StHelensRover

I've said it a couple of times recently. If we drop this time round and are still owned by the Venkys this club will be down in the lower leagues for a generation, we won't bounce back. It will be proper dire stuff. Gates will be lower than they were on Saturday. When we're not in a promotion race and we're stuck in midtable L1 or worse, the novelty will wear off very quick. We'll be like Wigan. Sadly it might take that happening to get more people to boycott or protest against the owners. If relegation comes this season it will be catastrophic in the next few years for this club.

15 minutes to go, so hopefully I jinx it, but Norwich have turned a corner as predicted by many and will be leaving us in the dust shortly

They're arrogant, spoiled, billionaire brats who inherited Daddy's business empire and haven't a clue. There's zero chance a letter gets past their secretary's secretary without going straight in the bin. They wouldn't lower themselves to interacting with people like us.

The idea of him leaving Palace just now for a big fee is bittersweet. Good for him if he goes to play at the very top, to add to his cup winners medal. However, if we have a decent sell-on clause, I don't want the money to go to our current owners who will waste it or pocket it.

That would be Burnley, Bolton and Preston all with new owners in the last decade, all with smaller stadiums and (although long) less prestigious history and fewer honours than BRFC. All in the same catchment area as us. Forgotten northern mill towns, not tourist destinations or hives of commerce and enterprise. None of them are cash cows for their owners, they all cost their owners money every year, who in their right mind would want to own them? That's why we must stick with Venkys. The only owners who benevolently fund a football club which loses lots of money, there aren't any others and no one would ever buy us. Edit - if you even suggest anywhere on the internet that someone would buy us, you immediately have to provide cast iron proof that someone is interested in buying us, or you will be laughed off.

Spotted this on eBay earlier. Interesting quote from RG.

Problem is that the selling club usually inflates the value of the deal to appease their fans, the buying club doesn't disclose or plays down the price for the same reason, then it's usually somewhere in-between. I'd be very surprised if we have put our hand in our pockets and produced 3 million quid, even if it's in installments. If it's anywhere near that amount, I think it would be subject to all sorts of clauses and hedging our bets on our part.

I've been watching Hearts vs Celtic this afternoon. Brilliant game and a result that will keep a 3 way title race ticking on even longer. Would be hilarious, and great for the game up there if Hearts won this title. Tony Bloom doing very well yet again so far with another club (as a significant stakeholder).

Just posted in the relegation thread, 50pts usually the safety mark for relegation, therefore we need 7 wins or 6 wins and a few snookers to get to that. I've no faith in this manager to play his part in getting us to that target. Has he even won 50 points in total during his time here?

We've been averaging roughly 1 point per game 28 played, 29 pts). If we continue on that run we'll get 46-48 points. Some seasons that's enough to stay up, some seasons it isn't. Our squad is getting gradually worse as the season progresses, morale is (presumably) getting lower and lower, I think it's 50/50 whether we survive. Two home wins only so far, if we only win another two home games before the end of the season, we're going down. Edit - we need to get to 50 points, that is usually enough. We need 21 points from 18 games, so 7 wins or 6 wins and a few draws?

Fans also aren't demanding instant success, we're demanding owners who care about the club as much as we do, owners who come to games, owners who employ the best possible people they can afford and find to run the club, people with the right experience. I've never been able to think of one single thing about the football club that is in any way better than it was in 2010 when they took over. They haven't improved a single thing by any measure. Everything is either the same or worse, most things are worse. How can people be happy with that approach and attitude? Cheap, cheerful, bargain basement, horrible approach which has humiliated us and taken the pride out of supporting the club.

Most of these claims have been debunked hundreds of times on these threads in the last twelve months. Not going there again. "Rovers 1990-2010 was not our natural position in the football pyramid, its not what we deserved, its what we were gifted." The football league has been going for 137 years and for 72 of those we've been in the top flight. I think we've got the 16th most top flight points in league history. We've won trophies in three different centuries, we were the first club to do so. We were one of the best teams in the world in the 19th century, pioneers of the sport. One of the best teams in the country during in the 1910s, the 1950s and 60s, one of the best teams around in the 1990s. But that's not our natural position, we should be accepting mediocrity? We should be grateful to be scrapping round the bottom of the second division, that's our natural level? No thanks. Small unfashionable town maybe but a football club that has some incredible history and records that 90% of other clubs would kill for. I won't be settling for League One shite, just coz we were also shite for a bit during the 70s.

I hate Venkyclappers more than Burnley. Burnley fans hate Rovers and would love nothing more than for us to lose every single week and fall through the leagues, that feeling goes both ways. Given that, does it strike any of the Venkyclappers as unusual that every single time we've played Burnley in the last 15 years, they've spent half the game chanting about how much they love the Venkys and waving Indian flags at us? "But they're keeping us going, no one else would put the money in, FFP etc. They're doing their best, no one else would buy us, no one else could do better" Yeah that's why Burnley fans wave the Indian flags and chant about them every time we play then.

There's going to be some fans are are very gleeful that the ground wasn't completely empty today and will be smug and crowing about it, best to ignore any of that and not take the bait.

I don't think 4-5k boycotted, probably more like 2500, but we'll see what the police stats say compared with other recent Saturday games. Doesn't sound like much but it's probably around 25% of the remaining attendees these days, so it's a decent number. As many have pointed out, 22k+ home fans on most weeks just before the Venkys bought the club, now 8.5k season ticket holders and a few hundred walk-ons is what we're down to. The 15 year gradual boycott. I wonder/fear how low attendances could get before something happens.