The EFL are seeing dollar signs. They’ll have looked at tickets sold for ifollow/red button night games and thought that people are still buying. Which they are, but there are far less actual bums on seats for those games, as many ST holders give them a swerve (but still buy a ST as it’s only 4/5 games out of 23, still worth their while). But put every game on and just watch how many ST holders keep their cash in their pockets and stop bothering completely.

They have vast support across County Durham and Tyne and Wear. ‘An area full of sheep’ that happens to have a population of 2 million and just 2 league clubs. Compare and contrast that to what we are up against in a forty mile radius. They are bloody lucky when it comes to geography.

I’m not sure he is trying to buy himself time. It really does seem the way that the club wants to go.

Shows the daftness of the loan system if some 24 year old, who isn’t even our player, ends up taking one of our own lad’s spots in the youth set up.

They may not be able to send him back in January as per the loan agreement.

They don’t have to be local derbies, but local-ish. So say Rovers v Huddersfield/Stoke.

An average crowd of 30k. We had an average crowd of 13k in that league. So why is 30k ‘fantastic loyalty’ when they have a vastly bigger catchment area? They are just lucky to be where they are. Imagine if the only league clubs in the whole of old Lancashire was say us, City and Everton… what crowds do you think we’d be getting? They are no more ‘loyal’ than any set of fans.

Rovers/Cardiff, NYD (and that’s even before Sky got involved with KO times), so say no more to the esteem the authorities have for football fans…

Brentford’s ‘model’ allows for that. They actually develop, sell, re-invest.

I’ve no issue with utilising the academy, has to be the way. That doesn’t mean that we need to spend our time going down ‘metricated’ rabbit holes and hearing nonsense like ‘playing from the back adds value’, ‘performances over results’ etc. This is a relentless, highly professional division, not development/youth football. As noble as these aims are, the reality of this level of football will hit you in the face. Oh and we rarely see profits from players as these owners refuse to sell them (Armstrong aside), so the whole thing is incoherent. The best laid plans, ‘models’ derailed by the whims of unpredictable owners- so comparisons to other clubs are moot. We’ve had years of this, with fans projecting what they think is/should be happening, variations on a theme of; ‘trading club’, ‘slow builds’, ‘develop, sell, re-invest’ over actual reality.

What professional football club of any ambition doesn’t prioritise results? By publicly stating that the club only exists to develop players and not for a hard headed quest for three points (as it’s those points that drives the lot; interest, revenue, crowds, sponsorship, better players, better coaches) in this bloody tough league it’s a recipe for mediocrity, and at best, treading water, at worst a slip back to the third division. £430 to £530 for a season ticket (some of the most expensive in the league) to watch a development club?

It could literally have been a TM quote. It’s pretty obvious that this is not a normal football club in which the bee all and end all is getting the best possible players on the pitch attempting to get the best possible results. Indeed, that is the whole point of professional sport… BRFC is going down a different path; the question, as always, is why?

If only we were lucky enough to be situated in an English region stretching from Scotland to Yorkshire that only has three clubs in the top three divisions… instead of the dozen plus in just a forty mile radius from us!

He must be who the Rovers commercial team are getting their NFT/crypto advice from… https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-63988368

Only professional team in history in which *performances* come before results. What even is this club.

We’d sold about 1700 yesterday morning. Now off sale (none on the day).

That’s a story lifted from a Rovers piece on LancsLive, so that’s why it has that angle. As for KM, he has a season ticket at Brighton and goes to a fair few away games too, so I’m not sure that’s a fair accusation…

Of course he knows he ain’t up to it, but he’s backed him for so long on here against all evidence, he doesn’t want to now lose face. Nowt wrong in just holding your hands up…

That was one of our biggest home turnouts in the league cup for donkeys years. So Christ knows why people are still decrying it. A lot of our supporters are seemingly as clueless as Swag when it comes to understanding our fanbase.

… and an indoor all weather. I’m sure I don’t remember them training at Ewood day after day whenever the temperature drops before the last couple of years.

No shirts, definitely time to get that age old brfcs argument going again! 😁

From 1949… what are those Rovers shirts again? 👀

He’s great craic though, apparently…

If that’s the case, then despite this supposed new set-up, nothing at this club will have changed. I’m personally going to give GB the benefit of the doubt, but if Hirst did inexplicably sign on a permanent deal for actual millions of pounds, then we might as well give up on this club under this ownership.

Behave, Hirst is miles away. It’s nearly January and you won’t get ‘a run of games’ if you offer absolutely zero when you do get a start. You need to grasp it. If loanees aren’t up to it, they can’t play, so let’s stop wasting time trying to develop the sub standard players of other clubs. His career isn’t our problem.