[Archived] Jerome Anderson = FAIL

[CrazyIvan]

I have a feeling that the namesake of this thread will be a name seldom heard in the future...

Interesting...

[Amo]

I know I haven't posted anything about this esteemed gentleman in a while and I am conscious of certain legal threats made from certain quarters to certain web sites and messageboards as should anybody else who is thinking of posting on this subject.

But whilst we are feeling mighty sore at the Venky's for taking bad advice in the way they have run Rovers thus far, I think it only fair that the source of much of that advice be afforded due recognition.

Mr A's first appearance at Ewood was as a compulsive conspiratorial whisperer in the ear of Balaji whilst watching Chelsea at home. Something seemed to be desperately afoot- after all even Ewood isn't so quiet that you have to whisper in the ear of the next person for your neighbours not to be at risk of over hearing you.

Of course we had the series of marquee non-signings which Anderson was or was not involved in but none of them came off.

As for real permanent signings, it is March tomorrow and we have seen neither of them in anger whilst the January loanees have yet to distinguish themselves. Ripping Formica off the Monaco table top was a coup but then why was he getting affixed there if not because of the weird episode of the Red Star loan deal which smelt worse than a bad market day at Fleetwood used to.

Our esteemed owners have called Mr Anderson "family" and there is no shortage of quotations and anecdotes pointing to Mr Anderson being the first person they talk to about all things Rovers. After all, marquee-seaker Balaji apart, the Rao family admit they know nothing about football so all these wonderful decisions and indecisions they are making have to be coming from somewhere.

Perhaps in the ultimate irony now that John Williams out of the way, Mrs D will insist Mr A use his base at Brockhall to fire or demote Messrs Kean and Jensen who in fact employ Mr A to represent their employment interests. She probably has to if she is to protect the family's £54m interest in the Rovers.

Which will prove the sweeter, the fees for representing Kean and Jensen or the advisary fees by Rovers/Venky's?

So here's to you Mr Anderson for messing up our club.

How long have you felt this way!?

[67splitscreen]

I have a feeling that the namesake of this thread will be a name seldom heard in the future...

Could we ask him to do one last job before he disappears up the Khyber pass, leave JW's slippers by the fire for him.

[Mercer]

I have a feeling that the namesake of this thread will be a name seldom heard in the future...

Indeed, Mrs Desai said as much a couple of weeks or so ago. Some rumours circulating that the Raos have fallen out with their adopted 'family'!

[G Somerset Rover]

I bloody hope this is true. Then Venkys can do the decent thing and appoint a Manager who knows what the hell he is doing.

[Mercer]

JA may very soon be negotiating Kean's severance package - William Hill's odds on Kean being the next PL manager to leave have come in from 50/1 to 12/1 in the last 2 hours !

[Amo]

JA may very soon be negotiating Kean's severance package - William Hill's odds on Kean being the next PL manager to leave have come in from 50/1 to 12/1 in the last 2 hours !

I just had a flutter on 16/1.

[JAL]

I think the word "allegedly" is missing from your post philip in almost every sentence.

M' learned friends might well be take an interest in what you've written.

Jim mk2 NOW is the time to support Philipl is it not if you are a true Rovers fan.

We must stick together to go forward, plus pillocks like this guy have to go.

[chaddyrovers]

JA may very soon be negotiating Kean's severance package - William Hill's odds on Kean being the next PL manager to leave have come in from 50/1 to 12/1 in the last 2 hours !

I had a bet 3 hours ago and got 25/1 on paddy power, so I put a fiver on it. make up for we waste my money on awat days to wigan and villa

[JAL]

Love the picture in the back ground.

Having been close to an active football agent, his wish also,was to be an owner of a club preferably championship in order to get them promoted then sell the club for more than a handsome profit. Is this what Jerome Anderson has done at Rovers but using someone elses name and money to achieve it.

Sounds good to me. To the Raos you've been had.

All of this though does not in any shape or form excuse the Walker trust people, does it !

[philipl]

I am not a lawyer but I was very careful when I wrote that post.

There are more than enough posts which have followed mine which support my thesis that the big decisions JA has been advising on have not produced the desired outcomes.

Over to the Venky's to decide whether JA represents value for money and if his advice is worth listening to. She might decide to give people more time but there are just 10 more games to the end of the season which is likely to be a more pressing issue than any niceties involved in stopping using a very expensive advisor and his clients.

[TimmyJimmy]

The shame is sometimes just the threat of someone with a legal team can be enough to make people think twice about what they say.

Sounds like you have an amount of legal training TBW so I wouldn't like to argue with your interpretation but is it not true that :

Charges of :

- Slander,

- Vilification,

- Calumny,

- Defamation

- Libel

are all actionable under English law for the communication of a statement that makes a claim, expressly stated or implied to be factual, that may give an individual or business a negative image.

If this is correct then simply pairing together the context of the thread title with the responses could satisfy 'implied' and 'negative image'. Either way I'd be loathe to test it out.

There's so much that many of us want to say/disclose that a wip-round for a bit of legal opinion would go down well. You are right that it's a shame we should have to be so cautious.

[chocky]

What I see on this message board is an agenda against the Venky's by some. In the end the people responsible for our position in the league are those who recieve an enourmous wage and ply their trade on the pitch. Our players. It's their laziness, their lack of ambition on the pitch, their inexcusable errors that are the reason for our dropping out of European contention into relegation scrap. Stop blaming the new owners. We have had nine years of massive underinvestment by the Walker trust and they couldn't wait to sell the club and the trust's lack of spending has set the seed for where we currently are. We have held our position in the premiership despite this. We now need to win at Fulham and with our squad and our very poor away record tha looks unlikely. It will be our home form that keeps us up so to those detractors get behind the club as you always have and stop trying to pull it down. I'm sure the Venkey's know where we are in the league and Kean will know his job is on the line.

[Baz]

What I see on this message board is an agenda against the Venky's by some. In the end the people responsible for our position in the league are those who recieve an enourmous wage and ply their trade on the pitch. Our players. It's their laziness, their lack of ambition on the pitch, their inexcusable errors that are the reason for our dropping out of European contention into relegation scrap. Stop blaming the new owners. We have had nine years of massive underinvestment by the Walker trust and they couldn't wait to sell the club and the trust's lack of spending has set the seed for where we currently are. We have held our position in the premiership despite this. We now need to win at Fulham and with our squad and our very poor away record tha looks unlikely. It will be our home form that keeps us up so to those detractors get behind the club as you always have and stop trying to pull it down. I'm sure the Venkey's know where we are in the league and Kean will know his job is on the line.

Surely the management team have something to do with it too? Its not very difficult to make the point the tactics and selections against Newcastle and Villa have been odd. Can hardly blame Salgado for a bad game against Newcastle when he is given 2 men to mark most of the game?

I'm not excusing the players here - they have to shoulder some of the blame too.

[John]

What I see on this message board is an agenda against the Venky's by some. In the end the people responsible for our position in the league are those who recieve an enourmous wage and ply their trade on the pitch. Our players. It's their laziness, their lack of ambition on the pitch, their inexcusable errors that are the reason for our dropping out of European contention into relegation scrap. Stop blaming the new owners. We have had nine years of massive underinvestment by the Walker trust and they couldn't wait to sell the club and the trust's lack of spending has set the seed for where we currently are. We have held our position in the premiership despite this. We now need to win at Fulham and with our squad and our very poor away record tha looks unlikely. It will be our home form that keeps us up so to those detractors get behind the club as you always have and stop trying to pull it down. I'm sure the Venkey's know where we are in the league and Kean will know his job is on the line.

Good astute management on/off the pitch has enabled us to compete in the Premier League, we seemingly don't have that anymore.

[thenodrog]

I think the word "allegedly" is missing from your post philip in almost every sentence.

M' learned friends might well be take an interest in what you've written.

I can't see anything in that post that isn't public knowledge. Comment on what has openly gone on with no false statements. Is criticism banned nowadays? If it is I expect SAF to have his day in court given that his very public opinion is that Jerome Anderson couldn't pick his nose.

[thenodrog]

... Stop blaming the new owners. We have had nine years of massive underinvestment by the Walker trust and they couldn't wait to sell the club and the trust's lack of spending has set the seed for where we currently are.

Jack Walker always insisted that BRFC was a business that would ultimately have to stand on it's own feet.

[jim mk2]

Stop blaming the new owners. .

Who else do we blame for getting just about every decision wrong since they took over ?

If they were clever business people they would have realised there were no decisions to make and stuck by the maxim "if it ain't broke don't fix it".

[DavidMailsTightPerm]

What I see on this message board is an agenda against the Venky's by some. In the end the people responsible for our position in the league are those who recieve an enourmous wage and ply their trade on the pitch. Our players. It's their laziness, their lack of ambition on the pitch, their inexcusable errors that are the reason for our dropping out of European contention into relegation scrap. Stop blaming the new owners. We have had nine years of massive underinvestment by the Walker trust and they couldn't wait to sell the club and the trust's lack of spending has set the seed for where we currently are. We have held our position in the premiership despite this. We now need to win at Fulham and with our squad and our very poor away record tha looks unlikely. It will be our home form that keeps us up so to those detractors get behind the club as you always have and stop trying to pull it down. I'm sure the Venkey's know where we are in the league and Kean will know his job is on the line.

I agree that the players have to take some responsability - games like Wigan would have been won if not for individual mistakes at the back and some very bad finishing. I don't think you can put all the blame at Kean's door - just a fair %.

As for Venky's - I think it was widely accepted that under the Trust we would have in the short to medium term been relegated due to lack of finance. We have punched above our weight for a long time - and good housekeeping by JW and some astute purchases by SA & MH could not go on forever. I applaud their apparent ambition - and their drive to push Rovers in the media. However - their approach is haphazard - and unnecessarily risky. The sacking of SA was a case in point - they could have kept him in a job - only let him purchase loans - and then looked for a replacement in the summer. Unlike many I thought the transfer window was good - they brought in two established international players in on loan to bolster the squad - while picking up a couple of promising players for the future (though they may need to show their worth earlier than was hoped). Unfortunately - in John Williams - they have lost the one person that they should have been talking to for advice. Fine taking advice from agents - but better to also talk to one man who has seen it and done it for Rovers for a number of years.

As for an agenda against Venky's - I have to agree that some people (justified or not - as they won't spill the beans on what they allegedly "know") have had it in for them from the start. Personally - and possibly for a large number on the MB - they have lost my confidence over a period of time with a number of ill-thought out decisions that have put the very future of our club at risk.

[DE.]

Personally - and possibly for a large number on the MB - they have lost my confidence over a period of time with a number of ill-thought out decisions that have put the very future of our club at risk.

This is pretty much my current stand. When they originally came in I was more than willing to give them a chance. I have no 'insider' knowledge and simply hoped they were going to invest in our chronically underfunded team and keep us stable.

Alarm bells for me started ringing as soon as they sacked Allardyce. I never loved Big Sam but appreciated and respected the job he'd done here, no matter how bad our football was (and to an extent this was and still is overexagerrated). Once we appointed Kean I began to realise we were in deep trouble, and nothing Venky's has done since has stopped me feeling this way.

Realistically, could they have done any worse? They've ruined the stability of the club, hired a novice manager and guaranteed his contract with no proof he's actually any good, made us an utter laughing stock throughout the footballing world and seem to expect us to get into the European spots with a 5-7M budget.

Very worrying times and our owners are going to have to do a lot to get me back onside, and I dare say many fans will never be able to trust them now.

[Kelbo]

This is pretty much my current stand. When they originally came in I was more than willing to give them a chance. I have no 'insider' knowledge and simply hoped they were going to invest in our chronically underfunded team and keep us stable.

Alarm bells for me started ringing as soon as they sacked Allardyce. I never loved Big Sam but appreciated and respected the job he'd done here, no matter how bad our football was (and to an extent this was and still is overexagerrated). Once we appointed Kean I began to realise we were in deep trouble, and nothing Venky's has done since has stopped me feeling this way.

Realistically, could they have done any worse? They've ruined the stability of the club, hired a novice manager and guaranteed his contract with no proof he's actually any good, made us an utter laughing stock throughout the footballing world and seem to expect us to get into the European spots with a 5-7M budget.

Very worrying times and our owners are going to have to do a lot to get me back onside, and I dare say many fans will never be able to trust them now.

A very honest post and is consistent with most people I have spoken to, fortunately, I do get snippets of inside info, lately there appears to be less coming out from Brockhall than previously, could this be all is well or that there are loads of constraints regarding player comments, maybe, yet Jason Brown today said the mood is very downbeat at the club at the moment!!

[sparkspakespoke]

Who else do we blame for getting just about every decision wrong since they took over ?

If they were clever business people they would have realised there were no decisions to make and stuck by the maxim "if it ain't broke don't fix it".

Come on jim we we're losing money every season and selling players to make up the wage short fall. The new owners have made some poor choices but lets not rewrite history. It broke some time ago.

[True Blue & White]

Sounds like you have an amount of legal training TBW so I wouldn't like to argue with your interpretation but is it not true that :

Charges of :

- Slander,

- Vilification,

- Calumny,

- Defamation

- Libel

are all actionable under English law for the communication of a statement that makes a claim, expressly stated or implied to be factual, that may give an individual or business a negative image.

If this is correct then simply pairing together the context of the thread title with the responses could satisfy 'implied' and 'negative image'. Either way I'd be loathe to test it out.

There's so much that many of us want to say/disclose that a wip-round for a bit of legal opinion would go down well. You are right that it's a shame we should have to be so cautious.

There have been few test cases when it comes to internet message boards, due to their nature and minimal impact on thw world, but I have yet to hear of another judge rule for a case like this since the Smith vs ADVFN in which Eady set the precedent of slander. When a law is drawn up that is only the start of it, they are not fully formed until Judges have ruled over a number of cases and set a consistent level of application. For another judge to treat Phillip's post as libel and go against Judge Eady he would have to show the fundamental differences as to why it should be treated with much more serious action than the previous ruling in a similar case.

On the case with Judge Eady ruled he full statement was thus....

"[bulletin board posts] are rather like contributions to a casual conversation (the analogy sometimes being drawn with people chatting in a bar) which people simply note before moving on; they are often uninhibited, casual and ill thought out," he said in his ruling. "Those who participate know this and expect a certain amount of repartee or 'give and take'."

"When considered in the context of defamation law, therefore, communications of this kind are much more akin to slanders (this cause of action being nowadays relatively rare) than to the usual, more permanent kind of communications found in libel actions," said the ruling. "People do not often take a 'thread' and go through it as a whole like a newspaper article. They tend to read the remarks, make their own contributions if they feel inclined, and think no more about it."

Judge Eady did remark that this doesn't mean libel can't be committed on such mediums but it would take special circumstances. For example, should Glenn create a news thread in which he made false accusation that were of malicious intent then possible he could be taken to court from Libel as it could be argued it was a kin to a news story. But Phillip does not work for or represent BRFCS, and the site have protected themselves further by making comments non pre-moderated. If you run a site which read comments before posting, they take on equal liability but you take no liability if you have free posting rules (unless you are told to remove slanderous comments by a court).

Judge Eady even gave message board users even more leeway by saying...

"Opinions may be expressed in exaggerated and strident terms; the only requirement is that they be honestly held. It is fanciful to suppose that any of these people did not believe what they were saying. Even if they reached their conclusions in haste, or on incomplete information, or irrationally, the defence would still avail them."

So essentially you are allowed to be ill-informed basically as long as you honestly believe what you are saying (and there is no malice).

A more relevant case would be that of Sheffield Wednesday and some of its directors who took a fan message board (a year before the Judge Eady ruling) to court to force it to reveal the identity of posters, but Richard Parkes QC, sitting as a deputy High Court judge, said that the identities should not be revealed.

"I do not think it would be right to make an order for the disclosure of the identities of users who have posted messages which are barely defamatory or little more than abusive or likely to be understood as jokes," he wrote. "That, it seems to me, would be disproportionate and unjustifiably intrusive."

Parkes ruled in the case that the expected right to privacy of the posters, who had posted using pseudonyms, outweighed the right of the directors and club to protect their reputation when the remarks in question were trivial.

So given the cases so far,I would say Phillip is pretty safe as well as BRFCS.

[Steve Moss]

I agree that the players have to take some responsability - games like Wigan would have been won if not for individual mistakes at the back and some very bad finishing. I don't think you can put all the blame at Kean's door - just a fair %.

Professional PL players are, in my opinion, spoiled, self-centered brats. They will never take responsibility in any real or meaningful sense. At best we'll get an occassional apology. But words are cheap.

If they really meant it, I think they should be donating their lucrative salaries whenever they put in a woefully poor performance. Instead, they have contracts which insulate them from the consequences of their poor performance. Action without consequence is not a formula for instilling responsibility.

Take MGP's postings. Two apologies in a row for poor PL matches. And his response is always to the effect of "we must put it behind us and move on." I'd be much happier if they put it behind them after they've done some pennance and made up for their crap performances by putting some points on the board.

Which is where the manager comes in. It is his job to motivate a punch of prima donnas who would for the most part be recreating than training. Sam could do it, sometimes. Kean has so far been inadequate, in my opinion.

[TimmyJimmy]

There have been few test cases when it comes to internet message boards, due to their nature and minimal impact on thw world, but I have yet to hear of another judge rule for a case like this since the Smith vs ADVFN in which Eady set the precedent of slander. When a law is drawn up that is only the start of it, they are not fully formed until Judges have ruled over a number of cases and set a consistent level of application. For another judge to treat Phillip's post as libel and go against Judge Eady he would have to show the fundamental differences as to why it should be treated with much more serious action than the previous ruling in a similar case.

On the case with Judge Eady ruled he full statement was thus....

Judge Eady did remark that this doesn't mean libel can't be committed on such mediums but it would take special circumstances. For example, should Glenn create a news thread in which he made false accusation that were of malicious intent then possible he could be taken to court from Libel as it could be argued it was a kin to a news story. But Phillip does not work for or represent BRFCS, and the site have protected themselves further by making comments non pre-moderated. If you run a site which read comments before posting, they take on equal liability but you take no liability if you have free posting rules (unless you are told to remove slanderous comments by a court).

Judge Eady even gave message board users even more leeway by saying...

So essentially you are allowed to be ill-informed basically as long as you honestly believe what you are saying (and there is no malice).

A more relevant case would be that of Sheffield Wednesday and some of its directors who took a fan message board (a year before the Judge Eady ruling) to court to force it to reveal the identity of posters, but Richard Parkes QC, sitting as a deputy High Court judge, said that the identities should not be revealed.

So given the cases so far,I would say Phillip is pretty safe as well as BRFCS.

Most informative, thanks for taking the time to write that out. I need to put my thinking cap on as there are definitely a lot of things I'd like to get off my chest.