Mattyblue

Not a new ground like West Ham obviously, but there will be plenty that haven’t been for donkeys years or never in the younger generation, so we’ll take a few. Though maybe not WHU levels as it was only a tenner there from memory, not the £30+ this lot will charge.

5,038 home fans, made a mistake there Swag, they could easily have fitted in the JW Upper alone, make sure you get that lower tier closed next time.

Tonight’s match sponsor is… Mike Graham, formerly Preston Blue of this parish and the new interim Trust chairman, I believe. A passionate Rovers fan, obviously, but match sponsor? Is this how much we are struggling to get local companies on board?

So why didn’t he put the 200 Cardiff fans in there this time too instead of shutting the well populated (in the context of a September League Cup tie) home end? Ergo saving this vital few grand by closing the Darwen End. Crackers decision whichever way you slice it.

‘The project is for us to become a sustainable and established Premier League football club.’ A lot of time for GB but you don’t half have to come out with a right load of nonsense in this business.

Difference being by the time the Riverside was being closed for early round cup ties there were only 200 or so left in there for such games, so understandable and had little in the way of pushback from supporters. Fans get it. However two *thousand* in a tier for an early cup tie being seen as unviable is a totally different issue and points to a club in big trouble…

‘The Venky’s’ 🤦‍♂️. Another crack journo on the beat..

‘Don’t want to incur the costs of opening up the Blackburn End’. Not really much hope/point for this club then, is there…

We don’t need a programme or a radio station or RoverVision or a town centre shop or kits for months on end or three of the stands so what do we need a website for?

As dismaying as this has been at a surface level, because as much as anything it shows that they don’t remotely understand football fans, ‘so we had 6k in two stands? Why not 6k in one stand? Clever us, aren’t we!’ Err because you won’t get your 6k as plenty of displaced fans will tell you to shove it. But as others have said the bigger concern is the club is obviously at a real financial precipice if we are now shutting the home end merely to save peanuts on opening a couple of concession stands and toilets (which it won’t anyway as loads will stay away). The next 12 months are going to get very messy.

More disingenuous nonsense. Open up half the bogs, open up half the bars, less stewards too. Must think we are all as moronic as they are.

We had 6,000+ on for the first round, that is plenty for early round League Cup ties, indeed it was more than what a fair few other Championship sides had on the night. So why aren’t all the other Championship clubs closing two thirds of their home areas then? Ergo ‘stay away fans’ had bugger all to do with it and it is another example of how the club is obviously now under some kind of Pune edict to cut costs everywhere, however minuscule and pathetic these savings may be. The irony being they will lose more money than if they’d have kept it open as plenty of Blackburn Enders now won’t go negating the peanuts cost saving they were attempting (oh and losing a load of goodwill with long standing supporters whilst they were at it) .

If it was possible I imagine he’d be delighted to use Leyland for games like this.

It’s all about the broadcast ‘look’ (usually, not with this unfathomable decision). Ewood actually looks fairly full on TV if the away side brings a few. Both bottom tiers and the Jack Walker (I.e what the camera sees) look pretty populated even with a half full ground as there’s 15,000 empty seats in areas the camera doesn’t point at . Ewood Potemkin Park.

Why did JDT get noticed last season? Top 6 throughout and a cup quarter final beating PL sides along the way. He has us, say, 13th this time but playing ‘good’ football that will get him a higher profile and more of a chance of a big job etc than being at the top end of the league? Don’t agree, sorry.

Boring, uncompetitive? Don’t think so, it’s fantastic, Sky told me.

It’s presser speak, as always with managers it all needs taking with a pinch of salt.

Surely it’s obvious why clubs see the league as most important. A promotion or relegation or a top 4 finish in the PL can fundamentally transform a club for better or worse for a decade, a cup defeat is a one off defeat, have another go next season. It’s sad that this is where the game has gone, but looking at how crowds have completely flipped on their head in the modern era - I.e cup ties used to be the biggest gates of the season, but are now the lowest presumably show many fans are on board with said priorities.

Obviously I’m nowhere near as invested as you Mike, but I’ve paid my dues since the start and I’ve not received as much as a single email in ten years, despite asking and asking and asking what is surely a very simple request to be added to the mailing list for newsletters etc. To be fair to mhead he has forwarded them on to me when I’ve asked him directly but it’s all a bit slapdash.

It’s a non public email address obviously purposely named to avoid being contacted, ergo most fans won’t even know about it so not sure he will be able to claim that (well it is Swag, so yes, he probably will).

What a post. 🤦‍♂️ How about for the good of the game? How about to aid the plethora of clubs that have been the foundation of football in this country for 150 years and are the bedrock of the deepest pyramid in the world game, how about as payback for all the players they have produced and nurtured that have ended up at top sides? How about to even up the divisions so newly promoted sides aren’t getting beat 8-0 at home? What an attitude to take, but par for the course for you.

I did read it, sounds like nonsense to me. He got noticed last season for having us up there throughout and in a cup QF, not ‘playing the right way’ as we were pretty prosaic for the most part.

Why would he get more attention for having a long forgotten club in their usual mid table position over steering them into a first play off campaign in donkeys years?

It became clear to me in the 2011, 2012 protest period that most folk just want to watch a team in blue and white they have an connection to play a game of football once a fortnight. They aren’t particularly arsed about all the rest of it like us tragics on here. There are loads of empty seats at Ewood compared to most of our Championship peers, ergo we must have ‘shit support’ and be a ‘small club’, so these owners keeping the bills paid is good enough for them and we should be bloody well grateful for it too.

Sky purely seem to pick teams towards the top, regardless of how they play. So we’ll hardly be on at this rate… it’ll be PNE fans watching the NYD game at noon and random fixtures on a Saturday night this time if they aren’t careful…