Blackburn Rovers fans' website join forces and fear 'oblivion' (From Lancashire Telegraph)

Blackburn Rovers fans' website join forces and fear 'oblivion'

10:30pm Thursday 5th January 2012 in Sport By Andy Cryer , Blackburn Rovers reporter

A GROUP of Blackburn Rovers fans have joined forces to voice their concerns that the club are being run into “oblivion”.

The editors of nine of Rovers’ main supporters websites, which have more than 12,000 registered members in total, have come together to release a statement expressing their disgust at the last 12 months under owners Venky’s.

Rover supporters have been the subject of mass ridicule by some sections of the national media and by the footballing world for their ongoing protests against the current regime.

Now, in a joint statement, supporters have attempted to clarify what they see as the need for dramatic change for the football club to have any chance of succeeding.

In the statement they have:

• Called for Venky’s to “start running the football club in a manner that befits the club’s proud 136 years of history”.
• Called for the appointment of an “experienced and respected manager” to replace Steve Kean.
• Criticised the communication and public relations from the club and Venky’s attempts to run Rovers from India with Kean as their “mouth piece”.
• Called for “the establishment of an administrative structure that is becoming of a modern institution such as a Premier League football club”.

The statement read: “Bigger clubs than ours have been relegated from the Premier League before and indeed we have suffered that particular fate before.

“But that is not our issue here. Our club is not only in jeopardy of losing its Premier League status, it is in danger of disappearing into oblivion under the stewardship of an absent and reckless owner whose public front is a manager who shows little sign of possessing the acumen to manage a team at the highest level.

“And who has single handedly managed to drive a wedge between club and fans that has never before been witnessed at our football club, where a perfectly well-functioning community is being systematically dismantled before our very eyes.”

For the full statement from the fans' websites, see tomorrow's Lancashire Telegraph.