Should we be keeping an eye on the Ribble Valley Council planning section?

And that’s all I want, we *actually* didn’t have a pot to piss in through much of the 80s, but it was a club you were so proud to support. They did everything they could to put the most competitive team possible on to the pitch. In contrast, this present set up is a disgrace from top to bottom.

It’s simply the content/social media manager on ‘the socials’ earning his corn, all about the ‘reach’ and ‘impressions’. So this has been a perfect campaign, right up the street of the FM/FIFA/insta generation.

Really interesting piece. Hope he’s finding a bit of peace and contentment back home. On a side note, he’s not wrong, is he : "The higher up you go the more that gets coached into you. Don't lose the ball, don't run with the ball. Pass and move, pass and move. I was a winger who liked to run with it so that sort of stuff gets knocked out of you. You start to lose what got you there in the first place. "Did I ever enjoy it? Not really. I never came off the pitch thinking I had really enjoyed it. It is all tactical. Even now, when you watch a game of football, it is all tactics. We keep it for 10 minutes, you keep it for 10 minutes. Very few teams go for the jugular.”

TM and Venus with their feet well under the table, 4 year (FOUR) deal for Pears, big wages for Ayala, Downing etc etc. The Teesside gravy train rolls ever on to Ewood.

I know a fair few older folk who didn’t even know they were on sale until I told them. The marketing for your biggest revenue generator (TV rights aside) has to consist of more than a couple of emails, surely?

Oh.

Well said Locky lad. This ‘older generation’ having basic standards and expectations of a professional Championship football club with billionaire owners. They need to get real.

Fantastic piece on those short sighted fools at the ECB… https://www.thefulltoss.com/england-cricket-blog/love-minus-a-hundred/

It’s done because they know Leeds will fetch plenty. Same rationale for ‘Category A’ and ‘A+’.

They are waiting for the shirts to arrive first so Birdy can pose in it up in the Jack Walker rafters…

United was nowhere near sold out in home areas (only about 15/16k Rovers fans were there). Most clubs don’t lose many ST holders on relegation, indeed we didn’t in 1999… yet 2012 we lost nearly half. I would have expected to lose some, of course, but nearly HALF?! That is unheard of and it wasn’t because of all those PL glory hunters jumping ship, but the shenanigans of 2011/12, confirming Kean was being kept on just as they went on sale etc. This club has been a basket case for a decade and the chickens (to coin a phrase) have finally come home to roost this summer.

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?