Jesus christ, Forshaw played in 16 games for us last season? No wonder we didn't get over the line.

As far as I’m aware the EFL can’t force anyone to sell a club (as you said earlier they’re privately owned businesses). What they can do is say if the club isn’t sold it will be expelled from the league. I appreciate this could be viewed as one and the same thing as the owner would usually sell to protect any remaining monetary value the club has. I say usually as I could see our muppet owners saying ‘fine, we’ll keep the club and go non-league then’. I forgot to add to my last post, I hope the lads you referred to (and their colleagues) get the money owed to them and find new club’s to fulfill their ambitions.

Sadly our ‘mobsters’ do not support Rovers - they support a close rival although I cannot and will not claim that is their reason for keeping away from Chorley and South Ribble both with villages on the BwD border.

I agree. I wouldn't rule out that they're waiting for the Baradji deal to be settled so they have an idea of what's left in the budget. If they can't get him at a price they're ok with they might end up going for a pricier or cheaper alternative. Probably the latter knowing this lot.

100 %. Especially the last bit.

Try asking what the ST marketing budget is…..they don’t have one!! Everything is based on the existing database (which had to be cleansed as it was not DP compliant). They will not do any printed material or leaflets due to the cost and the “green” agenda. We explained the massive new estates being built around Blackburn (Green Hill area and more) and the need to leaflet them; we even offered to help with the leafleting. I will let you guess at the response*. *It was SFA

Shows how absolutely clueless they are. I’ve pretty much always lived in BB postcodes, but none of those the ones I’ve lived in, are in BWD 😅.

They sound like rival mobsters trying to protect their own patch of turf. Not legitimate business people. You should be allowed to operate wherever you want and may the best man win. Im guessing these reciprocal arrangements don't apply to Liverpool/City/Man Ure/Everton etc?

So far it's a window of cheap, under delivering and zero ambition. They are working within a barely "Championship" budget and planting leaks to players we have no intention of spending the fee required. Venky's Out, Pasha Out! It won't change until they are gone.

I'd argue financial fair play rulings (which I don't agree with in their current form) are slightly different to a membership body stepping in and ordering someone to sell a club, sell it at a loss or who to sell it to.

A close relative of mine worked for the Community Trust several years ago and he was working to the same policy. I say several years ago we are probably talking 10+ years ago, which is a long time in football to totally neglect and ignore a huge swathe of your support base.

All correct but the club have invented a rule that tells them they cannot market Rovers in Hyndburn or South Ribble because those areas 'belong' to Accy Stanley and Preston, and we wouldn't want to go upsetting people would we? We won't even look for sponsors outside of BwD judging by Watson Ramsbottom and Totally Wicked. Totally small time, lazy, yet bizarrely the 'local' obsession is taken by some as a badge of honour or something to be proud of. A conscious decision to save themselves time and effort but ultimately spread across many years, combined with decline and demographic change in Blackburn, WILL be a hugely damaging, potentially fatal move for BRFC.

Great post. Its there in black and white. We have also heard Gestede and Ismael mention 6 or 7 signings prior to knowing that Weimann and Batth were to leave, seemingly before Dolan was even confirmed to leave. There have also been interviews mentioning an "exciting" summer, that it was going to be more of an overhaul than we anticipated and repeated mentions of wanting some new attacking players with pace and power. This is why I dont get why people are downplaying the amount of players that we need. If we dont end up with another forward, or we do only sign a couple more. Im not going to have that it was a conscious decision not dictated to by finances.

…..but true.

Exactly so.

Absolutely unbelievable.

I should have added that when we challenged the club on the postcodes of those with ST’s they came up with a high figure for BB postcodes and said they were from BwD until we explained many of those with BB postcodes lived outside of BwD. The corrected figures shared with us showed approximately 50% of ST holders were outside of BwD.

Surely there's a duty of care to the supporters? Surely there's an SLA on these things.

‘If you tell the truth you don’t have to remember anything’ Mark Twain

I thought it was common knowledge. I am sure Duncan will confirm my statement above. This has been the case for years, we have been told the likes of “there is so much infill in the BwD area that this is our focus before we look elsewhere”. The Community Trust have arrangements with other community trusts in Lancashire not to tread on each others toes - perhaps this will also explain the lack of activity in Rishton, Ossy and Accy alongside that for Chorley, Leyland and local villages such as Samlesbury, Hoghton, Withnell, Wheelton, Abbey Village, Brindle and Brinscall - all these villages have local schools with footie mad kids. WATR offered to sponsor an Ewood Express built only on the basis it was from outside of BwD, we were never taken up on the proposal nor asked for payment. I do believe an Ewood Express has subsequently been run a couple of times from Hyndburn but this was due to friendships between the different parties involved.

Indeed. We used to think Vince O'Keefe was a bit of a liability but he's a better keeper than those four put together. As evidenced at Wembley in 1987.

Surely this already happens? A few examples: These businesses are told when they can and cannot sign players (transfer windows). They’re told how many players they can register for the league (squad lists). They’re told what financial restraints they must operate within (FFP).

My local club. A real shame. Was once a family club that overachieved and competed well in League 1. Taken over by a dodgy bloke with a history of running businesses into the ground and even liquidating other sports clubs. Absolutely terrible the amount of dodgy owners with alternative motives in the English leagues. Its not just Rovers that suffer with this.

In some ways you could just pick the whole 1980 back line as one - Arnold, Branagan, Faz, Keeley, Rathbone. Once they'd fully gelled under Kendal they were the football equivalent of a castle!

He was hardly injured last season and was in the team or on the bench for Plymouth most of the time so no reason why he wouldn't be fit. The run up to him signing for Rovers is listed below. The longest spell he had last season without making any first team appearances was the 4 game run in March / April whilst he was at Ewood. He was hardly like Dennis who hadn't kicked a ball in a first team for almost a year. Nor had he missed loads of training through injury last season. Therefore I'm not sure how you can say he wasn't fit. He appeared better as the season went on because he wasn't starting. He was generally coming on when we were shutting up shop and had less ground to cover.