[Archived] Dinglewatch

[USABlue]

Efficient is about the right word. Gray looks a handful, have to kick him early.

[Baz]

I don't see why there would be an issue with segregation. If Burnley fans were restricted to the top tier of the Darwen End, the lower tier could be covered with netting and they would be miles away from Rovers fans. We could charge Burnley fans £35 a head and offer them 3,000 (or however many fit in the top tier) tickets which is a similar amount to what they offered us last time we went to theirs. We could use the lower Darwen End as a huge mosaic of Rovers flags and banners to make it look better on TV.

Burnley fans would be limited to 3,000 and would be high up away from the pitch which would diminish the amount of noise they made and support they could transmit to their team.

As for money, Rovers would be missing out on 1,500 tickets from the 4,500 allocation they gave them last time. If they were really bothered they could give Burnley the back 10 rows of the lower tier with a huge netted area infront to keep them well away from the pitch.

Rovers could then concentrate their energies on filling the other 3 sides of Ewood Park, getting as many Rovers fans as physically possible into the ground and putting our 30,000 stadium to full use. Even with the nonsensical police 'zones' of netting off the end of the Riverside and Jack Walker, we could still be looking at 21,000+ Rovers fans in the ground if it was full. I've already said that we could offer drastically lower prices to home fans than away fans by putting one of our 'local promotions' to good use.

If we got 21,000 Rovers fans against the 3,000 Burnley fans the atmosphere would be fantastic from a Rovers point of view, outnumbering them 7-1.

As it is we will allow them to get close to the pitch, we'll charge our own supporters £34 for a live TV game which means we'll probably struggle to get 15,000 home fans on and will outnumber Burnley at just 3-1. There will be swathes of empty seats in the Jack Walker and Blackburn Upper as people will simply refuse to stump up £30-40 to go and watch a 2nd division football match at lunchtime when they can have a lie in and watch it at home for free.

Then the club will have to suffer the humiliation of a third empty stadium and poor atmosphere for what is both clubs biggest game of the season, on live TV. I can imagine the imbeciles at Sky Sports and their southern based friends making snide comments on the poor crowd already.

I meant if there was a big differential between the home fan price and the away fan price, then inevitably you would get Burnley fans trying for tickets in the home stands.

Anyhow, why not keep the pricing but the home fans get it as a 3 game package as the promotion?

[Tom]

I'm worried Dyche will end up at Sunderland and they will bring Big Sam in!

[Waggy76]

I'm worried Dyche will end up at Sunderland and they will bring Big Sam in!

Thats a nightmare scenario , Sam will take them up and keep them there....

Not sure Dyche has another miracle in him but Sam some would love too rub our owners nose in it !

[davulsukur]

I'm worried Dyche will end up at Sunderland and they will bring Big Sam in!

Surely Sunderland would be going for Sam first?

[tomphil]

Playing the way we did today and going about it like we have been doing recently we are a match for these scruffs on our own turf. Just hope it isn't a bottle job like last time at Ewood. We've no unbeaten record to preserve and they'll likely do us on their own patch for the first time in decades so lets go for it in this one.

[SIMON GARNERS 194]

Just looking at Burnley's travel arrangements for this game and they are picking Burnley fans up on Philips Rd in Blackburn on the morning of the game!

[TeamGB-11]

Reckon Sam will only take on an established top 10 prem club with a bit of money to spend..

[roverzee]

The club(s) really need taking to task on this issue.

No doubt those responsible for these decisions at the club will shrug their shoulders and point their finger at the police.

But if the club had any real concern for supporters and doing their best by them then they would get together and refuse to agree to the police demands.

The police would soon relent if the clubs refused their plans.

Both clubs do have real concern for supporters, and that concern is keeping them safe. They work with the police for that, especially for this fixture.

It's easy to preach from behind your keyboard, but if on the morning of Sunday 25th there have been no injuries, no trashed pubs or shops, no brawls and minimal arrests then the police and both clubs will have made the right decisions.

If there were any brawls, or smashed shop / pub windows around Ewood, or God forbid people got hurt three weeks today then people like you would be out in force slating the police, the arrangements, the clubs and uncle tom cobley.

As for the single match ticket prices - who cares? If you're a Rovers ST holder then you're already in for little more than a tenner. If you're not a Rovers ST holder and only want to go to this one game then what are your motives? Why weren't you on today supporting the team against Ipswich? It's still 3 points for a win.

34 quid for the dingle fans is totally justified - if enough of them pay it it'll cover the cost of them trashing the Darwen End toilets in 2013. Their own club has decided that a return bus journey down the M65 is worth £7 but that's their problem not ours.

[JHRover]

I care because I want as many people as possible who support Blackburn Rovers to be in attendance at Ewood Park to experience the derby and to try and roar our team on to success.

I understand what you say about those who turn up for one game only and don't go to the bread and butter fixtures like today. I find it frustrating too, but that's the way the world of football works. There will always be more people turning up for these sort of games than Ipswich at home, we need to ensure as many as possible get into Ewood and contribute to the occasion.

I'm not aware of any recent occasions of violence or criminal damage in/around Ewood Park involving Burnley. I can only really remember the games in 2000-2002 and the Cup game in 2005, but on those occasions were people injured or property vandalised? As I remember it the FA Cup game there were 7,000 Burnley fans in the Darwen End, it was a night game, there were no travel measures in place, and despite a late goal there was no mass violence, destruction or injuries. There was the incident in Cherry Tree a few years ago when a group of Burnley idiots went over on the train but these new measures don't stop that happening again.

The police will just have to do their job (for which the club pays them) and ensure they have sufficient personnel and intelligence in place to prevent/manage the small minority of idiots from getting near Blackburn.

Whether you consider £34 to be an appropriate price or not, the simple fact is that it will guarantee thousands of empty seats. If the tickets were reduced, as they should be for a lunchtime game on TV, then more people would go to the ground and back the team.

We should charge Burnley fans £34 because that is what we will get charged at their place. We'll also get the £7 bus charge to their place next year. But we shouldnt be doing it for home fans. There's no reason we couldn't use a 'local promotion', but the people running Rovers would sooner sit among 10,000 empty seats and not have the hassle of a big gate than pack the place and have an electric atmosphere. That's what happens when the people making these decisions aren't football fans or certainly aren't Blackburn fans.

[tomphil]

Both clubs do have real concern for supporters, and that concern is keeping them safe. They work with the police for that, especially for this fixture.

It's easy to preach from behind your keyboard, but if on the morning of Sunday 25th there have been no injuries, no trashed pubs or shops, no brawls and minimal arrests then the police and both clubs will have made the right decisions.

If there were any brawls, or smashed shop / pub windows around Ewood, or God forbid people got hurt three weeks today then people like you would be out in force slating the police, the arrangements, the clubs and uncle tom cobley.

As for the single match ticket prices - who cares? If you're a Rovers ST holder then you're already in for little more than a tenner. If you're not a Rovers ST holder and only want to go to this one game then what are your motives? Why weren't you on today supporting the team against Ipswich? It's still 3 points for a win.

34 quid for the dingle fans is totally justified - if enough of them pay it it'll cover the cost of them trashing the Darwen End toilets in 2013. Their own club has decided that a return bus journey down the M65 is worth £7 but that's their problem not ours.

Did the bubble match stop the shenanigans at Cherry Tree a few years ago ? No.

Was there wide spread trouble in the cup games in 2005 when it was no bubble ? No.

It's overblown @#/? and the police are happy with as few people attending as possible to make their day easy. The clubs are happy to have less because they know they can get away with charging more to cover it. It's pathetic. Yes there is always going to be a few who want to scrap but that happens in these kind of games all over the country but the police do their jobs and handle it.

I couldn't give a toss about Burnley or what they do or pay but the point is we have to do the same. If we stay in the same division any length of time this game will end up a dead rubber.

[Speedie Dived]

Think Joey Barton is going to prove to be a crucial signing by Dyche.

Still some way off full fitness but a class act tonight. Read the danger superbly and distribution was efficient and excellent. Temperament kept in check as well - the Dyche effect! In a different league to anything we have in central midfield.

Still think Burnley have yet to 'hit their straps' but looking ominously efficient (whilst according to Bowyer, Rovers excellent but not getting the results !), however, Darikwa at right back looks like an accident waiting to happen.

We will have our work cut out in three weeks' time at Ewood.

It's a genuine shame that you get more excited about Burnley than you do about your own team.

[sambo]

Think Joey Barton is going to prove to be a crucial signing by Dyche.

Still some way off full fitness but a class act tonight. Read the danger superbly and distribution was efficient and excellent. Temperament kept in check as well - the Dyche effect! In a different league to anything we have in central midfield.

Still think Burnley have yet to 'hit their straps' but looking ominously efficient (whilst according to Bowyer, Rovers excellent but not getting the results !), however, Darikwa at right back looks like an accident waiting to happen.

We will have our work cut out in three weeks' time at Ewood.

The 'Dyche effect'?

He's played one full game without a red card, hardly an achievement.

[Gav]

Just looking at Burnley's travel arrangements for this game and they are picking Burnley fans up on Philips Rd in Blackburn on the morning of the game!

Ambush? 😄

[Will]

We were talking about that on Saturday Gav, I guess it will be behind some gated car parks or something.

[SIMON GARNERS 194]

They'll be claiming they have thousands of supporters in Blackburn next!.

Just comes across as an odd place to pick up some of their fans with this being a bubble game?

[MCMC1875]

Didn't they pick up opposite the Dunkenhalgh in Clayton last time?

[K-Hod]

Didn't they pick up opposite the Dunkenhalgh in Clayton last time?

Yeah, they do, we get the same option. I always get the coach from there to the Dingle Dome as well.

[tomphil]

It's only to cater for those in and around Bburn ,there are a few, to save them traveling to that craphole just to travel back. That lad who lives near Ewood will only have to go a short distance just to come back to where he came from this time

It is right though that in true inbred style it will be dressed up as having legions of fans in Blackburn or their mob defying the law and turning up for a ruck unchallenged then the cops round them up in buses !

[1864roverite]

No matter what the view, the measures being enforced are draconian and uncalled for.

There are no other clubs, much bigger fan base/support that have derby matches and where fans can make their own way to and from the game. Why there is this inane façade for the game is beyond me. It doesn't stop sporadic fighting, it didn't stop the cherry tree mini riot and it wont stop any fan baiting inside the ground. Its operation overkill IMO and its unnecessary.

All it is serving to do is kill reals fans appetite for what is a proper derby match.

Evidenced by low turn outs from both quarters and the killing of the match atmosphere. Furthermore, there is clear support for the removal of the measures from both clubs but that they are loathe to highlight this to the authorities. There is not a shred of evidence to warrant the amount of police that will be on duty for this game.

[SIMON GARNERS 194]

6,500 Burnley fans travelled to Ewood for a midweek FA Cup game in 2005 without any travel restrictions.The opportunity for serious violence was laid onto a plate for anyone of that persuasion.

The following days report in the Telegraph was full of praise for both sets of fans for their good behaviour from both the Police and the respective clubs.There were no more arrests on the night than your average Saturday night out on the Town....the Ewood crowd was just under 29,000.

Go figure.

[adopted scouser]

40,000 in Goodison on Sunday, party atmosphere.

When I drove past after the game fans were laughing and joking with the Police.

[USABlue]

Police self importance, a great way to swell the overtime coffers at the expense of Joe Public. Taxpayers pay for the privilege of the so called peace keeping. Tossers.

[tomphil]

Going to the last one at the turd it was a bit galling to see Police officers swarming around the mini Tesco filling their bags with pop and crisps for the long afternoon ahead. Inside Mcdonalds loads more grabbing some junk food before sitting in their vehicles for an hour and a half waiting to escort the 10mph convoy. I know they have to eat and I've nowt against the lads themselves but it's just a farce.

Even more bizarre was the fact all the fans in the car park were able to drink cans and cans of ale at 9am whilst waiting to board the coaches leading to moronic behaviour from drunk scrotes on the buses. Lines of 4x4's escorting the buses down the M65 and not a dingle insight anywhere until we were entering deepest Burnley and then it was just a few toothless unwashed showing us their arses from their doorways.

Stupid thing was as the coaches approached the ground we passed a pub or two with some groups outside were it would have been easy as pie for them to attack the coaches or people to pile off the coaches but nothing, nowt more than few V's. The early kick off, TV and rip off prices are quite enough these days to dumb it right down, no need for the bubble overkill. Certainly not where us going to them is concerned anyway.

[sambo]

12 days to go, derby day is on the horizon....

Getting more and more nervous for this one but we seem to be hitting form at the right time. Just a shame we will be up against a strong Burnley outfit, although a lot of their fans seem to think their points total so far flatters them somewhat.

Can see a draw. Just hope it's a not a muted atmosphere. A look on the Rovers ticket website suggests ticket uptake hasn't been great, but still 12 days to go and imagine a lot will buy theirs on the weekend/before the Derby home game.