JHRover

Since he made that claim we've had 2 matches out of more than 30 where the away following has taken up all or most of the Darwen End. Leeds and Preston at home. I'd be surprised if either sold out this season with Waggott's pricing.

Another big away crowd falling by the wayside. Why again did Waggott say the Darwen End home area was being closed?

I'm afraid the club has dug its own grave in relation to attendances and atmosphere at Ewood and it is going to be very difficult to turn that around now from what amounts to a prolonged decline. Some will try and put their heads in the sand and say the decline is mostly natural and a result of life outside the Premier League but I don't entirely buy that cop out of an excuse which seems to be based on 30-40 year old attendance figures for the pre-Jack Walker era (lets be honest such figures have little to no relevance in 2019 given the changes in society, football and stadia) When the club was managed by competent people like John Williams there was a recognition that ongoing efforts needed to be made by the club to boost attendances and the atmosphere. The club came up with the idea of putting home fans behind both goals by opening part of the DE Lower up to home fans and making it 'different' to the rest of the ground by making it cheaper and offering unreserved seating and essentially an unofficial standing area. This lasted reasonably well for 7-8 years despite zero efforts from the club to promote it or encourage people to take flags etc. in there. I went in a couple of times. Not my cup of tea for a number of reasons but i got why some people liked it and that was the obvious place to try and grow and develop a singing/standing/banners and flags area - otherwise empty and right next to the away fans where the atmosphere is easiest to generate between opposing fans. Sadly the money focused people thought they could save a few quid by shutting that stand down. No effort at all made to relocate this area to an adjacent stand. The Lower JW corner unsuitable for such an idea anyway due to its location and size. This followed similar efforts to save a few quid by shutting down the BBE Upper and forcibly relocating season ticket holders in both the BBE upper and JW lower, in the process annoying plenty of people. The folk who are paid to 'manage' matchdays at Ewood quite happy with this new arrangement. Less areas to police. A wrecking ball swung at the most 'troublesome' area of home fans with those numbers plummeting and the diaspora of those remaining across the other 3 stands making them much less of a 'problem' for them to manage. Much better, much easier, much less hassle. Same salary at the end of the day. Why should they care? All this has happened irrespective of results and performances on the pitch (in the main these have been atrocious) and pricing of tickets (which have been escalated massively under the latest bloke claiming to be in charge). It doesn't take a rocket scientist to work out why gates and atmospheres have dropped through the floor. Sadly there still seems to be a complete ignorance or refusal to accept that decisions made in the offices at Ewood are arguably the single biggest factor in all this. In 2016 they went for the triple whammy of allowing Lambert to walk out, antagonizing fans by appointing a failed dingle manager and then shutting down stands for good measure. What are they doing to address all that? Any fresh ideas? Nope. Just questioning fans commitment whilst continuing to serve up rubbish and then introducing punitive extra charges for good measure, moving away fans as far away as possible. Anyone who looks at what Huddersfield have done with what was their away end or even Reading whose gates are barely and better than ours in truth would be able to learn a thing or two. Sadly cheap and easy with minimal effort is the way of things these days.

One of the most frustrating things about the membership scheme is there is no benefit to be had when buying cup matches. All my league home games are covered by my season ticket. I never buy additional home tickets. When we get home cup matches there should be a benefit to members.

If every club were to adopt self sufficiency we would not realistically be in League One. Our revenues would be or should be greater than numerous other Championship clubs. Clearly if we adopted self sufficiency whilst everyone else carried on investing that is a different story.

If Mowbray wants to use Villa as a comparison then on his head be it. The expectation at Villa was promotion and Bruce was fired when it was clear they weren't going the right way and the fans turned.

The difference is this. When Wednesday and Leeds charge us £40 then only 500 or so bother going. Our followings at Hillsborough in the last few years have been very poor. Realistically if they were £20 a person we might get up to 1500 but not much more than that. When they come to us they will bring a lot more than that. Leeds will still bring 6000+ and Wednesday 2000-3000. I personally don't have a problem with returning high prices to Leeds and Wednesday. Perhaps eventually their fans will put pressure on their clubs to stop it. In an era of FFP why should our fans have to pay to help other clubs comply with rules but their fans get a cheap day out at Ewood? The answer isnt to charge our fans the same. Two ways around it. Do what Leeds do and make the Darwen End Upper top tier pricing and the bottom tier and side stands much cheaper. Alternatively run these two games at local promotions where you can charge home fans less than away fans. Birmingham and Huddersfield both did this to us recently where home fans could get in on the cheap and away fans were charged more. We've never done it.

Preston at home - make it £20 anywhere in the ground up to kick off. No more strings attached. You'd get 23,000+ on. Do what Waggott does and we'll have 19,000 if lucky. Sadly I think those employed at Rovers would prefer the lower figure. Easier day at the office and all.

Really? You think the pressure would be less if he had gone public and aimed for midtable? Who on earth aims for mid table in this garbage division? Look at what Neil is doing at Preston or what Warburton is doing at QPR. Ambitious managers who set out to win every week. Even if the aim was top 10 we aren't even going to get near that. Mowbray is getting stick for a number of reasons none of them to do with his aims for the season. We are regressing. We are awful to watch. We collapse every time we go ahead. We are entering a relegation battle. His transfer dealings are awful. He's had a bigger net spend than most managers at this level. No more excuses. It's not good enough and Mowbray is responsible.

Ken Lawrence clearly hasn't watched very much of Rovers if he thinks a Walton save and Preston wouldn't have come back. I think 90% of fans there knew what was coming and the only issue was when and how. This time round a keeping error. Next time it will be a soft penalty or defensive error. The minute the half time team talk was over that game was going Preston's way.

A 5-10 game boost might be the difference between Championship and League One next season. Yes it is that serious because we are sinking. I'd rather roll the dice in those circumstances and have a chance of survival rather than persist with something that isn't working and meekly go down. It might not be immediate gratification we need but it might soon be immediate points.

Steve Gibson isnt daft. He's given Woodgate an opportunity after serving time on the coaching staff. It isnt really working for them at the moment although at least they've kept a few clean sheets in tough games recently v Huddersfield and Fulham. Woodgate will be given some time but Gibson will sack him before risking relegation and will appoint a good manager in his place. Mowbray was and is a legend up there but that didn't stop the axe coming down when it was clear he'd lost his way. Nothing wrong with being patient and giving.managers a chance but you have to be able to recognise when it has gone too far to salvage. We are reaching that stage with our manager. It happens everywhere but the people who run Rovers will not face up to reality. They will bury their heads in the sand and hope everything works out ok.

Now now the club can 'do no more' and have 'the cheapest tickets in the league' according to some.

All true except there is a 3rd option rather than Venkys or bust. A new owner prepared to invest. Wigan found one after Whelan. PNE seem to manage to compete without losing £17 million a year. In fact with the exception of Bolton basically every other club has changed hands recently and not gone bust.

Collapsing under pressure and an inability to defend leads away from home is an issue that has plagued this team under this manager throughout. Very easy to try and pin the responsibility onto a single player for an error but that ignores the wider issue and bigger picture. If the manager believes the collapse was caused purely by Walton's error and that we would have won otherwise that is a big worry because anyone who watches away games will be able to see a pattern in performances. On odd occasions we get away with it but frequently we crumble and let winning positions slip. Think back to Stoke last year. Nearly let a 3 goal lead slip and would have done had they not missed their penalty. Weak. See it at home all the time- take the lead and concede immediately after. I've seen enough. It isnt individuals it is the collective mindset of Mowbray's team and it isnt going to change. Him and his team just don't have it in their lockers.

We've already missed out on 4-5 candidates who have now gone elsewhere - Monk, Rowett, Warburton, Cowley- who are all doing well at their new clubs or in Rowett's case got off to a good start. We will sit idly by twiddling our thumbs for another couple of months despite the writing being on the wall and wait for the remaining decent options to be snapped up and until January is out of the way to ensure no decent manager will demand funds to improve us. It's a dereliction of duty by those owning the club and supposedly running it. As ever the irony is that everyone that watches us can see what is happening yet those.paid fortunes to do something about it won't act and won't face reality.

Not intested in those numbers as they were before Waggott arrived and his policies implemented. Numbers of home fans are declining. Season ticket sales are down and numbers at Ewood are falling despite what official figures are put out.

Since this date last year we've played 46 league games (a full season). We've won 15 and collected 54 points during that period. That includes 3 wins at the back end of last season against Bolton, QPR and Forest which were complete dead rubbers between teams with nothing to play for. We've also had a negative goal difference in that time. So effectively we're at best scraping the survival mark or ignore the dead rubbers and its relegation form. That's over a year/season so the fools who keep saying it's a blip or bad patch haven't done their homework. How much longer is needed?

He's overseen a reduction in home attendances despite promotion and an improved atmosphere around the club. That takes some doing but he's managed it. That must make us one of very few clubs to have declining crowds and he must take responsibility for it.

Yes but it is cheaper and easier to do nothing, hope it all works out ok and if it doesn't then pretend/convince ourselves we can't do any better

Bowyer had some idea as to how to organise a defence and make us hard to beat. It wasn't always easy on the eye and we drew a lot of games but didn't concede all over the shop 2-3 goals a game and didn't have regular collapses like we do now.

Lot of people moaning about the referee or Preston's players going down easily to win free kicks. I call it good game management. Use the referees to your advantage. Huddersfield did the same. Everyone who watches football at this level knows the referees are tragically bad. Some managers exploit that ineptitude. We don't. We're in the image of our manager - too nice, not ruthless or nasty enough. We always end up on the wrong end of the decisions and feel hard done to but it's time we start playing the system ourselves. Get players booked and win soft free kicks.

Big difference between who we could get and who we will get. This club at this level with hands off owners who have provided decent funds could attract a good manager provided he was given the opportunity to do the job. People telling themselves that this club can do no better than Mowbray and the drivel we are getting at the moment are deluded. Sadly who we will end up getting when Mowbray goes will probably be useless and fail. The people running the club aren't up to the task and will prioritise convenience and cost over ambition.

After the game I said that we'd have been better off if the scoreline was 0-0 at half time than 2-0 to us. It seems sometimes being ahead in a game takes us by surprise and we don't really know how to approach the game from there on. 0-0 and Preston would probably have persevered rather than changed their system. They certainly wouldn't have applied as much pressure from the start of the 2nd half as they did. Being 2-0 down both meant that they had to 'go for it' and also meant we had to try and protect a lead, which we all know we are incapable of doing, and as usual we crumbled under pressure.

That's never been announced by the club. But then again they seem to like doing things without announcing it so it might be true.