Blackburn Rovers owners, the Venky’s, have decided to use their club as a way of promoting peace between India and Pakistan.
These two South Asian nations have been at loggerheads for various reasons over many years since they were formed in the mid-20th century. Tensions between them still remain to this day. To make matters worse, both countries possess nuclear weapons. So any means of improving relations in the subcontinent is very welcome.
Some of the greatest inventions and discoveries have occurred thanks to accidents. And this is what may have happened in an office in Venky’s Personnel Department in Pune. A member of staff, with long fingernails, made a typing error whilst writing a memo about some routine issue relating to Blackburn Rovers. On a computer keyboard, the letter ‘h’ is just above the letter ‘b’. So while typing Blackburn Rovers’ motto: Arte Et Labore, our typist inadvertently typed Arte Et Lahore.
This error was pointed out to one of the Venky siblings, but far from being angry about this spelling mistake, they saw it as divine inspiration. They also saw a good business opportunity for their chicken meals. Due to religious reasons, India has recently restricted sales of beef products, whereas Pakistan does not encourage consumption of pork. But both countries encourage the eating of poultry products. Venky’s is already reaping benefits of this in India and their chicken sales have increased rapidly. Now they want to target their neighbours across the border in Pakistan.
Lahore is one of Pakistan’s largest cities, capital of Punjab province and located 15 miles from the Indian border. Over 11 million people live there, making it larger than London. Football already has a foothold and is very popular, so Rovers playing a match in the city would probably generate a lot of interest. It would also be a good way of advertising a certain brand of chicken product.
This thought went through the Venky’s minds and plans are now afoot to bring Rovers over to the subcontinent again. They already have a promo video showing players eating their chicken drumsticks. Now it can be shown to a wider audience, hopefully receiving less ridicule than when it was released in Britain.
As for their office typist, a certain Colonel Oliver North’s former secretary, Miss Fawn Hall, may want to hire them to help locate those alleged millions of dollars which went into the wrong Swiss bank account due to Miss Hall’s long fingernails hitting some wrong keys. Hopefully this typist can hit a few extra zeros for Blackburn Rovers.
