Great pics lads, looks like a good trip. German beer in the sunshine whilst watching Rovers is a great thing!

That's a great point, I only made it to 2 home games last season but each time I had no problem getting tickets and one of those was United. At places like Chelsea people buy season tickets because it's the only way to guarantee seeing the good games. Jack left us with a nice big ground that takes 20% of the local population so that's never going to be an issue.

The one time of year when I don't go to Germany with work, typical. Don't know where else to post this but what's the deal with Taylor, LB or RB, tall/short, fast/slow, did he play ok? would be great to see a homegrown youngster in the team this year.

If that's what's burning you up right now, you really should get out more...

I'm in - my team is terrible and I always lose these things. So good news for the rest of you!

I honestly believe it was a load of nonsense about us being dirty last year. There's a huge difference between being dirty and physical and I don't think we crossed it. I don't remember any horror tackles and apart from the unfortunate incident with Van Persie and Todd's elbow there wasn't a lot of nastiness. As for the semi-final that was mostly to do with Arsenal and Viera inparticular falling over at the drop of a hat. Against the top teams you have to be physical they all have incredible forwards with pace and technique to burn if you try stand off them they will make you look like a fool. The only answer is a nice hard challenge from Todd, Mokoena or Nelsen. Personally I look forward to a lot more ofthe same next year

fantastic signing but as others have said it raises interesting questions about our formation next year. I can't see Bellamy as the 1 in a 4-5-1 so does this mean we're looking at a 442 with Kuqi & Bellamy? I don't like the idea of trying to use Kuqi as an old-fashioned target man. When's the last time someone like that was a threat in the PL? It's alla bout pace and movement now and for the first time in years we have a player with genuine pace. I would love to see Cole back to play alongside him as his link-up play is second to none, I also think this could be the making of Gally, he might not have much pace but he's one of the best passers of the ball in the squad and I can see him releasing Bellamy for a few 1 on 1's . Well done Rovers! I'm actually excited by the coming season now.

I wouldn't worry about it. The chances of anyone offering enough money to make it worthwhile are very, very slim. These things only work when it is a newbuild stadium like The Reebok. It wouldn't matter if they called Ewood 'The Lonsdale Stadium' because we would all still call it Ewood. We can't even get a decent shirt sponsor FFS...

Just spoke to my Brother at the FA, he says that if Coar is trimming back his role at the club it may even strengthen his position at the FA.

Cheers!

anyone know a place on the web where I can check results from the early 80's? I'm pretty sure my first home game was a home stuffing of Sheff Utd but it would be good to know cheers

Don't want to crush your childhood memories but wasn't Shearer's home debut against Arsenal?

23 years and counting, now I feel old... Been a fan since '82 when I first witnessed the glory of Simon Garner as a 7 year old. Never had a season ticket but then I've never lived near enough since I've been old enough. Get to between 6-10 matches a season, mostly away. HIghlights have to be the Play-off final against Leicester and the Newcastle game in '95 (best atmosphere I've ever known at a game).

It would be zero profit for away games..... 322346[/snapback] Does the club not get any cut on away matches? If so I'll start buying more shirts...

I got my season-ticket pack this week as well. Seeing as I live in Fulham it's optimistic but this is the first time I've ever received something like this from the club and I always go to at least 6-10 games a season. This shows that the Club is trying a bit harder than before. I only wish you could buy an 'away' season ticket. If I could buy in advance tickets for all the games south of Birmingham I would be in there like a shot and the club would have a much better idea of it's forward revenue. I know the clubs would have to work together a lot more than they seem capable of but it doesn't mean they couldn't do it.

oops wrong thread

My Dad's a Preston fan so I will be going to Cardiff for the second time this year to cheer them on (should be a better game this time as well). As a fan of North-West football I am really looking forward to having so many teams in the PL next year, getting fed up with London-centric media down here...

This is a real head-scratcher. Obviously we have a hard core support of 18-20k and getting anything beyond that means attending Ewood has to be more appealing than other weekend activities like shopping/eating out etc. This probably isn't going to come from great success on our part in any of the competitions (sorry to be realistic) so it has to come from the style of play the team uses and the atmosphere and match-day experience. The problem is that as someone who attends matches all over the world (I've watched games in Germany, France & Spain this season) and goes to games other than Rovers in London quite often you struggle to beat Ewood park in terms of pricing, facilities, atmosphere and organisation. So what more do the people of Blackburn want? I know it's still not cheap but we are amongst the cheapest, the ground is very family friendly, the pies are good, transport and access is pretty straightforward. There are some nice ideas on here about initiatives that might help a bit but I can't help feeling that the average East-Lancashire bloke doesn't have an emotional attachment to Rovers, even compared to Notlob and PNE. I think the main problem is that we just were'nt very good for 30 of the last 40 years and our core support wandered elsewhere...

all criticism of MGP is just insane. No he's not Pires or Robben but he is on course to finish the season as our top-scorer having played only half the season and all of that on the left-wing. And that doesn't take into acount how many of his crosses and corners have created goals for us (like last night). That aside I was a bit disapointed that Sparky didn't have more of a go at them last night, I really feel for Stead playing on his own but I guess he wanted to give WBA the same obstacle the others have had after all the talk of the 'old boys club' with Robbo. Sounds like Toogs played well though which is heartening, I now he hasn't been at his best this season but that doesn't always mean a player is finished, I think he might still have a future for us.

whilst our defensive record in the last few games is magnificent. Now that we are safe even the players have to be a bit bored now. The only thing left is for us to try and win a couple of games and finish in the top-half of the season. Therefore I think we might have a bit of a goal-fest on our hands tonight. My prediction Rovers 3 (Stead 2, MGP 1) Baggies 2 (Matteo own-goals) By the way if anyone has a copy of the Programme from the Crystal Palace game, I was the fan interview in it - how did it turn out? My copies in the post...

fair point. Im certainly staying after the game, who wants to celebrate on the M4? anyone else staying Saturday night? The Police position does seem a bit weird, I mean the Sunday game doesnt kick off until 4pm, plenty of time for the United fans to get there from Surrey (although I guess Newcastle fans will be staying over)

As I posted elsewhere my Brother works at the FA. Was out with him last night and cornered his boss about this (He is commercial director). I have to say that their intentions were not malicious but they are aware of the scale of the mistake. They genuinely believed that with the growing popularity of the FA Cup in recent years that Cardiff was the best place to hold the Semi's simply because of the number of fans it can hold. Villa Park would have been sold out, but sold out means that more fans miss out. The pricing of tickets is a seperate issue that needs to be addressed across football, how many of us think £45 is good value for money for any game? I certainly wont pay £45 to be treated like cattle at Chelsea next season. At the moment they are trying to squeeze every penny out of fans just like almost every other club (and we should be grateful to BRFC that Ewood tickets are amongst the cheapest in the EPL). The timing is entirely out of the FA's hands it is a matter for the police and TV to decide (along with the law that won't allow 3pm televised Saturday games). You can be sure the FA and TV don't want it at 12.15 but that was the Police's call. I'm not just trying to defend the FA here because I think that particularly on the ticket prices they are not acting in the fans interest's but I think in a lot of other ways they have their hands tied.

Am I the only person here who doesn't measure his manhood by the size of crowd we have? I honestly coudln't care less whether there's 25,000 or 25 at Cardiff, I will be there, so will most of the people on this board and I promise you I'm going to have as much fun as I've had a game in years! 8 days to go...

2-0 Rovers If Stead doesn't score I've officially lost patience with him and I promise to shut up whinging about Dickov until at least the summer. Have a sneeky feeling Moko might nick one from a corner (can't see us scoring from open play).

So we now know who to blame for the game being played in Cardiff, early kick off, and travel arrangements. if he beats me at golf on the weekend I will post his telephone number! Seriously, I have had a go about it but he uses a powerful counter-argument: 1. Play-off finals show that Cardiff can cope with multiple fans on the same weekend 2. The time is dictated by the rules that won't allow 3 O'Clocks to be televised 3. Stop whinging you're in the bloomin Semi-Final for fecks sake!