Only Rev could paint Venky’s as the saviours of our season, preventing that dastardly Mowbray from flogging off their prolific forward in the midst of a promotion charge! 😁

But you know we won’t, that would mean TEN TO TWELVE THOUSAND people paying £30 to £36 for a match ticket. I’ve spoke ad infinitum as to why crowds aren’t increasing to where they should considering plenty are buying game by game, but you are obviously being obtuse.

Course we did! And the Riverside was to be redeveloped, the 1999 relegation saw that shelved. See link: https://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/sport/18489397.otd-rovers-put-hotel-ewood-expansion-plans-hold/ We even had plenty of crowds between 24,000 and 29,000 in the 2001 promotion campaign. We are a million miles away from that now…

Preston and Blackpool reduced to £30 to £36 from £36 to £42, so from a disgraceful and now removed ‘Cat A Plus’ to a merely ridiculous Cat A. I was delighted with Sheffield United offer, more please! The £20 night game price is a little pointless as it isn’t cost that puts folk off night games, but all the other factors - red button, work, can’t bring kids etc. But still, better than £30. Free kids tickets are always to be applauded, better than an empty seat and even if a dozen of that 1,000 come again, then job done. However, one initiative aside (Sheff Utd), weekend games are largely still massively over priced. But as I said, at least, by chance, there won’t be many more Cat As.

Ok pay £30 to £32 elsewhere, bargain! That’s my point, it is most popular generally and could sell very well when priced at a non ridiculous price, but price folk out and they won’t go at all… and that’s what we’ll see with a more than half empty ground when a team going for top spot run out on Sunday. We are on the cusp of something here, something that could be absolutely transformative for Blackburn Rovers, and short term price gouging just to rip off the fans of clubs that may bring 2k+ instead of 1k, should be put to one side as we try and get as much support as possible into the ground until May. (Luckily though, due to the way the fixtures have fallen, apart from Blackpool I don’t think there will be any more Cat As - which is just a fluke of the fixture list that all the potential ‘big’ following clubs have already visited, not down to any forward thinking or creativity by the Chief Exec)

Sorry, £36 in the JWU (which is the most popular stand for walk ons) for a second division game IS extortionate just after Christmas and new year.

And then if we do stay up the top end, you imagine post Feb 19th plenty will get moved for Sky, so every chance we will only have had a couple of 3pm Saturdays post Birmingham on the 18th December until the end of the season…

Cracking place, great selection of beers.

Ah well, be easier to get served in Wigan Central…

Oh I get it. But then if you recall we played Bolton away twice in the 2001 promotion season. We sold the cup tie out pretty much straight away but didn’t get particularly close to doing so for the top of the table crunch league game (granted it was a night match).

Can never work Rovers away fans out. Wouldn’t have surprised me if the whole stand had sold in days, but under 2k isn’t a shock either.

Yeah, was online. Just a very hit and miss system for away tickets, I find. All I can think of is that they’ve sold out of one batch and they haven’t added anymore yet.

Wouldn’t have thought so, they were still selling them in the middle-ish blocks when I bought mine yesterday. That shite ticket site playing up again is the most likely explanation…

So considering we only have c7,000 ST holders, you expected TEN THOUSAND people to buy a match ticket for a standard priced Championship game? That never even got close to happening for big PL games. We are a club who’s attendance is always built on ST sales (and said ST numbers have dropped dramatically over the last couple of years), not vast numbers of folk buying on the day. Feel like I’m banging my head on the wall here, surely it’s fairly simple maths, but folk just can’t seem to grasp WHY crowds aren’t higher considering large numbers ARE buying match tickets. But I’ll give it another go: We did have 10,000+ ST holders until fairly recently, add your 6k walk on purchasers and the 750 away fans, there’s your near 17/18k. We now have 7,200, add your 6k and 750… there’s your 14k. Crowds aren’t what we expect due to the disaster of the summer ST sales period which led to our lowest numbers of ST holders for 30+ years, not because folk aren’t turning out and buying tickets now in big numbers for individual games - because they are.

It was actually a good ‘turnout’, as a load more folk than normal ‘turned out’ to buy match tickets… however, as we now have ‘very poor’ numbers of ST holders, crowds just won’t get to where we expect for standard priced matches week to week, as even large numbers of walk ons can’t take up the slack of all those lost regulars - even with this heady league position. You’d be needing c8,000 walk ons every week - and that ain’t happening. Though obviously a cheap ticket offer or two and games in the run in would be exceptions and would draw in much bigger numbers. Waggot’s horrendous management of ticketing over his tenure has come home to roost this season and it has exposed just how hollowed out the club’s regular match going fanbase had become.

So for non-head ‘serious’ injuries, the ref should stop the game? Ok, but he has to make a split second decision and apart from the obvious horror looking ones, surely many others are very hard to judge, and can easily be ‘gamed’ by a player trying to stop a quick break?

Depends. I see it in two ways. If you look at it from a ‘we are where we are’ angle, considering we now only have 7,200 ST holders, and other night games this season have had c8k home fans in, then yes it was a good turnout, as it means a shed load bought a match ticket and the gate was therefore well up on previous night games. However, if you look at it more broadly, i.e how far the ST base has fallen even in the post Bowyer years, 13,400 home fans for a Christmas fixture when we are a point off top… is not a good crowd.

Which, of course, there could well be, as a panicking PL club will see an international forward with 20 goals before new year and could well take a punt…

I agree, we aren’t doing too badly considering the last decade and the decimation of the ST base under this regime. But 7,200 ST holders, standard crowds of 9 to 11,000 and a ‘bumper’ Christmas crowd of just 14,000 even being triumphantly announced over the tannoy shows just what damage these owners have done. Lets just hope the club has learnt from its terrible mistakes when it comes to ST sales and we can harness the momentum of this season, whatever the outcome of it is…

Yet, there were still only 13,400 home fans there for a festive fixture with the club almost top of the Championship. Not far away from a standard crowd in the Bowyer era (and they weren’t exactly the glory days!) There was a big turn out of walk ons, as you would expect to see for a team on the up (around 6,000), but it is the lost ST holders that are really now showing their absence. If we still had 10k ST holders, you’d have been looking at a bumper 18k ish crowd last night. Other midweek games and Cat A games also won’t have that Christmas surge of 6,000 walk ons to tap into, so I still expect to see a fair few 11/12k crowds in the second half of the season, which is certainly not what a club of our stature (and current team) should be attracting when top of the division and knocking on the door of the Premier League. But we are where we are as the die was cast in the summer with the disastrous collapse in ST sales. Whatever league we are in, the club MUST go all out on trying to re-build the ST base in the summer.

Let’s hope you’re right!

We got to 18,000+ for PNE with 4500 away fans, so I can’t imagine we’ll be hitting that for Hudds (unless they’ve sold a shed load themselves).

Looking at the crowds right down to NW Counties level shows what a fantastic football country we are. You just don’t get it anywhere else - even in the Hipster’s favourite destination - Germany.

Define ‘big’, as it will be a struggle to attract one at £30 to £36…

Well the crowd has been fantastic from minute 1 of the Sheff Utd game, even after going a goal down and all the potential for them to turn post the Fulham debacle. Great support, and the best possible riposte to all the nonsense you read about ‘negative’, ‘crap’ fans at Ewood.