Season Restart

[Mattyblue]

I’ve no problem with the club being extremely worried about cash flow, we all should be.

However, they also have to think more long term - I.e by ensuring a discount for existing ST holders for whenever we are allowed back - I’m not going to condemn them yet as hopefully they will do just that when the time comes.

But I do worry that those running things these days just don’t have the instinctive feel for how the wider ST base behaves that Williams and Finn had, so they’ll offer nowt but a ST edging towards £400 and a good chunk of those fans with little interest in ifollow will just walk away.

So the other half of the ST base may well see those fans as ‘not real Rovers fans’ or ‘selfish’, doesn’t matter, they walk away regardless and it’s another nail in the coffin for our crowds and we continue to contract as a football club and competing even at second division level becomes very difficult.

Edited June 14, 2020 by Mattyblue

[Riverside under the drip]

I must admit, I did smile at the idea of a cardboard me. On closer inspection, you do actually seem to get it at the end of the season for home use (?!). We all applauded that German team selling 'ghost' tickets to 'ghost' games so giving away money for nothing in these times isn't unheard of.

If this was a club where the cut outs would fill more than one row, or the pretty ladies were put at the front like Top Gear, it might even be a good idea. For us though? Cut-outs of us lot would be more than a little parochial and embarrassing.

[AllRoverAsia]

5 minutes ago, Riverside under the drip said:

I must admit, I did smile at the idea of a cardboard me. On closer inspection, you do actually seem to get it at the end of the season for home use (?!). We all applauded that German team selling 'ghost' tickets to 'ghost' games so giving away money for nothing in these times isn't unheard of.

If this was a club where the cut outs would fill more than one row, or the pretty ladies were put at the front like Top Gear, it might even be a good idea. For us though? Cut-outs of us lot would be more than a little parochial and embarrassing.

Balaji for the loose change in his trouser pocket could fill every seat at Ewood and a way through FFP .......

Not a pretty sight but what an earner

[roversfan99]

26 minutes ago, Uddersfelt Blue said:

Of course we would prefer to be at the ground watching games, but we can’t.

Of course we would like a refund on our season tickets or a discount off next season.

Of course we want to watch games on iFollow as an alternative.

As it stands the club are trying to finish the season without Covid making a bigger hole in the finances than it already has done. No match day income, money for testing, players wages etc. 
 

Let’s not have a go at the management for doing what they can, to try and ensure we still have a club to support next season and those following. 

Ultimately the majority of Championship who of course are in the same situation have opted to give that option though.

The line about having a club to support is an overdramatic simplification. I think many would have chosen the ifollow option anyway, and any potential refunds would have possibly been a small fraction of the maximum of 500k, deferred against the next season tickets to maintain cash flow to ensure that it was only felt once income was coming back in. And indeed because this hasnt been an option, it may well lead to people (including a couple on here) cutting ties with the club and not renewing. Take ethics and morals out of it and even as a business decision it makes sense to allow at least a deferred refund option.

The reason it particularly rankles is because of the tone of the statement, guilt tripping working class people in situations whereby they get no value from the ifollow option, if they dont have a computer, if there is more than one person in a household, or if they have no interest in BCD, all of which situations strangely were outlined only to be dismissed in the statement, into thinking that wanting to get value from a refund would be seriously harmful to the club, considering that the person behind the statement is the main factor behind a 300k rise in director remuneration last year and the players weekly wage bill dwarves the likely liability caused by anyone claiming refunds.

You can already see the dent it has had on the club and supporter relationship, the idea of cardboard cut outs may have been seen as proactive had it not come a day after being told that refunds for those not getting value from an ifollow link are off the cards.

 

[JHRover]

50 minutes ago, Uddersfelt Blue said:

 

Let’s not have a go at the management for doing what they can, to try and ensure we still have a club to support next season and those following. 

If the clubs future is at risk that is because of the way it has operated including seemingly being comfortable with £10 million+ losses and a huge wage bill. Not because regular fans out of pocket may want compensating for games they have already paid for.

The club could have done it so much better. A simple case of saying 'we can't offer refunds at the moment but we will ensure loyalty is rewarded with prices for the next season ticket' 

Season tickets could be put on sale now despite not knowing what is happening. Many other clubs have sold thousands already. This would help cash flow, ensure a base was retained through the barren months and win people over with discounts and reductions in lieu of losses this season.

Quelle surprise we aren't doing that and are instead going to be playing catch up. Annoying fans by not providing a choice and allowing people to slip through the net over the coming weeks and months when (personally) I'd be ready and willing to sign up and hand over money now if the option and incentive was there.

[rigger]

3 hours ago, EgyptianPete said:

Thanks everyone for the reply, being Rovers daft i may do the cut out. At least we get to keep em.?

I would say to the club, keep my cut-out and put it in my seat next season, because I will not be renewing as it stands.

[roversfan99]

28 minutes ago, JHRover said:

If the clubs future is at risk that is because of the way it has operated including seemingly being comfortable with £10 million+ losses and a huge wage bill. Not because regular fans out of pocket may want compensating for games they have already paid for.

The club could have done it so much better. A simple case of saying 'we can't offer refunds at the moment but we will ensure loyalty is rewarded with prices for the next season ticket' 

Season tickets could be put on sale now despite not knowing what is happening. Many other clubs have sold thousands already. This would help cash flow, ensure a base was retained through the barren months and win people over with discounts and reductions in lieu of losses this season.

Quelle surprise we aren't doing that and are instead going to be playing catch up. Annoying fans by not providing a choice and allowing people to slip through the net over the coming weeks and months when (personally) I'd be ready and willing to sign up and hand over money now if the option and incentive was there.

Very much so. One of the areas that Waggott and co are really coming up short is communication.

I dont think that there is a chance that ST prices will be reduced to factor in this lack of option regarding refunds, and if they do go back on their current policy at all, I suspect it would just be reacting to bad publicity. It had to be done as an alternative option within that original statement, as per most Championship clubs, because then you have scope to use that goodwill to encourage the ifollow option as preferential to the club, but you are satisfying those that can or not get value from that option to know that they will get that refund on the purchase of their next season ticket. That way, you are also almost guaranteeing that they are going to buy a season ticket.

Theres a consistent vibe of guilt tripping throughout the PR coming out of the club during Waggott's time and quite simply it will not wash and it will not yearn an increase in attendances.

Sorry to keep reverting to your posts @Mattyblue but one thing you often reference is a lack of understanding in terms of the clubs fan base and how it works and that is evident here. 

[rigger]

45 minutes ago, JHRover said:

If the clubs future is at risk that is because of the way it has operated including seemingly being comfortable with £10 million+ losses and a huge wage bill. Not because regular fans out of pocket may want compensating for games they have already paid for.

The club could have done it so much better. A simple case of saying 'we can't offer refunds at the moment but we will ensure loyalty is rewarded with prices for the next season ticket' 

Season tickets could be put on sale now despite not knowing what is happening. Many other clubs have sold thousands already. This would help cash flow, ensure a base was retained through the barren months and win people over with discounts and reductions in lieu of losses this season.

Quelle surprise we aren't doing that and are instead going to be playing catch up. Annoying fans by not providing a choice and allowing people to slip through the net over the coming weeks and months when (personally) I'd be ready and willing to sign up and hand over money now if the option and incentive was there.

This or something similar I would have excepted from Waggot. The club is in financial difficulties at this time. I would ask you not to claim refunds, as this will help the club. I see that I can assist as well, so I will be taking a 50% pay cut until crowds are allowed back to games.

I don’t think it will happen.

[OldEwoodBlue]

I expect you can get a refund via your CC company if you bought your ST, Super 6 or Final 4 that way.

Consumer rights. Paid for goods or service not received.

[Guest]

This is how it should have read/should have gone...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

ST Holder Options:

• £40.00 in club cash, can be withdrawn out as real money or spent in store/paid towards next seasons Season Ticket*

or

• All 9 iFollow games, including play-offs (if applicable) for free + a free copy of the 1994/95 season DVD!*

*Either option includes a free, make-good offer of a cardboard cut out, to be placed on your ST seat, free of charge. 

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

Instead they went for money grabbing, the best financial option. A shame really.
 

[Mattyblue]

No problem ‘99, as for me it’s the crux of where Waggott has gone wrong since arriving.

I always look back to, and I’ve referred to it on here before, about a conversation I had with John Williams in the 2000s. On taking the job as Chief Exec in the late 90s, the board said to him; ‘we have 8,000 fans’

Williams pushed back and said something like ‘Eh? But we 20 plus thousand home fans coming through the gate each week?!’

Their point was, even then, when the club was in an infinitely better position than it is now, that we have to work bloody hard as a club from a small town with unfavourable demographics and a fairly poor local economy in the most competitive region in the country for clubs, with mega sized clubs 30/40 miles away, to maintain and grow our crowds. The ‘8,000’ were a given and you had to work your arse off to keep the rest, don’t take the piss out of Blackburners or they’ll vote with their wallet.

Williams therefore knew that he had to be innovative, flexible on price and careful not to piss them off as our fanbase didn’t have the depth of floating fans a city club in a less competitive region would have. 4,000 ST holders don’t renew? Your crowds go down by 4,000 as we don’t have the floating fanbase to take their place and we don’t attract many walk ons week by week, ST holders are the foundation of our support.

Of course, the new owners thought they knew better and those people who knew the club and fanbase inside out were jettisoned, ridiculous decisions were made that were slap in the face to fans - like keeping Kean employed in the summer of 2012, so thousands of fans followed them out of Ewood, the vas majority haven’t come back and their seats remain empty.

Waggott has since parachuted in at a time, in which through no fault of his own, those long standing ‘Rovers’ people have long gone from the club. So he sees a grand old name, a 31,000 ground, Brockhall, the academy, years of top flight football, and expects that we have the floating fanbase of the club he came from, Coventry, a club from a city three times bigger than Blackburn and a large support base across Warwickshire.

But what is his fault, is that he still doesn’t seem to come to grip with the make up of the fanbase. The data surely tells him that our crowds are 80% made up of ST holders, that crowds don’t particularly rise here on good runs of form like they do at clubs from larger conurbations as walk ons aren’t a major factor here, that we have a core that turns out year in year out, and it’s a core that stands up to scrutiny to the core of a lot of clubs in this league, by the way, but we just don’t have the same numbers of ‘floaters’.

So just like in Williams’ day, we must do everything we can not to lose ST holders, something he never forgot, but Waggott hasn’t learned in the first place.
 

 

[roversfan99]

18 minutes ago, JoeH said:

This is how it should have read/should have gone...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

ST Holder Options:

• £40.00 in club cash, can be withdrawn out as real money or spent in store/paid towards next seasons Season Ticket*

or

• All 9 iFollow games, including play-offs (if applicable) for free + a free copy of the 1994/95 season DVD!*

*Either option includes a free, make-good offer of a cardboard cut out, to be placed on your ST seat, free of charge. 

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

Instead they went for money grabbing, the best financial option. A shame really.
 

I suspect that obviously the policy is financially driven, but ultimately as touched upon, it will quite possibly damage the club, even if you discount ethics/morals and focus solely on it from a business sense.

I dont even think they needed to offer an option of being able to withdraw the money immediately necessarily. Or offer add ons like DVD's, because those who do get value from the ifollow option do not need to be further remunerated. I and many others am happy enough with the ifollow links, a DVD wouldn't make any difference to that.

Even if you only offer a deferred discount on the next season ticket as an alternative, you are then ensuring that the person buys a season ticket in the first place and are only suffering the comparatively minor hit on a refund at that same time. Focusing solely on those who obviously arent happy with ifollow. If 1 in 6 (roughly) of those people who arent adequately remunerated decide as a result that they wont buy a season ticket next time out, any supposed saving on refunds is nil. Then of course you have the long term effect of them people not returning indefinitely.

[Darrenbot]

After 3 months in lockdown mainly eating and sleeping,a cardboard cutout of me now would probably need to take up 2 seats,

[Stuart]

2 hours ago, Riverside under the drip said:

I must admit, I did smile at the idea of a cardboard me. On closer inspection, you do actually seem to get it at the end of the season for home use (?!). We all applauded that German team selling 'ghost' tickets to 'ghost' games so giving away money for nothing in these times isn't unheard of.

If this was a club where the cut outs would fill more than one row, or the pretty ladies were put at the front like Top Gear, it might even be a good idea. For us though? Cut-outs of us lot would be more than a little parochial and embarrassing.

Support like that comes from a club with a feelgood factor.

We don’t have that. We have a manager who lacks ambition on the pitch and a chief exec who lacks the same off it.

”Get the most out of what we’ve got” seems to be the mantra.

If we didn’t have rich owners that would seem fair enough on the pitch. If you can’t afford to bring in quality then you have to make do - but we spent £12m on two “prospects” (lest we forget) so we did have money. A decent manager would have done wonders with that. He wouldn’t be needing 8 new signings the season after to have a balanced, capable team.

Off the pitch the same mantra rings hollow - with no evidence that there is any attempt to bring in new fans by ticket offers which result in increased footfall. “Right troops. We’ve signed up for that cardboard offer, if the 200 fans on Fb buy one each that’s still 5k. But remember everyone, if anyone phones up bleating about having ‘lost their job’ (yawn) or ‘needing the money’ (rolleyes) then tell them they aren’t proper fans... and then get them to buy a cut-out to atone for their sins“.

Feelgood feels a good way off yet. I suspect it will be a generation after Venkys have sold up - and it will be relative to the division we are in. That’s if we have a club.

[rigger]

Who’s looking forward to next Saturday, I know I am.

[JHRover]

I'm looking forward to matches happening again and watching the results come in and promotion/relegation be battled over. Not really looking forward to watching us on my laptop in an empty ground though.

[Uddersfelt Blue]

35 minutes ago, roversfan99 said:

I suspect that obviously the policy is financially driven, but ultimately as touched upon, it will quite possibly damage the club, even if you discount ethics/morals and focus solely on it from a business sense.

I dont even think they needed to offer an option of being able to withdraw the money immediately necessarily. Or offer add ons like DVD's, because those who do get value from the ifollow option do not need to be further remunerated. I and many others am happy enough with the ifollow links, a DVD wouldn't make any difference to that.

Even if you only offer a deferred discount on the next season ticket as an alternative, you are then ensuring that the person buys a season ticket in the first place and are only suffering the comparatively minor hit on a refund at that same time. Focusing solely on those who obviously arent happy with ifollow. If 1 in 6 (roughly) of those people who arent adequately remunerated decide as a result that they wont buy a season ticket next time out, any supposed saving on refunds is nil. Then of course you have the long term effect of them people not returning indefinitely.

You’re making it sound as if the club are deliberately screwing the fans to make a profit. 

Its unfortunate if anyone can’t get to watch on iFollow and maybe they should be given an alternative deal. However, I hardly think that those fans will take their bat home because of it. If they do, in the current situation, then that’s very sad.

Personally I would love to be able to watch Rovers next season but after 56 years it looks like I’m not going to be able to attend as I’m not going to risk my health. Many others will be faced with the situation.

I sincerely hope that, regardless of what happens, we continue to have a club to support and are able to watch either in person or online. 

Kids buying me a cardboard cutout for Fathers Day. I know it’s ridiculous but I honestly can’t think of a better present. 

 

[Uddersfelt Blue]

25 minutes ago, rigger said:

Who’s looking forward to next Saturday, I know I am.

Me too Rigger. Will just miss sitting with my mates and of course the pre-match pint in the pub. 

[rigger]

5 minutes ago, Uddersfelt Blue said:

Me too Rigger. Will just miss sitting with my mates and of course the pre-match pint in the pub. 

For me an important point will be, when is the Brown Cow opening?

[roversfan99]

Just now, Uddersfelt Blue said:

You’re making it sound as if the club are deliberately screwing the fans to make a profit. 

Its unfortunate if anyone can’t get to watch on iFollow and maybe they should be given an alternative deal. However, I hardly think that those fans will take their bat home because of it. If they do, in the current situation, then that’s very sad.

Personally I would love to be able to watch Rovers next season but after 56 years it looks like I’m not going to be able to attend as I’m not going to risk my health. Many others will be faced with the situation.

I sincerely hope that, regardless of what happens, we continue to have a club to support and are able to watch either in person or online. 

Kids buying me a cardboard cutout for Fathers Day. I know it’s ridiculous but I honestly can’t think of a better present. 

 

It is and theres not necessarily anything wrong with the club trying to maximise its profit.

The club has gone to the trouble of outlining the various scenarios in which, within an admittedly difficuly situation for club and lets not forget fanbase alike, where they know and have acknowledged that people are not going to be remunerated for a service that they have paid for and not received. The club did a Q&A where essentially it said yeah that is the case but theres nothing we can/will do, hard luck. Youve even said "maybe they should be given an alternative deal" which is all that people are asking for.

Whether we think its fair enough or whether we feel its an overreaction, we have evidence on this messageboard that the club will lose season ticket holders in the future due to this. Opinion doesnt come into it when the attendances keep falling. The paying fan holds the power.

Looking from a more ethical point of view, to guilt trip working class people, many of whom will be struggling themselves at the moment, perhaps furloughed too is out of order and out of touch. Mowbray regularly references the working class people paying for a ticket and suggests he knows what they want from their football etc, but seemingly Waggott or whoever is responsible is more out of touch. Waggott and the players meanwhile have salaries which as far as I am aware may have been deferred but not in any way reduced to "save the club." 

Also, there is no way that the club is financially fragile to the extent that these refunds could make a major impact on the very existence of the club. 60 quid x 9000 STH's would be just over half a million pounds, baring in mind many people are happy with the ifollow option and any refund liability (deferred against a then guaranteed ST) would not be make or break to the club. The FFP line is also baseless because refunds can be deferred.

[Claytons Left Boot]

1 hour ago, Mattyblue said:

No problem ‘99, as for me it’s the crux of where Waggott has gone wrong since arriving.

I always look back to, and I’ve referred to it on here before, about a conversation I had with John Williams in the 2000s. On taking the job as Chief Exec in the late 90s, the board said to him; ‘we have 8,000 fans’

Williams pushed back and said something like ‘Eh? But we 20 plus thousand home fans coming through the gate each week?!’

Their point was, even then, when the club was in an infinitely better position than it is now, that we have to work bloody hard as a club from a small town with unfavourable demographics and a fairly poor local economy in the most competitive region in the country for clubs, with mega sized clubs 30/40 miles away, to maintain and grow our crowds. The ‘8,000’ were a given and you had to work your arse off to keep the rest, don’t take the piss out of Blackburners or they’ll vote with their wallet.

Williams therefore knew that he had to be innovative, flexible on price and careful not to piss them off as our fanbase didn’t have the depth of floating fans a city club in a less competitive region would have. 4,000 ST holders don’t renew? Your crowds go down by 4,000 as we don’t have the floating fanbase to take their place and we don’t attract many walk ons week by week, ST holders are the foundation of our support.

Of course, the new owners thought they knew better and those people who knew the club and fanbase inside out were jettisoned, ridiculous decisions were made that were slap in the face to fans - like keeping Kean employed in the summer of 2012, so thousands of fans followed them out of Ewood, the vas majority haven’t come back and their seats remain empty.

Waggott has since parachuted in at a time, in which through no fault of his own, those long standing ‘Rovers’ people have long gone from the club. So he sees a grand old name, a 31,000 ground, Brockhall, the academy, years of top flight football, and expects that we have the floating fanbase of the club he came from, Coventry, a club from a city three times bigger than Blackburn and a large support base across Warwickshire.

But what is his fault, is that he still doesn’t seem to come to grip with the make up of the fanbase. The data surely tells him that our crowds are 80% made up of ST holders, that crowds don’t particularly rise here on good runs of form like they do at clubs from larger conurbations as walk ons aren’t a major factor here, that we have a core that turns out year in year out, and it’s a core that stands up to scrutiny to the core of a lot of clubs in this league, by the way, but we just don’t have the same numbers of ‘floaters’.

So just like in Williams’ day, we must do everything we can not to lose ST holders, something he never forgot, but Waggott hasn’t learned in the first place.
 

 

Great post and best on here for some considerable time.

It should be printed off and slapped down on Waggott’s desk, with a copy framed and stuck up on his wall as a reminder as to what he should be aiming for.

[chaddyrovers]

34 minutes ago, JHRover said:

I'm looking forward to matches happening again and watching the results come in and promotion/relegation be battled over. Not really looking forward to watching us on my laptop in an empty ground though.

I watched a few La Liga games this weekend and it's been strange not saying fans in stadium. A lot of Spanish clubs ground arent the vocal anyway. 

Just watching the golf and its is very weird and different not seeing or hearing the fans. Players have said the same. 

It will be strange watching on Laptop for this season but hopefully we are back into ground before November/Christmas time. 

Edited June 14, 2020 by chaddyrovers

[rigger]

42 minutes ago, JHRover said:

I'm looking forward to matches happening again and watching the results come in and promotion/relegation be battled over. Not really looking forward to watching us on my laptop in an empty ground though.

In my minds eye, I will be watching from my seat in the Blackburn End. I hope my Preston neighbours appreciate the noise when we score.

[Cherry Blue]

1 hour ago, JHRover said:

I'm looking forward to matches happening again and watching the results come in and promotion/relegation be battled over. Not really looking forward to watching us on my laptop in an empty ground though.

I bought a screen with a connector to my laptop which will enhance the picture and will watch in a ⛔ room - unless I call for another beer. I'll miss the chat, the noise and seeing the chap (don't known his name but he could be reading this) lower down than me in the Blackburn End who always stands with arms raised to encourage other fans to sing.   

Fingers crossed that ifollow will not let anyone down on the day.

COYB

[Stuart]

2 hours ago, Mattyblue said:

No problem ‘99, as for me it’s the crux of where Waggott has gone wrong since arriving.

I always look back to, and I’ve referred to it on here before, about a conversation I had with John Williams in the 2000s. On taking the job as Chief Exec in the late 90s, the board said to him; ‘we have 8,000 fans’

Williams pushed back and said something like ‘Eh? But we 20 plus thousand home fans coming through the gate each week?!’

Their point was, even then, when the club was in an infinitely better position than it is now, that we have to work bloody hard as a club from a small town with unfavourable demographics and a fairly poor local economy in the most competitive region in the country for clubs, with mega sized clubs 30/40 miles away, to maintain and grow our crowds. The ‘8,000’ were a given and you had to work your arse off to keep the rest, don’t take the piss out of Blackburners or they’ll vote with their wallet.

Williams therefore knew that he had to be innovative, flexible on price and careful not to piss them off as our fanbase didn’t have the depth of floating fans a city club in a less competitive region would have. 4,000 ST holders don’t renew? Your crowds go down by 4,000 as we don’t have the floating fanbase to take their place and we don’t attract many walk ons week by week, ST holders are the foundation of our support.

Of course, the new owners thought they knew better and those people who knew the club and fanbase inside out were jettisoned, ridiculous decisions were made that were slap in the face to fans - like keeping Kean employed in the summer of 2012, so thousands of fans followed them out of Ewood, the vas majority haven’t come back and their seats remain empty.

Waggott has since parachuted in at a time, in which through no fault of his own, those long standing ‘Rovers’ people have long gone from the club. So he sees a grand old name, a 31,000 ground, Brockhall, the academy, years of top flight football, and expects that we have the floating fanbase of the club he came from, Coventry, a club from a city three times bigger than Blackburn and a large support base across Warwickshire.

But what is his fault, is that he still doesn’t seem to come to grip with the make up of the fanbase. The data surely tells him that our crowds are 80% made up of ST holders, that crowds don’t particularly rise here on good runs of form like they do at clubs from larger conurbations as walk ons aren’t a major factor here, that we have a core that turns out year in year out, and it’s a core that stands up to scrutiny to the core of a lot of clubs in this league, by the way, but we just don’t have the same numbers of ‘floaters’.

So just like in Williams’ day, we must do everything we can not to lose ST holders, something he never forgot, but Waggott hasn’t learned in the first place.

Great post Matt.

The trouble with Waggott is that his lack of understanding here (or willingness to listen*) means he is actively going out his way to make this worse. Charging increased prices for potential crowd fillers. But I continue to take issue with the club (under his watch) not doing anything to increase the floating fan numbers and instead whacking huge prices in concessions. £7.50 for a pie and a pint is ridiculous but they keep pushing this as though it is some kind of great deal. Ignorance and arrogance is a bad combination.

*I do wonder what the Fans Forum are saying at club meetings.