The Writing on the (Guardian) Wall - Everyone Can See. Are You Listening Venkys?

[Old Codger]

Article this morning in the Guardian shows that there are eyes upon our predicament outside of Ewood Park, and that there is genuine concern in the game that something foul has been foisted upon our club in its 'celebratory' 150th year.

Read it and weep (Rovers fans)

Read it and gloat (Dingle scum)

Read it, reflect and feck off! (Pasha, Gestede, Rao family etc)

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2026/feb/01/blackburn-rovers-championship-valerien-ismael

Let's build from here...

[bobbybrfc]

"There is seemingly no end to the sense of chaos around Blackburn".

[DE.]

"After finishing seventh last season thanks to a late season surge under Ismaël"

With all due respect, get fucked with this narrative. Shows a total lack of understanding of basic recent history, so didn't read any further. 

[Leonard Venkhater]

2 hours ago, Old Codger said:

Article this morning in the Guardian shows that there are eyes upon our predicament outside of Ewood Park, and that there is genuine concern in the game that something foul has been foisted upon our club in its 'celebratory' 150th year.

Read it and weep (Rovers fans)

Read it and gloat (Dingle scum)

Read it, reflect and feck off! (Pasha, Gestede, Rao family etc)

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2026/feb/01/blackburn-rovers-championship-valerien-ismael

Let's build from here...

Good. I like to credit the boycott for the impetus

[Old Codger]

16 minutes ago, DE. said:

"After finishing seventh last season thanks to a late season surge under Ismaël"

With all due respect, get fucked with this narrative. Shows a total lack of understanding of basic recent history, so didn't read any further. 

Well, like it or not, the statement is one of fact, not speculation, which makes your petulance somewhat questionable. Methinks you might be deliberately seeking to undermine the point I was seeking to make, about wider awareness and scrutiny of the goings on at Ewood under the Venkashati yoke. Each to their own, I guess.

 

[DE.]

1 hour ago, Old Codger said:

Well, like it or not, the statement is one of fact, not speculation, which makes your petulance somewhat questionable. Methinks you might be deliberately seeking to undermine the point I was seeking to make, about wider awareness and scrutiny of the goings on at Ewood under the Venkashati yoke. Each to their own, I guess.

 

It completely ignores the wider context of Eustace getting us there in the first place and Ismael bombing us out of said playoff places. It would be like reporting on a stabbing where the attacker called an ambulance afterwards and only saying "a person was assaulted, but survived thanks to a bystander calling for help just in time". Factually correct but completely distorting reality. 

It wasn't a jab at you, I just have zero patience for write-ups which paint an incomplete picture from the beginning and give the wrong impression of something. I'm not saying it was deliberate on the writer's part, but looking through the article there's no real blame aimed at Ismael throughout the piece and no analysis of the catastrophic summer we had. I don't think Gestede or Suhail's names appear once. 

My concern is that it makes our situation look like a hard-luck story rather than a very deliberate dismantling of a team that finished 7th last year. Suggesting Eustace and JDT left because of a "disconnect" from Venky's is also an extreme simplification of the chaotic reality. 

Anyway, it's obviously a positive that our plight is highlighted in the media at all, and I'm glad the coalition gets some more publicity. I'm more exasperated by the shallow nature of reporting on our situation in general than being petulant. I appreciate the writer probably didn't have a significant amount of space to put everything that's gone on, but still, it would have been prudent at the very least to highlight Ismael's culpability in last season's collapse and Pasha/Gestede/Owen overseeing the club's downgrading this summer. 

 

Edited Sunday at 13:10 by DE.

[bluebruce]

3 hours ago, Old Codger said:

Well, like it or not, the statement is one of fact, not speculation, which makes your petulance somewhat questionable. Methinks you might be deliberately seeking to undermine the point I was seeking to make, about wider awareness and scrutiny of the goings on at Ewood under the Venkashati yoke. Each to their own, I guess.

 

He surged us to a lower position than where he found us. The statement was technically correct as we ended the season in very good form the last 5 games or whatever, but he'd already bombed us down to midtable after taking over whilst we were in the playoffs. So whilst technically correct it gives a veneer of achievement to Ismael that he didn't warrant.

But absolutely Venkys out. In fact it's another reason to think so, they alienated our capable manager and replaced him with a dimwit during a promotion challenge. Now he is about to relegate us.

[Old Codger]

3 hours ago, DE. said:

It completely ignores the wider context of Eustace getting us there in the first place and Ismael bombing us out of said playoff places. It would be like reporting on a stabbing where the attacker called an ambulance afterwards and only saying "a person was assaulted, but survived thanks to a bystander calling for help just in time". Factually correct but completely distorting reality. 

It wasn't a jab at you, I just have zero patience for write-ups which paint an incomplete picture from the beginning and give the wrong impression of something. I'm not saying it was deliberate on the writer's part, but looking through the article there's no real blame aimed at Ismael throughout the piece and no analysis of the catastrophic summer we had. I don't think Gestede or Suhail's names appear once. 

My concern is that it makes our situation look like a hard-luck story rather than a very deliberate dismantling of a team that finished 7th last year. Suggesting Eustace and JDT left because of a "disconnect" from Venky's is also an extreme simplification of the chaotic reality. 

Anyway, it's obviously a positive that our plight is highlighted in the media at all, and I'm glad the coalition gets some more publicity. I'm more exasperated by the shallow nature of reporting on our situation in general than being petulant. I appreciate the writer probably didn't have a significant amount of space to put everything that's gone on, but still, it would have been prudent at the very least to highlight Ismael's culpability in last season's collapse and Pasha/Gestede/Owen overseeing the club's downgrading this summer. 

 

Thank you for taking the time to write such a fulsome ans measured response. It is reading this kind of content that makes BRFCS a draw for me in the first place 😉 I am heartened to know that debate and open scrutiny of ideas is alive and kicking in this noisy and time-pressed world in which we live. Cheers DE!

[Ianrally]

7 hours ago, DE. said:

It completely ignores the wider context of Eustace getting us there in the first place and Ismael bombing us out of said playoff places. It would be like reporting on a stabbing where the attacker called an ambulance afterwards and only saying "a person was assaulted, but survived thanks to a bystander calling for help just in time". Factually correct but completely distorting reality. 

It wasn't a jab at you, I just have zero patience for write-ups which paint an incomplete picture from the beginning and give the wrong impression of something. I'm not saying it was deliberate on the writer's part, but looking through the article there's no real blame aimed at Ismael throughout the piece and no analysis of the catastrophic summer we had. I don't think Gestede or Suhail's names appear once. 

My concern is that it makes our situation look like a hard-luck story rather than a very deliberate dismantling of a team that finished 7th last year. Suggesting Eustace and JDT left because of a "disconnect" from Venky's is also an extreme simplification of the chaotic reality. 

Anyway, it's obviously a positive that our plight is highlighted in the media at all, and I'm glad the coalition gets some more publicity. I'm more exasperated by the shallow nature of reporting on our situation in general than being petulant. I appreciate the writer probably didn't have a significant amount of space to put everything that's gone on, but still, it would have been prudent at the very least to highlight Ismael's culpability in last season's collapse and Pasha/Gestede/Owen overseeing the club's downgrading this summer. 

 

Absolutely correct DE. 

[Bronzed A Donis]

Martin Samuel, missing the point in the Times. Hated us when we won the league, hated us when we were the Bully Boys, hated us when Kean Out..how hes paid to write I dont know, but its what we are up against. Jeerome must have had a word..

Edited Sunday at 20:50 by Bronzed A Donis
Fat fingers

[RevidgeBlue]

10 hours ago, bluebruce said:

He surged us to a lower position than where he found us. The statement was technically correct as we ended the season in very good form the last 5 games or whatever, but he'd already bombed us down to midtable after taking over whilst we were in the playoffs. So whilst technically correct it gives a veneer of achievement to Ismael that he didn't warrant.

But absolutely Venkys out. In fact it's another reason to think so, they alienated our capable manager and replaced him with a dimwit during a promotion challenge. Now he is about to relegate us.

💯

[RevidgeBlue]

4 hours ago, Bronzed A Donis said:

Martin Samuel, missing the point in the Times. Hated us when we won the league, hated us when we were the Bully Boys, hated us when Kean Out..how hes paid to write I dont know, but its what we are up against. Jeerome must have had a word..

I do quite like Martin Samuel on the whole but he isn't reading the underlying situation at all there.

Yes on the surface the dissent might look harsh but we only finished 7th last year thanks to an excellent Head Coach we alienated and drove out.

And it's happened twice since Mowbray left. And their eventual  replacement is taking us down.

Edited Monday at 01:48 by RevidgeBlue

[StHelensRover]

Martin Samuel's view is the view of the majority of the fans around the country. We're not a media darling or big city club and we've been out of the top flight a very long time. So no one knows anything about the club and no one really cares. When they briefly peer in, they think we're sulking because it's not Jack Walker and 1995. They think it's about entitlement. 

Because the Venkys haven't broken any laws or rules, we're never going to get any external sympathy. I've felt we're on our own for a very long time now, at least a decade. 

As others have pointed out, when you mention to people round the country that you support "Blackburn",  people have forgotten and can't quite believe that "you're still owned by those  chicken farmers from India? Why?"

Edited Monday at 11:48 by StHelensRover

[aletheia]

Not a fan of Martin Samuel. Thinks he is some kind of great literary sports writer.

Will never come close to Hugh McIlvanney,

 Frank Keating,

 CLR James

 or Neville Cardus.

[booth]

20 hours ago, Bronzed A Donis said:

Martin Samuel, missing the point in the Times. Hated us when we won the league, hated us when we were the Bully Boys, hated us when Kean Out..how hes paid to write I dont know, but its what we are up against. Jeerome must have had a word..

Martin Samuel. What a dinosaur.

Geoff Capes without the muscle or writing ability.