Mashed Potatoes

The trustees will have had to operate the trust in accordance with Walker's wishes as set out in the trust deed. As far as I know none of us have seen that but on the basis of what happened from 2001 onwards approx £3m a year came in to the club from other businesses in the trust - presumably that was in accordance with the terms of the trust but to put in cash there has to be available cash generated by those other businesses and with the credit crunch from 2007-8 I am not sure that the football club could really be considered as a priority - an airline for example could have required significant cash funding. I don't know how many people on this board own the book "The Club That Jack Built" by Charles Lambert published in 2001 but on page 230 there are the statements "A downturn in the trading climate of other Walker companies would have an adverse impact on the funding available for Rovers" and "Whether the trustees will be as indulgent if the club continues to trade at a loss is a question that only time will answer " - prophetic words in my view. Jack Walker was of course a brilliant businessman - but he wasn't infallible because none of us are. In the end he spent £100m on a football club which was in the second tier of English football when he bought it and was back there when he died.

Good to see that there is still a sense of humour at Ewood Park - whether this is serious or not

I was trying to avoid potentially libellous statements. I would agree with you that employing the agent you may or may not have in mind was a serious mistake but in relation to the judgement of the Walker Trust in selling the club to Venkys I am of the opinion that they could not have anticipated that Venkys would go down that route to the degree that they did when as most of us knew it was clearly not in Venkys own interests.

I remember Vinjay - inevitably - putting up the transcript of some case in Jersey about this but to be honest I am a bit hazy about the actual detail

Really

They had put in £3m a year. After the crash the point is that the demands from other businesses in the Walker "empire" meant that there was no realistic prospect of that resuming and they decided to sell - it took 18 months to 2 years to do so. As you probably know there was a court case in which the beneficiaries of the trust sued the trustees for putting too much money in to the club. The trustees had no choice but to bail out. I'm afraid Jack Walker messed up. He should have put the club in to a trust separate from the other family interests with £30m to £50m in cash to help it - the board should have been much the same but maybe with a couple of representatives from the supporters plus the journo from the LET to make sure that the club was run in the way he would have wanted.

No - is yours ?

What was the outcome of the case ? It doesn't look to reflect on Mrs Desai who I assume was there in a non Executive capacity

I was referring to criminal behaviour - as far as I know employing a twerp from Malaysian TV is not yet a crime

As they did not sell the club to Ali Syed I don't see your point Was it a knock down price ? What bigger offers were there ? I think you fail to understand that the financial crisis from 2008 onwards put a severe strain on businesses and continually underwriting a football club could no longer be justified when they had to look after business interests like an airline. I am afraid that really that was the fault of Jack Walker who in putting the club in the same stable as proper businesses forgot the old line "Never mix business with pleasure"

And what is that supposed to mean ?

Yes

I think that is unduly harsh on the Walker Trust. Venkys are genuinely wealthy people - hence their ability to absorb these losses - and are also honest with no suggestion of "dodgy" connections as there have been at some other clubs. The problem is that nobody could have anticipated that successful business people would have made such terrible mistakes.

Correct. Those numbers above show the negative cash flow in the club after taking in to account revenues, expenses and transfer dealings.2018-19 shows a negative cash flow of £17.6m which I would think is about £9m on transfers and the balance of £8.6m operating loss. For 2019-20 we currently have transfer expenditure of about £1.6m net so operating loss will be £8m budgeted ?

Raya got kicked in the head last season and did appear to lose some confidence as a result. Additionally weren't there rumours of a bust up between him and the management team as he didn't take kindly to criticism ?

Callum Wright was playing regularly for us - he moved to Leicester for the money

Correct - it has already got to a point where realistically it can never be repaid because it dwarfs both the club's assets and the revenue increase in the unlikely event of promotion to the Premier League

Except when he won the match at Hull by saving a penalty

Yes - they scored 3 goals

I think they won in spite of Raya not because of him

Yeah but at least you know Ed Sheeran will play the A Team

Aren't the "hardcore" season ticket holders ?

Wasn't it TM who employed Waggott ?

If you are not going to go by the official numbers then any discussion of attendances gets rather silly as people can just make up their own numbers !

Don't understand this. According to Wikipedia last 3 seasons attendances have been : 2016-17 12871 2017-18 12173 2018-19 14552