Mattyblue

I’d say it’s more that they know they can make a quick buck from 7500 Leeds and Preston fans over the long term graft of increasing home numbers.

I’m taking about if PNE only bring say 4500 instead of 7500 due to it being 12pm and red button. Having second division matches at £30 shows there is little appetite for big home gates.

It seems that non 3pm weekend matches also being on the red button took clubs by surprise this season (maybe read the small print in future!), so it will be interesting to see if these nook kick offs carry on next season.

I’ve noticed that since they’ve been brought back downstairs, away fans have now been moved from the traditional away half of the Darwen End to the Riverside half. I imagine Caley wants a 3,000 seat buffer zone between the visitors and the couple of dozen folk in the corner of the Jack Walker.

Joint most long balls with bottom of the league Ipswich (and joint least crosses).

It could’ve been an embarrassing crowd against Preston. As if their form hadn’t picked up coupled with red button coverage they wouldn’t have fetched many and we certainly won’t be selling many at around £30. And it would’ve served Waggott right. With their current form though I imagine they now will get close to filling the Darwen End.

Happy for him to stay, but the sheer volume of players out of position is reaching farcical levels for me. Bennett not a right back. Mulgrew and Rodwell together doesn’t work as both of them are converted. Reed rarely plays centrally, Brereton, well! Armstrong not a winger, though his pace can make him effective in certain games. He’s had Dack playing as a ‘false 9’. Far too clever for his (and the team’s) own good. Let’s just get back to basics for Christ sake.

Villa/West Brom 3pm last weekend. Rovers V Bolton 5.30pm at their place, 3pm here on Easter Monday. 5600 Rovers at PNE - 3pm, reverse fixture noon. What is the story? I thought it was that there was some agreement that if a club got over 5,000 tickets at Ewood, Rovers and the police agreed it had to kick off at 12pm on ‘safety grounds’. Is that not the case and Rovers have just unilaterally changed it?

The club is just consistently behind the times. From simple things like having Fosters and John Smith’s as your drink choice to not embracing the fast emerging fan culture in areas like singing sections. Areas we innovated in like radio station, in house TV all gone. The ground itself is massively in need of a deep clean. Often feels we are still operating in the 90s - but a stripped down version.

It would be a barm o’er Preston way.

You lot sang I could see that, but due to numbers in later seasons you couldn’t really be heard. Not your fault, just a fact due to dwindling numbers.

Nobody in N01 does that! I hear them as I’m adjacent to them. I sat in the Jack Walker for the Bristol City game and I could hear N01 then too. End of the day the atmosphere will always be poor with so many empty seats, the few dozen singing on the Darwen End made no difference to that.

Surely the performance was the cause of that?

Instead of giving up, why not and try and open a dialogue with the club for a PROPER singing section...

I’m next to NO1 and they sing a fair bit from where I am. The DE could’ve stayed open for me, but unless you were one of the few dozen singing in it, you couldn’t hear anything in the rest of the ground, so a bit of a stretch to say the atmosphere’s got worse. It will always be pretty poor with 18,000 empty seats.

Nothing wrong with it for non season ticket holders, don’t think they promote it/utilise it enough.

Doesn’t look like it’s sold out and it’s been on sale a good while, in both good and bad runs of form. Probably shows just how few folk are left in the 1875 club...

Only needs 1 question for east Lancs folk, the one that we all answered with ‘teacake!’

Forest thoughts... http://www.forestforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=45494&page=127

Seems obvious to long standing, committeed season ticket holders like us. But many fans don’t have that same level of commitment so are happy to pay their Sky subs and watch any available game on TV, whilst maybe taking in an odd game at Ewood.

Can the last one be re-written? I’m happy for him to stay currently, but I’m not sure I would say he’s doing ‘great’.

Mowbray always talks up his man management credentials, ‘good human beings’ and all that. He needs to follow up on the talk with this lad. Because for me he’s not in a good place. His head has completely gone for what I can see, no confidence at all and just basic standards of proficiency you’d expect any pro footballer to have, even if it’s just instinct, have disintegrated. I look at it this way, if he was from the academy he wouldn’t be anywhere near the squad, nevermind staring back to back games, he’s obviously starting games because of the fee, not because he’s pushing for it. For the good of the lad and the team he needs removing from the squad immediately before this ‘investment’ is damaged beyond repair (if it isn’t already).

I would think you are correct as more and more of our match going support resides outside of the town. Looking at the demographics of Blackburn that trend will only continue.

‘Bring a friend...’ deals never work, especially not for TV games. Daft idea.

Partly the reason, but also clubs like Norwich, Sheff Utd etc are getting much bigger gates than they did 20 years ago, we are not.