v The Dingles (h) - 4/1/2025 k/o 12:30

[Penwortham Blue]

8 minutes ago, JHRover said:

Well the club have now taken to social media to announce a 'sell out' of Ewood Park so I suspect it is highly unlikely that they'll release any more tickets, even though we all know they could release another 300+ simply by removing pointless netting. 

Too much hassle I guess.

I'll be kind to them here and accept that rejigging things a week before the game to be able to use the remaining 3-4000 seats in the Darwen End is going to be difficult. Maybe they could have done this from the start and divided the Darwen End between home and away fans but it seems their expectations for this one were considerably short of a full house.

Still it annoys me no end that we have a 31000 seat modern stadium and yet will be claiming a sell out over 4000 short of that.

Is there another ground in England/anywhere that claims a sell out whilst leaving 14% of its capacity empty?

Its bonkers and unique to Ewood but they seem to like being unique.

I agree, probably too late and there is a case for originally restricting sales within the Darwen End. Notwithstanding that, they need to be brought to account re: the available seats in the home support stands that they are currently withholding from sale, whilst announcing that Ewood Park is sold out. Come on Swag / Suhail / Lindsay T, sort it out.

[JHRover]

6 minutes ago, chaddyrovers said:

did anyone expect more than 20k Rovers fans on for the game when sales when on sale? early kick off, just after Christmas and on TV. 

Rovers fans who are walk ons for a few games have been great all season and its good to see

Secondly, I wouldn't have give them all the Bottom tier either. I would have given them 2k then you have had split the bottom half of that stand

 

The decision was made, probably with police input, from the get go that they were having 4000 max in the Darwen End. At that point there should have been a contingency plan in place to maximise use of the Darwen End by allowing use by home fans *if* demand required it and as a last resort. 

I fully accept that demand for these tickets has come as something of a surprise. I was surprised that we even opened the top tier but with the pace things were going at a fortnight ago it was obvious that if momentum continued a sell out was likely and that alternative arrangements might be required.

Lets not mix up demand for this and the Sunderland game with general increases in 'walk ons'. These two games are special situations for traditional historical reasons and would have seen significant increases even if we were in the bottom 3. The results of the team have just added to the increase.

None of this gets around the fact that there are AT LEAST 350 seats unavailable in the home ends that could be used. If they were then this would be at least another £10,000 of income for a 'hard up' club and you never know, one or two of those people might be tempted back or into buying a season ticket.

We are in no position to turn people away if we don't need to, and until every last seat in the BBE, JW and Riverside is occupied that is what we are doing. 

Total jobsworths spoiling it by covering blocks of seats up with netting when it isn't required. No other game in the Football League, including the reverse fixture, requires swathes of home areas to be removed from sale. If you need segregation you take it from the away end (4000 to play with there). 

[Claytons Left Boot]

The Darwen End has 8k seats, so there’ll be 4K empty seats in that stand, plus however many seats are covered in netting, say 3-500. Assuming the netted seats are now not being sold, I would expect the attendance to be given out as 26,850 or thereabouts.

[BRFC4EVA]

Seems crazy that we have so many seats netted off in the Riverside and JW. I get that the Darwen end is a non-starter at this point (although with an ounce of forethought they could have split the stand in half and given them 2.5k in the bottom and 1.5k in the top) so that we could have sold to our fans.

[superniko]

I hope they’ve got enough crates of Fosters for a full upper tier!

[JHRover]

Yasir has been having his say on the subject when questioned by a supporter. Apparently they are advised that those blocks must be 'segregated' and Rovers have to follow that advice. 

Once again problems unique to Rovers and Ewood Park and not seen anywhere else in English football because most clubs would fill their grounds rather than turn fans and money away to follow 'advice'.

[Mattyblue]

Of course, CAN’T, ‘police’ ‘advice’ etc. Though Lancs Constabulary East Division that also oversees Turf Moor has no issue with about a foot between the two sets of fans at their place…

Edited 14 hours ago by Mattyblue

[simongarnerisgod]

12 minutes ago, JHRover said:

Yasir has been having his say on the subject when questioned by a supporter. Apparently they are advised that those blocks must be 'segregated' and Rovers have to follow that advice. 

Once again problems unique to Rovers and Ewood Park and not seen anywhere else in English football because most clubs would fill their grounds rather than turn fans and money away to follow 'advice'.

man utd vs liverpool,they don`t have this "advice",both sets of fans share the same stand at anfield and old trafford,so yasir is talking a load of b******s,i can think of a dozen other derbies as well where fans share the same stand

as ewood has four seperate stands there really should be no need for the "advice" or any netting it`s obviously a load of made up crap from the slackers who run the club

Edited 14 hours ago by simongarnerisgod
not finished article and typo

[Hasta]

9 minutes ago, JHRover said:

Yasir has been having his say on the subject when questioned by a supporter. Apparently they are advised that those blocks must be 'segregated' and Rovers have to follow that advice. 

I notice he says “stadium security” rather than the police. So I suspect it’s internal.

[BRFC4EVA]

It's all a load of made up bollocks. I mean how many times have we had early ko vs Leeds at Ewood, only for them to play away at Stoke at 8pm? On a Public holiday

If sky want it, it happens.

[Mattyblue]

It’s ‘advice’, but they ‘must’ adhere to it apparently.

Funny that the pre this shower such advice was either not given or ignored  - I.e 2009, when, shock horror, not only did they not net off areas of the JW and Riverside, Rovers fans were actually in the *same* stand as them 😱

[Claytons Left Boot]

19 minutes ago, chaddyrovers said:

 I wouldn't have give them all the Bottom tier either. I would have given them 2k then you have had split the bottom half of that stand

When Rovers and Burnley are in the same Division, there should an agreement between both clubs that any season ticket holders in each grounds’ away stand forfeit their usual seat for the East Lancs derby, or at least get relocated to another part of the ground, if available.

No problem at all at Ewood because, barring a miracle this will never arise. It’s easy, just then allocate Burnley the whole stand, ie. 8k fans. Absolutely pointless having 4K empty seats.

At Turf Moor, their regular season ticket holders in the other section of that dilapidated cow shed would either have to miss the game or be relocated somewhere else. Rovers would be given the whole Cricket Field Stand, approx 4K seats.

Gone are the days when 20k away fans could swell the attendance to over 50k, like for the two ties in the 1960 FA Cup 6th round. But..football should be for the fans and decent numbers of away fans should be allowed to attend these sort of games.

Common sense (very little of it, these days, down at Ewood) should prevail.

 

 

[simongarnerisgod]

3 minutes ago, Claytons Left Boot said:

When Rovers and Burnley are in the same Division, there should an agreement between both clubs that any season ticket holders in each grounds’ away stand forfeit their usual seat for the East Lancs derby, or at least get relocated to another part of the ground, if available.

No problem at all at Ewood because, barring a miracle this will never arise. It’s easy, just then allocate Burnley the whole stand, ie. 8k fans. Absolutely pointless having 4K empty seats.

At Turf Moor, their regular season ticket holders in the other section of that dilapidated cow shed would either have to miss the game or be relocated somewhere else. Rovers would be given the whole Cricket Field Stand, approx 4K seats.

Gone are the days when 20k away fans could swell the attendance to over 50k, like for the two ties in the 1960 FA Cup 6th round. But..football should be for the fans and decent numbers of away fans should be allowed to attend these sort of games.

Common sense (very little of it, these days, down at Ewood) should prevail.

 

 

if the dingles actually had a proper stand there would`nt be a problem,we have no issues with pne or bolton when it comes to ticket allocation,it`s all because they some 1950`s asbestos ridden shed

[Upside Down]

3 hours ago, Mattyblue said:

Their place has home and away fans pretty much side by side in the same stand. We need 1,500+ netted off seats across three separate stands, because?

It's a good excuse to not sell tickets.

Then we can plead poverty because we didn't sell enough tickets.

[Penwortham Blue]

23 minutes ago, JHRover said:

Yasir has been having his say on the subject when questioned by a supporter. Apparently they are advised that those blocks must be 'segregated' and Rovers have to follow that advice. 

Once again problems unique to Rovers and Ewood Park and not seen anywhere else in English football because most clubs would fill their grounds rather than turn fans and money away to follow 'advice'.

This really needs calling out, why are Blackburn Rovers an exception. We have 4 distinct stands, there can be no good reason as to why seats in home ends are being withheld from sale. If they are going to maintain that position, then they really need to detail and clarify the rationale for preventing a business selling its product to paying customers. This needs to be taken up in any event but obviously the preference is for the club to get their act together, grow some gonads and put the seats on sale.

[Mattyblue]

Their ground holds 22k, they only have to give 2.2k to away fans as per the EFL regs, they know they can sell 20k tickets to their own fans currently so we get 2.2k. No issue with that, why should they give anymore? 

 

Edited 14 hours ago by Mattyblue

[JHRover]

Although if the police and 'SAG' were giving them similar advice to what Rovers allegedly get then they would need to net off 500+ seats in the Cricket Field stand. Inevitably these would have to come off the home allocation rather than reduce the away allocation to a measly 1700. It would probably involve kicking season ticket holders out of their seats.

The corner between the Bob Lord stand and Cricket Field is almost touching distance between home and away fans. No netted off seats. No 10ft high steel fence. 

There remains an old 'box' area actually within the away end which often has home club staff sat in it during games and this is allowed without the need for Berlin Wall style no-mans land. 

Why?

[chaddyrovers]

34 minutes ago, JHRover said:

The decision was made, probably with police input, from the get go that they were having 4000 max in the Darwen End. At that point there should have been a contingency plan in place to maximise use of the Darwen End by allowing use by home fans *if* demand required it and as a last resort. 

I fully accept that demand for these tickets has come as something of a surprise. I was surprised that we even opened the top tier but with the pace things were going at a fortnight ago it was obvious that if momentum continued a sell out was likely and that alternative arrangements might be required.

Lets not mix up demand for this and the Sunderland game with general increases in 'walk ons'. These two games are special situations for traditional historical reasons and would have seen significant increases even if we were in the bottom 3. The results of the team have just added to the increase.

None of this gets around the fact that there are AT LEAST 350 seats unavailable in the home ends that could be used. If they were then this would be at least another £10,000 of income for a 'hard up' club and you never know, one or two of those people might be tempted back or into buying a season ticket.

We are in no position to turn people away if we don't need to, and until every last seat in the BBE, JW and Riverside is occupied that is what we are doing. 

Total jobsworths spoiling it by covering blocks of seats up with netting when it isn't required. No other game in the Football League, including the reverse fixture, requires swathes of home areas to be removed from sale. If you need segregation you take it from the away end (4000 to play with there). 

I am very surprised by the uptake in walk on's all season even for TV game. I was surprised by the Sunderland game walk on's figure of over 8k. Didn't expect that at all. given the price and TV game. 

on the Burnley game, you could have moved some Burnley fans after we sold them their ticket to accommodation more Rovers in the stadium and in the Darwen end, but I wouldn't have given them 4k either, 2k tops with more Rovers fans

I think factoring in that Rovers fans whether STH, walk on's fans or even the occasional match going fan have enjoyed watching this team played, Eustace connection with the fans and players, etc has increased the match attendance for this game. 

I know a couple of Rovers fans who have had booked the day off work to buy a ticket for this game cos they won't buy STH cos they can't enough games to make it value for money. 

 

[Mattyblue]

This turnout has surprised me (massively), but I can’t say the Sunderland game was too surprising. It was our first Boxing Day game (*the* fixture for high attendances across English football) that we could go to at Ewood for 7 years, the team is doing well and it was only priced at Cat B.

[magicalmortensleftpeg]

The Darwen End arrangements will need explaining but as Burnley now have the whole lower tier, there’s probably not a lot that can be done. The club will need to learn lessons and restrict away sales for these fixtures in future until the demand from home fans can be properly gauged.

The potentially available sections in the JW and Riverside remaining closed off, makes no sense. 

[JHRover]

I'm afraid with the people we have running Rovers these days even if demand required it I very much doubt they would countenance splitting the Darwen End between home and away fans.

Of course they could if they wanted, and should if needed, we did it perfectly well in 2009, but that all sounds like too much hassle to me these days. These days they are selling the home ends short for 400 'segregation' seats that are in totally self contained and separate stands to the away fans, meanwhile away fans can share facilities with home fans including the same stand at most other Championship grounds.

They'd sooner max out the away numbers and then leave it at that. 

[47er]

1 hour ago, JHRover said:

Yasir has been having his say on the subject when questioned by a supporter. Apparently they are advised that those blocks must be 'segregated' and Rovers have to follow that advice. 

 

Even if that's true it couldn't stop them selling seats to Burnley fans in the Darwen End upper! Sticks out like a sore thumb.

[Gav]

Ally Pally at the darts tonight:

[mhead]

With my long time access to Steve W. if i had not been so stupid but to fly to Indonesia with dodgy wi-fi, I would be asking a number of questions:

-whilst supporting a lower allocation to Bunleh, why does this affect the Riverside and JW Lower(locate the 4000 bums away from the wings)

-get a bloody big banner for the Darwen End Upper about the 150th Anniversary, saying THE WORLDS MOST SUCCESSFUL TOWN TEAM

-have they learnt lessons from the Oxford game  -, what incentives do they give BBE Upper fans to come again eg re-open it as the 150 year anniversary stand.

- get a data base analyst now you have another 10,000 fans on the data-base(9k plus 8k plus 10k) to increase longer term sales

- to continue to attract more Riversiders back, announce £20 per match til the end of the Season

-  appeal to Blackburn Companies nearish to the Ground to re-open their Car Parks for matchdays

In a nutshell, try to re-connect with the wider fanbase and prove we are an ambitious Club again - cos we certainly have not been for the last 14 years. COYB but why is my Season-ticket seat in the Riverside empty!!

[SIMON GARNERS 194]

They are not interested in any of that mhead,too much hassle...been the same for 15 years.

Wrong people in the wrong jobs down Ewood.