Most people who live locally have given up relying on or believing in the trains running north out of Manchester to Preston at weekends. Totally unreliable and usually a bus replacement service. The engineering works are due to finish today. That's a least 12 months overdue. In your position I'd have a back up plan of taxi to Warrington, 25-30 minutes, West Coast mainline to Preston, 35-40 minutes. In fact given how much you'll be paying out I'd do this regardless then you have no worries during your trip.

It's already here today. We call it the Premier League. If, and it's a big if, people want to watch and support teams in a meaningful and competitive competition the sooner this happens the better. Getting shot of Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, United, City and possibly Spurs would rebalance and strengthen the game in this country. There would be less money, far less but in competitive terms the game would be stronger. The big question is do fans want real competitive football or to sit in a chair swilling lager? Attendances suggest the later is the case. It's the lack of competition and a fair playing field which turns many away and makes for others, like me, League One or Championship football so much more exciting. A season of excitement or hope set against a season in which the "prize" is to stay in the PL and perhaps beat a big six team? That's what PL football has become for all bar the leading six clubs. Let them go today.

Tickets were selling fast when I was in the TO yesterday. Plenty of fans buying 4,5,6 tickets at a time.

Scroll up the thread and review the arguments you have put forward this evening. If you believe something is wrong and you care sufficiently about it then get involved. People who sit on the sidelines and snipe "I'm not sure I could personally stomach being in the presence of a fan arguing against price cuts. " need to get involved or be quiet.

The argument is Rovers should reduce walk on prices. If the club do this to a significant level, it appears £15-20 is the expected price, this has the potential to upset ST holders. Therefore the obvious thing to do is ask season ticket holders what benefits they would like to receive. If a walk on price reduced to £15-20 I would expect my ST price to reduce to around £10 unless the club give me something else. Why aren't you going back? You've clearly created an account just to discuss this, so what are your reasons for not buying an ST?

The Fans Forum was set up as a sounding board and discussion forum not to represent the fans. It's very difficult for the FF to claim to represent the fans as it is an unelected body. The moment such claims are made supporters would be up in arms saying the FF don't represent me. Its happened in the past and would happen again. It boils down to this. You're happy to criticise from the sidelines but don't actually care enough to stand up and do something. If you disagree with o2g the obvious thing to do is to be present at the FF meetings and argue the opposing case. Or would that require more effort than sitting at a keyboard? From my recollection o2g has been giving up his time to the FF for 16 years.........and you?

Then put yourself forward for the Fans Forum. Anyone can.

There are plenty who will tell you that we would get close. It's nonsense in my view. I doubt we could add 2000. I think a realistic mid term target would be 12000 STs at current prices and assuming we are in the Championship next season - we won't go down. What I feel the club should do is survey ST holders to understand what if any benefits they would appreciate. For me not being held in the car parks would be a serious benefit. I understand why, but think it unreasonable, that home fans should be held back because of away fans potential behaviour.

This is the issue which is so frequently ignored by those calling for lower prices. There are major cost benefits to understanding how many people are going to turn up. Significantly lowering match day prices commits the club for a season. Stewarding, food, drink etc all have to accounted for and not enough fans at low prices does not work. 10000 fans are lost. Cheap tickets won't bring them back.

I agree there is little imagination but it is very difficult to see where the club can go. We've enjoyed low ST prices for 25 years or more. This to me is now the problem as increased ST prices upset holders as will significant reductions in match day prices as this makes the ST less competitive, especially for those who don't attend every game. I don't subscribe to the view this year's increase was a mistake. There had to be one at some point and promotion to a better league was the right opportunity. Maintaining prices might have had some impact but nothing significant. I think tomphil's view walk on prices are artificially high is probably right but I don't see how that can change when considering ST prices - reductions to say £20, WBA price today, can't work. I've yet to see any real evidence low ticket prices increase gates. It isn't just a case of bums on seats but a balancing act of reducing prices, increased costs and the tipping point at which lower revenue from ST holders is countered by increased attendances. Turnover is vanity, profit sanity and cash reality.

I'm very much in agreement with you on this and to me the answer to your first question is clear. Praising Bolton for offering exactly the same pricing as Rovers have for the season is an ill informed criticism of our club and specifically Waggot. It's a local sport.

For the past 25 years or more the strategy has been to encourage and reward ST holders with very competitive pricing. I would have thought that obvious. How one views it's success or otherwise is up for debate. One view would be we appear to have a high proportion of our match day crowd who are ST holders suggesting the strategy works.

A couple of days ago the bookmark I had for this site stopped working. Deleted the bookmark, typed in the URL and created a new bookmark. All working well now - there's been a glitch of some sort.

Just had a look at the 2017/18 half ST price. £170 for 13 games started on Boxing Day - £13/match. My guess is it will work out at £15 or 16 this time, probably £199. Depends when it starts really. I think we will have played 12 home games by Christmas. The half ST will only cover 11 matches so might be cheaper but still around £15/match

I don't think you've read the relevant post. It's an ST comparison not one match. PeteJD13 posted this: "Bolton have launched a half season ticket starts boxing day works out at 15 quid a game wonder if we will launch something similar. Might be something Waggott could consider rather than whinging in the press" A Rovers ST is £349 for 23 games which is £15.17 per game. So Rovers are competitive locally and have been offering this price, with an ST, for the whole season. If people are paying per game it's expensive. I'm comparing STs with the Bolton half ST offer. We are competitive and I'd expect our half ST offer to be very similar. It can't be criticised until we know what the offer is.

True.

Same price as a Rovers ST then. Obviously we are competitive in our pricing.

I think you're correct with this, quite a few of the people around me at Ewood will talk about the lunchtime TV fixture. I feel we have gone way, way, way beyond saturation point. For me we are overwhelmed with coverage, most of it banal, unintelligible, irrelevant and delivered by commentators incapable of forming a full sentence or speaking in anything other than meaningless phrases. The extent of the media coverage is such I consume none - years ago the first page I read in the newspaper was football. I may sound old school, I can assure you I'm not, but I am old enough to remember grainy black white images of the Kop or Stretford End on wet, steamy November evenings. That was exciting, those were BIG games which caught the imagination of every fan. Shoving 87 games at me does nothing to change that. I'm looking forward to 9.45pm

To my way of thinking fans either want to watch their team live or not. Personally I stopped watching any football on TV years ago. It's just a very, very poor experience. If I want to see a game I buy a ticket and go. The only game I can recall not being able to get a ticket for was last season at Fleetwood.

M6, M5, M4 takes 5-6 hours and you could well hit traffic round Cardiff.

Yes 68% is astonishing and why I never take any serious notice of these so called statistics. Rovers dominated the first half with Leeds constantly under pressure, something they are clearly not used to. I suppose if you include knocking it about 5 yards outside your own box then perhaps that helps the possession stats. At best, from a Leeds perspective, the first half was 50-50 and while Leeds did have more of the ball in the second it wasn't enough to give a 68-32 stat.

I know the police supposedly get the "real" people through the turnstile figure but that number is nonsense. 35 minutes before KO I couldn't get on the off street parking we planned to use instead of the DE. There were small traffic queues heading in from Chorley all turning up LBR at Feniscowles. Plus the JWL was significantly fuller than usual. For most games I can leave home 25 minutes before KO and be in the ground as the teams come out. No chance of that today. Mr Bullas is simply wrong.

Won't make a scrap of difference Matty. People mainly either want to go or don't. Obviously there are those who can't but the majority are just looking for reasons to justify not going. The lost 10,000 won't return till we are back in the PL and even then I have my doubts.

I wasn't having a go at you as I said at the end of my post. It isn't simple for a lot of people for many different reasons. The point I was making is if fans stay at home to watch on the red button by paying an extra £37 they can watch the entire season live for just £15 - that's a no brainer for me. I'm making general not personal remarks on this. It has always been difficult for people to get to every game. I've no idea if there are more or less midweek games, I do realise more Saturday games are being shifted around. This the price the game has to pay for allowing Sky on board. What I don't hear is fans complaining about or doing anything about Sky. The vast majority have lapped it up for decades. A few, myself included, have been against it for the same time. Sky have destroyed English football without a murmur from fans. As is usual it's kick the Rovers when the club in fact had little choice in the matter. Rovers management have been as complicit in this whole Sky deal for as long as every other club and to start hammering the current club management now is wrong. When the second Sky deal began back in the 90s I asked John Williams face to face if the clubs would stand up to player demands this time. He told me the PL chairmen were determined not to give in to the agents and players. That went well. Senior management at every club, in every season and the FA have failed the game and the spectators yet millions happily lap up the Sky coverage. The horse bolted years ago. Anyone who really cares, wants to change things should first cancel Sky, tell them and the club why and stop using pubs which broadcast the games. It won't make a jot of difference though as the game sold out for gold a long time ago.

I think this is a bit of an exaggeration though as it depends on where one lives. Personally I'll be leaving home at 11.00, any side other than Leeds it would be 11.30. I don't like these 12.00 KOs but I'm unsure if it's that inconvenient. The huge Leeds away support is going to cause me far more inconvenience and cost money. We have a car park pass for the DE and regularly have to wait for 20-25 minutes for the car park gates to be opened after the away coaches have departed. On Saturday it could be up to an hour's delay so we have to leave home early and hopefully find a spot on Albion Mill etc. fort £3.