Mattyblue

Grooby, Ste B et al were always making ‘humorous’ tweaks to profile descriptions and the like. It’s a football message board not the Court Circular. What a bizarre post. But I reckon you are just doing the brfcs version of the Handforth Parish Council meme, subtle though, I’ll give you that...

We’ve been missing him since he’s returned too...

Surely Bennett will just follow Graham, Mulgrew and Smallwood, key cogs of the promotion team all, in moving on at the end of the season as we look to advance. Which is fair enough, been a good servant, excellent club captain by the sounds of it, but time moves on and as a club you continually should be looking at improving the side.

It feels like we have these conversations every 6 months or so, we all get very excited and outline what we’d like to see, what we should look to implement... then nothing. Is there any actual concrete project plans in place, or is this all from throw away comments from Waggott and a few years old drawings?

I sincerely doubt they are ‘as hurt as we are’, to us it’s a massively important part of our lives, generations of support. To them we are a loss making, far flung part of their conglomerate that I doubt they give must thought to, certainly not of the emotional variety, in any case. We go bust tomorrow, we would be absolutely bereft, they would be embarrassed and financially stung, but I’m sure the share price and poultry/pharmaceutical sales wouldn’t take much of a dent. It’s their pride (and balance sheet) that will have been hurt - which probably explains why they keep on throwing in good money after bad, which is to be thankful of, I suppose...

End of the day this is the model the club chooses. There’s always a good few loans each season and a churn of players, and to be fair decent quality loans do seem to keep arriving. Is it ideal? Probably not, especially in defence as we need to keep pulling rabbits out of the hat (though relationships do seem to have been built with the likes of Man City and Liverpool), but it is still preferable to the days of cheap dross (Greer et al) coming in on free transfers.

Like I said on the Riverside Renovation thread, a version of West Brom’s West Stand would be ideal...

The fact Lineker never received a booking in a 16 year pro career, obviously he wasn’t exactly from the Duncan Ferguson/Mick Hartford school of striker, but still seems such an anachronism now, and he was playing in the 80s up to the mid 90s, not the 1950s...

Out of contract in the summer so I imagine we’ve seen the last of him here...

‘It’s 5pm and this is Sports Report... 🎶 der der der der der... ‘

Data wise, yes, but has there been substantial investment in facilities away from that? The 100 Club had to fund nets, gym equipment, a new canteen and a minibus for the Academy. Pretty basic stuff I wouldn’t expect a fans group to be having to put their hands in their pockets for...

Remember talking to some young lads at Doncaster, probably 17 to 21 year olds. Of course, I was delighted that night, and I enjoyed the season touring around the country on some novel away days, but relieved too that we made a swift exit, didn’t bear thinking about getting stuck in League 1. Those lads weren’t just happy, it was ‘the best day of their life’, that team were absolute heroes to them. Their reaction bemused me initially, but then again success and glory for your football club is all relative.

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.