Stoke: Rovers will bus in the fans

Blackburn Rovers have copied the Potters and laid on free coach travel for Rovers fans.

Stoke took the unprecedented step of offering free coach travel to anyone buying a ticket for the first leg at Ewood Park before Christmas and Big Sam has decided to copy the idea in an attempt to compete with the vociferous Potters’ support at the Brit.

But why should Rovers fans need any further encouragement with their team still fighting to avoid the drop?

Stoke City have taken their full allocation to virtually every away match this season and our free buses were intended as a ‘thank you’ to fans from the club for their support over the past year at a time of financial pressures elsewhere in the run-up to Christmas.

As you’d expect, The Toon Army easily filled their allocation despite having to make a 400 mile round trip on a Bank Holiday weekend and you’d have thought that enough Blackburn fans would have been prepared to dip into their pockets for the modest one hour journey from Ewood Park to the Brit without any further financial encouragement.