The ‘attendance’ will be 11,000 on Tuesday. Near freezing and blustery is the forecast, so a real crowd of 7/8 (thousand, not hundred).

Then great, I look forward to it.

And? He can’t have both?

Stoke have the biggest budget in the league and they are trying to stay out of the third division. It’s not as simple as you seem to make it, otherwise why bother competing? As you can see throughout this league with some of the clubs towards the top and bottom, and the one above with Sheff Utd riding high.

No idea why I expect it? Because it’s the very least he deserves, and the fans, you know, the lifeblood of the club expect it! A club in tune with its fanbase would’ve have been proactive. You happy with a training pitch in Langho then? Probably, we certainly aren’t a football club that I can recognise in that famous quote of Bobby Robson these days.

Nobody else think the club missed a trick in not just announcing a Riverside re-naming there and then? So much goodwill in the ground, and all week, Tony as guest of honour, his name being chanted to the rafters as he emerged from the tunnel. Never mind. I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt and they want to sort out the signage etc. first...

Ah budget top trumps. I’d wager we’ve had a considerably bigger wage bill and transfer pot than Brentford and PNE this past couple of years, so I look forward to hurtling past both of them in the table by May...

Last minute, Downing whipped in a cracking cross around the 6 yard box, BB was right there, didn’t even attempt to jump for the header.

4 home games in Feb starting today plus an away game at struggling Charlton (Brentford away next week is obviously a real tough one). Now or never to make a run...

My memory just ‘sparked’ into life too...

A happy medium... get a thousand or so home fans back in the Darwen End in way of a singing section... over to you Waggott

Totally disagree on the Darwen End, apart from the terrible aesthetics of having a vast bank of 5000 empty seats at an end of the ground (no other club in the league has anything similar size wise, even those with an empty bottom tier) the atmosphere for US, the home side has decreased with no away fans to bounce off. How about a home atmosphere putting pressure on the ref? Which is usually what happens at home games for clubs. The whole thing is a nonsense anyway as they have now started putting pay on the day away fans in the bottom anyway, so Wigan for example had as nearly as many fans in the bottom tier as the upper! So what’s the point?

Selling your top talent for that kind of money is a false economy, how do you replace them? As you aren’t getting like for like from the Academy or in the transfer maket if you are spending pennies. So, loans, as we’ve seen with Raya. How do we then improve (which surely is the whole point) if we aren’t getting proper value for our star players? Makes the whole ‘model’ a waste of time.

Armstrong, forgot about him! Young, English and a goal scorer. He’d be the one to attract an over-inflated fee.

But who’s being sold for any decent amount? Dack was the golden egg. Oh sorry, it’s Buckley for 8 figures! But no, in the real world, who would we be getting anything particularly substantial for? Travis, Lenihan or Nyambe are the only candidates and are they going to fetch anything ‘significant’, in reality?

With the top 6 opening up, if we’d have been playing a bottom half side I’d be near certain of not picking up 3 points. Against the better sides at Ewood we often raise our game, so who knows.

Great result for the chasing pack...

https://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/sport/18215285.rovers-fanzine-4-000-holes-celebrates-milestone-edition/ Piece in the LT on it, which is great publicity... yet they drop this clanger The 1989 play off final second leg at Palace is probably one of most infamous ever games!

I know they aren't confined to ST holders, that’s the point I was making, such meetings need a cross-section and why Miller (a boycotter) had every right to be there.

Sounds great, but he is a million miles of the required standard currently. Needs games at a lower level, to build up sharpness and confidence.

I suppose those two never coached/managed the team and became Bobby Charlton style ‘club ambassadors’, but still!

Fair enough. Still dreadful from what I can see and I’m right next to the loudest bunch!

Has there? There’s a pocket of lads near me in N01 and that’s about it. Of course if it goes back to being 300 hardy souls in the Darwen End then you’re right and there’s no point bothering. However, if they properly engage the fans and promote it, like Huddersfield, like Reading etc and get 1000+ in there, with flags, banners etc then it will make a difference.

How on earth would Clayton and Douglas not fulfil the criteria?! Douggie is a Blackburner, a Rovers fan, was a top England international but still spent his whole career at the club and is still at every single game at a ripe old age. Ronnie was England captain and also spent his whole professional career at Rovers (carried on in non league for a couple of years). He then spent every game at Ewood with Douggie and ran the ground tours for years. Too right they qualify!

As in an audience consisting solely of the Birdy’s of this world, or even the likes of me, I never thought about stopping going even in the dark period of 2012. But Birdy and I aren’t representative of the entire fanbase.