Can he still be arsed with it? Seems to enjoy his off field life, business ventures etc.

Of course growing the fanbase would have increased revenue, but how did he think he’d get more bums on seats in an area like this with hefty price rises on match day and season tickets? Just points to the fact he just hasn’t got to grips with the socio-economics of the area.

Was it? Or was it to increase revenue by squeezing the hardcore? Must be the latter as I don’t see how 15/20% rises in ST prices year on year, surcharges and £45 Category A+ pricing for mid table second division football is going to grow the fanbase...

I know, that’s what my post says. To answer Morten, I’ve no particular pressing desire for the Riverside to be developed, more importantly, as rigger says, we need to re-engage a fanbase that has become ever more detached from the club in this lost decade - but let’s be realistic, it is ultimately success on the pitch that drives that. You can have all the fancy infrastructure and marketing plans you want, but an east Lancs town club still won’t pull in the punters whilst bobbing along in second division mid table.

Waggott says a lot of things, but in reality he’s spent his tenure downsizing. Get out of this pandemic and see how it all settles down, employ a forward thinking leadership team that actually understand the fanbase - coupled with owners that love signing those cheques (infrastructure doesn’t impact FFP, remember), and who knows. But I won’t be holding my breath.

This forum is certainly not representative of the fanbase anymore. End of the day most football fans want a club to support, especially at the moment, seeing signings enter the building on a regular basis is a bonus. They just want to watch football, talk about tactics, matches and players and support the team, they don’t look much deeper than that. Also, they’ve been here a decade, so for fans in their 20s and below (who are very prominent in social media) they know little else than this regime’s way of doing things, so harking back to John Williams and the like means bugger all, mid table in the Championship is as good as it’s been, why should Blackburn Rovers expect to be better than that? Folk like us, who yes, can see how we are totally reliant on their funding, but also forensically look at their record, their appointments, accounts, infrastructure and the like and lament how we’ve fallen are very much in the minority these days, and probably not normal when it comes to your average football fan.

‘Wovers’, interesting name to choose, isn’t that one of the charming ways we are referred by on Dingle forums?

Which is why it is always too simplistic to merely play budget top trumps and lament how we can’t possibly compete with parachute clubs. There’s a reason why so few bounce straight back automatically.

Taylor spent a decade as a PL regular, it’s the fact we had much higher standards/were used to top quality centre halves back then, and TT didn’t quite measure up, not that he was a poor player. Christ we’ve seen much worse this past decade.

It was and I was in total agreement, I personally think those posting pathetic stuff about ‘pension pots’ and the like need to have a look at themselves.

Is he a better technical ‘footballer’ than Williams? I suppose maybe he thinks he is, which would lead to the problems you describe.

Assuming we don’t get there, what are you seeing that would interest a PL club and a top international side like Chile?

I am looking at it from their perspective, they obviously aren’t vindictive as they keep chucking the cash in, so they can’t think we are ‘scum of the earth’, as I said we are a loss making venture in a far flung part of their conglomerate, they probably don’t give us plebs in the cold, dank north of England much thought at all, and even if they do, why does it matter if they pay the bills? Away from this board, the owners have never been as popular, sort out the governance and infrastructure of the club, meaning they aren’t continually throwing in good money after bad and they’d have the vast majority onside (if they don’t already), so not sure why we should be feeling sorry for them.

I can’t imagine they give much thought either way to a few thousand football fans on the other side of the world.

Sure Waggott does do what he thinks is right, but it hasn’t worked here and we need a new broom. Why do ‘we’ (who’s ‘we’’, Rovers fans?) deserve to be seen as ‘scum of the earth’?

Totally agree on the playing side. Decent squad and an Academy going well. However, the club needs to see the post Covid world as a chance to re-set the commercial side, relationship with supporters, the engagement with the lapsed fanbase etc. To do this we need a clear out of the Waggott’s of this world.

He’s here till the end of his contract (May 2022), at least. I know it, surely the rest of you know it. So pro/anti TM, there’s no point getting wound up about it.

Maybe I’ve been spoilt or I’m just getting older and (even) more cynical, but I can’t say I ‘love’ any of the journeymen we’ve collected this past decade. The likes of Dack will stick with me, I suppose, but the Bennett’s of the world? It’ls like when the club Twitter was referring to Danny Graham as a ‘club legend’ the other month, now I’ve a lot of time for DG, thought he was a good, old school centre forward that largely did the business for us, but ‘club legend’? I suppose for Warren Lucy, he was.

‘Duped’, ‘badly advised’, didn’t expect those old tropes from you Darren. They were arrogant and thought they knew better than experienced operatives like JW et al. The club is a shell, stripped to the bone on the non playing side and with the money now in the top flight, the rise of our neighbours across east Lancs and the rapidly changing demographics of the town I doubt we’ll ever get back to where we were a decade ago - it was the worst possible time for the club to head into the wilderness, now with Covid on top. Does any of that mean we are not totally reliant on their cash injections? Of course we are, and I’m glad of it in these frankly scary times for professional sport, indeed TM is a lucky man to be given 4 years and not needing to ever sell a player, unheard of in this league, but their hundreds of millions have got us no further than where we are right now, largely due to dysfunctional governance and mediocre appointees. The owners themselves should have been demanding much better, yet they seem to have little ambition or plan for the club either apart from meeting their commitments, why?

Every forum going has posts like that. I don’t understand it myself, especially here where the owners are well detached from the club. Though ‘Accepting a heavy defeat’ if it led to a manager they think isn’t doing a good job leaving isn’t the same as going into matches hoping we lose/getting pleasure in us losing... which is what your point was. I’ll leave it there as I falling into your trap.

As is ‘they want us to lose’, so maybe stop posting it.

Stuff like that is also ridiculous nonsense. Maybe both sides should grow up a bit?

His best mate works on the railways...

BB was *starting* to show *something*... then he got that knock, unfortunately he’s regressed again since coming back. Obviously takes very little for him to lose form and confidence, which isn’t a good sign.

‘Some of you want us to lose’ ’wonder if some of you are actually fans’ Can this divisive, lazy shite please not be rolled out every time we win a game. FYI - nobody spends hours a day on an internet message board deep diving into the intricacies of the squad, manager, owners, pitch and on it goes of Blackburn Rovers if they ‘want us to lose’ so please stop.