Category: Venky’s

Venky’s say they are sick of Blackburn Rovers fans making their lives a misery, so have come up with a scheme which almost makes death pleasurable. 

Taken by Sylvia Larkin, courtesy of Blackburn Museum

 They have decided to take their animal products empire forward to its logical conclusion.  From their origins as an egg hatchery, they now want to get involved in the other end of this process and set up their ultimate disposal solution of man’s best friend – pet funerals.

This idea came to the Venky’s following a recent visit they made to Blackburn Museum.  What caught the family’s imagination was a stuffed greyhound on display.  It was called ‘Bed of Stone’, a champion hare courser, who won the Waterloo Cup in 1872.  It was left to the people of Blackburn by a brother of William Briggs, who was a cotton magnate and one of Blackburn’s former MP’s.

Venky’s didn’t really understand the meaning of hare coursing, but liked the idea of creating a hare restorer – especially Balaji.  It made them want to pursue this issue further.  Someone also suggested stuffing animals – like they already do with chickens – would be a brilliant business opportunity for them.  Why bury or cremate your beloved Rover when you could keep a stuffed reminder of him in your house or garden for perpetuity?

It is also rumoured Venky’s had their first ever egg-laying hen stuffed in more ways than one.  It was freeze-dried and preserved out of gratitude for the start it gave them when they set up their own hatchery.

After their disastrous tenure at Blackburn Rovers, man’s best friend is the last thing anybody thinks of when it comes to our Indian owners.  ‘Johnny No Mates’ is probably a more appropriate label for Rovers’ absentee landlords.  Their description of our club as their ‘baby’ has also gone down badly with Rovers fans.  Many say Venky’s would be facing child abuse charges if Rovers was a real baby.  Some kind of FA Social Services is needed to take our club off them and put it up for adoption.

Venky’s have not ruled out building their own pet cemetary either.  After giving up on their plans to sell Rovers’ Brockhall training ground, other uses for it are now being explored.  Now they have almost killed off their pet football team, it looks like they might just as well leave us dead and buried in our own resting place.  Blackburn Rovers will then be well and truly stuffed.

Blackburn Rovers fans are trying all sorts of weird and wonderful ways of persuading Indian owners, the Venky’s to sell up and leave their beloved football club.  One of their strangest ventures has been the setting up of a protest camp on land high above Rovers’ Ewood Park football ground.

This protest camp is a mixture of tents, including native American style teepees.  Chief of the protest camp and spokesman for the newly formed ‘Ewood First Nations’ is Blue Owl.  He told me he is really called Fred Grimshaw and lives on the nearby Higher Croft estate.  But for now he and his tribe have devoted themselves to the growing campaign to get rid of that other tribe of renegade Indians – the Venky’s from faraway Pune.

Blue Owl said:  “Our tribe belongs to Rovers, but they do not belong to us.  This cannot be said of current so-called owners, the Venky’s.  They may have temporary possession of our sacred club, but they do not belong and like the demons they are, their possession will one day be exorcised”.

Protest tactics to be used by the Ewood First Nations will include banging drums and doing a war dance during matches.  They will also be producing smoke signals using their barbecues.  Of course Venky’s chickens will be nowhere to be found when these barbecues are put into action.  This is one signal they don’t want to send out to the rest of the nations.

These gallant braves will also be taking part in the ritual of waiting for when the sun reaches its zenith in the sky at high noon.  When this happens they will try shining sunlight from handheld mirrors into the Ewood Park stadium.  This latter tactic is also meant to symbolically reflect back the evil medicine emanating from Venky’s, as well as sending sunlight  into their eyes and dazzling them, should they ever turn up for a Rovers match.  No doubt this act will probably remain just symbolic.

Blue Owl is expecting a long campaign before Rovers return to the happy hunting ground.  Driving the Venky’s invaders from our ancient ancestral lands will take a heap of big medicine.  But, as with the endless flow of the River Darwen below the camp, separating it from Ewood Park, their determination to take back what it theirs is like that of the salmon leaping and the hooves of the thundering herd – never ending.

With the news that Paul Lambert is quitting Blackburn Rovers at the end of the season, where does this leave the club and its owners, the Venky’s?

Draining the lifeblood from Rovers

Our Indian owners’ tenure at the club has created one disaster after another.  Their first action was to sack Sam Allardyce and replace him with the hated Steve Kean.  Further managerial appointments led to even more failures.  Now their latest one has created the unusual situation where a manager has sacked the football club.

Losses at Rovers have put the club in over £100M of debt.  Venky’s have absorbed these debts, but for how long will they keep bailing out the club?  Their shares in India have taken a pounding and the last thing they need is to keep pumping money into a loss-making football club halfway across the world.

Yet Venky’s have shown they have no interest in football.  So what is the point of them owning Blackburn Rovers?  Very few people in India care whether Rovers win the Premier League or go to the wall.  Sadly the way things are going at the club, the latter option is becoming more than just a possibility.

Nobody is really sure why Paul Lambert decided to quit Rovers, apart from the man himself and Venky’s.  Our owners’ indecision is thought to be one of the main reasons.  This may be coupled with what Lambert experienced during his tenure at Aston Villa and the probability of a similar outcome waiting round the corner at Blackburn Rovers.

There also remains the question as to what Venky’s hope to achieve from destroying Blackburn Rovers.  Fortunately for them, our club is just a small component of their business empire.  But the way we are haemorrhaging money to the tune of several millions a year, even Venky’s, with their billions, have to realise this situation can’t go on forever.  Rovers are not a bottomless pit and sooner or later the tap has got to be turned off.

Unfortunately for Rovers, we seem to be dealing with a bunch of spoilt rich kids who haven’t invested their inherited wealth very wisely in our football club.  This is confounded by a culture where being seen not to lose face means everything – regardless of what stupid decisions have been made in the past.  Sadly for the Venky’s, they don’t appear to have heard of the old British saying:  ‘When you’re in a hole – stop digging’.