38 minutes ago, Mattyblue said:

Hull offer it, no?

I don’t know Matt. If they do then they are exposed to the risks as outlined. I'll give an example to bring this to life - an esteemed former poster on this MB cancelled his standing order to V12 (or it may have been Premium Credit at the time) midway through the season a few years ago. Because the football was sh1t and he hated Venkys, etc. He proudly delivered a concourse rant at the next home game, happy as Larry that his ST card still worked. Of course it did. Next month he had default notices from whichever finance provider it was and his credit rating was trashed. Football clubs have enough problems to deal with and providing finance (with the associated risks and consequences) should not be added to the list. Hopefully more mainstream banks will follow what Nat West have done and make difficult transactions easier while we are all being screwed by escalating costs. 

8 hours ago, phili said:

If we got rid of season tickets and turned it into a £30 a month subscription instead we would get a higher take up. Paying each month of the year instead of in one go or over 8 months would ease cash flow as well.

I like this idea and I'd probably take it up if it was an option, but there is a very simple reason why it won't ever be for a club in the Championship. 

Income completely dries up in the summer because there are no fixtures. Clubs (not just us) totally rely on ST sales to be able to pay wages and operating costs from May though to August. 

Also, finance providers like V12 take on the risk of default, so Rovers get the ST money when it's needed. If the club offered this subscription model themselves and had a crap start to the season, maybe a couple of thousand fans cancel their direct debits - that's a massive hit to projected income. 

I bank with Nat West, and they have just launched a Buy Now Pay Later virtual Mastercard, 0% interest for purchases over £50 which you can then pay off over 4 months. This is the future (it's like Klarna but respectable) so I will use that to pay for my ST next season. It's a much better option than V12 finance. 

5 hours ago, Riversider28 said:

Do you think the club invited the BBC & ITV or was it the other way round?

Club set it up. 

15 hours ago, Riversider28 said:

What a great opportunity for Rovers  to promote Ladies football at the club on the back of that momentous victory. No doubt though that Waggott & Co will look at it, shrug their shoulders and say “Well, they don’t even play for us anymore”. And we move on.

Also, both of ITV and BBC North West had done live broadcasts from Rovers within 48 hours of the match. Below a tweet from national BBC Breakfast, Monday morning. Do you really think all of that just happens automatically whilst staff at Ewood "shrug their shoulders"? 

5 hours ago, Riversider28 said:

What a great opportunity for Rovers  to promote Ladies football at the club on the back of that momentous victory. No doubt though that Waggott & Co will look at it, shrug their shoulders and say “Well, they don’t even play for us anymore”. And we move on.

Erm, Rovers Ladies have been at the forefront of the women's game for the best part of 20 years. That's why those three were here before United or City had anything to match.

Would you have even known that they were, if you hadn't been spoon fed the tweet quoted above? Which like it or not is exactly Rovers taking the "great opportunity to promote Ladies football at the club on the back of that momentous victory" 🤷‍♂️

19 hours ago, chaddyrovers said:

I think whether improving car parking facilities or building a pub on the land near the Jack Walker stand/Darwen end corner. Or having Music bands on after the game on Saturday.

There was a music band on in Blues Bar after the Bristol City game. If they build a pub where you suggest then that would be bad for car parking facilities. And it would compete with Blues which is already struggling. 

3 hours ago, Miller11 said:

The offer for Nyambe has been on the table for nearly 2 years now. For the entirety of that period we’ve been assured that it’s as good an offer as the club can make. We’ve not heard that the deal is being re-negotiated due to the player being 2 years more experienced, playing x amount more games, or becoming a more integral part of the team. There were clearly some big budget changes last season when we trimmed off a load of big earners… did that not give some scope to change the offer?

”Nobody knows what he’s being offered” is true, although while not exact, it’s not hard to get a ballpark idea of any of our players reported wages, or the offers made. We also do know that there is an ongoing issue with being able to pay academy graduates a going rate. This isn’t due to budget or ceilings, it’s due to a silly, inflexible model being implemented by inflexible, illogical people.

Doubling Nyambe’s wage from 4 to 8k would still only put him level with what Johnson and Davenport currently reportedly pick up. 

If you think that the latest contract offered to Nyambe is still the same as he was offered two years ago then more fool you. 

The biggest fool though is his idiot of an agent, who now has an injured player soon to be out of contact and no takers. In the circumstances his best option is likely to be to stay here, but if (IF) we do go up he's not good enough to play in the Premier League so he'll end up shafted. Thanks to his idiot agent. 

13 minutes ago, JHRover said:

We are the club that complains about FFP and falling attendances.

I've got evidence that a League One club in a similar sized town in a similar part of the world can and do manage that and it is clearly working - they have shifted over 4,000 by mid-February and sold substantially more than we did last year despite just getting out of League Two.

Please display your evidence proving "we" are the club that complains about those matters? Because you make it sound like none of the other 92 ever mention it. I can't even remember when anyone from Rovers did mention anything about it.

BwD population is 149,000. Bolton is 263,000. So that's another lie from you to undermine the club, which you do on a regular basis.

Answer the real question, why do Bolton need next years ST money in February? Take your head out of the sand before you reply. 

1 hour ago, JHRover said:

Head in sand 

Then try to remove it and look at things from a different perspective for once in your life. 

Having STs on sale in February is ridiculous. It points to a desperate need for immediate cash.

48 minutes ago, Wheelton Blue said:

Burnley's cash flow must be in the same way, then...

When they get relegated it will probably be a whole lot worse. 

34 minutes ago, RevidgeBlue said:

Anyone blaming the referee is missing the point by a Country mile I think. Like a dodgy tackle in the penalty area, don't put the referee in a position where he even has a call to make. 

If we still have operational undersoil heating there's no excuse at all for the pitch to have been in the snow covered condition it appeared to be in at mid day and if we know there,s a particularly bad storm on the way, is it too much effort to cover the pitch temporarily?

THe pitch should have been pristine not marginal.

Your lack of understanding is breathtaking. Undersoil heating is to prevent the pitch from freezing. Having it switched on during heavy snow is an absolute no-no. 

As for not covering it, well that's a last resort for when snow is a certainty. Given that when I was out driving just after 10am and not one single road had been gritted, and the A666 through Darwen was gridlocked for 3 hours as a result, I'd suggest that neither Rovers orthe council had any idea that weather was going to happen.

2 hours ago, JHRover said:

Speaking of which Bolton (mid table League One) have just announced they have passed 4000 season ticket sales for next year. Adult prices start at £219 under their early bird scheme.

Generally speaking in life the larger the sales window the more people are likely to buy. Limit to a short window and people might not be able or willing to find the cash.

I'm sure people will be along to tell me Waggott is right for leaving season tickets until June when everyone is off on holiday spending their money elsewhere but Bolton prove there is merit in getting them on sale now.

Why wait until we've potentially missed promotion and have another underwhelming summer? Is it not better to get peoples cash now whilst they are enjoying it?

Today there may be 5000 home non season ticket holders in attendance. I'd like those people to get season tickets. 

Give over. Your constant mission to slag off Rovers is making you miss the bleeding obvious. If Bolton need to be selling 4000 Season Tickets by the middle of February, their cash flow is utterly f*cked.

3 hours ago, Kie_BRFC said:

On another note I think it's a disgrace the way the stewards are behaving in NO1 at the minute. Against forest there was an army of them barging round checking the tickets of the regulars during the game which helped to kill off any sort of atmosphere in the first half. Seem to be actively trying to discourage any sort of an atmosphere 

About time too. When there are dozens if not hundreds of "fans" congregating in N01 despite not having tickets for N01 it was becoming massively unsafe in there. I know some people who have had STs for 20 years about half way up, they have had to move them because game after game they were finding intruders in their seats and having to practically start fights to get their own seats back! It's the same mentality as described by the OP, it's a selfish sense of entitlement which empowers these kids (and it's mainly kids) to do what the f*** they like regardless of the effect their actions have on anybody else.

Steve Bruce has just had a rather nice house built near Knutsford. WBA is the perfect job for him location wise. 

1 hour ago, JHRover said:

So there weren't frost covers at Ewood then? I'm sure I can dig some photos out that show there were.

Yes there were. Amazingly they didn't even have to bring them from Brockhall.

7 hours ago, JHRover said:

'Half the stuff I say doesn't come true' - examples please? 

Well, seeing as you have asked, the one that springs immediately to mind is when you announced (as fact) last winter that the Ewood Park under soil heating had been so neglected that it was completely broken, and the club had therefore brought all the frost covers from Brockhall to try and keep the pitch playable for matches. 

A couple of days later it emerged that actually the First Team had been training on Ewood, thanks to the fully functioning under soil heating, and that all the frost covers were in fact still on the Brockhall pitches but hadn't managed to stave off the severe frost. 

19 hours ago, riverholmes said:

A lot of players out, seemingly, for the U23s - Eastham, Saadi, Barnes, Cirino, Whitehall, Nolan and, perhaps, Baker. With the loanees gone too, the U18s will need to step up. 

https://www.curzon-ashton.co.uk/news/joe-nolan-joins-the-nash-on-loan-2670508.html

Nolan's been out on loan since before Christmas. 

Yes and my point is that it was available right at the end of the season. As for the grey and green effort from the previous year, they were still trying to shift that one for a tenner apiece at the Umbro stock clearance on the Blackburn End concourse this summer 🤦‍♂️

 It really didn't (and I chose the away but the home was available). 

I don't recall them running out tbh. The last 3 shirts I have got were all in the final weeks of the season and heavily discounted - effectively free once club cash was applied, and that includes the last two seasons (XL or XXL). Can't even remember when I paid full price for a shirt before Christmas (other than last week).

There's a distinct lack of understanding about the logistics involved here. It's currently a nightmare bringing goods in from the Far East. There is not only the manufacturing lead time (and minimum order quantity) to consider but the shipping lead time as well, in what is a very disrupted global shipping market. That is why the second batch of kits was delayed. They brought in a small initial batch on airfreight but that is prohibitively expensive for what is a low value product when compared with electronics etc. 

Once it became apparent that these kits were flying off the shelf far quicker than anyone could have anticipated (September / October) it would have been far too late to place an order for Christmas stock - it wouldn't have got here until Easter.

So while it might look like a cock up (and some people can't wait to portray it as such) it's actually the opposite. The kits have been a roaring success, but getting new stock in once that was known is logistically impossible. 

That was the most impressive team performance since Mowbray arrived here. 110% from every single player. Great atmosphere as well. Bring on Bournemouth! 

1 hour ago, J*B said:

I disagree entirely. They’re two different full backs but I’ve just spent 45 minutes watching Nyambe pointing where he wants the ball and not receiving it. He was running into the right spaces but not getting the passes. 

Was that in the second half? Because in the first half he had at least 6 opportunities (actually probably 8 or 9) to get a cross delivered and every single time he either dithered on the ball then played it backwards, or played it off the defender for a corner, or just lost it. 

He's a solid full back, but if his agent thinks there is more salary available than Rovers are offering then he needs a new agent. Personally I'd prefer JRC in todays formation, if only he was fit. 

6 hours ago, Mattyblue said:

So fans can criticise the club/owners/execs when away from Ewood and still ‘get behind the lads’, then?

Anyone would think you were just trolling last night…

Oh what a surprise. Someone appears on BRFCS and offers an opinion which doesn't fit in, and the trolling card comes out.

The self-importance on here is mind blowing. Once again the site regulars are tut-tutting the Twitter responses to the recent banner stunt - but once again the content from Twitter had to be pasted in to this forum. 

Normal, mainstream Rovers fans that I speak to think that this place is the lunatic fringe, and I can see why. Alternative opinions not tolerated, new posters unwelcome.

That double poll to sack Mowbray and Waggott that someone started on here the day after the 7-0 Fulham disaster - it's struggled to 120 votes in 10 days 😂

This site and its groupthink messaging will remain a total irrelevance if not even 2% of the current diminished ST base can be bothered to press one voting button after that embarrassment, and don't even look at the % if the lapsed stayaways get factored in. 

The more you chase alternative opinions away from this website, the more marginalised and less relevant it will become.

6 minutes ago, Mattyblue said:

As I said, the football industry runs on gossip, all fair game.

And like you, I spent a bit of time with Williams and he loved his ‘off the record’ tidbits, but could you have imagined him in the Premier Suite, just half an hour after a big win saying to whoever’s listening; ‘Greame/Mark/Sam would have been sacked without those three points!’.

?

But this sounds like it was a private conversation rather than a broadcast to "whoever's listening". 

And yes I can imagine that... half of my conversation with JW that evening was about Paul Ince.