On 24/07/2021 at 14:08, rigger said:

Yet you are!

You keep safe my friend, you sound like a very responsible person.

1 hour ago, RevidgeBlue said:

For heavens sake, don't be so precious, it isn't generally serious even if anyone does have Covid. People go on like it's a death sentence or something.

Sorry pal won’t mention it again, just a bit personal this covid business, but you’re right usually not serious unless you’re unlucky.

Just think regardless of what we think of Mowbray or anybody else at the club we shouldn’t be making comments re Covid when we don’t know any facts.

13 minutes ago, OldEwoodBlue said:

Mowbray not at today's game...

How would we know the difference ?

Sleeping at home today instead of in the dugout.

https://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/sport/19466420.blackburn-rovers-boss-tony-mowbray-miss-bradford-city-friendly/

 

Inappropriate comment, let’s hope it’s just a precaution and none of his family are ill with coved.

That’s a very decent kit👍

9 hours ago, RevidgeBlue said:

I don't see it as abuse aimed at "the Club" at all but abuse aimed at those individuals running the Club into the ground who need removing for the good of the Club.

Just out of interest, were you as optimistic and convinced it would just all come good when the likes of Iley, Kean and Coyle were manager?

Throw Paul Ince in as well and they are probably four of our worst managers, knew within weeks they were useless, got rid of two pretty quick, other two outstayed their welcome, like I’ve said support I the club not the manager and was always hopeful of things turning round, always been a rollercoaster watching Rovers, just have to go with the good and the bad.

1 hour ago, Exiled_Rover said:

It's blind faith at this point though, right?

Haha it’s been blind faith many years with Rovers, but had some cracking years as well.

11 minutes ago, TimmyJimmy said:

If we make a list of what has gone wrong at the club it will be a very long list. We all know the list items, average players, too few players, no transfer policy, bad owners, bad management, useless execs etc., etc.. Ask anyone to disagree with that list and you won't find a single poster on here I wager.

So it's not about half full or half empty glasses or good fans, bad fans, super fans or any other muck we want to throw around at each other.  There comes a time though with constant complaining when we start to breathe our own fumes.

We are where we are, we have no levers to pull to effect any sort of change so it's pointless (IMO) to keep banging on about stuff on that list. Nobody likes it, we all understand it, nobody voted for it but now we have ask ourselves are we still supporters of the club or are we not.

If yes then I say do what we've always done, buy a season ticket and moan over a pint at the bar at half time and full time.

If we say 'sod that' and walk away then it's a numbers game. If enough say that then the cub will die.  Like it or not, through our actions we will have been the ones who pulled the trigger and pumped bullets into the semi conscious wounded old dog which was once a passion for our fathers, grand fathers and way back.

The club only survives one way, we all buy tickets. Without this your club is dead, it's inevitable.

We have to continue CPR no matter how useless it may seem until someone else calls it. That won't be me. As long as there's a Blackburn Rovers there'll be a me buying tickets.

We all want the same things but negativity and withdrawal of funds will not improve anything.

We're either fans or we're not. Buy a season ticket or soon there'll be nothing left to bitch and moan at.

Just saying.

Yep you’re right👍

Having a mooch outside  the shop at lunch time and a large delivery of boxes being delivered to the shop, not saying they are kits,could be anything but some biggish boxes.

31 minutes ago, roversfan99 said:

I was just saying that I don't see the need personally for the constant mentions of how you support the team. It is irrelevant, we all support the team.

For example, you mention the academy which is obviously a positive. I am not sure that anyone would say otherwise. Our first team already has a healthy number of academy graduates in it and obviously it is very much positive going back to before Venkys saddled our football club. Nyambe, Lenihan, Travis and Rankin Costello are all key members of our squad. For me, Buckley has yet to establish himself as a Championship calibre player or warrant an extended run, and the likes of Butterworth, Pike, McBride and Vale all seem very highly rated but have yet to start a game for us between them so I am wary of us becoming too reliant on them at this stage, and at least some if not all of them could benefit from loans elsewhere. Carter is an interesting one, looked nowhere near ready for our first team when he has played, but seemingly has done really well at League 1, but I personally think that with Wharton (a graduate who does now look ready off the back of loan deals) not set to make the start of the season and Ayala made of glass, I feel we need to make a senior signing to replace Harwood Bellis. We need some real experience to help our currently extremely young squad.

What makes you so confident that we will make some astute signings? Mowbray's record is at best, hit and miss. And would you not agree that in an ideal world, they would have been signed earlier to do pre-season with us and gain an understanding of their team mates, and that the owners negligence to meet the sustainability requirements through the accounts has hindered this?

Yep agree with pretty much you say, I think the squad will be smaller but with a few quality signings/ loans as against quantity, we’ve always had hit and miss signings but don’t think it’s been too bad, time will tell.

Dont mean to keep saying how I support the club just don’t like constant abuse at the club, but I can certainly disagree with a few policies, season ticket prices for one, but not everything is bad.As the City supporters used to say” look on the bright side” 😀⚽️

28 minutes ago, roversfan99 said:

Based on historical references you are clearly a fan who has been around for a lot longer but I have had a season ticket for 20 years consecutively and have renewed again this year, including under Kean, under Coyle and in League 1. So I have supported through thick and thin, as I would presume that you would agree.

The stuff about different types of supporters is obviously for another debate but briefly, it is the case at every club. I am like you someone who renews regardless, but I don't look down upon those who do not share that mentality. It may be financial restrictions, families and personal circumstances, or indeed a link to how well we are doing on the pitch, the thing that Waggott and co do not do is appreciate that people are different, embrace that and try and get as many in as possible from whatever category that may be, fair weather or hardcore. I certainly don't have the right to look down upon people who don't share my attitude towards my attendance not depending on what is happening on the field.

My point is that you aren't offering constructive reasons to be optimistic at this moment in time, you are just counteracting constructive points by saying how you support through thick and thin, which whilst noble is totally irrelevant. To bring it back to this thread, we have been under a totally unnecessary embargo, have no new signings, a very thin squad and our best player and many other key assets are going into their final years, these are all constructive, valid issues that people have flagged up. If you can't cope with such "depressing" posts then maybe a message board whereby people talk about what is happening is not the ideal place for you.

If it is shocking to complain about the repeated negligence regarding the running of our football club rather than staunchly defend such incompetence, then yes I am shocking.

To be fair, there is zero to talk about. Even rumour wise, the only thing of note is Nixon's weekly fabricated swap deal that exists only in his own head!

I’ve just as much right to be on this message board as others, including you,so sorry I might hang around a bit longer.

I don’t need to explain constructive points, because at the moment there is little action, apart from signing long term contracts for our young lads, very important in my view,but if no signings appear I will be very disappointed but continue to support the team, but I think there will be a few astute signings in the next few weeks.

Im one of those who think the academy is brilliant and to keep cat 1 especially when we went in div1 is a big positive.

So a few signings hopefully, more season tickets sold and a new kit to look forward to. Keep the faith⚽️

2 hours ago, gumboots said:

I wouldn't go to another league club, but we used to go to Clitheroe if Rovers weren't at home on the same day, so it's not a shift of allegiance. And I find it insulting to suggest, as unsall did, that it's the loss of premiership football that lost fans and they'd come back if we were in the Premier League. Many would be back, if not as season ticket holders as walk ons, if there was any ambition,  any competence, any sign that matters were on the up. Nobody expects miracles. Basic ability to run a Championship club would be a good start. 

No problem, wasn’t having a dig at you personally, just there are different levels of support, some go every week regardless of what drivel we are playing or who’s in charge others go and watch when all is going well and then fall by the wayside when it goes pear shaped, I’m just one of them who supports through thick and thin, anyway last post on this, need to concentrate on our new signings in this thread😜🤞⚽️

1 hour ago, Parsonblue said:

I watched that 64-65 team and yes it was a cracking side - one of the best I've seen at Ewood.  But Pickering wanted away due to the wage situation at Ewood.  Local businessmen who had limited finances were suddenly thrust into a situation were it was impossible to compete with the big city clubs in terms of wages. 

The likes of Bill Bancroft and Bill Fox did a great job - often under appreciated at the time I admit - to keep us competitive on little or no money.  John Williams and Tom Finn ran the club superbly on limited finances compared with other Premier League clubs.

The owners made mistakes when they first got involved with the club and whilst one could understand initial mistakes the fact that ten years later the club continues its downward spiral suggests that they still haven't a clue how to run a football club.  Throwing £20 million a year at it and not coming close to getting anywhere near the play-offs, let alone promotion, is not a sign of good ownership it's a sign of complete incompetence.  

After 60 years of supporting this club I feel totally despondent about the future of this club.  I've renewed my season ticket more out of habit than anything else.  For the first time in more years than I care to remember I will not spend money renewing my away travel season ticket - partly due to Covid and partly due to the mind-numbing football that we play.

Our squad this season is weaker than last and frankly if we finish fourth from bottom I will view that as an excellent outcome.

As many on here will tell you, I've been one that has been prepared to give the owners time to get it right but, sadly, I've come to the conclusion that they will never get it right because they just aren't interested in the club. 

Yep always noticed you were a glass half full, glad you’ve renewed your season ticket, and yes it is a roller coaster ride following Rovers, keep the faith and hope we can bring in a few decent signings.

4 minutes ago, JHRover said:

I think on balance the best assumption to make is that the Club has allowed his contract to run down. Just about every element of the Club is slow and late so to suddenly do the opposite on expensive player contracts is unlikely. 

But it actually doesn't matter. Because whatever the reason or cause of it the fact remains that Armstrong is a major asset that we are going to lose at an undervalue. Of course if the Club did make him a good offer in good time he should have been sold before now whilst we were in a position of some strength.

I dont recall ever saying Armstrong wasn't worth what we paid for him. My recollection is that I was happy and supportive of the deal to bring him in permanently. It seems you have a better memory of my posts going back 3 years than I do so I might be wrong on that. Not that it actually changes anything.

We keep hearing about these Bolton and Wigan comparisons. I'm starting to ask if we are really in that much better shape. OK we are currently a league higher but off the pitch and medium to long term prospects? 

Haha selective memory my friend, you did indeed say you was a little worried that we overpaid for him, but whatever.

If we had sold Armstrong halfway into his contract Rovers would have got slaughtered, why sell your top goal machine, that’s what we used to do back in the day, and then couldn’t replace him.

6 hours ago, roversfan99 said:

So basically you are coming onto a messageboard where people discuss different things, and your response to constructive criticisms eg an unavoidable transfer embargo, a paper thin squad, regression in the league table, an out of his depth manager etc is totally unconstructive, to merely "stop being depressing."

The superfan rhetoric is nonsensical, we all support the club hence why many are repulsed by having owners who dont give a shit, a CEO who hasnt got any grasp over the Rovers fanbase and an incompetent manager. 

Fair enough if you want to take the attitude of feeling that supporting the club removes any critical faculty. But I suspect that a messageboard whereby people talk about transfers, tactics, results, management, pricing, ownership etc, that discussion may go a bit beyond "support your club." We all do, we show it in different ways and you dont support the club or care about the club any more or any less than anyone else on here. Equally, if your standards are low enough to consider not being like Bolton to be a benchmark, fair play but appreciate that others may not share such low standards.

Whether it needs to put us in an embargo or not, they are the rules. Not only did we not submit them within 9 months, which a few other clubs also did and also seemingly went under embargo. But unlike them, even though we knew that we couldnt register players until the accounts were submitted, we still waited until the very last second! Missing out on targets in the process. And to rub salt into the wounds, they didnt even have the decency to explain and be transparent.

Your continued desire to defend actions that are to the detriment of our football club is crazy.

Don’t keep going on about superfan, I’m just a fan from a long time back who’s seen the good the bad and the ugly, I just support the TEAM regardless of who’s the owner/ manager, I know a lot of the points you and others are saying is right, but to constantly post every day, about the manager etc is pointless.

The difference with me and others It doesn’t influence me buying a season ticket if we haven’t bought x number of players or who the manager is.

Obviously we need 4/5 more players and I think we will get them in, we have some very talented young players, and hopefully John Park has some good contacts.

Its so easy for some fans on here to say they are fed up watching Rovers and are going to watch a local amateur team, what that really means is that Rovers are just a middle of the road championship side and I’ll be back when/if we get back to the premiership, nothing has changed, we are a small town with a hard core of 5000 fans and fans flock back when things are going well.

I respect yours and other’s opinions we are all different that’s what makes the world go round, but you have to understand others who are far less critical and are naturally half glass full, as against half empty, fingers crossed for some signings shortly..

41 minutes ago, JHRover said:

This is the first mistake. The assumption that it costs £20 million a year to exist as we are. 

It doesn't. We are a basket case financially.

Yes we will always lose millions a year at this level without player sales to plug the gap. But the losses are substantially higher than they need to be purely through mismanagement and neglect.

For mid-table Championship Preston, Millwall, Luton, Barnsley all manage it spending a fraction of what we do. Why can't we do that and save £10 million a year?

Bring that figure down to less than £10 million a year. Be more streetwise with recruitment and sales rather than allowing contracts to run down as with Armstrong. Get competent people running the club. 

Problem isn't solved but it is a hell of a lot better than it is now.

How do you know we’ve let Armstrong’s contract run down, non of us are privy to contracts, we don’t know when he was offered a new one, and that goes for others, remember you saying Armstrong wasn’t worth what we paid for, was it 1.75 mil, last few years only Raya sold and replaced with a very competent replacement for peanuts, same with Nyambe, wonder how much we’re offering him, could be a decent offer but he might be asking silly money, so what we supposed to do just pay him what he wants, listen I know Venkys are hard work, but still prefer it than going through a Bolton and Wigan, I saw that someone on here would rather we go out the league if it meant getting rid of Venkys, now that is silly.

Obviously another Jack Walker would be the best thing to happen, but afraid they aren’t out there…

1 hour ago, roversfan99 said:

Our embargo dragged on because we left it until the very last moment of that 3 month extension. Cardiff have done all of their business now, Luton have signed a number of players and Coventry have made signings too. Even when in the embargo, it seemingly didnt provoke any urgency.

You seem to be desperate (perhaps mischeviously) to make out that people are just moaning without reason simply because of where we are in the league system. You dont offer any reasons to be optimistic or take on the point that we are not being run anything like efficiently or effectively all stemming from negligence from our owners. 

Not desperate, just so depressing reading on here every day, don’t need to give any reasons on being optimistic it’s just how I support my club, that’s the CLUB, not the owners, manager or COE, we all support Rovers in different ways and I will stick to my way.

57 minutes ago, RevidgeBlue said:

Oh do give over, Jack aside, we've never had multi billionaire owners before willing to bail out incompetent employees by pumping in tens of millions of pounds per annum no matter how badly they perform. With a semblance of nous in the Boardroom and in the dug out we ought to be extremely competitive.

It's nothing like "the good old days" when we genuinely didn't have the proverbial pot to **** in.

We've never been in Div 2 either, let alone bottom of it!

No I know we’ve never been in div 2, but you and the rest keep going on as if we are in div 2, end of the day we are a mid table championship side, just give it a rest with continued moaning. 
We didn’t have money back in the day but neither did a lot of others, we just never pushed on, always the selling club, never moaned just kept supporting them, well I did many others were like you.

Think everyone knows Venkys have been disastrous especially the early days, better now than the Anderson/Shebby days but painful to communicate and get things done. But honestly you’d think we are bottom of the div2, people have short memories re owners, apart from Jack the owners/directors have never speculated to accumulate. 
The amount of times back in the 60s we have been hovering around the top of div 1 and then bang, sell, sell.

Top of the league in 64 in Feb sold Fred Pic,  then it was Mike England, Keith Newton and so on, so crap owners is nothing new, just that every supporter has their own views, I still get excited at the start of every season regardless of the kit late, signings late, but unfortunately most aren’t like me and a bit depressing on here with constant criticism, my motto support thick/ thin, good times and bad times. 
Mate heard Duncan Mckenzie talking recently said Rovers sold him for a few quid and then we missed out of promotion by 1 goal, it’s always gone on at good old Rovers, anyway always the optimist COYB😀

11 minutes ago, arbitro said:

That is what's happening now, it's just that many are in denial. In my view we are well past the point of no return. The golden goose of the Premier League will not happen under this lot and where will we be in one, two or five years more of these wretches? We owe them nigh on £200m which is increasing by £20m minimum each year.

We need new people owning and running the club. The biggest threat to the future of Blackburn Rovers are the current owners.

Not many around to chuck in 20 mil a season, even though some fans think  they would be queuing up. Took Walker Trust around 3 years to get rid when we had around 23 mil of debt.

1 minute ago, Sparks Rover said:

Season starts in 2 weeks.

Just over 3 weeks.

3 minutes ago, Sparks Rover said:

We don't.  Who is young and strong here? All this emphasis on the academy kids, most aren't ready or never will be.  If we dont buy 4 or 5 men we are going to be down the bottom

Didn’t say the academy kids, although there is some good talent there,I meant the ones already in the squad, they are young strong and very decent players, just need a few older wiser heads without going down the Murphy route.

8 hours ago, JHRover said:

We can go only off where we are now and our view of things at the present. Yes things might change with signings and luck, but those are only possibles. 

As it stands, for the reasons above, I think we will be in deep deep trouble.

Yes, but you know Rovers always do their transfer business very late, 4/5 decent experienced players in will make a big difference.

The Armstrong situation is crucial, lose him and don’t replace him with someone decent and we will certainly struggle to score, pace is what we need, and obviously a bit of skill, exactly like Armstrong, not easy to find, certainly not another Gallagher type.

7 hours ago, Sparks Rover said:

Never said that.  Its just the so called weaker teams are getting stronger or trying to, we are struggling for a team.

Not in as many words, but JHRover did except for 3/4 clubs to which you thought they would do ok, so it seemed to you every other club were stronger than Rovers.

You could both be right, but we do have a strong young squad, just obviously too small and a lack of experienced players, really hoping we add 4/5 decent players in the next 3 weeks..

14 minutes ago, Sparks Rover said:

I'm with you on this.  The ones you point out as being weak I'm not having.

Nobbers have made decent signings and are making more.  They'll do OK with a good start 

Hull have a decent manager and some money

Pool - as you say momentum and a coach with contacts and a plan

I'm worried, but chadddy thinks top 6 ....🤷‍♂️

 

So basically every club will finish above Rovers, think I’ll wait till window shuts and see where we are, just need a bit of experience to mix with the young ‘uns , and a bit of luck with injuries ….

17 minutes ago, rigger said:

I have always wondered how much faster the lighter boots actually make a player. When you consider the amount of injuries they seem to cause, is it worthwhile ?

Agree, not worth it, most injuries happen because of the light boots, I’m sure they could make them more protective without losing too much speed etc.