Whilst I would debate the decision at a national level to fund religious schools I applaud the council at a local level for their even handedness in handling this difficult dictate. Remember them granting planning permission in recent years for the replacement St Wilfreds Church of England School?.

The fact is that their would be no such thing as suicide bombers if rational thinking was taught in our education system. While deluded lunatics think that they are going to paradise when they shuffel of this mortal coil (blind date with 72 virgins / violin lessons with angels - delete as appropriate) we will continue to be in this mess. The only chance for future generations is to get the pernicious mind virus, religion, out of education.

The motivation for most Premiership teams fans renewing their season tickets is the fear of being locked out of their grounds when the 'Sold out' signs are posted. This explains why Notlob have a waiting list for season tickets (Sold 22000) and Rovers have sold so few.....everybody knows that they can get a ticket no matter who the opposition. I am afraid that the decision to build Ewood with such a relatively large capacity is acting like an albatross round the club's neck. The only way out of this mess is to create demand by reducing capacity....demolishing the Riverside anybody?

What do you base that idea on Phil? As somone who actually lives in the borough I would say that on the whole the council is very supportive of the club. A recent joint initiative under the banner "Our Town, Our Team" involved such things as free bumper stickers bearing both town and club crests being distributed via the council's free newspaper and all official council correspondence being franked with a Rover's postmark. Also the recently opened Tourist information center, run by the council, is perhaps the only place you can get a Rovers scarf in Blackburn town center!

As if it wasn't bad enough seeing the sudden surge of Chelsea shirts around the town in the last few weeks.....you'll not be able to move for red ones in the next few weeks...further eroding away our already brittle support.

Anybody doubting the potential of North End should note that they have just sold out of their 31000 allocation for next weeks play-off final. I seem to remember our Worthy Cup tickets were still on sale the day before the final.

Why are some of you surprised at ticket sales so far? This game was never going to sell out...I hadn't even considered getting our six tickets until the weekend....besides, in all the testimonials that have been played at Ewood since the mid-seventies (I go back as far as Andy Burgen/Mike Heaton!) I only recall one attendance above 10,000.

Means nothing............ the first result I look for on a Sat is the Dingles

This old chestnut again. I don't want to get into a slanging match regarding Shearer's exit from Ewood again...but I also can't stand to see history being rewritten. As I understand it Shearer WANTED to appear on stage at the 'Theatre of Screams' but Jack Walker would not sanction it. The Barcodes where Shearers 2nd choice.

No where near the 38,000 that turned up to Elland Rd. on Sunday for Lucas Radabie's(sp?) testimonial no doubt

Back of the LET should make you happy. Shearer confirms he will play. In fact he is delaying a trip to Portugal in order to turn up. Good man! Excellent news! ... means I won't have to wait till we play the Geordie surrender monkeys to hurl some abuse at him

Thanks Stu I stand corrected...my memory is playing tricks on me....but I'm sure we played B'pool around about Easter....unfortunatly I havn't got the records to hand.

The gloss is kinda taken off by the fact that twice we lost in the semi-final (including a 4-1 trashing by Chelsea) & blew a 3-1 lead in the 2nd leg of the final vs Palace Burnley, Blackpool and PNE were in the third or fourth divisions at that point, I believe. Their fans would have been in raptures at that kind of success. True... There's also the bonus of us having beat those teams every time we've played 'em Slightly off-topic (sorry!) but when was the last time we played Blackpool? The last time we played Blackpool in a league game (if my memory serves me correctly) was on Easter Monday 1980...promotion season from the old 3rd division, at Ewood Park. We won all 3 (THREE!) games that weekend..the other two being Sheff Utd at Ewood on the Good Friday and Mansfield away on Easter Saturday (my first ever journey over the M62!). I can't rermember the scores apart from 1-0 at Mansfield (McKenzie?).

Just out of interest, where IS the press box ? Is it the one with the Radio Rovers hoardings (or is that just the Radio Rovers guys) ? Glenn, the press-box at Ewood is the area behind where the directors sit in the upper-tier of the Jack Walker (central under the TV gantry).

After reading a couple of reports this morning (Guardian and Independent) it looks as though the anti-Rovers bandwagon has morphed into a juggernaut! I really do think Rovers should consider banning a few of these nationals from the press-box, after all what harm could it do, we very rarely recieve positive press anyway. That a family club, which is run by good honest people, can be savaged by hacks the way it has for the last couple of days, is scandalous. So ban them from the press box and let them pay for their seats like the rest of us...they offer us nothing ....lets give them nothing in return.......but not before Wednesday! Wednesday gives us the opportunity to vent our frustrations on the press scum...after all we know where they are sitting. Lets give them an uncomfortable evening.....I suggest a sustained chant of 'Scum scum..' or 'You don't know what yor writing...' whilst gesticulating in their general direction. Probably wont achieve anything but will make me feel a bit better!

Good on you Matt. I heard it and thought it might be you.

Good to hear 'The Wild Rover' being belted out on the tannoy before the teams came out.......it's something I've been on a personal crusade to get played at Ewood for years.

I'm begining to wish we hadn't got to Cardiff. The relentless negative publicity that is being generated by all aspects of yesterdays game is going to set the club back years. After reading the match report in The Observer .... a supposedly quality newspaper....this morning I felt physically sick.

The infuriating thing about this particular dick was that before he slagged off the Rovers fans 'no-show' he made a few comments regarding Steven Gerrard who......get this......HIS MATES had told him had played well today!!!!!! Un-bloody-beleivable. Top marks to the Rovers fans in Cardiff today....it was a great atmosphere.

Seeing Sh***ers confused and disorientated expression as the final minutes ticked away made my night Face it Al .... if you wanted to win trophies you should have stayed with the Rovers

Because all the other teams come from BIG cities ..... even Bolton has nearly twice the population of Blackburn. Go into any of the Semi-finalists town/city centers this afternoon and randomly ask people whether they are going to Cardiff this weekend......and the statistics show you are much more likly to find a positive response in Blackburn than any of the other three. Our fans are no different to any other clubs...good ones, bad ones fickle ones, loyal ones.....the difference between us and the others is that we have fewer in ALL these catagorise......I am sure some people on this site just aren't interested in trying to understand these basic facts.

Good point ES. And even more commendable are those figures when taking into account the fact that there is a significant %age of the population of Blackburn who would never claim any allegiance to Blackburn Rovers and would never dream of going to Ewood Park. mmmmm......you just can't help yourself can you? That is of course if I'm thinking what i think your thinking

Put simply ...if Blackburn, the town, was twice the size it actually is in population terms we would have sold all the tickets. Put another way.....there will be more non-attending 'fans' (with 'can't afford it' excuses etc.) from the other three semi-finalists' cities than there will be from Blackburn. Bet Newcastle, London and ..er..Surrey pubs are just as full of 'deadheads' this weekend as the pubs of Blackburn.

As Arsenal have now sold out ... we can assume that they will be offered Rovers quota of West Stand tickets ... including the associated cheap seats... and as tickets have been put on OPEN sale.....Do you see where I'm going with this ????

It's about time we put a positive spin on this thread :- 1) It will be the largest non-final Rovers following to a game since the early 60's. 2) Leicester City brought 7200 (not all the allocation) to Ewood in the last round. A one club city over twice the size of Blackburn brought half the following at half the price at half the travelling time at a half decent KO time .... and their fans were considered fantastic!!!! 3) The 'daytrippers' wont be there to dilute the atmosphere. 4) No Rovers fan in his right mind thinks we will get anything from this game .... and yet we are still taking more than Burnley's average home attendance over 200 miles at THOSE prices.