So much for the promises from the board

[trueblue]

Yet again the administration at Rovers has played a blinder.

When tickets were on sale for the Celtic match, everyone got a flyer that categorically stated.. "Any away supporters found in the home areas of the ground, even with a valid match ticket, will be ejected".

Hmm good one ! how come we were surrounded by Celtic fans in the Jack Walker upper tier ?

When it was pointed out to the stewards/police, the person complaining was told to shut up or he would be ejected !!

Also, on entering the ground, why were there only two turnstiles open to the Jack Walker block 08 ?

The reason (according to a steward) was that the turnstile operators had failed to turn up.. funny that.. all those operators from one stand failing to show !

On queueing up (because of the lack of open turnstiles) someone pointed out to the stewards that there were Celtic fans in the queue approaching the turnstile.. the stewards response ? ... "Oh well, they're in now"

I'm really looking forward to the visit of Man Cit-eh now.. gives the club another chance to shaft us with false promises.

[Ste B]

Same thing in the Blackburn end - not all of the turnstiles were open there.  

Stewards with the "its not my problem, its the polices problem" in the concourse when non rovers fans (doubt they were Celtic from the accent) were giving it "come on you Rovers @#/?s" to other fans.

Its not just going to be City - Evertons going to be similar, there will be loads in our ends for that one.

[1864roverite]

Rovers management in the admin department has always and will be Conmference style !

Some of them could not organise a P*ss up in a brewery !

watch on Sunday scousers will be everywhere cause the admin side cannot be arsed to sort out their own house

!!

we still have City and Utd to come here and the szme will happen then.

Right naffed off just now

[Baz]

You cant blame Rovers if rovers fans have sold their tickets to Celtic fans can you?

As for chucking them out then yes more effort could have been made but the police where very busy at the Darwin End and the stewards around the ground must average about 16 years old, and they aren't going to be able to chuck any drunk scottish blokes out are they?

[dave birch]

Baz, firstly, it's "Darwen"

secondly, You don't employ people that cannot do the job.

And finally, you CAN blame those Rovers "Fans". Greedy, Inconsiderate, pimping  are words that come immediately to mind. I'm sure that I could find more, but it's late here.

It's really that simple.

[Glenn]

My problems with the Rovers organization (from my view in the Blackburn End).

1. At half time, there must have been 50 private security and 30 police on the concourse, prior to this NOT A SINGLE SECURITY OR POLICE OFFICER WAS PRESENT OF THE SEATING SIDE OF THE GROUND  in the BB end. Perhaps if they were, the Celtic fan in front on me wouldn't have been dragged from his seat and kicked. YOU CAN'T BLAME THE STEWARDS FOR THIS - THEY ARE PAID TO BE STEWARDS NOT SECURITY OFFICERS. They had obviously been given a remit of "Don't get invloved, let one of the security/police handle it", sadly the police and security were nowhere to be seen. Even for the City game we had two police on every stairwell in the BB end.

2. Those evicting people from the ground have been given no instructions to record where the person was evicted from. So the club is now unable to punish those that sold on their tickets. I have the seat number of one of the people evicted if the club would care to act upon it, however I'm sure they will just sweep it under the carpet.

3. The one man pitch invasion. The refusal (probably due to orders) of the stewards to enter the pitch to stop him, and again the lack of presence on the pitch apron of police and security. THE BLOODY ST. JOHNS WENT AFTER HIM ! How professional is that going to look on TV.

4. Fake tickets were seized in the run up to the game, but as far as I'm aware neither the cordon police nor the turnstile operators were given specific instructions as to how to spot them.

I enjoyed a great day in Glasgow, although I managed to recieve a slap off a casual and felt somewhat "threatend" on the walk back to the ground, it was nothing compared to how I felt at the home leg. The Fenhurst was on the borderline of "controlled", thankfully the Celtic fans seemed to be self policing to some extent. It was the home "fans" that really bothered me, it nearly kicked off in the Fox & Hounds and the outside McDonalds, there were Rovers fans trying to knock lumps out of each other on the concourse over wether  to evict Celtic fans. In recent years I've been away to Burnley, Birmingham and Millwall and never felt it as likely to kick off as I did on Thursday.

As a few people have pointed out, we are a small town club, with a great regular following for the size of catchment area we have, we also do very well at attracting semi-regular fans from further afield (especially women and children) just how many will have been put off coming to games again after this. I know the woman sat behind me screaming into her mobile (presumably to a family member in another part of the ground) to get her son out of the ground, isn't likely to be back in hurry.

The club seemed to learn some leasons from the City game, the ticket restrictions were spot on and keeping almost all the exit gates shut until full time was the correct decision (although the tannoy announcments advertising this were questionable, surely informing the riversiders when they purchased their tickets would have been a better call).

I feel that so far luck has been the only thing preventing a serious incident on two occasions now, how many more before the club either gets it right of something serious happens.

[RevidgeBlue]

From what I saw the ticket restrictions worked in that "infiltration" was at an absolute minimum given the circumstances.

I only saw two fans ejected from Jack Walker lower and one from the Blackburn End.

However closing half the turnstiles in the Jack Walker stand is a difficult one to work out.

One thing i noticed was that the usual "old bid" make up of S/T holders in my area were almost all absent and in their place was an altogether more vocal brand of youngish to middle aged male showing that there is a wider pool of potential support than we've been attracting for some games.

They're never likely to return if we can't play better than that though.

[blue phil]

Infiltration was kept to the "mimimum" Rev !? Not near me in the JW upper it wasn't . There were whole groups of Celts sitting together. Were they on the database?

- I doubt it , but they got the tickets from the club originally , that's for certain.

    As Glenn implied earlier , it can be established how the Celtic fans (at least those who were ejected) got their tickets simply by obtaining the seat numbers and finding out whose name is on the ticket, ie the person who sold/gave it on.

    Until the club goes down the route of tracing and making an example of such people - and it has the power- then the word spreads that we're a soft touch.

   The word also spreads that its not safe for women and kids to go to big games ( Don't call me sexist Colin !) and that we're only a family club when there's 20,000 on the ground.

 Add this lazy , take-the -money-and-run attitude to the incompetent stewarding problems - not to mention the policing procedures - and the end result is a situation making it virtually impossible to extend our fan base in the long run.

  Radical measures are needed - some kind of identity card system linked to the data base making true identitification foolproof would be a start .

    The technology is there , I'm sure. But is the imagination and will necessary to carry it through ?

[eddiecolne]

Two things.

1st. Some clubs, Bolton & Rangers to name two, issue fans from their database, with swipe cards.  The card system I believe is expensive to set up, but ultimately saves money and hassle by reducing the number of forgeries and incidents like those that occurred on thursday night.

2nd. Moving away slightly, but on the same subject, it appears the dingles are about to cock up in a similar way to us.  The officials at bfc have stated that anyone buying a ticket for their forthcoming Norwich game, can also pick up a ticket for the dingles v manure worthy game.    Guess what? loads of people in scum shirts, queuing up, with some very frustrated dingles, grabbing handfuls of tickets.  the local dingles are really pi44ed off.

[jas]

just for the record, the rangers card system has failed many times with thousands being left outside the ground!!!

I'm sure your know this has given us great delight!!!!  

[ABBEY]

looks like they will be throwing the dummies out of the pram..........oops nearly forgot they are dummies .

(only nearly )

[boris bear]

2nd. Moving away slightly, but on the same subject, it appears the dingles are about to cock up in a similar way to us.  The officials at bfc have stated that anyone buying a ticket for their forthcoming Norwich game, can also pick up a ticket for the dingles v manure worthy game.    Guess what? loads of people in scum shirts, queuing up, with some very frustrated dingles, grabbing handfuls of tickets.  the local dingles are really pi44ed off.

In tonight's LET it says Burnley fans are happy with the linked ticket sales as it has helped to weed out Man Ure fans. That's what they think until they turn up to the match and find themselves sitting next to one. The tickets aren't too expensive either compared to premiership prices, thay start at £15 for adults, so £30 for the two tickets might not deter the Man Ure fans who can't get tickets in the away end.

[ABBEY]

not bad boris???not bloody bad baby bear £15 to watch burnley ,???hee hee id rather watch bargain hunt.oh yeah i will have to when ive had op .

[Hughesy]

We should introduce the card system. Celtic have one where its just like the size of a credit card, tells you seat number, row and season ticket number and also has a picture of the holder!! this way there wud b no selling on of tickets coz who is guna give an away fan there card n say yeah il get it back off you after mate!