Mattyblue

Everybody’s gates were poorer then. Football has moved on and attendances are currently booming across the game. However, we are fairly unique in going back to those 80s figures, whereas pretty much all our competitors are now seeing substantially higher crowds than where they were in the 80s.

We’ve had an increase this season to a still piss poor 9,300, but that has only taken us to something slightly more respectable after the thirty year lows the Swag era has overseen (7,000 at the start of 21/22). We had c11,000 in that not exactly golden era of Gary Bowyer (and obviously many, many more before these owners darkened our doors).

The average gate is pretty much level to last season. We’ll once again finish with it around 14k. However, ST sales and ergo the overall crowd will be interesting next season though, when we see ever increasing prices coupled with a match going fanbase that isn’t particularly enthused with JDT from what I can see.

The 125th anniversary was great. Special one off kit, events, merchandise, a book published. 150th? I imagine a lot of potential initiatives will be ‘looked into’ but we’ll end up with a few old videos on ‘the socials’.

https://www.rovers.co.uk/news/2023/february/01/ticket-news--rovers-v-blackpool/ It is Cat C (£20 for BEnd and Riverside) when you follow the link to the article, but the graphic advertising the game on social media (what most fans will actually see at a glance) says £25, so looks like Cat B. Just a bit of a shambles down there, ain’t it…

That’s five FA and League Cup tie wins for him so far… how many did TM manage in five years?

Sounds like something Coyle would say with, perhaps replacing ‘shirt’ with ‘Blackburn Rovers Football Club’… ergo means bugger all either way.

Compare and contrast town centre offerings…

What kind of professional outfit doesn’t see the play offs as a focus when sitting in the places in February? Not a serious football club, yet they expect fans to pay up to £530 for a ST for what is seemingly now a mere ‘development club’…

Now sympatheticclaret has caught Longers’ ‘little owd Burnley-itus’ 🙄 Spare us, please…

Just think of all those skriking kids when there’s not even enough shirts to go round for the mascots… because that happens at other clubs too, right?

It’s at the ground(s) that count and he had the easiest of rides from Rovers fans throughout. Now that might be because he was just being ‘tolerated’ over being particularly rated, but the result was the same, the most Teflon manager I’ve ever come across here or elsewhere - JDT certainly won’t (and already isn’t) get the same courtesy.

A month ago the talk from JDT was that he was to be loaned out, so he was obviously in last chance saloon as a Championship level footballer - and he has taken that last chance with both hands. Couple that with that most important of commodities in sport, confidence, and we’ve got a decent player on a hands (which is very helpful when we have a perma-injured right back and seemingly an inability to complete transfers).

When did TM ever need to do shoulder that? He had a free pass at Ewood from the fans for five years.

That’s literally an article from their own website, so they obviously do call themselves Bluenoses. Just ask Jude… “To be a Bluenose is to be a Birmingham City fan really. “I’m a Bluenose, you’re a Bluenose, and if you’re from the right side of Birmingham you’re a Bluenose,” Bellingham explained. “I never forget when we went to [Birmingham City] games, I always loved going past the bit with the rock - there’s a rock on the way to the stadium and someone’s painted the nose blue. “Before games, I’d always go to my mum or my dad, ‘you’ve got to go past the Bluenose’. Before the game against Stoke when I scored on my home debut, we drove past it. I would’ve driven past it a million times going to a game as a fan, but, and I don’t know why, before the Stoke game it was special. From that point I said we always have to go that way to go past the Bluenose,” Bellingham said.

Had a look, nope still XL sizes for most of it…

To be fair the FA Cup thread has been discussing the game for days…

… or a match ticket

The only initiative I can see is ‘Operation get Swag his bonus’ through selling enough overpriced STs…

Yet JDT carries on with it…

The Haaland factor could help on that score…

Yep, always c5-6k home fans for 3rd/4th round ties, has been for many a year at Ewood. But as with Forest it’s strange how much hand wringing there now is about it (social media strikes again, you’d think). It’s fairly simple, half of ST holders don’t turn up ergo it’s a reduced crowd.

I suppose it all comes down to that famous Bobby Robson quote re what is a ‘football club’? For me Blackburn Rovers is the fans, I.e the connection me, my family and friends have with each other (and with other fans) through the club, and its history and heritage. Plonkers like Swag just happen to be temporary administrators. I love ‘the club’ as much as ever, and that’s why I despise the time servers currently letting it wither on the vine and waste so much potential.

Well if they’ve bothered to resurrect the sticker book there *must* be more to come, right? 😐

‘Siri, sum up brfcs.com in two consecutive posts’ 😁