You don't have a positive gene in your body do you? Of course the Rovers will lose out financially compared with charging Category A but the Salzburg game showed that there might just be some price elasticity of demand. Rovers have deep enough pockets to see if they can re-stimulate it. Well done to the club's management. Boo to the grumbling curmudgeon with his stupid fixations.

Once again, it shows that the LT (LET) sports desk are a complete bunch of no-brain numpties. I think Boro said that their run to the UEFA Final netted them something like £2m last year. It will only get really interesting for Rovers if they qualify from the Group and Spuds and Newcastle flop in their's. Basel and Nancy are not going to be the greatest TV box office draws so I guess JW will just be happy to qualify from the Group stages without any red ink.

Risk to football's betting sponsorship. Went into Bet24's web site and whilst the poker was priced and promoted in $, it focussed on a trip to Barcelona. Bet24 seems to have a heavy European bias- even the basketball betting focussed on the European leagues. Not an expert on online gambling but is Spud's Mansion deal at risk from the US clamp down?

Perfect match to introduce the red and black halves. Even last year's black front, white back monstrosity won't work either. Anyone got the old yellow kit they can lend to the club?

Krakow is one of the most beautiful towns in Europe but the fans have a bit of a nasty reputation. Feyernoord fans are nasty full stop. On footballing terms, just as well we are not travelling to Nancy (played 4, won 4 at home). We can and should win this Group with those fixtures.

So Norwich don't get involved with transfers then? Wrong riposte

Has that been drawn or are you guessing?

Still completely wrong 'drog. Never mind, institutionalised bungs and Lancashire United all add to the entertainment on brfcs.com. The Stevens Report/investigation whilst a damp squib in PR terms will undoubtedly force clubs, agents and the FA to be extremely careful and is probably having a clean-up effect beyond the appointment of additional compliance officers at the FA. 39 suspect dealings being further investigated are sufficient to keep every Prem and ex-Prem boardroom excepting the three newly promoted clubs very nervous. I for one hope the identities are not leaked although the Quest team's activities and direction of questions in the coming 8 weeks will alert insiders to what they are chasing. The longer the period of anxious suspense, the greater the chances of someone cracking and changes oif behaviour becoming embedded.

The rankings are based on country co-efficient plus the club's own performance over the past five seasons. So Rovers' non-winning pops in recent seasons have gained them enough points to be able to laugh at Spuds in pot 5 for whom Europe is a 21st century novelty. For non-english clubs in the top three pots there is a minimum 25% chance of getting an EPL club out of the bottom two pots which is a bit of a nightmare proposition. At least there are no Italian or Spanish clubs lurking in pot 5 to bite Rovers in the derriere. Still it means that Rovers are theoretically seeded to get knocked out and will need to produce something special to get through. Four possible permutations to chew on for the draw: "Thank the Gods- we've got a great chance to come top of this one": Leverkusen, Brugge, Krakow, Rovers, Mlada "Couldn't be much tougher and not box office either": Sevilla, Alkmaar, Rapid, Rovers, Nancy "Do they give us tin hats?" Feyernoord, Rangers, Palermo, Rovers, Haifa "Glamour ties" Ajax, PSG, Espanyol, Rovers, Eintracht

Side-stepping the current bitching (perhaps) - The club has said that Season Ticket sales are over 13,000 this season which means a slight INCREASE on last season at this time, - I'll comment again that the steady decline in attendance coincided with the introduction of the drummers. They clearly annoy many people intensely. - Less tongue in cheek, the ease of availability of foreign TV in pubs in an area where TV watching and pub going are way above the national average is probably a straight causal link to Rovers suffering a disproportionate loss in attendance - without getting 'drog going but when we had 26,000+ averages, we had local rivals doing not very well. Now, virtually all our local rivals are having strong seasons and/or playing in divisions higher than they are normally to be found. I know when travelling in from my mother's the days of seeing masses of fans coming from west and north Lancashire are dramatically a thing of the past. Two observations of hope: - will the Prem attendance group recommend a pause in increases or a general reduction in attendance costs for this summer? Prem clubs will be getting a 60% windfall increase from TV rights so a cross the board 25% cut in attendance charges is EASILY affordable. - in the past, when Rovers have been playing well there has been a general increasing buzz in the town which isn't reflected in gates until suddenly a game comes along which is a must-see and bang, gates permanently shifted up by two or three thousand. In 80/1, league gates were around 5,000 to 8,000 until the Cup run and tickets for the Villa tie went on sale at the Blackpool game. 14,000 turned up and there wasn't a sub-10,000 gate for any game in the rest of the season. Is there any chance of this pattern repeating in modern day Blackburn?

The bias in officiating towards the big clubs is utterly blatant. Frankly, I have got over getting upset about it (although the reffing in our next few games is bound to wind me up again). Linesmen get called to account for bad decisions against Everton and Liverpool. But that numpty in Sheff U v Rovers?....

I think if you look back on the two previous seasons, there is a massive onus on winning your UEFA Group. In the Third Round, third-placing teams get wiped out by the Group winners and second-placers get wiped out by the CL 3rd place teams dropping into the UEFA.

You'd be an absolute menace in any business. Offering an incentive to management for stripping it of its best assets! I'll happily settle for the points, qualification and trophies incentivisation that already exists.

But we will sit out one of those five dates. Will know which, who and where on Tuesday. eeeh in't it exciting!!!

Preview of the Stevens report.

Palermo away please- visit to t'neighbours.

Thanks Bob- been laughing out loud.

On the basis that Daren popped up with an excellent better late than never preview, I am sure gull will visit us with his droppings... Logic says we'll get rumbled by the pie eaters but I'm a barm cake man and I'll go with 1-0 to t' Rovers. In honour of Daren's home town: A pie-eating manager named Jewel lots of football rumours did fuel When Roberts got pesky He signed Emile Heskey and ended unemployed, fat and a fool

When we got knocked out by Lyons, we were beaten by a club and team on the verge of doing great things. This time we knocked out Salzburg but I wouldn't be surprised to see Salzburg become a minor force in European football.

Have to say that the broken knee cap did for Ferguson who went from moderately talented to a total non-entity. It was quite a shock to see he scored against Mould. In retrospect, we did very well to get £4m+ for him (now he's done time, oops that Bellamy, er Rangers appearances). I really hope we draw Rangers and shove a well-deserved thrashing down them. It will ease the Celtic pain where we were disgracefully mismanaged.

Fancy retiring to Hawaii? We'd win the Champions League and the dingles drop to the Unibond!

Sorry Palermo- which is in my first post. Was on phone whilst scanning the posts. Will concentrate next time!

It is all becoming clear, 'drog works in a toilet factory and judges others by his own standard.

Three monitors side-by-side in the Dubliner- kept focus on the Rovers game but the ball is in action only c.40 minutes in any 90 minute game so it was easy to keep peripheral vision on the screens either side of the Rovers' game. Flopsy, if you say so, it must be the one. What on earth was the Ref doing at Ewood if he is suspended at home? Good job that Salzburg were basically just a bunch of ill-disciplined wussies. That ref would have had a riot on his hands if we had been playing a bunch of hard cases as he and his linesmen were utterly incapable of keeping control. I thought all the marginal decisions went against us by the way- don't know what it felt like in the ground.

Scotty, that's pretty well how I'd expected it- four higher ranked clubs got knocked out so we moved up into pot 4 which contains a bunch of clubs we wouldn't have minded drawing. Avoiding Palermo coming out of pot 3 could be a key to Rovers' progress as we can expect pots 1 and 2 to produce tough opposition. That said, I could quite easily pop up to Palermo if we play them away. Do we know whether letters A, B, C, D and E denoting order and venue of play coincide with pot numbers 1 to 5?