose not to go? What is the actual complaint?

Meh. I tried Heypi last night and it refused to believe Rovers beat Burnley on April fools Day 2001. Kept telling me it didn't believe me but it would 'humour me' and play along.

It's only gone up £2.50 a month. Thats nothing. You'd have to be a right pezzy bastard to not be able to afford that. 🙄

I think most of us do. Waggot doesn’t.

If a loaf of bread had increased at £1 a month would that be ok? What about petrol? What about a brand new Ferrari? It’s a nonsense stat. I would, just for comparison, like to know how much a month season tickets have increased since Swaggot came through the door, especially in the riverside.

Are you saying that someone who wants a season ticket now should have been putting a pound a month away since 2009 to afford it? If they had done, how do they afford next years ticket because they won’t have had 15 years to save up for it?

Since 2009 yes it is. It’s more than inflation.

And had it gone up with inflation in that time it would have cost just £280 last season.

In the summer of 2009 were in the same league as we had been for the last few years, had just achieved our worst finish and lowest points total since relegation and had the supposed anti-christ of football Big Sam managing us. So why that summer did we achieve our highes sales ST since 1995? It surely couldn't have been the £100 discount could it?

Maybe don't get too close to the front !

I heard an Italian midfielder said they referred to him as Rice Pudding during the second half as he had gone all soft and had no substance.

He is clearly a very good player, but West Ham could not get hold of the ball for much of that game last night, especially in the first half. It was just constantly coming back at them and whenever Rice got on it he was as guilty as anyone in losing it cheaply. He came more into it the last 20 minutes when his stamina and engine started to show through. The likes of Flitcroft and Sherwood for Rovers always looked limited to outsiders, but when they play for your club you see their true worth. Same with Carrick at United. Not particularly great at much but was a key part of their last glory spell. If Rice goes to a top club and wins things he may elevate himself to a top level.

As @BigUts says, we weren't fickle in 2009 when we got our highest season ticket sales since 1995 purely based on a £100 price drop. We'd been in the same division for several years and had just had a relatively mediocre season.

I'll quote myself. The evidence we have is that last time we cut ST prices our attendances increased to the best they had been since we were Champions of England. And this was on the back of an average season at the time. Therefore 14 years ago, cutting ST costs at Ewood led to a significant increase. In the current era cutting costs at our Lancashire neighbours has also led to a significant increase. 🤷‍♂️

Of course there isn't as of today's era, but in 2009 we reduced prices by £100 and sold 4k+ more. I'm sure the counter argument will be "but that was premier league", but reducing the prices by £100 led to season ticket sales being higher than anything since the summer of 1995. We'd finished 15th in 2008/09 https://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/sport/4510423.blackburn-rovers-verge-breaking-season-tickets-sales-record/