Two and a half years ago Blackburn Rovers (the football club I've supported since childhood when the S.A.S was at its most lethal and David Batty briefly anchored our midfield) was bought by a family of Indian poultry farmers.
Before the sale of Blackburn Rovers in 2010, they had been a solid and successful mid-table Premiership team for the previous decade, ever since their return from Division One in 2000. The team had been run shrewdly by Chairman John Williams since 1998, who in that time had witnessed the successful tenures of Graeme Souness, Mark Hughes and occupying the managerial seat at the time Sam Allardyce.
Allardyce has a brand of football that is easily recognisable, although not without its critics. It is efficient, organised and contains occasional flourishes of exciting and entertaining football (anyone who can get a decent performance from El-Hadj Diouf deserves some credit). Williams appointed Paul Ince as manager, after Mark Hughes had been enticed to Manchester City, but was removed soon after with Williams reconciling his mistake with the hiring of Allardyce. Given that we were the smallest club in the league (in relation to the size of the town), many agreed that we were one of the most impressively and efficiently run.
When the club was purchased, Rovers fans had no idea what lay in store for them, but with the successful buyouts of clubs such as Manchester City, Chelsea, Aston Villa, Manchester United and Liverpool there was a certain amount of excitement at the possibility that with the influx of a significant amount of money Blackburn would once again have a chance to challenge for domestic trophies and compete for European places. Ronaldinho was promised after all!
Little did the fans know of the fiasco that was about to unfold.
It started less than a month after the takeover, Allardyce who was promised at least the rest of the season to impress was removed from the helm. Considering the teams recent performances you would have certainly asked for an improvement, but there was still little justification in firing the man who had kept Blackburn both stable on and off the field.
So, rumours flew around of Maradonna, O'Neil, Klinsmann and Van Basten. All names you would associate with an owner who wanted to make a statement.
Alas, Steve Kean took over team affairs for what was comfortably the most miserable and stagnent managerial reign in living memory. An early victory at home to Liverpool in late December 2010 set in motion the appointment of Kean for the rest of the season, and then swiftly after that a four year contract. No sign of a marquee manager, just a back stabbing first team coach who had a manipulative and greedy agent.
By the end of the season Rovers were looking desperate but through an incredible set of circumstances survived relegation on the last day of the season defeating Wolverhampton 3-2 allowing both teams to stay up, (Wolves on goals scored!) cue mass celebration at Molineax.
It was though more a sigh of relief than celebration from the Blackburn faithful. There was the feeling that Kean had been given enough time to try and manage the team, without any real success since January surely the new wealthy Indian owners would now sensibly appoint a manger who could handle the summer transfer market and ensure that we weren't dragged into another relegation battle??..
Kean was to stay. For the entirety of the next season.
Blackburn were relegated before the final day of the dismal and depressing 2011/12 season. Crucial games against Tottenham and Wigan yielded but one single effort at goal. Given both of these games were 'must win' events the lack of fitness, motivation and a season long lack of inspiration (the exception been a couple of stunning long range goals from Junior Hoilett) contributed to two particularly embarrassing performances. There were plenty more throughout the season, but it was visually plain from these particular games that the team was been managed by a clueless and infuriatingly blind man who's assessments of each performance seemed to suggest he was satisfied. Throughout the entire season there were constant calls for the removal of Kean, totally ignored by the Venky's, who were constantly seeking solitude feeding their chickens in India where they could forget about the whole debacle.
Again Rovers fans believed this would be the moment that someone somewhere inside this great club, one of the founding football league members, would decide that Mr Potatoe Head's time was up.
But he remained.
Rovers started life in the lower leagues with a flourish. Well it's clutching at straws, but scraping 1-0 wins in a lower division was at least a miniscule positive.
Throughout the opening 6 games Kean was 'politely' asked to leave by the Rovers faithful.
And finally on September 28th 2012 parties broke out of the streets surrounding Ewood park as Kean resigned. Vitriolic Rovers fans celebrated the demise of a man who had been eroding the club for twenty months with colourful celebrations Bollywood would have been proud of. Finally Rovers could start to move in the right direction, any experienced manager would do.
Names were thrown around by the new Global Advisor (What the hell is a Global Advisor!) Shebby Singh. Yet another ridiculous appointment. Known mostly for been the laughing-stock pundit on the panel of a cable tv sports channel. For reasons unbeknown to everyone but the non-plussed owners, Singh was seen as the man to guide Blackburn through this self inflicted time of turbulence and get us promoted back to the promised land of the Premiership.
There is only one problem. Singh has all the professionalism, tactical nous and football knowledge of Baldrick in mid pitch of a cunning plan.
Whilst fans waited a month for Singh to appoint a manager, terrifying rumours circulated that the Venkys wanted a Bollywood star to take over the reigns. It seemed Singh's manifesto was to install a club 'legend', a man the fans would accept simply because of service rendered in the past. Henning Berg was his man who apart from two unconvincing spells in Norway with Lyn and Lillestrom had little to no credentials to manage a team looking to gain promotion. Ten games and one win followed, this time the Venkys pulled the trigger on Berg before he had time to even change the personal left behind by the 'Lying Scotsman'.
Singh was then pushed out of the picture to allow managing directors and fellow blundering buffoons Derek Shaw and Paul Agnew to have a stab at jeopardising Blackburn's stability in the Championship by employing yet another relatively inexperienced, low-achieving man who also bizarrely also had a bald head, the third incompetent manager in a row!
Michael Appleton lasted another 60 odd days before he too was fired unprofessionally. Being handed his P45 by the lady at the front desk demonstrated the lack of loyalty and unethical behaviour generally associated with the upper echelons of the Blackburn hierarchy. This was also comeuppance for Appleton, who was more than happy to jump from Blackpool to Blackburn despite only taking charge of the Tangerines six weeks earlier.
And so Blackburn have been left with pretty much the only man in the club left with any sort of dignity, class and hard-working attitude that is so lacking in this grand old club. Gary Bowyer rallied the egotistical, overpaid, absolutely-no-idea-how-to-string-two-passes-together contingent of remaining squad members (with only Jordan Rhodes been excused) and managed to stave off back to back relegations.
The entire situation at Blackburn Rovers is totally bizarre and surreal to most onlooking supporters. It's difficult to understand any of the decisions made by this group of wealthy Indian chicken farmers, and if it weren't for their single positive signing in Jordan Rhodes than the state of the club would likely be even more disastrous.
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