Without getting caught in a slanging match:

- Sullivan is publically quoted as saying Savage has mentioned that Rovers have offered him 12k/week more than his current contract. Could be an exaggeration, but that's the source of his annoyance

- My view (*and this is purely personal and cannot be substantiated with quotes before anyone asks ), based on every interview I have seen/heard with Savage in the last 3 years, is that he is one of the most avaricious people I have ever seen, even by football's standards. Money is practically an obsession with him, and while you can't fault him for taking what has been offered during his career, I am certain that he would not move if not being offered a pay rise. Working with Bowen and Hughes will be a collateral benefit, but no doubt money is at the core. As and when he signs for Blackburn, I'm sure you'll start to note this side of his character

good post.

we don't need him. let's move on.

I'm sure it takes me an hour and a half or so from up here, but obviously he'd be considering living somehwere an hour or so away from the training ground so won't have that time to spend anyway. regardless, driving up from brum in 1.5 hours has to be a rarity, if his old man decides to take a turn for the worse on a friday afternoon he's not going to be there quickly..

Savage's desire to be closer to Wrexham does appear fabricated, but on the other hand Brum should be offering to fly him via private jet to the nearest place possible and helicopter him on from there if need be,

as anyone who uses the M6 knows it's very rare that you can make that kind of trip at 70-80 miles an hour constant speed.

I doubt many of those wailing in the LET have been to Ewood in years. It's another over-reaction from a Blackburn public who do not want to support the club as they are happier moaning.

what an absolute crock

you fall back on some falsehood of a 'true' supporter - who blindly follows the actions/inactions of the management of the club without comment; to do otherwise would be tantamount to treason. how narrow minded of you.

ironic too that this nausea-inducing mantra is posted on a thread where the overwhelming number of posts support the notion that whoever saw fit to involve the media before TP himself acted incredibly poorly and tactlessly- someone who is invariably going to be a member of the senior management of the club / board. according to you though, they can do no wrong?

This was intended to be heavily laced with sarcasm and to point out how WELL our club is run. I get the feeling not everyone got my point.

a simple example of how sarcasm/ irony doesn't do well in the wash

it never ceases to amaze me how people ignore the mounting evidence of incompetence and then employ a "two wrongs make a right" argument by citing examples of failure elsewhere as testament.

in a general sense good managment does not merely keep a firm afloat but increases turnover, profitability and overall success. and yet for some reason, here, this ability to scrape by is lauded. buy you drinks at your regular meets do they? keep you sweet?

John Williams and the entire board should be sacked. They are clearly all bloody useless and have no idea whatsoever how to run a football club.

As you know I have some interesting stuff on how true this is. not to mention the trust fund.

It's a pity that your chief executive is not leaving with you. I note that he did not even have the decency to tell you of your dismissal before the story appeared in the papers.

here, here!

as i've mentioned before, the truth will out about our current administration!!

i think so-called 'decent' rovers fans should realise they are fighting a losing battle.

and this is all relative, my old man objects to going and has done for years because of the unecessary foul and abusive language of fans. but those who have remained have become desensitised to this and have come to accept this, and this pattern continues as the general standard of behaviour gradually declines, as older fans pass on and younger ones come through.

As has been said already Blackburn is, on the whole, a shithole, and the calibre of the individual you will have attending from Blackburn will reflect that.

the question remains to me Tris, what 'decent' fans are you responsible for bringing down to the Rovers games, and how are you making a positive and visible contribution to this problem?

I don't want to sound snobbish but Blackburn is a sh1t hole

not all of blackburn is a shithole, but you have a point here, Tris, if intelligent well-healed supporters are your bag, why not go and support Chelsea?

we go? Do we perceive that it's a domino effect? Should we blame Kidd, Hodgson, Iley, Bob Saxton, Jack Marshall and a few others?

bob on.

though the most mis-guided decision was letting Harford (RIP) take the management over, but that's been well-debated.

time to move one?

i thought we could have come out of the affair a lot worse, if he'd have been here now we'd have had to sack him and pay off his contract, instead they paid us, laughing!

as much as i love super atko i can't make sense of his cult status putting him ahead of Cowans for example- he was a breath of fresh air at ewood - it had been a long long time that we had seen anyone with that range of passing in midfield for us.

Clayton by a country mile for first pick, many from that generation would probably wince at the exclusion for consideration of Vernon

As for Sherwood, i once had the displeasure of dining at the same restaurant as him and his family once and yes he seemed extremely arrogant as his children ran amok in the restaurant. On the pitch however I think he was excellent until Roy 1 took over. It'd be interesting if anyone could find some of Shearers comments and thoughts about him, i'm sure he holds him in very high regard. Although he left in somewhat unforutnate circumstances I can't complain about him going to the press about Hodgson - who as a complete nincompoop needed dumping.

Batty's first game agianst spurs- fantastic. in his post-match interview all he could say was that he wasn't fully fit and he'd get better- damn that was good to hear. I swear i rememeber so clever forward passes off him too- however the guy must've had saome form of hypnotherapy, if you put a goal in front of him and a shot was required he couldn't make the connection - how many of us winced when he walked up against Argentina in the World Cup shoot out??

Lee Richardson was never one of our greatest midfielders but he was a class act for us for a short time before promotion- hard tackling and stylish on the ball- but he didn't seem to be one of Kenny's chosen ones.

If Le Saux stick in the craw of some then I'd say the same about Berkovic- even when he was at the club I could never forgive him for feigning injury and havin kevin gallacher sent off at Upton Park

oh, and whoever was wondering about jimmy hill's hatred for rovers- remember he had recently taken up a position on the Charlton Atheltic Board (or similar) in 1987 when we beat them in the full members cup final, when 8k charlton fans and 27k+ rovers fans turned up

The best answer to all this, is simply to instruct the stewards in the home areas, to use as much common sense as possible.

woah there... surely you're asking a bit much there.

seriously though common sense and a little tact, diplomacy in the first instance would have prevented this from happening, though now, touching on kayos's point, has the horse already bolted from the stable?

either way the stewards could well have a difficult job to do against liverpool

LET

The Telegraph`s view.....

Would be interesting to hear what the supposed 'public order offences' where as from what I can see these where only brought on by the attitude of the stewards and the way they acted to people standing and not those having ago at the people in the boxes.

As a result the Police pobably had to make an arrests but the question has to be asked whether they where they due to the imcompetence of the Stewards being able to handle the situation?

you're bob on there kayos

LeChuck

I think ones forgot already, at least I don't remember much about him Richard Witschge.

he was a strange transfer, I saw him play for netherland schools at ewood years ago, and he ripped england schools apart that night. then he came and did precisely f*** all for us..

to be fair Ripley was bloody great, when he was fully fit, he was on fire before he pulled his hamstring playing for england..

my old man has one word to describe duggy.. "genius"

i suppose that's another reason they're so keen to make people sit down.. so they can't stage a sit-down protest.. (oxford utd wasn't it?)

you could invade the pitch (and get a criminal record)

or stop going..

..whoops.. looks like that protest is in full swing already..

"public order offences"

that means anything, and from this thread alone it seems that this is the tip of the iceberg

Anyway I've gone for Dougie. Thanks for the posts everyone but I voted purely thanks to my Dad. I've never seen him overawed or humbled by anyone or anything, until Dougie comes into the Butlers Arms in Pleasy for a pint of Black Cat.

ditto.

looking for an answer..

East lancs/Ribble Valley old f**ts who do nowt for our Club. 

in brief what I am saying is the Board stinks.

there it is..

im most amused that an alledged fact comes from an unsubstantiated suggestion that other ceo's think rovers are badly run!!!

haha, gotta love the mob mentality.

i don't think i was clear.. the fact is that there is this suggestion..

@Cheshire Blue. any subtantiation in your argument?

damn... can't see any... nope.. pure subjective nonsense

gold star for cheshire blue, you've done well

you just are an arsehole

I'll take that as a mark of respect, cheers

jsut don't shoot the messenger

I have the club's last set of audited accounts open in front of me.

mattyboy 6000, how can you get more factual than audited accounts?

In my opinion, Williams is of the very highest quality.

like this, perhaps?

Not that I particularly want to get involved in this little cat-fight but I was wondering MattyBoy if you could point out the facts in your original post (quoted above).  Because to me it seems that it's a mixture of conjecture and opinion.

I've done my best to break it down, like I said I've tried to base my observations on fact..

There are a few problems some new capital could address. As I see it-

A) The trust-

1) apparently the calibre of some of those running it is in question – a potential reason for the details of who these people are being kept quiet?

fact # 1 has been edited out by Paul as it is potentially libellous and as far as I am aware totally unsubstantiated Paul 20.31 05 10 04

2) they may be administering their role to the letter- but I don't feel they're doing it to the spirit of Jack's legacy. I still cannot stack up where the income from selling duff and dunn - estimated @ £24m – has been expended – has it entirely been reinvested in the club?

conjecture #1

Since the trust took over the financial side the amount of capital in the game in general has continued to increase at a dramatic level.

fact #2

and rovers need to invest wisely, but they need to do it over, say, a 5 year cycle, rather than balancing the books every year being the priority. As a medium term and uncertain investment Rovers are much less-attractive on paper compared to some of Jack's other interests – and therein lies the rub.

conjecture #2 (although sentence 2 is a common preception of football clubs as business ventures)

Rovers were never a way for Jack to make money, and yes we need to be self sufficient

Facts #3 & 4 are based from Jack's own observations and comment nad have been well-repeated over the years

but we are in dire need of capital

conjecture #3

and the Walker Trust can provide this without the club or the trust mortgaging their future akin to Leeds FC.

conjecture #4 (although as Philipl has pointed out, the money from the trust doesn't suffer from the marrow-sucking of venture capital)

The management of the club:

When John Williams effectively took over the day to day management of the club from Bob Coar I expected things to improve greatly

conjecture #5

no more statements in the press saying transfer rumours were “absolute crap” when they weren’t – (Batty, Shearer).

fact #5

However, I am yet to witness the shrewd commercial management I was expecting from Williams as one of Jacks chosen few.

conjecture # 6

There’s definitely a case for headhunting someone with some real balls to manage BRFC’s relationship with the trust to a more effective outcome,

conjecture #7

and in turn this would dispel the suggestions of a narrow and somewhat backward approach to managing the club restricting BRFC’s true potential.

fact #6 - (this 'suggestion' comes from a number of premiership clubs, that BRFC are not being run in a professional manner and suffer for it).

phillipl has been posting well informed comment on financial matters (Rovers, Leeds, football in general, commercial deals, etc) for several years

unlike you

like i said.. if people made observations based on fact rather than dogma wouldn't things be easier..

anyway

time will tell