The booing was unexpected but really glad I heard it, was it a Blackburn End thing or across the ground? I go to away games with the Ewood Blues (Operate out of the Aqueduct pub), you have a full coach every game with on the whole fans that NEVER miss any games. But the Chelsea game is a different matter, at least half were seriously considering not going. In a great gesture EB are offering reduced coach prices to ensure the ultra loyal fans can go. But this is just one coach, I feel for the fans that want to support their side but are being prevented by a club charging outrageous amounts of money- money they don't even need. The loyalty and passion of the working man for his football club has never been tested as much as this.

I thought half of the DE lower tier was around 2 1/2 thousand, but one of the blocks was kept empty between the fans, knocking a few hundred off.

You see it does all even itself out over a test. And people think that is just an empty cliche!

Anyway stuff the present personel who cannot be bothered turning up for awaydays, the Rovers are in my blood and thats why I suggest watching from the Blues bar as the club needs long term funding rather more than this team needs an away following. I should have listened to my mate whose opinion is 'bol lax to watching Rovers anymore......... They don't come to see me whem I'm badly do they'? 343994[/snapback] But that's not what football is about. Its about experiences, yes I spend a lot of money watching my team, as do the Leyton Orient fans etc etc that traipse across the country knowing they will never have anywhere near the success a club like Rovers have had, does'nt stop them though does it. Rovers fans have been spoilt and whatever gripes you may have about the present team (though I don't see a lack of passion as a fault of the current squad!) you are a Blackburn Rovers fan, one of the most historical, proudest clubs in the country. As a fanbase we seem to make excuses at a hell of a rate, SkyTV, Chavs to name but two. Yes we see a lot of crap, but so has everyother fan in the history of the game, rough with the smooth, ten years of top flight football with a LEAGUE TITLE and cup thrown in, I would say we are in a pretty smooth period, so lets enjoy welcoming the top sides to Ewood and going to Anfield, OT, Highbury and so on while we still can!

Unless Newcastle get the whole Darwen End (though their away followings are dropping, the Owen factor will change this short-term) it will not be a sell out. Last season was unique, it was the big Souness return, last season was supposed to be Shearer's swansong, it was'nt on live and it was the big traditional Boxing Day game.

People, people. This whole incident has been blown out of all proportion. I was on the Ewood Blues coach on Saturday, it was handbags with a bit of needle, nothing more. There were very few bricks thrown, it was mainly little stones. The fact that almost all Rovers fans dived back on to the coaches when a baying mob of Villa 'fans' charged towards us tells its own story of which set of people were the perpertrators. Do none of the posters remember the 1970s and 80s? A time of REAL football violence when every game included the very real chance of serious injury. Such incidents today shock us, because it is now such a minor part of our game and suprising to see such scenes. To be fair to Wez and his mates, if you are a regular away fan, it is galling to be criticised for singing and the like when all you are tying to do is follow your club and hopefully drive on the team, this is made very difficult by the very poor followings at some away games (Villa, Boro standing out), the numbers being that small it seems strange to hear singing at all. Though some of the chants are nonsenscial beyond belief, £2 an hour? to stewards and now even police, I'm sure most constables would wet themselves at such a suggestion knowing the sort of overtime pay they recieve.

I wish people would stop confusing having a 'fanatical' support base with having as large fanbase. Most Rovers fans that go down now, who went down in the 70s and 80s and before are 'fanatical'. I havent missed a game home or away for years, neither have a lot of others I know. I refuse to believe that TOTTENHAM!!!! fans have more passion for their club than I have for mine, they just have more. Same with Newcastle, the club isnt mentioned without referring to the 'unbelievable' support, 'football is life up there' etc etc etc, if booing your team off every week is being fanatical then let them have it. We are founder members of both Football and Premier Leagues, in the most competitive region in the country for clubs, we still get around 20k home fans each week, in a deprived, divided small town. Blackburn is a passionate football town, why don't we revel in the only thing our town has got going for it and cherish it instead of adding to the negative image that the club has had for a decade now (currently at record levels). If I am being one eyed so be it, I must be over fanatical.

I actually find this both bad and sad news and we now have the lowest ST sales in the Premiership including Wigan Pathetic and behind local rivals such as Preston. 338628[/snapback] How exactly are we behind PNE when they hadnt even got over the 9 thousand mark for season ticket sales just before the start of the season? And as for Wigan I still don't think they have reached our sale of 13k (if we are 1k behind our total of 14k last season) when it is their biggest season EVER. If we start the season less than a thousand down after the pretty poor fayre served up at Ewood over the last two years we havent done half bad.

Didnt we average 20k for our two years in Div 1? When it comes to a loyal CORE of fans we cannot be beaten, yes we do not have swathes of floating fans, but look at the size of out town and the sheer number of local teams and that is obvious. If I was a Leeds fan I would be much more ashamed that in a year they have lost HALF of their supporters and can only half fill a 40K ground in a major metropolitan area.

Why is everyone getting in a fizz over such a non issue? It was a friendly game! And as previous posters have stated we had a higher attendance than both Bolton and Boro, two teams who had higher gates than us last season. Bolton have sold out of season tickets for this season, hardly proving waning interest in the game, yet only 2k turned up for the friendly. There is a time and a place for crowd issues and I am sure they will be everpresent throughout the season, but lets get some perspective and discuss a good performance from our team yesterday

Yeah, I was there, I went with the Ewood Blues to Salzburg on Monday, they called Birdy and myself 'B******s', not exactly comparable to climbing on the Darwen End roof! Those last bar pics are brilliant, my glazed look into the camera on the penultimate one is a particular favourite. Jordan was that drunk he got lost on the two min walk to a club. He paid for it in the morning! All in all a fantastic trip, if you fancy a holiday a little bit different its well worth it. Salzburg and Austria in general is breathtaking and in Germany its just meat and quality beer, what more can you want?!

Great day yesterday, a session with Ste B, Orvil and JPW takes it out of you. Ste was pretty gone by 4am, his vigrous dance to 'Nelly the Elephant' had to be seen to be believed! We had a great time with the 1860 boys, they can knock the steins back! Roll on Tuesday

Flying into Berlin on the 19th, then visiting Hamburg. Arriving in Munich on the Friday night, probably getting a train to the ground. Staying over in Austria for the second game. Then back to Berlin. Happy days! Would be good to sort out a pubmeet either in Munich or at the grounds.

Well, well, well, finally the gloves are off from the media hacks that have been looking for a chance to totally discredit Blackburn Rovers since that day in Liverpool ten years ago. I have been closely monitoring the media for many years now and many of their attacks have been veiled, albeit thinly. To be accepted by the media you have to be a member of the 'magic circle', (i.e a London club or a big metropolitan club (Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle) as Patrick Collins helpfully pointed out in the Mail on Sunday or get big crowds. The history of the club or the background behind why a club like Rovers get smaller crowds than a Man Utd seems not to matter. The fact that around TWENTY PER CENT of our borough woke up in the dead of night and paid an average of £40 does not matter, the fact that our players are not in the same class of Arsenal's therefore requiring appropriate tactics does not matter. Newcastle played the only way they can, and got well and truly thrashed, while a 1-0 scoreline probably best suited our game, tells its own story. Of course, as an earlier post stated, I am sure thuggery' will not be promoted at all in the upcoming 'Battle of the Buffet 2' or is it 3? Yawn. The double standards would be laughable if the public had not been taken in by red top hacks. While watching the game yesterday, I noticed many 'cynical' fouls by both sets of teams, Nicky Butt in particular, but these were obviously 'mistimed' or 'over eager'. We are a blacklisted club, commentators, pundits, journalists, managers and officials have been taken in by the media hype and are on the 'Blackburn Rovers are bad for the game' bandwagon. One comment by the chosen one in early February after being well and truly outplayed by a resilient Rovers started all this, carried on by Nigel Worthington who showed just how easy it is to be carried away by media hype. Now every tackle is being monitored, though I did not see one tackle being two footed, off the ground or malicious, but just committed play from a team giving it all and who I felt immensely proud of, Steven Reid's chase and tackle springing to mind. 17thousand others felt the same as they got applauded and cheered off the pitch. Do we want to go back to the Hodgson, Kidd or late Souness eras where many of you on this board and at Ewood were sick and tired and largely apathetic of a club and team that seemed to be going through the motions, I feel more strongly for our team under Hughes than I have for years. I just hope Rovers fans hold their nerve at this time and don't get taken in by media spin that want to discredit and humiliate our great club, if everybody else outside Blackburn Rovers, think we are the new Millwall/Wimbeldon so be it, it will just make me get behind the lads that bit more on Wednesday night. ps European Super league? I would be waving them off at the airport, we could finally get our game back and I think REAL football fans not Neutral from the Home Counties would say the same and would have loved a Rovers/Newcastle cup final.

What? It must be one of the strangest and most annoying songs I have heard in a long time. Makes me want to throw my radio out of the window every time I hear it!

A good friend of mine went to watch an Accy Stanley game a couple of months back when he got chatting to Lucas, Stead and Steven Reid (strange, I know!). Neill was extremely anti-Souness- his training methods, general attitude and the dire quality of his backroom staff, he said that apart from Brad, Amo and Ferguson he couldnt see any of our players EVER playing for him again. All problems the fans were well aware of, but to hear a player confirm this shows how unstable the club was in the final stages of the Souness era.

In their biggest game for five years, that REAL football club cannot even shift 18 thousand tickets, the amount we sell for every game. The old chestnut of 'If we were in the Prem we would have a full house every week' has once again been exposed as absolute nonsense, as they continue to prove themselves as a club that belongs to the lower regions of the second tier.

We have sold 700 according to Cardiff's website. Not too bad considring we took around half that to another 'hostile' place; Millwall several years ago.

I think you have a selective memory. The bottom tier was almost totally full, bar the seats that were behind pillars. We even had a few fans in the corner section. We had around 6 thousand at the game. We are the only set of fans that estimate down our away followings.

I've talked to Neild in the pub a few times and he and Souness have quite a good relationship. They have many 'off the record' discussions. If you remember the story about a month back when Souness came out on the back of the Telegraph to moan about lack of funds, the club tried to ban Neild from club events until they found out that Souness had purposefully gone to Neild to undermine the board.

I'm going over with a couple of mates. Getting a flight Saturday morning only 40 quid.

Burnley fans just can't grasp the face that they are not one of the countrys big boys. From ClaretsMad: 'Better to go now, or hang around like Cloughie did at Forest, living on his past achievements whilst all around him the empire crumbled??' Sorry????

Did they mime like when I saw them earlier in the year ?? p.s Metallica Indoor tour this december - first confirmed date Earls Court 20th Dec... Don't think they mimed, just a flat performance. Great news about the winter tour, Lars told the crowd in Dublin that they were coming back to play The Point.

Saw Metallica in Dublin-AMAZING! When the first two songs are Battery and Master of Puppets you know its going to be good! The Irish crowd were tough though, they got booed for not playing Whisky in the Jar! ps Linkin Park-utter S***e!

Had a few listens of St Anger and I have to agree with the sentiments of this thread. Some of the riffs are taking me back to 'And Justice...', however without the solos it is a complete waste of Kirk Hammett and some of the songs seem to go on longer than they should, but if the mid-sections of the songs contained a solo we would have had a metal classic on our hands. But I do think it is a good album and a welcome return to heaviness, bring on August when I go to see them in Dublin!