On the other hand there has been a four week gap between away games and both are reasonably priced. Clearly for some away night games are not on and there is the damned red button but I would imagine we should end up with more than original allocation of 2,086.

I see Wigan tickets are also on sale now - just got mine online. Hopefully a good proportion of those going to Deepdale will come along to this as well.

See you in there Ozz. I got mine last week at the back of Block N.

You should be fine with 17.48. I don't think we have been held back at Deepdale in recent times, although i guess it could always be possible. It's about a 20 minute walk from Deepdale to the station (or 15 if you need to run!), so you should be OK anyway.

I think that was the linesman’s fault, not the ref. The linesman flagged when we took the quick throw-in - I think he thought that the throw-in that QPR took when he dropped the ball hadn’t gone on the pitch so should be taken again. The ref correctly saw it had gone on to the pitch and bounced out so overruled him, but by then the moment had passed. Unlike nearly everyone else I thought the ref was OK yesterday. Live from my poor vantage point in the JW I thought the Bell penalty claim was a banker and Bremerton’s dubious. Watching them back on Quest last night the ref was right and I was wrong. Bell’s clearly not but the defender clearly caught Brereton - he was going nowhere and the defender didn’t need to make the challenge but he did, therefore penalty. I thought most of the bookings were right too. Reed clearly lunged in and Smallwood’s was a professional foul to stop a quick break. It was frustrating that he didn’t punish QPR more for time wasting, but he did seem to be adding on time. I was expecting 5 or 6 minutes injury time so was surprised to see only 4, but in the end that did us a favour. Brereton’s booking was silly though. overall the game was two teams competing to see who could give the ball away more. I think he just deserved the win as at least we were trying to score. It looked like QPR planned to sit back, frustrate us and hope to get something on the break. A bit surprising as you might think they would have been a bit more adventurous given the run they were on.

Paul - there should be no problems with the hourly TPE service from the airport and Piccadilly to Preston via Wigan - less than an hour.

The weekend engineering works that have shut the Bolton to Preston line are due to finish today. So there should be trains running from Manchester to Preston via both Wigan and Chorley on 24th. Of course the Northern ones might not be depending on strikes but TPE should be then be running services via Chorley.

I would if you could enlighten us Stuart on where you got that quote from? Our current average gate after 8 games is 14,386. Yes, we've had Leeds in there, which may well be the biggest away attendance but we have also had Millwall, Reading, Brentford and QPR as 4 of the 8. Of the 15 games left I can only see Ipswich as bringing the level of support that 4 brought - there are plenty of games left where there will be decent away followings. So I don't see an average of 16,000 over the season as too far out.

It was touch and go whether he could get to Ewood by 12, not 3. It certainly read like he could make the game but might not make the ground by 12.

There may be many things to beat the club up about, but complaining because you can't be bothered to either call up or go online to order a ticket is surely not one of them. I can understand someone who doesn't know whether he can make it until after 12 would be annoyed at the surcharge but if you know you can go why don't you just order in advance?

The Meadow St pubs are usually pretty full with North End fans - I don't know whether this would be an issue or not.

Here's one.

So 2,500 at Bolton with high prices, 5.30 kick-off, live TV and train problems. None of those problems for this (maybe trains but buses are practical to Preston), so I think we should be approaching capacity. I agree with tomphil that should be a minimum 4K.

It will be 12 years in January Paul. As Paul says, the Forum can not be representative. I don't think there is a way to get a truly representative group of fans - there is no way to develop a true constituency from which to choose one. But we do make efforts to try and represent what fans as a whole are thinking. A number of different groups have a rep on the Forum for example. I try and raise points even if I don't personally agree with them, if I believe that the point is widely held. Who is suggesting that the Forum is agreeing with the club on not lowering prices? I made a point about the practicality of one extreme example of price reduction, which apart from Ozz's post, I don't think posters have been suggesting anyway. that doesn't mean that I, or anyone else on the Forum is opposed to price reductions. I think what I would say is that the club have two factors that need to be taken into account when discussing admission prices. Firstly, they are not going to do anything that would significantly reduce total ticket revenue. Secondly any proposals need to make sure that the price promise for season ticket holders is not compromised i.e. that St holders will always have the cheapest tickets overall. I don't understand this - what do you expect Forum members to do? The next meeting is two weeks tonight - what would you want me to be doing now? We had a long discussion about attendances at the last meeting in September - before this thread was started.

1. I’m not the voice of the Fans Forum. I’m the secretary and one voice amongst many. 2. I’m not against price cuts. I was just pointing out the economics of halving prices. 3. The Forum represents a wide range of fans’ opinions and guess what, we don’t all agree all the time. I don’t agree with some of the opinions offered and I’m sure plenty disagree with me. Ther are plenty of different opinions on this thread and across this message board too. Anyway blueboy, I’m apparently only there to hob nob with the bosses according to you.

There is one problem with Bradford City’s approach - it has not brought any success on the pitch. They are currently bottom of League 1. You might think that bigger crowds would by now have brought some success on the pitch if the theory about the effect on performance was right. You might also think that with a big catchment area (a lot bigger than ours), they would have have picked up more fans in those seasons that they were around the play-offs. Does anyone seriously think that if we halved our ST prices we would sell double I.e. 20,000?

This seems a good idea to me too. The absolute perfect opportunity for this would be 16/2/19. The men are at home to Middlesborough and the women on the day after, so you might get fans from both teams to a double header on the Saturday. Even if only say 1,000 fans came to a 12pm kick-off for the women it would still be way more than they get at Bamber Bridge and you would also have fans in the ground for an hour between games which should increase catering sales. Off the top of my head I can think of two possible issues with this. I assume Rovers have an arrangement with Bamber Bridge to play the ladies' games, so they may need compensating for lost income. And there might be issues with playing two games back to back at Ewood, particularly in mid winter.

I didn't realise it was compulsory to respond to posts on here. I have been keeping my eye on this thread and fully intend to represent these views when we talk about attendances at the next meeting. But given the next meeting is not for more than two weeks I didn't see the need to make this point until nearer the meeting. I was planning to post to this effect before we set the agenda but then there was a post about the Forum and the date of the Supporter Consultation Meeting was announced yesterday so I posted. As for responses, a set of minutes are always produced after the meeting and posted on the club website, usually within a week of the meeting.

Of course it isn't. The Forum is just coming up to it's 20th anniversary in early 2019. Below is a post from this message board which Phil Lloyd, the first Chair of the Forum made in 2011 outlining how it came about. The membership of the Forum attempts to offer a voice for all strands of Rovers support and brfcs.com has been represented for about the last 10 years. Mattyblue is right that the club had been planning another cut-price home game a la Oxford - we were first told about it at the meeting on 22nd May. At that time they were awaiting the fixture list to choose an appropriate game. At the last meeting in September it was still stated that they planned one but clearly this has not yet happened. It will of course be on our agenda for the next meeting on 12th November. We will also no doubt be having a more general discussion about attendances and this whole thread is useful in getting some ideas to discuss. Attendances and ground atmosphere have probably been the items we have talked about most in my time on the Forum - I have been a member and Secretary since 2007. We had a long discussion at the last meeting in September. In other news the club have just announced the date for the next Supporter Consultation Meeting - Thursday 22nd November. I think this is timed to be just after the next trip to India during the November international break. A number of people have raised questions, on this and other threads, about the origins of the Fans Forum at Rovers. This short summary isn't intended to be comprehensive, but should answer a number of the points that have been raised. The Forum was very much the brainchild of John Williams. He invited a number of people to be members of the Forum back in early 1999 (I think)- these included representatives of the Supporters Association (BRSA) and the Disabled Supporters Association (BRDSA). As for the other members of the original Forum, the common denominator seemed to be that they had written in to JW (then the Chief Executive) to raise specific points, proposals or concerns about the football club, and usually had been invited in for a meeting with John to discuss things face to face - this was JW's normal approach to anyone who seemed genuinely to have the club's interests at heart. I believe the intention of the Forum was to establish a dialogue with a range of supporters with different views (note, not necessarily a representative cross-section of supporters). Membership of the Forum was never fixed and people left if they wished (or failed to attend a run of meetings), and were co-opted on, typically at the invitation of JW. For example, the early Forums felt it important to have an Asian fan at the meetings, and this was done: similarly the newly-established Lancaster branch of the Supporters Association was represented in those early days, and brought a different perspective on the club. To quote from a letter I have seen, sent by John Williams to the then Chairman of the Forum (Phil Lloyd) in late 1999: "I am very happy that the Forum acts as a sounding board for the Club's ideas, this was, after all, one of the main reasons for setting it up." Later in the letter he says: "I will from time to time submit new names for inclusion on the Forum...this will ensure a freshness of views and exchanges, although clearly we don't want the numbers such that the Forum becomes unmanageable." Representation from BRFC has always varied, according to availability and also in relation to the issues being discussed (as has been stated elsewhere, playing issues have always been off the agenda of the Forum), such as safety matters, marketing, pricing, catering, ticketing, stadium "atmosphere", new playing strips, media, etc. John Williams himself attended several of the early meetings, as did Ken Beamish and ALan McColgan and later Nick Hall (then the Club's Marketing Manager) - when Tom Finn joined the club, he too was sometimes present as the senior club official. From the fans' side, I don't have a definitive list of those who were involved right in the Forum's very early days (so apologies for any errors or omissions here), but I am fairly sure that they included Jimmy Leaf, Duncan Gardiner, Guy Wignall, Pauline Perkins and Tony Shaw (BRSA/BRDSA), Jim Catlow and Vicky Watkin (Lancaster branch), Phil Lloyd (who at that time wrote the "Down by the Riverside" column in the Lancashire Telegraph), Neil Duckworth, Bill Toland, Ian Ferris, Paul McKenna, Susan Samme, David Slater and Martin Haworth. Clearly the Forum and its remit have developed and grown over the past 12 years, but it has become an established channel of communication between the club and its supporters and it is interesting that, despite it being something that JW conceived, brought into being and personally supported along the way, the new owners chose to include some of its current membership in the visit to Pune, which will hopefully being them a little closer to the fans and their feelings and opinions. I hope this is all of some help by way of the background to the Fans Forum.

Or M6, M5, M50 and Head of the Valleys road

I'm a bit lost here - has Jack Rodwell found an Irish grandparent?

Stepping away from local bias surely Chris Wilder is currently the best manager in the Championship? An excellent team built at low cost. Bielsa hasn't been managing in this league for 5 minutes.

Ah - I didn't have the option of iPads/kindles when my lads were young!

A bit of expectation management for you - at 2 1/2 she will have little interest in the football and be more interested in going to the loo and eating and drinking. She is also likely to be uncomfortable with the noise as well. We might think the atmosphere is quiet often at Ewood but for young kids it's a big shock. With our boys they were 5 or 6 before they were really interested in going and watching the game.

Last year Rovers put half season tickets on sale on 6th November and my gut feeling is that's about when they have always done it.