Today's news that Andy Cole is in fact worth half a million, as opposed to the nothing we got for him, despite being a year older and slower, prompted me to reflect on the fact that we may not have been so well served by our ace negotiator as many people seem to think.

We have a plethora of players on the books who were given contracts significantly longer than their ability to earn a place in the team, at wages significantly higher than other teams' willingness to take them on. In contrast, when was the last time we lost a player we didn't want to because his contract was too short and got a Bosman or we weren't paying enough?

Promote that man!

Not even to ask him if he's actually seen the player....in the flesh ?

    Call me cynical , but any chairman or CE should be asking very serious questions before he releases £7 million . Is there any proof that the bloke can kick a ball would be a reasonable one to begin with ?

329056[/snapback]

Especially given Souness's previous with George Weah's cousin

So where does it stop Theno?  How much of the club's tradition do we sell in order to stay successful?  Do we rename the ground? Maybe we should rename all the stands? Forget the Jack Walker stand, calling it that doesn't bring the cash in. Should we change the colour of the shirts to match the sponsors colours? Do we rename the team - to say the Blackburn Big Mac's FC?  How far do we go?

Of course, I know that you don't give a toss about the tradition of the club.  Christ, if you had your way there wouldn't even be a Blackburn Rovers, just some faceless combined Lancashire team that no-one would follow.

Money isn't everything, success isn't everything.  If we have to sell our soul to be successful then sod success.  Leave it to the corporate big shot teams who screw every last penny out of their fans.

Blackburn Rovers is special because it's a town team that has a fantastic history and tradition.  Rovers don't have many competitive advantages these days but our history and tradition are one of them.  Most clubs would kill for it.  Renaming the ground may not affect that tradition too much, but where do we stop?

328146[/snapback]

The entire Ewood Park that had any tradition associated with it was knocked down in the early 90's, and the only person who objected to that was the guy who had the body buried in the back yard on Nuttall Street. We'll all still call it Ewood, so what would we be giving up exactly? Traditionally we didn't spend 75% of our income on wages or buy players for $3m, so maybe a few other traditions need to be challenged to ensure we can keep on doing so.

The question isn't where do we stop, it should be where and when do we start. Given the size of our fanbase, to remain in the Prem league AND be self-sufficient means we have to seek new sources of finance. No-one has renamed an existing ground? Terrific! We'll be the first and get the best price going, because when the tenth club do it the price will have plummeted. And I would hope to see another ten initiatives come from our Supremo; 5 of them won't fly, three will earn beer money and hopefully one or two will surprise us.

It was no big deal when the Riverside was renamed the Walkersteel stand. I don't see the difference, it's just what we have to do.

Have to disagree with your perspective there. I think it's about time too, and that sort of thing is absolutely essential if we are to hope to be in the top flight long term.

However, I'd have much preferred it if the first we heard was that a deal had been signed rather then the "we're getting desperate" sounding quote from the Great Leader.

The one thing that everyone notices about Ewood matchday is the family orientation and friendly atmosphere. This should be very marketable to the right sort of company who also espouse those values, and I can envisage many family-orientated activities from a committed sponsor which would be to the benefit of both sponsor and club.

Going back 40 years, Jimmy Hill was extremely innovative when he was in charge at Coventry with the result that they punched above their weight decades longer than they should have done, and I feel that we need to be the 21st century version. We have the lowest crowds so we need to be the most innovative.

However, this is not a word that can be readily applied to us over the last few years.

Well it certainly makes the board look a lot more like one in a normal business, in which case I will expect normal business rules to apply.

The buck does indeed stop with the Executive Chairman: no more bleating about fans not turning up - get the commercial plan right; no more failed seasons where salary bills are aimed at finishing in the top ten but we spend most of the time in the bottom three - hold the manager accountable for players bought and sold and avoid a repetition of Souness's last year; and most importantly - be a lot more creative about sourcing external investment so that Hughes can be given the tools to do the job.

I sincerely hope he succeeds.

I have to say I found it to be one of the more enjoyable games televised live from ewood this last season. Norway's goal and Germany's second were amongst the best goals seen at Ewood - certainly Dickov could have been counted on to put neither of them away. I also greatly appreciated the complete lack of pushing, shoving and shirt-pulling at corners.

10 years ago, I think I would easily have been the best player on the pitch should I have had the op and played for an internaitonal women's team. Nowadays they are several leagues above the paltry level I managed. I have watched several games involving the Canadian under 19 women's team (purely for patriotic reasons of course) and am stunned at the standard of play.

Since soccer is a summer game up here in the tundra, every evening in my Blackburn-size town, one can see dozens of little league games involving girls from the age of 5 upwards. They have proper coaching, games with refs, lineswomen and even corner flags, none of which were the case for lads like me.

I see no reason why women's footy won't be as big as women's tennis in the next decade.

I've always maintained that it is ludicrous to pay $300k to a supposed Chief Executive of a business where 80% of the income is entirely outside of his control (Sky handout) and 90% of the ougoings are tied up on long term contracts to employees in who he has no say in if they stay or go.

And anyway, gate receipts are a relatively small part of our income; what was it last year, about 6 million from memory, and that's in total - from 20 odd thousand fans. What counts is the money from the league placing and if we are budgeting for 8th but finishing 15th, then, if he really is a CEO, IT'S HIS FAULT. We under-performed against the salary bill because we had a manager who lost the plot, and Williams didn't sack him.

How dare he blame the public of Blackburn????

The business graveyard is littered with the corpses of real CEO's who blamed their customers for not buying what was a sub-standard and over-priced product.

Now the dust has settled on this one and we are not in the chase for mythical points to ad to the transfer fund, I have to say that I am appauled at how most fans are now obsessed by the short term chase for Murdochs dosh at the expense of the longer term picture.

In other topics, many posters will bemoan the effect of money on the game, but when it comes down to it, are like the people you see in the movie The Lavender Hill Mob, climbing over their grandmothers to scoop up the pound notes raining down from the sky.

I have always subscribed to the management philosophy that no-one is ever totally ready for the next step up; there is always an element of learning on the job, and I think the same applies to youth. Duff, Dunn and Beattie didn't exactly break onto the scene like Wayne Rooney - they were all little boys lost on their full debuts.

Look at the people who do youth well to see how it should be done. For all Fergie's faults, he puts youth into the team to SEE if they can make the step up. And not just 8 mins at the end, or a full game; for every Darren Fletcher who makes it, there are five Jonathon Greenings who get umpteen games before the jury reports back and they are decided not good enough for ManUre.

BRFC can only do well in the EPL and break-even at the same time if we have a vibrant youth set up, both reducing our need to compete on transfer fees and also as a source of revenue from the ones we sell on. Whether or not we get an extra million or two from Murdoch is neither here nor there in the long run.

The only way to see if they are good enough and can learn quickly enough is to put them in.

I will be amazed if season ticket sales don't drop by at least 2000.

The unpredictability of kick off times/days has effectively wiped out the financial benefit of a season ticket for anyone who has even the slightest life outside of football, as they are bound to miss one or two games.

We have had 2 long seasons of miserable home form

We have just finished a season with our lowest goals scored total since err, pre 1888

We don't have a player on the books who can produce a moment of magic to set the pulse racing.

We never sell out these days

Personally, I can't think of one good reason to buy one other than you get the same seat for each match, and by inference like sitting next to the people around you.

Not much of a benefit to justify shelling out a small fortune. And even the altruistic notion of giving the club a cash flow benefit to tide them through the summer and fund player purchases has gone away because of the vast disparity between gate and place income.

Keep your money in the bank earning interest and pay as you go.

Can't help thinking that the TP 11 are going to tonk the current side, age notwithstanding

We should be eternally grateful for the service he gave to us, even turning his back on Manchester United which in its self is a commendable decision these days.

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.

I thought RFW's autobiography gave away the biggest clue as to why Al didn't go to Man Yoo.

According to the Red Faced One, Shearer asked if he could take the penalties. RFW replied that, as Cantona was taking and scoring them at the time, Big Al would have to wait till Le Frog missed 2 or 3 on the trot, which of course meant "No"

Missing out on 8 goals a season didn't appeal to our hero, and I think he recent decision to rescind his "reitirement" is another example of how he seems to be more motivated by records than by medals. And quite right too in my opinion. Phil Neal has more medals than anyone (I think) and so what. David May has a cupboard full for God's sake.

Whereas being the highest goalscorer in premiership history and also his hometown's record scorer until the day he dies (assuming he gets the extra few required), I think will give him plenty of pleasure.

As already said, he didn't have to turn up for TP, so give him a cheer for me.

And how biased were the Sky commentators ?. I had to turn off after they said Blackburn were dirty and boring for the 56th time. Yes, we are not too exciting, and we are quite dirty, but we can play as well. Martin Tyler and Andy Gray are probably still in the Arsenal dressing room, deliberately dropping the soap.

You want to try listening to the overseas commentary I had to endure. Gary Bloom was his name I am sure he was sat there in an Arsenal top calling for rovers players to be sent off, continually knocking the way we play and making derisory comments about the fact that we couldn't sell our allocation. At one point he said the cynics amongst us think that should they get to the final blackburn wouldn't sell their allocation. He also said that blackburn have only come to stop arsenal playing their magnificent football. Who is this guy ? I wanted to rip his head off.

Did any other US based rovers fans feel the same way ? or was it just me.

No, not just you. Extremely annoying, especially when he said that 50 pass going nowhere fast possession by Arsenal would have been one of the best goals ever.

I thought Hughes game plan worked as well as could be expected. It kept us in the game for 86 mins and then we were undone by one of the best goals I've seen all season, and even then only when we'd gone to three at the back. Lehman did well to hold onto our few efforts, but overall we are incapable of the bits of skill needed to unlock good defenses.

The big downside for me was I think we made a mockery of Hughes's claim that we are not a dirty side. Todd will be hard pushed to convince the jury that it was an accident, I think the shot of him just before they kicked off again showed him wishing he hadn't done it. A long-ish suspension at this stage could edge us closer to the drop zone than would otherwise have happened, and I think he knows that.

Been obvious for months now we need a new couple of strikers, right winger and 1 or 2 fullbacks to be a good, upper-half of table team.

But overall, I thought we showed we are on the up.

There's a thread on the official messageboard about who will take the penalties should it get that far.

The contrast between the two messageboards is quite great. Maybe its the optimism of youth verses the synicism of experience?

As for stories in the LET, Andy Neild speaks to John Willliams every day and he gets chapter and verse about the ticket situation.

We can't dictate what the LET chooses to run in the paper.

....or maybe it's that the optimistic youths have had their tickets bought for them by their cynical parents. We are noted as being a family club after all.

While I will only have to struggle out of bed at 7am to watch this one in the company of an Arsenal supporting mate, I can only agree with the likes of waggy and Colin et al.

To my mind, a semi-final is not "worth" double the usual prices for double the number of family members at double the usual distance away. I would have still paid it if I was in the UK, but I would not have been happy.

While it is indeed our first FA cup semi in 45 years, it is also our 4th cup semi in the last 13 years (are you listening Dingles???) so I don't buy the "once in a lifetime" stuff. As a Premier League club, we should be hoping to reach semis every now and again.

Semi Finals do not have the same appeal and cachet as the final itself. Yes, they are special, but they are not the same. I think the old approach of Saturday afternoon at a neutral ground got it about right. It was exciting to go to another ground and for an afternoon "own" the Holte End or the Stretford End. The prices were a bit higher, but not double, and one could expect no more than a 2 hour drive. When I lived in Birmingham I went to the Man City-Ipswich semi in 1983 at the Villa - very enjoyable - but nothing like the City-Spurs final, which I also attended.

I am disappointed, but not surprised, that the club appear not to have taken the fans side on this issue. It has been a consistent theme of our excellently rewarded "Chief Executive" (how many other executives do we have???) to blame the punters for not rolling up like compliant sheep, whatever the circumstances or standard of play on offer. I'm sure he does give chapter and verse to poor old Andy Nield every day, but if I were at the LET then I wouldn't be running stories calling the good people of Blackburn a bunch of ungrateful wretches either.

Maybe Mr. Williams should have done his homework before leaving the relative sophistication of Granada Studios. Part of being a Blackburnian is bluntness and a healthy cynicism of anything overblown or too fancy. We have seen through the exploitation of this semi final - won't be taken in by it. Would Bradley Hardacre be stumping up 45 quid per ticket? I don't think so.

The fact that poncy ManU fans and thick Geordies have fallen for it just reinforces what gives us our uniqueness. Let the poncy southern press have a field day; since when did Blackburnians give a sh1t what they thought anyway?

Stead holds the ball up well and brings other players into the game. I seem to be in a minority who think he is a better option than dikov if were playing lone striker.

I agree 100%. I thought his ability to hold up the ball, turn, either find a team mate or get a foul gave the defence plenty of breathing spaces which they don't get when Dickov is giving away 15 fouls/offsides.

I think Reid is getting better and better, and was unlucky not to score in the first half.

Super-solid performance apart from 10 mins to half time. Well done Hughes and the coaching staff.

Feeling good about this one - on telly here live, can't wait.

2-0 to us. MGP (2)

Bit late to be posting on this thread, but since it was the first live game I've seen in the flesh for 2 years and I have only just returned from the UK vacation, I just have to add my thoughts.

Watched the game from a box in the Blackburn End since I decided to get the extended family together and watch in style, so the game set me back the thick end of 2 grand - never let it be said that us Expats don't do our bit financially. When I asked by what good fortune I was able to book a box at 2 weeks notice for a game against the reigning champions, it was sobering to be told that "This one's usually closed."

Excellent customer service from the hospitality team in getting the thing booked, sorting out food to suit my daughters food allergies etc. I thought the box was terrific. It being a lunchtime KO the food was a megadocious full English Breakfast belly burster - no prawn sandwiches for us proper fans - and a fun time was had by all watching the pre-match entertainment: that being of course watching the assorted types who make up the BBurn End lower take their seats. I would not like to be the people who have to sit next to those two Klondike Twins lookalikes who can each only perch one of "the twins" on their end of aisle seats

As to the game, well at least we were at the right end for what little excitement there was. Great piece of control by the fella for Arsenal's goal, but personally I thought Brad could have made the guy work a little harder for it; just falling back on his arse was hardly likely to achieve much. In fact I found the pre-match video of Brad's finest moments to be just a testament to the great man's decline: he made more great saves in the Worthington cup final alone than he's made in the last 2 seasons.

It was clear that without MGP's set pieces and Reid's surging runs from midfield we would create no opportunities whatsoever - I think that this has been a very prominent feature of our last few games. Not helped of course by the utter wretchedness of Dickov. I stopped counting after he got to 10 senseless free kicks given away for either brainless offsides or blatant fouls; handing the ball, territory and momentum back to the 3rd best team in the land whenever we had managed to push forward. And the constant complaining to the ref when he had been doing the fouling I thought just summed up everything wrong with today's game. Thanks for the 9 goals mate, but we just have to do better than you for next season.

That aside, Nelson I think is the dog's whatsits; and I can confirm that he spent a good 15 minutes good-naturedly signing autograph books, shirts, backpacks, nubile young breasts and the like after the game - no hint of prima donna-ship.

So, all in all, a reet grand day out. It made a fan of my (very Canadian) 11 year old daughter, and it got my mum back to Ewood for the first time in 50 years, since she used to go and lust after Eric Bell's billiard table-like legs.

Oh, and the 70% off closing down type sale in the shop - what's that about? Anyway, all the stuff was just too cheap to miss so we dropped another ton in there.

I've just discovered one season ticket holder who won't be there on Tuesday - my dad.

He went down on Wednesday and, strangely enough for a 75 year old with an arthritic hip, didn't fancy standing in line for three hours, even on a nice cosy concourse.

No queues today we hear, but how was he to know that? Is he expected to make the trip down twice a day every day just in case? The phone wasn't for him as he would never wait 90 mins on a phone call for anything, plus has never given his cc details over the phone and never will.

Could have mailed it in, but no use telling him that now.

However, he had an interesting slant that I hadn't considered: while all the vigorous types on this board are mega-excitied about the prospect of baying at the inbreds for 90 mins; for him the thought of possibly having to interface with 7,000 primitives on the walk to the ground ( he still has painful memories of the City promotion fiasco and the Celtic game), to see the repeat of what was possibly the worst televised game ever, was not leaving him breathless with excitement. I wonder how many others of our more civilised, older supporters feel the same?

Still, no worries, I'm sure someone will snaffle his seat for Tuesday and he'll continue turning up, good as gold.

Everyone will probably get a ticket, but that is entirely besides the point. The days when clubs could count on the sheep just turning up on cue to fill the spaces irrespective of the services provided are long gone. Why not bring back the open air pisser in the Blackburn End then? Keep irritating your customers, especially the infrequent ones, but then don't expect them to slavishly turn up by constantly crying wolf over financial meltdown if the crowd goes down 10%.

Waggy's highly amusing phone timeline is a case in point. Here's a customer who has been coming for 20+ years, now brings his lad, and in airline parlance would be a Super-Elite member. I would guess that he hands over $1,000 of his hard earned dosh each year, giving him a lifetime value of, say $50,000. And he's ticked off. Will he turn up for the Arsenal game - yes, but will he keep turning up on wet Tuesday nights for Portsmouth etc. well maybe and maybe not. But no-one seems to care that a Super-Elite member has been disappointed. Maybe because his lifetime contribtion of $50,000 gets handed over to the likes of Matteo every two weeks.

This would be a non-issue if Williams didn't constantly bleat on about wanting to fill the ground every week.

And if comparisons with other businesses are irrelevent, then comparing Williams' salary to jobs in industry is equally so. Why do we need a $400,000 CEO when the manager is the key employee anyway, 75% of revenue turns up automatically and the other 25% comes irrespective of the level of service for the punters?

For obvious reasons, I haven't had the frustration of getting a ticket for this one (though I will be at the Arsenal match - if I can get a ticket...), so I am viewing the situation somewhat dispassionately.

For my sins, I used to be General Manager of Cadbury World, and vividly remember the occasion after we first advertised in Radio Times which prompted hordes to decsend the nexy day, and we weren't ready for it. 3 hour line-ups in the rain, and lots of people very upset. But it was our fault. We'd enticed them to come, and failed to make it a good experience when they did. So we spent a fortune on a timed ticketing system ASAP and it never happened again, even on days when larger numbers showed up.

Williams has been bleating on forever about the need for the fans to turn up, and guess what, here they all are. Hardly a surprise that it's for this match either; and of course there was always going to be the added complication of having to re-sell to season-ticket holders. So to my mind any contemplation of a replay for this game should have focused on the need/opportunity to "delight the customers" while having to sell 23,000 tickets in the space of a few days. This is not the first time people have had to queue forever to get a ticket for a match, it's been happening on and off for 45 years.

But it's 2005, and people's expectations of service and also the value they put on their own time have increased exponentially since the 1960 cup final. That's why Tesco now open another checkout whenever the queue gets more than 2 deep. Pleasing customers in today's environment is tough, but that's what real Chief Execs get paid for.

I understand the frustration in Lee's post - I had to deal with many an irate visitor - but to blame the customers for moaning isn't acceptable in any business these days.

The next time the people of Blackburn do what the club asks and want to come to a game, please don't blame them for turning up and tell them they should be lucky they only had to take 3 hours off work.

The worst team poll would almost definitely be made up out of players from the last ten years. The greats like Crompton are documented throughout the ages, but the worst players from the teams of yesteryear aren't even known.

This is a very astute observation which I for one hadn't considered.

To back it up, look at the "most hated people in football" thread.

Souness gets 12 nominations (at time of posting).

Not even a hint of a mention for (eg) Iley, Hodgson or Kidd.

When asked to be negative, people can barely see past last week never mind consider "all time".

I agree, it would be farcical for the worst ever team to be made up largely of players who, however undeservedly, plied their trade for us in the Premier League.

I was thinking it would be pretty much a clean sweep for the team that got relegated to division three - Brian Hill, Malcolm Darling, Brian Conlon, John Coddington etc, though obviously making room for John O'Mara up front.

I thought their French (?) winger  (valiou or something?) was very impressive,

I was watching the game with my mate (who is a Burnley fan) and he kept commenting that he was a fantastic talent but with no end product. Got to say that I agree with him. He skipped past many a Rovers defender only to lose the ball stupidly.

Now who does that sound like?........I think it begins Emer...

....but without the "skipped past many a" bit.

Personally, I've had enough of Emerton, and I don't have to watch him every week. I think we'd be better with either Reid or even Thommo in his place.

Their 5 man midfield snuffed out Tugay today; I expect him to have more of an influence in the replay when they will be pressed back more. But who will put one in the back of the net for us? It's either MGP or a scuffed Dickov effort these days; about time some of the other chipped in.

I agree with previous comments that we have 4 class players: Todd, Nelson, Savage and MGP. I think Gallagher, Neil, Nissa and Emerton would struggle to get a game in any prem club out of the bottom three. But we're still in the hat on Monday, and an excellent chance to stuff the Trolls on March 1st.

To be fair to the guy, it must be an absolute nightmare to be CEO and to have an employee (the manager) who has far more influence over the success of the enterprise, and over whom he has no control whatsoever, apart from being able to recommend sacking him. In reality, the CEO is the manager's gopher:

"I need that player - go sign him"

"I need Prozone - go buy it"

"I've fallen out with that top scorer - give him away"

and so on.

Maybe he does earn it.....