Brockhall is probably 20-30 minute drive from Ewood, on the other side of Blackburn. Not an easy place to find unless you have directions or are familiar with the area as it isn't signposted well from the nearby A59. Rovers own 2 sites in Brockhall village. The older site is at 'the bottom' e.g. you go through the village gates through the housing and down a hill. This is today the 'academy' where the juniors and scholars are based and Rovers even own or used to own a few houses down there for the younger lads to live in. This site is actually the largest in area but the building is smaller. The 1st team used this facility up until Mark Hughes was manager when he decided to switch them. The newer site is at the 'top' and can be seen when driving into the village from the main road. It is less well hidden and whilst this was originally designed as the academy is now the senior training centre. This is where the first team are based with the U23s and usually is where the press conferences take place and players new to the club have their photos taken. The building here is bigger and most importantly features an indoor pitch and things like a swimming pool and canteen. Quite an impressive facility I would think by most standards even now at 20 years old. However many clubs have caught up over the last 10-20 years as really we've stood still in terms of investment into our facilities whilst other clubs have spent millions developing new purpose built facilities. The likes of Brighton, Southampton, Wolves etc. have by many accounts superb facilities too. It is interesting though that the likes of Preston, Burnley and Wigan are still talking about spending money on new facilities and lag way behind us in standard. You can see the two sites on google maps if you click on satellite view and search Brockhall Village. The senior centre is to the south of the village where the large white building is, the academy is to the north of the village where the pitches are roughly in a hexagonal layout. One thing I've always been amazed by is how hidden the senior training centre is from afar. The building is a huge white metal thing that should be visible for miles around in the middle of the Ribble Valley yet whenever I go somewhere that way like Hurst Green or Salesbury you can't see it. Must have been part of the planning to keep it hidden away. I suspect the club would like to combine the two sites into one but I honestly can't see how this would be feasible on either of the current sites. Neither is big enough for everything that we need with a Category A academy. We would probably have to move elsewhere onto a new purpose built all in one site for that to happen, though I could see the benefits in terms of managing less sites.

I personally doubt Mowbray would ever have seen £6 million or whatever it was on one player if that player didn't fit very strict criteria. I think the money was there to be spent only if the person it was being spent on was a sound financial investment highly likely to deliver a return. People say we could have spent £3 million on 2 proven ready made players but the problem there is that the wages would have been much higher and Venkys probably wouldn't have sanctioned it. I'm starting to look at the Brereton signing as the modern day Rhodes. Someone somewhere at Venkys end agreed to chuck a large amount in extra on one player, in theory we might have been better spreading that across 3 or 4 new players rather than bringing in loans but I very much doubt, as with Rhodes, that money was available to spread across a few players.

Watched the 2nd half of Sheffield United and Birmingham. Sheff Utd were very poor and the last 15-20 minutes was like our first half at Derby with Birmingham all over them and they struggled to put 2 passes together. Sheff Utd seem to blow hot and cold. One week dishing out heavy beatings the next quite a poor side.

Not sure how bringing in Wells and Hemed can possibly fit in with their upcoming transfer embargo. Unless they've agreed miraculously low wages with Burnley/Brighton or have been able to sign up to big wages.

We need to become a top-end Championship club then. Rolling over and selling our best players to so-called bigger clubs in this league will get us nowhere.

In the end delighted to come away with a 0-0, and it seems so was the manager. The first time this season I was genuinely pleased with a point. Villa and Ipswich were gutting whilst draws against Millwall and Reading left disappointment that we hadn't done more at home and won those games. If you'd have offered me a point at kick off I'd have shook hands on it. At half time I'd have bitten your arm off. My eyebrows were raised at 7pm when I saw the team selection and that turned out to be justified. It is rare that a manager makes a tactical change after 30 minutes especially Mowbray but a goal was inevitable and I suppose it is a good sign that he realised we were on the rack and that he had to do something quickly to alleviate the pressure and it worked to a degree. Second half was better although still a nailbiting and stressful experience to sit through. I worry about our set-piece effectiveness as we rarely seem to cause serious trouble from corners or free kicks (unless Mulgrew manages to hit the target). Last night our primary source of goalscoring threat was likely to be from a corner or free kick yet we didn't cause any problems from them. We've been to Derby a few times in recent seasons and gone down with a whimper so to see us hanging on and seeing the game through and coming home with something was a pleasant change. First half was a horror. Armstrong, Dack, Smallwood and Conway completely anonymous.

There's positives and negatives to be had. The obvious positives are that we've only lost 1 in 8, defensively aside from the 45 against Bristol City we appear to be as solid as anyone else, we seem to be quite a resolute and cohesive side that is battling in every game and is hard to beat. We seem to have adjusted to life in a higher league quite comfortably, though you could say the same for Wigan and Rotherham. Its early days and I hope that we're not rueing those dropped points v Ipswich and Villa later on in the season. At the moment we're putting a lot into it and have that momentum from last season. Hopefully when the season is reaching the mid-way stage we're not going to run out of steam etc. The critical way of looking at things is that we're not really doing enough going forward - against Derby, Villa, Millwall, Brentford we didn't really create much at all and I still worry we're too reliant upon the Dack/Graham double act with very little coming from elsewhere. Frustrating thing is that if we get a point at Stoke on Saturday people will rightly argue that 3 draws from Villa home and Derby/Stoke away is a very reasonable return, yet we'll be no better off than had we held on for 2 minutes v Villa and been beaten twice this week. So its pleasing to not be losing with regularity but its the wins that separate teams out and if we'd have held out when ahead we'd be sitting pretty now.

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.

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?

Bournemouth, Huddersfield and Cardiff the next 3. I think they need at least 6 points from those games or they're in serious trouble. Even if they got 6 points they'd still only have 7 points from 8 games which is likely to be relegation form especially given the kind fixtures they've had. I'll be delighted if they get 3 points or less out of those.

No wins in 16 for the Clarets.

A lot of unhappiness at a lack of investment into the playing squad. Same thing happened a while back when Moyes and Davies had them knocking on the door of the Premier League and they ended up walking out and they sold most of their decent players and ended up sliding into League One. I was surprised how well they did last season, this season was always likely to be more of a struggle. Neil is one of those managers who seems to set off doing really well and then it starts to unravel. Same thing happened for him at Norwich. On the flip side if Hemmings is getting ready to sell he might be able to market them as a relatively well run, debt free established Championship club with a new training ground approved and a decent little stadium. £70 million is pie in the sky stuff but if he reduced that they might attract interest from wealthy people. Other small clubs like Barnsley and Wigan have managed to attract foreign interest despite hardly being attractive clubs to get involved with.

We had a spell at Bolton where we couldn't go wrong and ended up regularly winning there. In recent times however our results there have been atrocious (though our results against all our local rivals seem to have nosedived recently). Bad, bad memories of that place. Allardyce's last game getting beat with 10 men, getting done 4-0 under Bowyer, our late defeat under Lambert when their players weren't even being paid, their Emile Heskey inspired turnaround, the injury time defeat 1-0 on a Tuesday night. Yes it has been a succession of misery there. The most recent happy memory was Jason Roberts' last minute winner way back under Hughes' management. We seem to be a different animal these days so hopefully that will come to an end but certainly have grown to dread heading to that awful stadium.

Derby away is one of those games. We never seem to take that many, and for some reason (intentional?) we always seem to go there midweek. Last 3 or 4 times now we've only had 500 or so there for the midweekers. As you say I think the majority of those 500 are the ones who go to every game or most games regardless of the ticket price, weather, tv coverage etc.

That was happening every game that season lol. It might actually have been our first victory if memory serves me correctly. We'd been thumped against Norwich and Wigan and humiliated at Cardiff before that.

Went into the club shop this morning to buy something with my club cash. Surprised to find that there were no adult umbro polo shirts left in stock and no indication any more would be coming. In mid-September that suggests either sales have been excellent or we have massively miscalculated on the order.

Don't think Derby were flying on that occasion. Nigel Pearson was their manager at the time and they had a terrible start to the season, shortly after we beat them he had a big fall out and was placed on gardening leave and McClaren returned and dragged them into mid-table before himself being sacked and replaced by Gary Rowett. One of our rare victories under Coyle.

I think the whole thing is going to come crashing down around the club's in the next few years. This is completely unsustainable. Charging people £30 for a 2nd division match between two average sides when the game is live on tv is completely inappropriate and rather than see 4,000+ going will probably see half of that go. The only consolation in this is it appears Bolton fans are also being shafted with their cheapest standard tickets at £30 going up to £36 on the upper tier side stands. These midweek games are another slap in the face. Charging £25 and being expected to travel on the appalling motorway network to go to games rather than sit at home and watch on Sky or online. Can't carry on. Clubs might not be bothered with a few thousand less fans because the tv money will make up for it but give it a few years and it will inevitably start to crumble.

Interesting that they've allocated us the lower tier to start with, then the upper tier in the unlikely event we need more. They've recently played Sheffield United and Bristol City at home and gave them the upper tier to start with and the lower tier remained empty. Ultimately Bolton can charge what they want to though with the game on live TV I would have hoped for significantly less than that. Just hope we return the favour and there aren't any away tickets available for less than £30 when we play them at Ewood. Bet there will be though.

Bit of early team news. Gladwin still not fit and Davenport has 'picked up a knock' in training. Hmmmm.

Saturday tea time. Live on Sky Sports across the road in the pub. Attractive looking fixture to supporters who don't have season tickets or who pick and chose their matches when it suits. The response? Category A pricing. Adults prices starting from £24 in the Riverside to £29/31 in the Jack Walker for those who haven't bothered with the 1875 club. I'm assuming they will go up another £3 on Saturday for those making late decisions or who cannot commit before then. £17 is the cheapest concession. Even if you decide you want to buy one if you attempt to get one off Rovers' website you first of all have to get through password protection, which is just another unnecessary obstacle to getting a ticket. I'd still love it if someone could explain why Rovers cannot have a turnstile open on Saturday for cash only entry to the ground sparing drifting supporters the additional inconvenience of having to go through hoops to 'book' tickets or queue up in the rain for half an hour before kick off. I suspect Rovers justification for the high pricing, not that they'll admit it, will be that they are trying to make money off the Villa fans. Well I've frequently offered a sensible way to do that whilst protecting our own supporters. Open the Upper Darwen End and sell that out before opening the lower tier. Villa have sold 3500 as of yesterday so on those lines we could have a full upper tier by now with a small cluster in a corner of the bottom tier. Those upstairs could be charged £25-30 a head whilst those in other areas of the ground could be charged a more reasonable £20. Rovers could protect their precious away fan income whilst trying to encourage home fans to turn up through better pricing. They won't do it but when we go to Villa I guarantee that I will be paying more for a ticket to sit on the side of the pitch than Villa fans will be in the Holte End. It seems they think blind loyalty will persuade people to stump up £40 for a man and his lad to sit on the Riverside rather than sit at home or go to the pub for less than half the cost. They need to be encouraging walk on fans for the TV games as the excuse of watching it on telly and saving chunk of cash is very appealing to some.

I'd hope to reach the 20,000 mark for this one however with 3,500 Villa sold as of yesterday, with Category A pricing and a tv game can't see much more than 16-17,000. Another one of Waggott's massive away followings not looking like materialising.

Bolton fans bemoaning their luck this morning. Ironic really as from the outside looking in it seems to me they've had bucket loads of luck over the last 3 to 4 years when things could easily have turned out much, much worse. On the financial side it seems they've gone within minutes of administration/liquidation on more than one occasion yet each time have managed to escape intact by the skin of their teeth. When Eddie Davies was calling it a day they ended up in the High Court for unpaid tax bills and on winding up petitions yet escaped those, they've had numerous occasions where staff, players and suppliers haven't received money owed or bonuses due yet are still operating as a Championship club with a squad that is getting results. They got relegated a few years ago when they only needed a very low total to survive yet still failed to do it, got promoted straight back up from League One with quite a low total needed for 2nd place (much lower than what we needed last season), then survived last season, again by the finest of margins in the last few seconds of the season having been in the bottom 3 throughout, yet survived with a low points tally (compared to the 51 that we went down with). Things could easily have been much worse for them yet they keep on getting away with it.

I won't be wasting my time going online trying to wind up Bolton supporters as it could easily lead to egg on the face. Not necessarily because it could be us, as I firmly believe that is one thing Venkys will never allow to happen here, but more because administration may lead to short term pain but could easily lead to a brighter future for them. If they go onto the market as a debt free Championship club once this loan is sorted out then there could well be people out there with deep pockets wanting to take over. Of course there might not be and a points deduction might lead to relegation and a dark future, but I'd prefer to wait and see. If they are docked points it ought to help us and that is my sole concern. Let it not be overlooked that they spent a decent wedge of money this summer on players like Magennis and Doige from the lower leagues. Not really fair that they can spend that whilst not repaying a multi-million debt that is overdue. Loan company or not they will have staff and shareholders who may need that money repaying for their own sakes and are perfectly entitled to seek to recover it from a football club with a multi-million turnover and has enough money to pay transfer fees for new players.

Well when Dean Houldsworth and Ken Anderson were taking over it was rumoured that John Disley was involved. A quick look online at his 'CV' and that might be the sort of thing the League have been concerned about.