only2garners

Derbyshire's performance today was fine and he put away an easy chance. It was no better than Nonda's though, who has played excellently in my opinion in the last four matches (all of which I've seen). Nonda didn't create a great deal today but then he and McCarthy hardly had the ball at all in the first half. Derbyshire was playing most of the time against a Wigan team pushing forward trying to get back into the game - there's always going to be more space in that situation for a striker. There will be a time for Derbyshire, and if Nonda is injured it might be at Everton, but at the moment I'd choose Nonda first every time if fit. He did score 4 in December...

In truth it would probably be better for Rovers' finances if we didn't play Liverpool on Boxing Day. We would get a pretty good crowd whoever we played and we can guarantee a big crowd against Liverpool even on a wet Wednesday night in January (probably a lot more than we will get for Arsenal). If the Liverpool and Middlesboro matches had been reversed I would guess we would get more spectators in total and the club would charge high prices on both days. Not an argument to appeal to non-season ticket holders with not much money though...

Having started this with my comments on others at the ticket office on Tuesday i thought I'd better come back into the discussion. I stated in my original post that I could understand why the club did it but I did feel sorry for any genuine people wanting to say buy a ticket for the match as a Christmas present. I was pleased to see Lee's comment that in these situations they normally ask for a letter explaining the circumstances so if it was for a genuine Rovers fan it would be sorted. As others have said, just because the woman was clearly local doesn't mean she wasn't buying a ticket for a Liverpool fan. I think if the club are suggesting writing a letter to explain circumstances then it's as much as they can be expected to do, although as I pointed out to Lee I don't think this was suggested in the case I saw.

Lee - the lady I mentioned definitely wasn't asked to write in. She was advised if there was anyone she knew who had a purchasing record who she could ask - this was when she mentioned her grandson working at Ewood, but he was now away until after Christmas.

Just been down to Ewood to get Arsenal tickets and a couple of extras for Liverpool. In the five minutes I was there no less than three people were turned away from the next window as they wanted to buy tickets for Boxing Day but had no previous history of purchase. Clearly a couple could have been Liverpool fans but one was clearly not - an elderly lady with a Blackburn accent whose grandson worked at Ewood. Now I know why it's done but I just wonder whether we can really afford to be doing this now. It's not as if there won't be tickets being bought for Liverpool fans in Rovers' areas. Maybe we the club should be reserving a small part of the ground to put these sales in which can be closely monitored and and Liverpool supporters removed immediately?

Lens or Panathinaikos should we beat Leverkusen.

No Champions League games on the week we would be playing them so should be OK.

Just posted this on the other thread... I'm assuming that the draw will be split in two and half played on each day to maximise TV revenue. That's what happened this week when there were no Champions League matches. On that basis I would have thought that it would be part of the draw to define the day of play.

It's a 50/50 chance of being either Wednesday 14th or Thursday 15th.

Pamplona does have it's own airport but you only seem to be able to fly on Iberia, probably via Madrid for £250+. Vitoria Gasteiz is nearest, but Biarritz in France is also nearer than Bilbao. Santander, a bit further away, would be another option. The draw tomorrow is 11.00 a.m. for the Champions League and 12.00 for the UEFA Cup, for the next two rounds. It's live on Eurosport.

Krakow Basle match is irrelevant now - neither can catch Rovers.

As for the dates I got that wrong http://www.uefa.com/uefa/Keytopics/kind=64...sId=425702.html, the first leg is on 14th/15th February and the second leg is on the 22nd. Presumably if the first leg is on a Wednesday or Thursday then it must be a non Champions League week. If so Wednesday is more likely unless TV intervenes. Either way it looks like a romantic Valentines break for Anne and me...!

So you should be Glenn. You needed the conductor we had on our train. We left on the 7.10 from Amsterdam, which went the long way via Haarlem and wasn't scheduled to stop at the stadium. The conductor arranged a special stop for us (about 200) so we were in the ground just before the teams came out. Admittedly we were standing in a crush in the aisle on the lower tier for the first half, but we appear to have been very lucky.

That sums up our performances in Europe and at home. The actual performances all round have been about the same, but we've had the breaks in Europe that we haven't had at home. We could easily have ended up drawing in Krakow despite being the better team, the 3-0 over Basel greatly flattered us and although a draw last night was the right result we could have ended up losing.

As far as I'm aware there was no trouble, certainly at the ground. Reading Gav's post above, there was some heavy handed policing in Rotterdam but I didn't see it. Being locked in for an hour was frustrating, especially as it meant we didn't get back to Amsterdam until 1.00 a.m. The arrangements inside the ground were shambolic and would have been very bad for any elderly, infirm or young fans

"I'll never attend a meeting point organised the club again. I like many had been all over Europe watching Rovers and I never been treated like that, even with England it's rare these days. To say the police are used to dealing with supporters they were clueless, ignorant and aggresive in some cases. It really spoilt the night to be honest." We decided not to go to Rotterdam beforehand as it didn't sound easy to get to and from and didn't seem to offer anything more than we already had in Amsterdam. We caught the 19.10 from Amsterdam and just made it to the ground in time after the train conductor got permission to stop the train at the stadium station - otherwise we would have been very late. there were maybe 200 fans on this train. It sounded from hearing from other fans, including Gav, who left earlier than us, that we made the right choice. "As for the ground itself it was like going back in time with a couple of lads ripping tickets off in a booth, it took ages to get in the ground then we were lucky as we had seats but I know Bob flemming paid 300 quid to come over for a day and never saw the first half due to cr@p stewarding. It was amaturish and just made the whole game an experience I won't forget in a hurry." God knows why they could not have given us numbered seats - there were numbers on the seats. If that had happened everyone would have been in front of a seat even if we all ended up stood up all the time. We would not have then had a central aisle overflowing with fans for the first half at least, and many who couldn't even get this far. It seemed from looking at the other end that it was the same for the Feyenoord fans as well so presumably it's normal behaviour, which is outrageous given what could have happened.

It looks from the posts here that I might be the first one to post who was at the match - 7.20 flight back from Amsterdam this morning so precious little sleep. On the match itself it seemed a draw was the right result - both sides could have scored with more adventure and composure. I would disagree with many on the individual performances - Emerton had an excellent game and for me was one of the Rovers stars with Ooijer and Tugay (of course). On the other hand Bentley was dreadful, even taking into account he had a strong left back to play against and for me Gamst was better - not good but better than Bentley. The first half penalty claim by Feyenoord, which I see the BBC is giving some credence to, would have been laughable if given. On crowd matters I trust we will hear more as folk get back. As suspected it was an unreserved seating area and, as everyone stood throughout, it was very difficult for anyone coming in later to get near a seat. We arrived just before kick-off (thanks to Dutch railways who stopped the train specially at the stadium station for us) and spent the first half stood in the aisle with about 500 others. I believe there were many who didn't get properly in until half time. Imagine this happening in England. Also, despite what I thought was a UEFA rule, beer was for sale in the stadium and you could also take it into the ground. This created more mayhem as there were plenty who couldn't last 45 minutes and had to go and get more during the match. Why anyone, who could presumably have spent all day drinking and could carry on after the match needed to miss 20 minutes of a match they had travelled so far to see just to get a pint of 2% beer was beyond me, let alone that it took forcing their way past several hundred Rovers fans both ways to do it. We were locked in after the match for an hour, which seemed a bit extreme given that we had a protective walkway all the way back to the station and coaches, although I presume they had to clear the station of Feyenoord fans first. This meant that we didn't get back to Amsterdam until 1.00 a.m.

Have you tried asking the club for some help? I'm sure if you called marketing they would be keen to work with you.

For those saying that Mido's was not a handball I think you were probably in the wrong place, rather like the referee who had no chance of seeing it. From my position in row 2 of the family stand at the JW side it was absolutely definitely a penalty - you could see clear daylight between Mido's body and the arm which hit the ball. Whilst the ref would not have seen it there was no excuse for the linesman who was right in front of it with a clear view. Of course Mido should never have been on the field by then, which brings me to my main point - the MOTD2 coverage. I'll not bother with the views on the penalties - they have been well covered above. What summed the bias up for me were the comments on the two disallowed goals. Both were offside having seen the replays. On Nonda's the commentator saw the slow motion, declared him clearly offside and congratulated the linesman for the spot. On Mido's (again what was he doing still on the pitch?) they showed the slow motion and then just commented that Martin Jol was furious with the decision - the clear implication being that it wasn't offside, despite the clear evidence to the contrary. On the Ghally sending off the argument seemed to be that because he didn't bring his arm down like Ben Thatcher then the decision was wrong - he led with his arm in the air and then brought it down on Gray's head. Then someone had the gall to say that Gray made a meal of the challenge, going down clutching his head - what is he supposed to do, having been hit on the head? Finally how a proper highlights package could have missed Mido's antics in the first half was completely beyond me. i didn't see the first incident with Henchoz which resulted in a long lecture but the second, where he appeared to put the palm of his hand in Henchoz's face, was a clear sending off. If you raise your hand with intent it's a straight red, no argument. Then after that he kicked a stewards chair up in the air in frustration (yellow card?) and at the end committed a horrible two footed lunge from behind on someone.

The report also said he had appalling timekeeping and surrounded himself with an entourage of "friends". Sounds perfect Separately Bruce at Big Club is reported saying that he accepts that he might have to let Dunn go - only 18 months left on his contract and they might need to sell to get some value from him.

Presumably these are going to be a much harder sell this year as by Christmas we will have played all the north west clubs at home (except Liverpool) and Chelsea, Spurs and Newcastle. Last year it was the other way round with most of the bigger clubs still to come to Ewood. Also fans may well expect some good discount offers on some of the lesser games, making the value of a half season ticket less.

Whilst the club have made no announcement on the website about extra tickets, they have got some and are busy distributing them. I applied on Saturday and got a phone call yesterday (Thursday) saying I had 3. The extra tickets don't arrive until Sunday so we're picking them up at the Spurs match. Anyone who can't get to the ground to pick them up will probably struggle now. I've no idea whether they have allocated all the extra tickets, or indeed how many they got.

i only applied on Saturday and have just had a call that we have three of the extra allocation of tickets. Don't know how many more tickets we have been given and there is no change to the message on the official site.

I have rung up and all they can offer is that I put in applications and I may get tickets but they can't promise, because of the outstanding forms they have to process. As you have to have booked travel to put the forms in I run the risk of travel and no tickets, not a risk i am prepared to take.

I've no problem with the priority order, as I said on my message. The fact is, though, that plenty of non-season ticket holders who have also not been to either Salzburg or Krakow, already have the promise of tickets - just look up the thread a bit. Rovers took application forms in and it appears have given everyone who applied in advance tickets, no matter what their status. They have all either lied about their travel plans or have taken the risk that they will get tickets and booked travel - presumably many were happy to go anyway if they didn't get tickets just for a few days in Amsterdam. I wasn't prepared to risk losing money on travel and so waited until yesterday, when tickets were supposed to go on sale to season ticket holders, and now find it unlikely that I can get any. The process would have been fine and I would have no complaints if all the tickets go to those who have been to Europe this season and season ticket holders, but from reading messages on this thread that isn't the case.