StHelensRover

First chance they get and it's 1-0 👎 Poor from Toth there

If you follow BBC Lancashire Sport on social media, they usually post there before kickoff, here is today's 👍

I had no idea about this story until about 15 minutes ago, just read through 8 pages of posts and the club/LT's statements. It's another new low for the football club. Plummeted out of the top tier of English football due to gross incompetence from owners and senior staff. 15 years of the least ambitious ownership in English football, perennial also-rans who also had to spend a year in 3rd tier, because of incompetent ownership and appalling staff appointments. Club now run by day-to-day by people with no background and credentials to be operating a prestigious and historic club at this level. Horrible relationship between the fans and owners for 15 years, the owners and directors never once apologising for any of the shite and embarrassment they have forced on the town. Owners must know deep down how problematic it all is as they haven't been back for a decade. Yearly admin cock-ups have the entire country laughing at us Relegated and completely decimated the womens team to the point they're getting beaten by teams we've never heard of in a regional Sunday league. For the cost of a few hundred grand from our billionaire owners who 'love the club'. They then blamed the fans. Last two managers walked out on the club following a moving of goalposts and aforementioned lack of ambition Haven't beaten local rivals the entire time we've been owned by Venkys, they're now miles ahead on and off the pitch and an example of how to show ambition and make progress, while we're the opposite. 15 years of having absolutely no idea why Venkys own us and don't want to sell us. Never explained why they bought us, never explained why they still own us, so very bizarre. Now we've banned the local newspaper for daring to say something that Moscow/Pyongyang didn't like. Whether you think Jackson should get a Pulitzer or whether it should be used for wrapping chips is beside the point. It's pathetic behaviour from a club run by incompetents (I think EJ if anything has been much fairer and more protective of the club than he needed to be, but I don't mind him). EDIT - I forgot to mention that thanks to lack of infrastructure investment from our billionaire owners, we're also no longer able to play home matches if it's raining. I've had a season ticket every season now since 1998 and if I am absolutely honest, with the exception of the season in League One (which it was a disgrace that we were in) I haven't enjoyed it for probably a decade, I can't really explain why I still go.

Wrexham are doing sort of how I expected, I am a bit surprised about BIG CLUB though.

He's guaranteed to score at Ewood in November isn't he? He's reached his peak now as a footballer and his peak is to be a consistent goalscorer at this level, I think it's bizarre that Saints didn't keep him there this season.

Can't see us playing really well 3 matches in a row, luck will run out, law of averages, etc. 1-1. Like several others I would keep the side that started against Ipswich if we can, even though I read Tavares now fit, I don't think he is "a fit" in that midfield. JRC to come on with 5 mins left, equalise at the death and do the goal against former club no-celebration 👀

Ah right, I'm with you now, it was put to a panel rather than all members of the division, that makes sense. Also makes sense that they would all agree to abstain I suppose.

I'm guessing that the absentions were Rovers, Ipswich and then possibly Norwich?

Ref came out and rolled & and dropped it in a couple of areas to the same result (ball not bouncing or rolling). Rovers sent several staff out with pitchforks but they spent ages poking bits of the pitch round the edges and over by the riverside, nowhere near where the ball had been when he ref stopped play and nowhere near the ref rolled/dropped the ball. Staff did none of the pitchfork stuff in the key areas where there was visible standing water, a bizarre decision but might not have made a difference to the ref's assessment.

I laughed my head off when the pen was awarded at the time, I thought it was extremely soft at best. I haven't seen it back though. It might be in the territory of 'soft, but letter of the law' - where you're laughing when you get it, but fuming when it goes against you.

Wow that genuinely really surprises me, I was (99%) sure they would just automatically make the tickets available for re-use. Seems like most clubs would feel the right thing to do is to honour original ticket sales? Or not?

Ah yes, we're being sold down the River (Darwen), by our favourite former orange juice salesman.

I don't think either team gets to 'make a case', I think it's all done behind closed doors by some bureaucrats at the EFL. IMO they'll be in there for about 5 minutes.. "The game was called off for rain" "What do we usually do when that happens?" "We always make them replay the full game" "Okay, we'll do that then"

It hasn't yet been announced, but I'm 99.9% sure that all original tickets will be valid for the replayed fixture. Edit - I wasn't aware I was wrong about this, egg on face

The bottom line is the club need to address the infrastructure as soon as possible (maybe this summer?). Our pitch drains into a river. Many football grounds are near rivers, but the majority are probably not. What does everyone else do? Why is our pitch drainage worse than every other ground in the top two tiers of England? Maybe something that fans could demand is investigated at the next fans forum, or wherever we're allowed to speak to our crank overlords.

I'm only relaying what I heard on radio lancs, maybe he did that because it was their own internal club media. No idea. He looked chuffed at the end of that clip there when he said they'll be back up here in a few weeks.. Oh well.

IMO we need to move on from what happened and just accept that the game couldn't continue, it had become a farce, neither team could pass the ball 5 yards. (I know 20 years ago the game would have continued and in our hearts we wish it had, but we know modern football has changed for better or for worse and that these days they do not play in these conditions). There is no way there will be any other decision from the authorities other than a full replay, there is no precedent for anything other than a full replay where a game is abandoned due to weather. What I think people should be more angry about, is the fact our ground is in such poor repair that we cannot host football matches if there is heavy rain. This isn't a one-off, no other local clubs in the top 3 divisions have this issue, but it is happening often at Ewood Park. Why? Because our owners do not care about running the club properly, so we have outdated drainage that relies on a tiny river behind the ground not being affected by... rain. It's item number #588 to add to the list of ways in which the owners have mismanaged and ruined this club.

Neither club are doing any post-match or any statements because the game has to be referred to a panel to decide what happens about the result. Neither club wants to be seen to be trying to influence the panel so neither club will be making comments on what happened. (I got that from Radio Lancs earlier)

He did make himself look like a bit of an arsehole, but I think any fan would want their own manager to be up to the same shenanigans to look out for their team and gain an advantage. We've done this to ourselves by having incompetent owners who don't keep our ground up to modern standards.

Very pathetic and tinpot from the Ipswich fans and players the way they were celebrating a game being called off I thought, but then it was very pathetic and tinpot not being able to host a football game in 2025 in the 2nd tier of English football because of rain.

We'll be replaying that game on a freezing Tuesday evening in January or February infront of about 9k fans. Ipswich will be in completely different form, probably near the top of the league. We'll be ravaged by injuries and suspensions. We'll lose 2-0, that will be that. It will be because we've got archaic drainage facilities which are the laughing stock of the football league, because we've got some of the worst owners in the football league. It's unacceptable that Ewood Park now can't host football matches if there's going to be heavy rain. The Dingles, Wanderers and Blackpool all managed to play. Chorley, Morecambe too. It probably isn't cheap to fix, might even be a couple of million quid, but our owners are billionaires, so it's pocket change to them. Will they fix it? Or will abandoned/postponed matches just be an annual thing at Ewood Park? We played very well today and would have fully deserved the win. We haven't been robbed by the ref, McKenna or anyone else, we've been robbed by our owners who are too incompetent to bring our stadium into the 21st century.

I listened to the post match hour long show yesterday and I did find it very weird how he always just calls us 'Blackburn' and I really don't like it at all. Maybe he is trying not to sound biased, but that shouldn't be a problem as every pundit on there is picked for their affinity to the local clubs. You would think someone local who played here almost his entire career would know different.

Yes, against Birmingham we played like the away team, in the first half against Norwich at home it felt similar. We can't cower against Ipswich and let them take control of the game, or we'll get smoked like Sheffield United did on Friday.

Much better performance than I expected. Mainly because I expected much more from Watford, Toth had nowt to do. Having said that, you can only beat what is in front of you though and we did. Very impressed with Gudjohnsen. Weekend made there. COYB

Something we have been truly awful at for at least a decade.