It is a long standing tradition that tickets for a game are released and on sale no less than 3 weeks before the match itself. I've no idea why it is 3 weeks, but 3 weeks it has been for as long as I can remember and with the exception of replays or hastily rearranged fixtures that is the standard. For some strange reason however the club have decided to cut that down to just 2 weeks. In what must be a first we managed to set prices and an allocation, and provide tickets to the away club who promptly sold out of those before we'd even announced prices or sales arrangements for home fans. I come from the school of thought that home fans come first and you make sure they have the priority and the away team come second. To make matters even worse we bizarrely announce prices on Thursday last week, the day before Easter weekend and our biggest home attendance of the season, but decide not to sell tickets until today. It is strange conduct for a club wanting as many people as possible in the home ends that is for sure. I suspect they will come with some cock and bull about us having Hull and Coventry games before then and not wanting to overwhelm the ticket office but I'm not having that.

It seems Rovers are quite happy for tickets to be limited and as a result a small gate on for this one. The fact we had 16,000 fans on Ewood on Good Friday yet zero mention of this fixture and a deliberate strategy to not sell any tickets for it until today, a mere 2 weeks before the game, tells me all I need to know A club keen on as many as possible on in the home ends would have been advertising the hell out of it during the Norwich game.

Definitely not a coincidence I've lost count of the times we've heard stories and claims of what we were intending or trying to do but for a range of increasingly bizarre reasons failed. January 2022 the excuse they were putting out, randomly, was that there was a budget of several million pounds to recruit but some unfathomable reason the manager turned down the opportunity when the PL was within reach. January 2023 the excuse they want us to fall for is a combination of some sort of Football League conspiracy crossed with a staff member (still employed) 'forgetting' to complete the correct paperwork. End result both times? Falling short, inadequate recruitment but most conveniently of all serious money not spent and importantly nothing at all to do with our owners or their underlings Win win if you are one of them, like Waggott who is measured on the balance sheet and not team performance.

Taking each of those in turn though Since January he substituted Morton for Buckley which coincided with our good run. Buckley's injury has forced him to bring Morton back in. Are there any realistic alternatives? Adam Wharton a possible, but other than that no Adam Wharton was injured for a significant period of time, but even when fit he remains a young lad in his breakthrough season. Playing him 3x a week every week is a lot to ask. Not sure he has sidelined Scott. Admittedly the Dingle away game was a bizarre decision but Scott was playing regularly until he got 2x injuries which kept him out and he's having to earn his place back in the side, which with Carter and Hyam is difficult. The dingle gaffer has had bucket loads of cash and has loaned a load of players. If that's the policy we want to adopt then fine - it's worked for them - but I keep getting told about FFP and using our academy players. It's one or the other - if we want to emulate St Vincent then fine but get the chequebook out and people need to stop obsessing about academy lads and FFP rules because the dingles haven't followed either of those paths.

Chickens coming home to roost on recruitment. January was unforgivable. I had hoped that JDT might work miracles and keep us going with the bare bones but that is asking a hell of a lot especially with Buckley and Dack out. I find myself sat around people shouting for changes, either to the starting line up or during the game. I ask myself who on earth these changes are that people think are going to do better than the players we have out there. Look at the bench today and ask yourselves whether that is a bench you want to be calling on when in need of 2 goals at home against a decent side. JDT isn't responsible for that. He should, at the very latest of January, have been backed with 2-3 new quality signings to add the depth and options we so obviously needed. The negligence of the owners or the charlatans they continue to employ meant that we didn't get that done. Now we pay the price. The options, when desperate for a couple of goals, are to pick from Dolan, Thomas and Adam Wharton. No disrespect to any of them lads who between them have done very well at times this season but it is laughable for a side sat in the top 6 aiming for the PL. In years gone by Mowbray would have had a sulk about it for a few weeks then repeat the whole process again in the summer. I very much doubt JDT will have the same tolerance for being made a fool of.

I just hope that in one of our remaining home games this season we nudge our way past 22,000 attendance at Ewood and in doing so can point to a bigger home gate than the dingles have had in years. Small wins but useful given their recent obsessions about attendances. Realistically on those numbers we are looking at least 6-7000 home fans who aren't ST holders. That is a huge number by our standards and to be honest as a percentage by anyone's standards. Potentially could be matching our ST numbers in matchday sales. Just hope that someone down there has the sense to try and capitalise on those numbers by reminding those people of ST sales and doing something, anything to try and persuade a few of them to get signed up for next season rather than let them drift away.

Ipswich lot have all come out of the woodwork the last 2-3 seasons now they are the big fish in League One and used to winning most weeks. When they were an average Championship side their numbers were far less impressive - usually 15,000 or so on at home and rarely brought more than 1,000-1,500 to Ewood or similar long journeys. You can say similar for others like Bolton and Sheff Wed, who are now getting better numbers on home and away than they were getting in the Championship not long ago. In my experience both at Carrow/Portman Road and at Ewood Norwich have turned out in bigger numbers...which is to be expected because for nearly all of the last 15 years Norwich have been top end Championship or Premier League whereas Ipswich have been mid-table Championship or League One.

I expect with it being high end price wise and particularly being on TV that it will knock a few off the numbers. Would expect 4000 or so, maybe a sell out at 4500.

I said after the January fiasco that JDT wouldn't be here long. Decent and ambitious managers expect support from Clubs and move on quickly if Clubs muck them around. We can sit and speculate until the cows come home about what went wrong in January and who was responsible. Doesn't really matter. It was a joke of a transfer window and I imagine serious bridges have been burned. I don't think the change of agent in February was a coincidence and it might not be Leicester but I think it will be someone soon.

I'm already on the case with that one. As of today there are 11/24 Championship clubs with STs on sale for next year. Cheapest adult prices are: Rovers - cheapest £379 Wigan - cheapest £349 Burnley - cheapest £335 Middlesbrough - cheapest £480 Sunderland - cheapest £390 Sheff Utd - cheapest £380 Stoke - cheapest £344 Norwich - cheapest £534 Millwall - cheapest £370 Bristol C - cheapest £375 Swansea - cheapest £345 So as it stands only Middlesbrough and Norwich noticeably more expensive starting prices than Rovers. Sunderland slightly more, the rest similar or cheaper. I would expect Luton and Watford to come in higher than us going off previous years. I would expect QPR, Cardiff, Preston, Huddersfield, Birmingham to be comfortably cheaper going off previous years.

It isn't early and it isn't cheap. Bolton on early bird sale on 3rd February at £219 for renewals and £239 for new applicants is early and cheap. It is a move in the right direction - earlier and cheaper - but still late and still expensive compared to a significant number of rivals.

I wouldn't say seriously wrong. A price cut is very uncharacteristic of Waggott and Rovers but it isn't a massive cut, and there are strings attached again. I'm not criticising them because I expected a price hike as we've had every year before this but it's hardly revolutionary stuff, just a small saving if you do it quickly, and I wouldn't describe the end of March as 'early' to release prices. Earlier yes, but in the scheme of things not early. Some clubs have them on sale in January and have sold 10,000+ before we announce prices.

It's a move in the right direction and if it ends up being charged that way then it suggests a penny has dropped upstairs that prices were just too high. Suspect that even £379 starting price for a renewal will still be top end Championship and suspect a non-renewer will still be £400+ so still steep compared to local clubs. But at the very least it should ensure an increase in sales on the last few years as you'd like to think almost all who had one this year will renew and maybe a few more on top.

Maybe it suggests, contrary to the narrative espoused in many quarters, that we actually are a big fish in this league and one which Sky can see commercial value in putting us on tv so often now they don't have their precious Leeds, Derby and Fulham to exploit.

If we were charging £250-300 per adult, a la Bolton or Preston, then I suspect quite a few would sign up even though they know they can't get to all the games, conscious of the night matches and the risk of Sky moving a load to inconvenient times. Even if you missed 5-6 games you'd still be getting the remaining 17 for around £15 a game which remains very good value. But when your prices start at £399-450 then people can ill afford to shell that amount out knowing full well they are going to be missing a few. Rovers get compensation from Sky for this to offset reduced sales as a result of changes. If they want people to turn up to watch they need to divert some of that into prices, and that's not just odd bundles or promotions, it is a comprehensive, well thought out, competitive season ticket deal.

I'm quite petulant about these things so if I were Rovers I'd be doing whatever I could to ensure we got more than 22,000 on for the game. It is sad that this would be a good effort in this Waggott / Sky TV era but at the very least it would eclipse what they had on at the Turf for the reverse fixture. That would essentially require a completely full JW, BBE Lower and Riverside. Unlikely, especially when we can't even be arsed to get tickets on sale.

In typical Rovers fashion there is still no announcement on tickets/sales for home fans. We must be the only club in the country where we can sort out away allocations and the away club before we do anything about selling to our own fans. This should have been ready to go weeks ago, instead we are now less than a month from the game and not a peep. I fully agree with the approach to away fans but would at least expect some sort of effort from Rovers to get as many home fans in the ground as possible.

Things are undoubtedly better and improved from where they were 5-10 years ago. If you don't pay much attention or come at things externally as supporters of other clubs do then you might be forgiven for thinking that things are normal here and that Venkys are doing a good job. I certainly wouldn't go that far. Things are better, I'll give them that, though I'm not sure that is entirely down to them suddenly deciding to do things properly and more due to them finally allowing some decisions to be made and some sort of structure to exist on the ground without their interference or undermining it. But I think results and good management by JDT and, yes, Broughton, are to a large degree masking what remains a relative shambles behind the scenes. The signs are there - Waggott still allowed to remain in situ despite everything, ST numbers and attendances dropping, commercial suicide with no merchandise in the shop, decaying ground and pitch with zero investment, assets being allowed to leave for nothing with zero response from India, Mowbray allowed to remain in place until the very end with zero response from India, then they tried to persuade him to stay at the 11th hour - quite clear that there was a wall of silence and those on the ground were stuck waiting for instructions. It has worked out well for them because they agreed to bring in Broughton and he had the good judgment to turn to JDT. But it could just as easily have been a failure. One look at what happened in January tells us all we need to know. And I'm sorry yes the owners remain ultimately responsible for that - they didn't provide backing to strengthen or if they did the people they pay to run the show failed to get it done. The end result is it could undermine our promotion bid and I don't believe for one minute that is all down to someone forgetting to send a form off.

It will never happen. For as long as we remain outside the PL there is nowhere near enough demand - particularly with Waggott's punitive pricing & their clear desire to make the JW the 'shop window' of the club (levelling up prices, moving the cameras). Therefore all they will ever say is that there's no point to doing it - we don't need extra seating and that we should be investing all our efforts into promotion not 'pointless' projects such as these. Then if by some miracle we get promoted the narrative will shift - we will then have to survive in the PL for it to be viable, only when attendances inevitably increase they will then say it isn't feasible because it will require relocating lots of regular fans elsewhere and in doing to cutting our capacity and income. Then if we came back down it would go on the backburner again. Of course there are reasons to do it other than simple capacity issues - facilities (matchday and non matchday), improved supporter experience, improved atmosphere, improved media/corporate/revenue options, fully covered stand, no obstructed views, concourse provision, disabled access. The ONLY thing that gives me any cause for optimism is that if we did ever get promoted the PL would immediately insist that we took steps to upgrade our media and disabled facilities - they would not tolerate disabled spectators being sat in the rain on the walkways at the front and would insist we took steps to deal with this - clubs have had to spend fortunes addressing this. For Rovers there would be one obvious and relatively easy way of doing this whilst addressing all the other issues and that is within a new Riverside. Sadly with Waggott he's more likely to put some cheap scaffolding up in a corner or rip out a portion of the BBE/DE to do it as a cheap alternative instead.

An eye for an eye - they give us a small allocation they get the same in return. We would have sold the entire Cricket Field stand had they provided it as they have in the past, instead they refused and provided a small allocation. One set of toilets open for the entire away following too which was a disgrace. For once I fully support this decision, my only 'grievances' are not putting them upstairs and giving them 250 hospitality tickets - I sincerely hope those people won't be behind me in the JW stand jumping up and down or banging on the glass like they have in the past. I am pleased however that those hospitality tickets have effectively come out of their overall allocation, reducing standard tickets to just 2000. There's too much history with this fixture, too much riding on it from Rovers' point of view with our league position, to hand over a huge allocation to them. Nobody else provides 6,7,8000 tickets to away teams, let alone their biggest enemies, so not sure on what basis we should be expected to do so. Next stop is to make the day as unpleasant as possible for them as they did to us - no beer sales, one set of toilets open for the whole lot of them, and a zero tolerance approach to any flags being brought into the ground. And if they don't like it they can start by asking questions of their own Club who were the first to do all those things. As for dingles 'turning up' in Blackburn or at Ewood - really? You'd have to be real weirdo to not have a ticket, yet spend your day travelling to Blackburn for no reason other than to hang around causing bother, especially when your team is on tv and you can safely watch it from home/a pub in dingleland, yet you'd rather miss watching your team play to hang around like a spare part in Blackburn? Sounds like a real fun day out. Almost as though they aren't actually interested in watching the match....

So there's another example of Rovers bullshit exposed - the suggestion that we can't subsidise away tickets - proven to be wrong This sits alongside the recent proof that we can charge home fans less than away fans and in doing so get more into Ewood whilst protecting away revenues. They'll tell us anything but it doesn't take much to catch them out.

priority 1 is to keep JDT at the Club regardless of what happens over the next 9-12 games. After 3-4 years of treading water and listening to Mowbray's drivel it is fantastic to dream and have an ambitious manager in the dugout delivering the results. Priority 2 is to equip him with the resources to keep us moving forwards. Unfortunately we have Venkys and Waggott running the show here and as the January window proved they can torpedo even the must simple and basic of good things so my expectation is they muck him around again and he's gone before next season kicks off.

Another reason why STs should have been on sale weeks ago with a proper early bird scheme in place. Some people are going to need every incentive going to renew with the Sky Sports nonsense taking over and causing havoc with our fixtures, the best way to get people to commit is if they are doing so during a fantastic run of form and if they think they are making a saving. But no, good old Waggott and Rovers will leave it until April/May at the earliest, probably time the release to coincide with disappointment or end of season and then 'freeze' prices (which will still represent an increase for many). It is high time the club used some of the vast amounts recieved in additional TV money to give something back to the fans. They will have collected huge sums of money from Sky and through the healthy cup runs yet none of that will be used to reduce ticket prices - why not? Question for the next Forum perhaps. I also think it is bizarre that they claim Venkys have already approved a budget for 2023-24 regardless of what division we find ourselves in but yet STs are still awaiting 'sign off' from India - how can they agree and approve an overall budget for the year and yet haven't even approved pricing on season tickets, which is surely a central element of our budget?

So just to recap on season tickets we are now over 5 months on from Waggott's claim that plans were well underway with an intention to release earlier than in previous years. We are 'pretty much' there but awaiting owners sign off and now talking about Easter release. Also seem to be canvassing opinions on using the Riverside as a cheaper option (what a groundbreaking idea - didn't Waggott get rid of just that very thing?) They're just playing for time. No intention of releasing or pushing STs. Just do it last minute and squeeze the 8000 for as much as you can get.

The only games that I wouldn't be confident in are the dingles and away at Millwall. The rest we should be embracing and being confident of winning. Some juicy looking games coming up elsewhere this weekend and next - Luton's next 3 are away at Sunderland, home v Watford and away at Millwall Millwall are at West Brom next weekend and then host Luton, also host Preston soon Norwich are at Stoke, then host Sheff Utd before coming to Ewood. Also at Middlesbrough soon. I'm quite looking forward to 2.5 weeks of no league action to take a breather and let the others scrap it out and then hopefully we can deal with Birmingham.