The Rovers Return

Fans of Blackburn Rovers Football Club have been tested to the extreme this season. How have you fared?

It all started with the takeover by Venky’s and the introduction to East Lancashire of Jerome Andersen.

We all know the history now. They came, they sacked Allardyce, they almost relegated us. John Williams predictably walked out, fed up of being constantly bypassed by the new Ewood Park hierarchy.

It’s a travesty what they have done to Rovers. Everyone (with a couple of exceptions) on the terraces and the media can see it. So why can’t they?

Venkatesh Hatcheries has ripped the soul out of my beloved Rovers.

They have not done this intentionally, of that I am certain. I believe they do have the club’s interests at heart. Why wouldn’t they? It’s a simple equation. Club does well, Venky’s does well. So where has it all gone wrong?

Venky’s and its owner Mrs Desai know nothing about football. They know nothing about the Premier League. Rumour has it they didn’t even know that relegation existed. This is not their fault. They have been poorly advised from day one.

To give an example of this, the PR disaster that is Paul Agnew went with Granada Reports to to Pune as part of the three-parter they filmed for the ITV news show. Any half decent press officer would prime the owners beforehand. Tell them what it would be a good idea to say, so as not to reflect on them in a bad light.
A bad press officer would allow one of the Rao brothers to say, on camera, that Rovers will finish eighth and win a cup next year. This in the middle of the most ominous looking relegation battle since 1999. Read more »

However, apart from one seemingly serious bid – the Daniel Williams consortium – which fell through a while back, there’s been nothing serious.

Last Sunday, the People (I think) reported that a Thai consortium and an Indian made up two separate takeover offers. This was not met with a great deal of expectation. We’ve heard it all before and nothing ever comes of it.

Now though, it would seem, a takeover might be a realistic possibility.

I say might, as while I write this I am currently led in bed, having been to a friend’s house with my finger off the Rovers pulse, only to discover a Times article which seems very serious:

An Indian entrepreneur is close to completing a £25 million takeover of Blackburn Rovers after targeting the Lancashire club on account of the town’s large Asian population.

Blackburn’s board has given Saurin Shah, little known outside his home city of Mumbai, permission to begin the due diligence process after several weeks of secret talks. He hopes to complete the takeover by mid-July and to establish strong links not only with the town’s Indian population but also, more globally, with cricket’s Indian Premier League (IPL), of which his uncle, Niranjan, is deputy chairman. Read more »

I’ve stopped posting stuff from the newspapers really because, let’s face it, you’re more likely to read them than this. So you probably already know.

However, a couple of articles this week have got my juices flowing.

Article one appeared in the Daily Mail, listing the owners of all the Premier League clubs and how much money they have. I’ve stolen their graphic to post below, but technically I’m an employee anyway so I hope they don’t mind…

It shows our gracious benefactors, with Uncle Jack’s money, very high up in football’s rich list, with £590-million to their names. That’s £160-million more than Walkersteel sold for back in 1992.

Now, I know they’re trying to sell up, but until the sale they’re stuck with us. When Jack died he left that money in a trust, with some instructions in place, I’m no financial expert but I believe we get the interest or a percentage thereof, from the money as it sits in the trust. Read more »

I’ve always liked John Williams, and everyone else on the Rovers board.

Give us the board of most other football clubs in the Premier League and I’m pretty sure we’d be a struggling lower league side with huge debts to pay off.

Luckily, we’ve got Mr Williams, who makes us one of the best run clubs Premier League.

This slightly worrying, but fantastically frank, interview with the Lancashire Telegraph’s Andy Cryer demonstrates this to the full.

How many other top flight chairmen would come out and tell the fans what’s going on quite as clearly as this?

ANDY CRYER: John, I’d like to talk to you about how you feel Rovers have fared on and off the pitch during the summer.

Let’s start with off the pitch. The club has for some time been at the forefront of affordable football. You reduced season ticket prices again this year. Has it worked?

JOHN WILLIAMS: In a word, yes. Our strategy is clearly based on price/volume.

Season tickets are up from 14,000 to 18,500 (19,000 like for like if you factor in likely half-season ticket sales).

So, we’re talking upwards of 30 per cent. A great result during difficult economic times.

Income will be like for like very similar but in terms of taking back Ewood and the improved atmosphere we’ve got a result.

Now it’s about finding the right balance between home/away match day support using price promotion where appropriate to top up. I think average gates of 25,000 are on the cards. Read more »

Just a word of warning to any Rovers fans intending to buy season tickets whi haven’t already.

I’ve just ordered my Dad and myself one. Hoping to get decent Blackburn End lower seats,  I was bitterly disappointed. The stand is sold out. Yes, Rovers and sold out in the same breath! The woman in the ticket office couldn’t believe what she was saying!

The board’s excellent season tickets offer has obviously been well received by the community, who have snapped them up in double quick fashion!

I’ve ended up five rows back in the Riverside Stand, not my ideal place to be, but at least I’ll be in the ground!

However, we are still within the deadline for current season ticket holders to renew their’s, so if anyone daft enough to cancel their ticket does so, hopefully I’ll be shifted into the Blackburn End where I belong!

This turn of events has left me feeling both disappointed that I may not be sat in the Blackburn End, the stand I’ve sat in for as long as I can remember, but also very excited for the atmosphere within the ground.

Hopefully we can shake off the stigma of having a half-empty ground every week and other sides with a much larger fanbase laughing at us, and show them that with a bit of consideration for the fans, and a price reduction on tickets, they may well respond by buying turning up in their droves!

Bring on the new season!

Now then, it’s been a while, but thanks for your patience!

I’m back online again, hopefully for good, and I have a lot to write about over the coming days.

Indeed, there’s been a lot I have wanted to write about over the last month but have been unable to!

Anyway, top of my agenda, is a great big thank you to Mr John Williams. A man not many people outside of Rovers will be familiar with.

He’s not a famous club chairman, like those higher up the football spectrum, but in my eyes, he is the best. By a long shot. A man who has kept the interests of the fans very much at heart with recent developments at the club.

I speak, of course, about the Taking Back Ewood initiative, which saw a major attendance boost in the last three games of the season. That attendance boost, which culminated in four walls of Rovers fans (the away fans tucked up into the top tier) and an inevitable improvement to match atmosphere, saw an improvement in the players’ performances and a much-needed feeling of togetherness throughout the club.

A struggle against relegation usually brings this out in clubs. The added pressure of the perilous possibilities provides the club with a chance to call on the fans to come out in their droves and raise the roof, ‘be the twelfth man’ and guide us to safety.

Instead of simply saying this, Mr Williams used actions, instead of words, and gave the fans an amazing opportunity, which they duly grasped. Read more »