Jump to content

BRFCS

BY THE FANS, FOR THE FANS
SINCE 1996
Proudly partnered with TheTerraceStore.com

[Archived] News Article -> April to Season End Review

bob fleming
 Share

Recommended Posts

bob fleming World Cup

bob fleming

Posted
Posted

Right, this is it then. Seven games to go in this season end wrap up. Who’s up for this review gig next year then? I’ve done my bit.

 

The good news is that by the time you’ve read all this, and all the embedded links, it’ll be mid-August, which is probably when season tickets will go on sale.

 

First up...

Right, this is it then. Seven games to go in this season end wrap up. Who’s up for this review gig next year then? I’ve done my bit.

The good news is that by the time you’ve read all this, and all the embedded links, it’ll be mid-August, which is probably when season tickets will go on sale.

First up...

A song. New Orders ‘Ceremony’.

Rovers should walk out to this… sadly I fear there’s more chance of the team walking out to the ‘Chicken Song’ next season. Actually they should probably walk out to ‘Atmosphere’ the way it’s going (that’s the Joy Division version, not Russ Abbott’s, Venky’s for crying out loud).

“Is everyone having a nice time?” Good grief. Not really, Bernard, but thanks for asking. In all fairness you weren’t to know about Venky’s and their associates in 2002 and that you’d be in a BRFCS review of April 2013 were you? In fact none of us even in our wildest nightmares back then would have believed it possible that 11 years later Rovers would be owned by Chicken farmers from Pune and that we would have a “Global Advisor” who is the Malaysian equivalent of Elton bloody Welsby after he had undergone major, unsuccessful, brain surgery delivered with a rusty tea spoon.

Anyway…

Monday 1st April – Cardiff City 3 Rovers 0 (Campbell, Mason, Whittingham)

Sat just two points off the relegation places before the match, Rovers thought it would be a good idea to rest top scorer Jordan Rhodes, along with Jason Lowe, David Dunn and someone else or other. Dunn of late was the only one playing with any semblance of a degree of urgency. Rhodes as we all know is the only one who scores goals.

In their place came Best, Bentley, Pedersen and a man who I had hoped would never play for us ever again, Danny Murphy.

Hey and guess what? Yep, we stank. It was utter garbage.

Inability to mark at set pieces? Check. Inability to trouble the opposition goalkeeper? Check. Ability to concede with practically the last kick of the game? Check. Oh yes, it was all there. All the VBRFC party pieces were in evidence.

Jake Kean also injured himself and would now miss the rest of the season. A bad day all round.

Rovers now sat in 19th place. Equal on points with four other teams including Huddersfield Town who were 22nd and whom we paid £8m for Jordan Rhodes earlier in the season, only for him to sit on the bench whist we are in a relegation battle.

It had been a real effort but at long last that 33/1 shot of VBRFC being relegated looked decidedly on. Someone somewhere in the world must have been delighted.

Thursday 4th April – After approximately 48 hours (a club record in recent times) of relative tranquillity, Derek Shaw, aka ‘Shelf Bloke’, aka the Managing Director and the man who put’s the Sha into Shagnew, was relieved of his duties. This pending an investigation into the amount of compensation Henning Berg was due to receive following his fortnight in charge in December.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2303699/Blackburn-Rovers-managing-director-Derek-Shaw-leaves-Ewood-Park.html

Shaw possibly left the club and took all his shelves with him along with his Roy Chubby Brown hat.

It was rumoured that Karen Silk would replace Sha and now become MD. (Instead, as it transpired, she was actually working her notice period.)

messy-office.jpg

Karen Silk: “Thanks Derek, thanks a lot”**

(**she may well have said, if that was her new desk and there were no shelves or files. Of course that isn’t really Karen, silly, that isn’t her desk and Rovers are literally awash with shelves, racking, files and all manner of really great stationary and storage products).

Later on this day Rovers issued a statement on its website to “quash rumours”, stating that Derek Shaw was still very much part of the club and was still the MD. It was fair to assume then that this immediately threw into even further doubt the validity of the above photograph. Yet, unsurprisingly, it remains in this review in the hope of obtaining a cheap laugh.

Saturday 6 April – Sheffield Wednesday 3 Rovers 2 (Johnson x2, Lita (Pen) - Rhodes / Dunn)

Rovers took the lead, they equalised, they took the lead, Rovers equalised, they took the lead, Rovers didn’t equalise. End.

There. How’s that for a match report?

It wasn’t very good by all accounts. Yet again there was a lack of passion and determination from our highly paid players. Dunny was mentioned in despatches again but they all needed to be fighting by this stage of the season.

Bowyer was now threatening to show the players the league table! That’s how serious it had become. Whether Bowyer went through with his threat is anyone’s guess but if any of the players had taken a look after the game they would have seen that we were in the bottom three for the first time this season.

Actually the bottom three of this division for the first time since 1991. Way to go Venky’s! Way to go Shebby Singh! Way to go Paul Agnew! Way to go Derek Shaw! Still, a lot of what they do is very good someone once said.

Monday 8th April – Well if the circus won’t go to the clowns then the clowns must go to the circus. Something like that anyway.

Singh (already there), Shagnew and the unfortunate Bowyer, were instructed to go to Pune, India to see Desai. A woman who rules with an iron fist, a woman who knows nothing about football (but can probably teach Singh a thing or to) and a woman who seemingly surrounds herself with imbeciles.

What would happen in this meeting of minds? This global power house of football knowledge? These guardians of Blackburn Rovers Football Club? These bastions (I did say bastions, didn’t I?) of forward thinking and progressive “transition”?

Well, no one knows. I think there was some pulling of hair and one of them got a Chinese burn, Derek’s glasses might have been knocked off at one stage and someone pulled someone else’s jumper. Ultimately, though, it was no one’s fault. Everyone probably just blamed each other and that was it. Although what they were at fault for, again, no one knows. Possibly the dire league position and the loss of millions of pounds? Anyway, it can’t have been that bad as they all kept their jobs.

Genius, utter genius. Gary Bowyer taken out of the country, leaving a guy (no disrespect to Terry McPhillips) who was looking after the U18’s a few months

ago, to get the team ready for two massive home games.

Wednesday 10th April – Hot on the heels of Shelfclown issuing a statement that none of this was to do with him, the odious Singh did the same. This in response to the Daily Mail article that was issued the previous evening.

Let’s play a game. Do you recognise any of the five footballers that follow the picture of Singh, doing his best David Brent, in the horror story below?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2306573/Financial-picture-Blackburn-Venkys-revealed--Exclusive.html

One? Maybe two? Well every credit to you. Any more than that and you’re probably their agent and loaded.

Guess what? They cost us £656,000 in Agents fees! And they’ve started five games. Now that’s not very good is it? Still, never mind. Oh and there’s their wages to consider on top of that as well, and where they get paid.

However, just think, that £656,000 could pay Dixon Etuhu’s wages for 21 weeks.

What was truly frightening though, other than the picture in that article of Steve Kean poking himself in the eye just for kicks, was this statistic:

“Sportsmail’s investigation has discovered that Blackburn, who could end up in League One next season, are burdened with a group of 13 players whose

combined wages and agents’ fees will cost the club £30million over the length of their contracts”.

Well done everybody. Ever thought of buying Microsoft Excel? It may help.

Meanwhile, Agnew locked himself away for some frantic private cackling, and (much like his input into anything constructive at BRFC) went almost completely unnoticed.

c69c50a9506391d0b4c44da25971aa97.jpeg

Question: What do you get if you merge these two together?

Friday 12th April: Paul Agnew, all cackled out, was interviewed in the Lancashire Telegraph by new Rovers reporter Chris Flanagan.

There were too many gems to be honest and you do all have lives to lead so I’ll not quote them all. However, “A lot of what we do is very good” – Really?!? Do elaborate please, Paul.

“Rovers can still move forward” – just about, but not very quickly – case in point being Danny Murphy.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in the paper there was something or other about “FFP”, whatever the hell that is, and that relegation would probably be the end of Rovers. Anyway, let’s not worry too much about that. Paul Agnew wasn’t:

“Could the club cope financially if it went into League One?”

“We just need to concentrate on the six games, that’s hypothetical.” Well that’s my mind put to rest. Thanks.

swiss-tony.jpg

Answer: “You know Chris, running Blackburn Rovers is very much like er, erm, er …. it’s all hypothetical”

Saturday 13th April – What’s this then? A football match? Do we really still need to do these? Surely there are more important things at Blackburn Rovers Football Club than the football team and football matches?

Blackburn Rovers 2 Derby County 0 (Rhodes Pen / Dann)

You know what? We did OK here. We won! We flaming needed to. All the others in the division did as well. All of them. Every single one, apart from Derby. We were out of the bottom three again. Thank Heavens for that.

Jordan Rhodes scored a penalty early on to ease the nerves a tad and then Scott Dann added a second just before half time. Derby were poor I thought. But then most of the teams have been poor in this division if you ask me. Which, admittedly, you weren’t.

Next…

Monday 21st April - OK. That’s round about the middle of the review. How you coping so far? What have they done to our club?

I was going to post a link to Alan Shearer scoring goals for fun for Rovers at this point. I just can’t do it. It broke my heart. I’ll spare you. However, if you go to YouTube and type in “Alan Shearer at Blackburn” you can see it.

Tuesday 16th April – Rovers 1 Huddersfield Town 0 (Rhodes)

Ah yes, back to back wins and clean sheets! And what was this? We actually played well in parts! High marks to Williamson, his best game yet for us and also Todd Cane, full of attacking endeavour (I’ve always wanted to get that in, bit of a footballing cliché that).

There was also a rare appearance of the French Viking Warrior God bloke who goes by the name of Gael Givet. He was immaculate, full of defensive endeavour (doesn’t quite work that, does it?).

Go on then? Where has he been? Why hasn’t he been playing? Has everyone at the club forgotten that this man can play left back? We’ve been playing a 7 stone 11 year old the last few games there for Heaven’s sake!

Anyway, it was good stuff and of course Rhodes scored when he wanted to, showing his predatory endeavour (crap this now) and getting on the end of a Dann head down from a corner.

A thoroughly deserved win. Confidence was up. We were now 19th, 2 points above the drop zone with a superior goal difference.

Wednesday 17th April – Oh, give me strength. Where to comment on this nonsense? The Henning Berg contract thing? Was Shelf bloke under investigation by the club? Well not according to a statement issued on the club’s website he wasn’t, remember? It was business as usual. Then they go to court to settle the claim and yes, it’s revealed he is under investigation.

Case adjourned until the 29th. The Judge was completely dismayed. He wants to try being a fan of the club; we practically define the word “dismay”.

We look an absolute shambles of a football club, again. Mainly because we are. Letters / emails from Desai to Shaw were published by BRAG that illustrated that there is a real problem with the senior management not being able to differentiate one’s elbow from one’s arse.

The absolutely freaking hideous idiots. Sell up you fools.

Saturday 20th April – Watford 4 Rovers 0 (Abdi, Deeney x2, Briggs)

In a tight game it was hard to see where a goal was coming from. Rovers did well in containing a tricky Watford team who were pushing for automatic promotion.

Then the second half started.

Still, not to worry. It was only four goals. Our superior goal difference had more of less evaporated. No pressure. Don’t worry about this relegation thing. It was bound to go away all by itself.

Monday 22nd April – Round about now Shebby Singh saw fit to open his bowels in The Press.

With Rovers’ future hanging by a thread what the club really needed at this point was one of its senior figures (*shakes head / cries*) spouting self-indulgent

nonsense to anyone who would listen.

“We find ourselves in a situation that we are fighting to stay in the Championship and I would not like to say anything to disrupt that”. Well shut up then.

“There are people over there who would not be able to run a bar, and they think they can run a club so I wouldn’t pay any attention or waste my time on them.”

This is Shebby Singh, Blackburn Rovers’ Global Advisor, who can’t even arrange a visa to be in the country for the end of the season and attend a court case, which the club lost, and at which he should have been a key witness. His stunning hypocrisy is quite simply beyond belief and an insult to all human life.

You can read more here...

http://www.goal.com/en-india/news/137/england/2013/04/22/3919175/every-tom-dick-and-harry-thinks-they-can-own-the-club?source=breakingnews&ICID=HP_BN_7

And this was very good…

http://www.ibtimes.com/sportsnet/shebby-singh-tyrannical-leader-blackburn-rovers-just-dont-need-1207931

For no reason whatsoever, other than it might just calm you down a bit after reading the above, here’s a clip of a man playing a bass guitar. Go on turn it right up…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kY_iJw_M3lA

Tuesday 23rd April – Millwall 1 Rovers 2 (Osbourne – OG, Rhodes (Pen))

Anyway, it was away from the Shebby Singh ego-show and back to the cursed football. This really was it now. This was our game in hand, a defeat would not have been good to say the least. You know what though, of course you do, they only went and won.

One nil down at half time. It was the end of the world. The players had bottled it, they probably weren’t bothered. Spineless.

Then Own Goal cropped up (how important was this goal?) and scored from a Jones corner. Great stuff. Rovers were on top and were playing some good stuff it said as I followed the game on Twitter. “Penalty to Rovers!” Oh God. Don’t miss Jordan! Fortunately he wanted to score, so he did. 2-1 Rovers.

Eight minutes of injury time, Dunny was stretchered off, ending his season. Still Rovers hung on. The inevitable late opposition goal for once never happened.

Surely we were safe now? They think it’s all over…

Saturday 27th April – Rovers 1 Palace 1 (Rhodes – Dobbie)

Now it is. Palace took the lead on the 30 minute mark when a big gap opened in the heart of our defence, a plane must have flown over or something distracting our defenders. Jordan Rhodes equalised on the stroke of half time with a very well taken lob over the keeper. Ice in his veins that lad. He really should get that looked at in the summer, though. It can’t be healthy.

Only a 14 goal drubbing at Birmingham would see Rovers relegated now, and even then other results would need to go against us, Ste would buy some chips at half time and some planets would need to align.

The odds were just under 1000-1 (100,000-1 with the chips). I’m sure some people in Malaysia and India were scratching their chins thinking about those odds.

Monday 29th April – Back to the High Court.

Obviously, Rovers were told to pay up Berg’s contract. Pretending to be a bit thick and naïve unfortunately doesn’t cut it in a court of law – but is welcomed with open arms by the FA, Premier League and Football League, obviously. Oh and the Walker Trust.

http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/football-league/blackburn-ordered-to-pay-henning-berg-after-case-is-thrown-out-of-the-high-court-8594720.html

“Out of Control” was the club’s defence, ironically. Just as it was for 99% of the time Steve Kean was manager.

“Their barrister, Neil Berragan QC, effectively conceded that the owners are powerless to stop Shaw running their club or suspend him until they have completed a disciplinary investigation into his conduct.”

‘There is a shambles at the heart of the club. The owners, based abroad, are in direct conflict with a managing director who is in de facto control of the club and who continues to act without authority and in his self interest,’ he said. ‘The owners are seeking to exercise control but are being frustrated in doing so.’

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2315454/Blackburn-admit-shambles-Henning-Berg-court-case.html

Shaw is acting without authority and in his own self-interest? Hmmm. Let me see. Maybe they should sack him then? Failure to do so, or even ponder the decision, which of course they are doing, only points to the bleeding obvious (see final paragraph). Paul Hunt was sacked quickly enough when he upset the apple cart wasn’t he?

How very strange.

Friday 3rd May – The Lancashire Telegraph advertising hoardings proclaim “Rovers to bring in new chief”. This was probably a typo on their part and a new head cook will be brought in at some point who will also be told to run the entire football club.

Saturday 4th May – Birmingham City 1 Rovers 1

Rhodes scored. As he does. When he wants. Which is quite often and is just as well really.

We finished in 17th place, Four points above the relegation places in the end. Ten points outside the play offs. And that, as they say, was that.

What next then? Well anything could happen with these buffoons running / ruining the club. Let’s hope we still have one to support next season. Read the below, if you haven’t already. I don’t think those who “run” the game would give a damn either way…

http://www.sportingintelligence.com/2013/04/30/tell-me-why-english-football%E2%80%99s-governing-bodies-keep-buck-passing-the-blackburn-farce-300401/

Overall season summary: Very poor, very poor indeed.

Men of the season: Jordan Rhodes and Gary Bowyer.

Goal / Celebration of the Season: Dunny v that lot.

A Good Thing That You May Have Already Forgotten Award: Jordan Rhodes equalling the club record for scoring in consecutive league games.

Idiots of the season: Venky’s, Singh, Agnew, Shaw.

The Contract Negotiation / Taking Candy From A Baby Award: Henning Berg’s representatives.

The Vince Grella Hiding Award: Dixon Etuhu

The Nick Clegg “What Does He Actually Do?!?” Award: Paul Aginew

The Daily Mirror’s Brian Reade Manager of The Year / Man Of Dignity - Yet Strangely Still Out of Work for Some Reason or Other Award: Steve Kean

The Weakest Contractual Excuse for Not Playing One of Our Better Players Award: Martin Olsson’s poorly eye.

For Quite Spectacularly Putting Your Foot In It EVERY Single Time Without Fail Someone Sticks a Microphone Under Your ‘Tache Award: Shebby

Singh.

The We Have Nothing To Do With Any Of This Whatsoever I Don’t Know Why You Keep Asking Me About It But My Name Keeps Cropping Up Award: Yes, well, like I’m going to name names – but EVERYONE knows, you know.


View full article

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Brfcrule1 Uefa Europa League

Brfcrule1

Posted
Posted

Hi Bob, excellent review I hope you,Dawn & the family are well it
is an excellent review please do not stop these one classic quote you
might like to consider from our very own global clown when asked in an
interview about Josh Morris according to our global clown he is not a
left winger or a LB apparently according to Shebby he is half and half :wacko: I would be glad to hear on what exactly this means as I am lost!.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
colin Champions League

colin

Posted
Posted

Right, this is it then. Seven games to go in this season end wrap up. Who’s up for this review gig next year then? I’ve done my bit.

Nio one with any sense will attempt to follow you. Thanks once again for you entertainment.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
 Share
Go to topic listing

Announcements

  • You can now add BlueSky, Mastodon and X accounts to your BRFCS Profile.


×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.