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49 minutes ago, J*B said:

Lancaster Rose then? We won't be able to use it - but if someone wants to make one similar...

Copyright on the Lancaster Rose ??

2 hours ago, J*B said:

Have you made the rose or taken it from somewhere?

Lancashire Wiki page JB

46 minutes ago, cesus said:

This for me is one of the biggest points in attendance dropping, the eye has massively been taken off the ball on attracting people through the door.

Customer loyalty (fans are customers, I hate to say but plenty of our followers in years gone by were PL fans not necessarily Rovers) does not lend itself to blindly following a brand. Everybody will always look for a better deal be it car insurance, supermarkets or mobile phone contracts, do Rovers offer something out with of the 90 minutes that stands up to the local competition?

Accy Stanley have gone down the route of having a £30 day out, £20 ticket and the rest in beer with good quality ales at £2 a pint and £1 after a win, I know a good few lads who I know used to go to Ewood see this as a better option for their hard earned cash than spending sometimes £27 (lets not start on the surcharge!) on a ticket then circa of £4 for a fosters at Rovers. 

As Matt says whilst Burnley are in the PL they will sweep up “customers”, but at the same time their fanzone has good quality beers at reasonable prices and the golden goose of PL football. 

I started going to Rovers as they gave handfuls of tickets to my primary school in the early 90’s is this an avenue that is still used, if not why not? As others have previously said is any sort of transport laid on? As a kid I used to get on a bus at the Boars Head in Accy as my parents didn’t go to the match, this pub doesn’t exist anymore and my parents wouldn’t have trusted me to get on multiple buses could the club run free/ cheap buses from nearby towns that will allow kids to go without parents?

Talking from personal experience that bus allowed me to see my heroes in the 90’s and had me buying season tickets until last season, my brother too! If you can’t get the parents get the kids is my biggest advice. 

Just in case anyone from the Accrington area is not aware, as Cesus  pointed out there WAS a bus from The Boars Head that ran directly to Ewood on match days but as he says The Boars Head is now shut but the bus did continue and  still runs on match days from The Sydney St Working Mens Club on Sydney St.

Bus leaves about an hour and fifteen minutes before match day kick off time and is away pretty quick after the game dropping off at certain points on the way home back to the The Sydney St. Ideal for teenagers like Cesus says whose parents may struggle to take them or others who may want a drink and don't want to drive and park up etc. Seats are bought on a first come first served basis.

19 hours ago, david brent said:

I’ve read today about Accy Stanley distributing over a 1000 shirts to Hyndburn school children. That’s what happens when you have a canny local man in Andy Holt running their club. As much as I admire how he runs Stanley I share the same concerns as the posters above - Stanley are a threat to our dwindling catchment area. 

Rovers should be ruthless about this and should be targeting these traditional blue and white places. Hyndburn is a load of administrative cr@p anyway - Knuzden is Blackburn and yet falls under Hyndburn. Rishton and Ossy are still just about Rovers supporting towns but the club need to do more to protect this given the rise of Burnley and Stanley.

Someone mentioned above there is an EFL gentleman’s rule that a club shouldn’t encroach into another borough. If that’s true it’s ridiculous. Again the borough boundaries should be ignored. Rovers wouldn’t target schools in Edgworth and Belmont as they are Bolton Wanderers supporting villages despite being in Blackburn borough.

Unfortunately this is what happens when you get somebody running the show who doesn’t understand the town, the fanbase, the traditional catchment area etc. John Williams did. 

Not only did they get free Stanley shirts the kids got four free kids tickets to attend the games with a PAYING adult. Not all their parents will take up the offer but its there ..some will and in doing so will increase Stanleys attendance and the possibility of those going maybe returning in the future. Nothing worse than a pestering kid ..I want to go I want to go ! My cousin a devout Burnley season ticket holder is already under pressure from his daughter because " everyone else is going dad " !

As I said thirty odd pages earlier on this thread ..start with the schools ….brainwash them at an early age!

39 minutes ago, Andy Kennedys Hairdo said:

Tried to do it to us at Bradford last year, JH. Attempted to herd us into what appeared to be the smallest pub in Bradford. Thankfully, we managed to find someone who had half a brain cell and we were allowed to wander into the centre unaccompanied. Stumbled upon a decent pub called the City Vaults which had plenty of Bradford fans wearing colours. No problems at all. 

Was there really sub 2000 away on that match ? Surprised me that. Seemed to be a lot more at the time. Still, I guess it wasn't the best start to the season was it ?

And at Stoke this season bussed in from a pub 

"So in a hypothetical parallel  universe "..stops me in my tracks and says it really is bedtime ..good grief. ..

86  live football games on British TV this week alone ..one week ! And this does not include IFollow games that maybe available ..

20 hours ago, JacknOry said:

Love our social media team hahaha

I think that was in response to this ..the arrogant tw@ts! 

1 hour ago, darrenrover said:

Rovers could do far worse than outsource to and empower a small group of intelligent supporters, incentivise them in some way with the mantra of significantly increasing our core support. It could cost nowt but make thousands....................

Not only tap into the actual supporter and get their ideas but theres another 91 clubs all with different ideas and  incentives regarding match day tickets concessions etc. Easy to cherry pick the best ones and give um a try.

Bradford have a thing called WebFlexi ..pay £75 quid then pay half price for match day tickets ( £10 ).Not guaranteed your own seat but allows people who either cant afford a season ticket or people who cant get to all the games so a  Season ticket wouldnt be value for money to get discounted tickets.

Lots of ideas out there ..just need the club to actually try a few !

1 hour ago, Mattyblue said:

So what if the ground’s bigger? Doesn’t make our fanbase any bigger. 12,000 is a decent core to work with and not too bad considering the decade we’ve had, it just looks poor in a ground our size

31,000 seats is a capacity similar to other clubs stadiums from cities with 3/4 times our catchment area. It was built in a time of great strength for the club, but since those halcyon years it has rarely been close to being full - the £199 Premier League season ticket period aside.

Im actually agreeing with you Matty ..12000 is a decent core. When the ground was redeveloped they obviously got their figures wrong on capacity as has been  proven over the years.  We could have 50000 core supporters but in a 100000 capacity stadium its going to look empty ..empty seats are now and will be the norm.

Bradford City have increased their season ticket sales from 11500 to 18000 over the last few years and this was mainly down to price. But would we find another 6000 season ticket holders if we slashed our Season ticket prices for Championship football? i seriously think we wouldnt . To slash Season tickets you have to be guaranteed to make up for the shortfall in price by selling a lot more ..

4 minutes ago, Mattyblue said:

I was simply stating a fact Howie, pretty much every club in the country gets substantially bigger gates then they did in the mid 80s, it was the nadir of football in this country, so it isn’t a fair comparison.

We obviously have a core support of 11,000 as they’ve kept going through a horrendous period.

Yes clubs in general do get bigger gates but since the 80s we ve increased the capacity of Ewood dramatically. So the percentage of seats taken to empty seats is probably very similiar to the 80s..less than half full so very comparable in my eye.

Nice initiative by Stanley ,writing to all the schools in the area telling them that they will give all Year 3 kids an Accy Stanley shirt for free(around 1200 shirts)

This is what i meant earlier in the thread about getting out there and get back into schools and create a little interest. A kids shirt cost nothing to the fact that a simple act could result in kids following the team for years to come.

Matty ..going back to the 6000  attendances of the 80s ..so in 30 odd years we ve just about doubled our core support? Me thinks we re not far off reaching the maximum figure of core supporters. Yes in the PL we had larger gates but how many of those fans were coming as Blackburn Rovers fans or just coming to sample Premier League football ? Across from the Fox and Hounds that waste ground was packed out with coaches and buses from all over Lancs ..Morecambe ..Lancaster ..Fleetwood..  Chorley  and local towns like Accy.. Ossy ..Darwen  etc ..its virtually empty on match days now. No coincidence take away PL and the majority vanished. BRFC alone isnt the greatest attraction.

As for people saying well we got 27000 on against Oxford ..id compare this to when a team wins something and has a parade through the town,thousands and thousands come out and cheer and wave but dont actually ever  go to a game. The Oxford game was our open top bus parade. A chance to wave cheer ..well done Blackburn and then forgotten again.

Ticket prices need dropping thats for sure but isnt just the answer.We need to be enticing the next generation ..get um hooked .Its a slow process but if we re at our maximum for core supporters which is becoming more evident every season its probably the only sure fire way to increase that core in the future.

Just a random thought ..but ..why do people think we should have higher attendances than we re getting now ?

Take away tv ..early 80s and we were looking at gates of 6000 in the the Second Division. What was different then than now ?

Rovers need to get back out into the community starting with the schools. Start at the beginning ,get them hooked at a young age .

Reduce match day tickets and supply free tickets to surrounding schools for BIG  games not the Rotherhams and Readings on a cold Tuesday night in an empty ground. They have to come and experience something exciting. Leeds at home would be ideal ,get them in let them experience Ewood at 3/4 capacity give them something to talk about at work and school and spread the word. All about getting people interested again.For those that did buy a reduced match day ticket the club should be sending out a survey asking about their experience good bad or indifferent asking how can we make it a better experience. Show the punter the club cares what its fans think.The club needs to engage with the local community.  

Season ticket holders  why not reduce concessions by 25%? Its not just all about the price of a match day ticket that puts people off its the actual cost of the day. 

23 minutes ago, 47er said:

Quite why you always have to be the smart-arse, provocative keyboard warrior I'm  not sure.

I'm in favour of lowering prices to increase attendances but Oxford is not an indication of our potential fan-base. There were more there supporting Rovers than when we were in the Premiership. Even when we were winning it, in fact! It was a one-off celebration of promotion at a price which attracted people who came along for a guaranteed knees-up. It was a one-off.

Spot on. Swap that Oxford game to a cold Saturday in February at £10 a ticket we d be lucky to get 16000..but thats 2000 more than normal ! Lowering ticket prices will increase attendances but nowhere near the 27000 on against Oxford.

And now the games are available on the red button(at least eight plus the games Rovers get allocated as Skys main match ) i cant see a sustained rise in attendances for quite the foreseeable future!

20 minutes ago, Gav said:

First time in a long time I feel the need to critisize the manager.

Why on earth are we dropping players so early in the season? And worse of all the reason given:

'We won't get back till 4am'!! They'll be tired!!

What about the fans Mowbray?

The 200 or so loyal fans that are making that 12hr round trip? 

They deserved better last night and were let down by the manager.

Not good enough.

Im sure most footie fans grasp the concept of the early rounds of the Carabao cup whereby teams dont play full strength sides and dont until the latter stages of the competition.If half the first team had been wiped out with injury and suspensions last night there would have been uproar.

The 500 fantastic fans would have been well aware of this and still went and  got to  see us put in a great fighting performance..which as a fan thats what you want to see.

We ve had a great start to this season but hey ..lets keep raising that bar til its finally out of reach of this team then people can then come on here and and have a good moan!

Criticism where due by all means but come on..

Oh dear ..

Just now, Stuart said:

A pretty one-sided affair...

So what ..point gained ..move on and address problems if need be .

Just now, AAK said:

In our case draw away, draw at home. 

Youre right AAK stretching it a lil with the home wins ..but all in all a decent start to say we ve just come up .

Just now, Stuart said:

Boroblue said:

 

 

You entitles to your opinion. But you didn’t actually say if you watched the game or not.

That’s about as poor as we’ve played under Mowbray. It wasn’t a professional “shut up shop” performance. We have the ball away regularly and have been saved from what on balance probably deserved a 2-0 Derby victory. Possibly 2-1 with Dack missing the kind of chance he normally eats for breakfast.

Still, it’s a point in an away fixture that would have been a 1-pointer target. Mowbray got his team selection wrong tonight and we didn’t look our usual selves.

Overall, we can go on about who’s opinion is right but we have to be glad of a point. Certainly we will be happier than Derby after that.

Played awful and still gained a point ! Things are looking up!

A just promoted team takes a point away at one  of the big guns ...draw away ..win at home ..well done Blues!

And another good chance ...!

Just now, jim mk2 said:

This could a few ways - we remain awful and get a tonking or we improve and nick a win.  Or we play much better and concede 4. Or it could stay 0-0.

The ever cautious Mowbray needs to give his old boys XI needs a big shake-up for the next game - is he brave enough to do it ? 

Exactly. Game on ..