[Archived] Alan Myers - director of communications

[tomphil]

It's a continuing reflection of the whole club. Still shows that it's a joke behind the seems and nothing more than a gravy train and shows they haven't learned a damn thing. Not in one position throughout the entire thing do they employ someone correctly qualified and experienced with some pedigree for the role. Possible exception being the finance guy.

Nothing is being built or rebuilt at Ewood it's just plugging gaps, including on the pitch in order to tread water.

[ABBEY]

Someone on Twitter tells me communication is amazing and Myers doing an awesome job

[ABBEY]

Good question . What did the ff reply to Myers over the scum being behind the club ?

[TBTF]

Someone on Twitter tells me communication is amazing and Myers doing an awesome job

That will be Myers, Abbs - doing his first piece of work this year!

[ABBEY]

I actually thought that .. He got a couple of replies off me but not said anything since

[J*B]

To be fair, commercially we are doing much better. At least there is people paying for advertising and a shirt sponsor now.

[Baz]

To be fair, commercially we are doing much better. At least there is people paying for advertising and a shirt sponsor now.

Was the shirt sponsor not done by the outgoing commercial manager?

[Stuart]

Was the shirt sponsor not done by the outgoing commercial manager?

Amazing how history gets forgotten/re-written isn't it.

[AllRoverAsia]

To be fair, commercially we are doing much better. At least there is people paying for advertising and a shirt sponsor now.

Myers must be so busy on the commercial side he can't spend time communicating that's he's both commercial & communications - unless apparently you use Twitter or read the ''Who's Who?'' on the Rovers site. Oh well whatever.

[SoldierMo]

.

[laughatthedingles]

In what way do the owners not support the club? I believe another £28m+ in the last year shows they certainly do, not to mention the commitments they continue to give to the club facilities etc.

The owners also do an awful lot for the town of Blackburn, however they actively stop this getting into the public domain as a direct results of clowns like yourself, always wanting to have moan and find fault in everything. Can you imagine the Headline in the LT: 'Venkys spend £1m renovating famous old Blackburn building' and then the response...

you would be the first on here "why are they wasting their money on that instead of spending it on the club'.

The truth is they ARE spending it on the club, FFP is tying their hands behind their backs.

Common complaints since they arrived:

"They know nothing about football, they should leave it to those who do" - Result = Shaw (whether you rate him or not) an experienced chairman brought in as MD

"They keep coming out with stupid statements and are an embarrassment" - Result = They now make very little public appearances or statements to avoid them being spun negatively.

"They won't sack the manager" - Result = Kean goes so do many more

"We need stability" - Result = Bowyer

"They need to spend money" - Result = Leon Best, Murphy, Etuhu, Rhodes...

"They are wasting money and we should live within our means" - Result = Pay offs galore

"They should be visibly supporting the club" - Result = They turn up for games, get abused and pelted with snowballs

"They don't do anything to give us positive press" - Result = They felt as the owners of the club it was polite and respectful to personally welcome the Queen to the club, you even have issue with that.

They have made mistakes, they have admitted that, they are desperately trying to do the best thing and they now believe that is leaving the club to be run day-to-day by experienced people which is why they have brought in people with a wealth of footballing experience in their fields as well as where possible a connection to the club:

Shaw, Myers, Cheston, Biggar, Tommy Johnson, Damien Johnson, Short, Sheron.

What you want them to do, someone else will disagree with.

Fans should be assured they are very much behind the club and the town???
Did somebody not rip his head off as soon as he uttered that statement? If not then I can only surmise that the FF are a bunch of pussies as well.

That sums up this club in a sentence- there is no challenge to anything that gets done at any level any more.Shrug of the shoulders and on we go . Quiet life resumed.

[Blueandwhitemike]

Surely the response to that LATD is that they (the club not necessarily the owners themselves) need to do a much better job communicating these facts one way or another. The communications director and his team have a fair bit to work with that you've mentioned, it's their job to get that message across no? I would think most fans are not quite so vehement in their dislike nor quite as vocal as some. Rovers have tens/hundreds of thousands of fans and most will listen.

[AllRoverAsia]

Rovers fans have a God given right to moan about everything. It's in the Town's DNA. Safer, IMO regretfully, for it to be on a MB.

[Coatbridge rover]

Oh well

[K-Hod]

In what way do the owners not support the club? I believe another £28m+ in the last year shows they certainly do, not to mention the commitments they continue to give to the club facilities etc.

The owners also do an awful lot for the town of Blackburn, however they actively stop this getting into the public domain as a direct results of clowns like yourself, always wanting to have moan and find fault in everything. Can you imagine the Headline in the LT: 'Venkys spend £1m renovating famous old Blackburn building' and then the response...

you would be the first on here "why are they wasting their money on that instead of spending it on the club'.

The truth is they ARE spending it on the club, FFP is tying their hands behind their backs.

Common complaints since they arrived:

"They know nothing about football, they should leave it to those who do" - Result = Shaw (whether you rate him or not) an experienced chairman brought in as MD

"They keep coming out with stupid statements and are an embarrassment" - Result = They now make very little public appearances or statements to avoid them being spun negatively.

"They won't sack the manager" - Result = Kean goes so do many more

"We need stability" - Result = Bowyer

"They need to spend money" - Result = Leon Best, Murphy, Etuhu, Rhodes...

"They are wasting money and we should live within our means" - Result = Pay offs galore

"They should be visibly supporting the club" - Result = They turn up for games, get abused and pelted with snowballs

"They don't do anything to give us positive press" - Result = They felt as the owners of the club it was polite and respectful to personally welcome the Queen to the club, you even have issue with that.

They have made mistakes, they have admitted that, they are desperately trying to do the best thing and they now believe that is leaving the club to be run day-to-day by experienced people which is why they have brought in people with a wealth of footballing experience in their fields as well as where possible a connection to the club:

Shaw, Myers, Cheston, Biggar, Tommy Johnson, Damien Johnson, Short, Sheron.

What you want them to do, someone else will disagree with.

If they really wanted to support the club, they'd get the best possible man in the dugout and he'd put a proverbial rocket up the players backsides.

[laughatthedingles]

Ok, enough drivel, lets get this clear:

Alan Myers was appointed as Director of Communications as a result of a clear need for improved communication between the club and it's supporters (as we all made explicitly clear) as well as someone to fight our corner in the media.

Initially he wanted to Owners to engage more, directly with supporters, however I think the phrase is once bitten twice shy. Whilst the owners are experienced business people they are also quite private people (Balaji aside). They are not experienced in dealing with the media, especially the British sport media and an object of ridicule. Granted many of their statements needed little adaptation to achieve this, the genuinely aimed for CL football, I would guess they now realise this is not realistic. Now however they make no comment or appearances, would you when many of the people who you would be talking to simply hate you (I don't think that is too strong a phrase to use for the feeling of many supporters) and who would simply pick apart what you say and use it as further ammunition against you. I have heard time and time again, I want to hear a statement of intent for this season. The response has been given many times already this pre-season. We are aiming for promotion as you always should do. What the club won't come out and do is make a big thing of this, headlines reading "We will aim for promotion" will be used when we don't achieve it. Neither can they come out and say "We want to balance the books and will do our best on the pitch in the meantime", who wants to hear that?

You can read, listen and believe what you want about conspiracy theories. The owners may well have been sold the club via a third party on false promises, however they are clearly trying their best. They could've just walked away, instead they have listened and responded in the way they feel is best. They continue to financially show unbelievable support to the club and us as supporters.

Immediately upon his arrival Myers joined twitter and sought to directly engage with supporters as he did at Everton. He was quickly met with abuse as well as thoughtful and insightful comments such as "Venkys are crap", "The owners need to go away", "Venkys out".

He still reads every element of the press and social media as well as here but you don't need to be in the conversations as outlined above to do this. We have a fanbase more than willing to raise issues and outline their problems quickly enough via every outlet they can so I am sure he is aware of them all.

Before he arrived we had little to no communication with the club, Greg Coar was working tirelessly in the commercial department, imagine his job trying to sell commercial packages at that time!

Since his arrival Myers has ensured we have regular information from the club from the basic kit information, new ticketing systems, taking our complaints to Huddersfield last season, keeping us in the loop and resolving it etc..

You should have noticed any articles in the press are now usually positive, particularly when the media actually care, last season the game against Liverpool saw us back in the spotlight. I recall many media outlets running positive stories about the club, Bowyer and various other things.

Surely the response to that LATD is that they (the club not necessarily the owners themselves) need to do a much better job communicating these facts one way or another. The communications director and his team have a fair bit to work with that you've mentioned, it's their job to get that message across no? I would think most fans are not quite so vehement in their dislike nor quite as vocal as some. Rovers have tens/hundreds of thousands of fans and most will listen.

They are trying to do so in a low key manner, upon Myers' arrival the key element was to get us out of the media, the spotlight and the firing line in general.

He did this, now we can slowly begin to rebuild our reputation amongst supporters and the media in general. Remember, good news or positive news stories have a way of finding columns on inside pages rather than back pages.

If they really wanted to support the club, they'd get the best possible man in the dugout and he'd put a proverbial rocket up the players backsides.

It is your opinion that he is not, they obviously believe via the people at the club that he is doing a decent job. For all we know it could be a case of, he will do until the club is on an even keel and then we can go again. What top manager could we attract in an embargo when, if we were being honest, would be told, you will need to bring in more than you spend and continue to reduce expenditure until we get to XY and Z, then you can start to rebuild.

How do we not know they are using Bowyer as a steady hand for the time being? If that is the case then he's fitting that part quite well I would say.

NB: I would love to see a different man in charge and more ambition but until we sort the finances and FFP out who would we end up with and what could they do better?

[AllRoverAsia]

laughatthedingles - very good PR job there.

Snowballs as in more than one? It reads like they were met with a barrage of missles from the snowy knoll but surely there was only one shot.

Most of the other points you have made can be counter argued but tell you what I can't be bothered preaching to the converted.

[arbitro]

Ok, enough drivel, lets get this clear:

Alan Myers was appointed as Director of Communications as a result of a clear need for improved communication between the club and it's supporters (as we all made explicitly clear) as well as someone to fight our corner in the media.

Initially he wanted to Owners to engage more, directly with supporters, however I think the phrase is once bitten twice shy. Whilst the owners are experienced business people they are also quite private people (Balaji aside). They are not experienced in dealing with the media, especially the British sport media and an object of ridicule. Granted many of their statements needed little adaptation to achieve this, the genuinely aimed for CL football, I would guess they now realise this is not realistic. Now however they make no comment or appearances, would you when many of the people who you would be talking to simply hate you (I don't think that is too strong a phrase to use for the feeling of many supporters) and who would simply pick apart what you say and use it as further ammunition against you. I have heard time and time again, I want to hear a statement of intent for this season. The response has been given many times already this pre-season. We are aiming for promotion as you always should do. What the club won't come out and do is make a big thing of this, headlines reading "We will aim for promotion" will be used when we don't achieve it. Neither can they come out and say "We want to balance the books and will do our best on the pitch in the meantime", who wants to hear that?

You can read, listen and believe what you want about conspiracy theories. The owners may well have been sold the club via a third party on false promises, however they are clearly trying their best. They could've just walked away, instead they have listened and responded in the way they feel is best. They continue to financially show unbelievable support to the club and us as supporters.

Immediately upon his arrival Myers joined twitter and sought to directly engage with supporters as he did at Everton. He was quickly met with abuse as well as thoughtful and insightful comments such as "Venkys are crap", "The owners need to go away", "Venkys out".

He still reads every element of the press and social media as well as here but you don't need to be in the conversations as outlined above to do this. We have a fanbase more than willing to raise issues and outline their problems quickly enough via every outlet they can so I am sure he is aware of them all.

Before he arrived we had little to no communication with the club, Greg Coar was working tirelessly in the commercial department, imagine his job trying to sell commercial packages at that time!

Since his arrival Myers has ensured we have regular information from the club from the basic kit information, new ticketing systems, taking our complaints to Huddersfield last season, keeping us in the loop and resolving it etc..

You should have noticed any articles in the press are now usually positive, particularly when the media actually care, last season the game against Liverpool saw us back in the spotlight. I recall many media outlets running positive stories about the club, Bowyer and various other things.

They are trying to do so in a low key manner, upon Myers' arrival the key element was to get us out of the media, the spotlight and the firing line in general.

He did this, now we can slowly begin to rebuild our reputation amongst supporters and the media in general. Remember, good news or positive news stories have a way of finding columns on inside pages rather than back pages.

It is your opinion that he is not, they obviously believe via the people at the club that he is doing a decent job. For all we know it could be a case of, he will do until the club is on an even keel and then we can go again. What top manager could we attract in an embargo when, if we were being honest, would be told, you will need to bring in more than you spend and continue to reduce expenditure until we get to XY and Z, then you can start to rebuild.

How do we not know they are using Bowyer as a steady hand for the time being? If that is the case then he's fitting that part quite well I would say.

NB: I would love to see a different man in charge and more ambition but until we sort the finances and FFP out who would we end up with and what could they do better?

You need to change your user name because, since the people you are defending rolled up the Dingles are laughing at us.

Are you really on the Fans Forum?

[laughatthedingles]

laughatthedingles - very good PR job there.

Snowballs as in more than one? It reads like they were met with a barrage of missles from the snowy knoll but surely there was only one shot.

Most of the other points you have made can be counter argued but tell you what I can't be bothered preaching to the converted.

Snowballs - only hit with one yes, more thrown. Still enough to make you feel unwelcome and best, unsafe at worst.

Counter argue away.

You need to change your user name because, since the people you are defending rolled up the Dingles are laughing at us.

Are you really on the Fans Forum?

They are indeed, so what do we do about that?

[arbitro]

Snowballs - only hit with one yes, more thrown. Still enough to make you feel unwelcome and best, unsafe at worst.

Counter argue away.

They are indeed, so what do we do about that?

We should apportion blame in the right area. I don't want to go over old ground but they and they alone are responsible for the debt, our current plight and the general state and dumbing down of the club.

Who do you blame for the demise of our club?

[Kamy100]

While I agree with a lot the points that you have made LATD.

The fact remains that we are in the position that we are because of the decisions that Venky’s have made and the majority of fans cannot/will not forgive them. Regardless of taking bad advice, ultimately it was their decision to sack Big Sam, it was their decision to replace him with Steve Kean, it was their decision to create the conditions which made John Williams and Tom Finn leave club, it was their decision to keep Steve Kean on when it was patently obvious he wasn’t upto the job, it was their decision to appoint Shebby Singh, Agnew and Shaw which created a power struggle, it was them who authorised the complete wasting of the parachute payments. It is this litany of poor decision making that has led to the current situation whereby the relationship between the fans and the owners is broken beyond repair.

I know better than most about all of things that they have done in helping various charitable organisations in and around Blackburn and not publicised it, they deserve credit for that and I know that they have put money into the club and continue to do so, but as far as I am concerned looking back over their reign it is easy for me to say that Venky’s are the worst thing ever to happen to Blackburn Rovers Football Club in my lifetime.

[laughatthedingles]

We should apportion blame in the right area. I don't want to go over old ground but they and they alone are responsible for the debt, our current plight and the general state and dumbing down of the club.

Who do you blame for the demise of our club?

Ultimately they must carry the can. Their early mistakes have become monumental errors, regardless of who they were advised by or what that advice was the mess is their fault.

I think that is clear for everyone, my point is too many people are refusing to move on, I am 100% not saying forgive and forget at all but they are going nowhere and due to the amount of money someone would need to fill their boots (again their fault) its probably a good job they aren't doing a disappearing act.

Therefore we need to look forward and focus on what can be changed, the errors need correcting, we can't undo them so how to we all help to sort it. Simply saying it's their fault they should fix it is fine as an attitude if you don't care about the club, can forget about it and do something else.

We can't, this is our club and always will be so lets focus on trying to improve it.

While I agree with a lot the points that you have made LATD.

The fact remains that we are in the position that we are because of the decisions that Venky’s have made and the majority of fans cannot/will not forgive them. Regardless of taking bad advice, ultimately it was their decision to sack Big Sam, it was their decision to replace him with Steve Kean, it was their decision to create the conditions which made John Williams and Tom Finn leave club, it was their decision to keep Steve Kean on when it was patently obvious he wasn’t upto the job, it was their decision to appoint Shebby Singh, Agnew and Shaw which created a power struggle, it was them who authorised the complete wasting of the parachute payments. It is this litany of poor decision making that has led to the current situation whereby the relationship between the fans and the owners is broken beyond repair.

I know better than most about all of things that they have done in helping various charitable organisations in and around Blackburn and not publicised it, they deserve credit for that and I know that they have put money into the club and continue to do so, but as far as I am concerned looking back over their reign it is easy for me to say that Venky’s are the worst thing ever to happen to Blackburn Rovers Football Club in my lifetime.

I am not for one second saying we should forget what they have done, we should forgive them just because time has passed or even because of the good they have done in the town.

The damage has been done but we are in a marriage of convenience with little other options and a common goal, we can't lose sight of that. Working against each other will do nothing but harm.

[tomphil]

It all falls down of course again by the simple fact they have never employed someone suitable to run the club and selected the best manager they could find. No guarantees it would have worked of course but it would have been publicly obvious they were trying and I'm talking before FFP. The biggest charitable organisation they contribute to is those on the payroll at Ewood, they must think their bloody lottery numbers have come up. If they weren't on our gravy train the likes of Shaw, Myers, Bowyer & a few more certainly wouldn't be holding the lofty well paid positions they do here at ANY other clubs.

The old saying is apt, 'you reap what you sow'

[arbitro]

Ultimately they must carry the can. Their early mistakes have become monumental errors, regardless of who they were advised by or what that advice was the mess is their fault.

I think that is clear for everyone, my point is too many people are refusing to move on, I am 100% not saying forgive and forget at all but they are going nowhere and due to the amount of money someone would need to fill their boots (again their fault) its probably a good job they aren't doing a disappearing act.

Therefore we need to look forward and focus on what can be changed, the errors need correcting, we can't undo them so how to we all help to sort it. Simply saying it's their fault they should fix it is fine as an attitude if you don't care about the club, can forget about it and do something else.

We can't, this is our club and always will be so lets focus on trying to improve it.

I am not for one second saying we should forget what they have done, we should forgive them just because time has passed or even because of the good they have done in the town.

The damage has been done but we are in a marriage of convenience with little other options and a common goal, we can't lose sight of that. Working against each other will do nothing but harm.

And the only way they can be corrected is by getting into the PL and the riches that will bring but, for various reason (FFP and a manager not good enough) this is highly unlikely to happen. So meanwhile the debt grows as income will continue to outstrip expenditure and we get further into the mire.

In all honesty I don't have the answers and can see (to a degree) your point. It just riles me that anybody can even begin to justify anything that have done.

By the way ask the local businesses around Ewood what they think of Venkys. They have lost lots of money they were getting when we were in the PL.

[ABBEY]

In what way do the owners not support the club? I believe another £28m+ in the last year shows they certainly do, not to mention the commitments they continue to give to the club facilities etc.

The owners also do an awful lot for the town of Blackburn, however they actively stop this getting into the public domain as a direct results of clowns like yourself, always wanting to have moan and find fault in everything. Can you imagine the Headline in the LT: 'Venkys spend £1m renovating famous old Blackburn building' and then the response...

you would be the first on here "why are they wasting their money on that instead of spending it on the club'.

The truth is they ARE spending it on the club, FFP is tying their hands behind their backs.

Common complaints since they arrived:

"They know nothing about football, they should leave it to those who do" - Result = Shaw (whether you rate him or not) an experienced chairman brought in as MD

"They keep coming out with stupid statements and are an embarrassment" - Result = They now make very little public appearances or statements to avoid them being spun negatively.

"They won't sack the manager" - Result = Kean goes so do many more

"We need stability" - Result = Bowyer

"They need to spend money" - Result = Leon Best, Murphy, Etuhu, Rhodes...

"They are wasting money and we should live within our means" - Result = Pay offs galore

"They should be visibly supporting the club" - Result = They turn up for games, get abused and pelted with snowballs

"They don't do anything to give us positive press" - Result = They felt as the owners of the club it was polite and respectful to personally welcome the Queen to the club, you even have issue with that.

They have made mistakes, they have admitted that, they are desperately trying to do the best thing and they now believe that is leaving the club to be run day-to-day by experienced people which is why they have brought in people with a wealth of footballing experience in their fields as well as where possible a connection to the club:

Shaw, Myers, Cheston, Biggar, Tommy Johnson, Damien Johnson, Short, Sheron.

What you want them to do, someone else will disagree with.

They are tossers who are killing the club. 8th in prem to oblivion. All the stars sold , we are a nationwide joke, there's Shaw the rogue , only come when The Queen comes , if they come any other they don't have the decency to stay longer than 65 mins etc

You worship venkys we see that's up to you but if you think the debts are nothing to do with the lunes then I hate to tell you but Santa ain't real,