Category: Venky’s

For two years running, there appear to have been embarrassing mistakes made by Blackburn Rovers staff over technical issues when attempting to sign players on deadline days.  There have also been other less high profile issues in regard to the general running of the club which have drawn concern from our fans. 

It is being said by some Rovers fans, our club is being run on foundations of the ‘Peter Principle’.  This is a theory based on a work by Laurence J Peter in 1969, where managers and executives find their own level of incompetence.  The Peter Principle is a clever idea, although it can’t have done a great deal for most workplaces or our national and local government departments or most other large institutions.  The whole gist of this idea is that people get promoted one level beyond their ability to actually do a job they were hired for. 

It’s bound to keep happening because it makes a strange kind of sense.  Do a good job and you get a promotion with more responsibilities.  If you do a good job there and you’ll get another promotion with even more responsibilities.  Do a bad job there and what happens?  Nothing! They don’t send you back.  You just stay where you are until something radical happens at the workplace.  The daft bit is the person who blagged it isn’t really the one who suffers.  After all, they have a job and presumably a nice well paid one.  The suffering trickles downwards, poisoning the employer and those staff left behind to deal with the repercussions of their incompetence. 

At Blackburn Rovers we had a good example of this on the football side with Steve Kean.  From being a trainer, his luck was in  and he found himself becoming the manager, albeit our most incompetent and unpopular holder of this position in many Rovers fans opinions.  Despite Kean realising he was out of depth and inevitably being given his marching orders, the owners of our club appear not to have learned a great deal from  those awful times under his tenure. 

This ‘Peter Principle’, or ‘Pune Principle’, as some are calling it, remains there for all to see on the non-footballing side of the club.  No doubt our owners in India are very sensitive about their recruitment policy, to the point of dragging even the slightest dissenting voices through the courts of law.  They seem to spend a lot of time in these places at the moment. 

Perhaps the best examples of seeing repercussions of the ‘Peter Principle’, not necessarily at our beloved football club, are cutting corners, slovenliness, a lack of ability or fear of making decisions and missing deadlines.  Many of you might have seen the above examples in your workplaces too.  I certainly did. 

Blackburn Rovers’ Indian owners may be on the verge of launching their own satellite into space.  This follows news of their home country successfully landing a spacecraft on the moon in August.

What may have captured Venky’s imagination though was what was inside this spaceship.  Upon landing on the moon’s surface, it released a vehicle called a Lunar Rover.  Unlike India’s previous attempt in 2019, when both their spaceship and lunar rover were destroyed, this landing and subsequent Rover release was a resounding success.

Perhaps Venky’s were moonstruck following this celestial event.  After their own Rovers failure and possible financial murmurings, many people in India cynically said Blackburn Rovers were lost in space and Venky’s final frontier.  But after India’s triumph in space, maybe Venky’s saw something written in the stars after all.

With India’s government wishing to become more involved in today’s space race, this could offer lots of opportunities to businesses across the sub-continent.  Venky’s aren’t the kind of people to miss chances like this.  They are already one of India’s largest multinational corporations and leaders in their field of technology, albeit from an opposite perspective.  They wish to keep their chickens firmly on Terra Ferma and not send them flying off into space.

But being involved in India’s space programme could turn out to be meteoric for them and would certainly put a feather in their cap, not just one of their own.  It could even help their industry.  After all, the Apollo programme produced all sorts of state of the art inventions which we use today.  These include non-stick frying pans and microwave ovens.  These inventions certainly boosted the fast food industry.

Putting a satellite in space could also produce dividends for Venky’s interest in their non-egg shaped interests.  Their ‘Shellstar’ satellite could spy on Rovers’ rivals during their training sessions.  Also, chipping their football club’s players could help keep them out of trouble, especially if they knew a satellite was following their every move.  Rovers know all about surveillance regarding footballers.  Many will remember our former player Gary Croft, who had to wear one of these tag monitors following driving misdemeanours.

Venky’s told India’s government they had no intention of sending a satellite up into space for football reasons.  This is the least of their priorities.  They want to use it for what they see as far more important scientific projects – such as finding a cure for Avian Influenza (Bird Flu).  Venky’s also found out the first living vertebrate to be born in space was a quail and they want to follow this up with chickens.

Blackburn Rovers’ marketing team are considering all sorts of novel ideas to help boost season ticket sales.  One of these is to bring out a new kind of way of watching the blue and whites.  It would be based on fans buying a timeshare season ticket.

This would entail supporters joining an exclusive seat buying club at Ewood Park, starting at one game a season, for years to come.  This seat could then be passed on to the subscriber’s children, future descendants or friends, for time immemorial.  After a one-off payment of an undisclosed amount, an annual maintenance charge would be levied before each season to help look after the holder’s seat.

Just think, you could pick a home match at a certain time of the year and know you have a guaranteed seat – for the rest of your life – and even longer!  You could also be awarded a bonus match by upgrading your membership (for an additional fee).

Rovers intend to recruit staff with experience of timeshare marketing, preferably having worked in places like Spain, Portugal or the Canary Islands, where this practice has been established for many years.  Sales personnel, known as Waggo-Waggo Men, would be sent out around the local area with raffle tickets and invitations to lively presentations, featuring beer and wine tasting events, held in Blues Bar at Ewood Park.  Their presence should be noticed when you hear their shout of:  ‘You’ve won! You’ve won! You’ve won!’

Over in India, Venky’s probably see Rovers as their own dodgy timeshare.  There are similarities to what may have befallen gullible Brits on the Spanish Costas.  They were taken in by snake oil salesmen, paying what they thought was a decent price at the time.  Then they have had to pour endless maintenance fees down a bottomless pit for years to come.  But like most timeshare victims, they are loath to admit they were taken in and want to get rid of their investment without losing face.  But they can’t even give it away now and will never get their money back.

At least this seat buying club claims it is prepared to give Rovers fans the benefit of the doubt, should they have a change of heart after purchasing a timeshare season ticket.  If you want to chat about it, call in at any time in either their office in Pune, or their other in the Cayman Islands.

Following the recent supermarket vegetable shortage, Blackburn Rovers’ footballers could be given a chance of learning a new career for when their playing days come to an end.

This idea is said to originate from the club’s head office in India.  Here Venky’s have a vested interest in vegetables, especially in regard to accompanying their chicken meals.  Their plan is to turn parts of Brockhall training site into a nursery garden, to be used as a horticultural teaching facility.  It would be known as ‘Rooting For The Rovers’.

But to some cynical Rovers fans, Venky’s have already lost the plot.  They may be hedging their bets with another attempt by them to try to sell off part of the training ground land.  This was after a previous attempt to sell off part of Brockhall’s training facility which failed.

This latest scheme includes not only allowing footballers to learn all about gardening and horticulture, it would also encourage local residents to get involved in gardening projects too.  Perhaps if a strong interest in allotments and growing fruit and vegetables could be encouraged, then maybe local residents wouldn’t be as opposed to land at Brockhall being sold off.

Though it must be debatable whether our club owners would receive a similar kind of financial reward for this land being turned into allotments, compared to the kind of returns house building would yield, it sounds like chicken feed.  The plot thickens.

Brian Clough famously said:  ‘We had a good team on paper.  Unfortunately the game was played on grass’.  Footballers are known for having an affinity to the land environment because of this.  After all, they make their living running about on a patch of grass kicking around a bag of wind.  So when their playing days come to an end, what more fitting place could they find to work than outside on a windy green field?

There was one example were the boot was on the other foot though.  One of the most famous Rovers fans ever to have lived, acclaimed author, Alfred Wainwright, said his favourite patch of grass that he had ever walked upon was the centre circle of Ewood Park.

So what kind of fruit and vegetables would Rovers players like to grow, cabbages or turnips?  It sounds like a lot of thought is going into this project and at this stage of the game, nobody is spilling the beans.

Blackburn Rovers, along with other football clubs have recently been plagued by fans entering their playing area.  Unfortunately for Rovers, this could lead to disciplinary action from the FA, including points deductions or even ground closure if this problem is not addressed.  But help may be at hand from an unlikely source halfway across the world.

On their chicken farms in India, Rovers’ owners, the Venky’s, have had a conflict of conservation and commercial interests as regards one of India’s most famous wild animals.  There has been a revival in fortunes for India’s tiger population, following years of decline, nearly ending in these big cats extinction.  But thanks to a programmed survival plan, Indian tigers are starting to make a comeback.  On the other side of the coin, this has led to a rare phenomenon of man-eating tiger attacks on people, along with domesticated animals.  But Venky’s believe they may have found a solution to this problem.  It is known as ‘Operation Shot Stopper’.

At their egg hatcheries, various trials have been carried out on prototype eggs with hardened shells.  This followed complaints from consumers moaning about flimsy shells falling to pieces when people dip their soldiers into their eggs.  Results have proved successful, not only in producing eggs with more robust shells, but scientists also created a by-product from this research.  This super-hard egg shell has been invented which makes a wonderful projectile.  Not only that, it is able to be used as an alternative for producing silicon chips.

Trials were carried out on the tigers by expert marksmen shooting them with these new eggshell projectiles.  One of the pellets contained tranquiliser treated eggshell.  This was used as a way of incapacitating tigers when they strayed into certain restricted areas.  Various dosages of knockout drops were impregnated into the eggshell.  This led to various strengths of tranquiliser, incapacitating even the largest big cat very quickly.

The other eggshell projectile used was not a tranquiliser, but contained a mini tracking chip.  These were fired at selected tigers and proved to be extremely successful.  Not only were they able to be used to track these tigers, but being eggshell, this material is totally biodegradable.  So after a matter of time, it disintegrates into the animal’s metabolism, then follows nature’s usual removal process.

If such successful experiments were able to be used on an animal the size of a tiger, there is no reason why this process could not be used on human beings.  If ever anybody encroaches illegally upon the Ewood Park playing surface, they could either be taken down with a tranquiliser or allowed to temporarily escape, with their movements able to be tracked at a later date. So the answer to Rovers’ pitch invasion problem could be a right good helping of chicken and chips.

Blackburn Rovers Indian owners, the Venky’s, are threatening to punish Rovers players for missing out on automatic promotion following their recent scoreless run.

Venky’s are threatening to force players to change their appearance and have basin haircuts.  This is symbolic in their home state in India of a frugal and a pious lifestyle.  Something they believe is severely lacking among today’s English footballers.

Inspiration for this originally came from an unusual historical source, namely the Bayeux Tapestry.  English forces under King Harold tended to have beards and long hair.  Whereas Norman soldiers under William the Conqueror were clean shaven and sported basin haircuts.  This may have been an advantage to the Normans at the Battle of Hastings, giving William’s outnumbered forces a spectacular victory and leaving 1066 as one of few dates in history most people remember.

Things were going well for Rovers recently, with us vying for a top of the table finish.  But things started going wrong as this new year took hold.  Every team has a barren run at some stage and Rovers also had some bad injuries.  But the way our momentum stopped gave cause for concern to Venky’s.  With them not being schooled in association football, they looked at other aspects of what they perceived was going wrong at Rovers.  India’s media is a fearsome place.  Journalists there follow the old adage:  ‘Never let truth get in the way of a good story’.  Their tabloid press is forever running stories about decadence amongst footballers, especially in Europe.  This may have clouded Venky’s judgement.

Venky’s study of the Bayeux Tapestry gave them a potted history of what was going on in England nearly a thousand years ago.  Things were confusing in 1066.  After all, we were still in the Dark Ages and the Venereal Bede wasn’t there any more to keep decent chronicles.

What we do know is Stamford Bridge was owned by a Roman.  He did a runner when Vikings arrived to seize his land under a leader called Harald.  This led Harold the Anglo-Saxon to go to Stamford Bridge and win a famous victory.  So after Harold beat a bunch of Norsemen from Scandinavia, he fancied his chances against these Norsemen from France.  Unfortunately for Harold, it meant a long march down to Hastings to confront Norman forces.  This didn’t go down well with his soldiers.  They were not only battle weary, but had a sense of foreboding when they saw Bill Haley’s comet on their way.  It made them shake, rattle and roll.

Despite this happening so long ago, we all know the result.  It was a home defeat and England’s manager was given the bullet, or rather in Harold’s case, it was an arrow.  This event from medieval history proved to be an eye-opener for Venky’s as well as King Harold.  They were particularly impressed with Norman discipline and appearance.  They also went on to create their own coat of arms, in the Norman style.  Plans for a castle may be in their pipeline too.

Under feudal Norman law, most people were owned along with land they inhabited.  Venky’s see no reason why this shouldn’t apply across their realm today, including prized assets like footballers.  Great changes could be on their way, including basin haircuts for players – Arte Et Labore!

At the beginning of this season, a letter from the Venky’s, Blackburn Rovers Indian owners, was published on the club’s website.  It later appeared in local mainstream and social media.

Perhaps the most talked about aspect of this letter was not its text, but there appeared a monogrammed coat of arms at the top of this letter.  It inspired a great deal of mirth from many Rovers fans.  This heraldic display contained two white chickens on either side of a large golden egg topped by a blue crown.

No doubt, many people will have different interpretations of what this coat of arms actually signifies.  Could it be trying to solve that greatest scientific mystery of them all?  What came first, the chicken or the egg?  Perhaps Venky’s, with their vast knowledge and experience of both, have found the answer.

At the bottom of this coat of arms is their family name – Rao.  Upon first sight, this looks pretty obvious.  But is it really a secret message?  Maybe it is a statement saying:  ‘Rovers Are Ours’.  Balaji Rao, said to be the letter’s author, also has the same initials as Blackburn Rovers.

Venky’s are known for their vast business empire and lavish wealth.  They are also known to be great admirers of Britain’s aristocracy.  They even met the queen on one of their very rare visits to Blackburn, preferring to see Her Majesty rather than watching Rovers play at home.  This has led to speculation over the Rao family wishing to feather their nests by becoming part of their own Indian establishment. 

Mrs Desai, known as Madam, expects not just to be addressed by this title, but she also expects people addressing her to bow first.  Madam puts this down to breeding.  After all, her family has been breeding chickens for many years.

Perhaps Venky’s see their ownership of a historical English football club as being a way of joining their own Indian aristocracy.  Before partition of British India in 1947, into India and Pakistan, there were around 600 princely states during the Indian Raj.  Each ruler of these states had their own coats of arms as their royal symbols.  If Venky’s wish to see themselves as part of India’s elite, they obviously would need some form of status symbol such as their own coat of arms.

Surprisingly, despite becoming a republic after independence, India still has a fair number of its own royal families dating from the Raj.  Some of these have continued where they left off under British rule, with their wealth, power and influence.  Balaji Rao already appears to have the lifestyle of an Indian playboy prince.  He may one day wish to take things further and create his own title – the Maharaja of Blackburn.  Could this herald a new beginning for Rovers?

Blackburn Rovers could be close to breaching Financial Fair Play (FFP) rules again.  But club owners, the Venky’s, may have found a novel way of getting round these regulations.

As well as owning Blackburn Rovers, it seems Venky’s are also big fans of Scottish singer, Susan Boyle.  Although many Rovers fans would argue the song which brought her fame was from Les Miserables and quite a good description of our club owners.

Venky’s thought things were getting even better for them when they heard she came from Blackburn.  Unfortunately what they didn’t realise was the town she lived in wasn’t Blackburn, Lancashire.  It was the one near Edinburgh, in West Lothian, Scotland.

When they had this explained to them about our town’s namesake, north of the border, it made Venky’s think how they could gain from this unusual situation.  As they say in Scotland:  ‘Mony a mickle maks a muckle’.  They came up with an idea of moving our Rovers lock, stock and barrel to that other Blackburn.

Moving to Scotland could help deliver their early promise of European football every season.  They also noticed Scottish football is a bit too top-heavy, being dominated by the Old Firm.  Maybe opportunities could arise allowing another team to come along and take up the slack.

There have been cases of English teams playing in the Scottish League before.  Up until recently, Berwick Rangers comes to mind.  Along with Scottish border side, Gretna, travelling in the other direction.  It is also worth noting Rovers’ first two FA Cup triumphs, in 1884 and 1885, were against Scottish football pioneers and Hampden Park custodians, Queens Park of Glasgow.

Actually demolishing Ewood Park and rebuilding it in West Lothian could become a way to gain entry to European football by joining the Scottish League.  It could also be a clever way of getting round possible breach of FFP sanctions in England which could be coming Rovers’ way.  Instead of selling our ground on paper, like Derby County and Sheffield Wednesday, why not move it somewhere else instead?  Where else could be better than a place called Blackburn?  This would be way beyond the Football League’s thinking capacity.

The possibilities are endless.  Blackburn Rovers could even become champions of Scotland and gain entry into European football every season.  They would make Venky’s much derided promise of this a genuine reality.

As Susan Boyle famously sang:  ‘I dreamed a dream’.  Maybe Rovers fans can also dream a dream one day and sing another of her songs – ‘Auld Lang Syne’ – to Venky’s.

One day the Venky gang broke into Ewood Park bank.  They soon realised they had thousands of hostages.  Their first action was to kick out its manager.  Other administration members were also let go.  They then found themselves a go-between to speak to law enforcement agencies. This man was very Kean, but he did not endure himself to the hostages very well.

Things didn’t go as Venky’s expected and they soon found themselves in a siege situation.    At first their hostages started to rebel.  Lots of them protested and some even managed to escape from the premises.  They began to fight back against their captors, singing protest songs such as ‘We Want Venky’s Out’ and ‘Uncle Jack’s Blue And White Army’.  But many resigned themselves to their fate and cooperated with the hostage takers.

Some fans said they considered themselves lucky they were being held hostage by Venky’s.  This bank could have been in Bury or Bolton and it could have been someone like the Baader-Meinhof gang who were calling the shots.

As time moved on a strange relationship seemed to develop between our captives and their captors.  They started to forgive them and began to see things from their point of view, while forgetting about their own treatment.  This strange form of behaviour is known as ‘Stockholm Syndrome’.  It dates back to a bungled bank robbery in the Swedish capital back in 1973.

First people would experience something terrifying that just comes at them out of the blue. They are certain they are going to die.  Then they experience a type of infantilisation – where, like a child, they are unable to eat, speak or go to the toilet without permission.  Small acts of kindness – such as being given food – prompts a primitive gratitude for their gift of life.

The hostages experience a powerful, primitive positive feeling towards their captors.  They are in denial that these are the persons who put them in that situation.  In their mind, they think these are the persons who are going to let them live.

Venky’s said:  “We thought we could just walk into this bank and everybody would welcome us with open arms.  We must have received some bad advice on the way.  Now we just want to go home and let our executives run the show.”

Venky’s decided to sneak out the bank down an escape tunnel and lay low in their eastern hideout.  Sadly for them and the bank they tried to rob, it wasn’t just them who sneaked away.  Most of their hostages are also starting to find their own ways of escaping from the bank of Ewood Park.  Sooner or later, this siege situation will come to an abrupt end.

Blackburn Rovers’ Indian owners, the Venky’s, have decided they want to try and pick up the pieces of their relationship with the fans and have come up with a novel idea to create cohesion on and off the field.

Our Indian owners have been puzzled by the lack of joined-up thinking at the club and are now trying their best to fit in.  But they haven’t been going to pieces about it and have come up with a novel scheme called Operation Jigsaw Puzzle.

Scientists believe jigsaw puzzles are not only therapeutic, but also very good for seeing the bigger picture.  Encouraging Rovers players to use jigsaw puzzles as part of their training routine could reap great benefits for the team.  Solving puzzles helps reinforce connections to our brain cells, even for footballers.  This improves mental speed and thought processes.  Jigsaw puzzles are especially good for improving short-term memory. This helps us remember different shapes and colours and visualize the bigger picture to figure out which pieces will fit together and which won’t.

There are quite a few jigsaw puzzle terms to be found in the world of football.  One only has to think of set pieces and being in the box.  One of the most important aspects of being a team member is their ability to be able to fit in.  Perhaps the most ironic connection between jigsaw puzzles and Blackburn Rovers is this pastime’s origin.  Jigsaw puzzles were invented around 1760 by British engraver and cartographer, John Spilsbury.  His surname seems rather apt when remembering some of our recent goalkeepers.

Never ones to miss a business opportunity, it’s not just the players our owners want to encourage to take up solving jigsaw puzzles.  They are also trying to persuade Rovers fans to go for a beer in Blues Bar after matches and help put together a giant jigsaw puzzle.  Each piece will be numbered and cash prizes will be available to fans who select the winning numbers.  Fans can also buy blocks of pieces and win cash prizes when their pieces are drawn out and complete sections of the finished jigsaw puzzle.

A giant Ewood Park jigsaw puzzle is an example of one subject fans would really enjoy putting together.  It could include photos of thousands of fragmented fans in the bigger picture, each one a jigsaw piece, numbered and ready to be joined together again.  Perhaps one day this could really happen.