Mattyblue

There’s nothing major we can do about it now, as I’ve said before, season ticket holders make up the vast majority of our support and he messed that up in the summer. I can only hope he’s a bit more innovative next summer, though I won’t hold my breath.

His old approach was to slag off the fans in the ground. He can’t do that anymore as the players are supported to the hilt. So just make up some nonsense about online chatter re the sack and Warnock and hey presto you can carry on with the narrative regardless...

Waggott on our crowds: https://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/sport/16977667.rovers-chief-executive-discusses-ewood-park-crowds/?ref=mac Sounds quite a petulant interview to me, he has no actual ideas to improve numbers from what I can see, just hoping that this ‘connection with the players’ will simply bring them back. We’ve lost 10,000 season ticket holders these past years, enormous numbers to shed for a club of our size. ’Does the club have a historical big support? I dont know’ Well how about you find out, it may give you a clue. As tomphil has said before, he just doesn’t get that we have a small, largely non affluent catchment area in the most competitive area in the country for professional clubs. John Williams got it, seems like this fella doesn’t. Poor stuff.

Behave Jim, the whole article is based on a premise that a section of the fan base want Mowbray out. It’s total nonsense.

‘Who cares?’ seems to be the approach.

Exactly K-Hod. The LT is still a powerful voice in east Lancs, a lot of folk use it as their main/only Rovers news outlet, so to read articles that paint the fan base in a negative outlet every week just pushes my buttons. As he often uses really minimal issues I.e a handful of idiots talking tripe on social media as the whole basis of his article.

Smith watch, the fool’s at it again. Using a couple of trolls on social media as a basis to have a go at the fans AGAIN, though he knows full well that Mowbray is the most universally respected manager we’ve had since Hughes. No idea why he continues with this nonsense nearly every week. Like I’ve said before it just reinforces this false view of ‘moaning Rovers fans’, when this team gets support win, lose or draw as their full bloodied effort is there for all to see. Dickhead. https://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/sport/16974755.our-aim-was-survival-it-has-already-been-upgraded-simon-smith/?ref=mac

I remember all too well the night we beat Liverpool, an appalling Liverpool who were just about to sack Hodgson hearing ‘Steve Kean’s Blue n white army’, I ended up having a row with folk around us, ‘he’ll have us playing proper football’. It was only when all the boardroom turmoil started emerging that such folk turned on him. But you are probably right oldjam, the ridiculous anti Sam nature of some fans just clouded all sense and judgement with them. Alarm bells should have been ringing loudly in their heads, if they liked Allardyce or not.

That aimless jog alongside our players last week as we powered forward for the goal just made me most happy that it’s not us subjected to it anymore.

Can’t find the post that said we waste a lot of our ticket promotions by choosing games with low interest. A good example was those ‘bring a mate’ games last season. One was a winter Monday night against Bury live on Sky - ergo little take up. There will be little, if any increase in the home areas against Leeds due to KO, red button, pricing etc. So why not make it one of the ‘local promotion’ games? You can still rip off the Leeds fans, but actually make it cheap for your own, a game floating fans would actually quite fancy. Big crowd and atmosphere, get folk back in the tent. Or just keep charging £30 in the Jack Walker. From the EFL website: Clubs are required to make any discounts or special promotions (in each case for one match only) available on a similar basis to visiting supporters, unless such matches are designated as ‘local promotions’. Local promotions are permitted up to four times throughout the season as per EFL regulations.

Every single non 3pm game has been on the red button so far this season. Sky are in their rights to show it, it will be on - bet they can’t believe their luck that they still get to show the one Leeds game in about 6 weeks they didn’t actually choose to broadcast! It’s all very disingenuous, if you read the Sky and paper press releases, they make no mention of ALL non 3pm games being on, just midweek: https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.skysports.com/amp/football/news/12040/11478037/every-midweek-sky-bet-championship-match-live-on-the-red-button-with-sky-sports However, the EFL statement from when the new TV deal was signed does talk about all matches outside the 3pm blackout being shown. https://www.efl.com/news/2017/september/efl-agree-new-five-season-broadcasting-deal-with-sky-sports/ So Rovers must have known about it, but were happy to gamble that Leeds and PNE would bring 7,000 fans regardless.

Considering the playing staff alone were probably worth more than the selling price, nevermind the club’s assets tells me they were caught with their pants down. Just shows how short sighted it was when TV revenues were rising exponentially. Watford, WATFORD!! are now valued at £350 million. Makes no odds to us, £20 or £200 million doesn’t mean a takeover will work out any better, but it serves those idiot Walkers right.

What was it John Williams used to say in the 2000s? ’you’ll never make money out of a Blackburn Rovers’ Bournemouth with their 10,000 crowds made a 14million profit last year .

£22 million for a Championship/League 1 club with average crowds of 8,000. What were Premier League stalwarts Blackburn Rovers sold for again?

Good a place as any: https://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/sport/16971551.rovers-open-contract-talks-with-mulgrew-and-evans/?ref=mac Evans and Mulgrew were signed at a time when we paid big wages for this level. Be interesting to see where the talks lead in these more sensible times. Generally some interesting stuff from Waggott, echoes a lot of what has been said on here about getting away from the need to completely re-build the squad every summer.

Noticed on Twitter that Rich Sharpe is doing a piece on attendances. Neal of this parish has already pointed him to this thread.

The Forest game wasn’t some kind of bumper gate, 12,400 home fans, a few hundred above other Saturday games so far this season.

I don’t think we can underestimate the job he’s done here. The club was a rudderless mess for years and for the first time since these owners emerged we seem to have a plan. Now you could say that Mowbray is just the team manager and it was those auditors that have made the penny drop, but we know how these owners seem to value personal relationships and TM has used this to his advantage, as an example he’s off to India again next month. We kept our best talent on relegation and he was allowed to add to it. He was then given the green light to spend decent money this summer. Results wise, been generally excellent and I’ve not seen a spirit and work ethic within the squad as good as this since Hughes’ ‘Bully Boys’. On a personal level I could listen to him all day, a real football man, who’s love of the game just bursts out of him, such a welcome change after some of the frauds and bullshit merchants we’ve had to put up with. Seeing top of the table Sheff Utd in the flesh last week, a club a year ahead of us in development shows that we do have a way to go, but I trust Mowbray to be the man to get us close, and I say this as someone who didn’t believe we’d ever see the promised land again. Sign him up!

Of course crowds improve with success on the pitch, there just won’t be 20,000+ Home fans turning up regularly in this league. They never have.

Every non 3pm. Like Bristol City away was.

As was Sheff Utd, £5. Other 20,000+ crowds had a big away following. Phil, get real. We were a completely different club in 2001, it’s like comparing apples and pears with that era, just a half dozen years after we were Champions of England and even then we still didn’t have 20,000 home fans turning up each week for a promotion season. So after the Venky decimating of our support we won’t be getting close to it with the fan base we have left. I would love nothing more then to see those numbers, but it just isn’t going to happen in this league. We don’t have the season ticket holders at present or enough fans who will pay the ridiculous match day prices. Now if Waggott can get a grip and build up season ticket numbers over time then we might get closer at some point, but it wouldn’t be this season even if we were up there.

And we’ve lost 10,000 season ticket holders since, many of whom will never be seen again, especially at this level, which is an enormous amount for a club with our fan base. Even in the 2001 promotion season when we still had a large chunk of the 90s support to draw from, we only usually topped 20,000 home fans with cheap ticket offers. It is just not realistic with 9 and a half thousand season ticket holders and ticket prices regularly edging towards £30 that we will pull in those kind of crowds. It will be a slow build to get anywhere close. Over to you Steve.

Is there any other club in this country that voluntarily changes their own kick off times, not to aid their own players or supporters in any way, but wholly to suit the away support?

The followings Sunderland are taking this season I’d say you have no chance for the away end. They had 5,000 at Coventry for a midday kick off on Sky. All a novelty for them.

This is an obscure message board, people are free to voice their opinions on the lad, that he’s shite, waste of money, whatever, it’s no going to affect his game one iota. What I do hope though is that whatever people’s views he gets encouragement at the ground, as price tag or not he’s a young kid learning his trade that needs support.