[Archived] 'taking Back' The Darwen End

[Guest Vinjay606]

Better to keep the away fans in the upper tier if BRFC supporters are to reclaim the lower next season. Otherwise supporters spend more time staring at the away supporters than paying attention to matches. Not something that is particularly supportive towards the players themselves.

[stuwilky]

Mind you no matter what rovers do they cant please all the people i had four guys stagger in five mins before kick off demanding four seats so they could all sit together ...........

There was plenty that met that in the back corner

[dannydisco]

Removing the Football and looking at as an Entertainment Event - Today was all about the anticipation and the break from the norm which created a real scene of excitement and buzz, which escalated from when the deal was announced.

I reckon having unreserved seating evokes a thought process and almost a fear of not getting a good seat. Plus being able to get all your lads next to each other enhances the pack mentality.

Being within earshot of away fans - in the enemies liar - brings out the territorial instinct and at the same time almost forces both groups to compose witty insults, gestures and songs as a show of strength.

A virtuous circle emerges which incorporates all of the above which equals a great atmosphere.

As for improvement - Dont show the Arsenal game or other irrelevant content on the PA and AV system. For those who went to stoke they seemed to have their build-up sorted. They had 20 or so 'rock concert' quality speakers spotted around the perimeter facing into the crowd and cranked it right up, blasting out the footy anthems so well before kick off all fans were singing.

tunes like; Eat my Goal, Life of Riley, Vindaloo

Stoke had the visuals sorted to - those montages seemed to work - remember 'one1 more time' by Daft Punk laid over the footage when we did the dingles. How good was that? Lets have more of these during the warm-up.

[Tom]

Great turnout today, the club are a credit to the Premier laegue and I hope more teams sit up and take notice of initiatives like this.

Well done both the club and the fans.

[RevidgeBlue]

Was wondering whether to mention this as it sounds very stereotypical, but had to take a different route back from the game all along Bolton Rd. towards town.

In my opinion there were a lot more Asian fans making their way away from the ground than normal.

I may be being unfair but imo that section of the Community will not attend Ewood en masse with prices at the normal 20-30 quid level.

At that sort of level, who knows?

[Anti-Dingle-Brigade]

I saw plenty of Asians today, but also saw quite a few against Bolton and West Ham. Who knows? Maybe it's a "change". Maybe it's the prices. Either way, it's a positive step.

[Tom]

No need

We need all the fans we can get, these attitudes do the club no favours at all

[Ossydave]

No need

We need all the fans we can get, these attitudes do the club no favours at all

I'm sick to the back teeth of these 'we should encourage the asians' style comments.

FACT - Ewood is fan friendly and not even slightly intimidating.

IF they wana go, they can do.

[sambo]

(Return of the Blackburn End enclosure?)

Whats the Blackburn End enclosure? Thankyou

[RevidgeBlue]

(Return of the Blackburn End enclosure?)

Whats the Blackburn End enclosure? Thankyou

Eeeeee.................... back in "the good old days" the Nuttall Street stand stood where the Jack Walker does now.

The top half was wooden seating the bottom half nearest the pich was terracing.

It was divided into two somewhere near the half way line by the tunnel etc.

Hence the Blackburn End and Darwen End Enclosures. (The terracing!)

[gumboots]

I'm sick to the back teeth of these 'we should encourage the asians' style comments.

FACT - Ewood is fan friendly and not even slightly intimidating.

IF they wana go, they can do.

The point is not whether the ground is fan friendly but the fact that many Asian families are still larger than average. If you have to pay to take 4 kids and 2 parents it's pricey. i know because we've done it ourselves. Asian families with more kids are helped by cheaper ticketing and whilst I don't see how you could put on offers like this without losing the season ticket support which is vital as it's guaranteed income, it might be worth putting together some kind of package like this at some point next season.

[roversmum]

Must say it was very interesting today the total difference of the type of fan rovers got in the d/e today many of them not been to a match for years, quite a few asian families, little old ladies, posh middle aged ladies, very young kids this is just the type of fans we need to attract it gives them a taste of ewood park.

Was working to day big difference as i usually deal with drunken away fans and was talkin to a thirty something asian mother who managed to lose her husband there she was in a full sari telling me in broken english how much she and all her family were enjoying it now thats just amazing isnt it ?

Mind you no matter what rovers do they cant please all the people i had four guys stagger in five mins before kick off demanding four seats so they could all sit together ...........

That's brilliant! I've said many a time that there are lots of folks who would go if the prices allowed, for example women between the ages of 60 and 65 have to pay a full price ticket and many of those are retired and cannot afford it, despite having been fans for years. Lots of young people in their early twenties are still in education or low waged, they have problems affording it. Others have young families etc.

Regarding the JWL/BBE,

GC stated that the WO5/WO6 area could accommodate around 800 fans on an unreserved basis. The plan would be to sell about half the space to season ticket holders allowing some capacity to be sold on a match by match basis.

Granted I don't sit in WO5/WO6, however it is easy access for older folks/ambulent disabled/wheelchair disabled.

How would this work - by cordoning off the BBE area in the JWL? You would need a block for unreserved seating otherwise you'd be getting folks with season tickets finding folks with unreserved tickets sitting on their seats and the results wouldn't be nice. So there will be 800 plus the ten per cent (?) for them being unreserved that makes 880.

The capacity of the JWL is 2928. Half of that is 1464. WO4 holds 140 so that leaves 1324. 1324 minus 880 is 444. It is also a favoured spot for players' families. Either the information I have about stand capacities is incorrect or someone is being economical with the figures.

[stuwilky]

How would this work - by cordoning off the BBE area in the JWL? You would need a block for unreserved seating otherwise you'd be getting folks with season tickets finding folks with unreserved tickets sitting on their seats and the results wouldn't be nice. So there will be 800 plus the ten per cent (?) for them being unreserved that makes 880.

The capacity of the JWL is 2928. Half of that is 1464. WO4 holds 140 so that leaves 1324. 1324 minus 880 is 444. It is also a favoured spot for players' families. Either the information I have about stand capacities is incorrect or someone is being economical with the figures.

As I understand it, the ST's in that area would be unreserved (note: I havnt been to any meeting on the subject it is just an assumption on my part). I agree about the numbers though, I always thought it was 1400 in the JWL Blackburn end side..

I dont know how having Wo 4 as a reserved area, and 5 and 6 as unreserved would work either.

[RevidgeBlue]

Without knowing the exact figures, based on what was said at the last forum, they are considering an unreserved seating area of around 800 seats in the section nearest to the Blackburn End and the ST take up in that area is currently very low relatively speaking.

They did mention a figure which I can't remember but it wasn't that many.

[sambo]

I liked before the game when they mentioned each stand and they cheered....

'The ever faithful BBE'

Got the biggest cheer

Brilliant

[roversmum]

I'm not happy about this JWL/BBE idea for obvious reasons. As I've said, a number of ambulent disabled/wheelchair disabled and more mature fans use this area for a number of reasons, in particular easy access. If indeed it is intended to use the whole area and include season ticket holders as having unreserved seating it isn't good making those I have mentioned scrap for seats, especially as many of them come in just before the match begins. No doubt if someone is able to explain the idea properly to me it might sit better with me, but at the moment I am deeply sceptical particuarly as those on the fans forum don't seem to know either.

As far as the Fraser Eagle Stand (Darwen End) being unacceptable for such an area because of Police objections (namely it seems, a few fans might run up to the corner to taunt opposition fans), perhaps they could remember why they are there in the first place and it is not to watch the match or earn an easy bit of overtime.

[Hughesy]

The point is not whether the ground is fan friendly but the fact that many Asian families are still larger than average. If you have to pay to take 4 kids and 2 parents it's pricey. i know because we've done it ourselves. Asian families with more kids are helped by cheaper ticketing and whilst I don't see how you could put on offers like this without losing the season ticket support which is vital as it's guaranteed income, it might be worth putting together some kind of package like this at some point next season.

How about the more you buy, the cheaper they are? So you buy 1 ticket its £15, then 2 its £14 each, 3 its £13 each, 4 its £12 each etc??

[thenodrog]

The point is not whether the ground is fan friendly but the fact that many Asian families are still larger than average. If you have to pay to take 4 kids and 2 parents it's pricey. i know because we've done it ourselves. Asian families with more kids are helped by cheaper ticketing and whilst I don't see how you could put on offers like this without losing the season ticket support which is vital as it's guaranteed income, it might be worth putting together some kind of package like this at some point next season.

Sounds like you are in favour of reduced priced tickets for people of asian descent cos they have lots of kids? Very good gumboots, it would go down like a lead balloon.

[modes98]

Atmosphere was amazing today and I have said it before that we should have home fans in the Darwen End. It seems to work wonders in spurring players on and even better than that it drowned out the away fans.

[Eddie]

The club should just identify the lowest 3-5 selling games or a run of 2-3 unattractive home matches and offer up a similar package to this each season.

[67splitscreen]

Watching from afar, I noticed that there where still some sections of the ground empty, at least one 1/2 section of the BBELT and parts of the Fraser Eagle.

So obviously the scheme worked. It's all down to personal finance, If it's cheap enough they will come.

In the past when people have made the point that cheaper season tickets would not mean increased numbers, I think this point may well have been proved wrong, JW included.

Without going into all the financial aspects, what we need is another 5-6000 bums on seats for all home games.

Under current pricing and credit crunch we will not achieve this.

As an average I'm guessing at around a 30% reduction in say a BBE S/T. around £11 a game, stuff all this A and B games get the home fans back into Ewood, increase the charges on the away fans for the category A games, they seem to come what ever the price.

It would be so unfair on the loyal S/T holder just to give reduced prices to one particular area and section of fans. It has to be all sections.

As some one else stated bring back a pay on the day section with a 1/2 time turnstile to.

Even a share a ticket scheme, where two people can apply for one ticket, how many on here have left there ticket in a drawer when unable to get to a match, for instance shift work, family functions or holidays.

We saw what a packed Ewood does for the players yesterday and in the mid 90's.

"Fortress Ewood" I like the sound of it, even better than Ewood Park.

[gumboots]

Sounds like you are in favour of reduced priced tickets for people of asian descent cos they have lots of kids? Very good gumboots, it would go down like a lead balloon.

Then it sounds wrong. I merely pointed out that the reason packages like the current one are attractive is that they enable larger than average families like my own to watch football together. Many of the Asian heritage families in Blackburn fall into that category. I've also said elsewhere about young adult season tickets not carrying on for long enough in that many kids stay in higher ed for more than the standard 3 years nowadays and needing to do something to enable more of them toattend more often. I'm all for anything that gets as many fans of whatever colour creed or race into our ground, as long as those who put up their money week in, week out as season ticket holders, are not disadvantaged, because the club needs the guaranteed income from them to help with long term planning.

[ABBEY]

Sounds like you are in favour of reduced priced tickets for people of asian descent cos they have lots of kids? Very good gumboots, it would go down like a lead balloon.

fifes at it too.WHY SHOULD I PAY FOR ME AND MY KIDS BUT PEOPLE WANT ASIANS IN FOR FREE? BUGGERS BELIEF.I can imagine if we tried to charge asians more that the racist brigade would be on a mission from hell to hang people.

[Hughesy]

Why not try the reduced price based on numbers attending like I mentioned?

1 goes its £15

2 go then you get them for £14 each

3 then you get them for £13 each

4 then you get them for £12 each, and so on?? Could be worth a try.

I still believe kids under a certain age should go completely free too, just to get them hooked - maybe say 12 and under.

[ABBEY]

Im all for filling the ground because yesterday was great but has anyone done a breakdown on the cost of a season ticket v single tickets and incentives .