JHRover

What benefits do season ticket holders get? Fair enough for those who buy game by game who dodge the surcharge on tickets and who will get their money back through that over a season, but if you don't buy tickets for home games what is the advantage? Club cash is a joke when it can't be used for anything other than merchandise and kits and training gear are extremely expensive. The only practical benefit as I see it is that you get priority on away tickets. Not only is that not likely to be relevant this season with demand less and supply of tickets much greater but more importantly I think it is completely wrong that people can effectively buy a place at the front of the queue for tickets whilst years and years of loyalty and ticket purchase history is considered to be less valuable or significant than 10 quid for membership. I always considered a season ticket to be membership and sufficient committment.

I'm sure it could and should have been sorted out by now. They've known for a long time that Dafabet was coming to an end and even if waiting for promotion it is now 2 months and some since that was secured. I suppose having a commercial director would help but for some reason we don't need one. As you say we're now eating into the lucrative summer holidays season when people buy stuff to take on holiday and we've no idea on the new kit. So much for wanting to boost income.

And if we start next season with the same obsession with trying the 5 at the back we will likely be punished again against much stronger opposition. Ive no doubts Mowbray will try it again and unless we have a different squad i doubt it will work. If we get relegated next season after losing our first 2 can we erase them from the results?

We need our own players who are going to be contracted to the club, be assets for the club and be here for 2-3 years try and get us promoted. Once we have enough of those of sufficient quality (which we don't currently have) then we can add in a couple of decent loans if they come up at the back end of the window. Signings first, loans a bonus at the back end. The Telegraph keep on referring to us currently 'already having' 25 contracted players as though that number in itself means we either don't need much more or shouldn't get more until we get rid of some. I've tried to calculate where this 25 contracted players comes from and the only way it works is if we include the kids. If we factor into the equation that it includes Wharton, Travis, Nuttall and Tomlinson (who between them have made very few 1st team appearances and struggled to feature in League One) who Mowbray has indicated may be allowed out on loan and also factor in that we've got Gladwin, Caddis, Whittingham and Hart in there we can quickly get down to 17 contracted 1st team players who contributed significantly last season. In short we need more regardless of who goes out the door the other way, the loan market is not the answer to filling the void, but i think the owners like it because they can bring in players without the need to spend or commit to contracts.

The sort of player and the sort of price we should be in the market for.

The amount of extra cash the club will make through 1875 membership, Blues Bar admission and even 18% price increases on season tickets will be minimal, especially when there is no real incentive to have 1875 membership this year. If increasing revenue is the aim then there are far more profitable ways of doing it through sponsorship and corporate but both require greater levels of effort to achieve results. I'm not impressed in the slightest by Waggott's across the board price increases but I bet his employers will be. Having to pay a £10 membership on top of my £350 to get priority for away tickets despite having a 100% purchasing history over the last few years leaves a sour taste in the mouth. If you're doing a priority scheme it needs to be a points based system. Club cash is also a waste of time when the cheapest shirt or training wear item is about £50 and the money can't be used for tickets.

I noticed Rich Sharpe replied to someone on Twitter saying 'Premier league loans proving difficult at this stage'. I sincerely hope that we aren't putting our faith in the loan market at this stage. Decent loans are extremely thin on the ground at this stage and most don't come available until parent clubs are ready to let them. We need our own signings in for the start of the season, a couple of loans to fill out the squad as and when they come available.

So how come we can play United at tea time in the FA Cup and Burnley at night in the League Cup? I'd like to know how many Leeds fans have been arrested in Blackburn before and after games that have kicked off at 3pm or later. This theory that Leeds is high risk and a safety issue is a recent invention. Prior to the last 3 or 4 years we frequently played them at later times and other than a fracas in Wetherspoons I don't remember reports of large numbers of arrests.

Bolton are being linked with everyone. Probably because they're desperate and have agents crawling all over them. Opposite to us really. Unless they've suddenly struck oil under one of those car parks then they haven't got any money. Links to Rhodes and Rodwell laughable unless they're both dropping their wages to 10k a week.

What incentive is there for the police, safety people or staff at Rovers to get more fans on Ewood? None. Why would they want 20,000 on rather than 10,000? More work and more aggro for the same pay. When on a cushy number you don't rock the boat, you go with the flow.

Waggott is (allegedly) running the football club. So he takes responsibility for these decisions. I don't accept that the club is powerless.

But how can the 'committee' (whoever they may be) insist on that when there are no reasonable grounds for them to demand it? I could understand if it was Burnley, or if there had been serious trouble against Leeds or Preston in the past, but there hasn't, and also there are plenty of examples recently where such games have taken place, incident free, in afternoons and evenings. If Waggott seriously thinks that 7000+ from those clubs are going to rock up for a noon kick off and is putting that ahead of the wishes and feelings of Rovers fans then perhaps I've overestimated him. I'm already perplexed by his explanation to close the Darwen End due to bigger away followings (our first 3 home games will probably see about 3000 away fans in total if we're lucky).

Precisely. I look at the side that was relegated and it contained a forward line of Danny Graham, Sam Gallagher, Marvin Emnes and Lucas Joao. I think we're a long way short of that at present. Other areas of the pitch I think we're at least as strong or arguably stronger than when relegated but not by much. I've never been a fan of loans unless they are with a serious view to buying e.g. Gestede and Cairney. When they're just cheap squad fillers to avoid paying a fee or committing to a multi-year contract then it is a short term and flawed policy.

Its all part of the blame deflection game. Avoid any one person or group being held responsible. The ultimate cause of it all is to make life easier for a select group of people who are paid good salaries to do the job but want as easy a time as possible in doing it. I think that applies to both the police and to those at Rovers anxious to get by with minimum fuss and aggravation. These people aren't football supporters, certainly not Rovers supporters, and for them football is a job nothing more. Being at Ewood on a Saturday isn't pleasure, its work. Better clocking off at 2:30pm with the afternoon to enjoy and less 'risk' of trouble than clocking off at 6pm. When it suits the club e.g, when Sky Sports come along with their chequebook then the game changes. We're not alone in showing such disregard for home supporters but I do wonder how many other Championship clubs have already made 2 home games into noon kick offs, especially when there is no history of any violence or crowd trouble between the clubs in question. I had half hoped that having a CEO who seems to talk some sense would prevent such things happening, but Waggott has already made it clear which side his bread is buttered by his desire to pack the Darwen End with away fans. Even if there was some sort of rule in place which prevented 3pm kick offs when there was a full away end (which there isn't) the club could get round it by not allocating away clubs 7000+ tickets, which is a ludicrously high number for any club to allocate, instead limiting it at 5,000 which is still way above most clubs' away allocations. Rovers presumably don't understand that these games will now be seen by even less home fans as not many will pay £25 and get to Ewood for noon.

It gives an insight in the football hierarchy these days. Top of the pile are Sky Sports. Then come the clubs and the police who do things at their own convenience, then bottom of the pile are the supporters, those same people Rovers are trying to encourage to cought up £400 a piece for season tickets whilst chopping and changing the fixtures to less convenient and enjoyable times (for most people). A Rovers representative said at a Fans Forum meeting a couple of years ago that when Rovers are giving the whole Darwen End to away fans that the police INSIST on an early kick off. That was the justification they used for moving Leeds and PNE previously. Yet since then we've played Man Utd in the cup at 4pm on TV and are shortly going to play Liverpool at 7:45pm on a Thursday evening, so that statement was clearly a lie.

Bristol City away game moved at the behest of Bristol City to 'aid the team's recovery and to alleviate fixture congestion'. Looking forward to Rovers moving a few games when we're struggling with injuries with important games coming up.

Why is the Liverpool friendly not a lunchtime kick off when they have been given all the Darwen End?

Leeds and Preston will have been moved due to the ridiculous safety advice, the same advice that allows 5,000 Rovers fans to travel to Preston on a Saturday for a tea time game and the same advice that allows both Rovers and Burnley to play at home on a Thursday night on TV. I hope that Sky Sports come along and pick one of those for live broadcast (with Leeds it is highly likely) and the game is then moved back to 5pm. Then it show just what a joke the whole thing is.

These sort of announcements should be made before the early bird season ticket deadline, or at least there should be a clear warning when buying a season ticket that this is likely to happen. Waggott's grand plan of filling the Darwen End isn't going to get very far. I doubt either of them will need 7,000+ seats for those games unless they are going strong for promotion. Notice also that Bolton at home remains a 3pm kick off, despite far more instances of crowd trouble against them over the last few years than Preston or Leeds.

Very nice, especially with the gold trim and I even quite like the Umbro sleeves on these colours. If this was last summer I'd be hoping for something very similar for Rovers but having had red and black last season I'd be very surprised if we got it again.

Cheers, I presumed Johnson had left but don't think there has ever been any official announcement of that. Never heard of Harvey but note from this https://www.rovers.co.uk/news/2015/august/a-passion-to-succeed/ That he was leading recruitment in the academy in 2015 so it seems at some stage he has been promoted. Do we know any more about him (other than him being ex-Burnley)?

Did the question about Tommy Johnson get asked? Seems he has disappeared, as the Telegraph are now referring to Stuart Harvey as head of recruitment.

Some work out well but the majority are a step backwards. I quite like Sheff Weds new badge but that's basically an old badge that they've brought back. Same with Man City. I wouldn't be against minor alterations to modernise it but the shape and layout ought to remain the same.

Yeah but apparently if they don't go up they might be in trouble. Bit like Villa, what a mess they're in now...... Then again if they don't go up they might not be. And if they do go up they definitely won't be. At least Bristol have sold Reid to a club in a higher division for a good sum and will reinvest that cash. Better than selling your best player to a relegation rival for a low amount and then spending none of it on replacements.......

He seems to lurch from one extreme to the other. Last season for the first half they were top 6 pushing the top 2 and knocked Man Utd out of the cup. Then they fell away significantly and only just made a top half finish. Season before they started off reasonably well but fell away and ended up in a relegation battle and he was arguably lucky to keep his job. Not that Bristol City fans have any reason to complain, the Championship is the top end of the scale for them.