The Brereton deal was certainly an out of the blue one but the fact he saw out his contract and left for nothing wouldn't have gone down well with whoever might have stumped up that money. I'd have expected high profile sackings for that one unless it's the stuff of persil non bio. Rhodes i know it was touted big Barry stumped up but they paid for him 2 mill a year so that leads me to think it was parachute money. Gallagher i reckon was Mowbray's present for promotion but we'll never know as they were providing bigger budgets overall back then. Pre pandemic though their core business was flying so i assume profit/tax write off money in India was flowing more freely than it does now. That's obviously before any investigations took root.

Sure its just a coincidence that they are suddenly getting prompt hearings after 2 years in which the Wharton/Raya/Kaminksi/Szmodic cash kept us going but has now run out....

Surprise surprise, phase 1 season tickets end and they start to piss the fan base off again.

Went to that one, can't remember what stand. I thought there was such a gap in class then I could never imagine us coming back there 20 years later and winning! We did think we'd scored first but it was rightly disallowed for a push as I recall.

My 1st Visit to Goodison was in the balcony stand January 1974 , FA cup 3rd round . Think it was the season we played Willington and Altrincham in the earlier rounds.

Agreed, although I do believe that the cash for Rhodes, Brereton and Gallagher was possibly one of the Indians' personal cash that they agreed to stump up front hence the sudden and strange nature of those deals that stand out like a sore thumb. I think one of them agreed to cough up the necessary extra cash for those on the basis they expected to recover it again from later sales.

IDEA 💡 - and maybe something @glen9mullan and the coalition can look into further in dialogue with the club? Can we crowd fund our own “Tifo” or Flag as they’re otherwise known. What is a Tifo? The idea being to show & display that the fans remaining are the heart of the club and we aren’t going anywhere. Protests in the ground are absolute futile, so let’s spread love not hate for the white & blue 💙

A fairly rapid return hearing date there.

I'm convinced of it, I'm sure the only reason the Indians agreed to employ him was on the basis he would ultimately pay for himself with savings made.

Project downsize continues unabated. This is to be our future or whatever will remain of it.

To be fair we might still be on target for that - Batth, Weimann signed up for cheap, Hedges contract extension activated. New contracts to Academy players like Powell and Batty. Duru promoted to the first team. Job's a good'un get on with it Val.

a fair guess it was 24th June last season https://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/sport/24403125.john-eustaces-blackburn-rovers-in-tray-pre-season-begins/

I imagine it's around w/c 23rd June.

This is all that I have seen announced so far https://www.rovers.co.uk/news/2025/may/05/dates-for-your-diary-ahead-of-2025-26/ https://www.rovers.co.uk/news/2025/april/23/pre-season-training-camp-confirmed/ Presumably they will have some in house training at least a week or 2 before the training camp

Does anyone know what date they are due back for pre season ?

I have for sale (proceeds to Macmillan Cancer Support) my retro genuine 1980s Rovers Training Jacket. In excellent condition except for a few small marks inside the collar (see pic). Labelled Large, imo it's more of a roomy Medium size Selling for £20, I will pay postage. Please reply below or pm. Thanks in advance.

Yes the way they set it up to be run with the 3rd party very much suggests it was always part of the business empire that would provide mass exposure but run and pay for itself. It was always going to be sunk somewhere into the corporation accounts and imo it was but the pay for itself bit then became a loss leader instead, where it sat ever since until now. So many times we've heard Madame wanted to cut the wage bill so soon after they bought it goes against all this 'we'll invest' talk from the time. Also 'we'll lease' players etc and in truth they've NEVER ever really invested in players aside from arguably Jordan Rhodes after Best was injured. The whole spend v return in their time for transfer fees probably balances out and the only time there is money for players is when some previous sale money appears in the overall budget set. All this points to the only way they run and fund the club being from head company turnover and incoming transfer money and they'll never stray off that. At any point any one or all of them could chuck in a few million personal money from the hundreds of millions they are no doubt worth but as far as we see they never have. Which says loud and clear the club is still just a business/accounting tool and that's why there is little interest to take it anywhere, it serves that purpose plodding along under Suhail and they themselves don't need any money from it so don't care.

When was the last time we enabled a gaffer to have a full pre season with 90% of his squad ? Probably the days when we didn't sign anybody.

Nah, Hedgy will have signed his one year extension by then. It'll be like a new signing, don't you know!

Clubs fucked,Burnley work colleagues offering words of Sympathy its that bad. Barely raise my Head these Days.

90% of business done by the time pre season training started was what he wanted. I did laugh a lot when I read that, not a chance. I don't think we'll even get one player through the door by then.

3:15 in this clip talk of him coming to Blackburn (this was prior to his movevto Lazio) imagine if we had Gazza 😍