On 06/08/2021 at 10:04, J*B said:

This lot truly are stupid. If they wanted to come over the time to do that was the final game of the League 1 season. I actually think he would have been applauded by the Fans. If he comes over now he’s going to get a rude awakening. 

“Tony Mowbray’s blue and white army” was ringing loudly around Ewood today.

Waggott was being fawned over by some fans on a pre-game walkabout.

Most remaining Rovers fans are completely ignorant about the goings on (and don’t want to know) so if Venkys rocked up I’m sure they would be roundly applauded as they were when they first walked onto the pitch a decade ago.

Being a Rovers supporter in 2021 is rapidly becoming like taking the blue pill and remaining in the blissful ignorance of the Matrix.

17 minutes ago, Hasta said:

No he just anticipates it going into the corner and  steps to his left and the guy puts it straight down the mIddle.

Highlights - https://www.skysports.com/watch/video/sports/12375694/blackburn-2-1-swansea

The save not long after was a cracking save though.

Fair dos, very odd that.

17 minutes ago, Hasta said:

As much as I think he has been a great signing and was POTS last year, I don't know think you can give him 8 when the only reason it was nervy was cos he dropped a huge bollock for their goal.

Not seen the replay. It looked like it took a big deflection…?

11 hours ago, RevidgeBlue said:

Don't know if there'll be many in the Blackburn End Saturday but here's one for the "Blackburn End Choir"

Mowbray had a dream

With his housing team

He had no money so he asked the bank for a loan

With flats at the back

Few quid in the sack

It's Tony Mowbray - I wish he'd just jack/ he needs the tin tack

 

Underrated post 

3 minutes ago, Bigdoggsteel said:

We have good young players , the difference is they had Fergie 

Indeed, and I totally agree.

But even so, we don’t have ‘class of 92’ good young players.

Just seen some numpty post on the club Facebook post about this letter. Comparing us to United’s Class of 92.

I mean 😳

No seriously 😳

4 hours ago, rog of the rovers said:

Personal thoughts, maybe I'll put my tin hat on.

I think its a worthy effort at a reconnection.

Some fans will never want to see them walk through the door ever again, whilst some fans will want to see the owners back at matches, showing passion and engaging once more with Blackburn Rovers. 

If a letter like this offends or strikes a level of hatred/vitriol/anger then the club and thus the owners are probably beyond redemption for you, under any circumstances, and that is absolutely fine, everyone is entitled to their own opinion.

Personally I think it is another small step in the right direction. The Rao family at Ewood would be another and that at some point between 2011 and now I've made a conscious (or subconscious) decision that they are here to stay, we need their investment on a year by year basis and that maybe, just maybe, there is a happy ending to this story.

Of course I and us will never forget the circus around their early involvement in the club, the nefarious characters that were involved at all levels of the club, from the boardroom to the pitch.

But it is history, we can't change that, they can't change that. We can change what happens today and what happens tomorrow.

What they can do, is commit to the club financially, upkeep the academy and provide the best tools they can (FFP allowing) for the manager of that time to flourish. Which is what they seem to be doing.

Maybe I'm being naive, but I think the club can come back together, a period of healing needs to be done on all sides and bridges rebuilt (or at least attempts to rebuild) from the owners and the fans. I do think that then and only then, can the club look upwards and back towards the Premier League. We need the fans back in numbers, we need the owners engaged, we need that optimism and spirit back in the town, the community, the fanbase.

Its a long road back, but maybe their return could be the first step?

Good post.

For me, words mean nothing and actions mean everything.

Consistently throughout their tenure they, or one of their charges, have said one thing and done something even worse. Waggott is just about the worst so far.

What matters now isn’t a letter (whether or not he wrote it, he has put his name to it) it’s what happens to the club next.

They have not been decisive over the Summer, and will not sack Mowbray. Instead he has now been given the job of keeping this club in the division with a bunch of kids and our goal hope being a newly crowned half-Chilean (we absolutely need to get behind this lad this season by the way).

If we start badly then they MUST replace Mowbray and quickly. If they don’t then this letter counts for nothing and once more they prove they are full of shit.

As you say, a very small step in the right direction.

And as for that cost of arms… cluck me! 🐣

All this time to get their jabs and they get them four days before the opening game of the season. 🙄

Let’s hope none of them have any adverse reaction.

11 hours ago, tomphil said:

Evolution not revolution remember.

Now we've been through this before with this ownership so it's no surprise. Yet it all stems from backing the wrong horses again for what they allegedly wanted. A top 6 push with a mid budget but one better than a lot of similar teams in this division.

For a brief spell everyone sang from the same hymn sheet after relegation. Auditors gave a plan, manager was set a target then got the backing it required.  Job done, club on its uppers for first time in years and fans beginning to re-engage.  

A lesson there for all of how to run BRFC and what it's all about.

Was it learned ?   Was it #### it all began to slide again from then on because too much faith was thrust on those who'd achieved promotion. Owners wanted to invest and wanted the double bounce. Management etc wanted stability and to plod on moulding the club in their own image.

People start pulling in the wrong direction again, lack of real target or direction. No ruthlessness on the field or off it to drive it forwards.  Now here we are, seems we might finally get some ruthlessness.

As always though with this set up it's going to be in all the wrong areas again. The whole lot not to clear off if we are ever truly to start over.

They are great these ‘looking back’ posts.

Those pointing this out at the time we’re branded negative and moaners (still are by some of the most blinkered) yet here we are.

Your post is spot on. A manager rocked up thinking that his standards were higher than little old Blackburn when in reality they were much inferior. Loyalty ahead of ability. Theory over common sense. Heart over head (being kind).

And here we are.

Wonder when it will be 10 years since Kean’s final contract? Maybe that will be D-Day on the club’s financial future. Wouldn’t be at all surprised to see us have a season like Sheffield Wednesday did last season.

Hoping for a miracle.

But if Venkys have the money, and we’re even remotely interested, they would have got shut of the Coventry 3 a while ago.

If they don’t want to make tough decisions they need to start by replacing Waggott with someone who has the power to hold Mowbray to account.

2 minutes ago, tomphil said:

If it meant they could carry on with things the way they are, employ whoever they wanted without any fan interference they'd fund this club if there was nobody in the stands at all.  I'm utterly convinced of that, the fans to them just get in the way of their pals running the show.

We always end up back at the same question: what do they get from continuing to run the club?

Without getting into conspiracy theories you have to assume they just don’t care. Somebody puts a bank overdraft increase in front of them each year and they hold their nose and sign it.

I imagine they avoid the shame of what they’ve done by just not thinking about it. In the quiet moments where they feel any tiny twinge of guilt at the way they have insulted the memory of a proud Blackburn man (never mind the supporters) they will likely just blame Balaji and vow never to speak of the blue-and-white problem.

On 30/07/2021 at 17:58, SIMON GARNERS 194 said:

They have virtually undone all the hard work of the Walker era that was done to build the fanbase..we are looking at pre 1990 crowds.

The Venky two Hats have so much to answer for😠

Imagine billionaires throwing £200m at something and that was the result.

18 minutes ago, MCMC1875 said:

Harsh post at this time, remembering the work that's been done for nothing keeping this site going 

Harsh? What are you on about?

I was politely reminded if I don’t like the spam ad era I could piss off. I think my reply was quite light-hearted in response.

6 hours ago, J*B said:

I see £££ and if we had a decent CEO they would too. 

As will his agent.

4 hours ago, J*B said:

Ultimately, nobody has a gun to your head… if you don’t enjoy the site, or the experience, there’s other options out there. 

A point I’ve already made for you. But thanks for reinforcing “F.O.” as the alternative.

“If you don’t enjoy the experience, there’s other options out there”.

Sounds like you’ve been in Waggott’s company recently. I imagine he has that framed on the wall in his office.

3 hours ago, Glenn said:

I suspect it's much much more that the forum software has really nice ad-management functionality built in but it would need to be added to the "magazine" framework Roth had built.

Sometimes you simply have to get you "minimum viable product" out of the door really quickly, to show some value and then iterate over that work to improve it and add those missing features. 

BTW It's not the running costs that have gone up as much as the value of each impression (view of an ad) and click that's gone down, coupled with the social acceptance of ad-blockers (so those who don't block subsidise those who do). You'll notice over the years how mainstream news sites have gone no-ads -> a few ads -> a lot of ads -> really intrusive ads -> paywalls. It's a testament to Josh and co that they are aiming to keep it between the first two.

 

Hi Glenn, hope you are well.

Interesting points. However, I feel that we have reached the point where is is not between 1 and 2 but between 3.5 and 4.

Everyone’s perception will be different.

Interesting you mention paywalls though. It was deemed important not to enforce members only to avoid serial screenshotters from getting their kicks on Twitter but the response from the site owners/admin to ads is we could go to membership only (paid, of course). And somehow, paying to post (create content - which people currently do for free) is somehow comparable with a Netflix subscription! 

Anyway, it’s pretty academic as it’s their site to do as they wish. I just preferred how you and Ste ran it. Maybe it’s all wrapped up in a nostalgic want for simpler times when I used to enjoy being a Rovers fan rather that it being a duty, and now a form of psychological torture.

24 minutes ago, Gav said:

@Moderators

Can you please increase my subscription for £3 (less than the price of a pint) to £5 (Less than the price of a pint in many places) to not only cut out the ads, but also cut out posters who think running a website is free and accessing such a site is a god given right and I've not even mentioned the 15yrs of continued moaning......

Thanks

You just keep on reading what you want to read Gav, don’t worry about what others are actually saying. 🤔

Keeps things simple for yourself. 👍🏻

9 hours ago, StubbsUK said:

We didn’t switch the ads on, they’ve been on for years. I don’t know how long but certainly before I got involved (when the site was down and no one was around to fix it)

The ads are off, for now, on the articles because google wanted to place them right at the top above the header in a very large format so I removed them. As soon as they work ok on those pages they will be switched back on.

the ads are not based on the content, they are based on what google knows about your interests.

the downgrades happened for technical reasons as the various plug ins and extras people had written over the years became incompatible with the forum software, and not having anyone to fix them.

So you removed them, presumably, because you didn’t like the aesthetics and it spoiled the reader experience by harder to get to the content?

I completely agree with you and this is precisely the problem. Clearly the forums don’t matter as much as the articles though. Ambition to become a Blackburn WSC and relegate the forums to “readers comments” in amongst the advertising, maybe?

Ads are a necessary evil for the site (notably over the last three years mainly) but they really have now reached spam level. The type of which appear on click bait sites.

The Citizen newspaper went down this road and people ended up chucking it straight in the bin - outdoor toilets no longer being a thing.

8 hours ago, roversfan99 said:

I obviously didnt expect any vocal dissent but I was surprised to hear "Tony Mowbrays blue and white army" and even "Mowbrays got them playing the way that the Rovers should."

Well “he’s not Kean” so he gets a free pass.

These people would still be chanting “Owen Coyle’s blue and white army” because we simply don’t have any other songs to sing, such is the dearth of inspiration.

Our only fallback is the sweary “no nay never” that tends to come out as a late-game song to try to warm the cockles.

15 minutes ago, 1864roverite said:

Just fabulous to be back inside Ewood where we were treated to an excellent preseason game. Every player has a decent run out IMO and yes I still want Mowbray and waggot out of my club ! The fans need to rally around the club now together as one without the covtrio

Without the “covtrio” we probably would, at least in the short term.

Impossible to “rally around” without it being spun by them as endorsement.

Following Rovers has never been this painful.

12 hours ago, J*B said:

You would be open to paying for a small monthly fee for an ad-free version, then?

Sounds like something Boris would say! Take away what you had and then offer it back to you at a cost. 🤔

It won’t be a surprise when I say this but the ads were bad enough when you first switched them on, now they are so obtrusive it’s not funny. It’s a full page one at the top and about 2-3 at the bottom of every page, then about every fourth post, and also pop up every time you change thread. Impossible to ignore - and still nothing I would ever purchase. Is there no limit to how many? Will we have them after every post soon?

The fluff piece in the LT said the site is non-profit and the ads generate money to improve the site. Yet, at the same time they make the forum experience poorer. The functionality is worse than it has ever been over the last 12 years or so. Don’t ask me to list all the minor forum downgrades over recent years, there are a lot and they are little things but they all add up.

At least it mirrors the state of club though so that’s good.

What has changed since Ste and Glenn ran the site in terms of costs? Have server cost increased that much, relatively speaking?

Because, on the face of it, it seems that you are sacrificing the forums to fund the site becoming news-centric. There are zero ads on your home page or articles page - or even the articles - let alone the intrusive ones we have to leaf through.

So to turn your jibe to Rev on its head, are you going to start paying forum posters? After all they are content creators and wealth generators for the site (as the advertiser target audience that you have selected).

At the end of the day, it’s your site now and you can do whatever you like, and I can either put up with it or walk away. Very much like how Waggott has treated us all as fans: “Pay up or F off”

That aside, congratulations on becoming formal owners of the site.

Wouldn’t be at all surprised if Rothwell has asked to leave. Wasted under Mowbray.

Keep Rothwell, sell Armstrong and use the money to pay off the Mowbrosaur and invest in a new manager.

On 26/07/2021 at 12:43, Hannoverover said:

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2107717

 

Uk based study showing that even after 1 shot of either Oxford-AZ or BioNTech-Pfizer, transmission was reduced by 40-50%. It'll be even higher after the 2nd shot.

Interesting. Needs further research though.

However, what I did find interesting was this article. Just the opening paragraph of point 1 is sufficient.

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejm199711133372006

We are heading for a dark place. Threatening students not to be able to get an education if they don’t comply. If that isn’t duress or coercion, I’m not sure what is.

This is the largest medical research programme in history and people are not being allowed to opt out, lest they are punished.

.