Darwen End Closure / New Singing Section

[blueboy3333]

1 hour ago, barry_ said:

he is a 'proper fan' as much as anyone.

Read 'gumboots' assessment of her feeling of alienation after the BBE Upper was closed and you'll (hopefully) get some understanding.

If you've stop going on because the 'atmosphere is poor' then you're hardly loyal to the cause. It's a shit excuse anyway, the atmosphere is no different to last season. It's been crap for a long time.

[Oldgregg86]

To not go on purly because of atmosphere is a pathetic excuse if you can even call it an excuse. Call a spade a spade and say you can't be arsed. If the people who want to create an atmosphere stop going because of a poor atmosphere then how does that help/improve the situation. The more people think like that the worse the atmosphere is going to get.

Edited September 16, 2018 by Oldgregg86

[tomphil]

It was poor again first half yesterday and I don't think the first ten mins helped when they were largely all over us but as always at Ewood the team has to raise the fans when it should be the other way in games like this.

We don't seem to have a home 'end' anymore the BBE was the heartbeat now it's just a stand like the other three. Yet again yesterday bizarre stuff with the DE why the hell don't they just sell out the upper first and keep most of them out the way when they know in advance there's a lot coming.

Also try and do something to get a few more in the JW lower outer sections facing the camera's there looks less in most of that than there used to be in the DE home section.

Clueless clueless suits !

Edited September 16, 2018 by tomphil

[blondie]

"lack of atmosphere".

Try going on and improving it. So many people using excuses, we will only achieve what's possible in the long run by the size of the club. Non attendance, waiting for the glory days to arrive;  or Venky's departure is  laughable.

Edited September 16, 2018 by blondie
punctuation

[roversfan99]

1 hour ago, blondie said:

"lack of atmosphere".

Try going on and improving it. So many people using excuses, we will only achieve what's possible in the long run by the size of the club. Non attendance, waiting for the glory days to arrive;  or Venky's departure is  laughable.

Whilst I partially agree that essentially the key factor in improving the atmosphere is in the number of fans to begin with. I think you need to direct at least some if not all of your ire towards Waggott and his decision to significantly increase season ticket prices at a time when supporter happiness and interaction is at a high under the current ownership.

[AAK]

7 hours ago, blueboy3333 said:

If you've stop going on because the 'atmosphere is poor' then you're hardly loyal to the cause. It's a shit excuse anyway, the atmosphere is no different to last season. It's been crap for a long time.

Yea I am proper fan as, Barry says. Loyal, if loyal is sticking with the team through the last 8 years of utter garbage bar last season, supporting rovers despite family supporting other clubs, and not supporting any other team at all, then yes I am loyal. If it means having to attend every game then no i am not loyal, loyalty usually requires a relationship and I don't feel I've had one with the club since venkys took over to be fair, mate. The the little things the club do such as closing the darwen end for home fans etc for me, means they don't respect that relationship with some of their fans. 

Edited September 16, 2018 by AAK

[Mattyblue]

Fair enough AAK, but if you are struggling to form a relationship with this current team and manager then I’m not sure you will again...

[blueboy3333]

38 minutes ago, AAK said:

Yea I am proper fan as, Barry says. Loyal, if loyal is sticking with the team through the last 8 years of utter garbage bar last season, supporting rovers despite family supporting other clubs, and not supporting any other team at all, then yes I am loyal. If it means having to attend every game then no i am not loyal, loyalty usually requires a relationship and I don't feel I've had one with the club since venkys took over to be fair, mate. The the little things the club do such as closing the darwen end for home fans etc for me, means they don't respect that relationship with some of their fans. 

Fair enough and I agree with you to an extent,  but this wasn't your original point. 

[blondie]

2 hours ago, roversfan99 said:

Whilst I partially agree that essentially the key factor in improving the atmosphere is in the number of fans to begin with. I think you need to direct at least some if not all of your ire towards Waggott and his decision to significantly increase season ticket prices at a time when supporter happiness and interaction is at a high under the current ownership.

Appreciate that, to some, the increase is problematic. However we cannot expect to continually have cheap tickets. Even Uncle Jack wanted us to be self sufficient as possible. John Williams effort to increase attendances in the short term was successful, but has left an unrealistic expectation of prices.

[roversfan99]

10 minutes ago, blondie said:

Appreciate that, to some, the increase is problematic. However we cannot expect to continually have cheap tickets. Even Uncle Jack wanted us to be self sufficient as possible. John Williams effort to increase attendances in the short term was successful, but has left an unrealistic expectation of prices.

The key is to get people back. Would have made sense to have a freeze, on prices that have gone up since the aforementioned John Williams pricing strategies anyway, with the sole focus on getting people back. 

If a price increase is necessary at some point, surely next year would be better. Its rare that optimism is so high as it was in the summer following a promotion.

[AshleyClifford]

Does anyone know what the percentage split is for :

season ticket renewals (people that had a ticket last year)

reterning season ticket holders (had a ticket in the past, but not last year)

brand new season ticket holder.

To me it seems strange, that attendances are up, we are discussing the negatives of the price increase. At the moment I believe we have between 2 and 3000 more home fans in the ground each match. Compared to 2016/17.

are we saying it out of new season tickets or stopped people renewing ?

as an aside I have a season ticket but so far have only managed to get to one game, I had to leave at half time because of the train being cancelled. The line between Manchester and Blackburn and Preston and Blackburn is also closed on a Saturday until November. Has transport effected attendances ? 

 

[Mattyblue]

You are right.

At the start of the Coyle season, we had between 9,500 and 10,000 home fans a game. Now it’s 11,500-12,000.

However, the appointment of Coyle is what saw crowds plummet to that four figure level. We are now back to where we were in the final Bowyer/Lambert season.

It was Waggott himself that wanted 10,000 season ticket sales, it hasn’t happened, so obviously something went awry.

[PeteJD13]

24 minutes ago, Mattyblue said:

You are right.

At the start of the Coyle season, we had between 9,500 and 10,000 home fans a game. Now it’s 11,500-12,000.

However, the appointment of Coyle is what saw crowds plummet to that four figure level. We are now back to where we were in the final Bowyer/Lambert season.

It was Waggott himself that wanted 10,000 season ticket sales, it hasn’t happened, so obviously something went awry.

I think for Rovers to hit that mark it would take 2/3 seasons of investment from the owners ( like this summer ) and a continual progression of the team to a play off contender. Other factors can come into it I've gone from being a season ticket holder to rarely going as I have little un and my wife work involves weekends. But when shes old enough the club will regain two fans coming back 

[Mattyblue]

There will always be a ‘churn’ as John Williams put it if of people like yourself, I probably agree that it will be a slow process generally, but we aren’t far off the 10k now. 

We know it is very easy to lose fans but bloody difficult getting them back. But what I would say is this summer was the first one in a decade in which you had a positive fan base engaged with the club and I don’t think we grasped that opportunity.

[PeteJD13]

totally agree it was a massive missed opportunity to  re engage after what was a tremendously successful season and transfer window, it doesn't take much for that optimism to fall away I think that will remain whilst the current owners remain in place, and probably beyond them as they've made us a very skeptical bunch!   

[blueboy3333]

I'd like to know the breakdown of ST holders into age groups. That would tell you a lot about who the club should be trying to target. 

[pk1875]

On 16/09/2018 at 07:11, gumboots said:

When they moved the family stand from the BBE upper I was furious and many couldn't understand my anger. Now it's happened to the Darwen end and still nobody gets it. It's about your space. The little bit of ewood that on match days is your home. It might not be an area that's to everyone's taste but for you it's an important part of the matchday experience. Now I understand the economics of the closures but I don't understand why nobody seems to get the sense of loss of enjoyment that those affected may feel. 

I felt for the BBE Upper fans and as a member of BRFCAG our thoughts where passed onto the club. T close a stand in such a way without any form of consultation was disgusting and lacked class from the club. Lessons learned? NO they do exactly the same again with the DE. Mark my words the same fate could easily come for those in the Riverside. 

 

[pk1875]

The move to close the Darwen End has been a complete fail for atmosphere improvement, and has actually created further divide withing the fan base. We now have fans in the BBE belittling those in other stands whilst bizarrely asking them to move into the BBE.

The timing of the announcement was my opinion quite deliberate, leaving those in the DE with zero chance to plan a move together ahead of the new season. Maybe  Caley and Co knew full well that he and his inadequate stewarding team preferred to split those fans into the other three home stands. 

We ( a group of fans from the DE) had a meeting with Waggot in which he sat nodding and saying all the words we wanted to hear (hollow words indeed). Numerous ideas where discussed and Waggot agreed to help facilitate the move to W01-W02. 

1. Ryan the social media bloke would be in touch and the club would actively promote the new area...NOTHING CAME OF THIS

2. The far corner of W01 would be netted off and used for flags and banners both for visual effect and to bring those moving closer to the rest of the JW lower... NOTHING CAME OF THIS..... In fact they sold season tickets in this corner. 

3. Away fans would initially be placed in the DE Upper like many other teams do.... NOTHING CAME OF THIS

4. The club (Waggot) offered to pay for a repair to the drum..... NOTHING CAME OF THIS Dan the lad who drums shelled out £80 out of his own pocket

5. Stewards would not be OTT with home fans as they often where in the DE, On Saturday there must have been 20 or stewards and police watching and photographing the home fans as at least 3 or 4 Villa fans entered the pitch in celebration and allowed to return to their seats virtually unchallenged. 

The club have some how managed to create further divide in the supporter base, whilst doing nothing at all to improve atmosphere.

Many of those in the DE have moved to Riverside or BBE or just stopped going a massive own goal in my opinion.

At the meeting Steve Waggot estimated that half of the teams this season would need the full DE.... how wrong that has proven to be....

Edited September 17, 2018 by pk1875

[barry_]

4 hours ago, pk1875 said:

The move to close the Darwen End has been a complete fail for atmosphere improvement, and has actually created further divide withing the fan base. We now have fans in the BBE belittling those in other stands whilst bizarrely asking them to move into the BBE.

The timing of the announcement was my opinion quite deliberate, leaving those in the DE with zero chance to plan a move together ahead of the new season. Maybe  Caley and Co knew full well that he and his inadequate stewarding team preferred to split those fans into the other three home stands. 

We ( a group of fans from the DE) had a meeting with Waggot in which he sat nodding and saying all the words we wanted to hear (hollow words indeed). Numerous ideas where discussed and Waggot agreed to help facilitate the move to W01-W02. 

1. Ryan the social media bloke would be in touch and the club would actively promote the new area...NOTHING CAME OF THIS

2. The far corner of W01 would be netted off and used for flags and banners both for visual effect and to bring those moving closer to the rest of the JW lower... NOTHING CAME OF THIS..... In fact they sold season tickets in this corner. 

3. Away fans would initially be placed in the DE Upper like many other teams do.... NOTHING CAME OF THIS

4. The club (Waggot) offered to pay for a repair to the drum..... NOTHING CAME OF THIS Dan the lad who drums shelled out £80 out of his own pocket

5. Stewards would not be OTT with home fans as they often where in the DE, On Saturday there must have been 20 or stewards and police watching and photographing the home fans as at least 3 or 4 Villa fans entered the pitch in celebration and allowed to return to their seats virtually unchallenged. 

The club have some how managed to create further divide in the supporter base, whilst doing nothing at all to improve atmosphere.

Many of those in the DE have moved to Riverside or BBE or just stopped going a massive own goal in my opinion.

At the meeting Steve Waggot estimated that half of the teams this season would need the full DE.... how wrong that has proven to be....

all very discouraging

[Mattyblue]

Who’s belittling you? How are we ‘further divided’ A suggestion was made to move to NO1 in the Blackburn End, because that is a fairly full area with people that generally stand and sing. More chance of getting chants going there than the now very few of you left in the JW corner. That’s it. Move, don’t move, just an idea.

You seem to have this us against them mentality for some reason, usually because a couple of divvies have said something on social media or because of an incident years ago. Most people in the ground don’t see themselves as ‘belonging’ to a particular stand, they just have a ticket there, we are all just Rovers fans, no?

Edited September 18, 2018 by Mattyblue

[pk1875]

Matty, I wasn't referring to this forum but on other forms of social media it is rife.

[JHRover]

I've never spoken to Waggott and don't expect to as I don't get involved with that sort of thing but I'd be very interested to hear his views on the away fan attendances and how those stack up with his reasoning for shutting the DE to home fans to enable larger away followings.

So far we've had pitiful away followings from Millwall, Brentford and Reading (amounting to about 1000 between them) and a decent 4000 from Villa (which would have been higher had the game not been on TV) and those 4000 could easily have been accommodated in the DE without the need to close it to home fans.

We've also predictably got Leeds and Preston at noon kick offs which everyone could see coming and will almost certainly knock a couple of thousand off each away following. Preston will bring about 4000 possibly less if they are struggling as their big day out at Ewood is no longer a novelty.

Genuinely interested to see/hear which clubs Waggott is expecting to bring 4000+ between now and the end of the season. Possibly Stoke or Middlesbrough if going well for promotion but not many others.

I'd have preferred it if he was just honest and said that it was being done to save money/hassle by condensing home fans and not needing to open the DE each week.

Couple of interesting things I've seen recently.

When we played Villa on Saturday Rovers opened the DE upper tier for 20 odd Villa fans. Despite there being hundreds of empty seats in the lower tier. God knows how much it would have cost in stewarding, cleaning and catering to open the upper tier for just 20 odd people but it was completely unnecessary and likely cost the club money.

I notice Wigan play Hull tonight and are advertising cash only turnstiles are open in 2 stands. Any reason we can't do similar rather than ticket only with a £3 surcharge on matchday? I wonder who will get more walk-on fans?

Edited September 18, 2018 by JHRover

[blueboy3333]

12 hours ago, pk1875 said:

The move to close the Darwen End has been a complete fail for atmosphere improvement, and has actually created further divide withing the fan base. We now have fans in the BBE belittling those in other stands whilst bizarrely asking them to move into the BBE.

The timing of the announcement was my opinion quite deliberate, leaving those in the DE with zero chance to plan a move together ahead of the new season. Maybe  Caley and Co knew full well that he and his inadequate stewarding team preferred to split those fans into the other three home stands. 

We ( a group of fans from the DE) had a meeting with Waggot in which he sat nodding and saying all the words we wanted to hear (hollow words indeed). Numerous ideas where discussed and Waggot agreed to help facilitate the move to W01-W02. 

1. Ryan the social media bloke would be in touch and the club would actively promote the new area...NOTHING CAME OF THIS

2. The far corner of W01 would be netted off and used for flags and banners both for visual effect and to bring those moving closer to the rest of the JW lower... NOTHING CAME OF THIS..... In fact they sold season tickets in this corner. 

3. Away fans would initially be placed in the DE Upper like many other teams do.... NOTHING CAME OF THIS

4. The club (Waggot) offered to pay for a repair to the drum..... NOTHING CAME OF THIS Dan the lad who drums shelled out £80 out of his own pocket

5. Stewards would not be OTT with home fans as they often where in the DE, On Saturday there must have been 20 or stewards and police watching and photographing the home fans as at least 3 or 4 Villa fans entered the pitch in celebration and allowed to return to their seats virtually unchallenged. 

The club have some how managed to create further divide in the supporter base, whilst doing nothing at all to improve atmosphere.

Many of those in the DE have moved to Riverside or BBE or just stopped going a massive own goal in my opinion.

At the meeting Steve Waggot estimated that half of the teams this season would need the full DE.... how wrong that has proven to be....

I think we can safely say Waggott is out of his depth. Or a liar. The 'onerovers' schtick is wearing a bit thin. All they've done is put prices up without any attempt to improve the atmosphere in a half-empty stadium (on a good day).

Waggott is either just telling people what they want to hear or he really is completely out of touch with the (potential) fanbase. The fact that crowds have barely increased on the back of a promotion and with more goodwill that their has been for a decade is a damning indictment of his running of the club.

Mowbray was openly astonished at the numbers that turned up against Oxford. Waggott has done absolutely nothing to bring those people back. It angers me. He is a waste of space.

[pk1875]

17 minutes ago, blueboy3333 said:

I think we can safely say Waggott is out of his depth. Or a liar. The 'onerovers' schtick is wearing a bit thin. All they've done is put prices up without any attempt to improve the atmosphere in a half-empty stadium (on a good day).

Waggott is either just telling people what they want to hear or he really is completely out of touch with the (potential) fanbase. The fact that crowds have barely increased on the back of a promotion and with more goodwill that their has been for a decade is a damning indictment of his running of the club.

Mowbray was openly astonished at the numbers that turned up against Oxford. Waggott has done absolutely nothing to bring those people back. It angers me. He is a waste of space.

I honestly think Waggot is a good business man and will generate additional income through sponsorship and corporate which is good for the club, however the club could do with an Alan Myers type of guy to interact with the fans. Myers was very pro active during his time here, we could do with someone of a similar mould.

[JHRover]

28 minutes ago, blueboy3333 said:

I think we can safely say Waggott is out of his depth. Or a liar. The 'onerovers' schtick is wearing a bit thin. All they've done is put prices up without any attempt to improve the atmosphere in a half-empty stadium (on a good day).

Waggott is either just telling people what they want to hear or he really is completely out of touch with the (potential) fanbase. The fact that crowds have barely increased on the back of a promotion and with more goodwill that their has been for a decade is a damning indictment of his running of the club.

Mowbray was openly astonished at the numbers that turned up against Oxford. Waggott has done absolutely nothing to bring those people back. It angers me. He is a waste of space.

Sadly I'm leaning towards agreeing with you on this. It seems a real opportunity has been missed.

Dress it up however you want but to have 26000+ home fans on vs Oxford to having 11,000 a week on in the league above suggests something has gone wrong somewhere.

Nobody in their right minds ever expected those people to all return this season but for 15,000 to have seemingly disappeared into the ether tells me an opportunity has been missed. Even if we had tempted 1 in 6 of that lot to return this season we'd be looking at pushing 14,000 home fans a week which would be decent.

I'm not interested in historical statistics or what we were doing 30-40 years ago at this level.

Break it down into simple terms - we had 26000+ home fans on vs Oxford, and now we're getting 11,000-12,000 in a higher league. We haven't captured many, if any, of those people and enticed them to come back.

Unfortunately when you put prices up across the board you are immediately limiting your capacity to sell more. 17% hike, an increase on 1875 club membership and the piece de resistance of not only retaining but then increasing the matchday ticket surcharge to £3, as £2 wasn't enough, has to go down as one of the most insane and unjustifiable things I have ever seen.

Edited September 18, 2018 by JHRover