I’ve provided a playlist for every game since about January. Previously the club were using a very small pool of songs. In the early part of the season you’d often hear most of the same songs I provided for the fans takeover games being played on repeat. At one game they got someone external in as a one off to do the PA and he turned up with his decks and played World of Our Own by Westlife at the final whistle, after another crap result, which loads of people felt strongly enough about to email in complaints. Every home game there is almost an hour and a half of music to play before kick off. Most of it is played to a very small audience, but I’ve tried to stick to the general rule of thumb of never picking the same song twice (with one or two exceptions), and every game songs are played that are by local bands or supporters who are in the crowd. They won’t change the actual walk out music from that rubbish Red Hot Chilli Peppers rubbish, this was apparently picked by the players - I complain about this on a weekly basis, but I’m hoping that will be different next season. My biggest bugbear is that if my timings are slightly under they fill the gap with Thunderstruck by AC/DC which is about as generic and unimaginative a song as is possible to play - it’s Clitheroe’s (and almost every other non-league teams) walk out song for gods sake. Off the top of my head the following have all been played in the 15 minutes before kick off over the last few months… Oasis, Stone Roses, Metallica, Motörhead, New Order, Joy Division, Judas Priest, Faithless, Fatboy Slim, Basement Jaxx, Green Day, Status Quo, Hard-Fi, Charlatans, Kasabian, Led Zeppelin, Reverend and the Makers, Talking Heads, Bowie, Buzzcocks, Prodigy, The Clash, The Who, Shed Seven, Chemical Brothers, Thin Lizzy, James, K-Klass, Kiss, Dario G, Depeche Mode… As mentioned above, Hardcore Uproar was played against Newcastle, and in fact has been played every single time I’ve compiled a playlist this season. It’s THE Blackburn acid house tune and was basically born in Ewood Mill. The feedback on this has been really positive and it was trending on Twitter when it got played in the FA cup game. Another myth that still persists is that the version of Wild Rover by Morning Call still gets played. Well, at the start of the season this was accidentally deleted by someone at Rovers so they don’t even have a copy of it. I sit in the Riverside with the singer who has provided me with it, so if it does make a comeback you can blame/thank me. As for 2Unlimited as the walk out music, I’m not dying on that hill. During the build up on occasion, no bother.

You’ve got a very generous bookie offering 90/1 on that! Who is the bet with? Unfortunately the above scenario is a lot more likely than those odds would suggest.

Haven’t heard anything, just had discussions. This would be very disappointing.

“We love it when the away team bring a big following. Like Preston and Wrexham. There is really only an atmosphere when the away end is full. We want to play in front of a full house.” - Aynsley Pears. In that infamous meeting at the start of February. Gallagher and Hyam were in agreement.

Just witnessed a very good performance from the U21s who came back from 2 down to draw with Arsenal. I’d start Leo Duru on Saturday and have Nsangou on the bench.

Michalski Carter O’Riordon McFazdean Pickering JRC Tronstad Dolan Szmodics (c) Gilsenan Big Billy

Brilliant that. The perfect reaction. Great to see Carter back, he makes a big difference and for me is our best defender. I was very nervous when McFadzean came on but he was excellent today. JRC MOTM. You’d have to say that Eustace executed the perfect game plan today. With no excuses around P&S/FFP this summer we should be in a position to build a proper squad again based around things other than just “the numbers”. Obviously the cashflow and court case issues will be the biggest factor though unfortunately.

I think this is 10 or 11 games for Gallagher without a goal. That’s a drought to any normal striker, but with him it’s just what you come to expect. That substitution has me worried.

They clearly watched the midweek game and have decided to target us down our right hand side after seeing how calamitous Brittain and Hyam were. Carter has been left isolated out there a few times but fortunately stood up to everything pretty well. Gallagher offering absolutely nothing in their half. We’ve been sloppy with our passing when trying to break, but you can see the idea with that good chance Szmodics carved out. Still a long way to go and I’m not sure we can sustain this. Better than expected so far though.

5pm will be too late. 12:30 kick off so I’d get the number pinned by 12:45.

Pears JRC Carter Wharton Pickering Tronstad Garrett Dolan Szmodics Chrisene Gallagher Wahlstedt, Billy, O’Riordan, Buckley, Moran, Gilsenan, Tyjon, Duru, Markanday

We have had a lot of discussions over the past couple of years about making a significant reduction to ticket prices but it’s always been countered with the need to hit a revenue target that Venky’s have set. They don’t believe that a big reduction would improve sales enough for them to still meet that figure and have dismissed the idea in previous years. I should also point out that we first pitched our ideas for next season to them months ago, before the transfer window debacle and the complete collapse of our form. We’ve continued to have discussions and since pointed out that they ought to be expecting a significantly bigger drop off in renewals than they have seen for the past couple of years, and that they need to think about doing something drastic to mitigate this before they start thinking about attracting new season ticket holders or re-engaging with lapsed ones.

Not sure how the two worst culprits by far survived the half time cull

We paid something in that region. I presume recouping the fee would form part of our compensation, but there’d only be about 15 grand on top.

Compensation fee. A pittance.

Tyjon is wanted by Man City, so giving him some first team exposure is about the best way we can persuade him to stay when we can’t offer him a pro deal yet. Telalovic hasn’t proven to be much of an option so I’d rather give this lad some minutes.

I’m not sure of any initial fees, but Rovers do get a percentage of concourse sales. Don’t quote me on it but I think it’s a third.

Obviously success on the pitch is the main driver and the only thing that will significantly increase gates. If, and it’s a big if, we sell 12k season tickets at £250 a pop we’d bring in less ticketing revenue than we do now. Obviously there is an argument to be had about additional income (average spend of 2-3 quid a head on the concourses with the bulk going to Sodexo), and the intangibles like better atmosphere (although would 12k season ticket holders make that big a difference?), plus would we just end up cannibalising our walk ons? There’s no magic wand that can be waved to automatically double our attendances overnight, apart from maybe promotion, that includes drastic price reductions. It’s a long term rebuilding job that has definitely become more difficult this summer.

It was part of a bigger presentation with various ideas, some were better received than others and hopefully some will be incorporated. The basic gist of it was: - Need for entry level priced tickets in under occupied areas (limited number, very cheap) - Slight reduction to standard ST price - No change/slight increase to premium ST price - Removal of barriers to stop people buying one (alternative to finance company backed DD, pro rata prices available into the season without deadlines) - Additional benefits for those willing to pay more (the exact wording being instead of milking the hardcore offer them something extra), we suggested a number of “bolt ons” that could be sold with a ST - Family discounts throughout the ground - New category for U8s - Flexi/PAYG tickets - a lot of discussion here particularly as we will have even less Saturday 3pm kick offs next year, and there is obviously a need to make sure a full season ticket remains more cost effective

The question is would say a £100 reduction move the dial sufficiently to maintain the level of income we currently have?

We have proposed almost exactly this - effectively a “pay as you go” season ticket.

Cheaper tickets in certain undersubscribed areas, flexible tickets for those who can’t make all games, family discounts, added value products for those happy to spend more, etc

In our two latest sets of accounts PNE brought in £3.8 million in matchday revenue. In the same period Rovers total was £5 million. I believe this was the first year that Preston heavily reduced their early bird tickets. There has to be a sweet spot that we definitely aren’t at yet, but I don’t think that there’s any way we’d double the amount of season tickets sold by halving the price. It’s certainly easier to make a case for a more dynamic and out of the box pricing structure than big reductions across the board based on those figures.

Regarding the shirts there is a contractually obligated period in which the company can look to extend/renegotiate. I think we are in that period now for next season. I don’t think anything has been finalised either way as of yet, and even if it was that would be information too commercially sensitive to share with negotiations ongoing. We’ve spoken more broadly about sponsorships when discussing commercial revenue. The accounts will give a clearer picture, but generally those revenues are going up year on year, though I’m sure everyone would like to see them go up more.

Another good performance, draw a fair result although we could’ve nicked it. Any sort of squad depth and I think we win that - but there’s no way of us changing the game positively with subs. Dolan, Brittain and Markanday were all absolutely fantastic! The reverse fixture against this lot was probably our worst performance of the season, so a very good point.