Of course they’d increase, but if we sell 4/5000 this summer, and we somehow miracle up a promotion, there’s not a chance we’d get anywhere close to the 15,000 to 20,000 ST holders we had prior to Venky’s. We have a limited fanbase and catchment area and thousands have gone for good. Also, noted BDS - mods, feel free to move to ST thread.

1999 we lost around 2,000 ST holders on relegation. 2012 we lost around 8,000 ST holders on relegation. Many clubs these days often lose very little of their ST base on a PL drop… the collapse of crowds that got underway here in 2012 points to a deep, deep malaise and rot at BRFC… this summer’s further fall through the floor (in contract to nearly every other club) suggests we may have permanently wrecked our support base, which is an existential crisis for a club operating in an environment with Blackburn’s demographics and regional competitors.

Before this summer we haven’t had a ‘hardcore of 5,000 fans’ since the mid 80s, which was the case for most clubs outside the big cities at that time with football at its lowest ebb in this country.

Crap spectacle, wasn’t it. No chance ‘women, kids and BAME communities’ would enjoy that… defo need a new format.

Yes, happened with me and my owd fella a fair bit last season, let’s hope it was due to the closed grounds, because it’s very worrying, if not… though the ST sales say otherwise

Behave Rev, far more pressing issues - I’ve been worrying about that concourse shelving since last February…

Which would be a fair enough view… if most other clubs weren’t seeing robust sales, be it hitting 2019 levels or beating them - certainly I haven’t come across any other clubs whose figures are well down.

I’ve fairly regularly regaled the forum over the years about when I had a chat with John Williams who was told on his first day by the directors that we ‘have 8,000 fans’. The board (remember those!) meant that though we may have 20,000+ sitting in the home stands every week, it’s that 8,000 that will be your forever core and you have to work your arse off to keep and perhaps even grow the rest. And it held true, despite Kean, relegation, Coyle, another relegation and generally a decade of utter crap there was always a minimum of 8/9000 ST holders… until Waggott.

Yet proper owners would be asking; ‘But looking across the leagues we are seeing strong sales across the board, either matching 2019 figures or beating them. Why not here?’ No responsibility, no accountability, no aspiration, no targets, no pride, no chance.

‘Encouraging’ and ‘promising’ according the the sages of the LT comment section 🥴

Christ. From near 20,000 to 10,000 to 8,000 to 3,000 (disclaimer being a few weeks still to go ) ST holders in a decade. You literally couldn’t have done a better job wrecking a fanbase if that was your actual intention.

Think that shows that Waggott et al are now putting in even less effort than an advert on the back on a bus (yet this summer of all summers we should be putting in much more)…

Be interesting to see what happens to the Lancs business model. A lot has been invested in the corporate side; events, conferences, hotels and the like. Will that previously highly lucrative industry of business facing hospitality ever get back to where it was pre pandemic?

Yet, a quick Google search shows club after club recording record sales. There’s something badly amiss at this football club.

Interesting view. So can you outline in what way we operate as a functional football club?

They have been and probably still are, but people use said ‘bad advice’ to excuse their disastrous decision making. The buck stops with them.

Can you imagine the lengths the John Williams era BRFC would be going to this summer. Just makes me so very sad seeing these people who couldn’t give a shiny shite ‘representing’ my club, wearing our crest tie at whatever function or FA/EFL get together they happen to get an invite to. Just a shell masquerading as a historic professional football club.

Got to say, the ‘marketing’ of the season tickets this time round really is subterranean. Apart from advertising on the club’s website (and who’s visiting that in July), what else is there? Even social media channel promotion seems intermittent, a post every few days, perhaps. And there has certainly been no mail shots etc. It’s merely a case of, ‘well they’re on sale, £4/500, take it or leave it’. Unreal when you think we’ve been out of grounds for 18 months and club’s (other clubs, obviously) are doing everything possible to re-engage. And it should be especially pressing here considering ST holders make up the vast majority of our match going support. This lot have just stopped even pretending they are arsed if folk turn up or not.

Love this new cracking display of petulance when proved wrong on an issue you’ve patronised everybody else on for weeks. ’Err, well, why don’t you just email them then?’ 😁

Telling how Lancs haven’t particularly promoted it. Obviously it’s well and truly an ECB vehicle. Absolute cultural vandals and they are just lucky that the county game support base isn’t as rabid as club football re the Super League or they’d have cancelled the monstrosity within days.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/57804414 A few of those quoted have suddenly changed their tune, can’t fathom why? 🤷‍♂️

‘I had to tell the owners to slow down’.

Two years was always the case up to around the millennium when clubs suddenly saw the £ signs and switched to two/three new kits every summer. But sure I read the other week that a few clubs are reverting back to a two year home kit.

Think Gav may have a point. Can’t say I’ve come across many Rovers fans that would write ‘The Venkeys’…

If they are such good owners why is the club in this sorry state?