Any game that is Category A is only set at that level because the club thinks the away team will bring 2,000+ fans to nab £27 off. Ergo West Brom being that price. Nothing to do with it being an ‘attractive’ fiixture etc. Only thing is, WBA haven’t sold many so far and considering Rovers won’t either at that price it is just a missed opportunity all round to attract some floating fans for a traditional fixture on New Year’s Day - not that the present execs care less about that.

Ahem... Touché

Exactly. Any club that cannot get close to filling the ground, agreeing, in essence, to have not far off half their games shown on Sky is just utter madness and so short sighted.

Oh I know, my point being West Brom will be next, even though our ground will be half empty...

They will, I imagine they’ll pull away in the new year.

Didn’t Short write off the debt as well? Absolute no brainier for a takeover. Two years of parachute payments left, 30,000 gates and no debt. They are another club that will end up in a better place after a year in League 1.

Indeed. As an example, we’ve just seen with Leeds that it is now up to the home club if they allow red button/i follow coverage on a bank holiday. Now if the club’s priority was bums on seats to improve the atmosphere and help the club long term in rebuilding the fanbase, there would be no chance they’d agree to such a thing for NYD with so many empty seats to fill (and it wouldn’t be £30 to start with). But as it is all about revenue, I’m expecting an announcement soon...

Had 5 live on. Paul Hurst was being interviewed saying he was disappointed by the standard of the Championship. How bad must his lot have been then!

Red button too by the looks of it. So much for Boxing Day being exempt. Looks as if the home club can allow it at their discretion (I.e ticket sales going well).

I agree, very hard to read, unless it’s dear and then we just don’t pay it in large numbers as a fanbase, we never have I think the way they worded it tells me that we haven’t SOLD 2,000+, though I’d love to see it. We’ll see when they announce it on Saturday

So you agree then mark? We haven’t ever sold 2,000+ tickets a £40. We struggled at Bolton at £30! As I said, we took 1400 to Yorkshire on Boxing Day at twenty odd quid 2 years ago. It’s not about calling people liars, just knowing the Rovers away support.

I just can’t see any way in which we’ve sold over 2,000. The closest comparison was the 1400 or so we had at Barnsley on Boxing Day a couple of years back, and it wasn’t 40 quid! It says ‘only a few hundred remain available’ not that we’ve sold 2,000, which I imagine if we had the club would be shouting from the rooftops to all those ‘how many have we sold?’ tweets they get. Though happy to be proved wrong and to see a proper Boxing Day following.

The game is now on UK ifolllow at Leeds’ request, due to being a sell out in home areas...

Or a decent offer...

Err £20 for Norwich! Can’t wait to see the queues on Saturday! (The collection queue that is, or they’ll be paying full whack with surcharge!)

“We told the club to market the surcharge by saying standard prices are a ‘buy early discount’ “ Still can’t get over that.

NYD would have been ideal for us to offer a proper deal. However, as it’s the mighty West Brom, Waggott has made it Cat A, on the assumption they’ll be bringing hordes he can fleece. Alas, they won’t, they’ve sold around 900 so far. You make it £15 anywhere in the ground, we’d sell a good few on a bank holiday and I’d imagine they’d fetch plenty more too. Be a good occasion, but no make it around £30 and have the usual 13,000.

A few may be back home making a long weekend of it, but I’m sure the last Saturday before Christmas has traditionally not been a well attended match, so the £20 may slightly boost it, but that will be about it.

13,000 home fans tops, I would imagine.

Then he can expect a sizeable fall in numbers, as Rovers fans will just not turn up at c£400 for mid table second tier football.

I’m taking about this thread where you said it was an exceptional summer. If in your opinion, it was, because you expected to sign journeymen free transfers etc, fair enough, but it wouldn’t be my description.

So ‘potentially’ exceptional then?

The fact you had low expectations in May doesn’t make those players ‘exceptional’ signings.

‘Exceptional’ business in the summer? Not one signing is first choice and they can’t displace players freshly out of League 1...

I’m all for this young English player route, eminently sensible. However, many of our top/established players are the likes of Mulgrew, Graham, Dack (25 next week), Bennett, Evans. Experienced pros. We can’t approach every window with this ‘jam tomorrow’ method. Biz - you said yesterday that you’d be happy to ‘buy players like Armstrong, Davenport and Brereton every window and we’ll develop a team to good enough to fight for promotion in a few years’. We buy players like those 3 every summer and I’ll say we won’t be. Instead we’ll be constantly chasing our tail, as some of those young lads develop, some just don’t and the actual top players we have simply move on.