[Archived] 40 Flippin' Pounds

[McClarky]

Remember the coach 'sneaking' through a police cordon on a 'dry' trip to Huddersfield (after Tory Moynihan tried to scupper ale en tour) only for a massive chorus of 'Roll out the barrel...' let rip, accompanied by three bin <a href="http://www.ntsearch.com/search.php?q=bags&v=56">bags</a> of empties being discarded from the emergency exit....East Lancs pale ale tins bouncing around the tyres of the police bike escort...

BEB,

I think there was a similar situation at Boro which involved doing a slalem back onto the M-way to avoid Dibble and get to the boozer before the escort kicked in.

Enjoy tomorrow night:-

"don't be bitten twice, you've gotta suss suss suss suss suss suss suss the suspect device".

[vindaloobob]

Tris,

Might you and Amanda not have a bit of 'London weighting' in your monthly payslips to help back up your perspective?

Philipl had it sussed above in this thread, as per

ffs man, the working class doesn't cease to exist once you're inside the M25! west ham is hardly an affluent area.

[Billinge End Blue]

Vindaloobob,

I do feel sympathy with traditional long-term fans of premiership (or recently so) London clubs that have already been excluded and priced out their support; the new constituency, though, no....

Don't blame any Rovers fan for not wanting to attend Stamford Bridge on cost and don't assume that price (albeit relatively much cheaper at Ewood Park) is not still a valid factor here in Lancashire.

Edited October 3, 2004 by Billinge End Blue

[SIMON GARNERS 194]

And ultimately, without the backer, unable to maintain their status.

Sounds like Rovers in the very near future if the crowds dont increase.

[Simon Says]

Of the 17 clubs who remained in the Premiership this year 11 are experiencing a decline in home attendances this season, with only Fulham showing a sizeable increase.

The Premiership are convinced the reason for this decline in gates is due to the new television deal in which the European Union insisted that the number of live televised games be increased from 96 to 138.

Even Arsenal are not immune as they have seen a 2% drop in attendances. For the game against Middlesbrough at Highbury (a live Sky game) for the first time in living memory tickets were put on open sale after the clubs “silver members” had failed to produce the usual sell out.

Chelsea took a very small following to the Riverside Stadium last week for a lunchtime kick-off. It seems the majority of their usual travelling support preferred to stay at home and watch it on the box.

Everton have experienced the biggest drop with a massive 11% fall. How much this is due to selling Rooney is open to debate.

Fulham on the other hand are bucking the trend. Of course a lot of this is due to a return to their home. But they have also implemented some innovative marketing ideas. For instance rather than paying for a full season ticket fans can opt for a 10 game package. The club have also turned back the clock by introducing a “neutrals” zone where home and away fans can purchase tickets on the day of the game if the match is not sold out.

It seems fans are starting to vote with their feet. And not just ours!

[Scotty]

Good post Simon Says and it echos things that I and others have been saying on here for a while. Saturation point has been reached now regarding football on television and, coupled with the ridiculously high ticket prices most clubs charge now, fans are starting to vote with their feet. It'll get worse before it gets better.

[Accylass]

I have refused to go to Chelsea because we have had a ten pound increase from last year. There was some discussion last year that Chelsea wanted to charge us £40, but the club threatened to send them all back as Blackburn fans would not pay the price. So they lowered, so why could that not happen this season.

We know Liverpool got charged £52 to go to Chelsea.

I think it is disgusting that we should be held to ransom by the big clubs. I just refuse to pay that kind of money. Rovers should do the same to Chelsea fans and give them a £10 increase at Ewood, if they can afford to pay more than that at Chelsea then they should pay more at Ewood hee hee

[MarkBRFC]

We know Liverpool got charged £52 to go to Chelsea.

I have 3 mates who are Liverpool season ticket holders and they all went to the game today.

They got charged £40, The same as us.

[92er]

There is an article in the Sunday Telegraph similar to Simon Say's posting. It is interesting that even Arsenal are struggling.

[MCMC1875]

Remember the coach 'sneaking' through a police cordon on a 'dry' trip to Huddersfield (after Tory Moynihan tried to scupper ale en tour) only for a massive chorus of 'Roll out the barrel...' let rip, accompanied by three bin <a href="http://www.ntsearch.com/search.php?q=bags&v=56">bags</a> of empties being discarded from the emergency exit....East Lancs pale ale tins bouncing around the tyres of the police bike escort...

BEB,

I think there was a similar situation at Boro which involved doing a slalem back onto the M-way to avoid Dibble and get to the boozer before the escort kicked in.

Enjoy tomorrow night:-

"don't be bitten twice, you've gotta suss suss suss suss suss suss suss the suspect device".

One of my highlights (there are so many) was Carlisle (Sunday before one Christmas) using AP Coaches Of Burnley and painted claret and blue. We travelled over Shap Fell on the M6 in a snowstorm with no windscreen wipers. The Asian driver had to stop every mile and clear the screen with a long handled brush. The ale stop was Penrith. Carlisle' average gate of 6,000 was swelled to 12,000 by a 6,000 strong army from Blackburn vindicating Carlisle's decision to switch the game from Saturday to avoid Xmas shopping. There was a huge pitch invasion at half time by Rovers fans who occupied all sides of the ground (the away end only had 3 turnstiles). The trip was even rounded off with a fine victory.

[Anti Euro Smiths Fan]

the last thing you should be doing is making out you are hard done by - because you really really arent.

Sorry T4E, but I'm going to have a bit of a moan here...

In the summer of 2000, Winston Bogarde was signed for Chelsea on a wage of £40,000 a week. I've just checked his playing statistics, and he has started just 2 Premiership matches in his four seasons at the club.

(He did also start in one League cup match.)

For four seasons, this greedy Dutchman refused to move away from Stamford Bridge, because he didn't want to take a pay cut. He was perfectly happy to sit in the reserves, train with the youth team and pick up a monthly pay packet of £160,000.

In just over two years at Chelsea, Mark Bosnich played in five Premiership matches. He was on a weekly wage of £42,000 - and by his own admission was blowing £3,000 per week on cocaine.

In my trips to the Bridge to see Rovers play in recent seasons, I've had to fork out a fair bit of money in tickets - which has gone into the Chelsea coffers to help pay the wages of those two parasites I've mentioned.

With the news that Chelsea are now raising the price of tickets to £40, I've just about had enough. I'm seriously considering boycotting this game on principle.

I don't see why I should have to fork out such an exorbitant sum - which will help pay for Peter Kenyon's £3m a year wages and for Jose Mourinho's £4m a year contract.

The cocky arrogant Mourinho asserts that English fans "no nothing" about football and he's transformed Chelsea into another version of George Graham's "One Nil to the Arsenal".

So far, Chelsea have won four of their Premiership matches 1-0 - against Man United, Birmingham, Middlesbrough and Liverpool. In two of their other matches they have drawn 0-0, with Aston Villa and Spurs.

Boring Boring Chelsea.

Serious questions still have to be raised about Abramovich's background. The billionaire with the stubble on his chin fled Russia just as some of his friends and business colleagues were facing arrest.

His close friend and associate Boris Berezovsky has now been charged with fraud and corruption and it's alleged that Abramovich failed to pay £300 million in tax.

As Philipl says, even though Roman has spent £200m on players, his assets at Stamford Bridge are likely to increase by about £250m.

Football has changed beyond all recognition over the last 20 years - not for the better IMO.

In the old days, English football was to an extent safeguarded from being abused by those looking to make vast profits and to asset strip clubs. Rule 34 limited a director's income and preserved clubs as sporting institutions.

That all changed when Spurs' chairman Irving Scholar created a PLC holding company in the 1980s, which could be floated on the stock exchange. Rule 34 was scrapped and since then football has become big business, with some shady characters involved.

After Spurs, Man United shortly followed suit by floating on the stock exchange and the game was changed into a billion pound leisure industry for the prawn sandwich brigade.

When Tottenham became a PLC, Keith Burkinshaw, the former Spurs manager, looked across one of the stands at White Hart Lane and made his now famous observation, "There used to be a football club over there."

Sadly, that situation has been repeated in West London at the Bridge. Can you honestly say that Chelsea are a proper traditional football club now? They've become a plaything for an unshaven Russian gangster.

One of his giant oil firms has allegedly been involved in money laundering, bribery, corruption and fraud.

Abramovich's current sidekick at the Bridge, Peter Kenyon, who once described himself as a "lifelong Red" - is on record as saying he would like there to be only 40 English professional clubs in the country. He'd be happy to see the other smaller clubs go to the wall. He doesn't care one jot.

Bates meanwhile bought Chelsea for £1 and has made £18 million selling his shares to the Russian. A nice tidy profit for Captain Birds Eye.

Abramovich partly made his money from asset stripping publicly owned firms in the ex-Soviet Union, and he left thousands of people unemployed and in dire poverty.

So I think Rovers fans can be forgiven for not wanting to plough in an extra 40 quid to assist the repulsive Russian regime at the Bridge...

[Ossydave]

Well you've obviously gone to a lot of trouble with that post AESF but I seriously doubt your average Rovers fan puts that much thought into where their cash ends up.

[bellamy11]

I don't care where my cash ends up. I care about what I get for my cash - seeing Rovers.

Boycotting the game because you don't want a very rich man to get richer (like he cares about your £40 with that amount of wealth) is missing the point somewhat.

[millionpints]

Just tried to investigate Chelsea ticket details on the Rovers site but you can't even get the ticket line number without signing up for Rovers World!

Surely this can't be condusive to ticket sales!

[den]

Just tried to investigate Chelsea ticket details on the Rovers site but you can't even get the ticket line number without signing up for Rovers World!

Surely this can't be condusive to ticket sales!

Nah, you don't have to sign up for rovers world. You DO have to register with the site though. [it's free].

ticket office number: 08701 123456

[millionpints]

cheers den,

will be on the blower first thing next Monday, racking up more credit card debt. Hope it's bloody worth it...

[philipl]

After saying that Abramovich is here to stay, there are newspaper reports this morning saying his spendinng spree is over.

Mind you, if he hasn't got a decent team after running through £200m, I don't know what another £100m would buy. It does seem that he has a closer grasp on reality than the guy blowing Spanish public money at Real Madrid.

Another interesting story is the potential acquistion of Man U by Glazier. This could screw the Mancs big time. Glazier's Tampa team are doing badly owing to defections when the purse strings were tied. Unlike Abramovich who is funding Chelsea out of his interest income, Glazier will have to spend all of his reputed $1bn and a bit more just to buy control over Man U leaving the club as just a business/profit making vehicle.

Even though there are a lot of very capable and influential Manc shareholders who could organise resistance in the same way they fought off the Murdoch attempt to buy the club, Glazier "only" needs to persuade the Colmore Mafia to sell their 29.9% in Man U and he will be as good as certain of success in buying the club- no doubt the institutional investors would be delighted to take the reputed £3 per share for their admittedly much reduced holdings.

In many ways the Glazier bid is unfortunate even though it would (eventually) starve RFW of transfer funding. The arrival of Magnier and MacManus has brought a welcome level of disclosure to the often murky world of top Premiership financial affairs.

Edited October 5, 2004 by philipl

[American]

The problem with the Bucs is that the NFL has a salary cap. With this in mind, they decided to go younger and get rid of some of their better players who were hitting their 30s and bring in younger, cheaper replacements. Instead of trying to get that one last trip to the Super Bowl, which they probably wouldn't get, they want to be able to rebuild and go back in a few years.

Once a team gets a championship, every player thinks it was because of them, so asks for too much money. Their decisions were based more on a long-term plan than on "tightening the purse strings."

[Linny8]

The problem with the Bucs is that the NFL has a salary cap. With this in mind, they decided to go younger and get rid of some of their better players who were hitting their 30s and bring in younger, cheaper replacements. Instead of trying to get that one last trip to the Super Bowl, which they probably wouldn't get, they want to be able to rebuild and go back in a few years.

Once a team gets a championship, every player thinks it was because of them, so asks for too much money. Their decisions were based more on a long-term plan than on "tightening the purse strings."

Chelsea away anyone?

[Ozz]

Carlisle' average gate of 6,000 was swelled to 12,000 by a 6,000 strong army from Blackburn vindicating Carlisle's decision to switch the game from Saturday to avoid Xmas shopping. There was a huge pitch invasion at half time by Rovers fans who occupied all sides of the ground (the away end only had 3 turnstiles). The trip was even rounded off with a fine victory.

I was at that game, a Faz pen winning the game. I also remember a Carlisle fan was killed in the fighting during the game.

[DP]

If Arsenal attendances are down 2%, just how much are they charging for tickets? Right now they're clearly playing some of the best football ever seen in this country, and with all the band-wagon jumpers in London I'm very suprised their tickets don't sell out straight away.

[philipl]

An American view on Glazier and Abramovich

[waggy]

If Arsenal attendances are down 2%, just how much are they charging for tickets? Right now they're clearly playing some of the best football ever seen in this country, and with all the band-wagon jumpers in London I'm very suprised their tickets don't sell out straight away.

if arsenal gates are down 2% it's because they have played both rovers and bolton at home and neither team sold there allocation

[Simon Says]

There is probably some truth in that waggy. But it doesn't explain why in all four Premiership league games at Highbury this season tickets for home areas went on open sale after the clubs siver members failed to take up the option of a ticket.

Then again tickets were for seats costing £50 and upwards!

[Dan Furness]

Carlisle' average gate of 6,000 was swelled to 12,000 by a 6,000 strong army from Blackburn vindicating Carlisle's decision to switch the game from Saturday to avoid Xmas shopping. There was a huge pitch invasion at half time by Rovers fans who occupied all sides of the ground (the away end only had 3 turnstiles). The trip was even rounded off with a fine victory.

 

I was at that game, a Faz pen winning the game. I also remember a Carlisle fan was killed in the fighting during the game.

we took 6,000 away?

NEVER