[Archived] The Old Gate Debate

[disgruntled]

The poor response to BRFC's generous ticketing policy is exactly as I predicted..... it's cost the club revenue and made little difference to the crowd figures or the match atmsophere.

There'd have been 16k on had the game been played at the same period last season. So to have a further 3k on has made a difference both in terms of atmosphere and revenue I'm sure.

For others to suggest that prices need to be cut further than what Rovers have already done is downright ridiculous

[SIMON GARNERS 194]

3. Our manager and best players will be enticed away and sooner or later it WILL all come to an end (Bolton lost their leader and look how quickly they are floundering.) And thats when all the backsliders will come out of the woodwork bemoaning what we had and blaming all and sundry but themselves.

Lets hope its not for a time yet Theno but I have to agree to some extent....its a shame for the club that so many appear to have simply lost interest and still cannot appear to be enticed back even with the cheap prices.

7/8/99 DIV 1 Rovers v Port Vale........ 20,530

[RevidgeBlue]

Considering the fine football we are playing at the moment (best start to a season for 10 years?) and our lofty league position,coupled with the reduced prices were people disappointed today that less than 19,000 Rovers fans could be 'bothered'?

We know of the 'its only Reading' mentality but I was hoping we could have at least seen the end to the sub 20,000 crowds of last season.... its a shame but the walk-on crowd does not seem to have increased much.

Surprised you've posted that really SG, with practically no Reading fans on the ground the gate yesterday was no better or worse than to be expected.

The corresponding fixture at the same time last season would probably have seen a turn out of some 3000 less.

We're only nine games in, if we're still in with a realistic shout of Champions League etc with nine games to go, I would expect to see another healthy increase in interest.

Until then I'm reasonably encouraged with the 3000 increase thus far.

P.S. Wasn't the Port Vale figure you quoted somewhat inflated by virtue of it being the opening game of the season?

Edited October 21, 2007 by RevidgeBlue

[RevidgeBlue]

The poor response to BRFC's generous ticketing policy is exactly as I predicted..... it's cost the club revenue and made little difference to the crowd figures or the match atmsophere. At best it might just have stopped the rot. The town is rewarding the clubs efforts with indifference. The plain fact is that .....

1. we have very little potential as a Prem club.

2. we are punching well above our weight.

3. Our manager and best players will be enticed away and sooner or later it WILL all come to an end (Bolton lost their leader and look how quickly they are floundering.) And thats when all the backsliders will come out of the woodwork bemoaning what we had and blaming all and sundry but themselves.

Rem the older ones amongst us have seen it all before!

Sorry but 114 pages on and each page only proves that there is still only one viable way forward from a business point of view to provide the backing for a football club that can remain at the top by right.

Disagree entirely with almost all of that Gordon. I think there has been a very good response in percentage terms to the pricing initiative, we'll probably see an average gate of 24k this season and it's up to the Club to keep hammering away with the reductions and add another couple of thousand on the average gate on top of that next season and so on and so on.

The only thing you're right on is that Hughes will probably be enticed away at some point but the owners are hardly helping in that respect either by witholding funding in the transfer market.

[Jordan]

I dont think its helped matters when the last two games the away team have brought about 700 fans.

The attendance against Man City was nearly 27,000. Our next three home games are Liverpool, Villa and Newcastle, with the exception of Villa I would like to think that the attendance for these games will be 27/28,000

[Roar of the Rover]

Villa bring a decent amount down, Liverpool will get the whole Darwen End like always. Portsmouth took about 5,000 down to Wigan yesterday annd when they played us, 500 only turned up, we're not that far from Wigan!

[ihateburnley]

The poor response to BRFC's generous ticketing policy is exactly as I predicted..... it's cost the club revenue and made little difference to the crowd figures or the match atmsophere. At best it might just have stopped the rot. The town is rewarding the clubs efforts with indifference. The plain fact is that .....

The majority of people I have spoken to agree that the atmosphere has got better.

Rem the older ones amongst us have seen it all before!

I think you're possibly kidding yourself if you think you have seen it all before. Money has ruined the game to an extent that has never been seen.

Sorry but 114 pages on and each page only proves that there is still only one viable way forward from a business point of view to provide the backing for a football club that can remain at the top by right.

If by that you mean the 'Lancashire Utd' plan - it wouldn't work. Say the likes of Rovers, Burnley, PNE, Bolton, Blackpool and Wigan all joined together, would be necessarily be a better run, better performing and more successful club than the likes of Man United, Chelsea, Liverpool, Arsenal etc? It's not guaranteed. And if we ever did find ourselves ruling the league over said teams, what's to stop Chelsea, Spurs, West Ham and Arsenal joining forces? Man Utd, Man City, Liverpool and Everton?

Before you know it all the northern clubs would be joint as one, and all the southern clubs as another. And we'd be playing each other every week. And we'd have 80million people splt between two clubs so none of us would be able to watch live football anyway.

So just forget it.

[philipl]

Graph of Rovers' attendances over 12 years to 05/6. 06/7 saw a marginal increase over 05/6 whilst this season had been averaging over 2,000 up on the same fixtures last season until the Reading game which I think was down as the corresponding fixture was the last game of last season.

The Sky December re-shuffle has probably killed the chances of really big gates over the Festive period so I guess we are going to need the Rovers to do something really special on the field to get the crowds consistently up by 3,000 or more.

[gumboots]

But looking at the crowd yesterday there are significantly more of the Asian heritage families coming to Ewood. It'll take a while but that is a good market and Rovers, with their community programmes, are gradually interesting more of the population. Had to laugh at one of my kids the other day who said "Miss, I can't wait for Saturday." "oh," said i " looking forward to the match, are you?" "Well yes, miss. But even better. I can have a cheese and onion pie!" Perhaps we need to advertise them better and more of our Asian heritage kids will come!

[Mattyblue]

Im happy with the increase in attendance, 3 thousand up in one summer, did we honestly expect an extra 6/7 thousand etc? Ive said it before, we have a small population to garner our fans from, our attendances are superb, doesnt mean much in a league of big cities though.

However what worries me that in our core areas of Blackburn and Darwen, I feel the Rovers are becoming less pivotal to the residents. We have an Asian population who love football, but Arsenal, Man U etc. The same can be said for the young white population, walk around Blackburn and Darwen town centres on a Saturday afternoon, non rovers shirts are seriously outnumbered, if we lose our core areas the club is in terminal decline

[roverthemoon]

Villa bring a decent amount down, Liverpool will get the whole Darwen End like always. Portsmouth took about 5,000 down to Wigan yesterday annd when they played us, 500 only turned up, we're not that far from Wigan!

Portsmouth provided free coaches to Wigan, thats why the number of away fans was high.

[JAL]

Villa bring a decent amount down, Liverpool will get the whole Darwen End like always. Portsmouth took about 5,000 down to Wigan yesterday annd when they played us, 500 only turned up, we're not that far from Wigan!

The Portsmouth owner rewarded the pompey fans by paying for the coach travel to the Wigan game thats one main reason why so many went to Wigan and not here.

[SIMON GARNERS 194]

Rovers still sadly bottom of the league when it comes to filling the ground % wise of capacity.

Edited October 22, 2007 by SIMON GARNERS 194

[sussexrover]

It is a shame - but bearing in mind that those teams with smaller capacities have not filled their smaller stadiums on any occasion (Portsmouth exempted, more on that below), then why would their having a bigger stadium suggest they would get more support - just by having a bigger ground does that make our support worse in some way?!??

Although I would also question the validity of their research when Portsmouth's highest attendance this season actually exceeds their stated capacity??

[den]

Rovers still sadly bottom of the league when it comes to filling the ground % wise of capacity.

yes SG, but that figure is completely meaningless.

[JAL]

Rovers still sadly bottom of the league when it comes to filling the ground % wise of capacity.

Hardly suprising when you see the current economic make up of the town and as some might say the current figures are very good, although they are a long way off their fellow competitors which cant be good.

[Guest fernhurstblue]

looking at the average though, i think we should be looking to get to 15th over the season ...... i think anything higher than that would be unrealistic

[only2garners]

The Portsmouth owner rewarded the pompey fans by paying for the coach travel to the Wigan game thats one main reason why so many went to Wigan and not here.

Coupled with the fact that Wigan are only charging £15 for their category C games, £5 less than Rovers.

[mattyboy6000]

yes SG, but that figure is completely meaningless.

here here! what a useless statistic.

if rovers continue with considered marketing and continue to play exciting football people will come down. many seem caught up in the romanticism of the game rather than what it actually is or can be as a spectacle. In the Souness era we were paying a lot of money for dreadful entertainment. Now we're paying a lot of money, albeit relatively less, for what can be rip roaring, thrilling entertainment.

imo.

[MCMC1875]

Under 16 tickets £1 every game.

Coach travel to Ewood £1 flat rate from all parts of Lancashire.

[bob fleming]

The poor response to BRFC's generous ticketing policy is exactly as I predicted..... it's cost the club revenue and made little difference to the crowd figures or the match atmsophere. At best it might just have stopped the rot. The town is rewarding the clubs efforts with indifference. The plain fact is that .....

1. we have very little potential as a Prem club.

2. we are punching well above our weight.

3. Our manager and best players will be enticed away and sooner or later it WILL all come to an end (Bolton lost their leader and look how quickly they are floundering.) And thats when all the backsliders will come out of the woodwork bemoaning what we had and blaming all and sundry but themselves.

Rem the older ones amongst us have seen it all before!

Sorry but 114 pages on and each page only proves that there is still only one viable way forward from a business point of view to provide the backing for a football club that can remain at the top by right.

The answer is simple. Remove the top tier of the Darwen End, Blackburn End and half the Jack Walker Upper. Therefore reducing the capacity to around 20K. We'll then sell out every single week. The pundits and Sky commentators will then start saying "these are some of the most passionate fans in the Premiership".

Well it works for Portsmouth anyway.

I wonder if they're having a similar discussion about how their world will cave in if they don't start averaging more than 20K every match? As we know they can't as their stadium isn't big enough, but it doesn't seem to be slowing them down either. Maybe all that Sky / Setanta TV money is pulling them through as well?

As for "punching above our weight" - I wouldn't want to say that in front of Mark Hughes. Are you after a place on the board Theno?

[cletus]

I went on a stag-doo last Saturday & missed the Reading game. I think probably a dozen Rovers regulars were on the doo aswell. Bad timing on the stags part i`m afraid

[DavidMailsTightPerm]

For all the doom and gloom merchants - I think Sunday's gate was probably around 2k higher than it would have been last season (than if the game had been played at a similar stage of the season). That represents a theoretical 11% increase in attendance.

I am slightly disappointed that Rovers attendance haven't climbed higher - but Rome wasn't built in a day. It will also take a while to attract back those fans disillusioned with the current set up of the Premiership, where only the top 4 clubs will ever realistically win it - and the rest are left to feed off scraps.

Hopefully continued progress on the field will help attract a few more back to Ewood.

But utilimately the club should be applauded for at least trying something to stop the slide in attendances. Taking into account the slide in attendances we have seen over recent years - to actually increase attendances must be seen as a success.

[Fife Rover]

I went on a stag-doo last Saturday & missed the Reading game. I think probably a dozen Rovers regulars were on the doo aswell. Bad timing on the stags part i`m afraid

EEHHHH!! AH DAWN'T NOOHA. In Owr Daay it werr un unwritten rool; tha duz'n 'ev thi stag neet, on enny neet but Friday neet, an' than duz'n gerr marrid on eny daay burr a Set'dy. AN' mooast ov arl, tha meks shoor as tha duz'n pick a Set'dy as ROOAvers is at hooam!!!! If tha duz, then tha'r on thi oowan, cuz all thi mates 'll be at Ewood, so think on!!!

[Claytons Left Boot]

EEHHHH!! AH DAWN'T NOOHA. In Owr Daay it werr un unwritten rool; tha duz'n 'ev thi stag neet, on enny neet but Friday neet, an' than duz'n gerr marrid on eny daay burr a Set'dy. AN' mooast ov arl, tha meks shoor as tha duz'n pick a Set'dy as ROOAvers is at hooam!!!! If tha duz, then tha'r on thi oowan, cuz all thi mates 'll be at Ewood, so think on!!!

See you're taking the Gaelic lessons Fife!