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

[ben_the_beast]

I didn't expect anything different in the club statement.

For me this situation needs to drag before they wake up and realise there is literally no option but to sell up. This season is all about scraping by and staying up. 

Realistically we'll be hitting crisis point come the summer, even if the courts do approve funding in March. Its the hope that kills you but the summer is when I see them possibly looking at selling up. Until it happens, public statements will all say the same thing. I simply can't allow myself to believe they'll be here forever.

[Wing Wizard Windy Miller]

4 hours ago, J*B said:

Unfortunately as things stand, following this football club provides me with no happiness or excitement. These owners and their board have taken all the joy out of what used to be my favourite thing to do. 

Nowadays, for me personally, following Blackburn Rovers means trying to make sense of Indian court documents, arguing with fellow fans on Twitter who support this nonsense and trying to piece together all of the clues to work out what happens next. 

Some of the comments from our fanbase make me want to scream in frustration. But the more I think about it, maybe I’m in the wrong. There’s a majority of fans that it feels like are either too naive to read into it any further than surface level, or not intelligent enough to see this for what it is. Perhaps they deserve this and the misery that comes with it? But again… maybe there is no misery if your head is in the sand.

Frankly, at this point, I’m extremely close to giving it all up and trying to find some solace in just going to down to Ewood occasionally and only thinking about Rovers for those couple of hours.

That's where I'm at.  Only done a couple of actual Ewood games this season.  Pay less attention to Rovers news.  Spend less time on here.  Mate and I were discussing stuff to do over next few months and for the first time ever, neither of us could be arsed  with any away trips. We aren't a club that is trying to win matches and compete.  Our sole aim is to put players in a shop window by playing a brand of football the management think will achieve sales. 

I didn't get into footy as a kid for that. 

 The flicker of  Rovers still burns but its very, very  close to being snuffed out. 

[Upside Down]

6 hours ago, booth said:

And say it’s a decaying club, but pray they stay.

It got even more ridiculous and before I’d finished my reply I was doubting he was even a Rovers fan.

He isn't.

[Upside Down]

5 hours ago, Gamst21 said:

I’d say twitter is the complete opposite, lots of comments like these sending their praise!

 

Definitions of cretin

1. noun

   a person of subnormal intelligence.

    

    

   As for the club statement, if you believe any of that then I have some magic beans I think you'll be interested in buying.

Edited January 27 by Upside Down

[Mike E]

In fairness, most replies on the official Rovers facebook page are anti-Venkys.

[booth]

45 minutes ago, Upside Down said:

He isn't.

No he really is. He's one of those hypocrite superfans who won’t criticise anything about the club but then says things like it’s decaying and no one would ever want to buy it.

[Mattyblue]

Yep, Mike, and like I said earlier that would nowhere near have been the case post one of their previous banal statements.

So I’m more than heartened that the fanbase is waking up from its post 2017 slumber, so something to work with - yes not everyone, not even particularly close to being everyone, but it never was going to be, some are far too gone, but there’s a groundswell again and it’s been a long time coming.

Edited January 27 by Mattyblue

[Mike E]

27 minutes ago, Mattyblue said:

Yep, Mike, and like I said earlier that would nowhere near have been the case post one of their previous banal statements.

So I’m more than heartened that the fanbase is waking up from its post 2017 slumber, so something to work with - yes not everyone, not even particularly close to being everyone, but it never was going to be, some are far too gone, but there’s a groundswell again and it’s been a long time coming.

Absolutely. That statement (on Facebook and Instagram) is littered with anti-Venky sentiment.

Hopefully materialises vs Wrexham!

[Mattyblue]

Depends, a lot happens on the back of the team’s performance on match days.

We go a couple down, and you could well hear something. We get two quick goals and everyone relaxes and you’d imagine it’d be more stuff aimed at Deadpool and plenty of ‘Who the fucking hell are you?’ towards the Darwen End.

[oldjamfan1]

17 hours ago, J*B said:

Unfortunately as things stand, following this football club provides me with no happiness or excitement. These owners and their board have taken all the joy out of what used to be my favourite thing to do. 

Nowadays, for me personally, following Blackburn Rovers means trying to make sense of Indian court documents, arguing with fellow fans on Twitter who support this nonsense and trying to piece together all of the clues to work out what happens next. 

Some of the comments from our fanbase make me want to scream in frustration. But the more I think about it, maybe I’m in the wrong. There’s a majority of fans that it feels like are either too naive to read into it any further than surface level, or not intelligent enough to see this for what it is. Perhaps they deserve this and the misery that comes with it? But again… maybe there is no misery if your head is in the sand.

Frankly, at this point, I’m extremely close to giving it all up and trying to find some solace in just going to down to Ewood occasionally and only thinking about Rovers for those couple of hours.

You’ve summed up my feeling excellently there Josh. And if people like me and you are feeling this way then the club is fucked.

[chaddyrovers]

18 hours ago, Mike E said:

In my time with RT (around 7 years) I knew concretely of 5 interested parties at various points. I knew of around 20 speculated interested parties.

Its a shame these interested parties weren't actually interested when the Walker family were selling the club. 

[Mattyblue]

Football has completely changed since they sold due to the explosion in TV deal value post 2013.

If the Walker cretins has held on a little longer they’d have had people banging their doors down - shame there wasn’t a brain cell of business nous between them.

[chaddyrovers]

10 minutes ago, Mattyblue said:

Football has completely changed since they sold due to the explosion in TV deal value post 2013.

If the Walker cretins has held on a little longer they’d have had people banging their doors down - shame there wasn’t a brain cell of business nous between them.

I agree that the Walkers should have held on and listening to our board about massive TV deals around the corner. Seems like they just wanted the money in asap

[Mike E]

43 minutes ago, chaddyrovers said:

It’s a shame these interested parties weren't actually interested when the Walker family were selling the club. 

Some were teenagers or didn’t have the money at the time. Some WERE interested and Venkys were favoured (some rightly, some wrongly).

[SIMON GARNERS 194]

14 hours ago, Wing Wizard Windy Miller said:

I didn't get into footy as a kid for that. 

 

I know the feeling...proud Blackburn Rovers were never about that until these gobshytes turned the Club on its Head.

Feel your pain.

[Gav]

52 minutes ago, chaddyrovers said:

I agree that the Walkers should have held on and listening to our board about massive TV deals around the corner. Seems like they just wanted the money in asap

I’ve never attributed any blame to the Walker family myself. Blackburn Rovers was Jacks passion, not the families passion and they sold the club in good faith.

These owners ticked all the boxes, had the funds, but as one poster said yesterday, you simply cannot account for them being as thick as a bar top.

Venkys out.

[RoversClitheroe]

20 minutes ago, Mike E said:

Some were teenagers or didn’t have the money at the time. Some WERE interested and Venkys were favoured (some rightly, some wrongly).

I was a teenager then, and I hate the Venkys.

Just don't think some people are well read and believe everything they read.

[Mattyblue]

They could sell to who they wanted, and they did - but they shortchanged themselves with it being sold for peanuts. Clubs not particularly bigger than us were being sold for three/four/five times that a few years later.

[ben_the_beast]

26 minutes ago, Gav said:

I’ve never attributed any blame to the Walker family myself. Blackburn Rovers was Jacks passion, not the families passion and they sold the club in good faith.

These owners ticked all the boxes, had the funds, but as one poster said yesterday, you simply cannot account for them being as thick as a bar top.

Venkys out.

I don't blame the Walker family for selling to Venkys. On paper, they had money, human rights record was far more favorable than other owners and there was some sense in them growing their brand, especially with the South Asian population in Blackburn. 

What I do blame them for is engaging with Jerome Anderson to facilitate a sale. As soon as an agent was involved it was likely that person was getting way to deep into critical period in the clubs history. It didn't take a genuis to work out he'd be pulling the owners strings once the takeover happened. It was very naive to think he was simply doing it for a introductory/commission fee.

*Disclaimer: Happy to be corrected on the above. My memory is very hazy of those times but I'm sure he didn't just magically pop up after the club had been sold.

[Gav]

38 minutes ago, Mattyblue said:

They could sell to who they wanted, and they did - but they shortchanged themselves with it being sold for peanuts. Clubs not particularly bigger than us were being sold for three/four/five times that a few years later.

I don’t believe they had any interest in making huge profits from the sale of the club, they did that around the same time selling stakes in FlyBe. 

But you’re right of course, it could have sold for much more had they held on and as I sit here right now I wish they had, not sold and still owned us now.

Edited January 28 by Gav

[philipl]

I asked myself, what would I write if the club faced a crunching cash flow crisis in the first half of this year, the hearing in March was a wing and a prayer and we faced a bonfire of club assets in June?

I came up with something pretty close to that club statement.

The issue currently is less whether Venky's wish to continue pumping in 20 m each year than whether the Indian Courts will allow them to.

If the Court allows Venky's to support Rovers financially to then we are back in a Catch 22. FFP and especially the new club revenue formula determining the cap on ownership injections will permanently cripple Rovers without crowds recovering to 20k+.

The ill feeling caused by Venky's tolerating Anderson, Kean and other utter cretins wrecking the club mean there is not a cat in hell's chance of those crowds returning under Venky's ownership. 

And there is the wild card that for the next season or two, we will have promotion places from the Championship blocked by clubs relegated not because they were rubbish but because of points deductions (Everton and Forest?) or punitive relegation (City and Chelsea?)

 

Edited January 28 by philipl

[glen9mullan]

20 hours ago, J*B said:

Unfortunately as things stand, following this football club provides me with no happiness or excitement. These owners and their board have taken all the joy out of what used to be my favourite thing to do. 

Nowadays, for me personally, following Blackburn Rovers means trying to make sense of Indian court documents, arguing with fellow fans on Twitter who support this nonsense and trying to piece together all of the clues to work out what happens next. 

Some of the comments from our fanbase make me want to scream in frustration. But the more I think about it, maybe I’m in the wrong. There’s a majority of fans that it feels like are either too naive to read into it any further than surface level, or not intelligent enough to see this for what it is. Perhaps they deserve this and the misery that comes with it? But again… maybe there is no misery if your head is in the sand.

Frankly, at this point, I’m extremely close to giving it all up and trying to find some solace in just going to down to Ewood occasionally and only thinking about Rovers for those couple of hours.

Four times I planned to renew my season ticket this season.and four times chose not to due to the tones coming out the board room.

I didn't think the day would come where I never renewed my season ticket or chose not to go to a single game.

My mind is firmly made up, I won't be renewing next season either , in fact I probably won't buy one again, not whilst we are under this ownership and board.

My brother with his son renewed and has attended just one game, he has zero interest in attending,  whilst my mate also didn't bother.

I've lost complete interest, and would have to Google our next league game to see who we are playing.

Everything this club does from one day to the next,  has driven me further away, and they ain't getting a single dime off me for the foreseeable. 

I'm totally disconnected, and feel that they take our support for granted.

Well not any more, they can plough on , in their merry way with the flat earthers who defend their every move because they've lived rent free in my brain long enough 

 

 

 

[jim mk2]

4 minutes ago, glen9mullan said:

Four times I planned to renew my season ticket this season.and four times chose not to due to the tones coming out the board room.

I didn't think the day would come where I never renewed my season ticket or chose not to go to a single game.

My mind is firmly made up, I won't be renewing next season either , in fact I probably won't buy one again, not whilst we are under this ownership and board.

My brother with his son renewed and has attended just one game, he has zero interest in attending,  whilst my mate also didn't bother.

I've lost complete interest, and would have to Google our next league game to see who we are playing.

Everything this club does from one day to the next,  has driven me further away, and they ain't getting a single dime off me for the foreseeable. 

I'm totally disconnected, and feel that they take our support for granted.

Well not any more, they can plough on , in their merry way with the flat earthers who defend their every move because they've lived rent free in my brain long enough 

 

Many fans feel the same way - a feeling of anger and disillusion about events over the past decade or so and no one would blame them for staying away - but it is possible to keep supporting the team in blue and white and still have disdain for the owners and the way the club is managed.

My red line would be if the players showed a lack of pride and effort in wearing the Rovers shirt - which happened a few times under Kean. The league cup match away to Cardiff was a breaking point for me when I spent £200 on the trip and Kean admitted he's thrown the game.

Apart from times like that, football is still like a drug that I can't kick because of the love of the game and supporting the Rovers team

 

 

[tomphil]

1 hour ago, Gav said:

I don’t believe they had any interest in making huge profits from the sale of the club, they did that around the same time selling stakes in FlyBe. 

But you’re right of course, it could have sold for much more had they held on and as I sit here right now I wish they had, not sold and still owned us now.

They cashed in their inherited chips so that some of them could move to Monaco.

The other sued the Trust for miss appropriation of funds.

Sound familiar ?

[nbdrovers]

1 hour ago, glen9mullan said:

i've lost complete interest, and would have to Google our next league game to see who we are playing.

a couple of years back my work situation changed, so i was absolutely thrilled to finally be able to get back to ewood with a season ticket again after however many years. it's safe to say that hasn't lasted. season ticket never renewed. zero plan to. i don't think i've been to a game since and i don't think i've once particularly regretted that either.

the bit in bold hits the nail right on the head with the level of apathy towards rovers atm. it's just so utterly sad what these pricks have done to us all, our love for this club, and the club itself.