Old Codger

He could cross a ball, from what I remember, and had fairly tricky feet, but a bit of a sicknote. Trouble is though, aren't Rovers now known in the English game as being a club in some kind of crisis, low-balling wages and creating waves for anyone above the ridiculously low bar that has been set for paying new recruits. As a result, I'd be very surprised if a player would care to drop down from a newly promoted prem club, to a crisis club complete with toxic atmosphere, inept management and completely uninterested owners, where there is no evidence at all that things are going to change for the better in the short, medium or long term... I know, I make it sound sooooo attractive.. Now I see why recruitment has been from the ranks of obscure outfits on the periphery of Siberia - no-one there has heard of Blackburn Rovers, mighty conquerers of the Premier League, Football Association Founder members and the home of Jack Walker (oh, and all that other shit we have had to swallow and wallow in since the arrival of the gumptionless ones of Pune..). Y'know, for a second or two there I almost thought we might be looking at Prem cast offs, but then reality bit me in the ballards and I remembered that we ain't like that no more..

"Recruitment team!" Pah!

..or Blackburn, for that matter.

Too kind sir. I wear my heart on my sleeve - snotty and broken these days, from all the trauma at Ewood!

Thank you! Much appreciated! I'm sure it's not just me and my curmudgeonly self that feels this way about the way the club is run! All the best!

I have a sinking feeling that this is going to be a long season of us chanting regularly from the sidelines, "You don't know what you're doing..." and not, as is the tradition, directing the remark at the ref 😞 WTF happened to a 'normal' set up of a 'manager' setting the agenda for the players he needs in his side to play a style and system that is his brainchild and operating within the financial constraints specified by the Board? Seems to me that all the sophistry, subterfuge and slight of hand that comes with a set up where an inexperienced and unqualified patsy uses his naive and paper thin judgment to dance to the tune of a thick as pigshit no-mark (also, by the way, dancing to someone else's tune) hiding behind a poorly constructed and intentionally impenetrable barricade, leads us nowhere but to a dead end. Dead end. Dead, End. What. The. Actual. Fuck???? VENKYS OUT! UNQUALIFIED AND DELUDED TEA-BOY PATSIES OUT! HIDING BEHIND SHITE BARRICADES MORONIC GOBSHITES WITH NO FOOTBALLING CREDENTIALS OUT! GRR!

You can say practically anything on this message board, but it doesn't necessarily mean it is true 🙂 As with all other things 'factual' about Rovers, we will have to go on the announcements made by the club, rather than any speculative commentary (however well intentioned) from outside agents. However, if it is true, and Buckley gets to play in the coolest league in the world (based on sales of air conditioning units per capita), then good luck to him.

Fixed that for you. Matters not whether he leaves for money nor fair words. His leaving is a Travisty (pardon the pun).

It doesn't matter if they pay £50 million - it doesn't affect the money available for replacements.. VENKYS OUT!

Yes, that is a scandal and as much an indicator of the corruption and ineptitude now endemic at the club as any other symptom we have seen in recent times. Good luck to the lad - the irony is that he will probably go on to much bigger and better things away from the club, than if he'd stayed under its wing. VENKYS OUT! PASHA SHADOW SKANK OUT!

If I was a (relatively) well paid professional footballer and my employer was pissing around with my career like this, I would be instructing a well paid legal professional, a well paid PR person and speaking freely to anyone who would listen about the facts in the matter. End of. The club has already constructively dismissed Travis by stating publicly that he is available for the highest bidder. He has nothing to lose and a lot to gain by adopting an aggressive stance on this. Go Trav. Let's see some VENKY shifting shithousery please! VENKYS AND YOUR STOOGE PASHA & WORK EXPERIENCE GOBSHITE FECK OFF!

It is as clear a case of the Sunk Cost Fallacy as I've ever come across.. Dictionary Definitions from Oxford Languages · Learn more sunk-cost fallacy noun the phenomenon whereby a person is reluctant to abandon a strategy or course of action because they have invested heavily in it, even when it is clear that abandonment would be more beneficial.

Well said sir! The simple fact that this idea resurfaces every little while without any contradiction from the club speaks more volumes than the idea itself. Most people with even a modicum of wit and guile can see that there is a strange game at play, and that this has gone on practically since day one of the bewlidered buffoons' ownership. They appear to be desperate to avoid admitting they were sold a pup, and are going to extraordinary lengths to punish the fans for the mistake THEY made. Despicable, spoilt bratty buffoons, with not an ounce of decency or dignity about them. A blight on the club. VENKY BUFFOONS OUT! HENCHMEN, STOOGES & PATSIES OUT!

He knows where the onion bag is and has decent experience at this level. He is 32 mind, so it would only be a stocking filler, not the main present. But maybe he could coach some of our other 'strikers'..

Really? We have no points. We are easy to beat. We have lost the majority of our experienced players. We have no funds to replace them. That's the actual reality. Your interpretation of the facts as 'Looking like a... league finish in mid table' and 'if things click quickly' and 'a couple of quality (of) signings' ?? That, fella, is the epitome of 'rovers coloured spectacles' (pardon the pun). Somewhat over optimistic, if you ask me (which I know you aren't). I suppose you could argue that at least we are having our traditional poor run of results early this season, in August instead of December / January. No likey likey. VENKYS OUT!

Nope. The RAO family and their pernicious and calculated campaign to kill our club through systematic withdrawal of financial support are 100% to blame. Everything else is a side-show to make us think we still have a chance. We don't ! Not under this lot. VENKYS OUT!

I'm beginning to get it now. The Raos think that they can save face by running the club down to a point where from a business point of view they can say it is no longer a going concern. Therefore it can be shut down as such, without it troubling their tiny conscience. The alternative, to sell the club to someone interested in making it work, would involve too much scrutiny of the wrong-doing, the ineptitude, the facts and (crucially) the figures, potentially bringing issues to light in public that they would rather not be faced up with. So, what we are seeing is the further deliberate undermining of the football club, to salve the pathetic egos of people who long ago realised that they were in over their heads, had been duped and shown to be commercially incompetent, and who now (for a long time indeed) want nothing more than the embarrassment to go away. Fuck the consequences for the true 'owners' and 'stakeholders' of the club (i.e. US the supporters). Tell you what - the FA should introduce annual 'fit and proper' tests for owners, that actually require realistic and real benchmarks to be surpassed, and commitments to be made and honoured by those claiming to own the 'business assets'. Wankers. The lot of them. VENKYS OUT!

Now 11 minutes of stoppage time. Hmmm 😞

What a joke. Ref. Their player just threw himself to the floor.

30% possession so far this half. It IS being played at Ewood, isn't it? Riveting stuff.

Well, it's probably not for the excitement. He's alongside a Rovers stalwart and ex-Chairman of the PFA, Gordon Taylor. Neither of them look very interested. (or excited, for that matter)

..Or balls, or any actual influence, or anything other than a nominal role that involves doing what he is told in return for free hospitality at Rovers games (and what a fabulous incentive that must be these days). Let's face it. The bridge is deserted, and we are the Marie Celeste of the footballing world.

When you put it so succinctly like that, it is hard to see anything except an embarrassing and damaging reverse for Rovers here, simply because what you have identified is the heart (or is it the 'backbone'?) of a functioning and competitive side that has been wilfully ripped out. So far, the evidence appears to be that this has been replaced with nothing of any real substance. There will be match-day excitement indeed, although perhaps not the kind that we, as long suffering fans either wish for or deserve. VENKYS OUT!

We might as well plant hedges down the side of the pitch, as field this fella in his present low impact incarnation. Not sure why VI doesn't clock how ineffective and therefore damaging to our prospects it is to insist on playing individuals whose contribution is nothing other than to frustrate and undermine our attacking capability. If anyone was to be let go from the current squad, it should be the Welsh wunderboy, Hyam Wedges. Anyway, back to the game. Brum likely to be fired up in front of their maurauding hordes and benefitting from the momentum of a record-breaking promotion from the porridge for breakfast league. The nasal sound of 7.5K brummie drongoes shouting, "Coom on yow Blues' (how ironic at Ewood!) echoing deeply around the sparsely populated and relatively empty concourses on three of four sides of the ground... chastening stuff! Broomay Drongoes on fire - Rovers 0 Burmingerum 4 Rovers somehow stem the tide in a hapless borefest - Rovers 0 Drongoes 0 Well there's a surprise - Rovers 3 Nasal Twats sent packing 0 My money isn't on the need for tampons up the nose, by the way. However, COYB! VENKY MORONS SAY HELLO BUT WAVE GOODBYE! PASHA / RUDY / PRESS CONFERENCE SABOTAGING KNOBHEADS OUT!

The fuckwits don't have memories going back further than the last cheque they signed (or the first) and so hold a bastardised concept of what history means for Blackburn Rovers. Expect even more public humiliation and shame as they haplessly and shamelessly scrabble around for anything to deflect attention from their complete and utter disrespecting of our club and community. I challenge anyone to come up with a single example of anything that the Rao family have done that has brought anything of positive impact in the 5000 plus days they have held the keys to Ewood Park. They are the football equivalent of long Covid - unpleasant, unwanted, unseen (except for horrible symptoms) and difficult to dislodge. Time to go, Venkys. The experiment failed long ago, and your continued ownership is the biggest single threat to the future of Blackburn Rovers. VENKYS OUT! WORK EXPERIENCE MAGPIE MEGALOMANIACS OUT! HIDING IN THE SHADOWS INDIAN HENCHMEN OUT!