I've heard KO is 2.30pm Sky Sports 1

Wrong decision, just plain bloody wrong. Easter Sunday is a big day in our household, not for any particularly religious reasons on my part, and now thanks to LFC and it's whinging support the day is buggered. We have accomodated LFC and their wishes, the problem is theirs and there is no reason to move again. It looks as though the decision has been made, at Rovers expense, any sympathy I had with Liverpool's support has disappeared. I'd just like to ask the Liverpool support what respect are your actions showing for millions who see Easter Sunday as the climatic day of the religious calendar? The answer is simply none.

There appears to be no one at LFC or amongst their support who has got this right. I still have deep memories of that day and visited Anfield on the Monday following but enough is enough. It's time for the fans to move on, recognising the best way to pay tribute to the dead is to play football and hold a minute's silence. I have to say I'm rapidly losing sympathy with the whinging scousers. A great 3.00pm Saturday fixture is in danger of turning into a Monday night farce. Rovers have done their bit with a 5.15pm KO, if the Liverpool fans want to stay ta home with their TVs switched OFF that's fine by me.

Gaz this is not a dig at you but on Saturday you could have watched the Villa game for £15 a ticket. You don't have to buy a programme, food etc - well we eat at home and take a flask. So you could get in £30 + £10 travel. As a general remark £30 is a lot of money to watch a football match. On the other hand I know youg people who think it quite normal to go out of a weekend and: - buy booze to drink beforehand - pay £10/20 or so to get into a night club - spend I don't know how much in a pub/club during the evening - pay £20 or so to get a taxi home So IMV these costs have to be put into perspective. When I pay £30 to watch football I feel ripped off as it is too much, but in the context of what people are prepared to spend on getting a hangover it is relatively cheap.

Did anyone else notice the guy who appeared to be doing some sort of cheer-leading in the DE about half way through second half? If we're going to do kids for a quid perhaps the club should have people deployed in that area to really whip 'em up.

We run Epsons and HP at work. The Epsons are cheaper to run and the seperate ink cartridges are certainly more economical. For colour work, especially photographs, the HPs produce better quality, significantly better quality. Saying that with neither make have I tried to tinker with the settings to improve quality - this judgement is based purely on the default settings for Photo. Having said that my advice would be don't buy a multi-function machine. I have yet to meet someone who is happy with what they have. IMV a printer is a printer and a scanner is a scanner. Ask yourself what the main purpose is for the machine? Copying is dirt cheap virtually anywhere and to a very high standard. How often do most people scan? We have four offices in our business, three of them insist on buying multi-function machines. They always end up cursing them. My office has sepeartes for everything and we rarely have a problem, plus once one bit of the multi-function packs up you're stuffed.

Perception - yes I think that's correct, most people THINK it costs £25 - £30 to go to watch PL football. I suspect the missing 2-3000 you mention would BB Enders in the main so that is what it does cost them. Football is expensive if one is attending as a single adult, ST or not. The average cost though for a family is very different. If we sold out the entire ground to ST holders on the ratio of 1 x adult, 1 x child, 1 x young adult, 1 x senior citizen in each stand the income per seat, per match over the season is around £12. It's true I've done the sums. Traffic - better than in the heady days of the championship season so I don't feel that is an issue. A lot depends on where one choses to park Kick off times - yes, yes and yes. For many an ST is no longer wirth buying for this reason. Personally I'd like to see all games back to 3.00pm and a live Sky game at the same time. Pubs - yes. Illegal broadcasting should be stopped and every outlet showing it should be prosecuted if they persist. It's blatantly illegal and hardly difficult to spot.

Must admit I was thinking of the JW, BBE and DE when I made my comments. I imagine the Riverside would be OK for smokers as you say.

I think the club are trying to obtain permission to wear the new shirt for the last home game this season. That made me think there was a possibility the shirts would be on sale then or soon after.

I think Glenn's point is clubs are possibly creating membership schemes to boost income from away fans rather than benefit home fans. If a club puts the price up to say £40 from £30 and announces a membership scheme where tickets are still at £30 the objective is obvious.

Glenn is this happening already? If so can you say where as I'm very interested to know it. Someone suggested Utd fans paid less than us for the semi at OT if they were members?

I think moving the FS is difficult for a number of reasons one of which is the current smoking policy. One reason why we don't use the JW Upper or the BBE is because the concourses wreak at half-time and it is really unpleasant to be in there. I don't know if the JW lower is smoking or non-smoking but I'd suggest a lot of families would be unhappy at being moved to a smoking area. It will be interesting to see what effect recent legislation has on smoking in football stadia. The concourses serve food and alcohol so I'd presume it will have to be banned.

Can I bring people's attention to the latest BRISA Newsletter which is now available to view online. The main focus is on the recent meetings with the club and the response from John Williams and Tom Finn to a series of questions from BRISA. The main topic is match day attendances! The discussion opened up considerably and we were able to touch on issues and areas which BRISA had not raised for that meeting. You can view the Newsletter at http://www.brisa.org.uk/brisanewsletter2.pdf Please feel free to print, distribute or whatever to any fan you feel may be interested in this topic.

See no reason why not philip, theno's been living off it for years

The first part is certainly true, I think it was in the LET and on the official site. I recall the second as well, though that can have all sorts of interpretations......e.g if someone offers to invets £100m in Rovers that would be for the club's long term good. ???

I'm sure philip will correct this if I'm wrong. Operating profit is the money made from daily activities during the financial year, basically it's annual sales (income) less annual costs. In 2004 we made an operating loss of £1m, but in 2005 we made an operating profit of £1.4m, which I interpret as an improvement of £2.4m. The overall loss of £5m is achieved by taking into account things like transfers, player amortisation (don't ask me!) etc.

Already have, though not as a result of this article. This is a subject which, as Dave says, is down to the Trustees. As I understand matters the Trustees have only made one public utterance since Jack died. BRISA has considered writing to the Trustees to raise this and other issues, the advice received to date suggests we would be unlikley to get a reply. As for asking John Williams? Well I'm very happy to ask him but I would not expect a reply until such time as the club was about to be sold, not that I'm suggesting it is. Williams has responsibility to the shareholders (trustees), the club and the support. In such matters it would be unreasonable to expect a response, for Williams to publicly indicate the club was for sale would weaken his and the club's position in any negotiations. I'd suggest he's more likely to suggest the club is not for sale to strengthen his/our position. I'd also suggest this is just some crap journo spinning a line. There are a number of inaccuracies in the article, most of which could have been corrected by reading this site!! The Walker family do not own the club, so can't sell it I imagine the Walker family cannot influence the Trust Overall losses for 2005 were £5m but operating profit improved by £2.4m to +£1m

Why? We, ST holders, have already been sent all of that package at the beginning of the season. The offer is no different now, other than the Kids for a Quid which is well established, than it was at the start of the season. The club are clearly highlighting it and using the Membership Scheme to: Sign up members Highlight the discount offer - and it isn't really a discount as you pay £10 to join Gain data on people who are interested in Rovers So if you are an ST holder you have had these benefits all season, for free, as ST holders are automatically members. How could that irritate the ST holders? Looks more like the club being proactive to sell the Membership Scheme allied to tickets for lower interest games like Villa, Boro and Wigan.

Exactly, protecting the value of the ST is crucial. As soon as the club begin to bundle tickets in some form the value of the ST is undermined. I believe anything less than either a full or half ST would have a damaging impact on ST sales.

Yes I think that's a big part of the problem from an income point of view. For 12 years none of my kids cost more than say £60-70, often they were free. The non-adult discounting is having a massive impact on revenue. I still believe £32 is too much for a game of football but I cannot see what alternative Rovers, and probably several other clubs, have open to to them. The real cost of the seat is not being paid by many, many fans. Lets face it you can often get in for £15 which is very reasonable. I've believed for some time footballers are badly over-paid and the PL chairman have collectively chucked the Sky money down the drain. The real answer is to cut wages but it has to be a collective thing. If Rovers don't pay the going rate we will simply get relegated through not having the quality of player. The other question is at what point does the seat become too cheap? A quality product does have a price. There is a danger of under-valuing the product. Just ask MFI about there public image.

thenodrog I'm sorry but you are not thinking this one through. The ST holder is the club's most important customer, the club cannot risk devaluing the ST, which IMV is already seriously devalued by Sky and movable kick offs. What you are suggesting would create a situation where after one season of such packages ST holders would stop buying. Why? By virtue of your suggestion one-third of the tickets at the end of season would be bundled in some way to promote sales. Fans would wait until the fixtures came out and say we got Arsenal, Liverpool, Chelsea, Utd in the last six games what would they do? I think I can guess. Couple this with the various promotions run through the season and the ST would soon become pointless, from the fan's perspective, robbing the club of vital income and any idea of how many are going to turn up on match day. So how would the club plan food, drink, programmes etc? Then follow that with say a cup final appearance, ST sales have collapsed because of above. How on earth woud the club determine who gets priority? None but then my business has an 0161 number and I'm the only non-Utd or City fan. Not at all.

Correct

The £13 came directly from JW. I can believe it because I'm paying less than £13 per seat, per game, based on four STs our cost per seat, per game is £11.51: 1 x adult = £385 1 x Young Adult in FS = £195 1 x Young Adutl in BBE = £225 1 x Junior = £70 Total cost = £875 Per seat, per game = £875/19/4 = £11.51 There was a point when all the kids were under 16 that it was less than £8 per seat, per game. Simon when I said I wasn't in a frame of mind to do the maths I meant I couldn't get my head round trying to worki it out based on STs all around the ground. I reckon my family illustrated above is pretty average. I think my view on how STs are priced is probably accurate and the above shows the impact the club's discounting to attract families and young people massively impacts the match day revenue.

krislu 1. Yes 2. Dont' buy a ticket on Row 1, around seat 50 or so. Most of the singing seems to start from the middle, right of the BBE. 3. Various pubs, others will comment 4. The ground regulations say you can't, but hey........... 5. Liverpool in the BBE will be £32

The figure is certainly correct, or at least it came straight from John Williams. I'm not in the frame of mind to do all the calculations but must stress this is revenue per seat, per game. Not just the ST holders. I have presumed this average is based on the total income from: ST holders of all types Kids for a quid Other promotions Boxes - not sure on that one I think the £13 figure shows the real difficulty/danger with price lead promotions. Every child allowed into the ground for £1 has a dramatic effect on the average income, and no the spend at the bar/burger concession does not compensate. The next point is a personal opinion and has no basis on anything I've been told. I guess ST holders are "paying full whack," if full whack is defined as what the club feels is the affordable price and best value for the average ST holder. The match day ticket is then priced accordingly higher. Many businesses set prices on the basis of the income required from regular customers, the infrequenbt customer then pays a premium. Discounted prices are usually the real price of the product. I'd stake my house on Rovers making a very healthy profit if our average crowd was entirely made up of ST holders.