That is very interesting Stuwilky, but unfortunately a lot of people can't get season tickets due to changing shifts from week to week. I work a lot of weekends and late nights during the week so a season ticket for me is not an option. I can't help thinking though, what if the club took a radical approach and made season-tickets such a incredibly massive saving that EVERY Rovers fan would want to get one - even those like myself that couldn't get to every game. Like offering Adult season-tickets for £220 in all areas (and give the away supporters the Riverside) - works out about £11 a game. That would represent EXCELLENT value for money and even if you could only get to half the home games, you are still only really paying £22 which is still cheap compared to other clubs. With such massive savings, not only the fans would benefit but the club would benefit in the following ways; a) A massive uplift in season-ticket sales. I for one would buy one. b ) Doesn't matter if people don't turn up - we've already got their money upfront. c) No outside influences affecting ticket sales - Sky dates/kick off times would not matter, or indeed the clubs performances could not affect sales in a negative way. d) Advertising our season tickets everywhere at ONLY £11 A GAME (!) would surely attract new fans and make old fans dust off their cobwebs.

I'd say the price factor is probably the main reason why people are choosing to sit in the pubs and watch the games. The issue is simple with me - if I can easily afford it and I can get to the game I will go. Many of the people who now sit in the pubs (even in the Ewood area) are only doing so because they can have a full days entertainment with their mates, watch the game, and get something to eat on the way home for the same price that they would pay for watching 90 minutes of a football match. But like MrsJansen says, it's happening all over the country, and it's going to have to take a club like ours to put a stop to it. I'd say that if your paying anything over £30 for a football ticket (unless it's a particularly special fixture like a cup final/semi etc) then you are paying over the odds. I know what your getting at there Thenodrog, and as much as we all hate to say it, Lancashire United will surely happen someday. That is of course, unless the club acts with their pricing policy before the fans act with their feet. Maybe it's too late???

Paul I think you are sort of half-right there. Surely even if the Premiership's quality was to be reduced overall, there would still be a similar demand for the games??? For example, the millions of Manchester United and Liverpool fans that couldn't attend every game, would still be willing to fork out for the games if they were on Sky? I agree that costs need to be addressed though. At the end of the day, say there are 700 truly world class football players (I just picked a figure out of the air here), after the big foreign clubs had had their pick of the best, the players themselves would eventually find that if they wanted to play football on a weekly basis they would have to move to England albeit on less money. I suppose we'd end up with a situation much like there is in Germany - some quality players playing in big stadiums, but as soon as the rich foreign clubs come along the players have to make that choice (first team football vs. big pay packet). I really do think though that if the clubs all get together, they will have enough power to simply say 'no' to the greedy players/agents. Without the football clubs the players will have no choice but to accept whatever is on the table.

Thenodrog - I honestly believe that's the way it's going now. Obviously a lot of people can still afford the ludicrous prices that are being charged. If they want to pay that then fine - it's their choice. But with our club we have seen a dramatic fall in attendances and it makes no sense to me that our club is charging the same prices as the big boys, even though we don't play the same attacking football or even have the same fan-base to begin with! I feel at Rovers we could really attract people towards supporting our club by offering cheaper tickets - cheaper than the rest of the Premiership. If you were a football fan in the Manchester/Lancashire area and (assuming no pre-meditated allegiances) you were looking for a football club to support, why would you choose Blackburn Rovers? We have to be able to offer something that the likes of Manchester United, Liverpool, Bolton, Burnley, Preston etc cannot - and for me a major selling point would be Premiership football at the lowest prices. I am absolutely certain that if we offered tickets at £25 in all areas against Chelsea (not just restricted view tickets in the Riverside) then we could have bumped our gate by an extra 2000 at least. So we may have lost slightly in ticket sales, but when you add up all the sales generated through club merchandise sales on the day and catering sales on the day, my guess is that we wouldn't be far off. So we'd lose out slightly in short-term finances, but we'd gain in keeping existing fans/customers happy and go a long way in attracting new ones. I don't know whether this would work in reality as it does in theory, but it would certainly make it refreshing to see the club actively seeking ways to lower ticket prices and look after the fans that it already has, instead of trying to make a quick dollar from visiting supporters of the larger away teams.

Hold on a minute. We obviously have different opinions on what a supporter actually is here. OK, so I may not be giving massive financial support to Rovers, but by attending Sheffield Utd away I am offering my vocal support. I have never supported another club. It's like saying I supported Burnley just because I went to our game at the Turd in 2000. Don't talk wet. I went to that game because I, like many others, wanted to cheer my team onto victory in a game against our local rivals, not because I wanted to donate £20 to the BFC trust. I will tell you Jan that I had reached my limit. Don't tell me that you have never bought something and then immediately had a feeling of regret? However, I had the opportunity to still see the match and save the money, and therefore be able to go and SUPPORT my team in another game. Everyone knows that if a game is on Sky, the attendance will be affected (unless the club is able to sell out regardless i.e. Man Utd, Liverpool, Newcastle, Everton etc). And why is this? It's because people just want to watch their team and if they can do so by watching it in the pub and saving themselves £40 in the process, then it's all good! People with a bit of money to spend may not be able to see where I coming from, but I'm a young lad with a killer mortgage and saving up to start a family. I desperately want to go on EVERY game played by the Rovers, but sometimes there comes a point where you just have to say no. I had accepted the fact that I was going to have to part with my £37, but if someone then practically offers you a refund with the offer of watching on the telly, then that is just too good to turn down. It's not laziness, it's not a lack of dedication, it's simply looking after myself before I go to a game that I can't really afford just in the name of 'loyalty'.

Fool. I make life decisions SG194, and no matter what i buy if I suddenly find that I can get the same or something very near to the same for much less, I will most likely cancel my original purchase. Obviously there are exceptions, such as the cup final game for example, or the matches against the dingles. If money is no object to you, then I would say fair enough I know where you are coming from on this. If I am so wrong, then why did we only get 19000 on for a game against the champions?

Laziness? That doesn't even come into it. At the end of the day I just want to watch my team - ideally in the flesh but sometimes I have to settle for watching on the TV. I would have loved to go on Ewood for the match, but the simple fact of the matter is that it was too expensive. You're right, I did pay the £37 - but didn't cancel the ticket because I couldn't be arsed going! I cancelled the ticket because I found out that I could watch the game for free. It also meant that I would be able to attend another match against Sheff Utd that I otherwise wouldn't have had any chance of seeing. Is that so hard to understand or accept??? Many people who are working to budgets have to pick and choose their games, especially when they are coming so close together. It all boils down to greedy players and greedy clubs run by greedy businessmen. Now I'm not saying for one minute that this is the case at Rovers, but unfortunately to stay competitive clubs like ours have to charge top whack for tickets. Of course it doesn't help when supporters are blinded by their loyalty and dedication to their club. It's not like it was in the old days - you now have to choose between football and taking the family out, or choose between an away trip to Portsmouth or a holiday! It's getting rediculous and whilst some people may have yet to have reached their personal limit, many have already reached theirs. Jan - I ask you this; at what point would you come to my way of thinking and agree that football no longer represents value for money??? £45 a ticket? £60 a ticket?......

Ignoring the way he went down, there is no arguing the fact that it was a definite penalty. We should have had one too though.

Fool. The point I'm trying to make is supported by exactly the way you responded. Whilst some people accept being taken for mugs and are happy to pay ever-increasing ticket prices, some of us refuse to pay more than we can afford for an hour and a halfs entertainment. I'm not being ripped off by anyone - be it my football club or my local supermarket etc. Everyone has their personal limits, and attendance figures of recent years indicate that those limits may have already been reached. I heard recently that you can go watch AC Milan from as little as £8, and this is a club who can sell out. Obviously I'm not proud of the fact that I didn't go on the match today or indeed cancel my ticket, but don't you think the club should take notice of situations like this. At the end of the day, the only people that can make any difference in the game is the clubs themselves, and it is upto the fans to let their clubs know what they think.

What do you expect for £36 a ticket??? I don't know about you SG194, but I go to watch the Rovers rather than the opposition. I'll tell you a story here. I actually bought a ticket for the Chelsea game on Thursday. I paid my £37 (£1 booking fee remember) for a seat in the Blackburn End as close as I could get to my brother (who has a season-ticket). Twenty minutes later, I was watching SkySports news and saw that the game was to be televised. I picked up the phone, rang the ticket office and asked for my purchase to be cancelled. I just wonder how many fans chose not to buy tickets because the game was on Sky??? I ended up watching the match in the local pub and probably spent just over a fiver on beer. What is the sense in charging ludicrous prices for matches that; a) Are unlikely to sell-out anyway. Chelsea may be the champions, but they don't exactly entertain and have the same pulling power as Man Utd, Arsenal or Liverpool. b ) Is on offer for FREE elsewhere (ie Sky). c) A game that is most likely to end in defeat when the team is already performing poorly. If the tickets had have been say, £20/25 I probably would have decided against cancelling my ticket. But when you add up all the costs involved in going to watch a game of football, it just isn't worth it. For some people todays game will have cost them a days pay. SG194 - I would guess that the attendances will be HIGHER for those games than that of today's game simply because of the lower prices charged. And before anyone starts to question my loyalty, commitment etc, I will be going to Sheffield on Saturday.

I'm sure Arsenal only won 2-1 at Ewood in the relegation season. Damien Johnson scored for us if I remember rightly. One of the worst goals for me was Christian Dailly's own goal against Man City in THAT game at Ewood on the final day of the season. I'm sure the world went into slow motion when Dailly was desperately trying to catch up to that ball - and then the pandemonium in the Jack Walker Stand as I was surrounded by about 5000 City fans. Yeah - that was pretty bad.

Rovers 1 - 0 Chelsea Reid thunderbolt. 22000 on Ewood. Bring It On.

Marv have you got a link that works?

I'd be looking at a back four of; Gray Zurab Ooijer Emerton In my opinion Zurab looks our best defender at the moment, Ooijer's experience will be vital against Chelsea, Gray keeps his place only because we have inadequate cover and Emerton can build on a solid performance against Everton. Put Todd on the bench for a game or two, and give the captains armband to Savage - let our captain lead by example. Or in a dream world, we could go all out against Chelsea and shock them; Ped McCarthy Roberts Peter Reid Savage Bentley Zurab Ooijer Emerton Friedel

It was a strange one by the ref, if he booked Thatcher that must mean he saw the incident. If he saw the incident, then surely under the laws of the game, it warranted nothing except a straight red card. If he didn't see the incident, then he shouldn't have booked him - simple as. Hmmm, I think Mendes' head isn't the only one that should be rolling here.

Agreed. Whilst I'm all for footballers showing aggression, hard-tackling and a never-say-die attitude, this was something like you'd find in a pub in Colne on a Friday night. Maybe a six-month ban would be tad harsh - not in terms of the offence committed, but more so in terms of previous action taken in respect to similar incidents. I think an eight game ban would be more appropriate. A fine would be insignificant to the player, and in my opinion the club shouldn't suffer financially (or otherwise) because of the actions of one player. I think maybe Ben Thatcher and Andy Todd should do one of those celebrity deathmatch thingys.

Do we know the attendance yet? Sounds pretty quiet on the radio, but then again I suppose it always does.

By all accounts Alan Mahon is really doing the business down at shyteville. Always quite liked the guy, but was unlucky that we basically saw him as cover for Duff who didn't get injured and was probably our best player at the time. I think Bumley are playing him in the middle though.

Pompey 1 - 1 Rovers Big Bad Benni for the Rovers.

Rovers 1 - 1 NZ

The simple fact of the matter is that I am not going to the game for £36. If it was £25 I would be going. Given the average earnings of the area, the fact that it is against arguably inferior opposition, and the fact that we are to play the champions the week after, I think many people are in the same boat as me. I don't pick and choose my games though - it's simply a matter of whichever I can get to, I normally go (I work most weekends). However, I refuse to be ripped off just in the name of 'loyalty'.

I think that it possibly only the issue of support that prevents us being viewed as a big club. A full house creates a cracking atmosphere, and whilst I'm under no illusions that charging a fiver less will bring tens of thousands extra into the stadium, I do think it is becoming more and more of an issue for fans. I'm not going to that game because it is too much. Simple as. It's not a question of loyalty, commitments, weather etc - it's money. In it's most simple of examples: 24000 people paying £25 each = £600k (which is a very realistic and achievable attendance) 18000 people paying £36 each = £648k (which is a more probable attendance at present) Now of course there's issues regarding concessions etc where we may not actually hit these figures, but the general gist of my argument is that a few grand more is hardy anything, compared with a fuller stadium, a cracking atmosphere, more likelihood of a result, and most importantly no more embarrassment over our attendances. Gav - you say money is what attracts the players we have (or have had). Well maybe Bellamy would have stayed if we were getting 31,000 on Ewood everyweek!!! I ask you all this. Which would you rather us have; a team that had overpaid superstars, half-full stadium and a ticket-policy that priced you out of going to support them anyway, OR, a more mediocre-looking squad, a near-full stadium and a ticket policy that encouraged new fans and allowed you to go and watch your team whenever you wanted?

Just been on the official site to check out the prices for the first home game against Everton. In what's likely to be a poor game, with a bumper 'first home game' attendance anyway, with maximum away travel AND the fact that it's against one of our North-West rivals, why do the club make this fixture an A+ Category game??? An adult ticket in the Blackburn End now costs £36 apparently. And before anyone else says it, yes I know "we are one of the cheapest sides to watch in the Premiership" and that I could be forking out £50 to go and watch my team if I live in London. It's a poor do when going to watch your team every week costs more each month than your food and utility bills put together.

I did yeah, thanks mate. I ended up taking to yet another computer shop but this time they rang me up within a couple of hours and told me that I had a dodgy CPU or something. Anyway, they wiped the computer clean but touch wood it has been sorted for about three weeks now. Thanks everyone for their help and suggestions!

The game at Turd Moor had far more of an impact for me. The game at Ewood was always going to be ours, it was merely a matter of how many. The game at the Turd was VERY tense and the fact that it was an away game in front of all the dingles......so very sweet.