Home and away shirts still available from Lillywhites at Piccadilly Circus in London, priced £11.99 ... seemed to have most sizes.

Have a look at a map and you'll notice there's a ****ing big river estuary slap bang between Bristol and Cardiff. The tunnel the trains go through is 4 1/2 miles long. It took thousands of men nearly 15 years and 76 million bricks to build it (opened in 1886). They didn't build a spare one.

Does he have a thing about grabbing blokes legs?

May have a few spare beds up for grabs << here >> on both Friday and Saturday nights. The accomodation is pretty basic, but then it's only 17 quid per night (21 quid with breakfast) - there's also a bar, a gym, a sauna, some climbing walls, some caves and you can go kayaking before the game. PM me (soon) if interested. No whingers.

Oh dear. Someone took American Pie too seriously....

As I posted on the Euro match thread, would love it if we came out to Highway to Hell by ACDC, as Bayer did last night. That'd wake up the Jack Walker stand

Have to take my hat off to Bayer Leverkusen for their choice of music tonight. I never heard the Champions League anthem as the teams came out, however ACDCs Highway to Hell was very much in evidence. Take note Gerald Jackson, that would get Ewood going! And after Liverpool's comprehensive win, immediately on the final whistle the tannoy kicked in at full volume with You'll Never Walk Alone for the celebrating Liverpool fans. I think that's a brilliant touch from the German club, in a round where typical petulance, bad blood, histrionics and spin have been the main input from some of the bigger players / teams / managers. It was a pleasure to see a decent game between two honest sides, and good luck to Liverpool next round.

It was a toe poke. By rights he should be cautioned for unsportsmanlike behaviour.

And John Williams - what a great team we have running our club

phil, have you got any jobs going in sunny Malta ?? I know I'm an optimist, but whenever I read your posts, I just think I need to find some "even more happy" drugs. Or move to Malta!

Sod "football hooligans" I travelled home to West London tonight via Richmond, where one branch of the District tube line begins. Apparently today there was a charity rugby match at Twickers, in aid of the Tsunami - a Northern Hemisphere team v Southern Hemisphere game. Richmond isn't far from Twickenham for you non-Londoners. Train goes nowhere for ages, walk back to concourse to try and find out why, and well f*** me, there's a bunch of p!ssed up rugby fans who've already smashed up a ticket machine and are starting on the train windows. British Transport Police arrive, draw batons (never seen that before - it's quite funny when the p!ssed up tossers cower with their hands protecting their heads) and summon backup, within moments Richmond station is like a bad episode of The Bill. Rugby fans with their faces pinned to the platform, their posh girlfriends screaming obscenities at the police. Will this episode ever be linked with a rugby union game at Twickers??? Will it make the papers?? Will it @#/?. I'm going to take this example and use it every time any holier-than-thou toss pot comes out with "football related violence" - clumsy, hit shift + 8 again!! off - rugby is far worse, but above criticism.

Did you repeat your constant ludicrous suggestions that he should be manning the phones himself, and opening the TO 24 hours a day?? eh, eh? Did you tell him you constantly post on here slagging him off under a pseudonym or are you just the usual two-faced hypocrital journo trash we know and loathe??? Did you remind him of your column in The Times previewing the season, and share a laugh about Rovers captain?? eh, eh??

Kindly provide some quotes and a source to go with your nonsensical mutterings. (PS ... at least yeast is a living organism - what remains between your own ears obviously ceased all activity some time ago)

Because Rovers didn't anticipate the demand for tickets. I know it's hard for some people to accept, but occasionally the club get things wrong. It's not the end of the world, but I think it's useful to point out when it happens. And it's also useful sometimes to revisit and applaud the club when it gets things right. As they clearly did here, with a couple of minor exceptions. Kamy's stroppy temp for example, but then some of us pointed out the potential problems of employing temporary staff to handle this situation. And the computers going down on Tuesday - they should have maybe run some checks on Monday night (maybe they did - we don't know). However, as the email received by Blackpool Rover << here >> proves, everyone at the club WAS proactive, and they DO listen and learn and did what they could last week. Add to that the sensible ticketing arrangements for Leicester and the case is closed. It would be nice to see an apology from JimMk2 for his pathetic tirade against John Williams, the club, and anyone on this board who dared not to criticise Rovers, but I doubt it'll happen. In fact Jim hasn't posted in this thread since the inevitable initial rush died down and he realised just how wrong he was to make such a big issue out of slagging the club again.

<<According to the BBC>> we ain't playing Everton on Sunday ...

Well, here we go. Very nearly time to leave the office and hit the road .... BRING IT ON!!

Kamy, when you buy tickets at the TO at Ewood you can clearly see the monitor on the other side of the window. Why didn't you simply ask to see your ticket buying history on the screen?? If it was recorded then there would have been no problem at all. If it wasn't recorded, then the person who served you is simply doing her job. Whilst I'm sure your extra tickets are completely genuine and for fellow Rovers fans, the next 10 people with the same story as you might have just popped down the M65.

Phoned at about 2pm. 12th in queue. About 10 minutes wait. Tickets in Blackburn End lower N01. What's all the fuss about?!?!?!

they've done both from the start your next ground breaking idea ????

He's threaded it through ...

Has he tried contacting Rovers via the usual channels??? As has been posted on here time after time, Rovers have the best mechanisms in place for looking after disadvantaged fans in the top 4 divisions. Take that on board, and give us a report on Wednesday morning - I'm sure if you do the right things your dad will love the game and have the best evening out against the trollls.

The fact that Rovers had released ticketing details for the fixture before the 78 coaches were back at Ewood Park from the initial tie proves that the club was proactive. It's not rocket science to assume that having got that far they managed to calculate the numbers involved and how best to deal with the inevitable demand. The early technical problem clearly didn't help, however they've since reacted with extra hours ... and with demand slowing significantly today, and with three selling days left, it seems they got the whole thing about right. Unless of course the whole episode is just another opportunity to slate the club, John Williams, the man with the walkie talkie helping people avoid parking tickets, Lee Grooby and the cat up at Brockhall.

But Den, there are problems and there's being realistic. In effect, Rovers have to make 23,000 sales in a limited time, to thousands of people who are desperate to complete their own transactions as soon as they can. Rovers could have employed 100 temps to "man the phones" as Jim puts it. But it's not that simple. There probably aren't 100 spare PCs available on which to install the database and ticket software. There probably aren't 100 temps who could have been recruited and trained to use the software in the 24 hours between the draw at Burnley and tickets going on sale. Despite Jim's protestations, there aren't even spare staff hanging around at Ewood Park who can suddenly abandon their own jobs - and you can be sure that those who ARE around will be helping prepare for the game in whatever way is needed, be that in the TO or elsewhere. And even if they had managed to find 100 extra bodies, PCs, trained them and set them up - there would still have been queueing times because of the magnitude of the task and the timeframe. A couple of years ago for the Celtic away leg, I remember spending 4 HOURS pressing redial, redial, redial on two phones, and hearing the engaged tone thousands of times. I'm sure many people did the same. It's the same for any popular event - sport, music, theatre - and everyone wanting to attend recognises that there may be some pain in obtaining tickets - except it seems certain Rovers fans!! Well, Rovers have improved things since Celtic by getting in software which can handle larger call volumes, keeps people informed and warns them of the time they will be waiting - I've not even heard an engaged tone this week!! But they still get slated - can they ever win??

You are. Really ? I thought I was complaining about poor service. Given the logistics of allocating 23,000 seats to 23,000 people in 7 days, by post, by phone and in person, with some seats reserved for 4 (now 5) of those 7 days, just what exactly are people expecting in terms of customer service. You can't compare that with Tescos. It would be more reasonable to compare it with the U2 concerts which recently went on sale. Fans of U2 expected a struggle to get tickets, hours on phones, crashing internet sites. They expected it to be dog eat dog and the most determined would get tickets. No reward for previous attendance - that's also the entertainment business and those people are customers as we are. Likewise for tennis fans who queue for days / nights on end to get into Wimbledon - with the added torture of watching strawberry munchers waltz past them day after day, with the All England Club happily taking their corporate dollar whilst the real fans (customers) sit on the pavements. You can look at any major event where fans create a demand for tickets, and those fans will accept that a little discomfort may be required to secure their places - West End musicals, film premieres, the lot. So we come to Blackburn Rovers, in one of the biggest fixtures they can possibly play in, and people are trying to create a "customer service" furore out of absolutely nothing. People who could have avoided ANY queue by putting two stamps on two envelopes. People who want to charge the club the cost of waiting on the phone for 90 minutes because 20 thousand other people are trying to buy the same tickets at the same time. It's ridiculous. Look at the numbers involved, accept the facts and just deal with it.

Thank you for saying it far more eloquently than I could. Paul, read and inwardly digest. You might learn something. But largely irrelevant. Firstly, no-one from the football club has been "blaming the customers" - in fact JW has told the LET they are stringently checking each and every applicant against the database records and has apologised if this is slowing things down a little. I'm sure the "customers" would rather endure this little security measure when buying tickets than be sat next to pockets of Burnley fans in the home areas on Tuesday. Secondly, comparisons with Tesco and the like are largely irrelevant. Tescos customers are not emotionally bound, and can choose Sainsbury's or Asda without even thinking twice. Thirdly, the most important job of any Chief Exec of Blackburn Rovers is to run a financially prudent set up and ensure the longevity of the football club. 95% of any measure of customer satisfaction is in effect delegated to the Football Manager in any case. What certainly is NOT the job of the Chief Exec of Rovers is coming up with hair brained schemes OR thowing pots of money needlessly away, in order to ease queueing time by a few minutes, for an event which may or may not occur again this side of the year 2050.