Perhaps if the "fans" turned out to support the team things may be different.
However, I wouldn't want the club to put itself in a position of uncertainty by paying a player £20k per week.
If Sharp came to us and got that type of money would he get us promoted to the PL - NO.
Would the ground be full every week to help pay his wages - NO.
What is the point of bringing him back?

Do not need him at all, but again it was within the walls of Power where all this came from. Robinson may have blown hot and cold but he certainly covers more grass than Billy does, DRFC is a team not a group who will get the ball to an individual who wants to maintain his own ego, no room for BS and JR in this club and I dare say that the money from timbuktoo or wherever is up the spout so let us just stop falling out and get on with the matter in hand. HOWEVER if people want to continue to argue and fall out then I am happy to throw more than my fair share in (or is that fare)?

He has had a rough deal with Southampton. A man who wants to play every week relegated to their bench (or worse). They got him at a bargain price and given their wealth it meant Adkins could put him aside as soon as they got into the PL and he obviously has no chance with the new bloke who is even considering ditching Rickie Lambert. So as with Sheff U he's spectating again instead of playing and scoring goals. He could have stayed with us and perhaps moved on later to somewhere where he was appreciated.

They will surely have to either sell him off for less than he cost, which will not be too much of a capital loss or throw what they would see as good money after bad.

Being a decent player at a club that considers you not quite good enough to play regularly is not unique, but Billy went there with every right to feel that he would be there or thereabouts every week, so he must be really fed up. For a really hardworking professional he has had to endure far more sitting on the sidelines in his career than he deserves. What a waste.

Yes true, but not at Donny. I always believed it was a wrong move and even stated it on this forum but he will get it sorted and hopefully life can get back on track although it cannot be classed as normal.

Many players make the mistake of going to a bigger club for untold riches but end up not playing first team football.
At the end of their careers many will look back and wish they had played more games and taken a little less pay.

At last some common sense. The attendance at the Bournemouth game was shockingly low, particularly as the team had been playing some nice football in most of the games up to then. We can't afford expensive players like Billy Sharp and, unless attendances shoot up, we never will.

I KNOW THAT I AM GOING TO BE WRONG HERE BUT. BILLY SHARP AND OTHER MATTERS HAVE A COST IMPLICATION AND THE POOR ATTENDANCES ARE ALSO A CAUSE FOR CONCERN, BUT I BELIEVE THERE IS MORE INVOLVED AND THERE ARE A LOT OF IF'S AND BUTS BUT HERE GOES.

The low gates at DRFC and DRLC have always been a cause of concern in the town and the question asked by many is "Does the town want a football club or in the case of the Dons "A rugby Club"? John Desmond and Tommy Morton before him struggled to make ends meet at the same time as the Rovers, although in the 60 - 70 era gates at the Rovers were classed as good if not magnificent but there the problem stood. The Dons have not had much to shout about and generally until recent times neither have the Rovers,
We now have the Belles in the doldrums as well and it makes you wonder if the question is right to ask, not that I am wanting any of the three to go to the wall BUT. At the Keepmoat we have a very large area which can be managed and be cash efficient even on lower gates than most. my BUT is the fact that the Belles were only allowed to play on the main pitch because they were in the WPL and next season they are not, so the rent they paid is gone, hopefully though it may go sideways to the leaseholders of the Athletics ground down there and thus giving an income to them. Now the Dons who have had another good season are still playing infront of small crowds and the final fixture against Sheffield Eagles drew just over 1000, considering they could be champions and the Dons ending up in the top 6 play offs which they did.
But again poor gates and a relatively large rental to the Rovers.
Now perhaps and this is where I am in your hands for discussion.... and it is only a guess on my part, we know that the outer training areas bring in cash at the Keepmoat and they are used at times when the Rovers or Reserves do not use them. If there was a trade off against Cantley Park which has had a lot spent in making things better and more workmanlike is still only leased and is a drain on club resourses. Perhaps a settlement with DMBC and re - allocate everything down to the KM, therefore a saving of Leasehold at Cantley. Probably a non starter but money will be lost via the Belles and money could be gained by removing things at Cantley..

There used to be a stat in home attendances which showed the visiting teams that drew the biggest gates and the smallest ones. I seem to remember that Bristol City were always one of the smallest. They had fairly good home crowds, but many of the Championship clubs were a long way away and their travelling support was correspondingly small.

Bournemouth, like Bristol is a long way from here, they are not particularly attractive as a Champoinship club and only brought 266 or 366 I think, so you have to factor that in. Yeovil will be the same, probably worse. Quite often they make thse midweek games because they know the away following will be small whatever day it is.

When we got 22,000 versus Darlington there were still plenty of older people who would have been regulars in the 40s and 50s. Most of them (apart from me and Newyankee and a few more) who are likely to be at least in their late 60s will now either be dead or housebound!

I am not there yet and I was scrapping on Town End when Harry Kirk mis hit that ball and of all the places t landed.

Donaldo

Ionly and I were discussing this this morning, there are several factors which relate to our low attendances. Firstly when we were in the lower reaches for all those years, the other local teams, Leeds, Wednesday and U*nited were not. They attracted many people from the Doncaster area who in turn took their kids and so on. As has been said, a son usually follows his father in who he supports.

In the days when we got 22,000 there was little else to do. Football was not all over the TV at the turn of a switch, there were not the shopping malls and com putters etc. We are competing with so many other things these days.

JR is going to have to accept the fact that our supporter level is where it is and will never in the foreseeable future.

Should be computers not com putters.

Quoting 22,000 against Darlington was picking up on someone else's recent point when they reminded us that when we did well in the 60s we could re-attract those attendances to Div 4 matches, drawing on those who used to be there regularly.10 qnd more years previously. It was cheaper then too!!!

"10 and more"

I was only young but I remember going from 20000 crowds in 1969 to "the faithful 1500" by the mid 70's when we had to seek re-election because we finished 92nd in the league - so the fans have always been fickle

Lets get this right chaps - the 20,000 plus gates were very rare in the sixties and seventies.
Generally if we were doing well a 12,000 attendance would have been very good.
It had to be exceptional circumstances to get up to the 20,000 mark.
If I remember rightly we were top of the division after a great run leading up to the Darlo game.

It seems like Southampton are not going to move on wanting Billy Sharp's full wages to be met bofore he can go on loan.

So you must ask the question Billly how much do you want to play football, because lets face the home truth you aint good enough to play Premiership football. So you can sit and fester at Southampton taking the money or you can lower your wage demand and play football in the Championship smashing goals in. The choice is yours.

Donnt were Top, Darlington Second 0-1 harry Kirk (Top left of goal) on full volley after their right winger centred and Kirk ran in from left wing and hit it, that ball could have gone anywhere. Yes strange as it seems and Donny's average gates in Division 4 around the 60's was 7,500. Strange that, they are still about the same

I also remember that with the exception of Brighton in that league. Donny usually had the biggest gate, Now 50 years on mainly of failure and we still get the same crowds. AND no matter how much we bicker, no matter how much John Ryan bangs his drum to get all his ducks in line, the fact is 50 years of almost total failure, yes these recent times have been better but it is too late. Bad practice and bad results tell the story "FAILING TO PLAN IS PLANNING TO FAIL"

The Rovers fan base has actually increased over the past few years by about an average of 2000.
Not much in numbers I know but as a percentage it is massive. (this is where stats tell us what we want them to).
To be fair to JR we have experienced mainly good times during his tenure but the truth is that Rovers are and always will be a small club.
It is all a matter of perspective of course, our situation isn't great compared to say Hull City but there are many other clubs who are in a far worse state and would swap places with us at a stroke.
We have been a Championship club for five of the last six seasons including this year so in general we could be perceived to be in our golden years.

ionly, having just read your post again I think you are being a little unfair on JR.
I know you love to have a go at him because you have a personal dislike of the man but to say we have had 50 years of failure isn't true.
The last ten years (under JR) have been fantastic with almost unbridled success.
So really we have had 40 years of failure followed by ten pretty good ones.

The purpose of bringing up the big 60's gates is to show that the people are there, and the interest is there if the entertainment is interesting enough, and for the floating fans it is all about entertainment. Forget the fan or spectator argument, all teams suffer when they are losing. Last season there were empty seats at Arsenal and Man U for some matches and they were paid for.

If you compare Rovers to Swansea, both were near to extinction, both climbed up the league in similar fashion, both had very similar gates. In the Championship Swansea kept up their form, Rovers didn't. Swansea improved their gates by being consistent. The Rovers potential fans thought "here we go again".
As a point of interest more people live in the Borough of Doncaster than the County of Swansea.
The last time we were in the Championship there were at least 3 teams with similar gates to us got promoted. Barnsley have no advantage over us and they have survived a good few years.

Rovers lost their fan base through being consistently poor, the only way to get them back is by being consistently better than they have been. Insulting them or saying they have a duty to support the Rovers will only have the opposite.
When Rovers beat Leeds at Wembley, Doncaster was awash with hoop shirts, and could be again with the right encouragement.

A quick political reflection.

In the 60's Donny was a very patriarchal society. Girls mainly worked in shops or Burtons, men mainly worked in factories or mines. They got married, had kids which were the women's responsibility whilst the men went to the pub and football.
It was then generally agreed that women should get a better deal (equality), so things began to change, gradually.
It was then decided that Britain didn't need a manufacturing or mining industry, so particularly in places like Donny (that phrase again) there was a big shift in male/female roles.

I believe that to be one of the reasons why Rovers have lost that hereditary following.

It is advisable not to take this comment too literally!

The difference between us and Swansea is that there were not three successful clubs in a small radius of Swansea pulling the fringe supporters. That is where Rovers lost out.

So what you are saying Say Lavee is that men started having the babies, no wonder the birth rate dropped.

Rovers have always had clubs nearby, they also have a population nearly the same as Wales within traveling distance.

The joke was anything but!