Which utterly brilliant manager will we be delighted to welcome next?

[CheshireRover]

Those comments sound eerily familiar to the ones in the report that was used to justify pushing a World Cup every 2 years. The people involved at the top of football are fucking clueless.

[Gavrover]

6 minutes ago, Herbie6590 said:

He used to work at Hull interestingly…

Oh he's on LinkedIn... private message ahoy lads

[tomphil]

7 hours ago, windymiller7 said:

Isn't it funny how you can interpret things in a different way? If I know Phil ( @tomphil) , judging by the time of the post, he's just come in from the pub (as have I), gone for a poo & is catching up on things in the process (as am I).

Now, I read @Miller11 's post as being that that was what the marketing guy has been told by those more senior to him.

However, reading it back again, if you're in a senior position,  it's YOUR FUCKING JOB to find a USP of whatever you're selling. 

Look at this turd. No, not your ordinary turd, just smell the unique aroma, feel the exquisite texture.....you get my drift!

So, on that note, if it's from above, it's shocking & needs rectifying immediately. We are Blackburn Rovers!!! Even if you've no affilliation to us, a quick Google search will give u all the info you need.

If it's his opinion? WTF are u doing in marketing? Meet me at a pub, time & place of your choice & I'll teach u more about marketing in 2 mins that you've ever known, -  & I'm an Engineer!! Not even fit to take down the stalls on Chorley Cattle Market. Get a job doing something else! Anything!

I wish mate !   Took an evening off stressing about Rovers to watch the boxing but stuck to coffee ( 1 can of Punk IPA doesn't count )

Coming on here before bed isn't a good recipe for sleep though once you read about some of the goons down there. 

[Mattyblue]

21 minutes ago, Herbie6590 said:

He used to work at Hull interestingly…

The club that actually scrapped season  tickets and concession pricing, so makes sense….

[OldEwoodBlue]

The first words from the new messiah, Gregg Broughton, told us everything.

"It is my job to implement the vision of the owners".

That is it. The role. The exact same applies to Steve Waggott.

Us fans can comment all day long about what we think they should be doing but it means jack shit. They will be doing exactly what is expected of them and that (unfortunately) is entirely different from what we (fans) expect for our club WHICH WE LOVE.

There is only one way it can possibly end.

Venky's Out.

[BigUts]

42 minutes ago, Tricky said:

Tough crowd 

You got me. D'oh!

[martonrover]

1 hour ago, OldEwoodBlue said:

I see Ronny has gone to Leige. No surprise there. I hope he isn't in the short list submitted to India.

The recruitment process has highlighted what a joke the club has become. They are clueless.

[47er]

24 minutes ago, OldEwoodBlue said:

The first words from the new messiah, Gregg Broughton, told us everything.

"It is my job to implement the vision of the owners".

That is it. The role. The exact same applies to Steve Waggott.

Us fans can comment all day long about what we think they should be doing but it means jack shit. They will be doing exactly what is expected of them and that (unfortunately) is entirely different from what we (fans) expect for our club WHICH WE LOVE.

There is only one way it can possibly end.

Venky's Out.

Nobody ever tells us what this vision is though do they?!!!

[Mike E]

8 hours ago, windymiller7 said:

Isn't it funny how you can interpret things in a different way? If I know Phil ( @tomphil) , judging by the time of the post, he's just come in from the pub (as have I), gone for a poo & is catching up on things in the process (as am I).

Now, I read @Miller11 's post as being that that was what the marketing guy has been told by those more senior to him.

However, reading it back again, if you're in a senior position,  it's YOUR FUCKING JOB to find a USP of whatever you're selling. 

Look at this turd. No, not your ordinary turd, just smell the unique aroma, feel the exquisite texture.....you get my drift!

So, on that note, if it's from above, it's shocking & needs rectifying immediately. We are Blackburn Rovers!!! Even if you've no affilliation to us, a quick Google search will give u all the info you need.

If it's his opinion? WTF are u doing in marketing? Meet me at a pub, time & place of your choice & I'll teach u more about marketing in 2 mins that you've ever known, -  & I'm an Engineer!! Not even fit to take down the stalls on Chorley Cattle Market. Get a job doing something else! Anything!

I was in the same meeting and I can assure you it was the guy's own opinion, having only been appointed last year. He was insistent that kids don't want to be at Ewood because 'I'm a Hull fan and my lad supports Arsenal because someone he watches on YouTube supports Arsenal'.

With his many MANY (as he was so keen to harp on about) 'football marketing qualifications' he assured us he was right.

I assured him that that not one single senior figure before him had any such qualifications and they ALL understood football fans and the town of Blackburn better than him.

[Gav]

6 minutes ago, 47er said:

Nobody ever tells us what this vision is though do they?!!!

They don't have one, its lip service only.

[Mattyblue]

9 minutes ago, Mike E said:

I was in the same meeting and I can assure you it was the guy's own opinion, having only been appointed last year. He was insistent that kids don't want to be at Ewood because 'I'm a Hull fan and my lad supports Arsenal because someone he watches on YouTube supports Arsenal'.

With his many MANY (as he was so keen to harp on about) 'football marketing qualifications' he assured us he was right.

I assured him that that not one single senior figure before him had any such qualifications and they ALL understood football fans and the town of Blackburn better than him.

So his own weak parenting in letting his son support Arsenal because of bloody YouTube has led him to the conclusion that no kids want to watch football? And he’s head of commercial?!

Heartbreaking to see the club of Jack and John Williams descend into this utter shambles.

 

Edited June 12, 2022 by Mattyblue

[arbitro]

54 minutes ago, Herbie6590 said:

He used to work at Hull interestingly…

I was aware of that Ian and made reference to that in my conversation with Waggott saying it looks like he doesn't want Hull to get in trouble as a previous employee by telling me to move on. Interestingly the patronising email he sent was on January 11th and he ignored two subsequent emails I sent to him. I then contacted Waggott direct on January 21st and he called me back the same day. I was sent an email on May 9th by Christina Haines with the final EFL response regarding the matter. This was almost four months after Fielder said Whilst this has been a frustrating sequence of events for all – including the club as we have missed out on vital TV revenue – we have resigned ourselves to the fact there is very little we can do but to move on and now look forward to playing the game on Wednesday 19^th January.

[G Somerset Rover]

This fella needs booting out of Ewood today.

Edited June 12, 2022 by Gavlar Somerset Rover!

[RevidgeBlue]

13 hours ago, Miller11 said:

@1864roverite here’s my thoughts following my interactions with those at the club.

Despite some ill tempered run ins in the past, I find Steve Waggott is approachable and attentive. He asks the right questions and seems to want to improve things. Whether his hands are tied, or he’s just giving lip service, the improvements don’t come and very little materialises.

He clearly has very specific financial targets. Making minimal savings seem to be far more of a priority than league position, commercial growth, or fan engagement. It’s pennywise, pound foolish, just like our wage structure… more on that later.

A prime example is our differing views on the catering at Ewood. To me, Sodexo offer crap service and crap products, I’d like to see a much more imaginative offering. To him it’s cost effective and easy to tender it out, he sees the long term deal with them as good business.

In my opinion, Waggott spreads himself too thin. He seems to spend more time at his Brockhall office than his Ewood office. Maybe he likes the whole back and forth with agents better than the day to day running of operations. Perhaps this will be remedied somewhat by the appointment of Broughton, but that leads us on to another issue…

I’ve long since thought the structure at the club is an absolute mess. It’s completely convoluted and unclear. We do know that Venky’s have the final say, and I strongly suspect they are micro-managing via Pasha. This leads to things being done at a glacial pace, or not at all. Mowbray’s parting comments all but confirmed this. As soon as he is no longer interested in self preservation, we got the truth of the matter. He was desperate to tell us Waggott has no real power, rather than banging on about Venky’s being knowledgeable, humble and supportive.

The club have finally started to make strides in engaging with the local Asian community. It’s long overdue and the efforts of Yasir have been fantastic. It’s seeing more tangible benefit than I thought it would. Kudos.

Enticing new fans and re-engaging with lost ones are two very different things that require very different strategies. Unfortunately they are doing nothing to mitigate the drop off of long-standing fans. I’ve discussed this at great length with people in the club. It’s always acknowledged and I’m asked for solutions, which I’ve made suggestions on. So far nothing has happened. I’ll be interesting to see if there are strides made over the coming months though.

Nobody at the club understands the fanbase. We’ve made a real effort to remedy this, from history lessons of 1960 to presentations about lapsed season ticket holders. I’m hopeful this will change, but not at all confident.

Here are some things a senior employee in a confusing marketing role told me:

- There’s nothing special or unique about Blackburn Rovers

- Kids aren’t interested in going to football matches, we’d be better off selling them NFTs

- Why should a child or senior ticket be cheaper than an adult one? A seat is a seat.

- Pretty soon nobody will go to matches, they will watch interactive things in their phones instead

There is little wonder there is such disconnect between the fanbase and club!

Onto our current situation… the jury is very much out on the managerial appointment. I’ll wait til it has actually played out, because I’ve gone over this in depth. If we get a good appointment, I think it’s props to Waggott. If we get a HSH pick, he needs to resign. In my opinion the process has become so drawn out it’s farcical. I can’t say for sure why that is, but I am not in the least bit surprised it’s happened.

All this talk of implementing a vision and long term strategy is trying to run before we are even crawling. Those idiots in Pune get no credit for not liquidating our academy, it’s been a money spinner for them, not an expense… but they are ballsing that up before our very eyes. Our supposed sustainable long term strategy is not working as evidenced by Lenihan and Nyambe going for nothing. Our wage structure is inflexible and nonsensical. We absolutely should have a wage cap, but the current approach is not fit for purpose. The can kicking approach we seem to favour of triggering year options rather than properly negotiating in a timely manner was always going to come back to haunt us. Pennywise, pound foolish again.

What I will say is Waggott acknowledged the importance of this appointment and that the club is at a pivotal juncture. How much he can actually influence things though is questionable… and he’s supposed to be our CEO.

As out of touch as those on the ground at Ewood undoubtably are, they still have a far better handle than 3 billionaires on a different continent who surround themselves with people who slavishly obey. Venky’s do not delegate effectively, and we remain at the mercy of their whims. They never learn and continue to be “badly advised”. It’s their own fault of course, they generally sack anyone who tells them anything they don’t want to hear.

Thats my opening gambit. Happy for you to tell me how and why I’m misguided.

 

 

Great post overall, but you seem to have an unbelievably rosy view of Steve Waggott. I don't know what his secret is, but he seems to have this remarkable knack of convincincing people who have met him in person that he is an all round good egg who has the interests of the Club at heart.

I'm simply not having it. The crap food is symptomatic of his apparent penny pinching attitude but is a relatively minor issue.

It's under his stewardship that affordable seating was scrapped.

It's under his stewardship that prices were raised by up to 25% during a pandemic for a season where no-one could attend.

It was him that was involved in Coventry City's attempt to flog their training ground when he was there. You can't put any blame on our owners for that. Therefore it defies logic to think that it wasn't him that was the driving force behind a similar attempt here and indeed he openly  admitted that he was the one driving the idea. The scheme here was based on the fraudulent premise that a Category One Academy could be housed in a facility and on a site half the size of the existing ones. I wonder how much he cost the Club with the aborted scheme once a few inconvenient home truths were brought to light?

Prices continue to rise, every pricing initiative that comes out of the Club is a near disaster and remedial steps to mitigate the damage are only taken once people like those silly posh QEGS lads running round in their rolled up trousers with their secret handshakes, or yourselves on the Trust, take them to task. Why can't anyone at the Club get something right first time round for once?

He had essentially one job to do this season just gone - get Lenihan, Nyambe and Rothwell signed up to new contracts. 100% failure rate in that respect seemingly.

The managerial search has been an absolute embarrassment and seems to have been designed to put off any better candidates. With the benefit of hindsight it would obviously have been far better to replace Waggott before Mowbray and have someone vaguely competent conducting the search.

In summary, everything he has touched since he's been at the Club has been a disaster. But it's OK it seems because it appears he's extremely attentive and wants to help. (But never does.)

Edited June 12, 2022 by RevidgeBlue

[Mattyblue]

So why hasn’t such an incompetent individual (nefarious too, as he wanted to flatten Brockhall) been sacked?

Edited June 12, 2022 by Mattyblue

[Paul Mani]

1 hour ago, Gav said:

As soon as you come to terms with that fact, Venkys are not here to move the club forward, they're not here to make this club great again, they're here only to save face in the business community in India, nothing else matters to them.

Waggott has no remit other than to manage a budget, he's not interested in moving the club forward either or growing the fanbase like John Williams was, he's here to manage his budget only, because he knows Venkys will pump £30m in every year to pay the bills, no pressure, just keep the lights on.

Taking all this into consideration you start to understand why we're now shopping in the bargain basement for a new manager, the better options have seen through us and we are now looking for a cheap option that can keep our heads above water, everyone just wants a quiet life, pick up the wages, its just a job to these people and things will never change until the owners sod off.

As I've been saying for years now, give me administration today to get rid of these people, then the club can start the healing process, until that day comes we'll remain in a permanent state of purgatory. 

 

 

It’s not fact, just your opinion.

[lraC]

29 minutes ago, Mattyblue said:

So his own weak parenting in letting his son support Arsenal because of bloody YouTube has led him to the conclusion that no kids want to watch football? And he’s head of commercial?!

Heartbreaking to see the club of Jack and John Williams descend into this utter shambles.

 

My son and daughter grew up in Bolton and my grandson is growing up in Preston. All are Rovers fans. 

[Mattyblue]

1 minute ago, lraC said:

My son and daughter grew up in Bolton and my grandson is growing up in Preston. All are Rovers fans. 

Proper parenting 💪

[lraC]

1 minute ago, Mattyblue said:

Proper parenting 💪

My son got married on Friday and I was his best man. I told a story about the day I realized he had first fallen in love. He was aged 7 and had been going to Ewood for 3 years. His first love was not a girl it was BRFC.

[Ossydave]

10 minutes ago, RevidgeBlue said:

 

In summary, everything he has touched since he's been at the Club has been a disaster. But it's OK it seems because it appears he's extremely attentive and wants to help. (But never does.)

Or he does want to help but it ultimately needs signing off by the loons in Pune and he's completely pissing in the wind? If that is the process and he's totally powerless then you'd expect him to resign, strongly suspect his massive salary sways that decision though!

[Paul Mani]

39 minutes ago, 47er said:

Nobody ever tells us what this vision is though do they?!!!

He said in the same interview, on several occasions that they want us to be a “self sustainable Premier League club” (The vision). He also referred to us needing to “overachieve” which I agree with based on our income generation and available budget inline with ffp.

The plan seems plausible based on Broughton’s interview. The big question is will he have the autonomy and power to execute it?

[jim mk2]

50 minutes ago, Mike E said:

I was in the same meeting and I can assure you it was the guy's own opinion, having only been appointed last year. He was insistent that kids don't want to be at Ewood because 'I'm a Hull fan and my lad supports Arsenal because someone he watches on YouTube supports Arsenal'.

With his many MANY (as he was so keen to harp on about) 'football marketing qualifications' he assured us he was right.

I assured him that that not one single senior figure before him had any such qualifications and they ALL understood football fans and the town of Blackburn better than him.

 

Was this chap an employee of BRFC? 

If I'd been the club owner or MoD I'd have sacked him on the spot

Everyone who works at Ewood has to be a fan. 

Edited June 12, 2022 by jim mk2

[Mattyblue]

Just now, Paul Mani said:

He said in the same interview, on several occasions that they want us to be a “self sustainable Premier League club” (The vision).

We’ve been hearing that exact line from a boatload of folk since 2012 and we are as far away as ever.

It’s just platitudes and I’m not sure why anybody would take any notice either way, he’s not exactly going to say ‘yeah we just plan to carry on bobbing about in Championship mid table’.

But now the standard boilerplate statement’s out the way, he can now just get on with the job and let results speak for themselves.

[jim mk2]

4 hours ago, lraC said:

I spoke to a good friend earlier this week, about a business matter. He is someone I have known for years, but we haven’t spoken for a while. He is literally football mad and Rovers mad. He has two sons, who are almost adults now and both have been brought up asRovers  fans and followed the team, all over the country.

After we had discussed the business matter, the topic of conversation turned to Rovers. He told me that not only does him and he two sons no longer buy season tickets, they don’t hardly go any more. He went on to tell me that it was directly down to Waggot E Mailing him an abusive reply to a question he had about some small matter that he had an issue with.

If Waggot is doing that to a supporter of such ilk, it makes me shudder to think how much other damage he has done.

This specifically needs to be pointed out to either Waggot himself or anyone above him, as it is wrecking ball stuff. 

 

This one post probably represents the real nature of Waggott and how he operates rather than the long eulogy offered earlier. 

[rigger]

1 hour ago, Armchair supporter supremo said:

I think this issue deserves a new thread so that it's clearly seen by the powers that be at ewood!

A question to be asked at the next fans forum ?