Venky’s v Indian Government (a) - 13/1/2025 - Re-Arranged Challenge Match

[Mars Rover]

It's not much but I have seen a few Rovers-dedicated pages that have never posted about the ownership finally taking a stand against them. What's more heartening is the majority of vices were in agreement and a few of the dissenters were shown a brief glimpse behind the curtain.

Again, it's not a signal that full support is yet behind protests, but social media is a microcosm of real life, and landslides oft begin with a few trickling stones.

[arbitro]

A stark warning from Rick Parry about the current state of the majority of EFL clubs primarily relating  of the distribution of money from the Premier League but also the general health of many clubs.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/efl-rick-parry-warning-reading-31896728

[Mattyblue]

2 minutes ago, Mars Rover said:

It's not much but I have seen a few Rovers-dedicated pages that have never posted about the ownership finally taking a stand against them. What's more heartening is the majority of vices were in agreement and a few of the dissenters were shown a brief glimpse behind the curtain.

Again, it's not a signal that full support is yet behind protests, but social media is a microcosm of real life, and landslides oft begin with a few trickling stones.

Agree. Definitely small shoots, we just need to keep the momentum going, get the facts out there, get the media interested.

But obviously results dictate everything. We pick up points in these next few home games and it will all go very quiet again… until the next time, of course.

[Exiled_Rover]

57 minutes ago, Mattyblue said:

Indeed, but nobody will, this is the point I’m trying to make. 

Last night I was called ‘pessimistic’ etc merely for pointing out the fact that this fanbase just isn’t currently where Reading’s is re opinion on ownership.

So there is no point running before you can walk with it. Mass protests, abandoned matches just isn’t going to happen anytime soon, especially in front of one man and his dog for that cup tie.

It’s going to be a slow process I’m afraid to wake our lot up. Try a ‘Venky’s Out!’ chant on Saturday and the crowd is more likely to want you out the club than the owners. 

It needs the likes of the Trust, local media, podcasts, friendly national journalists to start telling the story and it can gain momentum. But at this stage you are just going to get yourselves more demoralised if you have any kind of expectation of recent Reading style owner revolt at this stage - JDT will be getting the brunt, if anyone.

There's no 'waking up' to be done.

Everyone at Ewood knows we have the worst owners in sports. They also know that they're completely untouchable. We tried protesting and got nowhere. 

We're at the whim of the Indian courts. 

[Exiled_Rover]

1 hour ago, Upside Down said:

I don't really care what league we're in as long as we are rid of venkys.

I'll be there, but not until they're gone.

I genuinely think a lot of you stay-aways will never be back.

Dragging yourself down to Ewood every other Saturday at 3pm (and a midweek game at 7.45pm) is a habit. You've broken it.  

[Mattyblue]

It isn’t 2012 when that was actually the case with the fanbase.

Apart from a few exceptions that know the score all I’ve heard away from brfcs since League 1 is ‘they were badly advised at the start, but they back us now’, ‘they put in tens of millions’ ‘we’d be bust without them’, ‘put more money in than Jack’, ‘we need to be grateful to them really’, ‘look at the academy’, look at Bury’, our fans are the problem, not the owners’… and I’d be amazed if most on here have heard much different.

Edited January 17 by Mattyblue

[Mercer]

1 hour ago, Mattyblue said:

What are the chances do you think of that actually happening at Ewood a week on Monday? 

 

Not a chance.

Far too many happy clappers.

[tomphil]

Readings issues have been going on for a few years but no one has taken a blind bit of notice until the fans finally snapped. The same thing happened with Charlton and the only had a bit of press when their fans kicked off and it was often negative press. 

Now nobody mentions them either, sadly our problems are our problems and no one else gives a stuff and certainly not EFL or MSM.

The only way as i think we learned before is to hit them in their own back yard.

But how ?

[DuffsLeftPeg]

9 hours ago, RevidgeBlue said:

I like that, if someone wants to knock up a T shirt or sweat shirt with that logo on I'd certainly purchase.

Edit: Maybe add a "Broughton" as well.

I’d be happy to get some t-shirts on order and sell at cost to whoever wants to buy

My thinking is this:

1) I’ll print out the logo this weekend and can hand out to people at the ground for Huddersfield game and attempt some Venkys Out chants to test the waters in the Blackburn End

2) Wrexham game - Banners, stickers, t-shirts outside the ground near the entrance to the Blackburn End on Kidder Street prior to the game - 6.30pm start

3) Peaceful protest inside the ground with banners & t shirts on, sitting as close as possible to the dugouts in either side of the JW Lower. 7.30pm - 7.45pm so all the players and management can see when they enter the field of play and line up for the fair play handshake.

4) Media outlets to be contacted in advance to drum up attention and a level of support 

5) If the club don’t acknowledge the protest & statements made then it moves to the next stage at the QPR Home Game following on the 3rd Feb, with a pitch invasion and sit down protest during the game

Edited January 17 by DuffsLeftPeg

[glen9mullan]

3 minutes ago, DuffsLeftPeg said:

I’d be happy to get some t-shirts on order and sell at cost to whoever wants to buy

My thinking is this:

1) I’ll print out the logo this weekend and can hand out to people at the ground for Huddersfield game and attempt some Venkys Out chants to test the waters in the Blackburn End

2) Wrexham game - Banners, stickers, t-shirts outside the ground near the entrance to the Blackburn End on Kidder Street prior to the game - 6.30pm start

3) Peaceful protest inside the ground with banners & t shirts on, sitting as close as possible to the dugouts in either side of the JW Lower. 7.30pm - 7.45pm so all the players and management can see when they enter the field of play and line up for the fair play handshake.

4) Media outlets to be contacted in advance to drum up attention and a level of support 

5) If the club don’t acknowledge the protest & statements made then it moves to the next stage at the QPR Home Game following on the 3rd Feb, with a pitch invasion and sit down protest during the game

If we lose this weekend,  it will organically go off i think

[MarkBRFC]

Just now, glen9mullan said:

If we lose this weekend,  it will organically go off i think

Unfortunately it will be more at JDT than the owners though I feel.

[J*B]

45 minutes ago, MarkBRFC said:

Unfortunately it will be more at JDT than the owners though I feel.

Which couldn’t be any more Rovers - the fans turn on the man who’s refusing to accept mediocrity instead of those bringing it. 

[ABBEY]

32 minutes ago, Mercer said:

Not a chance.

Far too many happy clappers.

Yup .. soft arses .

[Miller11]

1 hour ago, Mattyblue said:

It isn’t 2012 when that was actually the case with the fanbase.

Apart from a few exceptions that know the score all I’ve heard away from brfcs since League 1 is ‘they were badly advised at the start, but they back us now’, ‘they put in tens of millions’ ‘we’d be bust without them’, ‘put more money in than Jack’, ‘we need to be grateful to them really’, ‘look at the academy’, look at Bury’, our fans are the problem, not the owners’… and I’d be amazed if most on here have heard much different.

The latest one is Venky’s saved us from oblivion when they took over. I don’t know how reality has become so distorted but that’s the new line. 

[SuperBrfc]

4 hours ago, Mattyblue said:

Shearer? Doubt he’s even noticed. Very PL (and Newcastle) blinkered.

But didn’t Sutton say not too long ago on Sky (Rovers/Leicester game, wasn’t it?) something along the lines of ‘what’s the plan? Is it just to develop players?’ ‘The CEO said he just wants to avoid relegation, not good enough for Blackburn Rovers’.

I bet it wouldn’t take much to get him on the record to say more. He’s not backward in coming forward.
 

Yep, Sutton is our best hope of bringing attention to this mess. He had it spot on with his analysis of the club on Sky, it could have been any one of us on here speaking that day. I'm not sure if it was during that piece, but I remember him saying his son is an avid Rovers fan who follows all the ins and outs closely and keeps on top of what's going on.

His son could very well be a visitor/member of this forum, as there's nowhere else online that discusses Rovers in the way that we do here.

To be fair to Shearer, he did say the following when over in India working for the Premier League. Starts at 1:18 of the clip. Granted, it was a few years ago, but still:

 

[J*B]

9 minutes ago, Miller11 said:

The latest one is Venky’s saved us from oblivion when they took over. I don’t know how reality has become so distorted but that’s the new line. 

I feel like I’m on a different planet sometimes. 

[tomphil]

41 minutes ago, J*B said:

Which wouldn’t be any more Rovers - the fans turn on the man who’s refusing to accept mediocrity instead of those bringing it. 

But refusing to change it on the pitch and that is the first and last thing most are bothered about so he's making himself an easier target than he should really be.

[B16Rover]

3 minutes ago, J*B said:

I feel like I’m on a different planet sometimes. 

The most bemusing thing is (to my knowledge) the Venkys don't come out and say this personally.  So where does it come from?

[CrouchingNunhiddenCucumber]

8 minutes ago, Miller11 said:

The latest one is Venky’s saved us from oblivion when they took over. I don’t know how reality has become so distorted but that’s the new line. 

Superb from Rovers Radio there though, can't argue with the facts.

I got into a similar spat with a friend of a friend on social media a few years ago. By the time I'd laid the commercial facts of Rovers pre and post Venkys ownership bear, and he couldn't just respond with the "Venkys have kept us afloat give them a break" response, he reverted to the "we're where we should be/ we're only a poor town in the North" type argument, which he wouldn't budge from. It fucked me off so much I gave up.

 

[MatthewShaw97]

19 minutes ago, Miller11 said:

The latest one is Venky’s saved us from oblivion when they took over. I don’t know how reality has become so distorted but that’s the new line. 

Genuinely terrifying that people have that belief. 

[glen9mullan]

19 minutes ago, J*B said:

I feel like I’m on a different planet sometimes. 

There is a substantial post venkys supporter base.

They've lost thousands of pre-venkys with new ones who were either not old enough to remember rovers in 2010 or have got the bug since.

[Mattyblue]

Of course fanbases re-generate all the time. Thats life, births, deaths etc. And as you say anyone under 21 say will hardly even remember the pre-catastrophe era. This is their normal.

But of course our ‘new’ fanbase is much smaller due to a decade of mediocrity and farce - a promotion would nicely sort that out though, just imagine if we’d had been nicely positioned for it recent seaso… oh

Edited January 17 by Mattyblue

[J*B]

24 minutes ago, B16Rover said:

The most bemusing thing is (to my knowledge) the Venkys don't come out and say this personally.  So where does it come from?

It’s just like fake news on Twitter, someone says it and it’s then repeated until it becomes true. 

Smells of episode two of @Herbie6590’s new niche podcast POB (price of Blackburn), titled “Life Before Venkys - what was it like and what is true?” so that we have something on record to revert back to every time younger fans make up that the place was on fire. 

[norwichblue]

1 hour ago, DuffsLeftPeg said:

I’d be happy to get some t-shirts on order and sell at cost to whoever wants to buy

My thinking is this:

1) I’ll print out the logo this weekend and can hand out to people at the ground for Huddersfield game and attempt some Venkys Out chants to test the waters in the Blackburn End

2) Wrexham game - Banners, stickers, t-shirts outside the ground near the entrance to the Blackburn End on Kidder Street prior to the game - 6.30pm start

3) Peaceful protest inside the ground with banners & t shirts on, sitting as close as possible to the dugouts in either side of the JW Lower. 7.30pm - 7.45pm so all the players and management can see when they enter the field of play and line up for the fair play handshake.

4) Media outlets to be contacted in advance to drum up attention and a level of support 

5) If the club don’t acknowledge the protest & statements made then it moves to the next stage at the QPR Home Game following on the 3rd Feb, with a pitch invasion and sit down protest during the game

Looks good. Wondering how these can be made and distributed effectively.

[glen9mullan]

@J*B we have not had a BRFCS poll for a long time regarding where the blame lies.

If our season tickets are circa 9000, then any poll 900 or more participants is a nice percentage for a,

A recent poll was carried out which equates to 10% of the home crowd .

Just a thought?