Blackburn Rovers supporters feel utterly betrayed by their board, and who can blame them?
Blackburn Rovers are not a franchise. They are a living, breathing football club, supported by mostly locals who, since 2001, have enjoyed Premier League football. Now the club will be plying its trade in the Championship, thanks to the unfathomable incompetence of the Venky’s Group, which purchased Blackburn in 2010 and promised all the glory and riches under the sun. Making a mockery of the FA’s “fit and proper persons” test, Venky’s have been like a slow poison at Ewood Park, gradually withdrawing the dignity of this once proud club, which, however you judge their means in doing so, won the Premier League in 1995.
Like, obviously not lambs, but chickens to the slaughter (as per the Venky’s’ PR arrangements) Rovers have been terrible all season. Steve Kean was the most misguided of appointments, and may as well have been hired by a drunk in a pub, for all the credentials he possesses for the job in question. However, and this is a vital point, Kean did not hire himself. Nor can he inflict a “self-sacking” on the grounds of incompetence. Plenty of managers have been hired to positions they neither deserve nor merit, indeed one only has to look at England for many an example, but whatever Kean did in charge, he was never cut out for a top flight management job. And yesterday, this was made clear, if we all didn’t know it before.
