Trouble is, the title of this topic is now c.4k too high.

Good decision and full marks to the ref for changing the card after viewing it on tv. When Jenas tackled the Arsenal fairy from behind it was a foul and warranted nothing more than a yellow at worst. Despite being hit from behind the fairy actually did two rolls to the side whilst on the floor. Commentators never pick up on this sort of thing. Good job it was Jenas and not Chopper Harris or Norman "Bite Yer Legs" Hunter or the poor fairy would have been crying for his mummy.

Wigan on its own is not as big as Blackburn on its own. These days they tend to include the "add on" towns, such as Atherton, Hindley, Orrell etc but even allowing for that, I can't see the figure for Wigan reaching 300k. Rugby League will always be the bigger of the two sports in the Land Of The Pies.

Andy Payton - I'd like to see him run over by a steam roller just for being Andy Payton. That's schadenfreude in a kind of loving way. If I were to be a little nasty I would like to see the steam roller go over him, but then reverse back to ensure the job had been done.

Breaking News - Paddy has gone up to Newcastle to start work on cleaning the dust out of their trophy cabinet. The good news is that he should be gone for some considerable time.

My Rothmans Book from 1971 states 52,000 - For reasons which for the life of me I don't know why, I missed the City cup game, so my biggest attendance pre development is the Bolton game when they got promotion. The Bolton game crowd figure that night was the biggest fiddle I've ever seen in my time watching Rovers. There were 20,000 Bolton fans on - they were everywhere. Packed the Darwen End, took over the Blackburn End and there must have been thousands in the Riverside. There were at least 35k on. I was in the Riverside and we were packed in like sardines.

Why do you say sadly? Unless you are a Vålerenga fan?

In the 70's it was the former capacity of 52,000 which hadn't changed for years. By 1980 they had chipped away at it and when we played Villa in the FA Cup in Feb 1980 the capacity was 30,000 with the attendance just a few hundred short of that figure. When the old Riverside was demolished some time in the 80's, and replaced with the CIS Stand (or whatever you want to call it) the capacity was then reduced again to just over 20k.

As I understand it, away fans at the JJB will be given the North Stand, which holds 5,399 and not the East Stand (side) as previously. The stadium capacity is 25,004 - take the bet GAV - I would expect Rovers to better them by a couple of thousand or more. A harder decision would be which of the two teams will have the most home support. Again, I would take Rovers, but only just.

Yeah, you're right there. Hold on, wait a minute...... Why then have Derby, Middlesbrough, Liverpool, Leeds and Newcastle, amongst otheres, all failed?? One more thing - if Blackburn were three times its size, had towns added to it that were roughly the same size as Blackburn now (Gateshead & Wallsend), nearest rivals to the north were as far distant as Edinburgh is to you, to the south as far away as Middlesbrough is to you (with one exception) and finally....we only had one main rival (Sunderland to you) instead of three traditional founder members......we would pull in 52k every week.....and the rest.

Steady on Jim, that might be construed as praise!

Thanks for that mate.

Salt of the earth. Always liked him. Downright good egg. Won't hear a bad word said against him. Excellent signing - well done Rovers. Pity all those that went and hanged themselves 'cos we weren't going to sign anyone won't be able to see him next season.

Anyone know of a good site for these type of scarves. Toffs does them in Navy/White, Green/White, Black/White and Red/White but not Royal Blue/White. Quick visits to Everton & Rangers official sites and they don't do them. It goes without saying that you can't get them from our place.

Oh yes you do - you know full well, but as per your final sentence you just do not know when to stop. I try to avoid your petty, and often race filled diatribes beacuse they bore me, as does this topic now. So just give it a rest as it's getting slightly off topic.

I presume you mean arithmetic? My mental arithmetic is as good as your smart arsed comments - I don't take kindly to someone in my age bracket talking down to me like a school teacher, that's all. No bravado, it's just called sticking up for yourself. As I mentioned in my post, it's only partly about finance and that's why if we can entice a few thousand fans back to start with we can ignore the relatively small blip in sales turnover with a view to making this up in later seasons once the momentum gathers pace.

By that I mean home supporters - if we can achieve those levels, with the additional away support, the ground will be more or less full for many games.

Not entirely but it is a key aim. We need to get to a situation where local kids and teenagers leaving school will readily go down to Ewood like they used to a decade ago. Folk are staying away in droves and they need to be enticed back. One way of doing that is to make a match at Ewood cheaper and also with an increased atmosphere which would happen with a standing terrace. Ok, there would be a blip in income to start with but as a percentage, against total turnover, this would be relatively small. The aim of the club would be to get the seated customers up to around say 17k (similar to present levels) and those standing to anywhere up to a max of 10k. Over time income levels would increase, crowds would increase and the atmosphere would improve immensely. So perhaps it was you who hadn't thought it through properly you clever **** I'll give you a clue - it could rhyme with banker, cat or punt. You choose.

There's a first time for everything, and I never thought I'd hear myself say this, but Jim is right!

Whatever. It was the principle of the thing I was trying to get across. However I'd still choose the Blackburn End first and then the Riverside. The Blackburn End is significant - for 103 years it was a standing terrace.

After looking at Dortmund's web site last night, I've just been on that of Schalke 04. One of the best stadia in the world, yet again the Germans have come up trumps in so far as the bulk of the ground is seated (53,000) but there is also a massive standing terrace behind one goal that can house another 24,000. To watch top flight German football on this standing terrace an adult has to pay 9 Euros per home game - that's £6.45 to me and you. If only we could get rid of the Blackburn End Lower, turn it into a standing terrace of say 10,000 and charge somewhere between £10 and £15. That would solve our crowd problems.

The pitch was swamped when we played them away - that was when we clinched promotion - did you mean away? Looking in the Jackman "bible" I note the attendance at Gigg Lane was 13,369 and with 10,000+ Rovers fans (one of our best ever away followings) the place was absolutely rocking. We basically had the whole ground.

Rovers 3 Sheff Utd 1 (8th December 1984) Mike Jackman's book - A Complete Record 1875 - 1990.

Got back and watched most of the second half after previously tuning in for the semi between the Scandinavians. Have to say it was great viewing, neat attractive football, played to the whistle and no writhing around in feigned agony whenever there was a foul. Very, very enjoyable. It's also worth mentioning that there are more hair bands and bottle blondes on show each Saturday in the PL.

325283[/snapback] That said, we were very surprised to learn of the disbanding of the official supporters asociation, that was never our intention. 325290[/snapback] Glenn - When you look in the match day programmes at the supporters association section there are around nine branches, North lancs, South Lancs, London etc. Are these supporters club branches still in existence but now classed as independant rather than being BRFC based?