I expect there are people/person very relieved Greg has taken a bullet for them. I think he’s right with a lot of what he says, ultimately it is his responsibility to get deals over the line. Although he’s come out and fronted it up, I still get the impression there is very much a siege mentality at Rovers. This is damage limitation and these responses will have been very clearly planned out and agreed between all the senior people with the aim of placating the fans, or at least dampening a bit of the backlash. He told us to judge him on his actions and not his words after the last window, so he’s putting a great big blot in his own copybook here. He’s new enough and came with enough good will to take one for the team.

“I’d rather be clear, I’ll give lots of information before a window, I’ll have open and honest conversations after the window, but during the window we’re doing our business and supporters will learn to put some faith and trust in us. “Should that faith and trust come when they don’t know how we work? No. That has to be earned. “The only way to do that is to back up your words with actions and hopefully we’re beginning to be able to demonstrate that now.” G. Broughton, October 2022. Lets hear it the Greg.

They could’ve told Rob Coar to dust off his FA tie and rolled him out for a one off.

We don’t always agree, but that’s a cracking email 👍

As a member of the Supporters Trust Board, I’ll answer this… The Trust is a different entity to the action group. I was a member of both, as was Glen, who acted as the Trust Secretary for many years and is still a valued member. The Trust is a little bit different in the way that it’s structured and registered. We are legally a Trust, rather than a group, and are open to anyone aged 18 or over. We are a registered Co-operative and Community Benefit Society regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority and operate on a one member, one vote basis. We have an elected board and a membership of over 1,000. Our main objective will always be to push for supporter involvement and influence within the club. There’s some more detail here… https://www.roverstrust.com/faqs/ The direction we take is really driven by what our membership mandates. We do have regular meetings with the club, and have two scheduled this month around the fan led review into football governance, and another with the marketing department on ticket offerings and price, general marketing, and engagement with fans.

Maybe those fans think we deserve a better run club.

Paul “two degrees” Fielder would take exception. He loved telling us how he was the most qualified person at the club!

Slight aside, but Rovers were pretty stringent with their own deadlines. Refusal to honour early bird prices a day after cutoff.

Very good point. If it’s already been rejected we’ve no chance. If no decision had been made either way until now there’s hope.

If we know we’ve made errors in the paperwork the appeal seems a bit desperate. But nothing lost, and worst case scenario - the deal doesn’t go through, but plenty of the fans who were previously in uproar will now absolve the club of any blame and direct all their ire to the evil EFL.

Surely the only grounds we could win this appeal on would be by proving that all relevant documentation was submitted complete and on time. If there was anything missing, or it was late, we are asking the EFL to make an exception to the rules, which they surely can’t, regardless of how trivial we might claim any omission to be. From the limited info we have I can’t see this getting the green light.

Obviously our attendances rose in Jack’s time and peaked at the time of our greatest success. There were fluctuations over the following years, largely depending on the pricing. You’d be mad not to expect some drop off when we were relegated from the Premier League, but not to the extent we saw. Back to the point I made in the earlier post the hardcore or core support should’ve grown. It’s crazy to presume that the 10-15k we’d grown the fanbase by during the Walker years were all flighty, fairweather spectators there for a day out, who’d simply stop bothering once Ipswich were coming to town instead of Man Utd. As I said before, there is only one comparable “off a cliff moment” in our history. 1960. See the fairly crude graphs below! What we have now isn’t a natural level, it’s a fanbase that has been battered down by poor ownership decisions and a badly run club. There are a large number of supporters who are still engaged enough to care deeply about the club who don’t attend games for a multitude of reasons. Price is a big one, obviously, but there are plenty of people on this forum who aren’t priced out but have made a conscious decision not to attend. They still care enough to come on here and be furious about our transfer ineptitude, analyse our performances, and discuss all things Rovers with fellow fans. And there’s lots more in the wider world. You could argue that in the 80s pretty much anyone who was really interested would go to games. It’s not the case now. There’s a hell of a lot more the club need to be doing to re-engage the existing supporter base, and that’s before we start talking about attempts to grow it.

Obviously yes. Don’t know which individual is ultimately responsible but they need removing from their post.

I’m late to this but… considering what happened between 1992 and 2010, our hardcore number should’ve grown. And it did. In 99/00 and 00/01 we were nearly at a 20k average in the second tier. The hardcore aren’t the same individuals for the most part. Someone who attended their first match as a 10 year old in 1992, and caught the bug is 40 now. A 40 year old who was one of the 8,000 in the early 70s likely won’t be around. If we accept a percentage of all attending fans will be fanatical, with a period of success, and consistently higher attendances throughout the 90s our fanbase should’ve grown to the point where the hardcore wasn’t slipping back to pre-Jack levels. Venky’s are responsible for the absolute decimation of our crowds. The only thing comparable to the effect they have had is the drop off and widespread falling out with the club that occurred as a result of the 1960 cup final. That took nearly 30 years to turn around. I worry that phrases like “natural level” or “core support” give a pass, or at least make it easier for Waggott and co. to shrug their shoulders and not bother trying to reverse the trend.

I’ve seen Bradford mentioned too, but to be honest I don’t really care enough to look. If other clubs have been stupid enough or too last minute to submit completed deals on time it’s on them, just like our issues are on us.

Plenty on Twitter are absolving Rovers of any blame for this debacle. All the EFL’s fault apparently. The mind boggles.

Are you excusing the incompetence of Rovers staff then?

Is Ian Silvester - Club and Company Secretary getting off a bit lightly here?

Really? It sounds utterly incompetent.

I wish they’d just put us out of our misery one way or the other over this transfer debacle.

They will probably be late to the appeal hearing.

I suppose it remains to be seen, but it’s the only whisper I’ve heard. Everyone else seems to have no clue what’s going on.

Apparently the deal has been rejected and we have an appeal at 4pm.

They don’t all have a happy ending.

What must O’Brien be making of all this?!