Unpopular chief executive leaves Blackburn Rovers

I went on BBC Lancashire to talk about Steve Waggott leaving his job as chief executive of Blackburn Rovers Football Club, and my story on TheBusinessDesk.com.

Me and Graham Liver both agreed that the two line statement felt harsh and I said it was "classless".

It simply said: “It has been agreed that Steve Waggott will be leaving Blackburn Rovers.

“We would like to thank Steve for his work over the past seven years and we wish him well for his future endeavours.”

Here is the rest of my story.

Fans groups are furious that the chief executive, although unpopular with them, appears to have been offered up as the fall guy for a series of catastrophic recent decisions, including the withdrawal of funding for the BRFC women’s team earlier this week, and the mid-season departure from the promotion chasing club of manager John Eustace for relegation-threatened Derby County.

The fans consensus is that Waggott is being made a scapegoat, and a statement from fan group,  the Supporters’ Coalition, highlights the owner’s representative Suhail Pasha, who is now also on the board, and who fans feel is not accountable for any of the recent mishaps.

In a statement they said: “It’s clear to the Coalition that Ewood Park is currently rudderless, with knee-jerk reactions, floundering responses and concerning concentration of power around one man – Suhail Pasha Sheikh.”

The statement went on to say that two short paragraphs to announce Waggott’s departure was “not sufficient for a football club facing as many challenges as Blackburn Rovers currently is.”

For his part Waggott may claim that he has been unfairly castigated in what is almost certainly his last big job in football, given he will be 71 in June.

In the latest report and accounts it was revealed that his pay package for the year soared to £592K, mostly bolstered by a rise to £433,028 for his basic salary from £308,888, and increased contributions to his pension of £159,002.

He will claim he has kept the owners sufficiently engaged to keep the lights on, and has played a part in maintaining a strong Championship side on a limited budget.

The former player’s agent, who also worked in leadership roles at Coventry City and Charlton Athletic, will also claim credit for recruiting high calibre managers including Tony Mowbray, who lifted the club out of League One, European Champions League winner Jon Dahl Tomasson, and John Eustace.

He may also argue that his hand hasn’t been helped by pressure on the owners in the Indian courts for their investment in overseas businesses. In early 2024 theBusinessDesk.com reported that the Lancashire club’s financial destiny hung in the balance as the owners had to apply to the High Court in the capital New Delhi for emergency permission to pay an outstanding tax bill. An earlier application to send £26m to Blackburn was turned down when the Indian government’s Economic Directorate refused to issue a ‘No Objection Certificate’ to payments to Rovers.

Venky’s achieved permission to settle the tax bill which they argued would have caused “a huge loss to the reputation.”

However, any assessment of Waggott’s performance will also have to take into account falling attendances, poor fan relations, and a failure to bring in commercial revenues to the club. At way less than 10,000, season ticket sales are almost half the level of neighbours Bolton Wanderers, in a division below. His biggest sponsorship deal was with a local vaping company, which abruptly walked away in the summer of 2024 after the new Labour government committed to outlaw the marketing of vapes.

The annual report pointed towards fresh efforts to raise commercial income streams under a new structure of a Chief Operating Officer and Head of Commercial and the further development of the Business Club, improving match day experience and attendance levels.

Towards the end of the 2024/25 season the Supporters’ Coalition urged Waggott, Pasha and sporting director Rudy Gestede to stay away from the club, which they declined to do.

In an excruciating interview with the club’s media, and the local BBC, the three displayed a marked lack of empathy with the frustrations of fans, with Waggott self-assessing his own engagement with them as excellent.

“For the seven-and-a-half-years I have been at the club, my door has been very open to the fans,” he insisted.

“I attend all the fans’ forums, the Supporters Trust, We Are The Rovers, individual groups, away travel groups, individual people who write emails with constructive criticism. I bring them in and discuss certain points with the club.”

But it has been the decision to withdraw from Championship tier of women’s football that has provoked the latest outpouring of ire at the leadership of the club.

Both the Blackburn Rovers Trust and the Supporters’ Coalition slammed the decision by the club and the Coalition once again called for Venky’s to sell the club and for the removal of their representative Suhail Pasha from the board.

“The Blackburn Rovers Supporters Coalition is devastated and outraged by the decision to remove Blackburn Rovers Women’s Football Club from the Tier 2 Women’s Championship League,” they said.

The feeling now is this latest development appears to be heading towards an inflection point in what has been a bizarre ownership story, even in the context of British football. Despite sinking over £300million into Rovers, the Rao family haven’t attended a game at Ewood Park since Mrs Desai’s husband was hit on the shoulder by a snowball thrown by a protesting fan in January 2013, angered at relegation from the Premiership the previous season and the ensuing chaos at the club.

The Glory Year 30th anniversary podcast - we saw things you'll never see

 

Ah, the 1990s! It was the era of Britpop, Cool Britannia, Loaded and lager.

It was for me anyway, it was also the Blackburn Rovers “glory year” the mid-decade roller coaster that was the title winning season!

We saw things you’ll never see!

I really enjoyed taking part in this nostalgia fuelled trip down memory lane in this special episode of the 4000 Holes Blackburn Rovers podcast series!

If you were around, this is shameless nostalgia, if you weren't, this is what it once was like when a Rovers owner used to "Think Big!".

Join host & producer Ian Herbert as he chats with former PL referee (& Rovers season ticket holder) Tony Leake and fellow Rovers fans Katharine McNamara and Roger Whiteside.

We recall the highs/lows & the tension of that final week...do you have the bottle to listen to the end? ;)

Great weekend - crap football, closing in on the 92

 

Going for the 92 has become a genuine and real possibility. I've done all the clubs in the present Championship, having reclaimed Southampton yesterday. Previous trips to The Dell were pretty mixed to be honest, but there was nothing mixed about a 4-0 defeat. 

We were well beaten, as my pal Trevor summed up much better than I could: "They were better than us from the first minute to the last. 2-0 would have flattered us and I thought we’d got away with it when they missed the penalty. Hard to think of anyone who played well - maybe the keeper even though he was the blame for the fourth goal. Hill and Moran strikingly poor. Travis and Garrett improved things a little with more energy. JDT had written off the game when he took off A Wharton and Trondstat. Our season won’t be defined by games against Leicester or Leeds or Southampton."

We went down for a weekend in the most Tory town I've ever stayed in - Winchester. They even sell those wide rimmed felt hats that Tory ladies wear with a shawl, accompanied by a fellah in red chinos.

Seriously, it was a lovely weekend away, and even the experience of the poor Rovers performance was tempered by the whole stadium experience.

It saddens me a bit how far behind Southampton we are as a club. There were 27,000 on yesterday and a tidy 1300 from Rovers, but the scale of the operation and the crowd had a Premier League feel about it. I don't get that at Ewood. 

I've been to loads of these new out-of-town bowls and this was OK. Pie was pricey, but tasty, it wasn't too far away from the station and the centre, and the stewards were some of the most polite and helpful I've witnessed. 

Anyway, it was the 79th of the current 92, completing the Championship and needing only a trip to Brentford's new stadium to sweep the current top two divisions. It was also the 172nd ground I've paid to watch football in.

I reckon I'll try and get a few more done this season and keep hoping that crap southern towns in League Two drop out and get replaced by ones I've done. 

A season like no other - working for Blackburn Rovers

me with Adam Wharton and Matt Jansen

One of the things I've missed this season has been blogging about Blackburn Rovers.

The journalistic output instead has been channelled into my pre and post match interviews that I do as the host in the Premier Lounge at Ewood this season.

When Richard Slater, publisher of Lancashire Business View, introduced me to the opportunity I thought it would be good fun to do it at least once. I've now hosted every home game (bar one) this season since I started.

In the course of doing it I've got to know a completely different group of Rovers fans, the customers in Jack's Kitchen and the Premier Lounge, as well as the members of staff, the directors, and management of the club. 

I appreciate much more now the attention to detail that goes in to putting on a professional football match and the rules and essentials that have to be organised. I've been particularly impressed with the efforts behind the scenes to build links to different parts of the community and how much effort is invested in that.

They say you should never meet your heroes. And I have had a policy of not talking to the players previously. But I can happily say that every single member of the first team squad that I've interviewed after the match, as they get their Peter Jackson the Jeweller watch, has been a really, really good lad.

The same goes for the former players that I have pre-match chat with on the mic, and the members of the women's team who came to one match, and the off celebrity guest. Some of the former players loom much larger in my affections than others but without exception they have all been really good storytellers and have been held in great affection by the supporters. I can't think of an interview that's gone badly.

Whoever it is, I always let them know what's involved in those few minutes before we take to the 'stage'. Some of them know the present team better than others, some not at all, but each one of them desperately wants Rovers to do well and appreciates the opportunity to reflect fondly on their time at the club.

I enjoy the preparation for each interview and the chance to rekindle memories of goals and games I was at. It was notable that the first interview was with one of the first Rovers players I really took to back in 1977, Kevin Hird. 

For the interviews afterwards it's better when we win, but the players have never shied away from facing the fans when they've come in after a disappointing result. They also never refuse a photo, or an autograph or a conversation. They are all really good young men who make their parents very proud. 

They don't mind what I ask either. Joe Rankin-Costello was happy to explain to the fans the importance of playing out from the back, or what his preferred position is.

If Rovers ask me back next season there's a few things I think we can do for the businesses who sponsor and play a part in the day without it disturbing the flow of the day. For me though it's about enhancing the experience for the fans. I know it's fashionable to be rude about corporate supporters, but they are all genuine fans who really feel it just as much when we win and when we lose.

That all said, I feel a bit flat at the end of a strange season where we lost twice to 'them lot up the road', got battered at home by Preston, hammered at Rotherham, yet went on a cup run and beat Premier League opposition, both of which I saw. And we improved on previous seasons. Progress, right? 

When I look at the squad I ask the simple question, has each player got better? And can they continue to improve with us? In most cases I think they have, and they can. Most notably, obviously, Adam Wharton, but Joe Rankin-Costello, Haydn Carter and Harry Pickering have all become quality Championship level players at a very early age. I think with more striking options we will see better decision making (and luck) for Sammie Szmodics and Ryan Hedges. Dom Hyam is a proper leader.

I was disappointed at how Ben Brereton Diaz dropped off in form. His flourish at Millwall showed us what we have missed and I wish him well, but the failure to make those fine margins work in our favour didn't cost us a play off place last week in the performance in the last home game against Luton, but all season. There were spells in the later games v Coventry, Preston, Huddersfield, Burnley and Luton where I watched in wonderment at the quality on show. The manager has done a good job managing expectations and insisting it's a project, a work in progress. I think I get a sense of who he likes and relies on and what he needs. 

As ever, I can talk myself into the positives, but I still worry about the crowds, the ownership, the direction of the club. Keeping hold of prize assets or at least getting some money for them, which hasn't been the case with Lenihan and Brereton-Diaz.

Enjoy the summer.

Leicester ticked off at last - and in some style

My 78th ground of the current 92 was Leicester City's King Power stadium, which I went to with my Foxes supporting pal James Armstrong and witnessed a shock win for Blackburn Rovers in the FA Cup.

It was a great atmosphere and a packed away end, which was helped in no small measure by the performance.

As stadiums go it was nothing special as a new build. Location wise it's within reach of the city centre, rather than stuck out on a retail park like some of the new builds are.

Hello, is that West Ham?

I sent my mate Trevor a message a couple of weeks ago fearing the worst over the rail strikes and backing out of a trip to London for the League Cup game against West Ham at the London Stadium. Having slept on it I then sent another - 'I'm coming down for West Ham, life's too short'. We haven't seen each other for ages, to reminisce on Sunday football at Wormwood Scrubs, great awaydays and tours to Devon. Our mate Martin's funeral in Ireland being one poignant occasion before we all got told to stay at home.

Come what may, I was going. Even though the rail strike was off, Avanti Trains are hideously unreliable but I decided to embrace the challenge. 

I was so glad I did.

Seeing friends in the old familiar bonding environment of a Rovers away match in London was special. Meeting their friends, their sons and other friends' sons was an added bonus.

Some things change though - it used to be a bit of a standing joke that wherever the Rovers were playing in London and the south, the London branch would somehow conspire to find the worst possible place to meet. It was the kind of 90s education that gave me a unique insight on life and rough pubs. 

Meeting for artisan pizza and craft ale in a microbrewery in hipster Hackney Wick wouldn't have been part of the old plan. 

I also avoided shabby Avanti and entered London via Reading, Paddington and the spectacular new Elizabeth Line, zooming over to Stratford in no time at all. 

My hopes and expectations of the match were to not get humiliated like we did last time we played the Hammers in a cup competition. I think taking the lead, giving it a right good go, and bringing our Chilean wonderkid on for a late equaliser, then winning on penalties smashed all expectations. It was nail-biting at times seeing them playing out from the back, but truth be told JDT is deadly serious about what he wants the whole squad to do. The project.

I thought there was much about this new ground to be impressed by, but it's nowhere near as good as the new Spurs stadium. The stewarding was terrible. I had a backpack that they didn't even look at, though I offered, and I got a full-body search. It was obviously going to be a smaller crowd, so why not create a bit of space between the away fans and the West Ham schooligans who think Green Street is an instruction manual? Maybe a Rovers fan wouldn't have had his head cut open by a flying object if common sense had been applied. They've got a real problem there, but all we got was blocked entrances, no stewarding of seating and a bit of a shambles.

It was a visit to ground number 77 of the current 92 and the 169th venue I've watched football on.

Another disappointing day at Ewood as play off hopes drift away

It was one of those days where the weather couldn’t make it’s mind up, but neither was it clear which Blackburn Rovers would turn up. 

The first half version from Coventry, or the battling second half edition, or the ultimate bottlers. 

As it happened it was the frustrating, nervy, disjointed, diving Rovers. Picking up stupid bookings, over hitting passes, getting in the way, losing shape and failing to hit cow’s arses with banjos, rarely troubling the Blackpool keeper.

For fans of most teams who fancy an end of season flourish, it’s the hope that kills you. I think today that’s gone. I write this before even looking at the other results, but this just doesn’t look like a side with enough belief to secure a top-six finish let alone step up to the occasion of the playoffs.

The team has missed the enterprise and guile of John Buckley in that in-between slot, not least when John Buckley himself has fallen so short of those giddy heights his performances offered. The same too could be said of thrusting Joe Rothwell and busy Lewis Travis. Instead, Rothwell looked disconnected and indifferent today while Travis just seemed to get in the way. 

On the positives, it was good to be reminded how good it feels to have Dack on the pitch. He got the ball in the net but the pass from Lenihan bobbled and slowed on its way which may have bought the advancing defenders a split second worth of reprieve. He offers something exciting, and he should play from the start. 

Another gripe while I’m in a low mood; I want the scoreboard to tell me how long there is to go, not that we’re playing Stoke City on Easter Monday. Or that we’re HOME and playing BLA. These are basic little things, but then so is passing to your own side. And as we know, getting those basics right are the foundations of all good things. 

It’s not over, there are 15 points still to play for. I want to believe, I truly do, and there are better teams than Blackpool in the way, but on a bad show like that my main worry is there aren’t many capable of being as limp and listless as we saw today. 

The sweetest victory of all - Rovers v QPR

That was the sweetest victory of all. A victory for the true believers. For all those who kept the faith through the toughest of times.

For the best of times this season previous wins have been grafted on that defence, granted, but it has been the intelligence of John Buckley, Joe Rothwell’s ability to spring a surprise, and of course the goals of Ben Brereton Diaz that have propelled this side to the unimaginable heights. A recent barren patch has missed, in particular, those goals of Diaz, though frankly a bounce off Scott Wharton’s backside would suffice.

So to win against a fellow contender with those key elements missing, on the back of a head messing week for Reda Khadra, is what had me reaching for my professional lexicon of memorable great political acceptance speeches of the twentieth century, and why it was so so sweet.

Not only did Khadra have better chances to score today, he won’t have needed reminding by Sky TV, but he was anyway, that he’d also missed a penalty in front of their cursed cameras on Wednesday night at Bramhall Lane; whilst only picking himself out of the blood and spit of a potential career-ending assault from a flashing Blade.

I can't claim to understand the psychology of a substitution, but when I saw Ryan Hedges stripping off I assumed that was the Brighton loanee done for the day. I suspect, so did he. When he saw Sam Gallagher's number up, he must have thought, cheers gaffer, I won't let you down. 

Given my early judgements on players in this squad, after Fulham I said Jean Paul van Hecke should be sent straight back to Brighton, what I have to say about the two new Ryans probably doesn't count for much. It's not their fault that they bring to my mind a couple of tricky players in the first team of a post-92 university, with distracting thoughts of a stretched deadline on an economics essay.  

On 55 minutes, with Ryan Nyambe on a stretcher, I thought it was another curse of our club. A season going to pot. We all hope it isn't as serious as it looks. 

It seems trite, with careers at stake, to think so immediately of the qualities of his replacement, but I may have to admit I was as wrong about Zeefuik as I was about our other flying Dutchman. He plays like one of life's true eccentrics, a tackling style and a quickness of thought that must make him a nightmare to play against.

Which brings me to the one player in this side who I would absolutely despise if he played for any other team. Lewis Travis brings true grit and devilment. I have zero confidence in his ability to not get that painful ninth booking which will trigger a ban but his pulling of the strings today was a thing to behold. 

Finally, a word on the deserved Man of the Match. I don't know what it is about this kid, but Tyrhys Dolan brings a lump to my throat. His pointing to the sky for his friend, his willingness to get stuck in, his bag of tricks, his zest to play. We are very lucky to have him.  

I said on Twitter on Wednesday after the lamentation at the lane that I hate football. There are other things going on in the world right now more worthy of such emotions, so I was so quickly over it. But for everything Tony Mowbray has been saying about this rather special set of players, I fell right back in love. Fickle, I know, but how sweet it is.

What's the use in complaining? Rovers 1, Preston 0 in the Lancashire derby lite

We only have so many outlets to express our discontent as football fans. Not that beating Preston North End 1-0 at home gives me any cause to be angry. It really doesn't, I always enjoy a win in a local derby, even if it isn't really the full-fat version that may be about to return.

It doesn't mean I'm entirely happy though. Football is essentially a pastime where uniquely once we opt to partake in it, we are individually powerless yet collectively threatening. It's not like any other area of life where substandard aspects of the experience offer the possibility of redress. Let's cut to the chase. I was unable to get a pie before the match because they'd run out on the Riverside entrance, and the tills weren't working and the staff walked out in the one on the top of the stand, in the 15 minutes before kick-off. It's not an option to wait or go elsewhere. And these things are pretty critical to the whole matchday experience, even though I could go to Morrisons right now and buy the same pie for about a third of the price. That's a matchday experience, by the way, that Steve Waggott, the chief executive of Blackburn Rovers (salary £180k) valued at £30 a head today. He may be right that demand was high enough to justify charging that to walk-on home fans and for the 3000 visitors from Preston. Indeed they will have paid half his annual salary in one afternoon. But I can't help but feel, as my good friend Ian Herbert put it, that just because you can, it doesn't mean you should.

You might also think that as well as hiring and training the poorly paid catering temps, Waggott may have some responsibility for the groundstaff. Puddles of water made the game a tough watch in the first half, which rather suggests a pitch that lacks drainage and staff unable to fork enough holes before the game and at halftime. In the first half, Preston looked like they'd played on wet pitches before. Rovers looked for all the world like the Mauritanian badminton doubles team learning a new sport.

I don't know. I know nothing of maintaining grass pitches and team tactics.

I've raised 5 kids though. I think I've done OK. One thing I learnt is that when they were hungry, tired and upset, garnishing them with too much attention is probably the wrong thing to do. We also learnt that when they had run-ins with supply teachers, to let it go. The referee today, Gavin Ward of Surrey, displays all the control and charisma of a struggling stand-in, who learns all the worst lessons in lesson management, crowd control and dissipating authority by making literally even worse decisions. I am saying this today because we won. And I also think he got a bad call wrong that could have earned Preston a penalty. But it shouldn't be about him, though somehow, it always is. Who do I tell about this? Who do I write to? Why is he refereeing professional football matches and who says he can do so again?  

As an example of a fruitless protest a Preston supporter unfurled a bedsheet at full time with 'Frankie Must Go' on it. Unfurling bedsheets demanding hapless Scottish managers be sacked used to be popular in these parts, and to be fair I have observed that Frankie McAvoy, the North End boss, gives off Steve Kean vibes. But even that half-hearted howl took some foresight given that a week ago North End earned a draw against a team that recently beat Blackburn Rovers 7-0.

I'll take that today. I'll take the 1-0, the winning ugly, on a day when players of real artistry were quite literally stuck in the mud. Joe Rothwell and John Buckley will have better days. Though Rothwell may have more like that if he foolishly opts to play in the Scottish Premier League, as is rumoured.  It was a day for Darragh Lenihan, a day for Lewis Travis, both of whom got fouled without redress and booked without justification. I also observed it was possibly a day for a clever player like Bradley Dack. His return is getting closer. He will bring an intelligence and a versatility to a team that is beginning to frighten me. At Stoke last week, and today, I was concerned that Reda Khadra doesn't do enough to justify playing ahead of the incredibly gifted and energetic Tyrhys Dolan. But he only needs one moment of magic to turn a game, and his cross to a Sheareresque leap from Ben Brereton Diaz was enough. And I've got absolutely no complaints about that whatsoever.

  

Analyse this - a Blackburn Rovers fan on the couch

Football has a habit of messing with your head. Any game can only have one of three outcomes; win, lose or draw. On balance, I can probably live with that most weeks. I can also accept that in most seasons, because I see more of Blackburn Rovers at the home games than the rare occasions when I go on away trips, therefore I expect to see more wins than any of the other outcomes. This may not be statistically in tune with reality, but I have conditioned my brain to expect that outcome in the face of all other probabilities. With away matches, I expect Rovers to lose, and therefore my default response is disappointment, but not embarrassment or anger, as it tends to be at Ewood. It’s what psychologists of the transactional analysis theoretical school might refer to as my ‘football ego state’.

Yesterday at Stoke was just like that, but something was going on in front of me that contested every neural signal. This is a good team, knowing what to do, playing against a home side lacking belief, which wasn't for me to worry about. 

It was with nervousness that I revisited my case notes after this same eleven players, give or take, were ruthlessly taken apart by Fulham and subjected to a 7-0 home defeat.

OK, I confessed to feeling numb and said it felt like the slow death of a football club. That’s probably the bit where I was catastrophising. Where a good therapist would lean in and say, “but is that really true?”

But having looked back, I stand by most of the rest of it.

In essence, I said I like this team, but that the club feels adrift. Nothing's changed, really.

There was certainly lots more to like about them at Stoke. I could just list the players from 1-11 and all of the subs, and then single out John Buckley for extra praise, as everyone else has rightly done. But more than that there was a togetherness about them. 

I also said the lack of confidence and momentum means we slot in and play how the opposition want us to play. I said I find it hard to understand some of Tony Mowbray’s decisions and tactics.

But when I look at that picture from the set up of the team just before the goal it describes vividly to an over-emotional footballing know-nothing like me what wide wing backs, overlapping centre halves and a high pressing creative midfield linkman looks like. 

And as everyone with a platform to say so, has said so, the comeback from the Fulham thing has been remarkable and a testament to the character and determination in the team, from the manager. 

I don’t get involved in the social media barracking of ‘brigades’ and ‘mobs’ and ‘the same people who said this now say’. I'd advise anyone reading this not to either, not because anyone is wrong, it just won't make you happy. Because something else I said was that what I say doesn’t matter. What I feel matters, and I linked that to a sense of belonging.  

What’s the identity of this club? These players? How can you articulate a positive message that would persuade someone to subscribe to these social attributes, to be involved, as a fan, a player, a sponsor, a day tripper?

Belongingness, it's called. A unique and subjective experience that relates to a yearning for connection with others, the need for positive regard and the desire for interpersonal connection. Or as we said on Saturday, "I know I am, I'm sure I am...". You know the rest.

It took a bad day to work that one out. And there still might be more bad days, but there's a word that comes to mind, and that's 'resilience'. The team clearly have it, it's the fans I worry about, especially this one.

Blackburn Rovers ship 7 and I just don't seem to care

It seems strange to think I was writing a reflective blog recently about 'right hammereings' that my Blackburn Rovers have inflicted on other teams, just like we did when we beat Cardiff City 5-1.

Last night I witnessed the absolute horror show of the worst defeat I've ever seen. 

I have seen us ship seven before, just once, at Old Trafford in 2012, but we at least got a consolation.

I have seen us lose 6-0 at Manchester City in 1983, just a week after beating Derby 5-1.

The previous heaviest home defeat was being tonked 5-1 at home by Dmitri Payet's West Ham in a cup tie in 2016 (I mentioned this recently as one of the best 3 all time performances against us by an individual player). 

All of those experiences were painful, embarrassing, excruciating. There have been other occasions where I've wanted the referee to stop the game on a technical knockout.

But last night seemed far worse and left me feeling far emptier than I did after any of the others. Do you know why? 

I don't think I care any more. 

Before the game we were 7th with a positive goal difference. 

Now we're 12th with a zero balance.

If we'd lost 1-0 or 10-0 it's still no points and we aren't anywhere near good enough to push for promotion. The whole structure of English football is such that a team like Fulham who were comfortably relegated last season are now seen as a level above every other team in this division, save the ones who also came down.

Suppose by some trick of fate this squad of Rovers players edged into sixth spot in May next year. Then in the heat of the play offs managed to grind out a 1-0 against, say, West Brom, then took a trip to Wembley for an emotional collision with Huddersfield, maybe, who then bottle the big occasion and have a poor refereeing decision go against them in the 92nd minute of normal time. Dack scores the penalty and we're promoted.

Now imagine that side facing any team in the Premier League.

Being led to Anfield, Stamford Bridge, anywhere really, by Tony Mowbray.

Fulham strolled to that 7-0 last night. A team that has been beaten by Reading, Blackpool and Coventry.

They are a good side, but the whole approach seemed to be to treat them like Ajax of 1972, or Barcelona of 2009.

Once again I was left confused by this diamond midfield with John Buckley at the tip of it, and Bradley Johnson in front of the back four.

It's nonsense, isn't it? 

And we've been here before. Lining up at home to match the way the opposition play. It didn't even work against Fleetwood Town in League One. So it won't against a better team, with cleverer players, who can pass the ball, who have the ability to just change their plan in midflow.

Mowbray sets his teams up to outsmart the opposition. But he'd be better off trying to play to our strengths and get the basics right.

Don't give the ball away.

Mark their striker at a corner.

Defend a lead by keeping the ball in the opposition's half. Just as Fulham did.

And don't wrestle a player to the ground and knee him in the head. 

One of the other predictable things about a bad spell at Blackburn Rovers is the fans turning on each other.

I stay off Rovers social media, but when I do peep-a-look it's basically Leave and Remain all over again. 

Both kind of miss the point, if I'm honest.

The one thing the whole club lacks is momentum. What is the objective? What is the strategy to meet that objective? And what are the tactics that we can relate to?

If it's survival, then say so. To find the best futures for these gifted young players, then so be it.

But can you honestly make a case to persuade a young amitious player that staying at Blackburn Rovers will be good for your career?

Every aspect of the club seems to be adrift. I genuinely like every player in that team. I will forever be grateful to Tony Mowbray and think he's a good man. But what I think doesn't matter. 

What I feel matters, to me; and I feel empty. I feel as empty and lacking enthusiasm as the thousands of people who call themselves Rovers fans, but don't go.

If you look at the size of the crowds, the amateurish promotional offers, the lack of commercial partnerships, then you can see why the ambition of the fans and the players has waned. With the exception of Brereton mania, it's gone.

I always wanted to be part of something. It's at the heart of what being a fan is all about.

This isn't an overeaction to a terrible performance. It's a really slow death of a football club.    

My internal dialogue on football, Newcastle, oligarchs and Venky's

Why haven't you done one of your self-regarding and pompous blogs about the Newcastle takeover? Don't you care about murdered journalists?

I feel genuinely exhausted by all the commentary and back-and-forth on the Newcastle United takeover and pretty much every conversation about global football, investment trends and how everyone from your barber to the bloke that stands next to the fruit machine in the pub are now experts on sovereign wealth funds and cultural relativism.

So, you think you're above such banalities then? It's fine for you as the one-time editor of a business magazine, friend of football club directors and would-be owners of your club to have an opinion, but not now, right?

Everything that has been said and done has been said and done. Proper journalism's David Conn, a very good piece on an Arsenal website, and another piece by David Goldblatt in the Guardian, of course, which blames New Labour, obviously. It's the natural progression of the modern form of capitalism, acquisition of soft power assets by sovereign wealth funds to either greenwash or sports wash their reputation for a time when the oil runs out, or a UK passport gets secured. And something to do with TV rights and piracy in the Middle East and Qatar, or something.

Ah, so it's a government issue, not a moral one, that if only there was better regulation and enforcement of the rules on fit and proper persons who can own a football club, is that what you're saying? 

Do you know how many current Premier League and Championship owners would be barred from owning a club if the rules could by some miracle be enforced retrospectively? None. Not a single one. They aren't designed to block global tycoons, nation-states or oligarchs, they're meant to be a bar to the kind of local crook too thick to operate through an offshore trust.

Or a rapist?

Indeed. But equally I don't remember Blackpool fans complaining about Owen Oyston when Blackpool got promoted to the Premier League. Only when he took all the money, stiffed his Latvian business partner and laughed in the faces of the fans did it become an issue. Nothing in the rules prevented him from doing any of that.

So clubs should be co-operatives of local basket weavers run for the benefit of that nebulous and slightly contorted word "the community"? Basically, you're just tilting at windmills here, aren't you?

So if you follow the logical progression of football club ownership, this is all inevitable and therefore you price it in and swallow it? Skint local businessman gets bailed out by either highly skilful overleveraged and very lucky local businessman, who then flips it to national semi-celebrity businessman, or possibly a European with UK connections to the financial laundry of the City of London, who then realises he then needs to cash-out to either an oligarch, a nation-state, or a financially engineered American. 

Go on...

So if every club goes through a version of that progressive game of snakes and ladders, then the end result is a very wealthy Premier League, an ever more desperate Championship of clubs desperate to get into that cycle, and you just have to hope your club is owned by someone at the top of that slightly grotesque foodchain.

There's the German model?

If we had the German model of fan ownership then one of the big red teams would win the league every season, for a start. Plus, I used to have similar discussions when I worked in the education sector. You have to fix the fundamentals of the economy to get that model. The European Super League thing hasn't gone away you know.   

So you walk away from football then? Boycott it?

I see what you did there. So you either bail out of football entirely, go and support a non-league club, or suck it up. I think that's led us to the moral cop-out that says we can no more boycott football - it's too important - than we can give up using electricity.

But what about the long-suffering Newcastle fans burdened by the trauma of the Mike Ashley era, don't they have the right to a better future?

I don't care. Why do they think they're going to win anything anytime soon? In that world where every club is super-wealthy, only one team can win the Champions League, only one can win the league. And here's the other uncomfortable truth. Three of them have to be relegated. And who says it's a better future?

Will foreign ownership of football clubs end up being the same as the colonial slave trade issue of the future? Shamefully hiding their human rights reputations in investments into failing clubs…

Yes, kind of. But if you look at Manchester City it's been a well-run investment in a successful club that has also managed to project the new modern image of the UAE. As long as things are going well, the projection of that image looks good. You'll also see in the next year a series of well crafted long reads about Saudi Arabia's new generation of leaders moving on from Wahabi Islam, becoming a more tolerant and cohesive society, rooting out corruption and the old ways. How the ownership of Newcastle United is a gift to the people of the North East, consistent with the mainstream values of a technologically connected world. How tolerance and mutual respect for diversity of cultures is part of Saudi Arabia's step out of the dark ages.  

You're just jealous. I saw what your fans were saying on Twitter. Hoping for a rich Saudi to buy Blackburn, and you didn't stop supporting your team when a tax-dodger bought the Premier League, did you? Wouldn't you want Blackburn to be owned by a billionaire?

Blackburn Rovers literally is owned by a family which at the last time of checking was valued in the billions. But Venky's aren't stupid enough to break the rules of financial fair play on a gamble that may get us into the Premier League, but they are also somehow unwilling to walk away and plunge the club into liquidation. And I'd contest the Jack Walker description, a little bit, but Blackburn Rovers are very much on that conveyor belt of ownership. We got very, very lucky, played our hand well, then got very, very unlucky and were financially rinsed by a series of disastrous decisions made by people who didn't have the long term interests of the club at heart. No one truly knows what went on there except the Rao family, Steve Kean and Jerome Anderson. Portsmouth went through something similar too, they even went down the fan ownership route after having a financial disaster - and opted for the rich American option. But there's a long term structural reason why our club is currently where we are, the fan base, the tradition, the size of the town and the catchment area. As for expecting me to defend "your fans" though, really?

Right hammerings - and how I never enjoy them until they're over

I am really, really enjoying the FACT that we beat Cardiff City 5-1 today. I will watch the highlights over and over. I will be texting Louis in Majorca and Joe at work in Manchester and sharing the after match joy on Twitter. It was also a nice birthday present for Rachel, who made good use of the spare seat today.

I will run over every incident I can recollect in my mind, over and over. Even Cardiff nearly taking the lead after a rare Kaminski fumble, and producing a more familiar tip over the bar in the second half. But I will joyously recall how it felt when each and every goal rattled in, through sheer force of will. I have already chipped in the odd comment about how Mowbray got the game plan right, noticing from the off that Mick McCarthy's men in pink were a big muscular outfit, but that Dolan and Brereton can run them ragged, and that Buckley and Travis love a scrap. The back four I would back all day long at the moment. Moore never gave Ayala or Lenihan much to worry about, did he?

I can enjoy it now, but I genuinely never enjoy it when it's happening, because it raises the stakes of embarrassment and disappointment. 

Memories of being 2-0 up and dominant against Luton still linger, when their abject shithousery earned them a draw they didn't deserve. 

But I've ALWAYS been like this. 

When Rovers beat Norwich 7-1 to go top of the Premier League in 1992, I was running through in my head (at 5-1) the humiliation of drawing 5-5 and facing the office on Monday morning. Same with slotting six past West Ham in 2001, seven past Forest in about 1996, seven past Sheffield Wednesday on TV in 1997, which at the time felt quite a close game for a while. I enjoyed Simon Garner's goal-fest against Derby in 1983, but I never thought it was going to have a happy ending until it did. 

So to today, the doom set in for the period after Cardiff's goal, Leninhan going off, a period of pressure and frankly, I was in bits. I could even visualise the away supporters bouncing around and singing "4-1 and you mucked it up", or something. 

I have very little evidence that statistically Blackburn Rovers are prone to doing this, or that this team could capitulate so easily. 

Maybe I'm just innately pessimistic that one day we will and the pain will be unbearable. 

Maybe it's part of my risk-averse character. Careful now. Don't fuss.

Maybe it's also a humility check, not to be too cocky that we're playing a professional and decent side that on another day could turn us over and therefore we shouldn't rub their noses in it.

There is an exception though. There is one game where Rovers dished out an absolute lesson in football to a team who had nothing left to offer, except to plead for mercy, and I loved every minute of it, soup to nuts. It was Burnley at home, April Fool's Day 2001. 5-0. Two from Jansen, one each from Hignett and Short, and a Steve Davis Own Goal.

Happy birthday Rachel and have a great night everyone. 

Blackburn Rovers, touching from a distance

There's a very good reason why I should never tweet, blog, or even speak about a Blackburn Rovers match in its immediate aftermath. On Saturday I was murderous with rage about Luton Town, their manager, their tactics, the referee and Sam Gallagher's party trick of taking the ball into the corner to waste time. 

It was as sick as I've felt walking off Ewood. And it was just an early-season game against Luton bloody Town. But I was also probably wrong to feel like that. Fine margins, and the ability to put good clear chances away, meant we should have been out of sight way before the 98th minute. But it didn't feel like it at the time.

On Tuesday night it was like watching a different sport. The first half, and the opening few bars of the second, were like casually observing a band tuning up their instruments. I could say a number of things that are self-evidently true: Thyrhys Dolan is an incredible talent, but needs to improve a few aspects of his game; Thomas Kaminsky is probably our best keeper since Brad Friedel; Buckley and Rothwell are played out of position and seem unhappy about that. I prefer Ben Brereton Diaz to Ben Brereton. They are my opinions, and I may be wrong.

I also had absolutely no idea what the system was, apart from to give Hull City more time on the ball. Richie Smallwood has never had so much space and time inside Ewood Park as he did last night. So, when the subs were coming on at the 54th minute mark I had no idea who was going to be coming off, and for what purpose. That both Khadra and Butterworth had an immediate disruptive impact proves either that Mowbray totally knows what he's doing, or that he had it badly wrong with his first eleven. He was right about Butterworth's fitness though, for the last ten minutes he looked spent.

Another theory I've long harboured is that the Peter Jackson the Jewellers man of the match award is made by corporate sponsors with a bleary view of football, who tend to favour show boaters and goalscorers. Last night for Darragh Lenihan, and on Saturday with Dolan, they were absolutely spot on. I have an irrational leaning towards our captain. I think he could be playing comfortably at a higher level, certainly if Scott Dann can, he can, and if Grant Hanley's your man, then so's Lenihan. Yet on a different view, he was lucky not to get sent off against Luton for a rough challenge, which probably made a tetchy situation worse still. That he dusted off the criticism and scrutiny to turn in a captain's performance like last night tells you all you need to know.

So we sit 7th in the table and I still look at this team as a collection of underachievers playing for a jaded fan base, much of which is due to a distinct lack of dynamism from the leadership of the club. It reminds me so much of the early 80s. We had a decent team then, but it wasn't until much later that we realised quite how good they were. There are also more recent ghosts of Jordan Rhodes, Tom Cairney, Rudy Gestede, Grant Hanley and, ahem, Ben Marshall. Genuinely gifted players who together should have forged a promotion-winning team. This is a young team, full of promise and yet somehow drifting, more likely to be caught out for lack of nous, than tearing up the Championship. 

So far though, it's a decent start on paper. Taking stock and weighing up the positives is always a better way of forming a view than a hot take. 

My Sounds of the Season 1983/84

So I've done my Sounds of the Season on Rovers Radio, like a Desert Island Discs for Blackburn Rovers fans. Usually, I do the interviews, but this was my turn to be in the hot seat.

You can link to it here. But this is the preamble.

Honestly, in many ways 1983/84 was a bang average season for Blackburn Rovers, not many memories feature in the history books, compared to what came several years later. The crowds were really low, in fact, we hit a new low. But it was really memorable for me for all sorts of different reasons, just going to Rovers, them becoming part of my life, was one of the emerging pillars of my identity, as were music, ideas, fashion, amongst others.

On the pitch, Simon Garner had a great season. Norman Bell got injured in the first game and never played again. So Garner was partnered with Chris Thompson mostly while Miller or Brotherston or Patterson provided the crosses. This season saw the emergence of Simon Barker alongside an ever-present John Lowey in the centre of midfield.

At the back, it was still Baz, Faz, Keeley and Branagan, in theory, but David Glenn filled in for Baz for most of the season, and all-rounder David Hamilton popped up wherever he was needed. Terry Gennoe was a solid presence in goal, with a cup run, an unbeaten league run, strong home form, on paper it looks like a good season, but too many draws meant although we finished 6th, it never felt like a promotion push. Chelsea and Sheffield Wednesday were comfortably ahead, Newcastle finished third and Manchester City had to endure another season down in the doldrums. 

It was however a great year for music. A massive turning point, a breakthrough. Just look at the choices I make and think what it must have been like to be alive and excited by all of that happening for the very first time.

Culturally, this period of time probably had a more profound and lasting influence on me than many of the later years. I bailed out of my Grammar School a year into sixth form and enrolled at Lancaster and Morecambe FE College instead, and instantly felt so much more at ease. Some of the things I got into later I quickly backed away from, but there is a reasonably straight line from the person I was in 1983 to where I am today, which I am very comfortable with.

It was also a pretty violent and racist time. There was always tension in the air, a sense it could kick-off, especially as you were hunted down at away matches, or when the bigger clubs arrived at Ewood. I also could have relayed scrapes at nearly every match I mention here, but I survived. 

These are my Sounds of the Season, 1983/84. Do give the show a listen if you want to hear the rest of the story. I’ll dedicate it to Chris Heath (RIP), Nick, Phil, Tony, Mick, Daz, Dave, Neil Fell, Phil Shaw, Lancaster and Morecambe FE College, Baz Dootson, and an apology to Louise Stokes for not returning her David Bowie LP.

The Songs

My Ever Changing Moods - Style Council

Modern Love - David Bowie

This Charming Man - The Smiths

Thieves Like Us - New Order

Boys Don't Cry - The Cure

Ain't Nobody - Rufus and Chaka Khan

Nelson Mandela - The Specials

White Lines (Don't Do It) - Grandmaster Flash

The Killing Moon - Echo and the Bunnymen

The Day Before You Came - Blancmange

The meaning of football

It was always going to be an emotional return to Blackburn Rovers. For me, it’s been gradual. A long in the planning trip to Euro 2020 that took me and my friend, Steven, to his home city of Glasgow for Ukraine v Sweden; a pre-season friendly at one of the English non-league’s new challenger clubs, AFC Fylde, and another warm-up at home to Leeds.

For different reasons, they all had something special about them that rather brilliantly lined up the main event of yesterday.

It’s been an awfully long time away. It would have been very easy to give up all of what I’m about to say. The first home league game at Ewood Park felt remarkably like the last one some 500 sleeps ago. That it was also against sneaky Swansea and with a weak referee was but a coincidence, but that the full quota of regulars sat around our berth on row 11 of the Riverside was a moment of affirmation of a sense of belonging. The players led the 10,000 crowd in applause pre-match for all those we’ve lost in this dreadful pandemic. I daren’t look, or speculate, at the empty seats behind us, that these prime spots aren’t once again populated by familiar faces and, though nameless, characters with who we have formed a bond. And it was delightful to take our friend Ian Herbert as our guest, one of those many people who we have got to know through football and who is always great to be around.

It was also about the rituals. One of which is held in my hand, in the shape of a Clayton Park Potato and Meat Pie. On another occasion, we’ll pop into Leavers Bakery on Bolton Road for a fix of the very best pre-match pie in all of football.

But there’s been a heck of a lot to dislike about football lately. The greed, the scramble to appeal to the vanity of an oligarch to bail out every club in the great unseemly gamble to not fall victim to ‘beware of what you wish for’. The Euros represented the best and worst of football, even for this Anglo-Welshman. A blend of hope, pride, and shame.

As for our team, despite the optimism of Rod Liddle in the Sunday Times who seems to think the ever-improving Blackburn Rovers will finish in the top six, without acknowledging that we’re about to see our best player leave through the same exit door as ten other former first-team regulars, the mood amongst the fans is gloomy. Tony Mowbray seems to have lost what mojo he ever had and is at least honest enough to admit the financial situation is grim. Though we were good for the win yesterday there are still too many players out of position (Rothwell, Gallagher, Dolan and Diaz, notably), the late substitutions disrupt any capacity to control a game fully, and there’s an unhealthy obsession with giving valuable Championship playing time to squad members of the Under 23s, of Everton, Manchester City and Liverpool, rather than those of Blackburn Rovers. That said, the stand-out player for me yesterday was homegrown John Buckley, who at times looked Tugay-esque.

I could have said all of that from the comfort of my sofa. That I didn’t is a tribute to the powerful draw of football, its culture, its rituals and our friends. Between those two Rovers matches have been three new grounds ticked off the list - FC United (159), Hampden Park (160) and AFC Fylde (161). I have a few in my sights this season, but probably will only barely stay in the 80s in my quest to ‘do the 92’.

Steven, with whom I've shared so many great memories, also helped us make a new one as he took me to Cathkin Park in Glasgow to visit the eerie remains of the home of Third Lanark, once a real force in Scottish football. The three sides of a bowl of terraces remain, as are the crush barriers, the pitchside wall, and if I’m being spiritual, a presence of what went before. It’s a tale of corruption and sectarianism I’m keen to discover more about. It’s proof that it’s more than just an old building, but a relic of our true human experience. So yes, forgive the obsession, but I’m oddly fascinated by stadia, where they are and where they were. I still have a frisson of excitement and anticipation in Manchester’s Moss Side on the approaches to the old Maine Road. I always look up from the train as it arrives at Bolton and eye-up the site of the old Burnden Park. But this was something else entirely. 

We’re going to make more memories this season. Mostly in the company of Blackburn Rovers, but also Lancaster City, Matt Jansen’s Stockport Town and maybe a few other random days out too. Hopefully, the Rovers ones will be surprisingly happy ones, but to be really honest, whatever happens on the pitch, they are going to be far better being there than not. Ask the ghosts of Third Lanark.

A month in lockdown - thank you for your company

First of all, an apology. When we were locked down at the start of November and I decided to blog every day for a month, I drew up a bit of a list of likely topics. Although I blogged every day, I'm afraid I went a little bit off piste and didn't do very well on tackling the list. 

Secondly, I wondered if it would make a difference to my visitor numbers. At first I was shocked to discover I had more visitors in October when I blogged just four times. It turned out I had a massive spike of thousands of visitors on the 2nd of October, when I was completely off the grid up a mountain. There doesn't seem to be a particular reason for this. I had a spam attack from overseas and a load of duff backlink attempts, but that was later in the month. Once I factor that out, there's been a steady flow of traffic. The most visited individual post was the one on Stockport and the planning issues coming down on us all soon. I'm pleased about that. I would have been disappointed if my biggest draw was Blackburn Rovers. 

My excuse for not getting round to all of them was some are linked to a writing project that I'm not ready to spill just yet and that in turn has also meant I haven't read many books this month. There were also some events to comment on, the small matter of a US election, the scrapping of Pacers and a few media and events things I was doing. And the outrage of Luke Unabomber and Instagram.

So here are the subjects I didn't get round to writing a blog on. I'll try and get through them, as I know what I need to say.

• Academic writing v journalism
• 24 Hour News
• The Strong Personalities Group
• Family
• Friends
• All Those Things That Seemed So Important
• Aesthetics
• Devolution and Democracy
• Living with medical conditions
• Welsh Nationalism
• Some book reviews
• Folk horror
• Kinder Scout
• Cumberland

iFollow is horrible, I can't be bothered with it

In the last two seasons the fixture I had my eye on more than any other was Luton Town away. Sad isn't it? To actually want to go to ickle racist Stephen's team. But I've never been to Kenilworth Road, the only stadium in the Championship I've not seen my Blackburn Rovers at. There's Brentford's new home, I suppose, but no-one's been there yet. I'm collecting my totals and once this lockdown ends, I'm going to swiftly complete the remaining 12 of the 92.

Just as I posted that I haven't been to a live event since the end of February, the last Rovers match was on the same day. I do miss everything about going to the match, but as followers of this blog will recall, it's a lot to do with spending time with the two of my lads who support Rovers. I really cherish it.

We're instead are offered the opportunity to watch the matches on TV. That means paying £10 per game for something called iFollow. In principle it's a good idea. But I'm going to be as tactful as I can when I say this: it's rubbish. Today's game at Luton was probably the worst of the lot, and in truth I'm not going to bother again. Bad production, terrible lighting, dreadful directing, the commentary I manage to zone out of, but it's not a patch on BBC local radio. The still picture at the top is the precise moment the screen froze for one fan.  The club guilt trip the fans with a message about pirate streams, but I'll say this now - what we saw today wasn't worth £10 for a headache and sea sickness. 

As for the game, it was there for the taking and I'm disappointed. Two shocking refereeing decisions at the end from Gavin Ward of Surrey, not the only person in Luton today stealing a living. Bitter? Grumpy? Fed up with football? You bet. 

 

Venky's and Rovers - 10 years on - what I've changed my mind about

It's been ten years now since my football club, Blackburn Rovers, were taken over by Venky's, an Indian business conglomerate. There's been some very smart commentary about this over the course of the last few days, notably the Sporf podcast (above) with Nick Harris of Sporting Intelligence and on Lancashire Live by my podcasting chum Mike Delap.

I was always a sceptic, as nearly all Rovers fans were, but here are a few things I've changed my mind on, and a few home truths.

I was massively critical of the way the fans hounded Steve Kean. Maybe I'm just too soft, but it felt wrong. In hindsight he really did take us for a ride, took us down and played the Venky's for fools. I do not forget, or forgive.

The worst stuff happened early on. Those early couple of years were absolutely bat shit mad. All of it; rinsed by Kentaro and SEM, Jerome Anderson, the clear out of the board, Jerome Anderson's son, Steve Kean, Paul Agnew and Derek Shaw, Shebby Singh. All of it. It was so unbelievable, that anything actually became believable, even who really owned the club. You could make up a plot line for a film where a consortium of gangsters bought it and put their mate in charge, as part of a bizarre money laundering enterprise, in exchange for a gambling debt over the relegation. Even that fantasy scenario would be more plausible than the reality that Nick Harris tells in the podcast.

There's a theory I have heard, and never managed to discount, that the ownership of Rovers actually saved them a ton of money due to EU quotas and tariffs on imported chicken from India to the EU, due to their ownership of an EU domiciled business. Maybe Brexit cuts that off.  

At one time I may have described Venky's as the worst owners in football. You don't have to look very far to see far worse ones now. Bolton, Oldham, Blackpool and Wigan have all fallen further than we have. Local boys made good don't seem to cut it any more either. 

There are plenty of terrible owners, but I don't readily see a better model. It's a horrendous gamble that British football has hocked itself to the global oligarchs and you just have to hope you get a rich one, or one with an attention span. I'm sure it would have been very dignified to have had a group of local business people in charge, including friends of mine, but it's hard to sustain the levels of investment while every other club is playing such a high stakes game. Bizarrely, the way things have gone, they're probably amongst the best owners a club could want. However, if you think I'm going to thank them for it, then obviously I won't. 

'Proper Tea' with OBI featuring David Dunn

This was a bit special - having a lockdown chat with my pal Will Lewis and one of my all time favourite Blackburn Rovers players, David Dunn. Such a nice bloke, and hopefully something for everyone.