cesus

Always liked Spurr and came across as a very good pro. The lad hasn’t seemed to have had any luck with injuries in the last few years, I’ve seen him in Clitheroe a few times over the last year or so and he always seemed to be walking really badly. Hope he isn’t damaged too badly long term!

I would absolutely love something like this. It is actually something that would tempt me back to Ewood after missing the last two seasons (having had a season ticket for 20+ years before hand). I work shifts and the thought of missing a game but getting a ticket back to use for my Dad for a game I could attend would really appeal. Even a 15 game season ticket would be great (at a slightly higher % rate than a full season ticket) would probably appeal too. Obviously the 15 game ticket would probably be business suicide as the majority may go for that, but I simply do not get value from a season ticket from a personal point of view and popping down to Ewood for a single game here and there has led me to attend 3 times in 2 seasons as I’ve simply got out of the habit.

Danny Murphy has ruined any faith I’ll ever have in signing older players. I hope Downing (if it happens) restores some faith but the Murphy signing absolutely stank.

Agree with this, also think Rudy Gestede must owe him a few beers for all the assists he got for him when here, leading to the wages Rudy must have earned since leaving here!

The anger shown by Rovers fans today is the same as what was shown by Bury fans the other day when Holt spouted off. Dangerous game this man of the people twitter lark!

I have to admit I’ve followed Holt on twitter for ages and have always loved the insight into the game warts and all but lately his posts are bordering on embarrassing for wanting back slaps and “sticking it to the man”. Holt has not grasped yet that football clubs follow the same unwritten rules as family they may drive you mad and cause you all sorts of woe but nobody else is allowed to tell you they have done wrong!!!

Stanley like to get the ball down and play football, Smallwood would genuinely struggle in that set up. A huge reason they are spending circa of £400k on the pitch this summer is to curb the cancellations but as much so they can play their game.

I often toy with the idea of the club literally going for broke with pricing to answer any doubts about attendances. For the ease of maths 10k @ £200 is the exact same amount as 20k @ £100. The club could be transparent and say we are doing this to tempt back fans, encourage new fans and reward existing fans. If it doesn’t work and the club is worse off the pricing strategy will revert to original pricing the following season. A problem does obviously arise when a tiered season on season price rise comes in, but the hope obviously has to be the experience has made fans want to come back season after season and pay a little more. More footfall will surely bring in higher revenue, as the vast majority of matchday items for sale have huge mark ups and also more footfall encourages bigger advertisement revenue in the ground etc.

I think he made a few appearances for Stanley in the Checkatrade Trophy, I seem to remember they had a few wallopings in the games he played in.

Thanks for the detailed info, much appreciated ... I still don’t want to buy a football club!

I suppose when times fall very grim (now!) you start to look back and pick holes in the considered "successful" past of a managers record. Was last season as good as it could have been? We didn't completely take the league by storm with the biggest financial clout and certainly didn't destroy every team in our way. A lot of last season was mirrored by actually winning games against some awful competition and a magnificent social media campaign that had fans feeling we had our club back. This run doesn't look like ending because we keep trying the same things that don't work, you just don't feel like the manager feels any pressure due to distant owners and his mate being the Chief Exec.

It’s complete and utter madness. I always say if I had £100m and Venkys gave me the club debt free, my cash would run out before the club could self sustain, how as fans can we ask people to spend that money. Some long hard questions need to asked of how much is being taken out of the game by players, managers and agents.

Jeepers!! £187 in wages for every £100 of income. Venkys have “spent” over a quarter of a billion quid. £108m in loans and £147m in shares ... madness! Football is crazy!

Another thread on same topic.

I don’t think it helps who was in the picture to be honest, of all the players in the squad we had the most woefully under performing player of the season and a fantastic player that fans feel doesn’t have the right attitude to make good of his undoubted talent. Had the picture been of say Danny Graham, id personally think he has busted his balls all season and deserves a break. Footballers are spoilt babies and cancelling this break would have been counterproductive and if anything would have been seen as “giving into the fans” by players. I regularly listen to the John Parkin and Chris Brown podcasts and they talk of the mentality of players and fans relationship to time off and going out drinking , if you are winning it’s team building if you are losing it’s taking the piss but it’s the same players having the same down time win or lose.

Agreed, he needs dropping for his own benefit. I don’t ever want to see a goalkeeper look as lost as Jake Kean did in the end so for his own sake Raya needs taking out of the firing line.

At least we completed our away day checklist - Awful goals conceded. Raya concedes a howler.

Is it “devaluing” the product long term though. In the 90s as a School kid in Accy I got free/ cheap tickets through school and became a season ticket holder for 20 years. A massive problem is that we employ people in Waggotts role who have to get short term results and hammering loyal fans is a freebie. Joys of modern football hey!

I’ve always thought Hyndburn in terms of Gt Harwood and Rishton was Rovers, but in Accy I always found it to be a far closer mix but swinging towards the “higher achieving” of Rovers and Burnley amongst the young. I do believe that Stanley are actually hurting Rovers, as I strongly believe that a good percentage of their increase in fan base has come from fans walking away from their own clubs rather than being new to attending football matches. I strongly believe that Rovers should be doing all they can to pull in the young, as others have said get hundreds of tickets out to the schools every game. I simply cannot see how it cannot make money if as little as 2-5% take attending Rovers more regularly. I think that a good number of our fan base have gone long term/ forever, can you really blame them? Football is an absolute mess, as a football club whether we want to admit it or not we are on life support. We need somebody (like pretty much all clubs outside the top 5 premier teams) to fund the club as a huge loss making venture, not so we can see great football and be vastly entertained but so footballers, agents, managers and Sky can get richer. I understand why fans are broken, as life gets harder for people the rich want to get richer and inexplicably they want more brass from Joe on the street to fund it through higher ticket prices, higher in stadium food and beverage prices and higher Sky tariffs.

My bad, I’ve been wrongly informed. It’s £110k per month. Still eye watering really!

I’m still absolutely astounded that the guy is on £120k p/w at Chelsea! He declared it on his court papers over a driving offence.

Exactly, lack of effort and imagination seems to flow when it comes to the Ewood experience. I know a lot of people don’t bother with a pint but I’d say a hell of a lot of people who don’t attend have found other things to do on a Saturday and a chunk of them may well go and enjoy a few beers. If you can enjoy a few decent quality beers at the football before and after the game with friends or family the game kinda falls into the background and the “day out” is the important thing. I actually think the club should be trying small things to bring back hundreds of season ticket holders just as much as the headline cut price ticket deals to tempt thousands of walk ons.

I remember a few years ago, might have even been during the premiership years they had a wainwright stand at the back of the Riverside. I often went and had 3 or 4 pints, then a pie. The stand disappeared after not too long and I haven’t bought a pint at Ewood since as it’s all over priced rubbish. I do often think that having a proper set up of decent beer in the fan zone would be profitable, Burnley do it, Stanley do it. We seem to just offer beer that has the highest mark up and nothing on the real ale front. Our nearest geographical rivals seem to have deals with Bowland Brewery for good beer, why can’t we?

I have to admit of late I've seen two instances when I would expect team mates to "step in", yesterday Smallwood was surrounded by Sheff Utd players after his challenge and I would expect even for mind game purposes our players to front them up and say "we are up for this fight" it didn't happen and the rest of the game certainly proved we didn't fancy the fight! Also when Birmingham scored their penalty, Raya did some messing around with the ball and he was barged by their lads and not one of ours backed him up. Little battles and mind games are not being contested which I find hard to swallow if I'm being honest.

Teams pay huge sums to analysts to come up with ways of winning. Yet most people on here could tell you how to beat us - We tire dramatically after 65 mins leaving huge gaps. Attack our useless left backs. Swing balls into the box as we seem to have an inability to defend crosses. Slide passes between the centre half and full backs they don’t have a clue what to do! If you get one keep coming at us as we won’t stop wobbling. I’m so pissed off at making the same woeful mistakes.