Shooting star Yakubu scoops Blackburn Rovers award (From Lancashire Telegraph)

• "

  Jimmy Jambone wrote:
  

  Melanie :-) wrote:
  http://ewoodpark.jim
  
  
  do.com/
  
  For more info.
  
  -------------------
  
  Protests at Ewood Park
  
  This is a new page to the web site and like the rest of the web site, it is an ongoing project.
  
  I can be contacted through the contact page by people who wish to provide information about the Protest Movement/Ewood Spring.
  
  Why bother with this page? I have decided to construct this page as the protests at Ewood Park constitute an important part in the history of the stadium.
  
  Also, there has been too much disrespect shown, particularly in the corporate media towards the protestors and their aims and objectives. Therefore, it is left to alternative media sources such as this to provide some balance.
  
  However, in some cases I have relied upon corporate media sources for some information as there have been honourable individual exceptions - but that does not alter the fact that the corporate media have in most cases treated the protesters with disdain.
  
  Why did the protest movement begin?
  
  This is an important question, to understand the protest movement we must first understand the context within which it arose.
  
  Blackburn Rovers were once regarded as one of the most efficiently and well administered football clubs in English football. A model football club, a model to emulate and immitate - and many did try to "do a Blackburn" - but failed.
  
  Above all, Blackburn Rovers represented something of an anomaly, regarded as a huge football club - in a small town; perhaps the only football club in world football to be thought of as such - a beacon of hope to 'under dogs' everywhere, yet resented at the same time: A well respected club within the game but despised by neutral fans jelous of the clubs stature and historical significance and disliked in the corporate media based largely in London, resentful of a small northern town football club's plucky resilience.
  
  This is to be expected. England resents success. BRFC and it's supporters have long been despised for winning The Premier League in 1995.
  
  Four months before he died in 2001, Jack Walker gave a interview to reassure Blackburn Rovers supporters that he had made provision for the club. "A number of years ago I put in place a family trust structure to own my various business interests, including Blackburn Rovers," he explained. "This structure ensures continuity of management and provides the necessary financial support for all my businesses for the foreseeable future. I have made known my wishes to my colleagues, whom I am confident will carry forward the policies necessary to promote and enlarge all my business interests."
  
  The trust, which was registered in Jersey, was run by a board of trustees. They rarely spoke publicly, but when Jack Walker died the trust chairman, the Jersey solicitor Paul Egerton-Vernon, did make a statement: "The club is provided for for the foreseeable future."
  
  The terms of the instructions Jack Walker left the trustees were never disclosed, but Egerton-Vernon explained that Rovers would be subsidised by other assets in the Walker portfolio, which included property and the Jersey-based airline, Flybe. "There seems to be a misunderstanding that there is an ever-shrinking pot of money available," he said. "That is not the case. There are other businesses apart from the club which generate profits which are available."
  
  From 2002 the Walker Family Trust donated £3million a year to the club, helping to give tit a competetive edge over similar sized clubs.
  
  In 2005 £3m was loaned interest-free to the club taking the Walker investment in Blackburn Rovers to £97m.
  
  Then, finally, the trustees decided they had spent enough.
  
  Jack Walker had charged them with growing his businesses financially and, although they did not explain their decision, it is assumed they viewed the club as a drain. The family, although the beneficiaries of their father's estate, were not understood to have had any formal involvement in its administration.
  
  And so in the summer of 2005 the trustees of the Jack Walker Settlement decided to sell the club, and appointed the bank Rothschild, which previously handled the disasterous sale of Liverpool to Tom Hicks and George Gillett, to find the right buyer for Rovers. Chris Ronnie, the chief executive of retailer JJB Sports, had publicly declared his interest and was said by informed sources to be ahead of any other parties that were looking at the club.
  
  In 2006, Blackburn Rovers announced that Walker's trustees had converted £14m of loans into shares, then in January 2007 they converted a further £80m into shares.
  
  In 2007 the Walker Family Trust stop funding the club.
  
  It was a little-noticed paragraph in the club's accounts, published in January 2008, which announced that the trustees had stopped funding the club back in 2007.
  
  The news was phrased somewhat obliquely by John Williams, the chairman, generally admired as a shrewd guiding force. He insisted the decision was not irreversible. "Given the new TV deal, the trustees see no immediate requirement to invest further (having donated £3m a year since 2002)," he wrote. "In a climate of emerging markets overseas, buoyant domestic TV revenues and rarity value leading to capital growth, they are in no hurry to sell. Focus is on finding a suitable investor to take the club forward beyond the Jack Walker dynasty."
  
  John Williams hoped the search for a new owner would bring in a football enthusiast, prepared to take a bet on a club with potential, rather than a merchant bringing debt or eyeing a quick profit.
  
  Enter the Venky's, SEM, Kentaro, Jerome Anderson and Steve Kean.
  
  When the Venky's bought Blackburn Rovers in 2011, it was not a football club in free-fall, it was not a football club that was in decline; it was a progressive and steady football club skillfully guided by John Williams and his team.
  
  After the Venky's takeover:
  
  2010-2011 Season: Sam Allardyce sacked 13 Dec 2010
  
  2010-2011 Season: Steve Kean appointed manager till the end of the season 22 Dec 2010
  
  2010-2011 Season: Letter written by senior figures at Blackburn Rovers to the club’s co-owner expressing concerns at the way the club was being run. 4 Jan 2011
  
  2010-2011 Season: With poor results and the threat of relegation, Kean handed 3 year contract. 20 Jan 2011
  
  2010-2011 Season: Chairman John Williams resigns from Blackburn Rovers after 14 years. Feb 2011
  
  2010-2011 Season: Managing Director Tom Finn resigns from Blackburn Rovers after 15 years. May 2011
  
  2010-2011 Season: Blackburn Survive in the Premier League on the final day of the season. 22 May 2011
  
  During pre season: Manchester United confirmed that they had reached an agreement to sign promissing Rovers starlet Phil Jones on a five-year deal for an undisclosed transfer fee, which was believed to be at least £16.5m. This was a huge blow the the team and the fans; Phil Jones was a local Lancashire lad, Rovers fan and an integral part of the team and a product of Jack Walkers legacy - The Blackburn Rovers Youth Academy. 13 Jun 2011
  
  During pre season: Myles Anderson the son of Jerome Anderson, signes for Blackburn Rovers, no appearenced to date. Interestingly, Jake Kean, the son of Steve Kean, posesses the number 34 Goalkeeper jersey at Blackburn Rovers. 1 Jul 2011
  
  2011-2012 Season: Steve Kean banned for drink driving blaming Rovers fans for lacing his drink. 15 Aug 2011
  
  2011-2012 Season: Blackburn Rovers suffered their worst start to a league campaign in 60 years after 1-0 loss to Everton; Kean reveals in interview with the Lancashire Telegraph that he is untroubled by Blackburn Rovers' start to the season. 27 Aug 2011
  
  2011-2012 Season: Fans Stage first Protest. 17 Sep 2011
  
  All this in the context of what had hitherto been a well run football club with excellant lines of open communication with its fans and which was a symbol of pride to the community it represented. Something of an oddity in todays multiplatinum sophisticated world of corporate finance and obscene footballers wages and agent fees.
  
  Even at this stage, some Rovers fans felt that the Venky's clearly knew how to run a business and had passed the Premier League's due diligence test, it was felt that the Walkers Family Trust would have also administered their own due diligence on the Venky's too.
  
  It was felt by some that Phil Jones would have left no matter who was in charge and had at least moved to the biggest football club in the world. Others felt that Jones leaving was the true end of the Walker Era, it was the final poke in the eye to Jack Walkers legacy, the feeling being that Rovers should not be a finishing school for Manchester United. Meanwhile, the national media where completely ignorant of who Phil Jones actually was and what his symbolic and footballing importance to the club and its fans represented.
  
  It was becoming increasingly clear that the club were now entering a new era but at least Rovers were playing a better brand of football. The Venky's also kept season ticket prices down, renamed the famous Blackburn End in honour of a club legend - Ronnie Clayton - and donated the historic and famous Rovers shirt to a worthy charity - The Princes Trust.
  
  Even at this stage, some Rovers fans were prepared to give the Venky's a chance to prove themselves, feeling that if anything, the Venky's were mainly guilty of naivety: linking the club with footballing superstars was only going to result in mockery - that was not their fault - that is football snobbery and the culture of the English. The southern London media do not react when small mediocre southern clubs like Portsmouth and Fulham are linked with Maradonna but they do when Blackburn Rovers are, that is because to them Blackburn is a dirty northern slum town; cloth caps, whippets and cobbled streets.
  
  However, the Venky's needed to improve their PR by attended home games and speaking to the fans on BBC Radio Lancashire or through the Lancashire Telegraph about their vision for the club; even an open fans forum at Ewood Park was mooted - but despite repeated plea's from the fans to do so, they did not.
  
  The Venky's completely shunned the Rovers faithful, displaying that peculiarly Indian form of arrogance, hubris. They completely ignored the fans - whom they are there to serve.
  
  It is against this backdrop that the protest movement was born.
  
  For the majority of the fans the protests have become the norm at Ewood Park, as supporters of Blackburn Rovers have voiced their concerns over the direction of the football club that they have supported unconditionally throughout their lives.
  
  Throughout this time the club - now in new hands - have manipulated the media by strategically implementing a smear campaign against its own supporters by painting Steve Kean as the victim - with the help of a willing publishing and broadcasting media.
  
  THE MISINFORMATION, DISINFORMATION AND RIDDICULE SHOWN BY LARGE SECTIONS OF THE MEDIA TOWARDS THE FANS UPRISING AND THEIR HEROIC PROTESTS AT EWOOD PARK - MUCH OF WHICH WAS ACHIEVED IN THE TEETH OF POLICE BRUTALITY AND STEWARD THUGGERY AND SCAB BEHAVIOUR BY "HAPPY-CLAPPING" SYNTHETIC SUPPORTERS WHO SHOWED NOTHING BUT RISIBLE POLYESTER PASSION - HAVE BEEN THE HALLMARKS OF THIS SMEAR CAMPAIN.
  
  The dignified protestors have been smeared by the Venky's, Kean, the national media and fellow supporters opposed to the protests; such slanderous attacks have lacked integrity, dignity and honour.
  
  For their efforts, the Protestors have been blamed for the teams poor performaces and bad results and labelled "disgusting", a "mob", "the worst fans in the country", and as Kevin Gallacher to his eternal shame wrote in The Telegraph, "an embarrassment".
  
  There has been no shortage of pundits, journalists, footballers, football managers and football fans quing up to robustly defend Steve Kean and smeer the Blackburn Rovers supporters. One can to some extent understand the football fans, after all, they have been subject to intense media brainwashing as the corporate clique's and their cronies have banded togther against the protesting Rovers fans.
  
  These protesting fans represent the 'little man', working-class people desperatly trying to cling onto and protect the heritage of a footballing institution that was born in their town during footballs formative years.
  
  This is David and Goliath stuff; the mega money men of SEM; Kentao; The Venky's; SKY SPORTS; mediocre multi millionair footballers; parasitic pundits on triple figure salaries who do not pay to watch Premier League football; the most expensive football matches in world football and footballers who can earn more in one week than many do in 15 years and who can earn more in one month than many of the people do in a life time.
  
  It would appear that only fans of city slicker clubs like Manchester City, Manchester United, Newcastle United, Liverpool, Everton and Tottenham Hotspurs can protest without such abuse both from within and without.
  
  To blame the fans of Blackburn Rovers for the plight of the football club is despicable - yet that is what many have done.
  
  The protestors have had to endure much riddicule from their loyal opposites in the national media and from fans around the country - writing and phoning into national radio stations, quivering and palpitating with sanctimonious indignation, wagging their fingers, cluck-cluck clucking and tut-tuting at the "horrendous" behaviour of the Blackburn Rovers fans.
  
  But what about fellow Rovers ''fans''? Rovers protestors have been sneered at, scoffed at, mimmicked, mocked and treated with dismissive disdain not only from without - but from within - The Enemy Within - those Rovers ''fans'' that are still - to this today - perfectly happy with The Venky's, Kean, Jerome Anderson and their continued stewardship of the club.
  
  These Rovers ''fans'' post regularly on the Lancashire Telegraph message forums and other internet sites, spreading their gospel of hate.
  
  Over the past season they have physically assaulted protestors; threatened to report individuals to the police; attempted to have contributers to message forums banned; questioned the mental health of those that are opposed to the current Blackburn Rovers regime and engaged in slander - some even going as far as accusing protesters of racism against he is Scottish - it would seem that beneath each babbling sewer there lurked another and another - there seems no end to the abuse.
  
  These are genuinely NAZI tactics that Hitlers Brown Shirts would have been proud of.
  
  Is it little wonder that the Venky's engaged in fascistic behaviour when they banned banners criticizing them at Ewood Park?
  
  "The Enemy Within" - otherwise knows as - "The Flat-Earthers"; "The Zealots"; "The Thought Police"; "The Happy-Clappers"; "The Plastics"; "The Drones"; "The Kooks"; "The Cranks"; "The Topsy-Turvey's"; "The Haters"; "The one percenters"; "The Nay Sayers"; "Flakes"; "Colostomy Bags"; "Noisy Neighbours"; "Scabs" and "Kean's Cronies".
  
  This "civil war" amongst Rovers fans has been one of the most unpleasant aspects of the whole affair, sadly, the tactics employed by supporters of the new Ewood Park regime have often been the cause of such rancour.
  
  It is against this backdrop that the protest's continue.
  
  It is time to set the record straight.

  You are a rampant nonsense machine. You just generate turd.
  
  'They completely ignored the fans - whom they are there to serve'.
  
  Total fabrication. BRFC are a private company and it's Venky's to do with as they please. While a private company may often want to please it's customers, it is under no obligation to do so.
  
  Your posts are nothing but emotional, illogical turd.

  Selective quotes, foul abusive language and over emotional diatribe from jimmy jambutty.
  
  Jimmy Jambutty is living in Chocolate coloured lollypop lala land and is a deranged, Venky-Kean loving, sermon-spewing misanthropic moron as well.
  
  Just another one of the "hater's", a low blow; one of the suck ups, the brown noses, the glad hander’s, the overly ambitious and the insincere...anything to get to the top of the greasy pole, eh?
  
  You are a festering, oozing pathogenic ulcer, your type of cancerous ideology is what is ruining the game.
  
  The Venky's should be proud to be servants of Blackburn Rovers ."
• * Your name This field is mandatory
• * Your email This field is mandatory
• Reason

  Please note we will not accept reports with HTML tags or URLs in them.

• 
  Enter the above word in the box below
  
  

Please be fair, courteous and respectful to the views of others so we can build a vibrant community in a safe online environment. You are personal liable for your comments and action will be taken against anyone who offends, ridicules or posts malicious and damaging views. If you wish to complain, please contact us.