Mattyblue

Awful game? Was it hell! Two committed teams, and I’ve not been prouder of a Rovers side for years.

85 miles? Which route do you take?

Ribble Valley somewhere, wasn’t it?

Oh I think they’ve every chance for top 6, they’ve been knocking on the door for a while, but are they top 2 material? Are they as swashbuckling as Fulham were? With players as good as Cairney, Mitrovic and Sessegnon? Not sure myself.

He was comparing them to Fulham last season, apart from residing in the west of London, can’t see that comparison myself...

Decent enough side, but a few top half Championship finishes instead of their usual lower leagues existence and their fans seem to think they are some kind of purveyors of the beautiful game: http://www.griffinpark.org/forums/showthread.php?t=130677

I do find the Championship generally far more interesting than the PL, much more evenly matched - an actual competition in which a load of clubs start the season hoping for success and not mere survival. However, where do I want Blackburn Rovers to be? For £100 million reasons, the Premier League.

I’d say the ref let plenty go, which I don’t mind, well apart the hack on Rothwell that sent him six foot in the air.

Not the reason according to their official site: ‘The above fixtures have been moved to aid the team’s recovery and alleviate fixture congestion.’ https://www.bcfc.co.uk/news/changes-to-city-s-championship-calendar/

Tidy enough side Brentford and our relentless attitude out of possession may have subdued them, but I’m not sure they are this good, Mowbray quote: ‘The manner of it - playing against a really good football team. A team that I'm pretty sure will finish in the top six, if not in the top two, come the end of the season. ‘

No arguments there!

We need to remember what damage the Coyle debacle did. We lost 3,000 season ticket holders in one summer on the back of his appointment - meaning a standard crowd with a low away support was just passing 10,000. That standard crowd is now 12,000, not brilliant but it’s 2k up, perhaps it would have been more without a 17% hike in prices. This team derserves more undoubtably, but we need to remember how low our base was after McDonut and how it is so easy to lose fans but how bloody hard it is to get them back.

End of the day, Mowbray made the decision to make a then 20/21 year old his first choice - as good as he is, it’s very young for a keeper. So, unfortunately we will see him make mistakes, the Blackburn Rovers of old would probably still have him out on loan somewhere, but we aren’t that club anymore and we will just have to watch him develop whilst in the first team.

‘Rovers fans need a scapegoat’ Rovers fans are no different than any other set of fans. Some players get an easier ride than others, but it is usually due to their historical performance.

It’s an interesting one, because I imagined our crowd would be lower, but I think winter rounds will be terrible. It may even hit season tickets next season, once folk get used to every night match being on TV, plus the handful of our weekend home games that are live, and fans will always have certain weekend games throughout a season they can’t get to for one reason or another, people may think ‘is my season ticket worth it when I miss some anyway and I can watch a third of them on TV?’

It’s banned and rightly so for me, if it gets to the stage where even 3pm Saturday games are legally available then crowds really will nosedive.

Aye, I imagine that 'Mill Hill New Order' flag that I've seen knocking about is part of that.

It's one bloke's opinion on a messageboard, how does that make Raya a scapegoat?

True Faith

Or the club could send it down and have it ready for you to collect at Bristol City’s ticket office, they are usually very helpful with this kind of stuff.

The ground is what it is size wise, I was talking hypothetically for debate. If we were building a new ground today, looking at the catchment area and demographics would we build one with 31,000+ seats? I’d wager not, we’d go smaller but maybe with an option to extend it, like Brighton did, started with around 22k and extended it as they improved on the pitch, up to 30,000+ when in the PL, fair enough, no?

As a season ticket holder, I wouldn’t be missing out and a bit more demand to the supply can only be a good thing. Yes it was in 2009, down to the novelty of £199 STs, PL football and an average of around 3,000 away fans, it soon dropped off though. We haven’t had a higher average crowd than 26k since we were reigning champions, so let’s extend my hypothetical new ground’s capacity to 26k just to cover all possible eventualities. The reality is Blackburn Rovers do not need a 31,000 stadium, and pretty much every fan I’ve ever met knows it, well apart from you philipl by the looks of it.

Sorry? A one off game with cheap tickets (still not sold out mind) celebrating promotion does not mean we need a ground of 31,000 when we’ve had thousands of empty seats most weeks for twenty years. 25,000 would be plenty as it would still mean 22/23,000 home seats, if required - how many occasions since the ground was built have we needed more? Seems an eminently sensible post to me.

For the present club easily. Though Burnley have proved that crowds double overnight with a promotion to the PL. If we were moving to a new ground, an 18-20,000 ground, expandable if required, would be the way forward.

Always was, even in our heyday we rarely sold it out. For a club based in a town with the size and demographics of Blackburn, surrounded by other clubs, a ground of 25,000 would easily suffice.